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24
MARK
One of theaspects of this job I hate possibly even more than morgue visits is waiting around for things to happen. That’s what I’ve been doing for most of today and now most of the day is gone.
First we waited for Lap and Kline to be brought here from lock-up and now we’re waiting some more for their lawyers to arrive so they can be present during the interviews.
I’ve been sitting next to Sojer’s evidence board for so long now that I’m sure I have everything on it memorized. I even think one of the white-clad youngsters in the photos from the institution could be Hana and another the witness from last night, but then again I can see the red-headed sex worker there too and the tanned Kline children.
I am just seeing all that. The log of patients confirms none of it.
One of the articles alleging that cult-like activities went on there was written by Hana though. It’s a wordy piece, going on and on about how the institution only exists to suck money from rich parents who both desperately want their children to be sick and would do anything to help them. As in spare no expense to do so.
I’m beginning to see why she was out of work for so much of her career. Going by this article and the one she wrote about Eva, I can see that she very quickly leaves the path of checkable and verifiable fact and goes off on her own tangent, which could be summed up as hating everything and everyone who is successful or even just self-assured in what they do. She’s also obsessed with everything to do with offering psychiatric help to the poor. As in, questioning why they don’t receive it even if they desperately need it. Which brings her back to money and the rich vs. poor debate. She’s not wrong, more should probably be done for the poor in the area of mental health, but the rageful and hateful way she goes about it isn’t helpful.
By the looks of things, the accusations against the two doctors and the way they ran the institution were mild and quickly died down. Basically, the patients had to sleep on pallets, which they were required to fold up first thing each morning before sweeping their room and going for a brisk walk or run before breakfast. They could only take cold showers and were fed mostly vegan style food, which many of them did not like. Nor did they like the gardening and other farm tasks they were employed with for the remainder of their days there.
Frankly, I’m not a big fan of this whole idea of “work will set you free” style of therapy. But calling it an evil cult, like Hana did in her article, is quite a stretch.
“They’re ready for us,” Sojer announces loudly from the doorway, bringing me out of my musings. “I say we start with Kline.”
I join him by the door, a cramp in my lower back from sitting down so long preventing me from straightening up for the first couple of steps.
“How do you want to go at them?” I ask. “Try and make one roll on the other?”
“That was my idea, yes,” he says.
“I wish we thought to ask the witness, which one was holding the knife and saying the strange things, Lap or Kline,” I say. “That one is probably more susceptible.”
“But you didn’t think of that,” Sojer says.
We also didn’t think to get her address, but that’s being searched for now. We’ll need to bring her in again so she can properly identify the doctors.
Sojer leads the way down one hallway and into the next, then up a flight of stairs, to yet another hallway. This one is windowless and lined with interrogation rooms and I remember it all too well and not fondly. It will be a little weird sitting in one of those rooms with Sojer, even though we’ll both be at the same side of the table this time.
A couple of uniformed officers are standing by the doors at the very end of the hallway, and Sojer opens the first of those doors when we reach them.
Inside the room, Kline is slumped over the table while a young female lawyer with gleaming brown hair and wearing an expensive-looking pants suit is sitting arrow straight in the chair next to him.
“Will this nightmare never end?” Kline groans as we sit down in the two black plastic chairs opposite them. “I didn’t do this thing you’re saying I did.”
For what it’s worth, I can hear genuine pain and conviction in his voice. But that can be faked.
“We found all the items used to kill Tara Merc and Ana Kobe in your garden shed,” Sojer says, pulling the photos of said items from his black leather folder and laying them on the table in front of Kline. “The time for denial is over. What you must do now is tell us the truth.”
“What truth?” Kline huffs, pushing the picture of the knife away from himself. “I’ve never seen any of these things before in my life. You say they were found in my shed? Nonsense. They’re not mine. Someone else put them there.”
“Your neighbor and colleague Lap, perhaps?” I ask.
He fixes me with an outraged look in his bloodshot eyes. “Impossible. He practically faints at the sight of blood. I had to carry him all through medical school because of that. He’d never cut a person.”
“You two seem to be very close,” Sojer says.
“Yes, closer than you can imagine,” Kline says.
“And you clearly feel like you must protect him,” Sojer adds. “But this is no time to do that. Tell us what goes on when you two prowl the riverside late at night.”
“You don’t have to answer any of these questions,” the lawyer says to him.
