Blues in the Night (16 page)

“So what’s the treatment?”

“Depends on the diagnosis. For baby blues, I recommend encouragement followed by a few hours at Elizabeth Arden once the baby sleeps through the night.” Korwin smiled. “For postpartum depression, psychotherapy is highly effective, combined with antidepressants. For psychosis, you’re talking psychotherapy, antidepressants, and antipsychotic drugs, and the patient has to be hospitalized—for her safety and the child’s. In both cases, if the mom is nursing or pregnant, we’re limited as to what drugs we can safely use without harming the infant or fetus.”

Which explained why Korwin had wanted to wean Lenore off her medications. “Do you treat psychotic patients here?”

Korwin nodded. “We have twenty-five rooms and a staff of psychiatrists and nurses. We also offer on-site electroconvulsive therapy for depression and psychosis. It has no effect on a fetus, if the mom is pregnant, or on breast milk.”

I grimaced. “It sounds barbaric.”

Korwin smiled. “Most people have your reaction. ECT has a bad rep, but I’ve seen it do wonders. There are side effects—temporary memory loss, headaches, confusion. But they go away.”

“I’ll skip, thanks.” I flipped a page to the questions that had really brought me here. “Dr. Korwin, what’s the prognosis for a woman who’s had postpartum depression or psychosis if she has another child?”

Korwin shook his head. “Without help, not good. There’s a much higher incidence of repeated depression—twenty-five to thirty-three percent, maybe higher. With psychosis, recurrence can be as high as a hundred percent. But there’s been experimentation with different prophylactic treatments. In fact, we’re in the middle of a clinical trial here right now, using an estrogen patch with progesterone, antidepressants, and psychotherapy on a controlled group and a placebo on the other. The results are encouraging. Can you imagine what that would mean to millions of women if we’re successful?” Korwin’s eyes shone with excitement.

“It would be wonderful,” I agreed. “I have another question, Dr. Korwin. Hypothetically—”

He cut me off with an exaggerated groan. “I
hate
hypotheticals.”

I smiled. “Hypothetically, if a woman was treated for postpartum depression or psychosis and became pregnant again, would it be likely that she’d try to kill herself because she feared being depressed and possibly harming her child?” That’s what Connors had suggested, and I wanted an expert opinion.

Korwin scratched his beard. “I’d have to know more about her history and how she presents and her diagnosis. What her symptoms were, the severity of her condition. Whether she’s tried to kill herself before.”

“She has, twice. The first attempt was after she killed her infant son.”

Korwin’s face registered surprise, which quickly turned to anger. He sat up straighter, his teddy bear softness gone. “You’re not asking a hypothetical, are you?” He studied me as though I were a bacterium on a microscope slide.
Journalistus nosyus.
“And you’re not here to interview me about my book or about postpartum depression. You’re here about Lenore Saunders.” He shot me a baleful look.

“I
am
interested in the subject, and yes, I’m writing about Lenore. I apologize for not being up-front, but I didn’t think you’d agree to see me if I told you. I wanted to understand more about postpartum depression and psychosis so that I could understand her. Since she was your patient, I thought I’d come to you.”

“You could have done research in a library or on the Internet. You didn’t need to come here. If you’ll excuse a nonmedical term, Miss Blume, that’s a crock.” He picked up a pen and tapped it on the desk. “So what rag are you writing for? Or is this for a TV movie of the week?”

He was entitled to sarcasm. “Actually, I write books about true crime. I was troubled by the circumstances of Lenore’s hit-and-run, so I talked with her when she was in the hospital. The next night she left a message on my machine.” The pen tapping had stopped, so I assumed I’d sparked Korwin’s interest. “She said she needed to talk to me, that she was afraid. I waited until the morning to see her. By then she was dead. To be honest, I feel guilty.”

“I’m not a priest, and if you need a therapist, I can recommend a few good ones.”

I didn’t answer.

He took a breath, and when he spoke again, his tone was less hostile. “Lenore’s death is a shocking, senseless tragedy,” he said quietly. “We’re all trying to come to terms with it. It’s not easy for any of us.”

“You were an expert defense witness during her trial, and her therapist for over a year. You must have been close.”

“I’m close with
all
my patients,” he said curtly. “What’s your point?”

Touchy, touchy. “That you probably know what she was thinking better than anyone else.”

“I’m a psychiatrist, not a mind reader. Aren’t the police saying it’s homicide?”

The thought occurred to me that if Lenore had been killed, Korwin would be off the hook—legally, professionally, morally. “They’re considering the possibility, but they’re not ruling out suicide.”

