Time of Death

19

Cliff called to Ren when she walked in. ‘Hey, your brother Matt on two.’

Ren got to her desk and picked up.

‘Hey,’ said Matt. ‘I heard about the T-shirt. What the hell’s going on?’

‘That’s what I’m trying to find out, Matt. I can’t understand all this. It’s insane. Did you call Jay?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He’s just like us — devastated.’

‘In his little emotional HazMat suit.’ Emotions: hazardous materials Jay Bryce.

‘I’m staying out of it,’ said Matt. ‘Do you have any idea how that T-shirt wound up in the headboard?’

‘Not a clue. Did you know that the hole was even there?’

‘No.’

‘Who goes into Beau’s room?’ said Ren.

‘Just Mom.’

‘Do people ever stay over?’

‘Riiight. Look, let’s face it, Ren — this is all bullshit. It’s not like one of Mom and Dad’s friends is randomly going to wander into Beau’s room, discover a hole in a headboard and put a T-shirt belonging to Louis Parry inside.’

‘I know, I know.’

‘We’re kind of talking a whole lot of nothing here.’

‘That about covers it,’ said Ren. ‘How are you doing?’

‘Crap.’

‘Is there anything we’re not factoring in? Like, has someone got it in for us?’

‘What?’ said Matt. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Well, Beau didn’t have anything to do with Louis going missing, so someone is obviously trying to frame him.’

‘No, I get that. But I don’t think that means they want to hurt us, like, deliberately.’

‘Oh, please Like this would have no impact on the rest of us?’

‘Maybe whoever it is just does not care,’ said Matt. ‘Do you think it could be the person who took Louis?’

‘No,’ said Ren. ‘That would be way too risky. You’d sit it out. Especially if you’d gotten away with it for this long.’

‘True.’

‘Imagine if no one took Louis,’ said Ren. ‘Like he had an accident, wandered off somewhere, fell down a hole or something.’

There was silence at the other end.

‘OK,’ said Ren. ‘I know.’

‘And just one small thing — I do know where you were coming from, because my angel wife has that healing presence, but she is not the one to be helping Mom right now. Basically she is having a “How can we bring a child into this horrible world?” moment and the closer she is to anything like a child going missing or a dead brother or a traumatized mother, the more freaked out she’ll get…’

‘Oh my God, I am so sorry,’ said Ren. ‘I didn’t think of it that way at all. How didn’t I, more to the point? I just thought, Who always knows the right thing to do in times like this? And then I thought of you guys. And I figured you would be working.’

‘Hey, don’t worry about it…but if you so much as suggest that again? Bitch, I will cut you…’

Ren laughed. ‘I feel really dumb. I just…Mom adores Lauren. She’s the daughter she never had…’

Matt laughed. ‘Anyway, don’t worry about it. It’s not a big deal.’

‘Please tell Lauren I’m sorry.’

‘Oh, Lauren has no idea I’m calling you. I’m her emotional spokesperson at the moment. She didn’t say a thing. She was almost on her way to Mom’s. I just knew that, when she came back, she’d be haunted in the eye.’

‘Nice save, then.’

‘I’m sure I won’t give a crap about her for the second child.’

‘Thanks for making me laugh.’

‘Hey, how are you doing…about Helen?’

‘Awful. The irony is that she spent almost two years trying to squeeze an emotion out of me. She finally achieves that. Then she’s gone.’

‘That kind of progress can’t be reversed that quickly,’ said Matt. ‘You’ll find another therapist. It will be like the movie Always. Helen will be watching over you while you find someone to take her place.’

‘Oh, God, that movie…’ said Ren.

‘Step away from the video store.’

Glenn Buddy knocked on the open office door and stuck his head in as Ren was hanging up.

‘Hello, there,’ she said.

‘Hey,’ said Glenn. ‘I spoke with Colin Grabien.’

Am I supposed to know why?

‘And he was right about the transaction database.’

What?

‘So, yes,’ said Glenn, ‘the security guy hadn’t looked at it.’

The security guy at the warehouse! ‘OK,’ said Ren. ‘That’s great.’

‘Someone did hack the system — that’s how your name showed up as having accessed the premises.’

‘OK…so…someone was deliberately trying to place me at a crime scene?’

Glenn shrugged. ‘Do you know why anyone would do that?’

‘I have absolutely no idea.’

‘Whoever it was, they did a very good job. Colin was able to see that they had been there, but after that, they left not a trace.’

‘That’s all very odd,’ said Ren.

