The Blue Journal (29 page)

Just then the waiter arrived and went about uncorking the bottle. Mitchell gave the wine a quick taste, then said, “Pour away.”

The waiter filled their glasses too high. He was busy and had no interest in coming back to their table any more often than was absolutely necessary. Which was just fine with Avery.

Maria lifted her glass and said, “A toast to you.”

“No, to us,” Mitchell said and they each took a long drink.

“This is good,” she told him. “Barolo, right?”

“Right,” he said. He wanted to return the discussion back to her plans for the night ahead, but Maria said something he did not hear. “What's that?”

“You haven't even asked me how I'm doing in my new job,” she repeated.

Mitchell did not remember she had a new job. “I'm sorry. We got so wrapped up in other things.” He grinned. “How's it going?”

“Good. The girls there are really nice. I like the people a lot.”

Mitchell nodded approvingly, waiting for more. He had no recollection of what sort of job she had taken, so there was nothing more for him to say.

She took a sip of her wine, then asked, “Whatever happened with that woman who was murdered?”

Mitchell responded with a blank stare.

“The woman in your town,” she said, as if it should be obvious to him.

“Not sure, I guess the police are investigating.”

“Oh,” she replied, then had a look around the crowded restaurant, leaving Mitchell to wonder why he had no recollection of ever having mentioned Elizabeth's death to her.

CHAPTER 34

The following morning, when Randi Conway opened the door to her office, the first thing she noticed was her desk chair. It had been moved in front of the window.
Odd, she thought as she stood in the doorway
. With everything else in utter disarray, she focused on her chair.

She stepped inside slowly, leaving the door open behind her. She took off her coat and threw it on the couch, moving cautiously forward, all the while struggling to comprehend the chaos that lay before her. Papers were scattered across the floor. The lock on her file cabinet had been pried open and the drawers hung open. Forms, correspondence and patient charts were everywhere.

Randi wheeled her chair in place behind the desk and sat down. “Oh God,” she said out loud.

She had the sensation that she had been physically violated. It reminded her again of that night in New York. It was a hollow feeling, as if this was another attack on her personally, not just the records and files in her office. Shock turned to upset, as she was struck with the realization that she would need to compare every file with her patient register, that she would need to determine if anything had been taken. She would have to reconstruct each folder, knowing the task would be nearly impossible. Her shoulders slumped at the thought of the damage that had been caused, the time it would take to put things together, and the risk that something was missing. She shook her head. Even if a file was there, how could she be certain that one or two of the pages had not been removed? Or copied on her own machine? It was hopeless.

She bent down and picked up the folder at her feet, which was sitting apart from the other piles, on the floor off to the side of her desk. It contained Paul Gorman's records, and it had been pulled apart. Without thinking, she began to rearrange the disorganized pages. When she was done she placed the file down, slowly opened the desk drawer and removed the envelopes holding the two printed notes.

They had not been touched.

She knew she would have to call the police. She would have to call Anthony Walker. But first she telephoned Bob Stratford. She told him what happened and asked him to come by.

“All right, but be sure not to touch anything,” he warned, “they're going to have to look for fingerprints.”

“Oh God. They'll be looking through every confidential file in my office.”

“I'll call Walker right now and have him meet me there. I'll explain our concerns.” He hesitated. “You okay in the meantime?”

“I'm fine. Whatever they wanted to do is already done, right?”

“I don't mean to alarm you, but are you certain they're gone?”

Randi instinctively got to her feet. “I just assumed,” she said, her head turning quickly back and forth as if she might find someone standing there.

“Yes, yes,” he reassured her, “they wouldn't stay around, it makes no sense. I'll make the call and be there straight away.”

“Thanks.”

“And Randi,” he said, “lock the door.”

She hung up and slowly, quietly moved to the door to her group therapy room. She pulled it open with a sudden jerk.

No one was there.

She hung her head, clutching the doorknob as if she might fall down without the support. At least she was satisfied she was alone. She went to the front door, shut it and turned the latch. Then she made her way back to the desk where she again faced the typewritten notes.

She turned away from them, having another look at her ransacked office and, as she pondered the clutter of open folders and scattered papers, she became increasingly angry.
Strange
, she thought, how that had not been her first reaction. Now, however, rage was replacing upset and fear.

Her private file cabinets had been invaded, her professional confidences desecrated.
Who would have the nerve?
she wondered. She became aware of her own breathing as it became uneven and labored. She clenched her teeth. She wanted very much to punch someone in the nose.

She stood again and walked around, not touching any other files, conducting a random survey. Somehow she became overcome with the suspicion that nothing had been removed. She didn't know why she believed that, it was just a feeling.

She stood amidst this clutter, slowly turning, trying to take it all in, making a mental photograph as if that would help her regain a sense of order. Perhaps it would help her understand what they were after as they searched through these papers. Randi wondered whether they really wanted anything at all, or if this was just some sort of warning.

A short time later Walker knocked on the door and Randi let him in. Kovacevic and the forensic team were right behind.

“You all right?” Walker asked.

She nodded.

“Good.” Walker quickly reviewed the scene. “You touch anything?”

“Nothing but the doorknob,” she said. “Uh, except my chair. I moved it back to the desk. And the one file I picked up from the floor.”

