Sample didn’t respond. She could hear papers rustling in the background.
“I see what you mean,” he said finally. “There’s a difference. It’s subtle, but I see it. They handed her these forms at the doctor’s office and she ripped through the first page writing as fast as she could. But what are you getting at?”
Lena lowered her briefcase to the floor and gazed out the window. “Why would she start fast and end slow? Most people in a hurry pick up their pace at the end, right? Most people see the clock ticking and rush to the finish line. When I saw them side by side, I thought that it might be worth checking out. You think it’s ridiculous?”
Sample didn’t say anything for a while. When he finally spoke, she heard the hesitation in his voice.
“This girl wasn’t like most people, was she.”
“No,” Lena said. “I don’t think she was.”
“Let me see what I can do,” he said. “I’ll let you know either way.”
She closed her phone, feeling embarrassed as she imagined Irving Sample shaking his head at her from the fourth floor. She was grabbing at straws and he was being polite. Her request, an obvious lack of ingenuity due to too much time spent on a cell. .
She shrugged it off and sat down at her desk. She noticed that Rhodes had hung his jacket on his chair and wondered where he went. After a moment, she settled down and reviewed the papers Dean Tremell’s office had faxed over. A copy of the child’s birth certificate was here, along with his daughter-in-law’s release from the hospital. A copy of the bill was also included with all personal and financial information blacked out. Just the length of stay and what it cost. Still, Dean Tremell had made the call to his office just as he promised. And he had saved her some time. There could be no doubt that his daughter-in-law gave birth to a son. In all probability, the woman living as Jennifer McBride did exactly what her doctor guessed that she had done. Her pregnancy ended with a miscarriage or an abortion. Either way, there was no child.
Lena heard someone and turned around to find Barrera exiting one of the interrogation rooms. Rhodes was behind him, closing the door. Both looked concerned as they spotted her on the floor and approached.
“Lena,” Barrera said. “You’ve got company.”
She glanced at Rhodes. “Yeah, we spoke ten minutes ago.”
“Not Rhodes,” Barrera said. “Justin Tremell.”
A moment passed, both men studying her.
“He’s been waiting for more than an hour,” Barrera said. “He won’t talk to anyone but you. When I saw Rhodes, I brought him in. The kid shook his head and said just you. What’s going on that I don’t know about?”
Lena hesitated. She didn’t want to mention her meeting with Dean Tremell because the data was still raw and she hadn’t come to any conclusions yet.
“You want to call upstairs and record this?” she asked.
Barrera slipped his hands in his pockets and checked the empty floor. “Tapes already rolling and he’s been read his rights. I talked to Lamar. He’s got the monitors shut down so no one upstairs will know that the kid’s here. You heard what the chief said yesterday. If anyone upstairs finds out that you’re in an interrogation room with Justin Tremell, your world turns to shit and so does mine.”
She glanced at Rhodes. He had been away for three days and didn’t know about her run-in with the chief. She could see him trying to put it together.
She turned back to her supervisor. “Let’s see what he wants.”
“Do it quickly,” Barrera said. “We’ll figure out how we’re gonna get him out of the building later. I’ll update Rhodes. We’ll be in the captain’s office.”
Lena’s briefcase was on the empty desk beside her. As Rhodes reached for the murder book, he looked at the papers Dean Tremell had faxed over.
“What about these?” he said.
Lena picked the papers up and stuffed them in her briefcase. She didn’t want them to be part of the record. And she didn’t want to take the chance that her inquiry about the legitimacy of Tremell’s grandson might be made public.
“They’re irrelevant,” she said. “A dead end not worth talking about.”
Lena pushed open the door and found Justin Tremell sitting in the far chair staring at the ceiling. When he saw who she was, he jumped to his feet and shook her hand. He was being gracious and polite. And as Lena measured him, she immediately recognized that he was nervous. The sullen face that she had seen when they first met on Saturday was no longer sullen. And those steady hands weren’t so steady anymore. Tremell looked wasted. Like all of a sudden, the tall, lean kid with rich-kid problems was dealing with a real-life crisis.
Lena watched him sit down and took a chair on the other side of the table. The room was cramped, the bright florescent lights buzzing overhead.
“I just spoke with your father,” she said.
“I know. That’s why I came.”
“If you wanted to talk, why didn’t you ask Lt. Barrera to call me?”
“I knew that you were with my father. I didn’t want to interrupt.”
Lena kept her eyes on him. He seemed sincere.
“Do you want an attorney?” she asked.
“No. I’m fine, thanks.”
“Do you need an attorney?”
Tremell met her eyes and lowered his voice. “I don’t think so.”
She settled back in her chair, everything quieting down.
“So tell me why you’re here, Justin. What do you want to talk about?”
Tremell didn’t respond, shifting his weight and wrestling with his thoughts. He took a deep breath and exhaled. When he finally spoke, it wasn’t much more than a whisper.
“I knew her,” he said.
A long moment passed-everything in the small room becoming perfectly still.
“I was there that night,” he said. “I didn’t say anything on Saturday because my father was in the room. I’m sorry if I caused you any trouble. But I knew what he would think, and I didn’t want to let him down. I didn’t want him to know what I’d done.”
Lena let the thought settle, the silence in the room becoming truly silent again. Just those lights buzzing overhead.
“What did you do that you didn’t want your father to know about?”
Tremell sighed. “Jennifer was my friend.”
“Your friend?”
“My wife was pregnant. It was a tough pregnancy-the last three months spent in bed-and I couldn’t handle it. I needed an outlet. I found Jennifer’s ad in the LA. Weekly. It started out as a massage, then became something else. I liked her and she was nice to me. I don’t expect you to understand this because I don’t understand it myself. I’m still very much in love with my wife, but I fell for Jennifer. If my father finds out, he’ll have a shit fit.”
“Did she know who you were?”
“Sure, but she didn’t care about things like that.”
“She didn’t ask you for any money.”
He shook his head. “I paid for the first few massages. But when things changed, all that stopped and I’d give her things instead.”
“What kinds of things?”
“Flowers. Dinner. Books. Things you’d give a friend or lover.”
“So she wasn’t blackmailing you? She didn’t tell you that she was pregnant?”
Tremell sat back in his chair and looked at her like someone who was hearing something for the first time. Everything about his behavior appeared true and authentic.
“Jennifer wasn’t pregnant,” he said. “At least not when I knew her. She was menstruating. She’d get headaches, and cramps, and everything else.”
“Maybe she called it a loan,” Lena said. “Maybe she asked you to help her out.”
“If she had, I would have given it to her, no questions asked. But she didn’t. She never asked for anything.”
Lena took a moment to think it over. She had been moving slowly. Making Tremell feel comfortable and at ease. She didn’t see any reason to change course.