by Jan Coffey
“Does he have many friends?” Hank asked.
“He’s very popular,” Michelson commented. “Not a loner, if that’s what you mean.”
“I’d say he’s probably the most respected member of his class,” Gordon asserted.
“I think the local police have already interviewed quite a number of his friends from school,” she added. “Between that and the information that the crisis counselors are no doubt getting, you should get a good idea of how shocking this is to everyone.”
Despite the reports from the six recent school shootings, from past research Hank knew that attacks, such as the one in Wickfield, were rarely spontaneous or impulsive. In almost all cases, the attacker developed the idea well in advance. Most planned it out carefully and talked to their friends about it.
“Can you give me any names of classmates who were especially close to Juan? Anyone he hung out with regularly, especially over the past couple of weeks?”
“I can’t come up with a name off the top of my head,” Kevin Gordon said, looking at the guidance counselor.
She shook her head. “I think he regularly ate lunch with the principal’s son, Jake Peterson, and Conor Doyle, another top student at the high school. I don’t know if those two would be considered his best friends or not. I do know that both of them were interviewed by other investigators.”
“I’m no expert,” Gordon said, starting to sound like Juan’s defense lawyer, “but isn’t it true that teenagers who get into this kind of situation don’t generally do sports or participate in so many clubs?”
“Juan has set a school standard with his high level of civic activities,” Michelson added.
When the English teacher started reciting Juan’s qualifications for the citizenship award that he’d nominated the kid for, Hank knew he was wasting his time. He was looking for specifics that detailed Juan Bradley’s planning, communication, and possible motives for the outburst of violence. These two were working up closing arguments for the defense. He was an investigator, not a judge.
A nurse poked his head in and told Hank that the doctor wanted to see him before going upstairs to check on Juan.
The psychologist escaped the room just as the two faculty members moved to possible causes of the teenager’s behavior. Use of pesticides on the soccer fields at the high school was the last thing Hank heard before bowing out.
~~~~
Chapter 8
Bryan felt more than a touch of regret. The egg-size bruise on Lexi Bradley’s forehead was growing by the second, and the cut just above her left eyebrow continued to seep blood. If he’d paid closer attention, he might have been able to catch her, or at least he would have noticed that when getting up a second time she was still unsteady on her feet. He’d missed the signs.
“When was the last time you had a tetanus shot, Dr. Bradley?” asked the nurse who’d stepped out of the elevator the moment Lexi had gone down on her face. Her name was Linda and the two seemed to know each other.
“It was recent enough…maybe a couple of years.”
“The cut appears clean, but it looks like you may need a couple of stitches.”
“No,” Lexi said under her breath.
“The cut is too deep,” the nurse persisted. “Don’t be stubborn. An attractive woman like you doesn’t need a scar.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Lexi shrugged.
The nurse glanced at Bryan and nodded toward the adjoining bathroom. “Take one of those cups there and get some water for her.”
He went in and returned to see Lexi holding her head high so the nurse could dab and work on the cut. Her eyes stayed closed.
Back in the hallway, this nurse had been the first one to check Lexi after the fall. She’d taken charge and had told Bryan to move Dr. Bradley into this room across the hall. Lexi, though, had fought being carried and demanded to walk on her own feet. He’d held on to her arm despite her objections. Inside the room, she’d refused to lie on the bed to be examined and sat down on a chair closest to the door. There was definitely a stubborn streak in her that perhaps had something to do with being used to giving care, not receiving it.
A couple of nurses had joined them there right away, but Linda was in charge and sent the others to their station.
It would have been courteous for Bryan to leave the room and postpone the questions. But he’d decided to stay and had found a spot by the window, out of the way.
“Keep sipping that water. I still have to get one of the doctors to check you out. You were knocked out,” the nurse told her, pressing an ice pack to Lexi’s forehead.
“I never lost consciousness. I also have no headache, no dizziness, no difficulty remembering things. I don’t feel foggy or distracted, which means I have no concussion,” she told Linda. “Unless this is the same doctor who’ll be seeing Juan tonight, I don’t need someone else to tell me what I already know.”
The nurse sent her patient a narrow glare. “No, it’ll probably be one of the interns from the emergency room or one of the physician’s assistants.”
“Then I don’t need one,” Lexi said in a tone of finality.
“You can talk tough all you want, Dr. Bradley, but you’re not fine,” the nurse said brusquely. “You look as pale as a ghost and I’m not letting—”
“Please, Linda.” Lexi grasped the nurse’s hand in her own. Her voice turned lower, still determined. “There’s only one thing I need right now to make me feel better, and that’s convincing the doctor who’s visiting Juan to answer some of my questions. But I figure I can’t do that until Agent Atwood here is done with me. So please…”
Bryan turned from the window and looked at her. Lexi’s eyes were pleading with Linda. The vulnerability in her voice and look was impossible to miss even from across the room.
“After he’s done with you, you eat,” the older woman said stubbornly.
“I’ll eat…after I talk to the doctor.”
“No. You don’t know when and if that’s going to happen. No more missing meals, Dr. Bradley. I’m not putting up with it.”
