“We’ll discuss that when we get there, Dr. Parrish, if you don’t mind.” Detective Rhoades motioned him to a gray Taurus sedan with darkened windows, parked in the no-parking zone in front of the hospital entrance. When they reached the Taurus, Detective Pagano opened the back door, and Eric slid into the backseat, surprised to see the stainless-steel divider between the front and the back. There were no inside locks on the doors. The detectives got into the front seat, and the car lurched off.
Eric sat in the backseat, stricken. The awful news begin to sink in. So Renée, that adorable curly-haired redhead, was dead, so young. Murdered. It didn’t seem possible. Eric did and didn’t believe it. He wanted to know how it had happened, even as he couldn’t believe it had happened. He prayed she wasn’t strangled. He didn’t know if that would make it more likely that Max had killed her; Eric still couldn’t believe that Max would do such a thing. He knew from his experience and training that OCD sufferers rarely acted on their fantasies, and even Arthur had agreed with him. So what had happened to Renée?
He looked out the window at the passing traffic, but all he could see was Renée’s fresh face, how cute she was, how bright her eyes, and how sweet her manner. He mentally gathered the few facts he knew about her; she wanted better SAT scores, she lived in a nice house on a cul-de-sac, she talked on the phone too much when she drove, she had a lot of friends, she was popular.
Eric felt confounded. He didn’t know enough about Renée to begin to answer who would have killed her, if not Max. Her boyfriend? Someone else at school? Someone in her family? Or was it a random act of violence? How had she died? Eric realized he didn’t have to guess. He slid his iPhone from his pocket and scrolled to the Internet. He started to type Renée Bevilacqua into the search window, but the signal was bad. His eyes filmed. He stopped. He didn’t have the heart for it right now.
The car was nearing the police station, and Eric had to compose himself. He assumed that Max hadn’t been found yet, because if he had, the police or Marie would have called him. Ironically, whether Max had killed Renée or not, the boy would be in agony—if Max killed her he would want to die, and if somebody else had killed her, he would still want to die.
Eric felt more fearful than ever that Max would kill himself; the boy had nothing left, neither his beloved grandmother nor the girl he was fixated on, the one he had worried so much about, the one he feared he would kill, the one that he had actually killed. If he had.
Eric wasn’t sure that Max had committed murder, so he didn’t know what justice would mean right now, but he was a psychiatrist and a physician. As such, he could do no harm. He had taken an oath. It clarified his next steps. He had to do what he could to save Max. He had to help the police find him and he would have to tell them what they needed to find him, but only what they needed to find him, because Eric’s communications with Max were confidential. Eric was permitted to breach his confidentiality only that much, if it would save Max’s life.
The Taurus turned right onto Iven Road and traveled past the softball field toward the administration building, where the township had its offices and the police station. Iven was usually a quiet street lined with a handful of stone homes, but it didn’t look that way right now. Cars and white news vans with colorful NBC, ABC, CBS, and FOX affiliate logos were parked all along the street to the township administration building, their microwave towers sticking up like spikes.
Suddenly his phone started ringing, and he looked down to see the call was from Laurie, so he answered, “Hi.”
“Eric, what’s going on?” Laurie sounded tense. “I heard cops came and want to see you about some investigation. What’s the matter?”
“I’m okay, don’t worry.” Eric couldn’t tell Laurie about Max because he didn’t want to say too much in front of the police.
“But what’s going on? What did they tell you? Where are you?” Laurie asked the questions staccato, like an emergency doc wanting to get the vitals: BP, respiration, check, check, check.
“I should go. We just got to the police station.”
“You’re going to a police station without a lawyer? Don’t you need a lawyer?”
Eric knew Laurie’s brother was a criminal lawyer in Philly. “Of course not, it’s not about me. I have to go, we’re here. Fill you in later.”
