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tossed him in the ground and covered him up while he was still breathing. Would have been the righteous thing to do."
    Greenburg looked uncomfortable. Kenzie grinned. "Don't worry Doc," he said. "You don't have to report anything. Everyone involved has been dead for years, and besides, it was in another state. It's all over and done."
    "Not if you have still not forgiven yourself, Sam."
    "Maybe I shouldn't let myself off the hook," Kenzie said. "Maybe it's best I go on owing Jenny something for letting her down."
    Greenburg sat back. "I have a fantasy I'd like to share with you," he said. Kenzie was annoyed by the psychobabble in the phrase, but Greenburg failed to notice. "I think the incident with your sister may have contributed to both of your problems, your ambivalence toward women and the reluctance to have a child."
    "I don't follow," Kenzie said. He was starting to feel irritated at having been so skillfully exposed.
    "First, you divide women into Whores and Madonna's," Greenburg mused. "That's classic. And yet you seem to have a strong and otherwise healthy relationship with your wife. Your love for your sister was probably the basis for that."
    "I think it's just that Laura understands me."
    "Fair enough, and I suspect she does, but now answer me this," Greenburg said. "Are you—perhaps unconsciously—loving a child by not bringing him or her into this world to suffer?
    "I don't know. Maybe."
    "Doesn't that strike you as a bit perverse?"
    Kenzie smiled slowly. "There are endless perversions of love in this world, Doctor Greenburg. No one knows that better than a cop and a psychiatrist."
    For some reason Greenburg started pedaling backwards. He coughed into his fist and tried to regain control of the conversation. "So your childhood was . . . miserable."
    "In a word, yes."
    "And you feel the death of your sister is why you became a peace officer?"
    Kenzie got to his feet. He had already composed himself; his eyes were bright and his expression guarded. "Could be," he said. "Maybe yes, maybe no. But I do know one thing for sure."
    Greenburg rose as well. Kenzie offered his hand, and Greenburg shook it from reflex. "I have done what my boss asked me to do," Kenzie said. "And this is the last conversation you'll ever have with me, unless we run into each other in a restaurant. Have a good day, Dr. Greenburg."
    "Detective Kenzie? Sam? I really think we should meet again to discuss the impact of . . . "
    Kenzie shook his head. "Thanks anyway," he said. "This is not for me. Just be sure to put down that I'm cured."

5.

    Kenzie wore a new suit to the funeral of the murdered girl's father.
    The distraught man's wife had come home from her night job cleaning offices for a large media conglomerate to discover her husband hanging from a belt in the shower stall. He had apparently been very determined, for his legs were touching the floor. That meant he had strangled slowly and probably had to bounce a few times before he finally succeeded in crushing his windpipe.
    "Are you sure you want to do this?"
    Laura's face now carried a perpetual frown, and she had become as protective as a mother hen. For some unaccountable reason, that pissed Kenzie off something fierce. He took to drinking a bit too much and far too often. Laura's response was to withdraw even further into her depression.
    The day before the funeral, Kenzie tried on every suit he owned, but suddenly they all seemed out-of-date or threadbare and worn. He started throwing them all on the floor and kicking them into a pile. Laura, with the wisdom of the female, understood his mood. She had stayed out of the room until he was over his rage, and then suggested a visit to a men's shop. Kenzie dropped entirely too much money on a suit made in some obscure corner of Italy and a pair of shoes that pinched the shit out of his feet. The collar choked his neck, and all the way down the jammed, malodorous 101 Freeway he kept flashing on the father, wheezing as he strangled. How