“Dr. Payne?”
“Yes.”
I’ll be damned, it’s him!
“Peter Wohl, Doctor.”
“How nice of you to call,” Amy said, sarcastically.
“I’m glad I caught you before you got to bed,” he said.
“Just barely,” she said. “What is it, Inspector?”
Was that a Freudian slip? Amy wondered. She had, quite unintentionally, caught her reflection in the triple mirror of her vanity table. She was, except for her underpants, bare. She covered her breasts with her free arm.
“I wanted to say how grateful I am for all the help you gave me, for your time,” Peter Wohl said.
That’s absurd! What am I modestly concealing? From whom? Mr. High and Mighty is on the telephone; he can’t see me.
“You said that earlier,” she said.
She pushed her panties off her hips and stepped out of them, found her reflection again, put her free hand on her hip, and thrust it out.
I have nothing whatever to be embarrassed about.
“And I have one more question,” he said.
“What?”
“What effect on our doer would seeing a naked woman have? I mean, if he saw one through her window?”
She felt herself flushing.
Why the hell did he ask that?
She looked quickly around the room to see that her own blinds were tightly drawn.
“As opposed to a woman…a fully clothed woman,” Wohl went on.
“What did you do, Inspector, just see something like that?” Amy asked, sarcastically.
“As a matter of fact, yes,” he said, unabashed. “Quite inadvertently.”
“I’m sure,” Amy said. “But it had no effect on you, right, but you’re wondering if it would on…a mentally ill man?”
“No,” he said. “Actually, it had quite an effect on me. It was rather embarrassing.”
Most men would deny that, Amy thought. How interesting.
“The nude female, at least a reasonably attractive one,” Amy said seriously, and then saw her reflection and almost giggled as she thought, like me for example, “has a certain effect on the male. The normal male. A mentally ill male? Let me think.” She did, and then went on. “Probably, given a man with mental problems, it would have a more profound effect. I’m not sure what that would be. If he hates women, it might trigger disgust. He might become highly aroused. The disgust might trigger anger, a sense that he thereafter had the right to punish. Innocent nudity, changing clothes, having a bath, might lead him to thinking about the helplessness of the woman.”
He grunted.
“Is this of any help to you?”
“Mary Elizabeth Flannery was wearing only her underpants when this scumbag—sorry—when this guy showed up.”
“I saw that in the file,” Amy said.