Tail Spin

gun, then he slid it under his pillow and smiled at me. ‘Thank you, kiddo, I feel better now,’ he said. He was quiet for a while. Then he spoke of our family, his parents, our kids, and his patients—many other things, as well, bad things, painful things, but when I left I thought he seemed more centered, more like the old Tim, bright and funny.”
    She viciously wiped away the tears. “Oh, Jack, no one managed to get to him, no one murdered him. He did it himself, and I brought him the gun so he could do it.”
    Her words hung heavily in the room.
    Finally, Jack said, “Molly, we’ll get back to that. You told me he was himself again, the old Tim. Can you think of anything specific that could have been the catalyst for his killing himself?”
    She raised her white face, tears scoring her cheeks. “Yes, I realize now that it was me. I pushed him to it, Jack,” she said. Her eyes blurred and she choked. “I pushed him to do it.”
    Jack said, “Tell me.”
    Jack was aware that Savich and Sherlock had come into the room. They didn’t say anything, stood back against a wall. Molly said, “Tim started talking about his patients, the same three he’d spoken about so freely to Arthur Dolan, his friend and tennis mate, you know, the poor man who was murdered by that maniac up in New Jersey?”
    “Yes, I know.”
    “Tim said, ‘Molly, I didn’t even realize what I was saying was wrong. It all tripped happily out of my mouth, all of it, every confidential filthy detail, and I sang it all out, happy as a lark. I broke every ethical code I’ve lived by all my professional life. I accepted my patients’ trust and crushed them with it.
    “‘Look at what happened to Jean David—Pierre loved his son, Molly, both he and Estelle adored Jean David. He was their only child, they would have freely given their lives for him, and here I actually enjoyed telling Arthur—with that bartender listening in— what Jean David had done.
    “And now Jean David has drowned, and Pierre is wild with pain and grief and hatred for me. If Pierre is the one who’s been trying to kill me, then I hope he succeeds. I pushed him to it.
    “‘I am responsible for this tragedy, Molly, no one else.’
    “He stopped talking, just stared off at nothing in particular, like he was alone, like he no longer cared about anything.”
    Molly looked down at her twisting hands and clasped them tightly together. Jack laid his hand over hers. She continued after a moment. “I told Tim he was not the one who chose to betray his country. He only shook his head, and his voice was so ... accepting. He said to me, Yes, Molly, that’s true, but not to the point. This disease—it’s only going to get worse, you know that as well as I do, but I’ll probably escape the worst of it myself because I’ll be oblivious to what is real, to what it feels like to be real, to be connected. I won’t know my kids, I won’t know you and that you’re my wife of forever, and all my love, all my experiences, the pains, the joys—even the meaning of it will be gone for me.
    “‘I can’t bear knowing I’ll go through that, Molly, now that I can still see clearly. I can’t bear knowing I won’t have any balance in my mind, that I won’t even recognize that what spills out of my mouth might destroy someone.’
    “I recognized the look on his face. He said, ‘Do you know, I told one of the doctors here about your affair with Arthur all those years ago? I didn’t remember saying anything about that, but the doctor told me what I’d said.
    “‘I thank God that He’s left me some moments of lucidity so I can remember all the hurt I’ve already caused, and decide what I want to do about it.’”
    Molly choked on a laugh, said to Jack, “Fact is, I did sleep with Arthur a couple of times, years ago. I didn’t even think Tim knew about it. I never told him. Funny thing was, both Arthur and I realized it was dumb, realized the truth of it was that all three of us were friends, very good friends, and had been for more than twenty years.
    “But Tim saw his speaking of it as the final betrayal, spilling out secrets about our own personal life to strangers.
    “All I could do was think about that gun under his pillow. I asked him what he wanted to do and I was terrified of his answer. But he gave me one of his old Tim smiles, said he was going to think, really think about where all this was leading and the consequences of it. He was going to think until