A Fatal Debt Read Online Free Page A

well-off who wanted to recuperate in more bucolic surroundings. I’d wondered on Friday whether to send Harry there, but it had been late.
    Jim unlocked the unit and guided me to Harry’s room, which was about the best we had at Episcopal—the medical equivalent of a penthouse suite. It had a wider bed than the cots on Twelve South and a couple of soft chairs in institutional brown next to a window that overlooked the East River. Harry was pacing up and down by them, clenching and unclenching a fist. He was wearing a crisp monogrammed shirt and looked livelier, but his expression wasn’t any more welcoming.
    “Dr. Cowper has arrived, Mr. Shapiro. I’ll let you two have a talk,” Jim said, and he slipped back out. I heard the door to the ward click shut as he left.
    “Hello, Mr. Shapiro. How are you feeling?” I said.
    Harry glowered at me, his eyes burning.
    “I want to leave,” he said quietly.
    “I see. Well, let’s talk about that,” I said, crossing to his side of the room and taking one of the chairs.
    He briefly stood there glaring before sitting opposite me. It was a lovely morning and the sun was casting a square of light on the floor. There were many worse places to get stranded—an airport, a police station—but his reaction was typical of people who woke up in a secure ward after being persuaded to sign in. They found themselves locked up, with sharp objects removed for safety, needing to ask permission for anything, and they went crazy if they weren’t in that condition already. I glanced at Harry’s notes. There was little there but a scrip for Klonopin, a longer-lasting tranquilizer than the Ativan I’d given out in the ER. His mental status had not been fully assessed, and he hadn’t been interviewed about his history or started on antidepressants. The only psych he’d talked to at length remained me, on Friday night.
    “How have you been sleeping?” I said.
    “I want to leave,” he repeated slowly, as if I hadn’t listened the first time. I found it hard to hold his intense gaze.
    I tried to prevaricate. “I know it must be difficult to be here, but I think it’s a good idea to talk so I can get a sense of how you are. Then we can start on treatment and you can leave, maybe in a day or two. We don’t want to keep you in here any longer than you’re comfortable with, believe me.”
    Harry flinched with irritation and got up to stare out of the window. “I don’t think you heard what I said,” he growled over his shoulder.
    I didn’t like what I was seeing. Harry was just as moody as he’d been in the ER, but more agitated, which was a bad combination. Patients who are very depressed may think of killing themselves, but they lack the energy to do it. The trickiest moment is when they start to feel slightly better and more capable of action. He was also angry, which was worrying. Suicide is an act of hostility, not only to the suicide victim himself, but also to the person he blames for his plight.
    All in all, I wasn’t inclined to release Harry before he had stabilizedand I had a better sense of what was going on in his head. Legally, I was in a far stronger position than he. Having signed himself in, he could petition to be let out at any time. But the hospital was allowed to hold him for seventy-two hours before his lawyers could spring him. It would be a disaster if things got that far, given that Harry had paid for the wing in which he was incarcerated, but I didn’t imagine that it would. Three days would be plenty as long as he calmed down.
    “What worries you about being here?”
    “I can’t sleep,” he said, turning to me. “The bed’s uncomfortable, the blankets are thin, I was cold all night. The traffic noise kept me awake. I’m fine, don’t you understand? There’s nothing wrong with me.”
    I listened to the buzz of the cars on the FDR Drive. It sounded pretty routine for New York, and fainter than the noise in my own apartment, but that wasn’t the