Korwin’s phone rang. He picked up the receiver and uttered a sharp “Yes?” A pause. “Tell her I’ll call her back in a few minutes.” Another pause. “I
understand
that she’s upset.” He hung up the phone and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s been like that all day. Where were we?”

“We were talking about Lenore’s death. My question is, when she found out she was pregnant, would she have panicked and become suicidal?”

Korwin tsked. “Come on, Miss Blume. You know I can’t discuss Lenore. Doctor-patient confidentiality.”

“Even if she’s dead?”

“She still has a right to privacy. Suppose you were my patient, and you knew that after you died, I could reveal things you’d told me in confidence. Wouldn’t you think twice before confiding in me? Wouldn’t that inhibit the therapy?”

“Probably,” I admitted, disappointed. “But isn’t it important to know whether Lenore was suicidal? If she wasn’t, it’s more likely she was killed.”

“I don’t need you to tell me my job, Miss Blume. I’ve already talked to the police and told them what I could about Lenore, based on the law.” In a less prickly voice, he added, “Believe me, I want to help, but I won’t compromise my ethics.”

“Even to identify a killer? If Lenore told you she was afraid of someone specific—”

“She never did,” he said brusquely. “She never said anything about it.” He was frowning, his eyes focused somewhere beyond me, and he sounded troubled.

“Maybe it has to do with her pregnancy,” I said. “Did Lenore tell you who the father was?”

Korwin snapped his attention back to me. “Which part of confidentiality don’t you understand?” he asked, annoyed again. He picked up a folder. “I have about ten calls to return and patients to see. If that’s all?”

“Can we get back to my hypothetical?”

He sighed deeply, and for a moment I thought he was going to refuse. Then he put down the folder and swiveled in his chair.

“Hypothetically, if a pregnant woman has a history of ongoing depression and feelings of worthlessness and suicide attempts following postpartum psychosis that caused her to kill her child, and depending on whether she was taking medication for her depression and the efficacy of the medication, would she kill herself—is that your question?”

I leaned forward. “Yes.”

“No comment.”

He looked pleased with himself, and I had to admit he’d played me well. “Because you don’t have an opinion,” I asked, “or because your attorney advised you not to answer?”

Korwin smiled. “It was nice to meet you, Miss Blume. Sorry I couldn’t be of more help, but I have to play by the rules. No hard feelings?”

“No hard feelings.” I slipped my notepad into my purse and stood. “Thanks for your time, and for all the information. I really
do
find the subject fascinating.”

“Buy the book,” he said and smiled again.

twenty-six

Connors was at his desk in the almost empty detectives’ room when I arrived at the Hollywood station at four-thirty after gathering
Crime Sheet
data from West Hollywood. Most detectives begin the day around seven-thirty and leave at two-thirty, so I was pleased to find him there.

He was doing paperwork and grunted in response to my hello.

“Aren’t you happy to see me?” I asked.

“Overjoyed. You complete me,” he said, his tone dour.

“I don’t know who leaked the news about the possible homicide or the pregnancy. It wasn’t me, Andy. Do you believe me?”

“Yeah, sure. Now you can sleep at night.” He sounded tired.

I pulled over a chair and sat down. “I’ve left messages all weekend and several today. Where have you been?”

“See, this is why I’m not married, Molly. Nag, nag, nag. For your information, Lenore Saunders is not the only case we’re working. What’s up?”

“You first. Did you get the autopsy results?”

“They’re doing the autopsy today, and we should have a full report, including some lab results, tomorrow. I told Mrs. Rowan yesterday that she could schedule the funeral for Wednesday. I think the Saunders family is taking care of the arrangements.” He named a chapel in Universal City, near Forest Lawn.

“Talk about putting on a face for the public.”

Connors shrugged. “FYI, there were only two sets of fingerprints on the scissors, Molly. Lenore’s, superimposed on the nurse’s.”

“There’s a box of latex gloves in every room, in case you didn’t know.” I’d noticed that when I visited Lenore. “The killer could’ve helped himself to a pair, done the deed, and then put the scissors in Lenore’s hand.”

“The gloves would’ve smudged the nurse’s prints.”

I thought about that. “What if he brought another pair of scissors to do the deed, and put the nurse’s pair in Lenore’s hand?”

Connors furrowed his brow. “It’s possible,” he allowed. “Let’s wait to hear what the M.E. says. Preliminary report is still suicide.”

I stifled a wave of impatience. “And the trashed apartment?”

“What I said before. She had stuff on someone. That someone wanted it back. Maybe it’s the journal, maybe something else.”

“What’s the time of death?”

