“That’s right,” he said. “About the Inland Empire murders. My aunt was a victim.”
“And Dr. Bloom is an expert in criminal psychiatry,” he said. “That’s why you wanted to talk to him.”
The detective said it like a statement, not a question. Quentin decided it was best to agree.
“You didn’t speak to Dr. Bloom after that one conversation in his office?”
“Detective Morasco,” Quentin said. “Has... has something happened?”
He didn’t answer right away. Quentin leaned into the silence, his heart pounding. “Detective?”
“He’s dead, Mr. Garrison.”
Quentin felt numb. “Oh... Oh my God.”
“Do you think you may be able to come by the station? Or we can meet you in the city, if it’s easier.”
“What about Mrs. Bloom? Is she all right?”
“I’d prefer to talk more about this in person.”
“I can come by the station,” Quentin heard himself say. “I have a rental car.”
“That would be great. It won’t take long.”
Quentin said good-bye and hung up, both hands trembling. The phone started pulsing like a beating heart and he looked at the screen. An app he’d downloaded on the plane: news alerts for Westchester County. He clicked on one of them. Read the article all the way through. Noted psychiatrist Dr. Mitchell Bloom and his wife, Renee, had been shot in what was thought to have been a home invasion. Renee Bloom was in critical condition. Mitchell Bloom was dead.
MITCHELL BLOOM, MD.Gold letters on clouded glass. Dr. Bloom had no receptionist, just a small waiting room and he’d stepped out into it—a big man, a few inches taller than Quentin and with a kind, owlish face. A double take, once he saw the stranger in his waiting room.I thought you were my four o’clock, Dr. Bloom had said. And then Quentin had told him why he was there.
They’d talked for around half an hour, with no tape recorder running, Dr. Bloom playing psychiatrist. Quentin trying to play interviewer.
Closure. That’s an interesting name.
It was my coproducer’s idea.
Do you think closure is possible for you, Mr. Garrison?
Huh?
For all intents and purposes, you’re the survivor of a murder that happened nearly twenty years before you were born. Don’t you believe it might be wishful thinking for you to think that type of pain can be fixed?
As I said. My coproducer thought of the name.
Your coproducer?
Actually, my coproducer and my husband. They thought of the name together.
Do you think it might be wishful thinking on their part, then? Your coproducer and your husband? Do you think they might care for you so much, they’re hoping for the impossible?
Quentin, trying to play interviewer and getting angrier and angrier...
As he made his way down the library steps, Quentin’s skin flushed even hotter than the stale humid air around him, images flashing through his mind from that same night... of the Blooms’ Tudor home, the lush green lawn and the big bay window, the TV flickering from the upstairs window, the hum of cicadas outside, the heavy scent of lilies planted along the edge of the yard. That lovely home, that loving family.
How long had Quentin stood outside Dr. Mitchell Bloom’s house, remembering that half hour in his office, simmering over the way Dr. Bloom had pried his way into Quentin’s darkest thoughts without answering a single one of his questions? Mitchell Bloom, MD, with his lovely, gold-lettered life and no need for closure.
Watching the house from the window of his rental car, Quentin had slipped his recorder out of his pocket.Mitchell Bloom can sleep at night, he had said into it, his voice tight with anger.Whether his wife is a murderer or not.
Stop thinking like that. Stop thinking.As he reached the parking garage where he’d left his rental car, Quentin told himself that as soon as he could, he needed to find all the recordings he’d made last night. All those observations he’d spoken into his mic, his thoughts burning and popping. Everything he had said. Everything he had done. It needed to be erased.
