by Alexa Steele
“You told me a story, not the truth,” Bella corrected her. “We have you on video giving JJ three thousand dollars in exchange for a bag of those babies. He’s going to jail for a long, long time.”
Bella lied, both about the video camera and about JJ going to jail. He and Mack had cut a deal. A look of deadly seriousness came over Doug’s face when he saw Jesse’s mouth hang open, aghast.
“What are they saying, Jesse?” Doug looked desperate.
“What video?” Jessie asked nervously, her composure slowly giving way.
“We had one set up,” Bella lied again.
“You knew from what we told you?” Jesse whimpered, not playing the role anymore.
“We knew about him before you told us,” Bella told her. “We knew about him way back, as early as this winter.”
She let that idea sink in for a moment.
“Not only will this ruin your chances of ever getting into Vanderbilt, or any other college for that matter, but this is a class C Felony and you’re eighteen. You’ll be tried as an adult. On top of that, you lied to me during the course of a homicide investigation. That’s obstruction of justice. You’re in deep, deep trouble, young lady.”
Jessie buried her head in her father’s chest. Doug looked at Bella and Mack with terror.
“Why are you doing this?” he wailed.
“We’re homicide, Doug, not narcotics. We didn’t come up here to do a high school drug bust. But your daughter and her friend have lied during the course of our murder investigation. We want to know why. No more bullshit.”
Bella’s tone was deadly serious as she played Doug like a violin.
“If she works with us, we will be able to back off,” Bella added. “If she doesn’t, then you will need to hire her a lawyer, and a good one, fast. Because by morning, your daughter’s connection to this case and her arrest will be all over the morning news.”
Doug was speechless. He looked like he might have a heart attack then and there, as though he had just been told his life was over as he knew it. And it was.
“Jessie,” he said, his voice trembling. “Please. You have to cooperate and tell them what you know. You have no choice. This is not the time to protect anyone.”
Doug choked back a sob, which seemed to affect his daughter. When she lifted her head her demeanor was softened. She looked scared. Really scared. She cleared her throat and began:
“I bought Adderall from JJ this year when I was studying for my AP exams,” she said softly and reluctantly. “I had AP Physics, AP Calculus, AP History. I mean, I had to get a five on them if I wanted a shot at Vanderbilt. Then there was the ACT. This summer I had to study for it again. It was going to be my third time taking the test in September. If I didn’t break a thirty-two, I wasn’t getting in.”
She stopped for a minute then went on.
“I got used to it. I kept buying more and more. It was easy and cheap and I, I don’t know. I needed it. I couldn’t study without it.”
“It was cheap?” Bella asked. “One pill alone is forty bucks.”
The car was quiet.
“Like I said—it was cheap.”
Mack and Bella looked at Jessie, then at Doug.
“JJ made it really easy,” Jessie continued. “Everyone uses him and I knew what I was getting. It didn’t feel like I was buying drugs. It felt like I was getting some stuff to help me study.”
Doug looked at her as though she were so young and naïve. Bella and Mack felt less pity.
“Carly was so stressed during finals. I gave her one of my pills—she loved it. She wanted more.”
She looked nervous.
“I took her to JJ. I introduced them. She started buying from him too.”
“Bags full?” asked Bella. “Three grand worth?”
Doug hung his head. Jessie looked embarrassed.
“Why so much?” Bella pressed on.
“We just…” She stopped and looked at her dad, then looked down at her fidgeting hands in her lap and sheepishly replied, “We just, I don’t know, we wanted more.”
“Are you snorting? Selling? Both?”
Doug looked aghast, but Jessie didn’t miss a beat.
“We snort it sometimes. I’ve never sold any. I’ve lent some pills to friends when they ask. But mostly we just snort it.”
“Oh my god, Jessie,” Doug wailed. He looked crestfallen. And petrified.
“Did Carly’s mom confront JJ?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Did you ever hear JJ say anything about Mrs. Freed?”
