Hold Me in Contempt (11 page)

“Overuse?” I laughed uneasily. “Are you joking? Overuse. . . .  ​You . . .  ​you make it sound like I'm—”

“No. Nothing like that,” Dr. Davis said, placing his hand on my arm. “We were just interested in your recovery time and the number of pills you seem to take.”

“And.”

“All of the pills in your last dosage were placebos—sugar pills,” he said.

“I know what a placebo is—and those pills, they weren't sugar pills. They made me feel better,” I explained.

“Maybe they did,” Dr. Davis said.

“I know what you're doing,” I said, feeling more agitated with him sitting beside me and placing his hand on my arm. “And stop. Don't patronize me. I know what I feel and I know what those pills did.”

“The only way those pills could work to relieve your pain is if your pain isn't real. If it's . . . ​in your head.”

I hadn't realized I was crying again until Dr. Davis reached over to his desk for the box of tissues and placed it in my lap.

“You weren't there. You don't know what happened. They're getting married.”

“Who's getting married, Kimberly? Can you tell me? Maybe you should talk to someone about . . .”

Dr. Davis was talking about a lot of nothing. I couldn't believe he was making light of my pain. Of the kicking in my back. Every day, every night, I felt like I was cracking wide open, and he wanted to talk about some damn placebos and suggest that I needed to talk to someone?

I stood up and looked down on him. He was making it sound like there was something wrong with me and not him for shirking his duty. I mean, I was having chronic pain. My accident had caused me chronic pain, and there was only one way to deal with it. But there he was acting like Dr. Oz.

“Is this about what happened here at my first office visit?” I asked, cutting off his silly suggestion that I see one of his psychiatrist friends in Chelsea.

“What?” he asked, trying to look surprised.

“Come on,” I said. “Let's just be honest. Ever since I started coming here, you've been, you know, checking me out.”

He got up from his seat and looked at me in mock distress, like he didn't know what I was talking about.

“Really? So, you're going to keep on with that?” I chuckled as I stood before him. “Well, if you want to play like that, I'll say this: We both know who you are and who I am. Right?” He shook his head in agreement. “And we both know that sexual harassment is a very serious charge. One I don't take lightly. Do you understand that?”

“I wasn't . . .  ​I-I—”

“You what?”

“I wasn't trying to do anything to you.” He reached over to his desk and picked up a photo frame that had been facing away from me. He turned it to me, and there he was standing on a beach with a white girl and a little mixed toddler with a blond Afro. “I've been in a committed relationship for seven years.” He tried to hand me the little cream-colored frame.

I held up my hands and backed away.

“Really?” I said, grabbing my purse. “That's your defense. You know how many men who are actually married still try to abuse their power? Whatever.” I started walking out.

“Please don't leave, Kimberly,” Dr. Davis said in this fake, plastic voice that sounded like he was about to do something really lame like call security.

“I'm getting another doctor. You don't want to manage my pain? Someone else will. Good day!”

He began to follow me out of the office, apologizing and begging me to contact his friend in Chelsea, but when we got into the waiting room and it was filled with people trying to get his attention, he stopped.

“I'll call you to set up a meeting,” he said to my back. “You call me back. Call me back if you need anything!”

I kept walking right out into the street, where the high morning sun stung my eyes. There was no way I'd make it through the rest of the day without something. The Jameson and ibuprofen were wearing off, and already my lower back was stinging.

On the way to the office I figured I'd leave early to get into bed and come up with a plan before things got too bad, but once the elevator dinged open on my floor, Carol was in position waiting for me, arms extended, face all red.

“Oh, you're here!” she said before stepping off the elevator.

“Could you just wait until I get to my office?” I snapped. “Get in the door?”

“But it's important,” she said, holding her hands out in front of me to stop me.

“Isn't it always important? Every day? Welcome to my life. Everything is important.”

