The Good Lie by A.R. Torre

CHAPTER 32

“You don’t seem nervous.” Robert emptied out his pockets into a small bowl held out by the security guard.

“I’m not nervous. A little excited.”

He chuckled. “Excited . . . that’s an interesting emotion to have.”

We moved through the metal detectors, then waited for our items to pass through the conveyor belt. I looked down. “Cute socks.” They were a gray argyle with small flamingos printed across them.

He moved his toes in response. “Cute polish. Would you call that magenta?”

“I was thinking plum.”

He grabbed my heels off the belt and passed them to me. We sat in the metal folding chairs against the wall and put our shoes back on. I glanced at the security guards, who were laughing at something. “How often have you visited him?”

“Randall? Every other day.”

“Really?” I stood and waited for him to finish tying his shoes. “That seems like a lot. You have that much to talk about?”

“Not really. Most of them are more of a pep-talk visit.” He stood and retucked the back of his shirt in. “He’s not doing too well.”

“Does anyone do well in prison?” I asked.

His hand gently rested on the small of my back as he guided me to the left hall. “I’m worried about him. I’ll be curious what you think about his mental fortitude after talking to him.”

“He’s still maintaining his innocence?”

He sighed. “Yes.” He pressed an elevator call button, and we paused, waiting.

I glanced at a camera that pointed down at us. “You know it’s weird, right? That you’re defending a man who is on trial for murdering your son?”

We stepped into the elevator.

“I wouldn’t defend him if I thought he was guilty.”

“Have you defended guilty people before?”

“Sure.” He selected the third floor. “But I wouldn’t in this situation, for obvious reasons.”

“So, you’re willing to overlook morality, unless it involves your family.”

He let out an irritated huff. “I wouldn’t put it that way.” He turned his gaze to me. “But sure, my moral compass can be off at times. Same as yours.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “In what way is mine off?”

“Well, I defend the guilty. You protect them.” The elevator doors opened, and I waited for him to get out. He didn’t.

I followed his lead and stayed in place. “How do I protect the guilty?”

His face hardened. “Pop quiz, Dr. Gwen. What do you do when a patient confesses their secrets to you?”

I paused, and the elevator doors closed, isolating us in the small space. “Depends on the secret.”

He gave an unamused chuckle. “Ah, depends on the secret. Okay, I’ll play. Have you ever turned in one of your clients or reported anything that was told to you in a session?”

Something in the way he asked the question made it seem like it was wrong that I’d never broken a client’s confidence. “No,” I said carefully.

“Have any ever confessed to a crime?”

I hesitated. Yes, of course they had. That was why a lot of them were clients. To sort out guilt and regret and learn from their pasts and how to prevent future violence from occurring. “Yes,” I said flatly.

“Have any of them told you about a future crime they were planning?”

On this one, I stayed silent. I wasn’t the one on trial here. I didn’t have to answer to him. I had doctor-patient confidentiality on my side and—if you pretended that John Abbott didn’t exist—I had a spotless track record in deciding which confidences to keep.

A spotless track record, assuming your clients tell you everything,a little voice inside my head whispered, and it was the same one that kept me awake on the bad nights. The truth of the matter was, I didn’t know everything my clients did. I knew what they told me. They shared a lot, but they kept secrets from me, too. Did Louis really stop beating his wife? I wouldn’t know. Did Carlos still kill stray animals? Had he ever hurt a person?

All I knew was what they chose to tell me. That was it.

Robert rested his weight against the far wall, giving me plenty of room. “You got quiet all of a sudden, Doc.”

I reached out and pressed the “3” button, grateful when the doors immediately opened. Stepping out into the hall, I plowed forward, hoping I was heading in the right direction.

“It’s this direction,” Robert called out.

Of course it was. I pulled a tight 180 and forced a breezy smile. “Please, lead the way.”

He studied me for a moment, then started down the hall. Shaking his head, he mumbled something under his breath.

I didn’t ask him to speak up. Right then, I didn’t really want to know what he had to say.

Randall Thompson sat in a folding chair in the center of a glassed-in room. We were led to the adjacent room, and I frowned as the door was shut behind us. “Why aren’t we in with him?” I’d done this before, multiple times, and even with violent offenders, I was always in the same room as them.

“Safety,” Robert said.

