“Morning.”
Alex immediately looked up from his seat at the round kitchen table. Not his father, but her squad mate Phil, was slower to follow. Alex’s features were already politely composed. Clearly he’d been up for hours, having showered, shaved and taken care of their three-year-old. Now he was dressed for work, a navy blue academy shirt tucked into his dress khakis. The shirt emphasized his dark eyes, salt-and-pepper hair. A good-looking man, she thought, not for the first time. Handsome, intelligent, dedicated to their son, sensitive to her needs.
Across from Alex sat D.D.’s oldest partner, Phil, thinning brown hair, married forever to his high school sweetheart, Betsy, father of four kids, who once claimed he’d joined Boston homicide to escape the gore.
Already she was suspicious.
“Cuppa joe?” Phil asked brightly. He wouldn’t meet her gaze, pushing back his chair, heading straight for the coffeepot.
“You don’t golf,” D.D. said.
A small smile lifted the corners of Alex’s mouth.
“What?” Phil, still diligently focused on how to best pour coffee into an oversize mug.
“Neither of you gamble. Nor do you have best buds in common for a bachelor party. In fact, your only connection is me.”
Phil finished pouring the coffee. Carefully eased the carafe back in place. Slowly picked up the steaming mug. Deliberately turned toward her.
D.D. pulled out a chair and sat abruptly, wincing as she did so. Suddenly she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
Alex wasn’t smiling anymore. Instead, he reached across the table and gently touched the back of her right hand.
“Get any sleep?” he asked.
“Sure. All sorts. Never been so rested. Just wish I could fall down the stairs again so I could lie around in bed even more.”
D.D. kept her attention on Phil. He was the weak link. Whatever was going on here, he’d be the one who’d cave.
“FDIT?” she guessed softly, when Phil remained standing before her, still holding the coffee mug between his cupped hands.
In copspeak, FDIT stood for Firearms Discharge Investigation Team. Anytime an officer discharged her weapon, including in a darkened crime scene at no identifiable target, FDIT had the responsibility to investigate the event and determine if the officer acted appropriately or with negligence.
By the time D.D. had regained consciousness at the hospital, the FDIT team had already taken possession of her firearm, and the future of her policing career rested on the report they would eventually deliver to the Bureau of Professional Standards.
Her fellow detectives had told her not to worry. Most likely, her weapon had discharged during her tumble down the stairs. Except Sig Sauers didn’t simply fall out of snapped shoulder holsters. Nor did an officer’s right index finger generally land on the trigger while cascading backward through open space, then fire off three consecutive shots.
D.D. had deliberately pulled the trigger of her department-issued weapon. At something, or someone.
Even she could figure out that much.
But at what or whom and with or without probable cause? Because her fellow cops never found anyone else at the scene. Just her unconscious form in the foyer of Christine Ryan’s apartment and three bullet holes in the wall. One of the slugs had passed through into the adjacent unit. Thank God it hadn’t hit anyone. But the neighbor hadn’t taken it well, and why was some cop shooting up the place next door, and . . .
Reports to the Bureau of Professional Standards inevitably included not just what an officer did, but how those actions made the entire department look.
D.D. was vulnerable, and she knew it. Only reason things hadn’t come to a head sooner was that the extent of her injuries had earned her immediate medical leave. No need for the department to rule too quickly about her return to work. Her doctor already said it wouldn’t be happening anytime soon.
“No word,” Phil said.
“Oh.”
“Which is probably good news,” he continued briskly. “If there was obvious proof of misconduct, the administration wouldn’t hesitate to strike. No news is good news, and all that.”
D.D. eyed her longtime partner, thinking if only his words matched the expression on his face.
“Shoulder?” Phil asked.
“Ask me in another three months.”
“That long?”
“More like I’m that old. But I’m doing my PT. And practicing patience.”
Phil gave her a dubious look; he’d worked with D.D. long enough to know the extent of her patience.
“Exactly,” she agreed with him.
“Pain?”
“Only most of the time.”
“They didn’t give you anything for it?”
“Hell, they gave me all sorts of meds for it. But you know me, Phil. Why ease my pain, when I can share it with everyone else instead?”
Phil nodded in agreement. Alex stroked the back of her right hand.
“I see a new doc today,” she continued with an awkward, one-shouldered shrug. “Some therapist who specializes in mental techniques for pain management. Mind over matter, that kind of crap. Who knows, maybe I’ll learn something.”
“Good.” Phil finally handed over the mug of coffee, placing it carefully on the table where she could reach it with her one good hand. Mission accomplished, he didn’t seem to know what to do with himself.
“If you weren’t here to talk about the discharge investigation report,” D.D. asked quietly, “why’d you come?”
Then, when Phil still wouldn’t look up, and Alex once more rubbed the back of her hand, she closed her eyes and let herself know what she’d been suspecting all along.
“There’s been another murder.”
“Yeah.”
“Same flayed skin, rose across her abdomen, bottle of champagne on the nightstand.”
“Yeah.”
