Free The Girls He Adored: A Novel by Jonathan Nasaw Page A

response.
    Once he had the subject at ease, Pender planned to work the conversation around to sex, admit to a rape or a little rough stuff himself, and see if he couldn't draw the man out. He wouldn't be expecting a confession at this point, or much in the way ofspecifics, but a good round of jailhouse bragging could be remarkably instructive, and Casey, if it were Casey, might well drop an incriminating detail here or there.
    Suddenly it occurred to Pender that he hadn't prepared himself for the interview as thoroughly as he might have, that he'd failed to interview the one person who'd had more contact with the subject than anyone since the unfortunate Refugio Cortes: the psychiatrist who'd been evaluating him.
    But how to contact her? He didn't even know her name. He moved his chair closer to the window—Pender never really trusted cell phones—and called Lieutenant Gonzalez, who was not in his office. He had Gonzalez's voice mail kick him back out to the operator, who connected him with Visitor Reception at the jail on Natividad Road.
    “This is Special Agent Pender of the FBI. I'm trying to find out the name of the psychiatrist who visited—” He started to say Casey, but stopped himself. “your John Doe—prisoner number . . .” He flipped open his notebook and read it off.
    “I'm sorry, I can't give out that information over the telephone,” replied the female deputy who'd answered. Then, to Pender's surprise, as he was gearing up for a little bluff and bluster: “But according to the log, she's inside interviewing the prisoner. She'll have to log out when she's done—I could give her your number and ask her to call you.”
    “Ohhhhkey-doke.” Though not a superstitious man, Pender had learned from experience that luck, bad or good, came in waves—perhaps he'd caught a good one.

14

    “A LL RIGHT, sweetheart, we're going back further. It's your birthday again—do you have a cake?”
    They were ten minutes into the age regression. The hypnosis had gone smoothly—like most multiples, Max/Christopher had proved eminently suggestible. After a short relaxation technique (not easy, with the prisoner seated, fettered and manacled, in a cold, relatively bare, brightly lit room with nothing but hard surfaces and right angles—but she pulled it off), Irene had him concentrate on a black dot she'd drawn on a sheet of blank notepaper, explained in a calm, low-pitched voice that he was getting sleepier and his eyelids heavier, and sent him to his safest place. She'd then implanted a code word to use as a cue for waking him up. That was pretty much all it took—Hypnosis 101, no bells, no whistles.
    When he was deeply under, she began regressing him, walking him backward through his birthdays. When she reached five she observed his eyes rolling upward beneath the closed, fluttering lids—it was his first switch of the session.
    “Choc'lit cake. Choc'lit icing. I like choc'lit.” His voice was chirpy, his body language fidgety.
    “Does it have candles?”
    “A course—it's a birthday cake, you silly.”
    “Can you count the candles?”
    “Five candles, one two three four five.”
    “Can you read the writing?”
    “My name—that's my name—Lyssy, el why ess ess why.”
    “Happy birthday, Lyssy. Five years old, isn't that something. Did you open your presents yet?”
    “After the cake—doncha know you can't open presents until after the cake?”
    “How about your presents from your mommy and daddy?”
    “I got a two-wheeler. In my room when I woke up in the morning. It's a red Schwinn, just like Walter cross the street, only red. Daddy said I was way too old for my Big Wheels. And no training wheels—Daddy says only, you know, sissies use training wheels.”
    “Tell me about your mommy and daddy. Do they ever do things you don't like? Hurt you or touch you?” Leading question, right on the border of suggestion. But Irene's time with the patient was limited, this was diagnosis, not treatment, and