“We need to talk,” she said, her voice thin and conciliatory. And even with my aggravation at Dr. Davis for leaving me hanging and Carol attacking me upon entry and my back pain and everything else, I knew I needed to stop and listen to her. “Bernard Richard is dead.”

“Who's dead?”

“Bernard Richard. The witness. The one in the Christopher Street meth-lab case.” She pulled me to the back of the elevator bank as two of my colleagues walked past looking at me with the accusatory stares.

“But he was just here. Dead?” I said, remembering him sitting across from me in the conference room. His scared eyes. The black car he described outside his window. “What happened?”

“Well, the gossip is that Alvarez put a hit out on him. Final report isn't back yet from downtown, but the word is that someone was waiting for him in the apartment when he got home last night—now that's what people are saying. But, you know—”

“Fuck. Fuck. How'd that happen? I sent an officer out there with him,” I said, and then whispered. “He had protection. You know that. Right? So if that's what people are saying—that he didn't have protection—they're wrong.”

Two more ADAs, one who'd started at the DA's office with me, walked by with their fake smiles and whispers. When they were gone, I looked at Carol and her still-red cheeks. “Get Chief Elliot on the phone. This won't go on un—”

“Kimberly—” Carol cut in.

“We can't have this. That man was serving the state. We can't let it get out that he died under our protect—”

“Kimberly!” Carol nearly shouted. “Listen to me.”

“What?”

“He wasn't under our protection. Remember?”

“What? I sent him home with an officer.”

“Yes, you did,” she offered, returning to her conciliatory tone. “But . . . ” She paused.

“What?”

She whispered sharply, “You didn't order full protection. He only had an escort home. That's all.”

“No, I didn't.” I laughed nervously at Carol's confusion. “I ordered protection for him. I listened to him in there.” I pointed down the hallway toward the conference room. “I heard him. I told him—”

Carol cut me off. “You told him not to worry. You sent him home. I've been reading the transcripts.”

“I—” Pieces of a blurry conversation with Bernard flashed in my mind. I remembered him looking at the bookshelves, asking for a smoke. The fear in his eyes. The story of the woman with the yellow eyes and cheese grater on her back.

I started walking toward my office again without saying anything to Carol, but she was up on my heels and still talking.

“I'll clear this up,” I said over her, but it was a fool's statement. We both knew what the situation was adding up to. Where the fault would fall. And God, if the press got word.

“I think it might be too late,” Carol said in a low voice, so that an assistant walking past with arms filled with folders couldn't hear her.

“What? Why do you say that?” I asked. “Is there something else? Anything else I need to know?”

“Paul.”

“What? Fuck! He knows? Of course he does,” I said. “Now wait. Calm down,” I said to Carol. “No need to panic. I just need to sit down . . .  ​in my office to figure this out. To get in front of it. I can do this. I can explain everything. You saw Bernard, right? You know he was high. You said it yourself. We just need to get the story straight.”

“We're going to need to. And faster than you think.” Carol pointed to my open office door. “Paul is in there with Chief Elliot. They're waiting for you.”

“In my office? For what?”

“A meeting. They called it this morning when the word got out about Bernard.”

“A meeting?” I looked down at my clothes for some reason. “What? Why didn't you tell me?”

“I called you a couple of times—even though you told me not to. I left a message,” Carol said. “Kimberly, I think this is serious.”

“Did you hear anything?” I asked. “What they've been saying?”

“No.”

“Okay. Okay,” I said, rolling through what they could want, what I had to say, what I needed to say. I handed Carol my purse, shoulder bag, and cell phone.

We stood eye to eye for a second as I adjusted my skirt and broke off to walk at top pace toward my office.

“Hold all calls,” I instructed her. “And print those transcripts from the meeting.”

“Yes.”

When I got to my office, Easter Summer, an ADA who was always in my business with Paul, was walking toward me with her laptop in her arms. She'd started two years behind me but was fast becoming a prospective shoe-in for joining my team. And I could never figure out why. She was second-string material at best. Didn't seem to have a mind of her own and was mostly good at taking and following direction.

