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should be in Safe House right now, Alan. Not tomorrow.”
    “I know. I suggested. She refused. I strongly encouraged her to reconsider. She refused.”
    “Can I come to the meeting with Celeste? I’d really hate to miss this.”
    “I was hoping you would. The release lets me tell you whatever I think is appropriate.”
    “And Gibbs signed one for Safe House, too?”
    “She did.”
    “She didn’t argue with you?”
    “No. She’s not the arguing type. You know that. Maybe that’s the source of your countertransference.”
    Diane considered my words for a heartbeat before she said, “I treat lots of wimpy women. That’s not it. Do you find it odd that she dumped all this in your lap? The old murder, making the call.”
    “I find this whole thing odd.”
    “I know you don’t want to hear it, but this isn’t just about
my
countertransference, you know?” Her voice was now at least a half-octave lower. The change was intended to draw my attention.
    I bit. “What do you mean?”
    “Are you going to call the police for her?”
    “I don’t know. I guess.”
    “This is your countertransference, too, Alan. What you’re doing for Gibbs you wouldn’t do for a lot of patients. Making all these arrangements, making all these calls. She’s pushing some button for you, too. Call me cynical, but I suspect it has something to do with the blond hair and the pert breasts.”
    Pert breasts?
“I don’t think so. The circumstances are unusual. If they were repeated with anyone else, I’d do the same thing.”
    “You would call the police in another state and report an old crime for any patient who asked?”
    “Yes.”
    “Any old patient who wasn’t cute and blond?”
    I was grateful that the pert breasts had disappeared from the equation. I said, “Yes.”
    “Sure you would.” Diane returned her attention to finishing the coffee-making process. With her back to me, she said, “Alan, why is it you who always gets cases like this? You have more dead bodies in your practice than a small-town undertaker. Do you ever think about that?”
    I could have confessed that I thought about it all the time, but I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction.
    “I promise to think about it if you’ll think about something for me, too. Way back, Gibbs brought up something during conjoint therapy. When she mentioned whatever it was, Sterling doused it like a Boy Scout putting out a campfire. Do you remember what it was? He glared at her. Really glared at her. That’s what I remember most clearly. The glare.”
    “I don’t have to think about it at all. I know what it was. I know exactly the incident that you’re talking about.”
    “Yes?”
    “Gibbs was saying that at some point she wanted to talk with us about their sex life.”
    “Yes, yes, okay,” I agreed. “Maybe that was it. I remembered that, too, that it was something about sex.”
    Sort of.
    Diane said, “Don’t patronize me. That was it. And what she was about to tell us was that she and Sterling were swingers, or he was a cross-dresser, or something good and juicy like that. For a while I thought it might be bondage, but try as I might, I could never quite see the Dancing Queen in a black leather G-string and a studded bra. The whip? Maybe.”
    The mental image that Diane was painting was a little distracting to me. “And you think she wanted to talk about it?” I asked.
    “Exactly. Something about their weird little sex life was starting to give her the heebie-jeebies. And Sterling didn’t want her to let the cat out of the bag. He let her know he didn’t want her to talk about it. That’s what the look was about. You can take it to the bank.”
    “Come on, Diane. Seriously. Bondage? Cross-dressing?”
    She stared me down. The glare was only minimally less effective than Sterling ’s glower at Gibbs had been.
    “I am serious. But I told you, I ruled out bondage and S amp;M early on. My vote? I think they were swingers. Probably still are swingers.