The guard pulled aside a curtain, and we were exposed to the man through a large window of glass. The older man seemed half-asleep, his wrists and ankles both secured by handcuffs, the latter of which were linked through a ring on the floor. “I think we’ll be fine.”

“They aren’t worried about us.” He scratched the back of his neck. “They’re worried about me.”

“You?” It took a moment to process, then was absurdly obvious. Of course. There was no way they’d allow the parent of a victim in the same room with his alleged killer. “Oh.” I let out an awkward laugh. “Well, let me go in with him.”

“He can hear and see us,” Robert said. “You can just press the button, and it’ll open up the microphone so you can talk to him.”

“No.” I knocked on the glass window between us and the guard. “I want to be in the room with him.”

“But—” Robert’s comment was cut off by the guard, who opened the door.

“Everything okay?”

“I’d like to meet with Mr. Thompson in his meeting room.” I pulled out my credentials. “I’m on the approved list.”

The guard glanced from me to Robert. “Just you?”

“Yes.”

Robert stayed silent, but I could feel the irritation radiating from him.

The guard shrugged. “Okay.”

It took them five minutes to counsel me on the safety protocol, make sure I didn’t have any weapons or contraband on me, and do a rigorous pat-down. I verified and reverified that I would have privacy inside the room, then I was stepping into the bare area. Randall Thompson turned his head and looked at me.

“Who are you?” he asked warily.

“I’m Dr. Gwen Moore.” I walked to the center of the window and turned my back to it, aware that Robert and the guards were watching each move I took. “I’m a psychiatrist who specializes in clients with violent tendencies.”

“Let me guess. You’re here to decide if I’m crazy?”

“Actually . . .” I dragged a chair over from the corner, its feet shrieking against the floor in protest. “I’m here to see if Robert Kavin is crazy.”

It was an intentional move, one designed to pull the focus off him and lighten up the mood. An attention seeker would immediately react in a way that would yank the conversation back to him. Randall found the comment amusing. The change was visible, his shoulders losing some of their defeated slump, his spine stiffening back to life. “Are you serious?”

“Completely.” I sat down in the chair. “A grieving father defending his son’s killer?” I made a face. “Come on.”

“I’m not a killer.” His voice was quiet but firm. Resolute, with no attempt at eye contact and no fidgeting or change in his breathing. Either he was a good liar, or he was telling the truth.

Could he be telling the truth? I frowned, worried at the implications of that possibility, which would mean that the Bloody Heart Killer was still out there.

“Okay,” I said simply. “But how does Robert Kavin know that?”

He glanced at the window. “Is he out there?”

“Yes. But he can’t hear us. I’m a doctor, so you and I have our own form of confidentiality.”

He shifted in the chair, uncomfortable with the conversation. The chain between his ankles clanked against the floor hook and seemed to remind him of his position. He sobered, glancing at the floor restraint, then back at me. “I don’t know why he’s defending me, but he’s the only person who believes me. If you’re here for me to throw dirt on him, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

“I can respect that.” I leaned forward and rested my forearms on my knees. “Got any questions for me?”

This surprised him, and it was a method I used a lot with new clients. They were always so on guard, so used to defending and protecting themselves that they normally jumped on the chance to ask me something. And no matter what they asked, I was honest with them. You couldn’t earn trust without giving it.

“Is that why you’re really here? To ask me about him?” He nodded to the window, and Robert was probably beside himself trying to figure out what we were talking about.

I tucked a loose piece of hair back into my bun. “I was brought on your legal team to write a psychological profile. Not on you—but to give my impression of what type of person the Bloody Heart Killer is.”

His nails were bitten to the quick, dried blood around the outside of one cuticle. His beard was overgrown and unkempt, his eyebrows bushy instead of tamed. The overgrown beard could be a product of his time in prison, but the bitten nails were a sign of poor self-control. The eyebrows were indicative of long-term physical negligence. Neither matched the BH Killer, though poor personal hygiene was one of the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia. So were slow movements, and if Randall Thompson moved less, he’d be asleep.

I cleared my throat. “I created a psychological profile and need to compare you to that profile and see if it’s a match. That’s why I’m here, and why I was hired by Robert. Who, by the way, seems convinced of your innocence.” I stared at him until he lifted his eyes and met mine. “How’d he end up as your attorney?”

“He showed up shortly after I was arrested and offered to represent me.” He cleared his throat. “I’m not exactly in a position to be choosy.”