“Eric, but—”
“Bye, talk soon.” Eric hung up as they turned into the grounds of the administration building, which was a new, modern, glass-and-red-brick box, landscaped with mulched specimen plantings, next to a two-level parking lot. Media thronged in front of the building, and as soon as the Taurus turned left into the long driveway, the reporters sprang into frantic motion, grabbing microphones, hoisting videocameras to their shoulders, taking still pictures with cameras held overhead, and holding cell phones and tape recorders aloft.
Detective Rhoades groaned. “Dr. Parrish, you can see we got company. You don’t have to talk to them, and I would advise you not to. They’re like cockroaches. There’s armies of ’em and if they get a crumb, they’ll come back for more.”
“Right, of course,” Eric said, as the car pulled up in front of the station. He realized that he still had his HGH employee lanyard on, so he took it off swiftly and stuck it in his pocket. He didn’t want the reporters to know his name or where he worked.
“Sit tight. We’ll get you inside nice and easy. The only way to do this is orderly.” Detective Rhoades turned around, his face hardly visible through the perforated grate. “We’re going to come around to the backseat. Stay with us and walk straight to the door. They’re going to yell questions. My advice would be not to comment.”
“Right.” Eric pocketed his cell phone.
“Stay seated until we come around the back.” Detective Rhoades turned off the engine, then both detectives got out of the car and walked quickly to the backseat. Detective Rhoades came around, reached in a meaty hand for Eric, and practically lifted him bodily out of the car.
The media erupted in noise, everyone calling out at once. “Sir, who are you?” “Are you family?” “Are you here in connection with the Bevilacqua murder?” Reporters held up microphones, cameras, and cell phones. “Are you related to the victim?” “What information do you have?” “Did you know Renée Bevilacqua?”
The detectives hustled him to the entrance, and Eric kept his head down. They reached the entrance, the smoked glass doors slid open, and they found themselves inside a boxy hall with gray carpets. Detectives Rhoades let go of his arm. “Well done, Dr. Parrish. Come this way.”
“Thanks. Call me Eric.”
“Okay, Eric. I’m Jerry. My partner’s Joe.”
“Great.” Eric followed the detectives through another glass doorway. To the right were segmented windows that divided the entrance from a sort of office space, and next to that a Coke vending machine and a white box that read Delco Medicine Drop, Help Prevent the Abuse of Prescription Drugs. They turned into a sleek, clean two-story lobby with rust-colored couches, recessed lighting, paneled walls, and an orange-carpeted spiral stairway that curved to the right.
“Is this the police station?” Eric tried to orient himself.
“Yes. We’re lucky, we wouldn’t have so much space if we didn’t share with the Township.”
“It’s nice.” Eric thought it looked nothing like the crappy ones on TV.
“Thanks. Right this way.” Detective Rhoades bypassed the staircase, led them to a set of doors, and they entered a large, empty office that had a glass wall on the far side and a side wall lined with beige file cabinets, a printer, a copier, and some file accordions. Several desks occupied the middle of the room, each holding neatly stacked files next to their blotters, and around the edges were kids’ school photographs, Little League pictures, and Phillies, Eagles, and Sixers regalia.
Eric thought it looked like a generic corporate office until he noticed a large bulletin board that read Cleared Cases, and underneath that hung thirty eight-by-ten mugshots of men and women o
f all shapes, sizes, ages, and races. Their expressions varied—lost, defiant, drunken, vacant, stricken, and damaged—and next to their names were their crimes—Robbery, Burglary, Ag Assault, Simple Assault, Criminal Mischief, Terroristic Threats, Home Invasion, Assault with a Deadly Weapon. Any one of them could have been the patients whom Eric saw at the hospital, brought by cops into the ED. There was so much mental illness among the criminal population, and so much mental illness being criminalized, that it was impossible to see where one problem ended and the other began.
“Here we go, Dr. Parrish. Would you mind stepping through the metal detector?” Detective Rhoades gestured him toward a metal detector in the back of the room.
“Not at all.” Eric walked through it, and Detective Rhoades met him on the other side.
