Oath of Office Page 8

  “He’s waiting for you in his office,” Peterbee said as he approached her meticulous workstation.

  “Mood?” Lou asked.

  “Cat 5. I’m so sorry, Dr. Welcome.”

  It was a poorly guarded secret that the staff at the PWO measured Walter Filstrup’s demeanor on the Saffir–Simpson scale, the one used by meteorologists to rate the power of hurricanes. The director seemed to enjoy his reputation and fostered it. Most days, Filstrup was a Category 2: strong winds. A couple of times that Lou remembered, he spiked up to a Category 4. But never in the two and a half years since the shrink was hired to run the PWO had he been labeled a Cat 5 by any of the staff.

  “The only thing I have to fear, is fear itself,” Lou said, giving Peterbee a Winston Churchill V before he remembered that the quote was from FDR.

  Okay, he was more nervous than he was willing to admit.

  “I wish that were the case, Lou. I really do,” she responded. Peterbee puckered her face, possibly holding back tears.

  “Hey,” Lou said, “we both know I’ve been through worse.”

  “Just don’t let anyone change you. Since you got here, you’ve made a huge difference in the lives of a lot of people.”

  “I can only be me,” Lou sang to the tune of the Sinatra song.

  The PWO somehow managed to squeeze four cubicles, a reception desk, small conference room, supply closet (where they also kept the printer and fax machine), and Filstrup’s office into 850 square feet of space. Teeth on full clench, Lou knocked on the director’s closed door, imagining his dentist, Dr. Moskowitz, poised by one of the space-age chairs in his dental office, licking his chops as a couple of crowns drew ever closer.

  Ready for battle, he thought.

  “Come on in,” he heard Filstrup say. The man sounded bright and unburdened.

  Another bad sign.

  Filstrup’s office was, as usual, cluttered and uninviting. His bookshelves overflowed with medical textbooks, and his desk was lost beneath dictations, articles, and client’s charts—an absolute HIPAA nightmare. By contrast, the psychiatrist himself was neatly and nattily dressed in a favored blue suit, crisp white dress shirt, and solid gray tie. He was a trim, modestly built man. His horseshoe head of hair was a chestnut brown, his glasses gold wire-rimmed, and his face without distinctive features.

  Filstrup took off his glasses, cleaned them with a tissue, and rubbed at his eyes. “Sit down, Lou,” he instructed. His deep baritone was belied by his size.

  Lou removed papers from the Aeron chair, set them down on the carpeted floor, and took the seat himself.

  “So, how are you holding up?” Filstrup asked.

  There was no detectable anger in his voice, which was a source of some surprise. Where was the rage? That crimson forehead?

  “I’m doing okay, Walter,” Lou said, “given the circumstances. How about you?”

  “I’m doing all right—given the circumstances,” Filstrup said.

  It’s over, Lou realized at that moment. Walter is calm because it’s already over.

  “Walter, let’s cut to the chase,” Lou said. “I’m assuming you asked to meet with me to discuss the situation in Kings Ridge.”

  Now almost smirking, Filstrup snapped open up a case file that Lou assumed belonged to John Meacham. Lou watched as his boss flipped unhurriedly through the pages.

  “We talked about this case when I took over as director for the PWO. Do you remember?”

  Lou managed a microscopic nod. How in the hell could I forget, Walter?

  Walter Filstrup had assumed the helm of the PWO from Dr. Abigail Stevenson with all the grace and patience of a deer trapped in a living room. His first act was to demand that the two assistant directors review, in front of him, all the active cases. The ADs were Lou and a passive little psychiatrist named Ollie Comer, who had been there since the program’s inception twelve or thirteen years ago, and was on the tail end of a profound, protracted burnout.

  The discussion surrounding John Meacham was not pretty. During the pitched battle over Lou’s choice of treatment, Comer, who was not in recovery, and had actually been Lou’s monitor following his release from rehab, said not a word.

