“Yes. Fine and good, but what has he to do—”
Adrian interrupted her.
“I saw him going into Scott West’s treatment office after he finished work this evening.”
Terri did not instantly react. This was Cop 101. Maintain a poker face. Inwardly, she felt an eruption. There were several aspects of the statement that deserved her attention. How did the professor know it was after work? Why was he following him? She pursed her lips together and decided to play obtuse. She asked. “Yes, and?”
“This does not strike you as odd, detective? Perhaps relevant?”
“Yes. It does, professor.”
This was a reluctant piece of honesty.
“I recall he was quite adamant that none of his current or former patients could have anything to do with—”
“Yes. I heard that as well, Professor Thomas. But you are making assumptions that I would not yet . . .”
She stopped. She did not want to sound like a fool.
Adrian seemed to narrow his glance, his focus directly on her.
“Do you not think it calls for some investigation?” He said this last word with emphasis.
“Yes. I do.”
There was a momentary pause between the two of them.
“You know, detective, if you won’t look for her, I will.”
“I am looking, professor. It’s not like I just turn over a rock, or open a drawer or look behind a door, and there she is. She’s gone and there are conflicting elements . . .”
Again she cut off her own words.
She reached under the papers collected on her desktop and removed the flyer that she had prepared. It had Jennifer’s picture at the top under the word Missing and it listed all her vital statistics and contact numbers. It was the sort of flyer that is seen every day in police stations and on the walls of government buildings. It was only slightly more comprehensive than handmade missing dog or missing cat flyers that people tack to tree trunks and telephone poles in suburban neighborhoods.
“I am looking,” she repeated. “That has gone out to departments and state police barracks throughout New England.”
“How hard will those people look?”
“You don’t expect me to answer that question, do you?”
“You know, detective, there’s a difference between looking for someone and waiting around for someone to say I just spotted someone.”
Terri’s eyes narrowed. She did not enjoy being lectured to by a professor about her job.
“That is a distinction I’m familiar with, professor,” she replied coldly.
Adrian stared at the flyer. He looked down at the picture of Jennifer. She was smiling, as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
Both of them knew this image was a lie.
Adrian hesitated. He saw his hand tighten and start to crumple the paper flyer, as if he needed to grip it tightly, otherwise it would slip free.
He took a step back. He could hear odd noises echoing in his head—not the voices he was familiar with but sounds like paper ripping or metal twisting. He felt empty inside, a sort of gnawing hunger, although he could not think of the food he wanted to eat. Muscles tensed in his arms and he could feel his back tighten, as if he’d been bent over in the same position for too long. He felt a runner’s stiffness, a hot day’s overexertion, and he battled against the desire to rest, arguing within himself that he could not stop, he could not pause, he could not shut his eyes for an instant, because that would be the moment when Jennifer would be lost to him forever.
Jennifer, he thought, was just like all the hallucinations in his life. She existed once, and now he had to fight hard to keep her from fading away. She was still real, but only barely, and anything he could identify that gave her substance was a step toward finding her.
The pink baseball cap. He wished that he hadn’t returned it to Jennifer’s mother. It would be something real, something he could touch. He wondered if he could act like a bloodhound, pick up her scent from the hat and track her.
He was breathing rapidly.
A known sex offender connected to Jennifer’s family.
Adrian believed it had to mean something. He did not know what.
“Professor?”
He would go by himself.
“Professor?”
He would confront the man. Force him to tell him something that would help lead to Jennifer.
“Professor!”
He looked down and saw that he had gripped the side of Detective Collins’s desk, and that his knuckles had turned white.
“Yes?”
“Are you okay?”
Terri watched Adrian’s red face slowly return to a more normal color.
He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry? Is something . . .”
“It seemed like you were someplace else. And then you were like trying to pick up my desk or something. Are you okay?” she repeated the question.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m sorry. It’s just old age. And that new medication I mentioned the other day. I get distracted.”
She looked at him and thought two things: He isn’t that old and This is a lie.
Adrian slowly exhaled.
“I apologize, detective. I have become quite engaged with this case of the missing girl. Jennifer. It, ah, fascinates me. I cannot shake the idea that my expertise and background in psychology is useful. I understand that you have procedures, and that you need to follow protocols. These things were once very important in my line of work. Knowledge without established procedures is often useless, no matter how seemingly valuable.”
This sounded once again like something of a lecture to Terri, but this time she didn’t resent it. The old man meant well. Even if he did seem to fade in and out every time they spoke together. And she was certain that it wasn’t simply medication. She stared at Adrian as if by a singleness of gaze she could diagnose what made him so erratic. He seemed to take her stare indifferently, shrugging his shoulders.
“If you like, I will simply pursue matters on my own . . .”
This she did not want.
“You should leave police cases to the police.”
Adrian smiled.
