CHAPTER 7 CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN BELDING

The night before my appointment with Janet Parkman, I slept poorly. Ted Glenville took center stage in my dreams, still reluctant to loosen his hold on me. It was like an endless film loop, reliving that night, again and again. My subconscious mind refused to let me flee. He kept taunting me; calling me a stupid little Latina whore; accusing me of sleeping with his father like the other murdered women did, of disrespecting his mother. Telling me I deserved to die. What kind of bitch was I to think I could mess with him? I could feel his excitement as he grabbed me around the neck. I could smell his body as he pulled me closer to him. I felt the air escape from my lungs as my body struggled to fight him off. Then there was the moment I saw and felt first the ground as I fell, followed by the earth rising up to meet the back of my head, followed by the shock of pain, then the blackness, deeper and darker than any I'd ever experienced. When I was finally released from the train wreck movie playing in my head, I awakened foggy brained and exhausted, my stomach knotted with that familiar feeling of dread; my sheets tangled and soaked with sweat, my throat hoarse. Once more, I'd unknowingly screamed myself awake. I looked up at my ceiling, wondering why I thought that going to see Eve's shrink would help. Why had I agreed to it? Lying there in the mess of my bed, I came up with my escape plan. I'd tell Dr. Parkman I'd been drunk when I agreed to see her. I'd been plied with tequila and I'd just wanted to stop Eve Dwyer from asking questions she had no business asking, making an appointment only to get her off my back. Today, I was fine, thank you very much, doctor, I was recovering nicely, both mentally and physically, and I'd be sure to settle the bill on my way out the door; sorry to have taken up your time that should have been used on someone with real problems. I felt that nothing she could offer would help, nor was there anything that really could. I threw the bed sheets off, dragged myself out of bed, made coffee, showered, dressed, and took a thermos cup over to the small park across the street from the apartment drinking it while watching the sky brighten and the fog start to burn off. I hadn't liked the last shrink I went to. I'd gone only because I knew that the department wanted to cover themselves from all eventualities, including placing me on medical retirement or more critical, my filing a negligence lawsuit against the department. The shrink I met with was the assistant head of BSU, the Behavioral Science Unit, what we all called Boo Soo.

He'd stared at me, owl-eyed, over his glasses from across his polished desk with the window with the bay view, my file open before us on the desktop, uttering jargon-laden phrases and platitudes, asking what I thought were inane questions, about my relationship with Mark and Ed, did I ever think of them as more than just professional partners, and the Chief. Wasn't I just substituting him as a surrogate for my own deceased father? I felt that he wasn't about helping me. He'd never spent a day in a cop's shoes. His concern, I felt was a sham, a way to wheedle into my confidence. The array of diplomas and certificates on his walls showed me he spent far more time in academia and conference presentations than he did walking a beat with an officer or handling a call. I don't think he ever dealt with the immediacy of a shooting or had to deal with people we dealt with whose lives were forever changed by one senseless action, called any of the names we were called, nor took any of the other types of abuse we faced. He got to go home to his family at 5 pm every weekday, had the weekends and holidays off, and would never understand the schedule Robert Ironside had us on. He was more concerned about knowing who I wanted to date, or if I was looking for a new father, than he was in finding out how I neglected friends and family, hiding from them after being let out of the hospital and transferred to the rehab center. He certainly should have been interested in my becoming a fixture at liquor stores on Geary and my over-reliance on the painkillers prescribed for me. He admitted during our last session that he really just wanted to know when I thought I could work again. How was I to know? He was the professional.

Eve said Dr. Parkman was different. She saw her as having two advantages; she'd started out as a beat cop before changing careers and she knew how to ask the hard questions and get answers that would actually help. Eve had done that in our first conversation, her questions and comments had been direct, but I'd taken it and dared her to dish out more. In retrospect, maybe Nietzsche was right, possibly I was stronger than I looked or thought. I decided it was time that perhaps I should ignore Escape Plan A, and accept that it was time to develop a Plan B, one that included my friends and maybe Janet Parkman.

I could feel the sun beginning to warm me. My mug was empty and I debated going back to the apartment and getting another cup. Across the way, I heard the muffled sounds of conversation and saw the small group of people that came to the park faithfully each morning greeting each other and beginning to perform the graceful dance movements of Tai Chi. Many of them were dressed in white Mandarin collared button-down jackets and black pants. I began to pull out the small pad I kept in my back pocket to sketch them. Just as I started; the leader smiled at me gesturing that I should join them instead. Smiling back, I shook my head and started to refuse, but then I felt drawn to them. Walking towards them, I found a spot on the grass and, as best I could, joined the dance.