  “John Meacham should have been seeing a psychiatrist,” Filstrup said now, echoing his position from that unpleasant day after he had taken over the operation.

  “You say it like it’s a fact, Walter,” Lou countered, as he did then, “as though there isn’t another option that would have worked.”

  “For a case like John Meacham, there isn’t,” Filstrup shot back.

  Now Lou had to once again clench his jaws to keep himself from a useless, inflammatory, snide retort.

  When Filstrup took over the PWO, John Meacham was doing just fine. He was attending AA meetings daily, sometimes twice a day, abstaining from any alcohol or other drugs, and not surprisingly, given the work he was doing on himself, keeping his anger issues in check. Twelve steps to remaking a life—and John Meacham had taken them all, and would keep on taking them, Lou firmly believed.

  “Alcoholism is a disease, not a moral issue, Walter. We’ve been through this before.”

  “No, you’ve been through this with me. And I haven’t agreed.”

  “You haven’t listened. I know what I do here works. I have successful case after successful case to prove it.”

  “Why? Because you were once a drug addict yourself? That gives you all the authority here? It’s been my opinion, Lou, that your past experiences don’t help your judgment. They cloud it.”

  “John didn’t need psychotherapy, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Lou said. “He needed to get sober and to keep going to meetings, and that’s what he was doing.”

  “Until he killed seven people. I can’t think of one of your cases that shouldn’t have involved some degree of psychotherapy,” Filstrup said. “I conducted a thorough review of your clients, including ones from before I joined the PWO. You recommend a comprehensive mental health course of treatment less than ten percent of the time in your substance abuse cases.”

  “Because that’s not the way we’re going to get their licenses reinstated,” Lou said, feeling heat beginning to scorch the back of his neck. “Psychotherapy can drag on and on, when recovery is no farther away than attendance at meetings and adherence to the principles of AA, the first of which is that you can’t drink. There may be other approaches and programs that will get drunks sober, but this is one that I know works. That’s why I haven’t gone out of my way to recommend any others.”

  “So John Meacham is a success by your standards?”

  Lou took in a sharp breath.

  Here we go.

  “No,” he managed, no longer able to cull the strain from his voice. “Obviously, something went terribly, terribly wrong with John. But I was monitoring him, Walter. He was doing everything required of him. He was happy and productive. We never got a positive on his urine tests. This wasn’t about alcohol.”

  “My point exactly, Welcome. This is a straightforward mental health issue. It always was.”

  Redonkulous.

  Cap’s portmanteau popped into his head. The boxer was right, and so was Filstrup. And so, for that matter, was he. Meacham was crazy at the moment he fired those shots—absolutely insane. But something had created the insanity, and it was nothing that Freud or Jung or any therapist could have couched out of him.

  “We have an obligation to protect the public from doctors who pose a danger to their patients,” Filstrup was saying.

  Lou shook his head in dismay. “No, Walter,” he said, “that’s what the board of medicine is for. Of course we need to pay attention to that, too, but we also have an obligation to our docs. Sometimes we’re all they have—the only ones who are going to give them the benefit of any doubt. The only ones who know and can vouch for the extent to which they are recovering from their illness.”

  Filstrup had had enough. “John Meacham did not receive proper treatment,” he said, “and that�
�s exactly what I told the PWO board.”

  Ka-boom! Ka-pow! Dr. Louis Francis Welcome, exit stage left.

  “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you move this definitively on a case, Walter,” he said.

  “Now that’s the wise-ass Welcome I know. It’s elementary, my dear Watson. You didn’t follow my recommendation. You went out on your own, like you always do with anybody who has a drug and alcohol problem. And now you are up to your glutes in casualties and disgruntled board members.”

  Casualties.

  Anger tightened around Lou’s chest. He forcefully reminded himself that there was nothing to gain from going off at the man verbally, or throttling him by the throat. Filstrup was like someone who knew nothing about weapons being presented a .45 and a full box of ammo.

  “Listen, Walter, I think you should just get to the point.”