“Of course. But from my perspective this is not the sort of situation that wholly lends itself to a policeman’s approach.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Detective,” Adrian said, “you’re still trying to figure out what crime took place so you can categorize it and follow some established process. I have no such restrictions. I know what I saw. I also know human behavior and have spent my life studying identifiable responses in both animals and humans. So your behavior in this situation doesn’t actually surprise me all that much.”
Terri was momentarily speechless.
“I suppose it was naive of me to assume the police would do anything,” Adrian continued. Terri looked at him closely as he spoke. She could not understand how one second the old professor would seem completely centered, decisive, and clear and then the next as if he’d been blown into some other place by a wind she could not see or feel or hear.
“I think I will go.”
“Wait,” she said. “Go where?”
“Well, I have not often spoken with sex offenders—at least not that I was aware of, because you never really know everything about the people you come into contact with on a day-to-day basis—but I think this fellow is a good place for me to begin.”
“No,” Terri said. “You will be obstructing my investigation.”
Adrian shook his head and grinned wryly. “Really? I don’t think so. But you don’t seem to want my assistance, detective, so I should just make my own path, so to speak.”
Terri shot out her hand and seized Adrian’s forearm. This wasn’t done in the tou
gh-cop strong-arm fashion as much as it was just to stop him from leaving.
“Wait,” she said. “I think we need to understand each other better. You know I have a job and—”
“I have an interest. I am involved in all this, regardless of what you might say. I’m not at all sure that your job trumps my involvement.”
Terri sighed. There is a perception a good policeman gets about people that tells them just exactly how much of a problem or a help someone will be. Adrian, she thought, gave every indication of being some of both.
This was typical. Her fault for living and working in an academic community where everyone seemed to think they knew each other’s business better than anyone else.
“Professor, let’s try to do this right,” she said. She understood that she was cracking open a door that perhaps she shouldn’t, and one that was better left slammed shut, but at the moment she didn’t see an alternative. She did not want this half-crazed ex–college professor trampling on her case—if there was a case—willy-nilly. She thought, Better to indulge him with a dose of reality and be done with it.
In her experience, thanks to popular culture, people unfortunately romanticized police work. When they got a taste of what it actually entailed—all the boring paperwork and sturdy, steady assessments of details and facts—it generally scared them off and they eagerly went back to whatever it was they were doing beforehand.
For a moment, she glanced at the collection of documents on her desk. What she wanted to do was to call the Boston bus station police and obtain the security tapes for the night Jennifer disappeared. She sighed inwardly. That would have to wait a couple of hours.
“All right, professor,” she said. “I will go ask some questions, and you can come with me. But after that, I want you to restrict yourself to maybe calling me on the phone with ideas before you come stomping in here. And no more of this investigating on your own. I don’t want you following people. I don’t want you questioning people. I don’t want you pursuing this at all. You have to promise me that.”
Adrian smiled. He wished that Cassie or Brian were there to hear the detective make this modest concession. They were not. But he realized maybe they didn’t need to hear things to understand them.
“I think,” he said calmly, “that would make some sense.”
It wasn’t really a promise he was making but it seemed to satisfy the detective. He also liked using the word sense. He did not believe he would be able to make sense of things for too much longer, but while he still could, even if only a little, he was determined to do so.
“Look,” Terri said. “Keep your mouth shut, unless I ask you something directly. You’re just here to observe. I’ll do all the talking.”
She glanced over at the old man in the seat beside her. He was nodding in agreement but she did not expect that he would follow her rules. She eyed the house with the small beige car parked outside. The evening dark made each shadow wider. The few inside lights fought against the falling night. There was a metallic gray television glow coming from one room, and she could see a form moving behind a thin curtain that blocked off the living room window.
“All right, professor,” she said crisply. “This is detective work at its simplest. No good-looking actor with psychic abilities in charge of the case. I ask questions. He answers. He probably tells me some truths and tells me some lies. Enough of each to keep himself out of trouble. Pay attention.”
“We’re just going to knock on the door?” Adrian asked.
“Yes.”
“We can do that?”
“Yes. Convicted offender. His probation officer has already cleared us inside. There’s nothing Wolfe can do about this without getting himself into trouble. And trust me, professor, what he doesn’t want is the sort of trouble I can make for him.”
Adrian nodded. He looked around, expecting Brian to be close. Usually whenever there was something even modestly legal, Brian showed up, or his voice echoed in Adrian’s ear with lawyerly advice. He wondered whether Brian would have been on the side of the detective or whether his civil libertarian views would have sided with the sex offender.
“Let’s go,” Terri said. “Element of surprise and all that. Stay right behind me.”
She pushed open her car door and quickly walked through the darkness. She was aware that Adrian was struggling to stay on her heels. She stopped at the front door and pounded with a closed fist.
“Police! Open up!”
