Leslie Weingarden’s office was on the ground floor, toward the rear of the building. Her nameplate listed her specialties as Internal Medicine and Women’s Health Issues. Her waiting room was small and decorated in budget good-cheer- white-and-gray miniprint paper, overstuffed white cotton chairs and Danish-modern tables, a scattering of art prints, a potted schefflera in a straw basket. No patients, but the remnants of the day’s traffic were apparent: gum wrappers, an empty aspirin bottle and a used emery board on the coffee table, magazines splayed open on the chairs.
I knocked on the glass partition, waited several seconds before it slid open. A Hispanic woman in her fifties looked out. “Can I help you?”
“Dr. Delaware. I have an appointment with Dr. Weingarden.”
“I’ll let her know you’re here.”
I waited for half an hour, leafing through magazines, wondering if any of them had carried Paul Kruse’s column. At six-thirty, the door to the inner office opened and a good-looking woman around thirty came out.
She was petite, very slender, with frosted short hair and a lean, alert face. She wore dangling silver earrings, a white silk blouse, pleated dove-gray gabardine slacks, and gray suede pumps. A stethoscope hung from around her neck. Under it was a heavy gold chain. Her features were delicate and regular, her eyes almond-shaped and dark brown. Like Robin’s. She wore little makeup. Didn’t have to.
I stood up.
“Mr. Delaware? I’m Dr. Weingarden.” She held out her hand and I shook it. Her bones were tiny; her grip, firm and dry. She placed both hands on her hips. “What can I do for you?”
“You referred patients to a psychologist named Sharon Ransom. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but she’s dead, committed suicide on Sunday. I wanted to talk to you about her. About getting in touch with those patients.”
No trace of shock. “Yes, I read the paper. What’s your involvement with her and her patients?”
“Mostly personal, somewhat professional.” I handed her my card.
She examined it. “You’re a psychologist too. Then it’s Dr. Delaware. Bea told me Mr.” She put the card in her pocket. “Were you her therapist?”
The question surprised me. “No.”
“Because she sure needed one.” Frown. “Why all the concern about her patients?”
“I ran into one of them today. D.J. Rasmussen. He gave me your name.”
That made her flinch but she said nothing.
“He was drunk,” I said. “Stoned drunk, really out of it. My hunch is that he was unbalanced to begin with, and is now at risk for some kind of breakdown. Maybe violence. Losing a therapist can be like losing a parent. I’ve been wondering how many of her other-”
“Yes, yes, of course. I understand all of that. But what I still don’t get is your concern. What’s your involvement in all of this?”
I thought about the best way to answer. “Some of it’s probably guilt. Sharon and I knew each other well- back in graduate school. I hadn’t seen her for years, ran into her by chance at a party last Saturday. She seemed upset about something, asked if she could talk to me. We made a date. I had second thoughts and canceled the next day. That night, she killed herself. I guess I’m still wondering if I could have stopped it. I’d like to prevent any more grief, if I can.”
She fingered her stethoscope and stared at me. “This is for real, isn’t it? You don’t work for some shyster lawyer, do you?”
“Why would I?”
She smiled. “So you want me to contact any patients I might have referred to her?”
“And tell me about any other referral sources you’re familiar with.”
The smile got cold. “That would be difficult, Dr. Delaware. Not a good idea at all- not that there were that many referrals, anyway. And I have no idea who else referred to her. Though I sure feel sorry for them.”
She stopped, seemed to be searching for words. “Sharon Ransom was a… She and I… Well, you tell me first. Why’d you break your date with her?”
“I didn’t want to get involved with her. She’s… She was a complicated woman.”
“She sure was.” She looked at her watch, removed the stethoscope. “All right, I’m going to make a call and check on you. If you’re who you say you are, we’ll talk. But I’ve got to eat first.”
She left me in the waiting room, came back several moments later, and said, “Okay,” without looking at me.
We walked a block to a coffee shop on Brighton. She ordered a tuna sandwich on rye and herb tea. I pushed rubbery scrambled eggs around on my plate.
She ate quickly, unceremoniously. Ordered a hot fudge sundae for dessert and finished half of it before pushing the dish away.
After wiping her mouth she said, “When they told me someone was calling about Sharon, frankly, I was uptight. She caused problems for me. We haven’t worked together for a long time.”
“What kinds of problems?”
“One second.” She called the waitress over and asked for a refill of tea. I ordered coffee. The check came with the drinks.
I took it. “On me.”
“Buying information?”
I smiled. “You were talking about the problems she caused.”
She shook her head. “Boy. I don’t know if I really want to get into this.”
“Confidential,” I promised.
“Legally? As in, you’re my therapist?”
“If that makes you comfortable.”
“Spoken like a true shrink. Yes, it makes me comfortable. We’re talking hot potato here-ethical problems.” Her eyes hardened. “There was no way for me to prevent it, but try telling that to a malpractice jury. When a shyster gets hold of something like that, he goes back in the chart, hits on every doc who’s ever passed the patient in the hall.”
“The last thing on my mind is fomenting a lawsuit,” I said.
“Last thing on my mind, too.” She slapped her hand on the table hard enough to make the salt shaker jump. “Darn it! She shafted me. Just thinking about her makes me mad. I’m sorry she’s dead, but I just can’t feel any grief. She used me.”
She sipped her tea.
“I only met her last year. She walked in, introduced herself, and invited me out to lunch. I knew what she was doing- hustling referrals. Nothing wrong with that. I’ve only been in practice a little over a year, have done my share of brown-nosing. And my first impression of her was very positive. She was bright, articulate, seemed to have it all together. Her résumé looked terrific- lots of varied clinical experience. Plus, she was right here, in the building- it’s always good business to cross-refer. Almost all my patients are women, most of them would be more comfortable with a female therapist, so I figured why not, give it a try. The only reservation I had was that she was so good-looking, I wondered if it mightn’t threaten some women. But I told myself that was sexist thinking, began sending her referrals- not that many, thank God. It’s a small practice.”
“Was her office on the third floor? With Dr. Kruse?”
“That’s the one. Only, he was never there, just her, by herself. She took me up there once- tiny place, just a postage-stamp waiting room and one consulting office. She was Kruse’s psychological assistant or something like that, had a license number.”
“An assistant’s certificate.”
“Whatever. Everything was kosher.”
Psychological assistant. A temporary position, aimed at providing experience for new Ph.D.’s under supervision of a licensed psychologist. Sharon had earned her doctorate six years ago, had been long eligible for full licensure. I wondered why she hadn’t gotten it. What she’d done for six years.
“Kruse wrote her this terrific letter of recommendation,” she said. “He was a faculty member at the University, so I figured that counted for something. I really expected it to work out. I was blown away when it didn’t.”
“Do you still have that résumé?”
“No.”
“Remember anything else from it?”
“Just what I told you. Why?”