“You okay, Doctor?”

“Yeah, fine,” Adam said. “What was the question?”

Clements repeated it; then Adam said, “I don’t know, I have no idea.”

“We’ll be looking at the phone records, et cetera,” Clements said. “I just thought you might’ve heard something, or overheard someth-”

“I didn’t hear anything,” Adam said, “but I know he did it. How could it be any more obvious?”

Clements didn’t seem convinced. He asked, “Where’s the note you think Tony left yesterday?”

“It’s upstairs… top drawer of my dresser.”

Clements called another detective over and told him to go up and get the note. “Handle it like it’s evidence,” he said.

“I’m feeling very anxioius,” Adam said. “I need more Valium.” “You’re going to be okay,” Clements said.

“I need a higher dosage,” Adam said. “I’m telling you, he didn’t give me enough before.”

The EMT guy overheard Adam and was about to come over, but Clements held up his hand, making the stop signal, and said to Adam, “You’re going to be fine, okay? Just relax, try to stay focused, okay? When was the last time you saw your wife?”

“This morning,” Adam said, “when I went to work. She was still asleep.”

“And did you talk to her during the-”

“No,” Adam said, “but I was planning to.” He suddenly felt incredibly guilty for treating Dana so harshly yesterday. He was aware of why he’d treated her the way he had, but this didn’t make it seem any better. He had to take a few moments to compose himself before he said, “I was planning to try to talk to her and I… I made a mistake yesterday, confronting Tony, and I said some incredibly hurtful things to her and… Can I please have some more Valium? I’m telling you, the dosage was too low.”

“What time did you come home this evening?” Clements asked, ignoring Adam.

“I’m not sure,” Adam said.

“You called nine- one- one at seven thirty- five,” Clements said. “So did you discover the body as soon as you came home?”

Adam remembered the shock of entering the kitchen, seeing the body on the floor, not knowing what it was at first.

“Yes,” Adam said weakly.

“Yes what?” Clements asked.

“I discovered the body right away. Can’t you get me some more-”

“Did you drive to work today?”

“No… I never drive. I took the subway.”

“Did you notice anything suspicious on your way home from the subway? Anything that just didn’t seem right?”

He thought about it, or tried to, anyway, then said, “No, nothing.”

“So let me get this straight,” Clements said. “You came home, discovered the body, then called nine- one- one.”

“Right,” Adam said, aware of his heart racing. He needed more Valium- now.

“So when did you go over and touch the body?”

Adam was confused. “Touch it?”

“You told the nine- one- one operator you checked to see if your wife was dead. That’s how you got that blood on your sleeves, isn’t it?”

Adam looked at his shirt’s sleeves, surprised to see the smears of blood- Dana’s blood. He felt dizzy and thought he might even pass out.

“I really need more Valium,” he said. “I’m having an anxiety attack.”

Clements waved over the EMT guy, who gave Adam another couple of milligrams of Valium.

Adam had barely finished swallowing the pill and still felt very dizzy when Clements said, “So, about the blood…”

Clements’s total lack of empathy astonished Adam. He waited a few seconds, then said, “I think it was right after I saw her. I was in shock, naturally, and I went over to her, just to, I don’t know, see if there was something I could do.”

Adam realized he hadn’t cried at all since discovering the body and he should be crying, releasing tension.

“I know it’s upsetting,” Clements said. “But the sooner we can get through this, the sooner I can leave you alone to deal with your grief, okay?”

Deal with your grief, like grief was something you could simply deal with- cross it off your checklist and ta- da, you could move on. Did they teach heartlessness at the police academy? Adam didn’t bother responding. His head hurt, and he was still dizzy; when would that damn Valium kick in?

“There was a message on the blackboard in the kitchen,” Clements said. “It says, ‘I want you to move out.’ Who wrote that?”

“I did,” Adam said.

“So you and your wife were planning to split up?”

Again Adam felt extremely guilty for the way he’d treated Dana over the past couple of days, for handling the whole situation so poorly. If he hadn’t confronted Tony, maybe Tony wouldn’t have come over here tonight and maybe Dana would still be alive.

“I was very upset this morning, about her and Tony,” Adam said, “but I was planning to…” He cleared his throat, took a couple of breaths, then continued, “I was planning to try to work things out with her. I didn’t want to leave her. I wanted to stay in the marriage.”

“Did you come straight home from work tonight, Dr. Bloom?”

Was Adam imagining it or was there a change in Clements’s tone? Did he sound harsher, even vaguely accusing?

“Yes, I did,” Adam said. “Why?”

“What time did you leave your office?”

“After my last patient.”

“When was that?”

“About six. No, it was later, six fifteen.”

“So you left at six fifteen and called nine- one- one at seven thirty- five, shortly after you discovered the body. Is that correct?”

“Yes, but I stopped off to go shopping at the grocery store on my way home.”

“I thought you came directly home?”

Now there was nothing vague about it.

“Excuse me?” Adam asked.

“I’m just trying to get all the facts, Dr. Bloom.”

“Why does it matter if I stopped to go shopping or I didn’t stop to go shopping?”

“Please just answer my questions.”

“This is absurd,” Adam said. “It’s bad enough that you guys never solved the robbery and you removed the cops who were doing surveillance or protection or whatever, but now you come in here, knowing what’s happened to me today, and you have the balls to accuse me of…” He couldn’t say it, so he said, “Are you out of your mind? Are you fucking insane?”

It felt great to scream, to vent, to curse. This wasn’t necessarily the most productive way to express anger, but sometimes it was necessary.

“You’re going to have to calm down, Dr. Bloom.”

“Calm down? How can I calm down when you won’t even give me enough goddamn Valium?”

“If you’d just relax-”

“You know, instead of wasting my time talking to me you should be talking to Tony, the guy who killed my wife. I’m the victim here-”

“And I’m running this investigation,” Clements said, raising his voice authoritatively. He paused, letting this sink in, obviously getting off on the power trip, then said, “I’ll decide what questions I ask and to whom I ask them, okay? Now, I’ll ask again, how long were you at the grocery store, Dr. Bloom?”

Adam answered the rest of Clements’s annoying questions. He told him that he’d been at the grocery store for about fifteen minutes and that he didn’t speak to anyone while he was shopping and that after he finished shopping he went directly home.

“So I just want to make sure I’m getting all of this. You left work at six fifteen and taking into account the length of the subway ride and the time you were shopping, would you say it took you about an hour to get from work to your house?”

“That sounds about right.”

“So then there’s about a twenty- minute gap between the time you got home and the time you called nine- one- one.”

Adam remembered that after he’d discovered the body he’d sat on the floor in the hallway outside the kitchen, staring straight ahead, stunned. He had no idea how long he’d been there.

“It might’ve taken me longer than an hour to get home,” Adam said.

“But you said you didn’t call nine- one- one right away,” Clements said.

“I was in shock,” Adam said. “I couldn’t react right away.”