“No, I swear to God. Never.”
“Did you ever hear him mention who he got it from? Or where?”
Jessie hesitated a moment and looked nervously at her hands in her lap. Bella could see she was thinking of something.
“Once I met this guy. I was supposed to meet JJ but he sent this guy instead. I don’t remember his name.”
“What did he look like?” Bella asked.
“He was like, tall. Skinny. Kind of high-strung. He had long blond, wavy hair and a beard.”
That sounded exactly like Ridley.
“Where did you meet him?”
“In the park, behind Grovers Field,” Jessie replied quietly.
“Would you be able to recognize him in a photo?”
Jessie nodded her head.
“You never heard his name?” Bella asked.
Jessei shook her head no.
“What happened when you met him?”
“We just met in the park. I brought money and he brought me a bag of Adderall. We talked for a few minutes and he left.”
“What did you talk about?” Bella pressed.
“I don’t know. Like small talk,” Jessie answered nervously.
“Did he tell you his name?” Bella asked.
“No,” Jesse replied.
Then turning to Doug Bella asked, “Have you heard the name Ridley Westin?”
Doug’s face was contorted into a fearful grimace as he tried to focus on what they were asking him.
“Ridley Westin?” he echoed, confused. “Why do I feel like I’ve heard that name before?”
“He lived in Greenvale years ago and was sent to prison for the murder of one of his mother’s friends. You may remember the name from all the publicity,” Bella pointed out in a deadpan tone.
Doug took a moment and then a look of horror crossed his face.
“You are not saying he’s the man Jessie met??” Doug almost screamed.
“We don’t know,” Mack answered truthfully.
Doug and Jessie exchanged petrified glances.
“Where have you been getting the money for all of this?” Bella asked, switching the subject.
“Carly got money from the wad on her dad’s night table when he was sleeping. He never noticed.”
“And you?”
Jessie looked nervously at her dad.
“Mom lent me money,” she said quietly.
Doug jerked his head up.
“What do you mean she lent you money?” Doug asked, aghast. “Are you saying she knew about this?”
“I don’t know what she knew, Dad.”
“Wait a minute. Be clear, Jessie. Are you saying your mother gave you money knowing you were buying Adderall at school?” Mack asked calmly.
For the first time Jessie looked panicked, like she realized she said something wrong. Doug had a frenzied look in his eyes.
“I don’t want to get her in trouble! She was just trying to help! And be a good mom!” Jessie wailed.
“Are you kidding me?” Doug exploded.
“Calm down, Doug,” Mack said gently. “Does this sound like something your wife would do?”
Doug peered out the window of the car, his face red, looking like he was doing all he could to contain himself.
“I don’t know,” he stammered. “I, I don’t know what goes on in her head sometimes. She’s not the sharpest tool in the shed. She means well, but,” he hesitated. “She c
an act more like a friend than a mother at times.”
“That’s a nice way to put it,” Bella replied, not hiding the sarcasm.
“I am sure she thought she was helping Jessie, doing the right thing. It was bad judgment. She only wants the best for the girls.”
There was that phrase again.
“Is there any way you can think of that Mrs. Freed may have found out about any of this?” Bella asked Jessie. Jessie only shrugged.
“Yes or no, Jessie?”
“No. I mean I would have known or heard about it. She would have killed my mom if she knew.” She stopped when she said that, realizing the irony, then shrugged like she didn’t know what else to say.
“Was your mom and Joslyn close?” Bella asked.
“Not lately,” Jessie admitted grudgingly. “But you heard what Sav said. Joslyn and her mom weren’t getting along either,” Jessie exclaimed.
“I remember what Sav said about her mom. Why wasn’t she getting along with yours?” Bella asked. Doug looked tense.
Jessie didn’t say anything for a minute, and when she did, she looked embarrassed.
“My mom was really upset that Carly got into Vandy and I didn’t. I don’t think they spoke much after Mexico.”