The two looked at each other for a long moment, stubborn wills butting heads. Finally, Lexi gave in and nodded.
“Hold this on the cut,” the nurse ordered Lexi before turning to Bryan. “Don’t let her get up.”
She scurried out of the room, but was back in a moment with a handful of bandages and an icepack. She quickly applied several butterfly sutures over the cut on her patient’s forehead and then put on a square bandage.
“You know the drill,” the nurse said to the doctor. “Keep the ice on it.”
“Please tell me when the doctor arrives to see Juan.”
The nurse nodded. Bryan didn’t miss the threatening glare she sent him before walking out. She acted as if he’d shoved the woman down himself. He was clearly not to be trusted in the nurse’s eyes.
Lexi Bradley slipped her shoes off and tucked one foot under her. She laid the icepack and the half-empty cup of water aside and sat back in the chair, staring at him.
Whatever frame of mind he’d been in when he first approached her in the hallway, it was gone now. The hard questions that he’d been ready to ask faded into the background. There was something incredibly fragile about her at this moment, and Bryan didn’t think she could handle being pushed any closer to the edge.
He walked away from the window. Her red-rimmed blue eyes watched his every step. She wasn’t afraid to make eye contact. Her face was truly ashen. Her blond hair, pulled back into a tight ponytail, was stained at the temple with blood from her cut. She had delicate features, smooth skin, a small nose, high cheekbones. He guessed she was quite beautiful under better conditions. Right now, she was clinging to a hard business edge no doubt honed through her years practicing medicine. There was real intelligence in her look, too. Around the eyes, he could see the traces of exhaustion. With her cuts and bruises, Bryan thought, she looked battered.
The nurse had left the door partially open. He reached over an
d closed it before turning back to her.
“How long have you been here?” he asked.
“Since Monday,” she told him, tucking her hands under her legs.
“Haven’t left at all?”
She shook her head. “I can’t. I won’t. I don’t believe any parent in my situation would. Not even for a few minutes.” She looked up at his face. “Do you have any children, Agent Atwood?”
The question took him by surprise. His job was to ask the questions, not answer them.
There was a lot that he already knew about Juan Bradley’s family, about Lexi. Before coming here, he’d read the reports of the other two interviews she’d had with the FBI and a local detective. Still, she didn’t need to know that.
“Where’s your husband?”
“You wouldn’t understand why I have to stay here. You’re not a parent,” she said instead, turning away.
“I have two daughters,” Bryan replied, surprising himself by answering.
The lines in her face visibly relaxed as she looked back at him. “I’m a single parent. No husband. Juan was adopted. I have no idea who his biological parents are. The two of us are all we have.”
He stood by the foot of the hospital bed. “How old was he when you adopted him?”
“Two years and five months,” she said, looking up at him. She rubbed the back of her neck. “I should stand up, but I don’t want to fall on my face again. I’d appreciate it if you would sit down. You’re too tall, and I have this pounding headache, so if you don’t mind...”
He picked up a chair from the far wall and put it couple of feet in front of her. He sat down.
“Didn’t I hear you tell the nurse that you don’t have a headache?”
“I didn’t then. I do now. The headache has nothing to do with getting a concussion. It has everything to do with stress and lack of sleep,” she told him. “Thank you for sitting down. This is much better.”
The bandage on her head was getting stained with blood. Maybe it was the dim light in the room, but she didn’t look too healthy to him. Bryan wasn’t absolutely sure she wasn’t going to pass out on him again, even sitting down. He slid his chair closer to her.
“I know the drill. You want me to talk about Juan.”
He nodded.
“Where would you like me to start?” she asked. “Juan’s childhood? His upbringing? His academic successes? Sports? Music? The gentle way he treated other people? His record as a volunteer? He’s a boy any mother would be proud of. I can go on for hours telling you about things that he’s done…about the truly good person that he is.”
Was, maybe, Bryan thought. He could see and hear the tension building in the woman’s voice and body. But in spite of the mother’s defense, Juan Bradley was no angel. He’d changed all that this past Monday afternoon. The teenager had been taken in custody at the high school. Although unconscious at the time, there was no question that this individual had been the one firing the weapon at his teacher and his fellow students. Bryan didn’t think Lexi Bradley was really up for a lecture on the truth right now, however.
“Before this incident, did your son ever break any laws?”
“I’m sure the local Wickfield police have told you he hasn’t. He respects the law. In fact, one of his volunteer activities was with an organization that Detective Simpson of the Wickfield Police Department is involved with, as well.”
“How about rules? Rules that you’d set up at home? Did he ever break them? Feel trapped by them?”
“No,” she replied. “Those who know us will tell you that our home isn’t very old fashioned. I’ve never had to set a lot of rules. Juan has always been mature beyond his age. I have a great deal of respect for him and the same goes the other way around. We both talk and have a clear understanding of what is best for each of us, for our family. He tells me his concerns, I tell him mine. That’s how we come up with guidelines, but they’ve never been cut and dried rules. We just haven’t needed them.”
To Bryan’s thinking, this was totally unrealistic for most adolescents, but it was definitely intelligent parenting…if it were true.
