On the way in earlier, I’d gotten some from the shop in front of the building. She’d spotted the cup. “I don’t have a machine here in the office. Maybe later.”
I sat down behind the desk. I wasn’t going to make this feel like a session. “Cass, do your parents know you’re here?”
“Are you kidding? My dad’s gone to work. When I left, my mom was sleeping—as usual.”
Meaning her mother was sleeping off a hangover.
“How did you get here?”
“A cab.” She started twisting her hair around her finger.
“You think maybe you should call home, tell your mother where you are?”
“Why? She won’t even realize I’m gone.”
“This is a long way from your house. You could have called me to say thanks about the bracelet. What else is on your mind?”
“I dunno.” Her eyes flicked up at me a couple of times. “I heard them talking about you.”
“Your parents?”
“No, they never talk about anything. I mean my dad and Griffin.” She pulled her feet down and leaned forward. “I listen sometimes. They were arguing about you. It was really interesting.” She tilted her head coyly.
She wanted me to ask what they’d said, and I wasn’t going to go along. “I’m sure it was a private conversation—like the one I had with them.”
That made her angry. “It’s not private if they leave the door wide open for anybody to hear.”
She looked away then primly crossed her legs, trying to act all grown up. “Anyway, my dad said he thought they could trust you. Griffin kept talking about some other man. I forget the name.”
A few moments earlier, I’d heard Tori come in the outer office. She peeked in. “Hi, Cal. I’m sorry—” She saw Cass, gave me a surprised look, and closed the door.
Cass rolled right past the interruption. “They never argue, but this time they were really mad at each other. Griffin said my dad was being stupid. Stupid—can you believe it? Griffin said they—”
“Cass, why are you telling me this?”
“I . . . Well, people need to know stuff that’s said about them, don’t they? I mean it could be like lies or something and they wouldn’t even know.”
“I’ll tell you what I think. I think you wanted to return the favor about your dad calling you ‘Cass.’ You thought telling me what he said about me would be a trade, sort of. That’s nice of you, but it doesn’t make it right—listening to other people’s conversations.” I touched the button on the phone to buzz Tori. She stuck her head back in. “Tori, this is Cass Russo. I’d like you to take her to the coffee shop downstairs and get her something.” I held out a five-dollar bill. “I’m going to call her mother to have her come pick her up.”
Tori came to collect the money. Cass gave me a look as if I had just stabbed her in the heart. Pure hurt. She shuffled out with her head bowed like a sad little girl.
The phone call to Charlene Russo was even worse than I expected. She answered with something like a groan, as if the sound of her own voice hurt her head. It took two minutes of explaining before she understood why I was calling. Then it clicked. Psychologist. Cassie. “I don’t want you talking to my little girl,” she said.
“That’s why I’m calling. She’s with my secretary now. She needs to get home, and I don’t want to just put her in a cab. Could you pick her up?”
She sighed as if that would be a huge imposition. “Who are you again?”
“I was at your home last night with your husband and Mr. O’Shea.”
I heard the grinding sound of a refrigerator ice dispenser and then water running. “I remember.” She paused to take a drink. “Why did Cassie go to see you?”
“I think she’ll give you a better answer than I could.”
She gave a sarcastic laugh. “She’d rather talk to a wall than to me.”
I thought, at least the wall would stand up straight. “Just ask her why she came here, like it’s no big deal. Make her feel comfortable, and she’ll tell you.”
“Thank you for the advice,” she snapped. “And remember what I said. You’re not to talk to her. Saba will be there in half an hour to pick her up.”
I realized she was about to hang up. “Wait!” Saba would need my address, whoever Saba was. I gave it to her and banged the phone down.
THIRTEEN
Twenty minutes later, Tori and Cass returned. They seemed to be getting along fine, so I left my door closed and went on with my work, following her mother’s orders not to talk to her. Soon I heard another voice, a man with an East Indian accent—Saba, I assumed. “Cass, your mother is downstairs. You come to the car now.”
I went to the door to say good-bye. She waved, apparently in better spirits. As she went out, her shoulders drooped. She wasn’t looking forward to the confrontation that awaited her in the car.
Tori followed me into my office. “Cass wanted me to give you this.” It was a sheet of paper folded to make a perfect imitation of a letter envelope. “She worked on that the whole time we were in the coffee shop.”
“How did she act?”
“Fine. We talked girl stuff. I gave her some makeup tips.”
“No more Blue Raccoon?”
“I mentioned the eyeliner. Told her a darker shade might go better with her brown eyes.”
“And?”
“She said she’d try to talk her mother into letting her get blue contact lenses.”
“That figures. Oppositional child.”
“Or maybe she just likes blue.”
I smiled at that. “Did she say anything about why she came here?”
“Nothing specific, except the note.” She pointed at the makeshift envelope.
I hadn’t realized there was a note. It really was a work of art, like origami. She’d written inside the folded paper—in blue pen. Her handwriting was so precise it looked machine made.