“You need me to remember.” Then, on the heels of that thought: “You’re not here as my partner, are you, Phil? This isn’t cop to cop. You need to know what I saw that night, detective to witness.”
He didn’t say a word. Alex continued to run the ball of his thumb across the ridge of her knuckles.
She stared at her coffee mug.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “I totally understand. And of course I’ll help. I’d do anything to help.”
Former detective D. D. Warren, she thought. And tried to remind herself that in her heart, she knew she was lucky, even if her brain couldn’t accept it yet.
Chapter 3
ONE P.M. MONDAY, I confronted my newest patient and knew immediately that Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren was a born skeptic.
It didn’t surprise me. I’d been in the pain management business long enough to have assisted numerous first responders—police officers, EMTs, firefighters. People drawn to jobs that demanded the most of them, physically as well as mentally. People who thrived on being in the thick of things, calling the shots, running the action, controlling the plays.
In other words, people who didn’t do well sitting on the sidelines, while a therapist in a thousand-dollar suit explained how the first step to managing her pain was to get in touch with it. Give it a name. Develop an ongoing relationship.
“Seriously?” Detective D. D. Warren asked me now. She sat rigidly, perched in a simple wooden chair versus the low-slung sofa that was also available. Without even examining her medical charts, I could tell she suffered from acute neck and shoulder pain. It was written in her stiff posture, how she rotated her entire body to take in the room, versus simply turning her head. Not to mention the tight way she held her left arm tucked against her side, as if still protecting herself from an incoming blow.
I suspected the blond detective was rarely described as a soft-looking woman. But now, with her dark-rimmed eyes, grim-set mouth
and thinly drawn cheeks, she appeared harsh, a woman well beyond her forty-four years.
“The basis of my practice is the Internal Family Systems model,” I explained patiently.
She arched a brow, didn’t say a word.
“One of the basic assumptions of IFS is that the mind can be subdivided into a number of distinct parts. First and foremost of those parts is the Self, which should serve as leader of all the parts. When your Self is clearly differentiated and elevated from the other members of the system, then you are in the best position to understand, manage and control your own pain.”
“I fell down the stairs,” D.D. said flatly. “If my self was supposed to manage that, it’s a little late now.”
“Let me ask you a different question: Are you in pain?”
“You mean, like, right now?”
“Like, right now.”
“Well, yeah. According to the docs, my own tendons ripped away a chunk of bone in my left arm. It hurts.”
“On a scale of one to ten, one being slight discomfort, ten being the worst agony you can imagine . . .”
The detective pursed her lips. “Six.”
“So slightly above average.”
“Sure. I want to build in some room. Tonight is shower night, which will bring me to a seven, followed by attempting to sleep, which I’d place at an eight, because I can’t seem to stop rolling onto my left side; then, of course, there’s getting out of bed tomorrow morning, which is an easy nine.”
“What would you consider a ten?”
“I don’t know yet,” she said tersely. “I’m still new at this walking-wounded business, but from what I can tell, that’s what physical therapists were put on earth to find out.”
I smiled. “Many of my patients would agree with you.”
“I know about the scale,” D.D. said. “Russ Ilg, my personal torturer, already walked me through it. Don’t think of pain as a single point, but as an entire spectrum. Where are you on the spectrum right now, this afternoon, for the whole day, for the week? Then, instead of just being in pain, you can experience the full rainbow of physical agony. Or something like that.”
“He has you rate your level of discomfort when he is working with you?”
“Yeah. He raises my left arm. I yelp. He tells me to breathe through my mouth. I yelp some more. He asks me if I’m at an eight yet. I say no, he raises my arm an inch higher.” D.D. wasn’t looking at me anymore. Her gaze had gone beyond my right shoulder, to a spot on the wall, while her right leg began to bounce restlessly.
I had scanned her medical reports. The avulsion fracture she’d suffered in her left shoulder was a particularly rare and painful injury that called for an even more agonizing remedy—physical therapy. Lots of extremely excruciating exercises designed to keep her left shoulder from locking up, while minimizing scar tissue during the healing process.
According to the detective’s charts, she worked with a physical therapist twice a week. Most likely, she ended those sessions with tears running down her cheeks.
I wondered, already, how that must feel to a woman accustomed to operating under complete control.
“So you take the time to consider and rate your pain?” I asked now.
She made a motion that may or may not have been a nod.
“How often?” I pressed.
“Well, you know, when Russ asks me.”
“So during physical therapy?”
“Yes.”
“What about at home? Say you wake up in the middle of the night and you’re uncomfortable. What do you do then?”
She didn’t answer right away.
I took my time, waiting quietly.
“I tell myself to go back to sleep,” she said at last.
“Does that work?”
That motion again, the nod that was not a nod.
“Do you want to be here?” I asked abruptly.
She seemed startled. “What do you mean?”
“Today. Right now. Do you want to be in my office, talking to me?”
The detective stopped staring at my wall, met my eyes instead. Her gaze was mutinous. It didn’t surprise me. Some people internalized their pain. Others externalized it, lashing out. Not too hard to judge which camp D. D. Warren fell into.