‘Anyway, I’m sorry for having to ask you about all that.’

‘No problem, Glenn. What else could you do?’

‘Thank you.’

‘So,’ said Ren. ‘How’s it all going?’

‘Well one development,’ said Glenn. ‘When we looked at Wheeler’s office the day the body was found, there were notes on her desk. They looked like they were notes for a book.’

‘What?’

Glenn nodded. ‘It had “Untitled” on the top, but it was obviously a collection of case studies from her practice.’

‘On what subject?’

‘The notes were rough. Patient A this, that…’ He looked at Ren. ‘You didn’t know anything about it?’

‘No. She didn’t mention anything.’

‘Well, it’s good news for us, because it means we can access the patient files.’

Whoa. ‘I can’t imagine it will be that easy. Even if the notes were in plain view. You’d have a hard time convincing the DA…’

‘It’s done and dusted,’ said Glenn. ‘It’s a very real possibility that Helen was killed by a patient.’

‘But is there anything that made you think there was a killer in those notes?’ She gestured for him to sit down.

Glenn shrugged. ‘Who knows?’ He sat down.

‘Well, what did they say?’

‘Patient A: male, thirty-one-’

‘Loner, gun fanatic?’

‘I wish,’ said Glenn. ‘No — male, thirty-one, married, electronic engineer, schizophrenic, aural delusions, substance abuse problems, failed rehab times three…Patient B: female, thirty-seven, single, psychotic episodes-’

‘There’s our killer,’ said Ren. ‘Crazy woman.’

Glenn shrugged. ‘Psychotic episodes, bipolar, leo, Rx Zyprexa…’ He scanned down the page. ‘Patient C: male, forty-two, married, undertaker, history of depression, alcoholic, physically/verbally abusive to spouse-’

Ren pointed to the page he had in front of him. ‘What’s that leo thing in patient B? I doubt Helen was doing star signs…’

‘I said LEO. Law Enforcement Officer.’

Thirty-seven, single, psychotic episodes, bipolar, law-enforcement officer, Rx Zyprexa…

Ren’s stomach turned.

Glenn was still smiling at her, but Ren could barely respond.

‘So,’ said Glenn. ‘There you have it.’

‘How will it work from here?’

‘A taint team will access the files-’

‘A what?’

‘A taint team — there’s a lot of crap in those files no one needs to see. I might need to know that Patient A’s giant white rabbit friend was telling him to kill all medical professionals, but I don’t need to know he wore his great aunt’s yellow drawers to his sixteenth birthday party.’

‘Right.’

‘So this taint team goes in, reads the psych files, tries to match them to these Patients A, B and C, and hands only what they see as the relevant parts of these files over to the judge.’

Ren paused. ‘And this is so that a defendant — if you find one — can’t file a motion to suppress all the information in the files on the grounds that it could taint the investigators and prosecutors?’

Glenn paused. ‘I believe that is correct.’

‘And these are the only three files you can access? Just because they were in plain view?’

‘That’s the law.’ Glenn shrugged.

‘Do you know who’s on this taint team?’

‘Three prosecutors from the DA’s office that aren’t involved in the case.’

‘For objectivity.’

‘Yes.’

‘And who’s the judge?’

‘Douglas Hammond.’

‘And…how will it all work?’ said Ren. ‘I mean, the fact that a patient is a patient is privileged information in itself.’

Glenn nodded. ‘I guess they feel that the taint team addresses that. It goes no further than those three people.’

‘That doesn’t sound strong enough to hold up.’

‘Douglas Hammond seems to think so.’

‘What did Helen Wheeler’s assistant say about the book?’

‘She said she didn’t know anything about it.’

‘And you don’t find that strange?’ said Ren. ‘Her own assistant doesn’t know?’

‘Not really. Wheeler could have just wanted to keep it on the down low before she told anyone what she was doing. The assistant didn’t seem very helpful,’ said Glenn. ‘Wouldn’t you think she would want us to find her boss’s killer?’

‘Yes, but not to destroy all her patients’ mental health in the process,’ said Ren. ‘I doubt Helen Wheeler would want that either. Also, I’m sure if her assistant really thought one of the patients was a threat, she would have let you know.’ I am talking about this too much.

‘Sure,’ said Glenn. ‘But it’s not like the assistant’s a trained psychiatrist.’

‘True. Right, well, keep me posted,’ said Ren. ‘Hopefully something will come up.’

And please God let it not be Patient B’s deep dark secrets.