Dr. Henderson:
I’m sorry about what happened last night with my mother. She’s a mess sometimes. My dad won the argument with Griffin. Griffin was still mad and said he was going to make some calls about you. I thought you should know.—Cassie D. Russo
Cassie. And here I thought I had her all figured out.
Tori was reading over my shoulder. “She told me she’d been in therapy when she was younger—four years with a psychiatrist named Buchholtz. Cass said every session they got into an argument, usually because she wouldn’t sit up straight. She called him Dr. Anal.”
“Four years of that and even I might start drawing blue lines around my eyes.”
“How do you know her?” she asked.
“I was at her house last night to see her father—something to do with Scott Glass. I sat through round one of a fight between Cass and her mother. Maybe she came here just to have someone to talk to.”
Tori rubbed her fingers together. “Too bad she didn’t bring some cash for the session.” She headed for the door. “Anyway—ain’t family great?”
Speak for yourself, I thought.
I spent the next two hours in sessions, both teenagers with parents who worked for the government. I’d noticed my patients were skewing younger these days. How many referrals did I get by text message? If it kept up, I might need to grow a ponytail, a trick used by some psychologists to relate better to adolescents. Kids figured a man with hair like that must have “been there, done that” when it came to drugs or stealing or underage sex or punching out mom or dad.
At one o’clock, I ran across the street to the deli and got a corned beef sandwich. I only had half an hour before my next appointment, so I took it back to my office. Scottie’s backpack was under my desk. While I ate, I decided to have a look at those papers again.
I started at the back of the stack, some pages I hadn’t gone over yet. They were real-estate tax bills for half a dozen office buildings in and around Damascus, where we used to live. The owners were all corporations, the buildings various sizes. I didn’t see how it had anything to do with my family.
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Then I thought of something. The dates. Not on the tax bills: they were normal enough. It was another date, one I’d seen several times but it hadn’t registered.
I shuffled through the top of the pile and found it—the receipt for the gun. The date was September 21. I had to check the phone bills to be sure.
The Smith & Wesson was bought on the same day my mother made her first two phone calls to Eric Russo’s home. I cross-checked the bank account statements, and there it was again. A check written to Lori Tran to pay for the gun. Five hundred dollars, same date.
I laid the pages out and stared at them.
What had been going on that day? I clicked on my computer and found a universal calendar. Scottie had said it was a Saturday, and he was right. What was our routine on Saturdays? My parents got up before the rest of us. My mother ran errands Saturday mornings. My father got our breakfast ready, and we all had chores to do. In the afternoon there was soccer practice for Alan and me. My father took us to that, and Ron tagged along. According to the phone log, she made her first call to Russo at 2:12 p.m. She probably left to pick up the gun after that.
I realized this was the same road Scottie had gone down—trying to piece it all together and make a connection with Russo.
“Dr. Henderson?”
I looked up.
“I think . . . isn’t it time for our appointment?”
It took me at least ten seconds to place him—Neal Canaris, my next session. He had social anxiety disorder, and my blank stare was making him edge toward the door. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you knock.” I whisked the papers off the desk. “I was caught up in something. Have a seat. Let’s get started.”
My last patient left at five thirty. Tori came in with a stack of phone messages. “Busy day,” she sighed, setting them in front of me. “Do you want me to stay late?” That would be to make up for coming in late in the morning.
“Not unless there’s something you need to finish tonight.”
“I’ve got a pile of bills to get out. I’ll go when they’re done.” She left me alone to make my calls.
It took over an hour to reach the last one in the stack, a message from Tim Regis. We’d crossed calls a couple of times during the afternoon. He answered himself, which meant his assistant had gone home for the day. We’d been very close in college—and since. He was one of the few people I’d told the whole story about my family. That meant I didn’t have to do as much dancing around the facts with him.
Tim was a terrific lawyer; he could cut to the heart of any problem. “It must be weird having a guy like that drop out of the blue sky. Do you know where Glass is now?”
“Yes.”
“But you told the FBI you didn’t know?”
“I didn’t have any choice, not the way—”
“That’s not good, Cal. They could have you for obstruction of justice or maybe even harboring a fugitive. They could certainly make trouble for you with your licensing board.”
“But they just want to talk with him. He hasn’t been charged with anything.”
“So they want you to think,” Tim said. He paused, and I imagined him staring at the ceiling in his office as his mind worked. “Has he got a record?”
“I believe so, yes. Assault.”
“That figures. They wouldn’t be looking for him so hard if all he’d done was send a few creepy e-mails. My read is this. Even if Eric Russo tells the FBI to stand down, they’ll need to talk to Glass. If they’ve gone this far, they’ll need to tie up the file with a formal interview.”
Tori knocked and came in. She set a piece of paper in front of me. “Charlene Russo on the other line. Wants to make an appointment tomorrow.”
“Tim, can you hold on?” I said. I covered the receiver. “Did she say what she wants?”
“Just a session with you, and she’s going to bring Cass.”
“Do I have anything open?”
“It’ll have to be at eight o’clock.”
“I can do that. Thanks.” Tori closed the door behind her.
“Tim, sorry. What about the interview with Scottie? Will they at least let me be there?”