Doug didn’t say a word. He looked pained. Bella was about to ask about Dr. Weber when Mack jumped in.
“Where did you meet your wife Doug?” he asked, suddenly curious.
“In New York City,” was all Doug offered.
“Is that where she’s from?” Mack continued.
“No. She has no family. She was an orphan.”
“An orphan? Really? Who raised her?” Mack sounded conversational.
“Her grandmother. Why are you asking me all these questions?” Doug suddenly asked.
“No specific reason,” replied Mack, flatly. “Just trying to get a sense of the woman who hands her daughter thousands of dollars regularly to buy Adderall from a guy at school, instead of asking her psychiatrist for help. That’s all.”
Doug’s lips clenched and he averted Mack’s gaze.
“Yeah, it was really, really stupid. I could kill her for getting Jess into this mess.”
CHAPTER 30
Bella sat in the small, private back room at the precinct, the door shut, reading a confidential seventy-five-page federal investigatory report on Dunmore. It had been a difficult document to get and Mikey had hit a dead end. Bella called Ryan, again, and Ryan called some of his old friends from grad school, who knew not only more about Dunmore than anyone would want to know, but who knew how to get their hands on the report. Ryan had pulled through. Big time. Three hours later a copy lay in Bella’s lap.
Mack had gone into the sleeper to get some shut-eye—but Bella had gotten a second wind after speaking to Doug and Jessie. Somewhere inside of her she couldn’t shake the feeling that Weber knew something. She wasn’t as ready as Mack to definitively proclaim Ridley their guy. Something was telling her there was more here.
She sifted through the report bleary-eyed as she polished off another cup of lukewarm coffee Attached to the official report were the rambling patient statements, the graphic accusations of sexual abuse and rape against Bobby Barker, the sordid medical histories of the victims, and the photos recovered in Bobby’s suite at the time of his arrest.
Bobby’s unfettered power over those women locked up in the asylum was on display in one photo after another. Bella sorted through them all. In one photo, three women who looked more like girls sat on his lap. In another, Bobby’s arms were wrapped around two women dressed as girls, their hair in pig –tails, each wearing an orange jumpsuit. In a third, he lay on a bed in his underwear wearing only a big gold cross hanging down over his hairy chest. The fox had guarded the henhouse, Bella saw in disgust.
Then she saw it—the photo that made her stop dead in her tracks—Bobby at a dance party, wearing a huge, curly, red wig, surrounded by a posse of what looked to be adolescent girls, with a DJ at his side. The girls in the photo were smiling, holding drinks, seemingly happy. Some wore orange jumpsuits, one danced in a bikini, one wore shorts, knee socks, and only a bra. They looked barely legal Bella noticed. Were they patients or had they been snuck in? All of them, though, had one thing in common. A ribbon around their neck with a crest at the bottom. There it was. Right before her eyes.
The crests were from Dunmore.
*
Bella and Mack sat side by side at a tiny table in a windowless, gray-tiled room in the back of the precinct in the Bronx. Marion Weber sat across from them. Billy had pulled down a warrant to search Weber’s home and office based on Bella’s finding. The search went off without a hitch. Bella was running on two hours’ sleep after having spent the night with Mack rummaging through Weber’s papers and files. Of supreme interest to them was an old notebook among Weber’s belongings. Inside, three photos of a teenage looking girl were taped to the back of the cover. This closed notebook now sat in the middle of the small wooden table. Bella, Mack, and Weber sat in silence looking at it. Bella leaned in and slowly opened the jacket cover, revealing the three pictures inside.
“So?” Bella asked, pointing to a particularly disturbing photo. A teenage girl was sitting on Weber’s lap in a suggestive pose. “Who is she?”
“An old patient of mine it seems,” Weber answered coldly.
“A patient? She looks more like a girlfriend. Or pet toy.” Bella smiled.
Weber glared.
