He kept an anatomically correct inflatable porpoise, which he violated nightly in his bathtub. Val had cured him of wearing a scuba mask and snorkel around the house, so gradually the red gasket ring around his face had cleared up, but he still did the dolphin nightly and confessed it to her once a month.

“Winston, Val Riordan here. I need a favor.”

“Sure, Dr. Val, you need me to deliver something to Molly? I heard she went off in the Slug this morning.” Gossip surpassed the speed of light in Pine Cove.

“No, Winston, you know that company that carries all the look-alike placebos? We used them in college. I need you to order look-alikes for all the antidepressants I prescribe: Prozac, Zoloft, Serzone, Effexor, the whole bunch, all the dosages. Order in quantity.”

“I don’t get it, Val, what for?”

Val cleared her throat. “I want you to fill all of my prescriptions with the placebos.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not kidding, Winston. As of today, I don’t want a single one of my patients getting the real thing. Not one.”

“Are you doing some sort of experiment? Control group or something?”

“Something like that.”

“And you want me to charge them the normal price?”

“Of course. Our usual arrangement.” Val got a twenty percent kickback from the pharmacy. She was going to be working a lot harder, she deserved to get paid.

Winston paused. She could hear him going through the glass door into the back of the pharmacy. Finally he said, “I can’t do that, Val. That’s unethical. I could lose my license, go to jail.”

Val had really hoped it wouldn’t come to this. “Winston, you’ll do it. You’ll do it or the Pine Cove Gazette will run a front-page story about you being a fish-fucker.”