  “The point is,” Filstrup said, slowing his speech to intentionally drag the announcement out, “that after considering all the facts in this case, the board has unanimously approved your suspension from the PWO pending any appeals, effective immediately and without pay.”

  Lou showed no surprise because there was no surprise to show. Surprise would have been crunching Filstrup’s peanut nose with a sharp left cross.

  “I was right to recommend Meacham for a return to practice,” Lou said finally. “I like this job and I’m good at it. Somewhere out there are answers as to why this happened—answers that don’t have anything to do with his need for psychotherapy. And when I find out what those answers are, I’ll be back to petition the board to reinstate me. The work we do here is too important to be victimized by your narrow views.”

  “The only answer you’re going to come up with, Welcome, is that I was right.”

  * * *

  LOU WAS on the street a block from the PWO headquarters with no recollection of leaving the office or the building. The early afternoon was starting to get seriously warm. His mouth became dry, and he realized he was only a short walk from the dark, cozy, air-conditioned comfort of the Tam o’ shanter, for years his favorite bar.

  He walked without thinking of anything but how upset he was with Walter Filstrup. The man was wrong. As usual, he didn’t have any understanding of alcoholism or addiction. The science was there—irrefutable identical twin studies and other excellent pieces of research. Alcoholism was a disease.

  Lou stepped beneath the rough-hewn carving of the hat and the words THE TAM swinging over the heavy wooden doorway. The Scottish poet Robert Burns had written the epic poem in 1790, and more than once during his years of drug and alcohol excess, Lou had regaled the patrons of the place by reading the tale of a man who drinks too much and must race a hallucinated Devil for his life.

  Inspiring bold John Barleycorn!

  What dangers thou canst make us scorn!

  How in the hell could Filstrup blame him in any way for what happened in Kings Ridge? Suspending him this way was like shooting the bearer of bad news.

  The sounds and smells of the Tam started tapes whirring in Lou’s head. His mouth became even drier. He licked his lips and began thinking how easy it would be to get even with Filstrup by just getting smashed. Furious now, he took a step toward the already-crowded bar. Then he took another.

  At that moment, other tapes began playing—snatches of nine years of meetings and long walks and talks.

  … No one ever said it was always going to be easy.… Pick up the phone before you pick up a drink.… It’s perfectly okay to want to.…

  Lou wasn’t even aware he had taken out his cell phone.

  “Cap, it’s me,” he heard himself saying. “I’m inside the Tam.… No, I haven’t.… Okay, I’ll get out now.… Ten minutes. I’ll be out there.”

  Sunshine replaced the comforting gloom. The music and the tapes stopped. Robert Burns’s poem faded.

  Lou walked across the street and leaned against a building to wait for his sponsor. Nine years and he still wasn’t safe.

  Without constant vigilance, he realized, he never would be.

  CHAPTER 14

  Unable to clear John Meacham out of his thoughts, Lou headed back to the town of Kings Ridge.

  The decision to share some of what he knew with Gilbert Stone had essentially been made for him by Cap Duncan and Walter Filstrup—the one, who was certain that there was a pattern of extremely odd thinking and actions at work in the community, and the other, who had decreed that Lou was to have an unexpected bolus of free, unstructured time on his hands.

  Stone strode into the police station waiting area from behind an imposing steel door. He was dressed as on the night he and Lou first met—tan uniform, black tie, metal star. His engaging smile showcased what Lou guessed were top-of-the-line caps.

  The night just past had been a frantic one for him, with calls from a dozen or so of his PWO clients, who had been informed by Filstrup of his suspension. The best Lou could offer them was his assurance that he would fight to restore his status and continue to be available to them in an unofficial capacity. In the meantime, he promised each of them that he would do everything within the limits of his new situation to continue to help them.

  Lou had come away from his roadside encounter with Stone toting a wariness of the man’s oblique manner of asking questions, and an uneasy respect for the degree to which he had his finger on the pulse of his town. Kings Ridge may have looked and felt like Mayberry R.F.D., but this man was no bumpkin.