“Good,” he repeated, then barked some orders to his men. They immediately set about dusting for fingerprints, taking photographs and marking various papers for identification. When Walker turned back to Randi, he saw the concern in her soft brown eyes. “Stratford called, he told me you had some letters to show me.”

Randi nodded, then led him to her desk and the two typewritten pages. “Here they are. Maybe I shouldn't touch them again?”

“Too late now. You had to pick them up to read them the first time, right?” Walker pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and lifted the letters off the desk. “No sense in putting my prints on there too.” He looked them over, then directed Kovacevic to place each in a separate clear cover.

As the other officers pulled on their latex gloves and went about their work, Stratford arrived. Walker watched with some interest as he hugged Randi and she teared up, for a moment seeming as if she might cry.

“It'll be all right,” Stratford assured her, giving her a pat on the back and then turning to Walker. “I'm Bob Stratford,” he said. “I had other ideas about how we would meet for the first time.”

“So did I,” Walker agreed.

Stratford said, “I'm curious to see these notes.”

Walker pointed to them. They were on the desk, now encased in plastic.

Stratford read them, then turned to Randi. “Tell the detective whatever you know about these.”

Randi explained how she discovered the letters under her door. Remembering the envelopes, Randi pointed to them and Walker also had those placed in a clear sleeve. “I got this first note Wednesday morning. I found the second on Thursday morning,” she admitted with a hint of embarrassment, refusing to meet Walker's disapproving gaze. He remembered picking it up when he came to meet her that day.

“I guess you'll find my fingerprints on the envelope,” he told Kovacevic, then added, “I'll explain later.” Turning back to Randi, he said, “Go on.”

“You asked if I touched anything. This one file was right there,” she said, pointing down, “there on the floor. I picked it up and put it back together, sorry. That's all I touched, I think. Except for the telephone.”

“And the doorknob and the chair,” Walker reminded her.

“Right.”

“Are you sure that's it?”

Randi nodded.

“Can I see that?” Walker gestured to the Gorman file.

Randi looked to Stratford, then said, “I don't mind if you want to look for fingerprints or something. Reading a patient file is another matter.”

“Let him see it,” Stratford said.

She reluctantly passed the manila folder to Walker, who accepted it with handkerchief in hand. He and Stratford sat down, side by side in the two armchairs, and began skimming the information together, page by page.

“The data sheet is on the left,” Randi said. “Why do you need to read my notes?”

Walker looked up at her. “We have a murder, two anonymous letters, a threatening phone call and now a burglary.” He saw her expression and said, “Breaking into your office and vandalizing it is a felony.”

“How can reading that file help?” Randi asked.

“Maybe Paul Gorman knew Elizabeth Knoebel and you have a note in here about that.”

Randi shook her head.

“Okay, maybe not, but you get the idea.”

“Paul Gorman had no connection to Elizabeth. Not that I know of, anyway, so there couldn't be anything in my notes.”

“Wasn't his wife in the group with Elizabeth Knoebel?” Walker reminded her.

Randi nodded. “And he's in the group with Doctor Knoebel.”

“There may be something else they were looking for, something less obvious.”

“Whatever,” she replied helplessly as the two men returned their attention to Gorman's records.

When he finished his preliminary read-through, Walker looked up. “Since we're speaking of your patients, it might interest you two to know that Doctor Knoebel hired a high-priced lawyer in New York, not to mention a fancy Park Avenue psychiatrist.” He leaned back and had a good look at Randi. “Any comment?”

Randi turned from Walker to Stratford, then back to the detective. She said nothing.

“Who's the lawyer?” Stratford asked.

“Roger Bennett. Know him?”

“Rings a bell,” Stratford said. “I can check him out if you like.”

“That'd be helpful.” Walker turned back to Randi. “I know you haven't had much of a chance to look, but does it appear anything is missing? Something obvious maybe?”

“No,” she said. “Not that I can tell.”

“Uh huh.”

“What a nightmare,” she said.

Stratford nodded. “You're right, Randi, it is. But if the woman's murderer is the same person who left you these notes and burglarized your office, Detective Walker needs to know what information the killer has taken.” He paused, then had a serious look at his friend. “Your safety has just become a major issue.”

Before she could respond, Walker looked up from Paul Gorman's file. “I couldn't agree more,” he told her.

CHAPTER 35

The police spent most of the morning scouring Randi's office, looking for anything that might help them determine who broke in and trashed her records. They dusted for prints throughout her office and looked for anything that might be helpful in and out of the building. They searched for marks on the carpet in the corridor and surveyed the parking lot out back.

But they found nothing.

Randi watched the technicians who went through her papers. As she told Stratford and Walker, it was one thing to search for evidence, but quite another to allow them to read through confidential patient files. She hovered over them like an eagle protecting her flock.

When the forensic team was finally done they told her she could begin the thankless task of putting her records back together. They had snapped enough photographs and collected a sufficient number of exhibits. Now it was up to her to make sense of things and determine what, if anything, was missing.

By the time Stanley Knoebel arrived at her office for their late-morning appointment, she had just begun the reconstruction. When he knocked at her door, Randi did not let him see the disaster her private office had become, instead steering him into the room where her groups met. When he sat down she had a fleeting thought that his rigid bearing was actually better suited to these straight-backed chairs of cane and chrome than the comfortable sofa inside.