No, he wasn’t. After sending my profile to Robert, I had caught up on the television reports and the news articles on Randall. The media had done an excellent job of dissecting and documenting his unimpressive life. He lived in a run-down home that had belonged to his parents, earned a menial wage from teaching, and was a strip-mall Santa each holiday season. He kept the beard and belly year-round and had the pallor of someone who rarely saw sunlight.

I didn’t like it. It didn’t feel right for the BH Killer. I switched tactics. “We know someone in common.” I clipped my pen into the top of my binder. “Luke Attens.” I watched him closely, waiting for a reaction to the mention.

He stared at me blankly, and unless this guy grew a personality when he drank coffee, I didn’t know how he’d ever earned a nomination for Teacher of the Year.

“Luke Attens,” I repeated. “He was a student of yours.”

“Oh.” He nodded, but there was nothing there. “Okay. How long ago?”

“I’m not sure exactly. Probably ten years ago.”

He lifted his shoulders in a half shrug. “Lots of kids come through my classroom. Two hundred a year. It’s hard to keep track of them all.”

I thought of Luke, of the raw rage trembling through his features, and how he would react if he knew that Randall Thompson didn’t remember him.

I took a risk and lied, filling in the blanks that Luke Attens had given me and hoping it would goad Randall Thompson into revealing something. “He says that you acted inappropriately toward him. Sexually.”

His features immediately shuttered, a door closing in my face. “No. Absolutely not.”

“Maybe you don’t remember it,” I suggested.

He looked me right in the eye, and it was the most energy he’d given me so far. “I’m not a fag,” he said emphatically, and the corner of his lip lifted in a sneer.

Hmm. One key that fit into place. Strong disdain toward homosexuality. And there was something in those eyes, in the flare of emotion, that read predator. I’d been around too many dangerous individuals to not recognize one in the flesh. This one was slow and old—would probably wheeze over and die while chasing you through the woods—but there was still something rotten behind that wary stare.

My impressions of him clicked through my mind. What matched my profile, what didn’t. My instincts on his character versus my clinical opinion and the profile. He wasn’t an innocent man, despite what Robert protested. Had mild signs of paranoid schizophrenia, but poor hygiene and slow movements weren’t unique identifiers.

The big question was, was he the BH Killer?

Robert waited until we were out of the jail and halfway across the parking lot before asking my thoughts.

“I don’t know yet. Let me go through my notes.” I noticed a news van at the far end of the lot, a camera pointed our way, and increased my speed.

“Gwen . . .” It was more of a warning than a plea. He unlocked his car, and the lights on the Mercedes flashed.

I met his eyes over the roof of the car and fished in my purse for my own keys. “These aren’t building blocks, Robert. I can’t just tell you if a round peg fits in a hole. I need to absorb everything he said.”

“Fine. Let’s talk later tonight. Drinks at my house.”

I glanced toward the cameras, aware that one was headed our way. “What about tomorrow? I’ll call your office and schedule an appointment.”

His grin was almost wolfish when it unfurled across that mouth. “Oh, come on. If I spend any more time in my office, I’ll go batty. We can relax at the house. Sit by the outdoor fire. Trust me, I’ll be a perfect gentleman.”

And he always had been. The issue was on my end. I had never been to his house, but I was assuming it was like the rest of him. Smooth. Tempting. A siren’s call to slip off your heels, unbutton your blouse, and guzzle wine like a cheap whore. “Tomorrow,” I tried again. “I’m free in the afternoon.”

He opened his car door and prepared to step inside, his final words tossed over the roof of the car as he disappeared inside. “Come by the house at eight. I’ll text you the address.”

No,I thought. No. His engine purred to life, and I took a step back, then glanced around for my car. Spotting it three rows over, I headed toward it. As Robert’s Mercedes swung past me, I didn’t turn my head and didn’t acknowledge it.

No,I thought. I will not be at your house at eight. I needed a desk between us. Papers and folders and staples and desk lamps. A receptionist in the background. Order applied to the chaos.

The stance sounded good, but I was already picking out lingerie and shaving my legs, my body humming in anticipation of what the night might bring.

I stepped into the warmth of my car and unlocked the roof, needing as much fresh air as I could get. I had a bigger problem than my libido, and that was that both men inside that jail—Robert and Randall—had been lying to me. I would face one of them again in a courtroom, and the other in just a few hours in his home.

Both were lying, but were both of them dangerous?