The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove

investigating,well, that said something about him he wasn't willing to face. Was he, in fact, a coward?
    The sound of a man screaming in the distance made the decision for him. It wasn't the sound of someone blowing offsteam, it was a throat-stripping scream of pure terror. Theo kicked the shards of his bong collection off the front steps and went back to the closet to get his pistol.
    The Smith Wesson was wrapped in an oily cloth on the top shelf of his closet next to a box of shells. Heunwrapped it, snapped open the cylinder, and dropped in six cartridges, fighting the shake that was moving from his hands to his entire body. He dumped another six shells into his shirt pocket and headed out to the Volvo.
    He started the Volvo,then grabbed the radio mike to call for some backup.A lot of good that would do. Response time from the Sheriffs Department could run as long as thirty minutes in Pine Cove, which
    was one of the reasons there was a town constable in the first place. And what would he say? He was still under orders not to go onto the ranch.
    He dropped the mike on the seat next to his gun, put the Volvo in gear, and was starting to back out when a Dodge minivan pulled in beside him. Joseph Leander waved and smiled at him from the driver's seat.
    Theo put the Volvo in park. Leander climbed out of his van and leaned into the passenger window and looked at the.357 lying on the seat. "I need to talk to you," he said.
    "You weren't much for talking an hour ago."
    "I am now."
    "Later. I'm just going to check something out on the ranch."
    "That's perfect," Leander said, shoving a small automatic pistol through the window into Theo's face.
    "We'll go together." eighteen Dr. Val The bust of Hippocrates stared up at Val Riordan from the desk. "First, do no harm…"
    "Yeah, bite me," said the psychiatrist, throwing her Versace scarf over the Greek's face.
    Val was having a bad day. The call from Constable Crowe, revealing that her treatment, or lack of it, had not caused Bess Leander's suicide, had thrown Val into a quandary. She'd zombied her way through her morning appointments, answering questions with questions, pretending to take notes, and not catching a word that anyone said to her.
    Five years ago there had been a flood of stories in the media about the dangers of Prozac and similar antidepressants, but those stories had been set off by sensational lawsuits against the drug companies, and the follow-ups, the fact that not one jury found antidepressants to cause destructive behavior, had been buried in the back pages. One powerful religious group (whose prophet was a hack science fiction writer and whose followers included masses of deluded movie stars and supermodels) had fielded a media attack against antidepressants, recommending instead that the depressed should just cheer up, buck up, and send in some gas money to keep the Mother Ship running. The various professional journals had ported no studies that proved that antidepressants increased the incidence of suicidal or violent behavior. Val had read the religious propaganda (it had the endorsement of the rich and famous), but she hadn't read the professional journals. Yes, automatically treating her patients with antidepressants had been wrong, but her attempt to atone by taking them all off the drugs was just as wrong. Now she
    had to deal with the fact that she might be hurting them.
    Val hit the speed dial button to the pharmacy. Winston Krauss answered, but his voice was muted, as if he had an incredibly bad cold.
    "Pine Cobe Drug and Gibt."
    "Winston, you sound horrible."
    "I hab on my mask and snorkle."
    "Oh, Winston."Val rubbed her eyes, causing her contacts to slide back in her head somewhere. "Not at the store."
    "I'm in the back room." His voice became clear on the last word of the sentence. "There, I took it off.
    I'm glad you called, I'vebeen wanting to talk to you about killer whales."
    "Pardon?"
    "I'm attracted to Orcas. I've been watching a Jacques Cousteau tape about them…"
    "Winston, can we cover this in session?"
    "I'm worried. I was especially turned on by the male one. Does that make me a homosexual?"
    Jeez, it didn't worry him that he was a wannabe whale-humper, as long as he wasn't a gay wannabe whale-humper. As a psychiatrist, she'd tried to drop terms like "full-blown batshit" from her vocabulary, even in thought yet withWinston, she couldn't keep the term from rising. Lately, Val felt as if she was running the batshit concession on