“Would you like something to drink? We got coffee, soda, a bottle of water.” Detective Rhoades smiled, showing remarkably even teeth.
“Water, thanks.”
“How about something to eat? Lotta sandwiches upstairs. Cookies, too. It’s leftover conference food, but it’s good.”
“No, thanks.” Eric hadn’t eaten since the morning, but he wasn’t hungry.
“This is the place.” Detective Rhoades opened the door to a small room. “Why don’t you go in and sit down, and we’ll get you that water?”
Chapter Thirty-four
The room was a small beige rectangle, and the outer wall was a floor-to-ceiling glass covered by white blinds, while the wall on the right was a massive black sheet of glass, obviously an observation window. Eric could see a fuzzy silhouette of himself ghosted faintly in its dark reflection. He sat perched on the edge of a black mesh chair at a narrow table with a fake-wood top, pressed against one wall. He set his phone on the table, which otherwise held only a black landline telephone and, inexplicably, a roll of toilet paper.
“Here you go, Eric.” Detective Rhoades returned and eased heavily into the chair catty-corner. He set two bottles of water down on the table and slid one to Eric.
“Thanks.” Eric uncapped the bottle and drank thirstily as Detective Pagano entered the room with a water bottle and took a chair at the other end of the table. Eric could see, in the indirect light from the window, that Pagano was maybe ten years younger than Detective Rhoades, probably in his early thirties, with cheeks that bore the faint pitting of adolescent acne. His face was long and narrow and his small, dark eyes were set too close-together, which gave him an unfriendly aspect.
“So, Eric, thanks for coming down. We really appreciate it.”
“I’m happy to help.”
“This is a new investigation, and we like to dot our i’s and cross our t’s. That’s why we videotape our interviews. You don’t mind, do you?”
Eric hesitated. “Uh, no, but where’s the camera?”
“Behind there.” Detective Rhoades waved at the black glass. “So, tell me about yourself. What’s it like to be the head doctor on the psychiatry department? No pun intended.” He chuckled. “Get it? Head doctor, head doctor.”
“Funny.” Eric managed a smile.
“You like it?”
“My job? I love it.”
“How long have you been at HGH?”
“Fifteen years.”
“What are the hours like?”
“It’s basically nine-to-five.”
“Must be nice.”
Eric felt defensive, for some reason. He sensed the detective’s demeanor change, becoming less friendly. “I have private patients, too. I see them at my house.”
“You’re allowed to do that? Moonlight, like that?”
“Yes. It’s not atypical. Why?”
“Just curious. I moonlight too. Do security at parties.” Detective Rhoades shrugged his heavy shoulders. “You weren’t just getting in to work when I saw you, were you?”
“No. I was at a meeting.” Eric wasn’t about to elaborate.
“You got a family? Me, I have a wife, three kids.”
“Uh, I mean, yes.”
“But you live alone, right? I looked you up. You live in the Township.”
“Right, yes.” Eric was surprised the detective had looked him up, but he shouldn’t have been. Everybody Googled everybody nowadays.
“So you’re not living with your family?”
“Do we need to talk about my family?” Eric didn’t want to talk about Hannah or Caitlin. The detective could know Caitlin was an A.D.A. “I’d like to talk about Renée Bevilacqua. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”
“Okay, yes, no problem.” Detective Rhoades eased back in his chair and crossed his legs. His fleshy face fell into grim lines. “Tell me what you know about her. It’s such a sad case. Her parents are beside themselves. Her father just lost it when we were out at the house.”
“I’m sure.” Eric could only imagine what Renée’s family was going through. He had treated families who had lost loved ones to violent crime and he’d even treated victims of violent crime. They worked impossibly hard in therapy to come out healthy and whole. The process took years.
“So how do you know Renée?”
“I don’t know her, exactly.” Eric had to choose his words carefully.
“Oh, I thought you knew her.”
“No, I don’t.”
“I thought you said at the hospital that she was one of your private patients.”
