His body recoiled slightly as he said firmly, “I can’t answer that question.”
“Do you believe Scott Florist killed his family?”
His eyes flared with heat, and he leaned forward and replied in a hardened voice, “No. The same answer to the question for Susan or Joe.”
She quickly threw in another one. “During that final Wednesday session, a day before they disappeared, did you become aware of anything that had recently occurred or recently changed, which raised a concern in your mind or suggested to you in any way that a member of the family was in crisis?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t answer that.”
Evie set down her pen and changed tactics. “Were you surprised when the Florist family disappeared?”
“Very.”
“What do you think happened to the family?”
“I think they were going on vacation to give themselves space and breathing room for three days, and something tragic occurred, about which I have not an iota of information.”
“Where were you on the night they disappeared?”
He visibly relaxed. “Right, I know you must ask that. I have a rotation at Decatur Mercy Hospital every Thursday that ends at midnight. I’m the specialist on call and was in the ER during part of the particular evening in question. When I was originally waiting for a visit from police investigators, I checked my calendar to confirm this. I’ve kept that assigned slot for going on twenty years, since my wife works the same shift in the neonatal ward. From Thursday midnight to Sunday midnight, we both go off duty, off call, and have a personal life.”
“Did one of your other clients in any way harm the Florist family?”
He winced. “I can’t say, though it’s an interesting question for you to have thought to ask. Hypothetically, I would answer it as a no.”
“Thank you, Richard. Those were my key questions.”
The doctor relaxed, but Gabriel wasn’t finished yet. “Tell me, Richard,” he said with a disarming smile, “what should we have asked, hypothetically speaking or otherwise?”
Evie picked up her fork to finish her lunch and signal the formal interview was over. Then she gave Gabriel a look that told him the actual interview was just starting. They still had forty minutes to get something useful from the doctor without being obvious they were on a fishing expedition.
The doctor first offered a comment to Evie. “Your list, Lieutenant, seemed very well-thought-out to me, if aggressive, in its assumptions about the family.”
“If I don’t ask, I won’t know,” she replied with a smile.
The doctor smiled back. “Yes, I can see your point.”
“Was Joe good at playing that video game… DDM?” Gabriel asked, looking for something innocuous to start the conversation moving again.
Richard looked perplexed that they knew which game it was, then nodded. “He had a competitive streak. He’d come with notes and a plan of attack, do a victory dance when he made another level. I can appreciate a young man’s enthusiasm for competition,” the doctor replied.
“Did he like playing baseball?”
“Sure.”
“Swimming?”
“At times.”
“I’ve been trying to understand him,” Gabriel said, “to figure out how he might have reacted to trouble happening to his parents. Was he the type to try to intervene, to freeze, to try to run, hide, or-?”
“Hypothetically?”
Gabriel shrugged. “Sure.”
“I would say if he were a typical boy with a desire to be a cop like his father, he would act in ways he thought his father would approve. Of those choices you gave, he’d intervene before he thought about what might be better or wiser to do given his age and size. He should run and hide, but that would not be what his father would do, so he wouldn’t consider it for himself at first.”
“That’s useful. Thanks.”
The doctor nodded.
“Would you say Scott Florist was a good cop?” Gabriel idly posed.
The doctor grimaced. “To not answer that is to imply something I wouldn’t want to convey. He worked for your father, you saw him on the job. You would be more able to judge his abilities as a cop than I would, as all I would have to go on would be statements he made about his own performance.”
“I’ll accept that.” Gabriel rephrased his question. “Did he consider himself to be a good cop?”
“I can’t answer that.”
“Did he consider himself to be a good father?” Evie asked, curious about the doctor’s reluctance on a seemingly innocuous subject.
The doctor hesitated. “I’d say that everything Scott Florist did in life could be captured in his desire to be a good father, a good husband, a good cop. He might not live up to his expectations for himself, but he made a sincere effort to do so. He was a deliberative man.”
Gabriel picked up on that choice of words. “Deliberative, you say… as in thoughtful about what he would do? Or he planned in advance what he would do?”
Small hesitation, then, “Both.”
“I’m guessing you also saw them around the holidays, birthdays, that kind of thing,” Evie mentioned.
“Yes.”
“Would you consider them a frugal family or a generous one?”
The doctor smiled. “Hypothetically speaking, they were like any typical family-presents went on credit and got paid off afterwards with a touch of regret about the amounts. That’s not based on specifics, just a sense.”
“Did they ever discuss with you stopping the weekly sessions, go to every other week, once a month, that kind of thing?” Evie asked.
“No.”
“The events that brought them to your office, would you say the family was in crisis when they initially came to see you?”
He paused again, seemed to come to a decision. He nodded. “Yes. Crisis is an appropriate word.”
Evie shot Gabriel another meaningful look. Here was where they needed to press. Gabriel lobbed the next question to the doctor. “Did the events that brought them to your office affect each person equally, or was one the center of the crisis and the others supportive?”
“I can’t answer that.”
“Do you feel family members were honest with you during those two-hour sessions?” Gabriel asked.
The doctor gave a small smile, even as he sighed. “That’s a powerful question. I’m sorry, I can’t answer that. I wish I could.”
“The disappearance of the Florist family shocked the community and led to a massive search and investigation,” Gabriel went on. “You have decades of experience in this job. Looking back, do you think the events that brought them to your office left a person out there angry enough to have killed the Florist family?”
“I can’t answer that.”
“Hypothetically, if you could answer it.”
“People are affected by events-the person involved, but also their family and friends. How much something matters to a person not involved in the actual event is always a matter of degree.”
“Someone with a degree of separation from the event might have a reason to kill the Florist family,” Gabriel said, making it a statement. “Would you agree?”
“In a general sense, that would be true, yes. In this specific instance, I don’t know. The person involved in the initial event is dead and is not the one you would be looking to find.”
Gabriel caught Evie’s quick glance.
The doctor rubbed his eyes. “And since you just recorded that, let me add that as far as I know, there is no family or friends of the deceased who would have taken up the cause on his behalf against the Florist family. Believe me, I’ve considered the matter carefully. If I thought this was your solution, I would have been in touch with the authorities many years ago.”
The doctor looked at Evie, then over to Gabriel. “You know I deal with the police on a routine basis. I’m not naïve about violent crimes and those who are likely to commit them. But I can tell you there is no line I can draw from the events I know about to someone killing the Florist family. There is no person I know about or suspect might still be out there angry enough to kill the Florist family.”