“No,” she said bluntly.
“Then why did you come?”
“I want to return to work. I like my job.” Her tone turned less hostile, more defensive.
“You’re a homicide detective, yes?”
“Yes.”
“And you enjoy your job?”
“I love my job.”
“I see. So your injury, not being able to work right now, that must be difficult.”
“I’m on medical leave,” the detective stated briskly. “Might sound clear enough: You’re hurt, you stay home. You get fixed, you return to work. But like any good bureaucracy, the department likes to make it complicated. Because maybe my shoulder gets better, but what about my head? Am I still the cool, calm detective I was before? Maybe I regain my physical ability to charge into a crisis situation. But will I? Or will I hang back, unnerved by the thought of jostling my left side, straining my shoulder? The department doesn’t want my body to return to work but my head to stay at home. I understand their point, but still . . .”
“You’re here to humor your bosses.”
“Let’s put it this way: The deputy superintendent of homicide personally handed me your business card. I took the hint.”
“So what’s your plan?” I asked, leaning forward, genuinely interested now. “You’ll have to attend more than a single session with me—no one will believe you took pain therapy seriously with only one visit. Six is maybe a bit much. I’m pegging you at three. You’ll see me three times; then the ‘rescheduling’ will begin.”
For the first time, the detective appeared impressed. “I was thinking three would be a good number.”
“Fair enough. Three sessions it is. But you have to take your visits with me seriously; that’s my condition. You don’t have to believe in everything I say. But as long as we have three appointments together, you might as well listen. And do your homework.”
“Homework?”
“Absolutely. Your first assignment is to name your pain.”
“What?” I had the good detective’s full attention again, most likely because she thought I was nuts.
“Give your pain a name. And next time you wake up in the middle of the night, instead of telling yourself to go back to sleep, I want you to address your pain by name. Talk to it. Then listen for what it might have to say.”
“You mean, like, ‘Give me Percocet’?” D.D. muttered.
I smiled. “Speaking of which, are you taking anything?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
That seminod, or maybe it was a half shrug. “Just say no to drugs, yada, yada, yada. Prescription, nonprescription, it’s a fine line out there with narcotics, and I’d prefer not to cross it.”
“Are you afraid of drugs?”
“Say what?”
“Some people are. They’re afraid of how the drugs may make them feel; they’re afraid of becoming addicted. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that. I’m just asking.”
“I don’t like meds. Plain and simple. They’re not for me.”
“You consider yourself tougher than that?”
“You’re stereotyping me.”
“And you’re avoiding my question.”
“Is it true you can’t feel pain?”
I smiled, sat back fully and glanced at the clock. “Twenty-two minutes,” I said.
The detective wasn’t dumb. She glanced at the wall clock hanging beside my desk, then scowled.
“You’re a detective,” I continued. “Of course you ran a backgrou
nd on me. And since the Boston Herald, not to mention numerous science publications, have found my condition fascinating, you learned quite a bit. Then it was simply a matter of waiting until you needed to distract, evade. The best defense is a good offense, yes?” I kept my voice even. “For the record, Detective, I can’t feel any physical pain. Which means I have nothing better to do than focus on yours. And you still haven’t answered my question. Do you consider yourself tough?”
“Yes,” she bit out.
“So tough, your back, your shoulder, shouldn’t be slowing you down like this?”
“I can’t wash my hair!”
I waited.
“I can’t lift my son. My three-year-old son. And last night, he went to hug me and I stepped away because I knew it would hurt. I couldn’t take the pain!”
I waited.
“And the docs all say it’ll get better. Do this, take that, but in the meantime, I can’t sleep, I can’t move and I can’t even enjoy lounging around in bed, because I fucking hate my bed. It hurts too much to get in and out of it. I’m old, I’m broken and I’m basically unemployed. Shit!”
Then: “Goddamn, shit on a stick, bite me, fuckety fuck fuck. Shit!”
“Melvin,” I said.
“What?” D.D. looked up, a semiferal gleam in her eye. A look I’d seen many times in my practice; the gaze of an animal in pain.
“Melvin,” I repeated calmly. “I think you should name your pain Melvin. Shit on a stick, fuckety fuck fuck Melvin. And every time he bothers you, yell at him. Curse him out. Why not? You might actually feel better. Discover that putting your Self in charge of Melvin makes him smaller and your Self more powerful. And isn’t that really what you miss? Feeling powerful?”
“Melvin,” D.D. said.
“Just a suggestion. Obviously, you want a name that resonates for you.”
“How much do you charge an hour again?”
“Well, I am a doctor. Have initials after my name and everything.”
“Melvin. Good God, my pain is called Melvin.”
“The Internal Family Systems model subdivides the mind into four main parts. At the core is your Self, the natural leader of the system. Then there is the section called the Exiles, which include pain and trauma you’re not ready to process yet so you have cast aside. Unfortunately, the Exiles need to share their stories. They will continue to act out, in the form of rage, terror, grief and shame, until they are heard.