"Okay. Manda, could you get me some ice and a towel?"
She replied, "Excuse me, but do I look like a nurse to you? Some little candy-striper, or something?" Roden rolled his eyes. The moment of silence was so brief and bittersweet.
A little explanation was apparently necessary. "We just need to apply cold to his injury to get the swelling down. We don't know how long he's been here, so the faster we move, the better. You know this place better than Martin or I do, so please just do what I ask." Roden's request sounded more like an order, and Manda felt insulted all the more.
"'Just do what I ask'?" she repeated in resentment, "If you think I just take orders - " but she stopped short at Roden's firm glare. Martin snorted in amusement after Manda turned and stomped towards the kitchen.
She was indeed familiar with Ess's kitchen, and quickly scrounged up the towel and put some ice into a sandwich bag so that it didn't melt all over. Of course, she grumbled the entire time she did it. Once the items were in Roden's hands, he covered the man's head injury with the towel, and secured the ice on top of it with the man's necktie.
"Now what?" Manda asked.
Roden turned his thoughts again to the situation. "I don't know what else we can do. We have to call the police." His chest tightened again at having to make the suggestion.
Manda rose from her position on the floor, and headed towards Esther's home phone. Martin looked at them apprehensive and contemplative, and before Manda had made it more than three steps, he voiced his thoughts. "I don't think that is the best idea." Manda turned on her heels to look at him, and Roden gave him his attention as well.
Martin went on to explain, "Think about it. This artist has taken her, right? Apparently he's frantic and dangerous," Roden wanted to protest that, but knew it was useless, "And you know that the news media will be informed of the kidnapping. What if that makes him desperate? Knowing that the law is hunting him, and that everyone will be searching for Esther, he might do something impulsive and violent, something stupid. If Esther is with him, it could simply put her in more danger, or he could hurt her to save himself." Pointing to the man on the floor, "We already know he is capable of it."
"We don't know for sure that Max did this . . ." Roden started to protest, but a seed of doubt had been planted in his mind. He couldn't believe that Max would do something to put Esther in danger; but then, initially, he thought Max incapable of kidnapping, and that proved wrong.
Manda, too, was at a loss. This new idea ran through her head, conflicting with the notion that law enforcement should be involved. Considering the pros and cons of the situation, it was difficult to come up with a conclusion to their dilemma.
Manda finally replied, "But we can't just let it go and pretend this isn't happening. Ess is missing, a mad man admitted that he was taking her, and there is a half dead body on the floor. What else can we do at this point but call the police?"
"Well," Martin continued his thoughts, "We can look for them ourselves. Roden is a psychiatrist. He can talk this guy into letting Ess go. Then we can call the cops."
"And just how are we supposed to find them?" Roden countered. "I've looked everywhere I thought Max could be."
"Have you? Really?" Martin questioned. "How long have you been Max's psychiatrist?"
"About seventeen years." Roden didn't like the cocky way that Martin was probing him.
"Seventeen?! Wow, then you should know him pretty well by now? Who better to track this psychopath down? You have a better chance than our city's rather oblivious law enforcement department." Martin suggested.
Manda looked at Roden with a slightly hopeful expression on her face. Martin seemed to have a lot of sway with her decisions. Roden avoided eye contact with her, and replied, "It's not that simple. Max is a complicated young man. This stunt is a direct indication that he is capable of doing things I didn't think he could do."
"But the point is," Martin returned, "You know more about him than anyone. People tell their shrinks everything. I bet if you really think about it, you could come up with something, some kind of lead."
Roden resented the word "shrink". This Martin guy had become a little too involved in this situation. Roden did, however, let himself believe that the man had a point about the safety of Esther; but it was probably just because he wanted to hold off as long as possible on pointing out Max as a perpetrator of what looked like a criminal act. Maybe this was all just a misunderstanding and could be fixed without involving the law?
He pondered on the possibilities for a moment, and then had an idea. "Manda, you say that you and Esther are very close?" She replied in the affirmative. "If you were to look around the apartment, would you be able to tell me if any objects are disturbed or missing?"
Manda seemed to understand where Roden was going with this idea. "Yes. I think so. Probably. We can see if maybe anything was taken that could be useful to where ever they may be going?" The woman was smarter than Roden had given her credit for.
Manda began her observations. She didn't really see anything out of place in the living room area, so they quickly moved on to the bedroom, and found it very disorganized. Roden couldn't be sure if it happened during the abduction or when Martin had searched the room a few minutes ago. Drawers were open, clothing was strewn over the bed and floor, pillows were scattered and the nightstand had been pushed away from the bed. The closet doors were open, exposing clothing that had fallen off the hangers, and shoes that were shuffled into disarray.
Manda huffed. "This is definitely not Ess's work. She is a neat freak. This mess would make her go haywire." She looked very upset at the utter unconcern for her friend's personal belongings.
"Well, take a look around." Roden prompted. "Let me know if you can see anything odd." He followed Manda as she looked through dresser drawers and piles of clothes.
Something caught her eye. Her eyebrows furrowed with questioning concern as she stepped closer to the nightstand. "Here's something," she said, picking up an empty picture frame. "This had a photo in it. It was a picture of Ess and her dad. It's gone."
"Really?" Roden found that interesting. "It seems strange to me that a man who actually had his obsession in his possession would bother to take a photograph of her. It doesn't seem like it would matter when he actually had the living breathing person that he wanted. Not to mention the fact that he took the time to take it out of the frame." He reflected further, "But then, people do strange things when they're obsessed."
"Yeah, like kidnapping." Manda responded, giving Roden a disgruntled look as she stepped towards the closet.
She picked up clothes and shuffled around the items still on hangers. "Ah, ha. I think I have an actual clue." Roden stepped towards her. "Ess has a suitcase, but she has never used it. She never really went anywhere. She used it mainly just as storage. There's a bunch of junk piled in the corner here," she pointed to the back of the closet, "and the suitcase is gone."
Roden surmised, "He must have packed a bag for her?"
"Oh, how thoughtful," Martin chided. Roden and Manda both turned to give him a quick glare, and then resumed their search of the closet. Martin just shrugged and made a grimace of sarcastic apology.
"I think there may be some clothes missing, but it's hard to tell when they're all piled up like this."