Pain Management

“Sometimes money isn’t the answer to everything,” he said, not so cryptically.

“If I thought leaning on one of the street kids would help, I’d do it,” I told him. “But all that would do is make everyone nervous, keep me from getting close.”

“It seems so . . . hopeless now.”

“You want me to call it a day?”

“I . . . don’t know. Do you think you’re getting any closer?”

“Yeah, I do. But I couldn’t tell you why, or give you any specifics, so I wouldn’t blame you if you thought I was just hustling you for a few more weeks’ work.”

“Jennifer said she would speak to you,” he said, suddenly.

“The girl Rosebud was supposed to be spending the—”

“Yes. I wanted to clear it with her parents first.”

“When?”

“This evening.”

“Okay. I’ll come by—”

“Seven,” he said. “And . . . no disrespect, but could you wear your suit?”

“Jenn will be down in a minute,” the guy who had introduced himself as her father told me. He was shorter than me, but much wider through the chest and shoulders, with an amiable face and eyes as warm as ball bearings.

“What do you need to talk to her for?” a kid who I figured for her brother asked. He was taller than his father, leaner, with an athlete’s grace to his body.

“Michael . . .” the father said, gently. He turned his attention back to me. “The police have already been here,” he said, as if that disposed of the matter.

“Yes, sir, I understand,” I told him. “I don’t know how much you know about investigations—”

“I’m a forensic psychologist,” he interrupted.

“Sorry, I didn’t know,” I told him. But I know something about you, pal. Any Ph.D. who doesn’t introduce himself by sticking “Doctor” in front of his name doesn’t have a self-confidence problem. “What’s your specialty?”

“The effects of incarceration on mental health,” he said, holding my eyes.

“Fascinating,” I said, my voice as flat as his. “Anyway, the core tool is the same, right?”

“I’m not certain I follow you.”

“Interviewing. That’s it, isn’t it? Whether you’re doing an evaluation or debriefing a source or questioning a suspect, it all comes down to the interview.”

“Well, there are various tests as well as—”

“Sure. No argument. But you’d always want an interview if you could get one, wouldn’t you?”

“I would,” he agreed.

“And interviewing, it’s a special talent, fair enough to say? Some of it you can teach, but some of it’s a gift . . . combination of instinct and experience.”

He nodded silently, a professional’s way of telling me to keep talking.

“And, bottom line,” I said, “it’s not mechanical. One interviewer could get information another wouldn’t even ask about.”

“That’s true. So what you’re saying, Mr. . . . Hazard, is it . . . ?”

My turn to nod.

“. . . is that you would do a better job than the detectives.”

“That’s been my experience,” I said. “And I’ll bet it’s been yours, too.”

“Sometimes.” He chuckled. “Not always.”

“Joel, you said he could—” Kevin started to say.

“Your daughter, you let her go out on dates?” the psychologist interrupted Rosebud’s father.

“Uh . . . yes.”

“So that’s the permission piece. But you still want to meet the young man, don’t you? Kind of make up your own mind right on the spot?”

“Well . . . yes, sure.”

“What I told you was that you could have somebody come here and talk to Jenn. You brought this gentleman with you. I wanted to talk to him first. Is that okay with you?”

Kevin didn’t say a word. He knew the last sentence hadn’t been a question.

“Go get your sister,” the psychologist said to his son.

“What did you do time for?” he asked me, as soon as the kid left the room.

He may have been guessing, or he may have smelled it on me. Didn’t matter. I sensed that if I didn’t give him what he was looking for, his daughter wasn’t going to be interviewed.

“Violence for money,” I said, trying to cover it all in as few words as possible.

“Where?”

“You got a glass?” I asked, giving him a thumb’s-up signal.

Kevin looked confused.

“Your investigator is offering his fingerprints,” the psychologist explained to him.

“Is that really—?”

He shrugged. Then barked, “Michael!”

The kid came into the room with what I took to be his older sister, a strikingly pretty girl, who didn’t seem aware she was.

“Daddy, why are you bellowing?” she said, a smile in her voice.

“I thought you were still upstairs,” he said sheepishly.

“Hi, Mr. Carpin,” she said to Rosebud’s father. “Hello,” she said to me. “I’m Jennifer.”

“B. B. Hazard,” I said, getting to my feet and holding out my hand. She took it, squeezed gently, and pulled away.

“Mr. Hazard wants to talk with you about Rosebud,” her father said.

“Yes, Daddy. You told me. We’ll talk in my room, okay?”

“I’ll be right down here,” he said. As clear a threat as I’d heard in years.

Jennifer’s room was smaller than Rosebud’s, but it looked as if it got a great deal more traffic. She pulled a one-armed panda bear off an old easy chair like a maitre d’ showing me to my table. I sat down and she jumped into the air, spun around, and landed facing me on the bed.

“How can I help?” she asked. Her father’s daughter.

“Well, you can tell me what you know.”

“About Rosa?”

“Rosa?”

“Yes. That’s the name she liked. Not everybody called her that, but I did.”

“You’ve already told me more than I knew when I came.”

“Oh. All right . . .”

“What did they tell you?” I asked.

“The police?”

“Or her father.”

“Well . . . they seemed to think Rosa had run away. But they weren’t sure.”

“But you know, don’t you, Jennifer?”

“Me?”

“Sure. You and Rosa were very close.”

“You didn’t say that like it was a question.”

“It’s not. I know you were.”

“How?” she challenged.

“You told her father that Rosa had never come over to spend the weekend with you at all.”

“That’s right. She hadn’t. . . .”

“But you told him after she didn’t return on Sunday night.”