The Prodigy Part 6

"I thought the library would be best."

"You're sure you don't want us out here?" Hobbs asked.

"No," she met Ed's gaze, thankful for his concern. "So where's the library?" she asked, trying not to be intimidated by Jimmy's environs.

"This way," and turning his back on the detectives, he picked up the Siamese cat and strode across the foyer to a pair of paneled doors with bronze handles in the form of North Wind heads. He pushed them open and Barrett got her first glimpse of the cavernous, book-lined room.

"Wow!" she muttered, as she followed him into the two-story library. She immediately noted the cello and wooden music stand positioned next to a concert-grand piano. "That was you playing," she stated.

"Yes."

"You sounded wonderful. Brahms?"

"The E Minor. You like Brahms?"

"Very much," she admitted, barraged with information. This was not the man she remembered. Her one interaction with Jimmy Martin had been with a hulking and obese patient, whose hands shook and whose eyes were barely visible beneath folds of fat.

"The piano part is beautiful," he commented. "I have it out ... if you'd like to play."

She stopped in front of a pair of oxblood leather-upholstered club chairs arranged around a carved marble fireplace, with Grecian women on the sides and an open-mouthed gargoyle in the center. "That's not why I'm here," she replied curtly, wondering how it was that he had a.s.sumed she could play. Had he and Ellen talked? Maybe she'd told him about their shared past.

"I'm sorry," he said, "it's just that Dr. Kravitz liked to play duets."

Barrett stood behind a leather chair, "We should talk about that."

"If that's what you'd like." He sank into a leather chair, stroked the cat and watched her intently as she sat across from him.

"Before we start," Barrett began, slightly unnerved by the two pairs of startling blue eyes that followed her every movement, "we need to be clear about a few things."

"Yes?"

"First, because you're under a forensic board release agreement, what we talk about is not confidential. Even though you're footing the bill, I am expected to make a full report back to the board every month."

"I understand."

"Also, if I find that you've violated any of the conditions of your release, I am obliged by law to report that."

Jimmy stiffened, "Yes."

"Just so long as you understand this from the beginning. Do you have any questions?"

"No."

"Good," Barrett regretted her sternness, but experience had taught her that it was best to clarify up front. Forensic psychiatry was different from therapy. While Jimmy was her patient, her loyalty belonged to the State of New York and toward preserving public safety. "I was sorry to hear about Dr. Kravitz," she continued, having gotten through her disclaimer.

"He wasn't a very good pianist," Jimmy remarked. "But it's odd, I'd gotten used to him being here. This is exactly when we'd meet."

"Would he play the Brahms with you?"

"Too hard. We'd play other things, mostly the kind of stuff I did when I was a little kid."

"You've played a long time?"

"My whole life. But they wouldn't let me at Croton."

"I can't help but notice how different you look from that one time we met. It must have been what, three years ago?"

"But I remember you," he blurted, his tone almost like a child's. "You seemed very nice, not like all of the others. That's why I asked for you."

His information startled her. "You asked for me?"

"Yes, you didn't know?"

"No," she admitted, wondering why Anton hadn't told her.

"Does that matter?"

"No," she wondered if she'd misinterpreted what Anton had said, and why hadn't Ellen mentioned it? "But what you were saying about Dr. Kravitz ... that the two of you played music. Do you miss him?"

"I only knew him for a few months. He visited me at Croton once it was clear they were going to let me out. And then he started seeing me here every Thursday. At first, we'd sit and talk ... like this, but every time he came he'd go over to the piano. I could see he wanted to play, and so one day I offered; it made the time go by."

"Don't you think that's odd?" she asked.

"I don't know. Before Croton I never had anything to do with psychiatrists, and now I must have met over a hundred. Some of them were very strange. I don't think Kravitz playing duets with me would even make it into the top ten of weird. Like your coming here; is this normal?"

"Not really," she admitted, feeling his eyes boring into hers.

"But you're here, anyway- albeit with cops in my kitchen. That's kind of how things go for me."

"I don't understand."

"I've had a strange life, starting right at the beginning. I don't think people even realize that kind of thing until they're much older, but when you look back, you can see how it is you got to be the way you are. Do you know what I mean?"

"I think so, but can you be more specific?" she asked, wondering whether his story would match up with Ellen's. "What made your childhood strange?"