“Was your son ever bullied?”
“No, never. He gets along with everybody.”
“Has there been any major change in his life recently? Did he have to make any new adjustments recently? A girlfriend dumping him? Maybe a new boyfriend for you? Anything?”
She shook her head repeatedly. “No to all the above. We’ve been the same for some time. No changes whatsoever. No trouble. Nothing.”
This was consistent with everything she’d told the other investigators before—consistent with what everyone else on file had said about Juan Bradley.
“Let’s talk about the gun.”
She nodded, the delicate line of her jaw hardening, the medical professional trying to regain possession of the mother’s face.
“Your neighbors claim that as far as they know, Juan had never been in their basement. He’d never seen the gun. How did he know to go there?”
“I don’t know if my son went there to get the gun,” she said stubbornly. “I haven’t spoken to him since the accident.”
“He went there and left plenty of evidence. The tracks in the snow led directly from your house. And the gun recovered at the high school has already been identified as the one missing from your neighbor’s basement.”
She crossed her arms over her chest.
“Juan watched the cat for my neighbors whenever they went away for any length of time,” she told him. “That wouldn’t necessarily take him to their basement. But everybody in the entire neighborhood knew about Mr. Myer’s gun collection. Anytime there was a raccoon or a fox spotted within a five mile radius, he’d joke with the neighbors about getting out the arsenal and going after it.”
“Did Juan ever express any interest in guns?”
She shook her head. “Unlike the rest of his friends who were into all kinds of shoot ‘em up video games and paintball and laser tag, Juan has never shown any interest in them.”
“That you know of, you mean. Parents are sometimes the last ones to know.”
“No,” she said defensively. “I told you before, Agent Atwood. We don’t have the kind of relationship where he has to hide things from me. There’s no need for it. We trust each other.”
He’d hit a nerve with her. Bryan watched her struggle to keep her emotions intact.
“And Juan isn’t a fighter. You can ask anyone. He’s the peacekeeper. He’s never been rough or violent. He isn’t now. He gets along with everyone. There are no in-and-out circles of friends with him, either. And I’ve been right there with him, every step of the way. He’s never excluded me, never asked me to stay out of his life. That’s why I…I have a hard time believing…the same teenager…my son…did this. I can’t fathom…how this happened, why it happened. I am...I haven’t been… a bad mother…not some clueless parent. I’ve been involved, and he’s let me be. I don’t understand what happened at the high school on Monday. I can’t explain why he acted the way he did. There has to be some reason that none of us has figured out, yet. And that’s why I’m desperate to talk to some of these doctors. There could be some kind of medical reason for it. At least…at least…there has to be something.”
She stopped. Her fingers pinched the bridge of her nose. Bryan saw a couple of tears escape and rush down her pale face. Her lips were dry, chapped. Her hand shook as she reached inside her bag and took out a tissue.
“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her face, blowing her nose. “It’s been a long few days and I can’t…I don’t know where I am or what I’m saying or what I have already said. I don’t know what to say. I can repeat everything going on in Juan’s life, in my life—what I’ve told you and the other agents—but there’s nothing unusual. We have a normal life. Day-to-day routines. Activities all the time. Good, positive things. Kids today go in hundred different directions. Juan is no different. As a parent, you understand what I’m saying.”
> Bryan wished he did, but he didn’t. Since his divorce, his ex had been taking care of everything. Frozen him out of his daughters’ lives. He was no more than the stranger who showed up once a month or so to take them out to dinner and a movie. It was pitiful. And he’d allowed it to happen.
“I’ve already told you that we talk to each other,” she continued. “We communicate. There were no issues…nothing. I’m confused. I want to help…but I just can’t this way…not by looking at our routines or the kind of life he has.” She stopped again and wiped her face.
Bryan watched the shaken woman. Her grief and confusion were tearing the scab off an old wound deep inside him, and he didn’t like it. But he couldn’t stop it. Hank had been right. He had no business getting so close to this type of case. Nine years ago, he’d been sitting across from his own mother in a hospital waiting room in New Jersey, both of them grieving as she tried to understand why her baby had committed suicide. What were the signs that she’d missed? Bryan couldn’t even imagine how much worse everything would have been if they’d been left in the dark as far as specific medical details.
His brother Bobby had died before the night was out, but at least the family knew what was being done to keep the teenager alive.
Bryan’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He took it out and looked at the display. It was Hank. The bastard was getting too good at knowing when Bryan started teetering too close to the edge, even from a distance. He answered the phone.
“What is it?” he said gruffly.
“I’m on the second floor with one of the doctors responsible for Juan Bradley’s care. I think you’ll want to sit in on this and hear everything firsthand.”
Bryan looked at Lexi. She seemed to have herself back together and was obviously trying to listen to his conversation. There was no point in keeping this woman in the dark about her son’s care, especially considering the fact that she was an MD. From everything he’d heard, she hadn’t once refused any of the officials’ questions. She hadn’t pulled any attorneys out of her back pocket or read anyone the riot act of what they can and can’t ask. She was cooperating. They could, too.