Final Justice Part 79

"No. I thought I was in love with her. I had to prove my manhood, I guess."

Dr. Stein grunted.

"Amy thinks that your weeping over the girl in Doylestown was the first manifestation of your impending, uncontrollable psychological problems, and she feels the nightmares tend to confirm that theory."

Matt looked at him but didn't reply.

"You then were promoted to sergeant, and given your choice of a.s.signment, and chose Homicide, primarily because Homicide is considered the ne plus ultra ne plus ultra of warrior a.s.signments in the police department." of warrior a.s.signments in the police department."

Matt shook his head.

"The warriors-Amy's term-are Highway, the Bomb Squad . . .not Homicide," he said.

Dr. Stein shrugged but did not respond directly.

"Where you were immediately plunged into things beyond your capacity to deal with," he went on, "and to which you applied all of your best efforts. That, she believes, would have, so to speak, pushed you over the edge in and of itself, but then you became involved in this last incident, two nights ago, and that finally produced the inevitable result. You experienced an emotional meltdown, so to speak."

"Well, I guess she's got my number, doesn't she?"

"She believes she has correctly a.s.sessed the situation."

"And what does my all-wise sister think I should do about it?"

"That's pretty clear to her too. She thinks you should face who you really are, and that done, take the appropriate action, which would be for you to resign from the police force, go back to law school, and a.s.sume a more suitable life for someone with your psychological makeup."

"And you agree, right?"

"I didn't say that. Are you interested in what I think?"

"Yes, of course I am."

"I don't want you quoting me to her, Matt. I'd like your word on that."

"Sure."

"Your sister is a fine psychiatrist and a fine teacher. Perhaps for that reason I was terribly disappointed in just about everything she had to say, and certainly with her theories. They weren't at all professional-although she is so good that some details were valid-but rather the near maternal musings of a loving sister. Furthermore, she should have known that, and that you should not even think about treating someone you deeply care for. It clouds the judgment. In this case, spectacularly."

"You're saying she's wrong about everything?"

"Just about everything."

"She makes a lot of sense to me," Matt said. "So what do you think is wrong with me?"

"I told you when I first came in here. You're like a thoroughbred racehorse. You think you have a bottomless pit of energy from which to draw strength, physical and emotional, and that you're unstoppable. You don't and you are."

"I've found out that I'm stoppable, Dr. Stein. Did she tell you how I came apart?"

Matt mimed the rising of his trembling hand and slapping it down.

"In detail. Including how you wept and allowed yourself to be comforted as she held you like a mother. In short, Superman, you showed typical symptoms of emotional exhaustion. The treatment is basically rest and the admonition 'Don't push yourself so hard from now on.' "

"That's all?"

"I think you ought to see Dr. Michaels a couple of times. He said he'd be happy to, and you won't be the first cop he's talked to about something like this, because you are by no means the first cop something like this has happened to."

[SIX].

"Come in, Doctor," Aaron Stein said to Amy Payne. "We have to discuss the patient in 1411, and your relations.h.i.+p with the patient."

"What did Keyes Michaels have to say?" Amy asked.

"Dr. Michaels and I agree the patient was suffering from understandable emotional exhaustion, from which he-being of sound mind and body, so to speak-will recover rapidly with no lasting ill effects."

"Well, I don't agree with that, Aaron."

"As his attending physician, and after consultation with Dr. Michaels, I have decided that further hospitalization is not indicated, and I have ordered his release."

"Without consulting me?"

"That brings us to that, Doctor," Stein said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You're Matt's sister, Amy, not his physician. You seem to have forgotten that. It's unethical-not to mention stupid- for a physician to treat anyone with whom the physician has a familial or other emotional connection. It clouds the judgment. You know that. Or at least knew it. You seem to have forgotten."

"All right," she said after a moment. "I was wrong. Sorry."

"Have you ever heard the phrase 'Physician, heal thyself,' Doctor?"

"Of course I have."

"Would you be interested in my advice in how you can do that, Doctor?"

"I'd be interested to know what you think it is that needs healing, Doctor," Amy said, growing angry.

