The Girls He Adored

36

No one escaped the clutches of Klopfman hospitality. After a real cluster-fuck of an interagency meeting at the Pacific Grove police headquarters with representatives from the PG cops, the state police and CHP, the California DOJ, the Monterey County sheriff's department, the U.S. Marshals, and of course Agent Pastor of the FBI (he did his best to ignore Pender's presence), at which jurisdictional matters were discussed, voices were raised, and fingers were pointed, Pender showed up at Sam and Barbara's doorstep around eleven o'clock to try to wangle an interview.

Barbara had already taken two Valium and gone to bed, but upon learning that Pender had spent the last two nights in the hospital, Sam Klopfman had insisted that he stay in their guest bedroom.

Rather than driving all the way back to the Travel Inn in Salinas, then returning the next morning, Pender, exhausted and in pain, accepted. Under the assumption that he wouldn't be operating any heavy equipment for the next six hours, he took two more Vicodin tablets-not excessive for a man his size, he felt, despite the dosage recommendation on the label-and was asleep within minutes. Some time later he awoke in the dark, his mind frighteningly and deliciously blank. Someone was tapping at the door-but what door, what room?

It all came back to him when he switched on the bedside light, saw the cow-themed lamp, bedspread, statuettes, paintings, and knickknacks of the Klopfman guest room. Then he heard the tapping again.

“Yes?”

The door opened; a round, double-chinned, dark-eyed, darkhaired woman appeared in the doorway. “Agent Pender?”

“Dr. Klopfman?”

“May I come in?”

“Please.”

Barbara closed the door behind her and tiptoed into the room, wearing a too-tall man's bathrobe that trailed the floor, over a comfy-cozy thick cotton nightgown. “I couldn't sleep-Sam told me you were here and wanted to talk to me as soon as possible.”

“The sooner the better,” said Pender doubtfully, sitting up, pulling the covers to his waist. He was feeling warm, toasty, affectionate, and muzzy. As he glanced at the clock on the wall, noting with some amusement that the little cow was at one and the big cow at six, he remembered about the pain pills. One-thirty in the morning, stoned on Vicodin.

Fortunately, Dr. Klopfman was under the influence of her own medication and either didn't notice or didn't care. Before long they were calling each other Ed and Barbara, and flirting harmlessly as she told him her story.

Pender had never conducted an interview half stoned, sitting up in bed in his underwear, but it didn't seem to affect his prowess. Barbara found the big man's presence comforting. He prompted her gently, elicited details she didn't know she remembered, and even held her hand at the scariest parts.

When she had finished, Pender asked her if she thought there was any possibility that Casey was faking DID.

“I doubt it,” Barbara replied without hesitation. “He could fool me easily enough, but when it comes to dissociative disorders, Irene's the very best there is-it'd be hard to fool her. She ran a full battery of tests, did a clinical interview-she even put him under for a regression.”

“I wish to hell I'd been a fly on the wall for that.”

“You could always listen to the tape,” said Barbara.

Pender appeared startled. “She taped her sessions?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I'll be.” Upon learning that Dr. Cogan had been abducted, the FBI had broken into her office, but there was no sign of the notes she'd promised to type up for them. Case Agent Pastor had confiscated her PC and was having an FBI computer security expert sent down from San Jose to break her password, but it would take at least another day. Once again, Pender was one jump ahead of the investigative curve.

“Where would she keep the tapes?” he asked Barbara.

“Her office, I suppose. I know where she keeps the spare key-I could take you over first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow morning, hell,” said Pender, starting to throw back the covers, then remembering that he was in his underwear. “Didn't anybody ever tell you, the FBI never sleeps?”

“I sleep,” replied Barbara.

“Irene won't,” said Pender-that clinched the deal.