“Why have you kept it, and these others?” Bella asked curiously. She leafed through the pages so Weber could see what she was referring to.
“I didn’t keep them intentionally. They just happen to be among my things.”
“Is she the one who wrote this love poem?” Bella slid the poem across the table too.
“I don’t remember whom this is from,” she answered, looking at the poem. “My patients at Dunmore were very sick. They frequently experienced transference.”
So this patient was from Dunmore. Bella had assumed so but hadn’t known for sure.
“She looks too young to have been at Dunmore,” Bella observed.
Marion didn’t say a word.
“So some of these patients experienced transference huh?” Bella looked skeptical. “That’s a pretty fancy word. Care to elucidate us?” Bella knew exactly what the term meant but wanted to hear Weber speak.
“It’s when a patient transfers their feelings toward another onto the therapist.”
“Oh yeah?” Bella acted surprised. “Interesting. So the love poem didn’t mean anything, then? And your saving these photos doesn’t mean anything now?”
She let the question hang in the air and waited for a response. Weber continued to glare.
“Want to know what I think, Marion?” Bella asked when she saw she wasn’t going to get an answer. “You don’t mind if I call you by your first name, do you?” Without waiting for a reply she went on:
“I think you were in a relationship with this young woman, an intimate relationship. And you took advantage of her.”
“You’re crazy,” Marion spat back angrily.
“Yeah?” Bella asked. “Maybe you’re right. You’re the doctor after all. Maybe you are too, huh? Maybe we’re all a bit loony.”
Bella laughed loudly and, for a second, sounded nuts. Mack remained stoic.
“We will find her, that much I can promise you. So we would appreciate it if you save us some time,” Bella said.
Marion’s cheeks flushed and her hands looked clammy and blotchy when she clasped them together.
“I do not remember.”
“OK, then our work is cut out for us. What about this one?”
Bella motioned to Mack to slide another photo across the table. It was Bobby at the dance party surrounded by girls with crests.
“What can you tell us about this picture?” Bella asked, as Marion stared at the image.
“I can’t tell you anything about it,” she replied.
“No? You don’t recogn
ize that gentleman?”
Marion snarled an answer: “That is clearly Mr. Barker, but I have no idea what he and those girls are doing.”
“It looks like a dance party, no? You see the DJ? They look like they are all dancing and having fun.”
“What about it?”
“Were you aware that Bobby held parties at Dunmore?”
“I went through all of this with the authorities years ago—every sordid picture and accusation. I was not responsible for what he did and for what happened at night when I was not there.”
Weber sounded angry.
“Anything else about the picture that jumps out at ya?”
Weber shook her head.
“Notice the crests the girls have around their necks? Ever seen them before?”
Marion looked at the photo and said quietly, “I don’t recall.”
“You sure about that? It’s OK. Take your time. Look again.”
The room was silent until she lifted her head.
“I have no specific recollection of ever seeing them before. I may have, but I simply do not remember. I worked at Dunmore years ago.”
She was a cool customer still, even after having her home and office searched, even after being hauled into a precinct for questioning.
“Well, we’re gonna let you in on a little secret, Marion,” Bella replied, leaning back with a smile. “A crest exactly like this one was found hanging around Mrs. Freed’s neck.”
Weber looked genuinely shocked. She let her mouth hang open for a moment before snapping it shut.
Bella continued, “Not only that—a crest was also found hanging around the necks of the two girls who hung themselves—you know, Sam and Sophie. And as it seems the crests came from inside Dunmore, well, this is quite a situation we have here now, wouldn’t you agree?”
Marion’s stone-cold iciness gave way now, as her eyes widened and her shoulders and chest heaved backwards. She stared straight at Bella, as though Mack were not even in the room, pursed her lips tightly together, and lifted her hands to her forehead. It was a reaction, but one that was hard to read.
“Why don’t you tell us what you know, Marion? You must know something that can help us, no?”