Warning Signs

When the first TV microwave truck arrived, I used it as my cue to begin walking away. On foot, if I ambled, I figured it would take me about fifteen minutes to get to my office downtown. If I pushed the pace a little bit, I thought I might have time to grab a snack before I got to Walnut Street and still have about twenty minutes to prepare myself for Naomi Bigg's noon appointment.

Knowing myself, I knew that I'd spend every one of those twenty minutes second-guessing my decision to alert Sam Purdy that there was a possibility that explosives had been planted in Royal and Susan Peterson's home. Although I couldn't quite convince myself that I'd done what was right, the fact that Shadow had discovered a cache of explosive material brought me close to convincing myself that I'd done what I had to do.

By twelve o'clock, the scheduled starting time of my appointment with Naomi Bigg, only about an hour had passed since Sam Purdy had called in the threat of explosives at the Peterson home. I decided that the odds were long that Naomi Bigg would have already heard about the arrival of the bomb squad and the fire department. She would have had to be watching TV or listening to the news on the radio. Nonetheless, as I waited for the red light on the wall to flash on, I steeled myself for the possibility.

What would I do if Naomi confronted me? I'd already decided not to lie to her. Instead, my plan was to maintain that by tipping off the police the way I had, I had not breached her confidentiality at all.

My argument? As with most rationalizations I'd heard in my life regarding ethics, my reasoning had a structure as complicated as DNA.

First, I pla

I could hardly be accused of breaching confidentiality around a topic that hadn't even been specifically addressed in therapy.

The truth was that I could be so accused, but the argument I was twisting into my personal version of a double helix was comforting, nonetheless.

Second, the information that I'd provided to Sam Purdy could not reasonably lead anyone to discover the identity of my patient. The reality of my profession-for better or for worse-is that psychotherapists share information from psychotherapy sessions all the time. If the information does not provide clues that can be linked back to a specific individual, such leaks are usually treated as harmless indiscretions.

I told myself this was one of those.

Third? The third argument was for my ears only, not for Naomi's. It was this: To whom was Naomi going to complain? She could hardly go to the police with her allegations against me. And a formal petition to the State Board of Psychologist Examiners alleging malfeasance didn't seem likely. She'd have a hard time filing the charge without identifying her son. And I'd actually like to watch the ethics board grapple with the information she would provide about him.

I decided that the worst that could happen is that Naomi would storm out of my office and that I'd never hear from her again.

The trouble was this: Given the danger I feared Lauren might be in, not hearing from Naomi again was my greatest fear.

Naomi Bigg was on time for her appointment. Maybe it was because Dorsey and Shadow and the package above the stepladder were still very much on my mind, but my first thought upon seeing Naomi was that, unlike Dorsey, Naomi would never, ever cease trying to be attractive. Nor, I suspected, would she ever achieve Dorsey's level of contentment with her appearance.

Naomi's black crepe suit was impeccably pressed. Since I was congenitally unable to even bend over without wrinkling my own clothes, I was always amazed when other people could make it through a workday looking as though they had a miniature haberdasher with a steam wand stuffed in their briefcase.

I acknowledged her curt "Hello," and then I waited to discover if she'd learned of the emergency response that was taking place on Jay Street. I rehearsed my arguments while she settled herself on her chair and found a place for the big Vuitton bag. The thing thudded to the floor as though she were transporting dumbbells.

"You know," she said finally, "you never asked me what I thought about Royal Peterson's murder. We talked about the boys, and their reaction, but you never asked about me and my reaction. After I left last time, I found that odd, that you hadn't asked me about it."

No, I thought. Instead of discussing your reaction to Royal Peterson's murder, we discussed peri-menopause, a topic I find so engrossing that it often distracts me from pursuing more important things, like murder.

"You would like to talk about-"

"I didn't feel a thing." As she trampled over the end of my sentence, I couldn't tell if my words had been superfluous or if she was just ignoring me. "I didn't feel bad that a man had been killed. I didn't feel particularly good that the man who'd released my daughter's rapist was dead. Hearing that Peterson had been murdered didn't move me at all."

I said, "What do you make of that?"

Like "How does that make you feel?" it was one of those questions that made me feel like a caricature of a psychotherapist. Every time I spoke those or similar words, I was secretly embarrassed. But I asked the questions nonetheless, probably more frequently than I would like to admit.

The reason? Sometimes they worked.

And they always bought me time to think.

Naomi's response sounded rehearsed to me. She said, "Vengeance is a fu

"He maintains that what he did that day in Denver wasn't vengeance. He says it was simply an act of self-respect. In his mind, he did what he had to do as a father. That was all."

"And you, Naomi, what do you think?"

"Leo? He's kidding himself. What he did to the rapist was vengeance, pure and simple."

"But he's satisfied? You just said that you wonder if vengeance is ever satisfying."

"Leo's in prison, for God's sake. He'll rationalize anything to survive that. You would, too. Don't feign ignorance, Doctor; it's not becoming." She flipped her hair off her collar with the fingers of her left hand.

As Naomi's admonition filled the space between us like a bad odor fills an elevator, it finally struck me that she and I had not spoken a single word about the bomb squad's arrival at Royal Peterson's house. We were talking about something else: high school slaughter and an imprisoned husband and father and teenage boys with enough vitriol expanding in their veins to explode their spleens.

I stifled a relieved sigh, not unaware of the irony.

"What?" she demanded.

"You didn't actually answer my question earlier. About your reaction to Royal Peterson's murder."

"You were asking me how I feel about not feeling anything? It's a preposterous question."