“Oh. I'm not too late,” she said, smiling with her red lips. She was black Latin. Had skin the color of sand and black freckles on her forehead.

“Late?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said, walking into my office in front of me. “For the meeting.”

Paul and Chief Elliot stood when we walked in. Elliot was a “tough on drug” hire the police commissioner put in office. One name on a short list of black police chiefs in New York's history, Elliot made sure to keep a spotless record. But he was an old-school male chauvinist whose dingy dealings with female officers and subordinates remained the talk. The
Daily News
once quoted him saying, “I'm in no way saying female officers shouldn't have guns, but I am saying that I'm sure if they did a study to compare misfires between males and female officers, the more fair sex would come out on top.” Still, Paul doted on Elliot like he was the Superman of the city. He may have been a jerk, but that only gave him more credibility in a system that saw chauvinism as a part of the culture. Paul claimed he didn't like it when I pointed out the most obvious offenses to him, but then Elliot gave Paul his very own man-sized toy car in the form of a police wagon he could drive around Manhattan, running lights and acting a fool wherever he wanted, and they became thick as thieves.

Paul smiled at Easter and gestured for her to sit in one of three chairs they'd pulled in from the conference room.

“Good morning,” I said, trying so hard to sound light. “I didn't know we were meeting today, so excuse my lateness.”

“We didn't know we were meeting either,” Paul said. “But Counselor, it seems sometimes the most essential meetings are unplanned.”

“Chief Elliot,” I greeted the chief, returning the nod he gave after removing his hat.

Walking to my chair behind the desk, I kept my eye on Easter as she crossed her legs and clicked on her laptop.

“So, what do we have here?” I asked eagerly, leaning toward the three of them sitting in a row before my seat. I knew it was important that I appear in control and in the know. “Now, I'm already ahead on the situation with Bernard. Very sad. A major setback, but I have other witnesses I can get to. We can still move forward. I think our real problem is with Alvarez being able to order a hit from behind bars. Anyone looking into that situation?”

“That's purely speculative and you know it. We're focusing here right now,” Paul said.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Easter was typing away on her laptop like some secretary.

“Nothing to focus on. I've got it under control,” I said.

“A man is dead,” Chief Elliot pointed out.

“Yes. He is deceased. And—”

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Easter lifted the laptop and crossed her legs, kicking a little red toenail up through the peephole in her black patent leather shoes. Both Paul and Elliot took it in.

“Look,” I went on. “I know this may seem like a major bump, but I know we can—”

“Counselor, you know how serious this is,” Paul said, looking back at me. “I'm sure you do. Bernard Richard was here just days ago. We have the transcripts from the meeting. He told you—”

“I know what he told me.”

“I need to make sure my officers are not taking the rap for this one,” Chief Elliot jumped in. “Can't get the press off my dick—now, you ladies excuse my expression. But you understand. Whenever anything happens, everyone wants to blame us.”

“I assure you that won't be the case here,” Paul said to him. “The blame is not being kicked around.”

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

“Not being kicked around?” I said, looking into Paul's eyes. “Who said there's any blame at all?”

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Easter looked up at me and then quickly back down at her laptop when our eyes met.

“Counselor,” Paul said, addressing me without saying my name for the third time, “perhaps I misspoke. This isn't about blame. But it is about clarity. About what we know.”

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Every click on the keyboard felt like a razor blade up my spine. Easter hadn't said a word, but somehow she was the beat of the conversation. Of course, I was trying to figure out why she was there. For sure, it wasn't to take notes. This was leading somewhere that I probably didn't want to be. I'd seen ADAs fired for the smallest infractions, especially ones that could blemish the DA's record or make a mockery of the department. But when I heard Elliot was in my office with Paul, I was certain this wasn't going to be my fate. They were probably just trying to kick me around, see what I knew and tell me to lie low. But Easter being included was uncommon. I knew she wanted to be on my team, so it went without saying that any loss I'd have was a gain for her.