This Thing of Darkness. Barbara Fradkin

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      Green could have phoned the information in to the station. It was his day off and, as everyone kept reminding him, he was an inspector, whose job was to oversee and administer, not to scrabble around in the streets unearthing leads, but he was curious to see their new Sergeant Levesque in action to reassure himself that she hadn’t booked off early or settled in to conduct the investigation with her feet up on her desk.

      The Major Crimes squad room was deserted except for the familiar sight of Bob Gibbs bent over his computer. The young detective’s head shot up in alarm at his superior officer’s arrival, but he looked relieved when Green asked for the sergeant.

      “She’s out, sir. Checking s-security tape from the pawn shop on Rideau Street.”

      “Has Staff Sergeant Sullivan been in this afternoon?”

      Gibbs shook his head, and Green suppressed his frustration as he pondered his next move. He felt restless and dissatisfied. So many dangling unknowns. He should go home to spend the rest of Sunday with his family. He could simply phone Sergeant Levesque to pass on the information on the victim’s possible identity. Or he could check out just one more little piece of information to round out the story before he handed it off to her.

      His little alcove office smelled stuffy as he squeezed inside and booted up his computer. Stacks of rumpled reports, files and official manuals overflowed the bookcase beside his desk and teetered on the guest chair just inside the door.

      In the Canada 411 online directory, there were two listings for S Rosenthal in the Ottawa area, but neither were anywhere near Sandy Hill. Well, well, he thought. Dr. Samuel Rosenthal might have an unlisted phone number. Not so unusual for a psychiatrist, he supposed, since like cops, they would deal with the troubled and potentially unpredictable underbelly of society.

      He tried a standard Google search—Samuel Rosenthal, psychiatrist—and received 442 hits. He added Ottawa to narrow the search down to 164 hits. A quick scan of these revealed that Dr. Rosenthal had been a prolific author of academic papers on depression, schizophrenia, the role of stress, and the efficacy of various unpronounceable drugs. He had given public lectures, sat on the boards of mental health and community agencies, and taught at the university medical school. Almost all the references were more than ten years old, but the most recent ones dealt with drug efficacy in the treatment of adjustment disorders in adolescence.

      What the hell is an adolescent adjustment disorder, Green wondered in astonishment. Is it a label for kids like me, who’d run a little wild in rebellion against the obsessive overprotection of panicky parents? Out of curiosity, he clicked on the reference but couldn’t access the article without subscribing to the journal. The brief abstract that preceded the article, however, was illuminating.

       Adjustment disorders are by definition short-lived reactions to stress, characterized by mood and anxiety symptoms or acting-out behaviour. Despite the well-documented stress of adolescence, the diagnosis of adjustment disorder in this population is generally overlooked by mental health practitioners in favor of old standbys like anxiety disorder, mood disorder and even the major psychoses, thus squandering the opportunity to provide genuine help. In this rush to pathologize them, the adolescent’s own analysis of his or her experience is viewed of no account.

      And I thought police lingo was indecipherable, Green thought, but there was no denying the challenging tone. He scanned the bio that followed. Samuel Rosenthal had been born in Capetown, South Africa and had been educated at Capetown University and Maudsley Psychiatric Hospital in London before emigrating to Canada in 1964 to accept a post in Montreal. He had moved across the country, working his way up the academic ladder, before ending his career as professor and a chief psychiatrist at the Rideau Psychiatric Hospital, where Sharon worked.

      Green wondered if Sharon had known him before his retirement, and if she knew anything about his reputation as a man and as a psychiatrist. He was tempted to call her, but her reaction to his mid-afternoon detour into work had not been encouraging. He could tell she was hiding her annoyance for Tony’s sake, but neither of them needed what remained of their weekend further invaded by his work. Besides, Rosenthal’s work as a psychiatrist was probably utterly irrelevant to his death at the hands of street punks.

      Green smiled wryly at the irony. Street punks—homeless, drug-addicted and alienated from the world—were the ultimate example of adolescent adjustment disorder.

      As interesting as the information was, however, none of it yielded any clues as to Rosenthal’s current address or telephone number. Green reached for his phone. It took him a few minutes to round up his back-door contact at Bell Canada and secure a listing for the doctor. Rabbi Tolner was right. Sam Rosenthal lived on Nelson Street, only a block from Rideau Street. And also, in a coincidence too close for comfort, only a block west of Sid Green’s seniors’ home.