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25
MARK
The main differencebetween Kline and Lap that I can spot is that Lap is much more talkative than his colleague. He’s not actually younger than Kline, they’re the same age, but he looks it. I think that’s because he’s had quite a bit of plastic surgery type of work done on this face.
“We’re healers, how can we be murderers?” he asks exasperatedly for perhaps the fiftieth time since we started this interview. “We are protectors of life, not bringers of death.”
Then he lunges into another of his long-winded accounts of how many people they’ve helped over the years, how they’ve been pushing the envelope on mental health issues and treatment for decades now, and how hard they had to work to change the system to a degree where true healing was possible.
It’s nearly seven PM. We’ve been in here for two hours now. I doubt Sojer will get the confession he so desires, but he’s one of those cops that never give up.
Even Lap’s lawyer—a fit man in his fifties, his blond hair just starting to turn grey—is having trouble not rolling his eyes at how many times his client has answered a question of ours, basically any question, with this woe-is-me tirade.
“Your methods have been questioned in the past, have they not?” I ask. “And you responded to the criticism by closing down an institution you were running. Why did you admit defeat so easily then if all you’re saying now is true?”
I’m running out of ways to try and make him talk about anything other than what a saint he is. I’ve never been faced with a suspect who was as one track-minded as this one is. He’s anxious and jittery like he’s about to crack but is impossible to crack at the same time.
“We determined that it was best for the patients not to have a long and protracted battle in the press, which would’ve happened if we insisted that our methods of healing were beneficial,” he says. “So we fell on the sword and handed the reins to someone else, who continues to do our good work there, while we headed into private practice. I went to London for a few years and Kline established himself as a very successful and prominent psychiatrist here.”
He pauses to take sigh heavily. “As you can probably understand, we didn’t want to have anything to do with the National Health Service after that, given the kind of magnifying lens they can put you under at any time. And that’s a shame, because so many need good help, but can’t afford it. They pushed us out because of envy and it’s the patients who suffer the most.”
My phone started buzzing in the middle of his long rant. I wanted to hear him out so I rejected the call, but it just kept buzzing and buzzing, interspersed only by the pings of texts dropping.
“We have a witness who says you and Kline attacked her by the river fifteen years ago,” Sojer says angrily. “That’s the bottom line. Now stop going on about your good work and address that.”
He’s tried this line of questioning several times already, with no result. The wide-eyed, slightly puzzled look on Lap’s face tells me this time will be no different.
“The witness must be mistaken,” he says as my phone keeps buzzing. “I abhor the sight of blood and all I’ve, all Kline and I have ever tried to do was help people.”
“I better take this,” I tell Sojer, showing him my buzzing phone. It’s Brina calling, and all the other unanswered calls are from her as well.
Sojer flashes me a look and grunts something before facing Lap again. “The witness picked out your photo from a lineup. She is certain.”
I don’t hear the rest of his question through the closed door of the interrogation room.
“What is it, Brina?” I ask as I call her back.
“It’s Dino, he’s in the hospital with his throat slashed,” she says breathlessly. “And Eva is missing.”
The windowless hallway seems to shrink to the size of a straw around me, and the crushing pressure in my chest makes it impossible to breathe.
“What happened?” I ask as I rush down the hall and towards the car.
“I just found out about it, but it seems a woman ran in front of their car this morning, attacked Dino with a knife and then drove off in his car with Eva in it.”
“This morning?” is all I can choke out.
“Dino was unconscious when the paramedics found him and he needed surgery,” she says. “He’s awake now, I’m heading to the hospital to talk to him. But apparently he can’t talk, he just barely managed to communicate to the hospital staff that he was in the car with someone who was taken and that they need to contact us.”
Someone who was taken? Eva!
And where the hell was I?
Sitting in a stuffy, abandoned police office waiting to conduct two totally pointless interviews.
“I’ll be right there,” I say, grab my coat from the room where I wasted the day and run out of the building.
In the five minutes it takes me to reach the University Hospital, I call Eva about a million times, trying both her work phone and personal one. Her personal one is switched off and goes straight to voicemail, but the work phone just rings and rings with no answer.
