'What, you left Heather alone? She has a history of unexplained injuries, she could hurt or kill herself in unguarded minutes.' Jason spoke mildly, but thoughts of the shooting and all the bungling in the case made him furious. Suicide was an issue here. Now that her husband was dead Heather Rose would really have to be watched every minute.
Baum was taken aback. Apparently he hadn't considered this. 'All she did was cut off her hair,' he said defensively.
'She cut off her hair?' April hadn't mentioned that.
A commotion commenced at the front door when a well-dressed man wearing handcuffs was brought in by two uniformed officers. Detective Baum touched Jason's arm to move him out of the way as the cops hustled the prisoner to the front desk. The prisoner was complaining, and the two officers were trying to shut him up. They all had such strong New York accents Jason didn't understand a word. He tried to concentrate on Heather Rose's near-simultaneous loss of the baby she'd loved, who wasn't hers, and of her husband, who'd hurt her and had never consummated their marriage. It was a heavy load.
'How long has she been in there alone?' he asked.
'Several hours.'
'She's been alone for several hours. Are you
crazy?'
'She's all right. We have an officer at the door.' Baum jerked his head for Jason to follow him up the stairs.
Jason paused outside the interview room to take a look through the window in the door. Heather was sitting on a metal folding chair with her shorn head in her hands. On the table sat an unopened paper bag, presumably the lunch she hadn't eaten. She looked frail in jeans and a summer pullover, with her impromptu haircut. With her hair less than an inch long, the ugly scalp wound was clearly visible.
Jason felt a huge wave of relief, and another of sadness for her double loss. And he wondered if Heather was up to the questioning she would no doubt have to endure. April had asked him to question her. Now he had his own good reasons for doing so. He composed his features and quickly went inside, chiding himself for the mundane things he always said in the direst situations. This time it was 'Hi. Long time no see.'
Heather looked up, startled. 'What are you doing here?'
'I told you last night I'd be around for you. You didn't think I'd disappear so fast, did you?'
'Who asked you to come here? Why are they keeping me here? What's happening?' Heather cried. She reached up to her head in a characteristic gesture of hair arranging, then realized her hair was no longer there. The hand became dispirited and fell to her lap. All the time she was anxiously focused on the door, where Detective Baum stood behind Jason, waiting to see if he'd be allowed to stay. Jason shook his head and closed the door.
'I thought you asked to come here,' Jason said, taking a seat at the table.
'No, I told them everything I knew downtown. Look, I'm worried about my parents. What's happened to them?'
'They're okay. I'll check on them in a few minutes if you'd like.' Jason cocked his head, considering Heather's appearance.
She hung her head. 'I know it's horrible.' She shuddered at how horrible it must be.
'No, you look different, younger, cute. That's all. Why'd you cut it?'
She kneaded a thumb nervously. 'I guess it was pretty dumb. When I heard that Paul's mother had been— murdered, I just—I don't know—I just couldn't imagine anybody
that, killing that poor girl— why? I felt so
I went into the bathroom to be alone for a minute.' She closed her eyes as if to see herself from the inside at the moment when she'd heard the news. 'All I saw in the mirror was the hair. . . . You know, he made me grow and grow it. He wouldn't let me cut it. It was the only thing he liked about me.' She opened her eyes, appalled at herself for saying such a devastating thing. 'I'm sorry.'
'What for?'
'I should have left things alone and kept the baby. None of this would have happened if I'd kept him.' She caught her bottom lip between her teeth to keep from crying.
'Oh, you never know.'
Her eyes filled with tears. 'Where is he? Is he all right?'
Jason nodded without knowing if he was. 'You want to tell me what happened this morning?'
Heather shrugged. 'Nothing. I checked out of the hospital and went home to get my stuff. I was leaving him to go back to San Francisco. He came home and was really mean about my parents.'
'I remember. He didn't sound too happy about their coming. How did he deal with finding you there?'
'Oh, he did what he always does. He has this way of acting really nice sometimes in front of some people, really horrible in front of other people, then insisting the nice him is the only him.'
'It's called splitting,' Jason told her. 'He didn't like his bad side, so he didn't acknowledge it as part of himself.'
Heather Rose didn't pick up on the past tense. 'He was furious when he saw the cop had his pictures. They got into a fight. Then we left. What are you doing here?' she asked again.
Jason stared up at the ceiling, calling for help from above. He was nailed. 'You keep asking me that.'
'Maybe I'll keep asking until you give me a good answer.'
No help came from on high. Jason made a decision. 'Okay, I'll be straight with you. I'm not acting as your doctor. But I'm not a policeman whose only interest is the law, either.'
'What do you mean?'
'It's an unusual situation,' he murmured. He was on the hook, struggling.
'If you're not a policeman and not a doctor, then what's your role?'
'Um. Sergeant Woo sometimes asks me to help her with assessments,' Jason said finally, although none of his talks with Heather or Anton had been formal assessments. He didn't think it would be useful to explain further. Oh, he was really twisting in the wind.
'But you just said you don't work for the police department.'
'That's right,' he admitted.
'Then why—'
'Why do it? You're asking me good questions, and since you're not my patient, I don't have to hide from you. I'm going to answer you as fully as I can. Sergeant Woo was the detective on the case when my wife was kidnapped. She saved my wife's life.' He looked at the bag of lunch and wished he were in it.
'Your wife was kidnapped!' Heather was shocked.
'Yes.' Okay, maybe that wasn't such a bad thing for her to know. Bad things had happened in his life, too. Maybe that would help her. Jason changed the subject. 'In your case, there was a history of unexplained injuries and a missing baby. It wasn't clear who was hurting you—you or your husband. And it wasn't clear whether the baby was still alive. Sergeant Woo asked me to talk to you. As I said, she does that sometimes when people don't open up to her right away.'
Heather gave him a grim smile. 'What did you find out?'
'It was clear to me that you were not a killer and that you didn't want to nail your husband as a batterer.'
'He's not responsible for this,' she said fiercely.
'For what?'
'For killing anyone.' Her face contorted with the agony of saying those words.
'But you cut off your gorgeous hair when you heard,' he pointed out. 'For you it was an act of revenge, wasn't it?'
'No.'
'What then?'
'It was my line in the sand. The girl was dead. I drew a line in the sand.' Her lip disappeared between her teeth again.
'A line in the sand.' Jason looked puzzled.
