Part 55 (1/2)
Detective Harry Cronin of South Detectives, who had been on the job for nineteen years, and a detective for thirteen, cleverly deduced it was going to be a bad day when he went into his kitchen at approximately 10:30 A.M. and found the kitchen table bare, not even a tablecloth.
Normally, before she went to work, Mrs. Cynthia Koontz Cronin, to whom Detective Cronin had been married for eighteen years, set the table for his breakfast. Patty was a technician in the Pathological Laboratory of Temple University Hospital, and left the house at half past six or so.
Normally, the Bulletin Bulletin would be neatly folded beside the table setting, there would be a flower in a little vase Patty had bought at an auction house on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, and there would usually be a little note informing him there was sc.r.a.pple, or Taylor ham, in the fridge. would be neatly folded beside the table setting, there would be a flower in a little vase Patty had bought at an auction house on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, and there would usually be a little note informing him there was sc.r.a.pple, or Taylor ham, in the fridge.
Detective Cronin was more than a little hungover-when he'd gone off the job at midnight the night before, he had stopped off at the Red Rooster bar, run into Sergeant Aloysius J. Sutton of East Detectives, and had had several more belts than had been his intention-and further cleverly deduced that his coming home half in the bag probably had something to with the bare kitchen table.
He opened the refrigerator door. The one thing he decided he could not face right now was taking an unborn chicken from its sh.e.l.l and watch it sizzle in a frying pan. Neither did he completely trust himself to slice a piece of Taylor ham from its roll without taking part of a finger at the same time.
He reached for a bottle of Ortlieb's. It would settle his stomach.
He carried it into his living room and looked around for the Bulletin. Bulletin. It was nowhere around, which he deduced indicated that Patty was really p.i.s.sed. It was nowhere around, which he deduced indicated that Patty was really p.i.s.sed.
What the h.e.l.l, he decided, he'd lie on the couch and see what was on the tube, and get up around noon, go get a cheese steak or something for lunch, and return to the house prepared to apologize to Patty for having run into Sergeant Sutton and having maybe one more than he should have.
”Good morning,” Peter said when Amy waved him into her comfortably furnished office.
The sunlight coming into her office from behind her showed him that beneath her white nylon medical smock, Amelia A. Payne, M.D., was wearing only a skirt and underwear.
The psychiatric wing of University Hospital was often overheated, and this was not the first time he had noticed this was her means of dealing with it.
He found this erotically stimulating, but from the look on her face he knew that he should not mention it.
”Good morning,” she said and did not get up from her desk.
”Why do I suspect that you're not going to throw yourself in my arms?”
”Because I'm not. Peter, this is a hospital.”
”Love, I have heard, cures all things.”
”The medical term for what ails you is 'r.e.t.a.r.ded mental development,' ” she said but she smiled for a moment, then pushed a sheet of paper across her gla.s.s topped desk toward him.
He picked it up and read, ”Miss Cynthia Longwood was stripped naked and orally raped by a policeman under circ.u.mstances that were themselves traumatic.”
He looked at her, his eyebrows raised questioningly.
”I'm on thin ice ethically with this, Peter,” she said. ”Please don't push me. Right now, I'm wondering whether I should have gone to Denny Coughlin with this.”
”I'm glad you came to me,” he said seriously. ”Okay, Doctor, tell me more, starting with, is this your medical opinion?”
”No. But I believe it.”
”Where did this come from?” he asked, waving the sheet of paper.
”It was left as a telephone message for me at quarter to two this morning,” Amy said.
”By whom?”
Amy shrugged.
”This woman is a patient of yours?” Peter asked, and when Amy nodded, thought out loud: ”Then it obviously came from someone who (a) knew that and (b) was not a relative or family friend-they would have told you-and (c) is trying to be helpful-maybe-without getting himself involved-certainly.”
Amy nodded and said simply, ”Yes.”
”You think this happened?” Peter asked.
”Yes.”
”You want to tell me why?”
”Just before I called you, I spoke with Cynthia.”
”And she said she had been . . .”
”I raised the subject obliquely,” Amy said. ”Very obliquely. That was enough to send her back to square one. I had to sedate her, and I really didn't want to.”
”How do you define 'square one'?”
”Hysteria, drifting in and out of catatonia. The problem here, Peter, is that this is a precursor to schizophrenia. Once that line is crossed, it's often very difficult to bring people back. That's what I want desperately to avoid here.”
”In other words, you've got a sick girl on your hands.”
”Who-this is where I'm on thin ethical advice, telling you this-was already living with something pretty hard to deal with before this happened to her.”
”You going to tell me what?”
”Peter, this might be, very probably is, a violation of physician-patient confidentiality. The only reason I decided I could tell you is because she doesn't know I know.”
”Know what?”
”Cynthia Longwood is your typical Main Line Presbyterian Princess. From Bala Cynwyd. Her father is Randolph Longwood, the builder. She doesn't remember it, but I've seen her at the Rose Tree Hunt Club.”
”So, being a very nice girl, the . . . oral rape . . . really affected her?”
”Whose maternal grandfather is Vincenzo Savarese, the gangster.”
”Jesus!” Wohl said genuinely surprised. ”How do you know that?”
”Another confidentiality about to be violated,” Amy said. ”When they brought her in here, I thought, G.o.d forgive me, that she was the typical Main Line Princess who had a fight with her boyfriend, and whose parents wanted nothing but the best, d.a.m.n the cost, for their lovesick princess. I had really sick people to try to help, and declined to attend her.”
”I don't quite follow that, honey.”