you went to sleep?”
“Yes,” Adam said.
“Is it possible you went out, or your wife or daughter went out, maybe to take out the garbage or something, and forgot to-”
“No, I was the last one to go to bed last night, and I chained the door. I always lock and chain it if I’m the last one to go to sleep, it’s part of my nightly routine. I make sure the gas is off in the kitchen, lock all the doors, set the alarm, and go to bed.”
“So assuming all this is correct, the other intruder must’ve unlatched the chain on the front door on his way out of the house.”
“That has to be what happened,” Adam said. “I heard the front door slam.”
“So that means the intruders likely entered the house through the back door.”
“Yes,” Adam said, squeezing the back of his neck, trying to relieve some of the tension.
“And are you positive you set the alarm and no one else disarmed it after you set it?”
“I’m positive.”
“But the alarm wasn’t set when we arrived, is that correct?”
“If the alarm was set the guy,”- Adam caught himself-“the personwould’ve tripped it on the way out.”
“That seems to make sense,” Clements said. “So who-”
“I have no idea,” Adam said.
Clements glared at Adam, seeming irritated that he’d been cut off, then continued, a little louder, “So who except you and your family know the code to the alarm?”
“No one else knows it,” Adam said.
“Did you ever give anyone the code, on any occasion?”
“No.”
“Did you ask your wife or daughter-”
“You asked them directly, and they said no, didn’t they?”
“Now I’m asking you.”
“Asking me what? If my wife and daughter lied to you?”
“Or weren’t being entirely truthful.”
“What’s the difference?”
Clements was smiling sarcastically, like he was enjoying the exchange, but Adam stayed deadpan.
“They didn’t tell anyone the code,” Adam said. “No one told anyone the code.”
“Sorry to play devil’s advocate, Dr. Bloom, but unless Houdini robbed your house, somebody got ahold of that code.”
“Maybe it was stolen,” Adam said, “from the alarm company. Maybe they hacked into the system or something.”
“We’ll explore that possibility,” Clements said, “but nobody stole a set of keys from the alarm company. Did you or anyone in your family loan a set of keys to anyone?”
“I already told you, we only have three sets of keys to the house and one spare set, and the spare set is still where it always is.”
“Maybe someone got access to the keys. A worker in the house?”
Adam thought for a moment, then said, “We had some painting done a few weeks ago, but those guys had nothing to do with this.”
“Your wife gave me the name of the painters, the electrician, your maid, your gardener. Can you think of anyone else we should check out?”
“No,” Adam said.
“I noticed the keys to the back door weren’t Medecos or ones that couldn’t be easily duplicated,” Clements said, “What I mean is they looked like normal keys.”
“Yeah?” Adam asked. “So?” His eyelids were heavy, and he felt like he could pass out at any moment.
“So it’s possible somebody could’ve duplicated the keys at some point,” Clements said.
“It’s possible,” Adam said, “but no one knows where we keep the spare keys.”
Clements turned a page, then said, “Your wife told me you’d been planning to go away to Florida for several days, right?”
“That’s right,” Adam said, “to visit my mother.”
“You canceled the trip because of a storm?”
“That’s right. We heard there was a tropical storm off the coast down there. They said it could turn into a hurricane and might hit Florida, so I thought we might as well go some other time.”
“When did you decide not to go?”
Adam thought about it for a moment, rubbing the back of his neck again, then said, “Two days ago.”
“Who knew you changed your plans?”
“Nobody,” Adam said. “I mean, I had to notify a few patients, to reschedule appointments, and I guess Dana and Marissa told a few people, but we didn’t take an ad out in the paper.”
Clements, not amused, asked, “Do you ever have any patients who are prone to violence?”
Adam immediately thought of Vincent, a patient he’d been seeing for about a month who’d told him about how he’d beaten up some guy during a bar fight a few weeks ago. There was also Delano, a guy in his forties, who had stabbed his brother- nonfatally-when he was a child.
“Yes,” Adam said, “I have a few.”
“Has anyone threatened you lately?”
“No,” Adam said. “Actually I’ve rarely if ever had any situations like that. I’m a psychologist, not a psychiatrist. If I have a patient who shows signs of that kind of volatility I’ll refer him elsewhere.”
“So I guess you’re pretty good at that, huh?” Clements said. “Telling if somebody’s volatile or not?”
Adam wasn’t sure why Clements was asking this- whether there was any point to it or he was just trying to be a wiseass.
“I think I am pretty good at it, yes,” Adam said.
“Then maybe you’re in the wrong profession,” Clements said, “maybe you should be doing my job.” He smirked, then asked, “Does your daughter have friends over?”
“Of course,” Adam said. “She lives here.”
“Is there any drug or alcohol use in the house?”
“Excuse me?”
Adam didn’t like where this was going.
“Sanchez had multiple priors on drug charges. Perhaps your daughter was an acquaintance of Sanchez’s, or a client of his.”
“There’s no way she knew that guy, okay?”
“Maybe she has a friend, or a friend of a friend, or someone she may have invited into the house, someone who knew the place, who could’ve-”
“My daughter had nothing to do with this.”
“Dr. Bloom, I’m only-”
“And she has no friends who’d steal a key or rob a house. Her friends are all normal, nice kids, just like her.”
“I noticed the bong in her room, Dr. Bloom.”
Again this felt like more than “routine questioning.”
“What’re you trying to say?” Adam asked.
“I’m trying to figure out how the intruders got into your house.”
“Yeah, that’s funny, because it sounds like you’re trying to say something else. My daughter had nothing to do with this, okay, so let’s leave her out of it.”
Clements seemed unconvinced, but he asked, “What about your relatives?” “What about them?”
“Any animosity in the family? Anybody with a grudge?”
Adam thought about Dana and her brother, Mark, the manic- depressive. They were on bad terms and hadn’t spoken in years, but Mark lived in Milwaukee and obviously had nothing to do with any of this, so Adam didn’t see the point in even mentioning it.