“No, I didn’t say that,” Eric answered, uneasily. It was uncharted professional territory, trying to decide what he could divulge and what he couldn’t.
“Then I musta heard wrong. When that other doctor asked who Renée was, I heard you say she was one of your private patients.”
“No, I didn’t. I’m not allowed to divulge the identities of my private patients or my patients at the hospital.”
“So you can’t tell me whether or not Renée was your patient?”
“No, wait, I’m not making myself clear.” Eric shook his head, unnerved. “I can’t tell you who my patients are, but I can tell you that Renée wasn’t one of them.”
“You can’t tell me who your patients are, but you can tell me who they aren’t?” Detective Rhoades smiled, scratching his shorn head.
“Exactly. The identities of my patients are confidential. Does that explain it?”
“Yes.” Detective Rhoades paused, eyeing him. “You okay, Eric? You seem kind of upset.”
“No, I mean, yes. Obviously, I am upset, a young girl was murdered.”
“How did you know she was young, if you didn’t know her?” Detective Rhoades pursed his lips. “I got the impression you hadn’t heard she was murdered until I told you.”
“Detective, let me explain. Whom I treat and what they say during treatment is strictly confidential, as a matter of doctor-patient privilege. You must know, that’s a matter of Pennsylvania law.” Eric knew that much about the law, though he couldn’t cite chapter and verse.
“Right.” Detective Rhoades nodded.
“But I can breach that confidentiality, to a certain extent, when I believe that one of my patients is a danger to themselves or someone else.” Eric felt like such a hypocrite saying the words. He hadn’t told the police when he had the chance. He hadn’t saved Renée. But maybe he could still save Max. “And if I breach it, I’m allowed to tell you only the barest minimum to prevent that patient from harming himself or anybody else.”
Detective Rhoades listened intently. “So tell me.”
“I have a private patient, a seventeen-year-old, Max Jakubowski. I reported him missing last night and I told the police that he disappeared after the death of his grandmother at about six o’clock.”
“You called here?”
“No, Berwyn. I called 911 and asked the Berwyn Police Department to go to Max’s house, and they did, but they couldn’t find him.”
“And the name of this patient is Max Jakubowski?”
“Yes. Have you seen a report come in about him today?”
“No. Give me a description of him.”
“As I told the officers last night, he has light brown hair, blue eyes, and goes to Pioneer High School.” Eric glanced over at Detective Pagano, noticing for the first time that he was taking notes on a skinny pad. “That’s the most I can tell you, except for his home address, which Officer Gambia knows.”
“He’s with the Berwyn PD. They’re not this jurisdiction.”
Eric tensed. “Okay, it’s 310 Newton Road in Berwyn. That’s all I can tell you.”
“What does Max Jakubowski have to do with Renée Bevilacqua’s murder?”
Eric hesitated, his heart pounding. He was the only person who knew the link between Max and Renée, and he hated divulging even a part of it. It was the only way to save Max’s life, but it could also put the boy on the hook for Renée’s murder. There was still a part of him that believed in Max. He wasn’t about to give the police information that they could use to convict him of a murder he didn’t commit.
Eric answered, “All I can tell you, within the limits of my confidentiality, is that I have information that suggests that Max might know something about Renée Bevilacqua’s death.”
“What information do you have?”
“I can’t tell you more than I’ve already told you. He’s missing and you need to find him. As I told the officers last night, I believe he is a suicide risk.”
“Why do you believe that?”
“I can’t answer that question.”
“Does that have to do with Renée Bevilacqua?”
“I can’t answer that question, either.”
“Does he know her, go to school with her?”
“I can’t answer any of those questions.”
Detective Rhoades frowned. “How long have you been seeing Max as a patient?”
“I can’t answer.”
“Did you tape your sessions with him?”
“No.”
“Did you take notes?”
“Yes.” Eric knew what was coming next.
“Will you produce those notes for us?”
Eric hesitated. “No, not even under subpoena. It’s strictly confidential. I’m telling you what you need to know now. Find Max.”