“The M.E. says sometime between eleven
P
.
M
. and five
A
.
M
., but we can narrow it down. Lenore was fine when the nurse made her three o’clock rounds. We’re getting a record of any phone calls Lenore made that night.”

“Did the nurse say Lenore was agitated that night?”

“She had a bad evening, so they gave her a shot of Haldol and, later, some pills. It was tricky, because of the pregnancy. They wanted to wean her off the meds, but Korwin was afraid that without them she’d be at risk.”

“So someone posing as a nurse or doctor could have given her more Haldol. What about a list of all the people who visited her room?”

“Not many visitors on the floor that time of night, according to the nurses, aside from staff. Which is another vote for suicide.”

“I imagine it’s not hard to get a hospital uniform and walk around unnoticed. Even
without
a uniform.” Attitude, I’ve learned, is everything. “And if Lenore’s room was away from the nurses’ station. . . . Was the station ever unattended that night?”

“Her room was at the end of the hall.” Connors hesitated. “Actually, there was an emergency in her bay a little after three. A patient tried getting out of his bed and fell. And yes, the killer could have created the diversion. But that could just as easily have been a coincidence.” He sat back and laced his hands behind his head. “Okay, your turn.”

I gave him edited summaries of my talks with Nina, Jillian, and Korwin. Some things I wanted to think about first.

“You’ve been a busy bee,” he said. “So what’s your take, Miss Marple?”

I do believe he was impressed. “
A,
Lenore knew Jillian wouldn’t be there that night.
B,
Jillian suspects that Robbie slept with Lenore, whom she pretty much hates, although he denied it. Jillian definitely has motive. So does Robbie’s mom.
C,
Lenore didn’t wear nightgowns. Which means she must have borrowed a gown from Jillian.” I allowed myself a modest smile, then frowned.

“Let me call Ted Koppel. What else?”

“Sshh.” For the second time something was tickling at my mind like a feather, and I needed to concentrate.

“You’re telling me to be quiet?” Connors asked.

I put up my hand and he stopped talking. A few seconds later I figured out what had been bothering me. “Where’s Lenore’s key?”

Connors scowled. “What?”

“She left her apartment and presumably took a cab to Saunders. She needed her key and money for the cab, so maybe she had a small wallet or purse. And if she was going for romance, she’d take a lipstick, a brush, some other stuff. But she was found without any identification. So my guess is, she left her stuff at Saunders’s house when she stormed out.”

Connors didn’t answer. I took that as a good sign.

“So who has the key now?” he asked after a few seconds in which I watched his face as he processed the question. I could picture the wheels grinding.

“Either Saunders or Betty Rowan.”

“Explain.”

“According to Nina, Betty and her ex–son-in-law are chummy. He bought her a house and he’s helping her financially—probably because she convinced Lenore to agree to the divorce.”

Connors looked skeptical. “Says who?”

“Jillian. So Betty owes him. Maybe Saunders asked her to put the purse back in the apartment. Or,” I said, thinking aloud, “maybe he kept the key and used it to get into the apartment to search for the journal himself.”

“And trashed it to make it look like it was a burglary.”

I smiled. “I knew you had potential. By the way, Lenore’s name was on some property Saunders bought when they were married. Also, Lenore was Robbie’s personal assistant. She may have been privy to information he wouldn’t want known.”

“Like?”

“I don’t know.” I thought about the zoning problems Ron had mentioned. “When did you talk to Korwin?”

“We talked to him several times.”

“And?”

Connors shook his head. “Sorry, Molly.”

“Talk about his work, and he’s Mr. Congeniality. As soon as I brought up Lenore, he was nervous.”

“Why wouldn’t he be? She was his patient. She’s dead. You’re a reporter asking questions he doesn’t want to answer.”

It was more than that. “He knows who the baby’s father is, doesn’t he?”

“If you’re hinting, try to be more subtle.”

“Was it Saunders? Just tell me that.”

He laughed. “You’re worse than the KGB. Korwin says he doesn’t know. That’s all I’m going to tell you.”

Maybe Betty Rowan knew.

Isaac, my landlord, was rocking on the porch glider. Perspiration dotted his wrinkled forehead and had plastered the sparse gray-white strands of hair to his scalp.

“How’s it going?” he asked as I walked up the three steps.

“Not bad.”

We chatted a minute. He told me about the week’s specials at the 99 Cents store and at the chain supermarkets. In return I gave him a few previews of the
Crime Sheet
. He loves bragging to his poker buddies that he’s in the know.

“How’s the boyfriend?” he asked.

“Which one?”

“The cute one who was here yesterday.”