"I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll give you the formulation I would recommend, and from that, if you're half the intelligent, dedicated psychiatrist I think you are, you'll be able to deduce what I think is wrong with you."

"Please do, Doctor."

"Marry the cop, Amy. Have a baby. Have several babies."

She looked at him in genuine shock.

"You're serious, aren't you?"

He nodded.

"You're a young woman of childbearing age. Do what nature intended for you to do. Apply your very healthy, very normal maternal instincts to your own child, not your brother." He paused. "In my judgment, that would make you even a better psychiatrist than you already are."

She met his eyes but didn't reply.

"The formulation you developed for your brother applies to you. You're the overachiever workaholic, refusing to believe your well of strength can ever go dry. And the first symptom of your inevitable-unless you do something about it- emotional meltdown has been your delusionary relations.h.i.+p with your brother. You're not his mother, and you're not his doctor."

"Marry the cop? Have babies?"

He nodded again. After a moment, he added: "I'd like your word, Doctor, that insofar as the patient in 1411 is concerned, you will from this moment regard yourself as his sister, not his physician."

"Jesus!"

"I will interpret that as meaning 'Of course.' Now, take your brother home, and see if you can get him to take it easy."

[SEVEN].

"You free, Denny?" Police Commissioner Ralph J. Mariani asked from First Deputy Commissioner Coughlin's door.

"Of course."

"What do you hear about Matt?"

"His sister just called. They're about to let him out of the hospital. She's going to take him out to his parents' place in Wallingford."

"That was quick, wasn't it?"

"They say he's all right-that he was emotionally exhausted, is all."

" 'They say'? His sister, you mean?"

"No. He was examined by both our psychiatrist, Dr. Michaels . . . You know him?"

"Sure. Keyes Michaels. Good man. Comes from a whole family of cops."

"And Dr. Aaron Stein, who's the head shrink at UP Medical Center."

"I'm getting the feeling, Denny, that you don't like-"

"Between us?"

Mariani nodded.

"Dr. Michaels is really proud he took his psychiatrist residency under Dr. Aaron Stein. I would be very surprised if Michaels disagreed with Stein about anything. Even if he did."

"Meaning?"

"You weren't at Internal Affairs when Matty came apart," Coughlin said. "I was. I wanted to cry. I have trouble believing he's all right so soon."

"They're psychiatrists and you're not, Denny," Mariani said.

Coughlin shrugged.

"You asked, Ralph."

"Well, it was a good shooting," Mariani asked. He laid a folder on Coughlin's desk. "That's Mike Weisbach's initial report. Payne did everything by the book. One of the victims-the wife of the guy that got pistol-whipped- even wants to apologize for what she said to him-'Where the h.e.l.l were you when we needed you?'-when he walked up on it. She said she was upset, and wants to apologize. The only thing that wasn't done by the book was when the Dignitary Protection Lieutenant . . . What's his name?"

"McGuire."

". . . took Payne's weapon as evidence."

"Oh, Jesus."

"Payne's got a legitimate beef about that."

"He won't say anything," Coughlin said. "He's a good cop."

"But you're worried about him, right?"

"I'm worried about him. He needs a rest. A long one."

"That poses a problem. If Dr. Michaels has p.r.o.nounced him fit for duty, that means . . ."

Coughlin nodded, and finished the sentence: ". . . he's supposed to come to work tomorrow."

"You don't know if he's got any vacation coming?"

"Something over four hundred hours. I just checked his jacket."

"See that he takes thirty days of that, Denny. Make it an order."

Coughlin nodded.

[EIGHT].

Patricia Payne held both of her son's arms and looked intently up at him.

"Are you all right, sweetheart?"

"Amy says I have to wear the straitjacket only when I leave the property," Matt said. "She has it in her truck."

"Don't be such an a.s.s, Matt," Amy said. "You heard what Dr. Stein said."

"Which was?" Patricia Payne asked.

"That what Matt and a jacka.s.s have in common is that they don't know they have limits, and Matt reached his. All he needs is rest."

"He said 'thoroughbred racehorse,' " Matt said.

"And all he needs is rest?" Patricia Payne asked.

"That's it, Mom," Amy said. "Really."