He grunted, "What didn't? It was like living in quicksand, where anything solid could suddenly slip away and you'd be left struggling just to keep alive."

"And your sister?"

"Right ..." He looked down at Fred who lay curled and purring in his lap. "She was the only thing I could grab onto. We had each other."

"Even when you were in the hospital she looked after you, didn't she?"

"Yes. They wouldn't have let me out if it weren't for her. As far as my parents were concerned, I could have stayed there forever."

"You know that she didn't want me to interview you when you were in Croton."

"Yes."

"Why was that?" Barrett asked, comparing his responses to the sister's, and to what actually had happened.

"She thought you might make it harder for me to get out."

"How is that?" she asked, watching for subtle physical and verbal cues that could reveal the presence of lies.

"It's like you said, whatever we talk about isn't confidential. And things have a way of getting twisted in the retelling. You weren't the only one who wanted to use me as a ... a test subject."

"You were going to say something else," she prompted.

He gently wiped a bit of sleep from out of the corner of the cat's eye. "A guinea pig."

She smiled back, "It's a beautiful cat."

"His name's Fred."

"Why Fred?"

"Frederic Chopin."

She stopped herself from blurting that Chopin was her favorite composer. "How old is he?"

"The vet thinks he's about six months old."

"You don't know?"

"My case manager found him in the garbage one morning as he was coming with my medication. He was with two other kittens and they were both dead. He brought him over and I fed him with an eye dropper. He was so tiny and for a while I didn't know if he would live or not." He stroked the cat under the chin, "But he's getting to be quite the fat little thing."

"I can't get over how different you look," Barrett said, noting how gentle he was with the kitten, and that Jimmy Martin was a good-looking man.

"I was huge," he admitted. "It's what that place does to you."

"What do you mean?"

His expression darkened, "I try not to think about that."

"You were very young when you went into the hospital."

"I was eighteen," his breath caught.

"Do you remember much about what got you arrested?"

"Do we have to talk about that?"

"Yes," she urged, sensing a s.h.i.+ft in Jimmy, something different in the eyes, the voice, the posture.

"Dr. Kravitz didn't make me."

"I'm not him, Jimmy. I'm going to need to know how you think about your crime; it's part of my job."

"I don't think about it. I was out of my mind."

"And you're not now?"

"No, that's behind me."

"You were found in Nicole Foster's apartment."

"Please don't do this," he rubbed the sides of his head, pus.h.i.+ng his carefully brushed silky blond hair into tangled twirls.

"We're going to have to talk about it sometime, Jimmy."

"Why? I want to forget! You don't know how many times I've been asked these questions. I don't remember, and yes, I feel terrible. If I could have it all come undone I would, but I can't. If I could have those years of my life back, you can't imagine what that would be worth to me."

"What about Nicole Foster's life?" Barrett asked, wondering if Jimmy's remorse was real or feigned.

"Of course," he said, but not convincingly, "I feel terrible for what happened to her ... and her boyfriend, their families." He glanced up at Barrett, his eyes pleading. "Couldn't we play the Brahms instead?"

"No." She wondered at the fear in his eyes.

"Why not?" he blinked and started to rock in his chair. Fred startled, jumped from Jimmy's lap and ran beneath a couch.

"Okay," she eased back, "we'll talk about something else. How did you manage to lose so much weight?"

Jimmy's breathing slowed and he sat still, "Once I knew they were going to let me out of that place, I pretty much stopped eating, and tried to exercise as much as I could. They'd let me take walks on the grounds and so I'd go for hours and hours. I lost a hundred and twenty pounds."

"That's impressive." Barrett studied him, generating a quick differential of how and why he could have changed so dramatically. "Losing weight can be quite challenging for someone who's on the medications you're taking."

His head shot up.

"Are you taking your medication?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered too quickly. His pale eyes narrowed.

"Are you?" she persisted, noticing that the strong lithium tremor he'd had in the hospital was absent.

"I said, yes."

"You know I have to check, and I can tell you that you don't look like someone who's taking medication."

"What are you trying to do to me?" he spat out.

Barrett tensed. "I'm not trying to do anything, Jimmy, but let's be clear. Part of your release agreement is that you'll take all prescribed medications and that you won't miss a single dose without a very good reason."

He started to rock again, "You don't know what it's like."

"That's true, I don't. But I do know that you were found not guilty by reason of insanity for a very serious crime."

"I never touched her," he interrupted.