“Even cuter.” I smiled. “Gotta go, Isaac. See you later.” I took a step toward my door.

“I have your
New Yorker
and some other magazines,” he said. “I wasn’t here when the mail came. Ernie left them in front of your door, and I didn’t want the gardener to get them wet when he hosed down the porch.”

He hoisted himself off the glider and disappeared upstairs into his apartment. A minute later he returned and handed me an armful of magazines that looked as though a dog had danced on them.

Inside my apartment I flipped through them as I walked to the kitchen. Among them was a heavy large brown manila envelope with a return address I didn’t recognize. The flap was open.

I walked back outside with the envelope. “This was open.”

“I saw that.” Isaac shook his head. “You oughta tell Ernie.”

I suspect that Isaac looks at my mail, but he’s never opened anything before, so I didn’t see why he’d start now. Back in the apartment, I kicked off my pumps and removed the contents of the envelope—a manuscript, accompanied by a cover letter, from a cousin’s friend who wanted to know if I’d read his work and recommend an agent.

I put the manuscript and letter at the side of my desk. I’m happy to help new writers, but I’m always anxious about what to say if I don’t like their work. And who am I to judge? I hated
The Bridges of Madison County
.

I had two voice messages—one from an irate Robert Saunders, whose call I had no intention of returning, another from Nina. Nothing from Betty Rowan. I was in the kitchen, enjoying a glass of milk with a Pepperidge Farm Sausalito cookie while looking through the rest of my mail, when the phone rang.

“I was just about to leave a second message,” Nina said. “I can’t believe what they said on the news, that Lenore was killed. It’s so awful.” Her voice quavered, and she sounded as though she was about to cry.

“They’re not sure what happened, Nina.”

“But if it’s true . . . They said she was pregnant. She must have just found out, or she would have told me. I guess Robbie’s the father, because she wasn’t seeing anyone else. I guess she was trying to hold on to him.”

“Did she tell you that they’d been together?”

“No. She probably thought I’d disapprove. But I wish she had, because I could have been there for her. She must have felt so alone. That’s probably why she phoned me that night.”

I put down my glass. “Lenore phoned you? When?”

“Late that night, or early morning. She left a message, but my machine is in the den, and I turn off the ringer in my bedroom at night so the phone won’t wake me. So I didn’t hear it, and I didn’t see the message until morning.”

I wondered why Nina hadn’t mentioned this before. “What did she say?”

“That she wanted me to call Robbie and tell him to come. That she had to see him. I keep thinking that if I hadn’t turned off my ringer, if I’d talked to her . . . It’s so awful, isn’t it? Every time I think about it, I feel like crying. I didn’t go in to work, I’m so depressed.”

“Maybe you should see Dr. Korwin, Nina.”

“I couldn’t get an appointment. The receptionist said she’d try to squeeze me in tomorrow.”

I felt a twinge of guilt at having taken her spot. “Was there something you wanted to tell me, Nina?” She didn’t answer. “You left a message for me.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so . . . It’s about Lenore’s journal. The one she told you about?”

I felt a flicker of excitement. “What about it?”

“She kept a record in it of Robbie’s business dealings. That was when she saw he was going through with the divorce.”

“She told you this?”

“I was at her apartment one night when he called. She was depressed and angry. She went into her bedroom to talk, but I could hear her yelling at him, saying she didn’t trust him, that he kept lying to her and she knew it was Jillian’s fault, but she didn’t care. She was tired of his promises, she’d written it all down in her journal, everything, she could ruin him. . . .” Her voice trailed off. “Do you think I should tell the police?”

“Absolutely.” I waited while she got paper and pen, and gave her Connors’s name and phone number. “Do you know what she wrote?”

“I asked her, after she hung up. Names and dates, the amount of money involved. I don’t know details. They wouldn’t have meant anything to me, anyway. I think he must have threatened her, because she looked scared.
I
was scared. She told me she wasn’t going to do it. She was just so
angry
. She wanted to worry him.”

Robbie hadn’t known that, I thought. Neither had the people whose names Lenore had recorded.

“That Wednesday when Lenore was in the hospital, when she was feeling better?” Nina said. “She asked me to bring her the journal.”

I forced myself to sound casual. “Did you?”

“I couldn’t find it, but I was in a rush to get to the hospital. I was planning to go back to look again, but then . . . then she was dead.” Nina paused. “I think that’s why she was so upset that night. Maybe she thought Robbie took it. That could be why she left you that message, telling you she was afraid. I don’t
think
he took it, because how would he get into her apartment? And if he did, who broke in later and vandalized it?”