Sacred Sins

you.”
    “No, it's lies. You're full of sin and lies.” She heard him begin to mumble the Lord's Prayer before the connection was broken.

    W HEN Ben walked back into the squad room, Lowenstein was standing by her desk. She signaled to him, cradling the phone against her ear so her hands would be free.
    “She can't keep away from me,” Ben told Ed. He started to slip an arm around her, not aiming for her waist, but for the bag of chocolate-covered raisins on her desk.
    “He called Court again,” Lowenstein told him. His hand froze.
    “When?”
    “Call came through at 11:21.”
    “The trace?”
    “Yeah.” She lifted a pad from her desk and handed it to him. “They pinned it to that area. Had to be within those four blocks. Goldman said she did real good.”
    “Christ, we were just there.” He tossed the pad back on her desk. “We might have driven right past him.”
    “The captain's sent out Bigsby, Mullendore, and some uniforms to comb the area and look for witnesses.”
    “We'll give them a hand.”
    “Ben. Ben, wait.” He stopped, turning back with impatience. Lowenstein pressed the mouthpiece of the phone against her shoulder. “They're sending up a transcript of the call for the captain. I think you'll want to see it.”
    “Fine, I'll read it when I get back.”
    “I think you'll want to see it now, Ben.”

    A few hours' work at the Donnerly Clinic was enough to take Tess's mind off her own nerves. The patients there ranged from manic-depressive businessmen to street junkies who were withdrawing. Once a week, twice if her schedule permitted, she came to the clinic to work with the staff doctors. Some of the patients she would only see once or twice, others she would see week after week, month after month.

    She gave her time there, when she could, because it wasn't an elite hospital where the rich came when their problems or addictions became too much to cope with. Neither was it a street-side clinic run by idealists on a shoestring. It was a struggling and capable institution which took in the emotionally and mentally ill from all walks of life.
    There was a woman on the second floor with Alzheimer's disease who sewed dolls for her grandchildren, then played with them herself when she forgot she had grandchildren. There was a man who thought he was John Kennedy and spent most of his day harmlessly writing speeches. The more violent patients were kept on the third floor, where security was tighter. Thick glass doors were locked and windows were barred.
    Tess spent most of the afternoon there. By five she was nearly wrung dry. For the better part of an hour she'd been in session with a paranoid schizophrenic who had hurled obscenities then his lunch tray at her, before he'd ultimately been restrained by two orderlies. Tess had given him an injection of Thorazine herself, but not without regret. He'd be on medication for the rest of his life.
    When he was quiet again, Tess left him to catch a few moments of quiet in the staff lounge. She still had one more patient to see: Lydia Woods, a thirty-seven-year-old woman who had run a household with three children, held down a full-time job as a stock broker, and worked as president of the PTA. She had cooked gourmet meals, attended every school function, and had been named Businesswoman of the Year. The new woman, who could have and handle it all.
    Two months before, she had fallen violently apart at a school play. There had been convulsions, and a seizure many of the horrified parents had taken for epilepsy.

    When she'd been taken to the hospital it was discovered she'd been in a withdrawal as serious as one from heroin addiction.
    Lydia Woods had held together her perfect world with Valium and alcohol until her husband had threatened divorce. To prove her strength, she'd gone cold turkey and had ignored her physical reactions in a desperate attempt to keep her life as she had structured it.
    Now, though the physical illness was well under control, she was being forced to deal with the causes, and the results.
    Tess took the elevator down to the first floor, where she requested Lydia's file. After studying it, Tess tucked it under her arm. Her room was at the end of the hall. Lydia had left the door open, but Tess knocked before going in.
    The curtains were drawn, the room dim. There were flowers beside the bed, pink carnations. Their scent was light and sweet and hopeful. Lydia herself was on the bed, curled up to face the blank wall. She