Adrian could hear shuffling sounds coming from behind the door. In a few seconds it swung open and a woman perhaps a dozen years older than he peered through the darkness at the detective and her companion. She was overweight, with uncombed gray hair that seemed wiry and explosive in spots and thin in others. She wore a pair of thick eyeglasses, just as her son did.
“What is it?” the woman asked, and then, without waiting for an answer, said, “I want to watch my shows. Why can’t you leave us alone?”
Terri pushed directly past her into the small mudroom entranceway. “Where’s Mark?” she demanded.
“He’s inside.”
“I need to talk with him.”
Terri gestured for Adrian to accompany her as she stepped forcefully into the small living room.
There was a slight musty smell, as if windows were rarely opened, but the room itself was neat and tidy. Hand-crocheted throws adorned each piece of worn and threadbare furniture. In contrast, there was a large-screen high definition television standing on a Swedish-design stand dominating one half of the room, with two yard-sale reclining chairs situated directly in front. The sound was low but she was watching a rerun of Seinfeld. Adrian spotted a large soft bag stuffed with yarn and knitting needles by one of the chairs. There were some framed pictures on one wall; Adrian could make out a steady progression of life—a couple with a single child, going through the years from childhood to the present. Mother-father-child, mother-father-child, mother-father-child until around age nine, when the father disappeared from the pictures. Adrian wondered whether this was death or divorce. Regardless, it all seemed completely normal and routine, unremarkable in every way except one. For some reason, completely concealed in the ordinariness of the house, the only child had become a sex offender.
He thought there was far more mystery in the room than there were answers. He wondered whether Detective Collins saw the same. She seemed forceful, demanding, and her stiff-backed requests were designed to make an impression, he decided, rather than acquire one.
Behind them, the old woman lurched off in pursuit of her son. On the screen, Kramer and Elaine were enthusiastically trying to persuade Jerry to do something he was reluctant to do. Knitting needles were on the recliner, where the woman had put them down. He could smell something cooking but Adrian was unsure what it was.
“Keep alert,” Terri whispered.
She turned and saw Mark Wolfe standing in the passageway that led back to a small dining area and kitchen.
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” was the first thing he said.
The second thing he said was, “Who’s that?” as he pointed at Adrian.
24
They had made her exercise before eating a meal. The woman had entered the room and gruffly ordered her off the bed and onto the floor. She was told to perform a series of jumping jacks followed by sit-ups and stomach crunches and ending by running in place—all a little like gym class from elementary school, except there was no counting out loud.
She could feel sweat dripping off her forehead and she was breathing hard at the end, not understanding why they had ordered the workout but realizing that it probably did her some good. Jennifer could not imagine why they wanted to do anything that might improve her condition, but she was willing to take whatever good came with the bad. In fact, after the woman said, “That’s enough for now,” in a moment of defiance Jenni
fer had reached down and touched her toes five times in quick succession, hoping that the stretching would help her. The woman had spoken sharply, “I said, that’s enough!” Jennifer had wordlessly climbed back onto the bed, neck chain rattling slightly, and been rewarded with dinner.
Jennifer was finishing her meal—a cold bowl of processed spaghetti with greasy meatballs delivered from a can—and gulping down her bottle of water, all the time aware that the woman was in the room watching her silently and waiting. There had been no further conversation as she ate—no threats, no demands—and nothing had changed in her situation, as best as Jennifer could tell. She remained clothed only in her skimpy underwear and blindfolded, restricted by the dog collar and chain around her neck. She had grown accustomed to moving a few feet from the bed to the camp toilet, which someone must have emptied while she slept. She was grateful. A powerful stench of disinfectant overcame any odor that the food might have carried.
Under most circumstances, she would have turned up her nose and complained and thrust aside the disgusting food offering. But the Jennifer who would have done that belonged to some prior life that no longer seemed to exist. It was a fantasy Jennifer, a remembered Jennifer, who’d had a cancer-dead father and a whiny mother and a perverted soon-to-be stepfather, a dull suburban house, and a small room where she hid out alone with her books and computer and stuffed animals and dreamed of a different, more exciting life. That Jennifer went to a boring school where she didn’t have any friends. That Jennifer hated just about everything in her daily existence. But that Jennifer had disappeared. Maybe that Jennifer had once lived, but no more. The new Jennifer, the imprisoned Jennifer, recognized she needed to cling to life—if they told her to exercise, she was going to exercise. Whatever food was offered, she was going to eat no matter what it tasted like.
She licked her bowl clean, trying to steal every bit of nourishment and protein, anything that might give her strength.
She stopped when she heard the door open.
There was a slight rustling sound as the woman reached down and took away the food tray and moved toward the door. Jennifer’s head swiveled in the direction of the noise and she waited for some exchange of words.
What Comes Next Page 21