“It’s open for negotiation at this point. They’ll want to sweat him, see if he loses control. Or maybe he’ll admit to something—like owning a gun or knowing how to make a bomb. You never know.”
“Right,” I said, thinking of Scottie’s backpack, and gun, under my desk.
Tim said, “But if you can bring him to them, it saves a lot of legwork. They may agree to some ground rules, like letting you and me be there with him.”
“You’ll help out?”
“You know it, brother.” It was a running joke that we were honorary brothers.
“Great. I’ll let you know what they tell me,” I said.
“Hey, did you hear what happened to Dorsey?” he said.
Sean Dorsey had been another roommate of ours at Southern Cal. Tim and Sean were on the football team, which made them near-gods on campus. Tim had been hurt his last year in school and hadn’t gotten a sniff of interest from the pros. That put him on track to go to law school. Sean had been a golden boy, a linebacker who was drafted in the first round by the New York Giants. He was still in New York, but with the Jets. After eleven years in the league, he still played as hard—and partied as hard—as he had when we were freshmen.
“Let me guess—he’s in trouble again,” I said. “I’ll bet there’s a woman in it.”
“Right on both counts. He got arrested for stalking.”
“How did that happen?”
“He gave her an $80,000 necklace on their third date. They broke up that weekend, and he wanted it back.”
“And Dorsey’s never heard of asking politely.”
“Wait ’til you hear the end of it. She’s the coach’s daughter.”
“Ouch.”
“I was in New York yesterday to bail him out. The Jets are going to cut him tomorrow.”
“That’s too bad. Give him my best anyway.”
“Will do. And Cal, a bit of advice. Don’t lie to the FBI again. If they find out, they’ll skin you and eat you.”
“Thanks, but that’s an image I don’t need.”
“Yes it is, if it helps make my point.”
Tori had left by the time I got off the phone, so I wasn’t able to ask her if Charlene Russo had told her why she wanted to see me. I’d have to wait until morning to find out.
I got my things together and locked up. It was nearly seven, and Scottie would be wondering where I was.
I left the building through the back door, directly into the parking lot. A man was crossing in front of me, and he had his head turned, staring at something next to my car. He was so absorbed, he nearly tripped over the curb.
I looked over and saw Jamie Weston sitting on the concrete wall. She had expensive-looking clothes on, a dark suit with a tight skirt and heels. She’d taken her jacket off in the heat. Her white blouse was sleeveless, with a camisole underneath. She raised her hand and delicately brushed her hair from her eyes. Then she started to chew her nails.
“Hey,” I called. “You’re the second girl I’ve seen sitting there today.”
She gave me her big smile. “Did you just call me a girl?”
“I’d never do that.” I set my briefcase and the backpack on the ground. I was self-conscious about the gun, worried that the outline might show. There always seemed to be something like that between us, something not quite in balance. “You’re all dressed up.”
“I was in court today. I called a while ago, and your secretary told me you’d be leaving soon.”
“How did you know this was my car?”
“I’m a highly placed professional. I have minions who can find out things like that.”
There it was again, the easy jokes. I wasn’t sure it was a good idea to play along. I did anyway. “Minions?”
“Well, people who know how to use computers better than I do.”
She stood up. With he
r heels on we were almost the same height. “You made quite an impression on Eric Russo last night. He called my boss’s boss this morning, starry-eyed in love with you.”
“Really? Will he respect me later?”
She seemed to have a thousand different smiles. This one was slow in coming, as if she was fighting it, trying to keep things serious. “Russo says he feels you can keep Scott Glass in line. If he were anybody else, the FBI would tell him ‘thanks for sharing’ and go right on handling things our way. But once Russo is confirmed as US Attorney, we’re going to have to work with him, day in and day out. He’ll call the shots on a lot of our cases. We don’t want to get off on the wrong foot.”
She leaned her hip against the car and crossed her arms. It was seductive and defensive at the same time. A perfect pose for negotiations.
“So what is it you want?”
“Cade and I met with my boss and his boss and a few other people today. We can’t just walk away from Glass.”
So Tim had been right, and now it was time for me to make the best deal I could. “You still want an interview.” I didn’t wait for her to nod. “Then we do it here, my office. You can be there, and me, and a lawyer who’s a friend of mine.”
She was surprised that I was so bold. Her eyes narrowed. “That won’t work. Our own psychologist has to be there. He’s got questions for Glass. It’s all standard—”
“Nothing is standard with this. If you want a psychologist there, OK. But I’ll decide if things are getting to be too much for Scott.” She opened her mouth to argue, but I kept going. “That’s all I can give you. If it isn’t enough, you’ll have to find him on your own. That could take a day or a month. And you’ll get off on the wrong foot with Russo, given that he’s fallen in love with me.”
Her expression turned cold. “You seem to have it all thought out. Have you talked this over with Glass?”
“I hope to be in touch with him this evening,” I said, wondering if that was one of those lies for which they could skin me and eat me. “I’d like to ease him into this. Could we put off the interview until Saturday?”
“I’ve got to give a status report at the end of the day on Friday. It’ll have to be before then.”
The Survivors Page 10