Jessica stood, saying, “Whataya say we get the hell out of here. You like cappuccino or Irish coffee or espresso? You know a place where we can get some?”
“ Sure, the Cafe Promenade, just down the street.”
“ Take me, will you?”
“ Just like that, I can leave with you?”
“ No one here’s going to hold you against your will, Judy; no one.”
She seemed suddenly to relax. “Nobody knows how it feels, how I feel, the problem… the sheer size of the problem… of it all.”
“ You want to talk about it?”
“ It’s like a book I read in school once, a book called The Pearl. This man finds a pearl and he thinks it’s going to bring him happiness and riches for his whole family, but all it brings down is misery. I feel kinda like that guy in the book, except I didn’t find any pearl or riches; but I came that close to this bastard who killed Tammy, so close that I sat across from him like I’m sitting across from you, but it’s information-that’s the pearl everybody wants to get from me, but I… I can’t bring it back, and I can’t go back and do things differently…”
“ I understand the feeling, believe me.”
She sniffled and held back a tear. “It’s like my memory on that one point is… well, gone dead. But everybody wants this pearl from me and I don’t have it to give, you know?”
“ Sure… sure… I understand. I shut down on a lot of bad memories myself over the years.” Jessica gave a thought to her psychiatrist, Dr. Donna LeMonte, whose therapy had helped her to deal with her most frightful memories, guilts and ghosts and demons from within and without. She wondered if she might persuade Donna to come to Miami to help Judy Templar and thereby help her and Santiva’s case.
“ Not to worry, Judy. I won’t lie to you. I’m interested in that pearl of information you’re harboring, too, but my first concern is your well-being.”
“ Oh, sure…” This was said in the cynical voice of youth pitted against authority.
“ Judy, you haven’t been able to talk to anyone about this, have you?”
She shook her head to indicate no, her eyes swelling now with tears.
Jessica handed her tissues. “The first time you were asked to come in, you told police you couldn’t remember anything. Was that a lie or were you just as confused as you are now?”
“ I couldn’t bring it back.”
“ You try talking to your family, friends about it?”
“ I tried, but no one wanted to hear it, and I… I was in bad shape, and everybody just wanted to console me, you know, so like Mom says, ‘Put it out of your mind,’ and so I did… I did…”
“ Judy, I’m not here to upset you, but I just spent seven hours with what is left of your friend Tammy.”
The young woman grimaced and looked away.
Jessica cautiously continued, “My concerns are your concerns now; we’re in this together. I’m not a cop, I’m-”
“ You’re FBI, I know.”
“ I’m an M.E. first, and I’m a woman before that, Judy. I have also been the target of stalkers, of madmen, and I have felt fear like a cold rod of steel in my bone marrow, so I think I do have some empathy with you, dear.”
Tearfully, expectantly, her eyes wide, Judy asked Jessica, “Can you… do you think you can help me? I think I’m going crazy.”
Jessica stood, came around the interrogation table and reached out for Judy Templar, who got to her feet and accepted Jessica’s warm embrace. Jessica felt like a mother as she took the younger woman in her arms and hugged her firmly. The human contact felt good and right for herself too, Jessica instantly realized.
Judy’s immediate family had somehow hindered her, encouraged her to hide away from the reality of what had happened, and whatever part she had played in it had been unsuccessfully buried. Jessica felt the eyes of the others on them, penetrating through the mirrored wall at her back. Behind the one-way mirror, the MPD detectives and Eriq Santiva no doubt watched and monitored the words coming out of interrogation six.
“ Come on, let’s get out of here. Get that cup of cappuccino. Whataya say, Judy?”
The young woman passively agreed to leave with Jessica. They gathered up Judy’s things and stepped from the cold room that had made her feel only more guilty than she already did, and together they marched past Santiva and the detectives for the door.
Eriq Santiva called out, “We’re not done with Ms. Templar just yet, Dr. Coran.” He then took Jessica aside, leaving Judy looking alone and vulnerable again, and whispered, “Just where do you think you are going?”
The hard edge Eriq was showing had a dramatic flair that instantly told Jessica he was playing bad cop to her good cop to reinforce her bond with Judy Templar. Good move, she silently thought as she snubbed her nose at Santiva and replied, “None of your goddamned business, Agent Santiva! You’ve bullied this poor girl enough for one day!”
And with that she whisked Judy out the front door as Judy thanked her for being so kind and so brave.
“ I never liked that guy,” she conspiratorially confessed to Judy. “Thinks he’s Einstein and Mel Gibson rolled into one.”
Judy managed a laugh at this, a good sign in the sparkling Florida evening, where the shadows heralded the last rays of the sun in the west. But they were staring due east, toward Washington Avenue between Eleventh and Twelfth Streets, just down from Espafiola Way and two blocks from Ocean Avenue and the white-sand beaches of Miami.
“ Which way to this Promenade place?” Jessica asked, feeling the light touch of the warm evening breeze kiss her cheek.
Judy Templar filled her lungs with the salt air, and Jessica did the same as if on impulse; but it was conscious mimicry. Judy said of the cafe, “It looks out over the promenade walkway and the ocean, just a block or so east. I’ll show you.”
They started down the alabaster stone steps of the old City Hall-now the Miami Beach Police and Courthouse Building. It was a beautiful old white structure, the courthouse, done in Spanish hacienda style with red-brick-tiled roofs all around. A newer complex and parking garage had been attached, the add-on forming the new Crime Lab. The entire municipal complex took up a good city block. The walk to the cafe was pleasant and passed in silence between them for most of the way. “It’s okay to talk about Tammy, about how you felt about her, about the last night you saw her, Judy.”
“ I’ve tried… but it’s locked away.”
“ If you can give us any information whatsoever, it may save another girl’s life.”
“ I know all that… I know…”They reached the cafe, a delightful place with outdoor tables and chairs where the waiters outnumbered the patrons for a change, two to a table, each taking turns at improving the comfort of their customers. The view of the sea, with a waning sun reflecting off thunderheads just offshore, was spectacular, and along the walkway between them and the ocean, passersby kept the view from ever becoming static.
They each ordered cappuccino, and after a moment Jessica asked, “Would you see a friend of mine who might help you to remember that night?”
“ Whataya mean, a shrink?”
“ A dear, trusted friend and my own psychiatrist, who can regress you back to-”
“ I’m not sure I can go back to that night.”
“ If you don’t go back now, you will be going back forever,” Jessica told the younger woman. “I know… I’ve been where you are now, and believe me, Judy-”
“ You’re sure it’s for the best?”
“ I am.”
“ It’ll be going against my parents…”
“ How old are you, Judy?”
“ But who’s going to pay for a shrink? I don’t have the-”
“ The FBI’ll pay for it; all you have to do is want help.”
“ Sign off on some sorta waiver, you mean?” Judy asked. “So there’s no lawsuits later, right?”
Two steaming-hot cups of dark liquid were set before them, the waiter asking if he might get them anything else. “Anything at all,” he said with a hint of flirtation in his voice that Judy was in no condition to receive.