  “Dr. Welcome,” Stone said, shaking Lou’s hand like a human garlic press, “good to see you again, son. That knot and cut there on your head look to have settled down pretty good.”

  “It’s fine. Please, call me Lou.”

  “Lou it is,” Stone replied, his expression as inscrutable as it had been at the scene of the accident. “I almost said, ‘Welcome, Dr. Welcome.’ I suppose you get that a lot.”

  “From time to time,” Lou understated.

  In fact, except to tell him and his brother that their name came from “someplace in England,” their father had no knowledge of or interest in its origin. Over the years, Lou had developed a number of different responses to inquiries about it, ranging from that it was modified from the Finnish word velkommen, which was a soft, incredibly cuddly arctic hare, to that his great-great-grandfather had it officially changed to Welcome from the Welsh, Getthehellawayfromhere.

  “Thanks for seeing me,” he said this time.

  “No problem at all. When a person calls with something to talk about pertinent to a multiple-homicide investigation, well, naturally that person becomes an immediate priority. Now, let’s go chat in my office.”

  The sprawling redbrick, one-story station was, according to its cornerstone, just four years old. Stone’s office occupied the entire end of one wing. Two long opposing walls of glass were shielded by drawn blinds, the wall facing his massive oak desk was a bookcase filled with law tomes and other professional volumes. In addition, there were a number of contemporary thrillers, including what appeared to be close to the entire Colors collection of John D. MacDonald, one of Lou’s favorites. The wall behind the desk featured laminated testimonials and a variety of photos of Stone, posing with a who’s who of state and national dignitaries.

  Nice digs.

  On the trip back to Kings Ridge, Lou had wrestled with a serious moral dilemma: how to discuss his relationship with John and Carolyn Meacham without violating the legally protected confidentiality of the PWO. It certainly seemed from news broadcasts as if Walter Filstrup had already released details of the murderer’s relationship with the organization. It was safe to assume that wily Gilbert Stone knew at least some of Meacham’s history, information probably unearthed beginning the day the physician first moved to the area.

  How much Lou should disclose now was the issue. Since he’d signed on as an assistant director of the program, he had protected its clients the way he protected the anonymity of people in AA.

  Still, as things stood, the odds of his winning reinstatement f
rom the PWO board of directors were about as long as those of a mule taking the Kentucky Derby. To win out, Lou would need to prove that Meacham’s actions were the result of something that no monitoring program could ever have predicted. And to do that, he was going to need Gilbert Stone’s help.

  First, he had to convince the chief of police, and himself, that there might be something wrong at the DeLand Regional Hospital and in his town.

  Stone took a spiral-bound notebook from his desk drawer and motioned Lou to a Danish modern chair across from him. “So, let’s have it,” he said.

  “Okay,” Lou replied, leaning forward. “Beyond the obvious, I’m beginning to wonder if there might be something really strange going on in Kings Ridge.”

  “Son, I’ve been chief of police here for over twenty years. Trust me when I tell you, there’s a lot of strange things going on in Kings Ridge. Now, if by strange, you mean an explanation besides insanity for John Meacham’s rampage, well, I’m all ears.”

  “What if I told you that the shootings were a case of flawed reasoning on John’s part, and that there might be a similar pattern of seriously flawed reasoning at work in other people?”

  “I’d want to know about it right here, right now.”

  It took fifteen minutes to share what Lou had decided he would—his role with the PWO, Meacham’s alcoholism and anger management issues, the verbal abuse of a patient four years ago that had gotten Meacham into hot water with the D.C. board of medicine, and finally the verbal assault reported to the police by his patient, Roberta Jennings.

  “First of all,” Lou went on, “there was no alcohol in his system. Tests for other drugs of abuse are pending, but alcohol was always the one for him—the trigger for his outbursts. Secondly, it seems as if he kept repeating ‘no witnesses’ during the attack. What did he mean by that?”