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There was a story there, but for now she only wanted to get to the truth of this story. Jaelyn Watts and Cecilia Sheppard and four other young women had lost their lives.
The three ceased their conversation and Joel waved at the mirror.
“That’s my cue.” Kit grabbed the case folder and went into the interrogation room, taking her seat across the table from Reeves, Joel Haley, and the shark attorney. Laura Letterman. Don’t underestimate her.
Kit hit the record button on the room’s video camera remote. “I’m listening.”
“I’m a psychologist,” Reeves began. “I have a court-ordered client who is a pathological liar. Talks about having tea with royalty, dinner with various Hollywood celebrities. But then he started talking about a grave he visited and how much he missed his ‘pretty young thing.’ ” He used air quotes. “This came up during more than one session, and I began to wonder if this was the one truth he was telling me.”
“The grave in the park?” Kit asked, and he nodded.
“I’m not allowed to report a client for a past murder, only one that’s about to happen. In that case, I have a duty to warn, and I take that very seriously. But I didn’t know if this was fabrication or truth. Even if it was true, I still couldn’t divulge the past murder. Unless a minor was involved.” He tilted his head. “Was the victim a minor?”
Kit nodded, relieved. He’d been telling the truth. He hadn’t killed anyone. She hoped, at least. She wasn’t going to let her gut lead her, though. She’d play this like he was still guilty until she was positive. “Yes, she was.”
Reeves closed his eyes, his expression tight and pained. “Was she a child? The grave looked small.”
“She was petite,” Kit agreed. Jaelyn had been barely five-one. “A minor, but not a young child. What made you risk your career and make that first call?”
Reeves opened his eyes and they were filled with worry. “He recently started talking about a new ‘pretty young thing.’ I shared my concerns with my boss and we decided the best way to proceed was to determine if he was lying or telling the truth.”
“So you told me to check for the grave.”
“Yes. I watched the news, but I saw nothing on any bodies being found in Longview Park. I’d planned to wait until I did before I did anything more, but then my client and I had a session today. I was able to glean enough information from his ramblings to know that the new young woman was a lacrosse player. He called her ‘Lilac.’ He said she had blond hair.” His shoulders sagged. “I googled girls’ lacrosse teams in the area and only one school has lilac uniforms.”
“Tomlinson High.”
He nodded. “I assumed that because the last victim was petite, this was his type. Two girls on the Tomlinson team fit the profile. I couldn’t live with myself if another girl got hurt because I was protecting my career. So I called you again.” He met her gaze, his own anguished and anxious. “Are they all right? The two girls?”
“They’re fine,” Kit said.
He slumped where he sat. “Thank goodness.”
“Your boss can corroborate all of this?”
He nodded. “She’s not available right now, though. She was the first person I called, but the answering service says she’s not taking calls. I’m not sure why.”
Suspicion pinged Kit’s mind. That the one person who could corroborate his testimony wasn’t available was too convenient. Apparently both Joel Haley and the defense attorney thought the same thing because they both winced.
“Is she the only one?” Kit asked.
Sam looked around the table, his brows furrowing at the expressions on their faces. “No,” he said, his voice slightly strained. “She told her therapist as well.”
“I’ll need his name.”
Reeves hesitated. “I don’t know it. Her assistant probably would, or maybe even her husband, but I never asked and she never offered.”
Too fucking convenient. Kit sighed, disappointed in her gut once more. She’d really wanted to believe this man, which wasn’t like her at all. “What was with the photos you had taped to that board?”
“Stop, Sam,” his lawyer advised. “I don’t like the way this is going.”
Reeves looked at Joel. “Do you agree with her?”
Joel waffled his hand in a so-so motion. “I believe you, but that your boss is suddenly unavailable to corroborate doesn’t look good.”
“She will, once she’s back,” Reeves insisted. He turned to Kit, looking her in the eye. “I didn’t think you believed me. Four days passed from my first call and I’d neither seen nor heard anything about any bodies found in the park. I figured there’d be something about police digging a hole, at least, but there wasn’t.”
This was true. They’d barricaded off the area when they’d started digging so that no one would witness the activity and had asked the park’s management to say it was a broken pipe if anyone asked why the ground had been disrupted. Kit hadn’t thought it would work, but there had been no media coverage, much to SDPD’s relief.
