CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
"You don't have to be up," she said.
"I know." He handed her the travel mug he had already filled. "Go."
“How did you know I had somewhere to be?”
He smirked and said, “Because coming in at two in the morning usually doesn’t mean a case has all of a sudden closed.”
“Well, smarty pants, it is closed. We managed to stop the killer.”
“What?” he asked, his eyes bright. “That’s awesome. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were dead asleep and I wasn’t going to wake you.”
“So, this morning is what? Paperwork, reports… that sort of thing?”
“Interrogation, too.”
“Fun.”
She took the travel mug and kissed him and he squeezed her hand once before letting go.
She poked her head into Michael’s room and smiled at his sleeping face.
She carried the image of it out of the door with her, and she drove to the field office with the radio off and the travel mug warm in the cupholder beside her.
Sloane was already there when she arrived.
Kate could tell by the slight dimming in Sloane's eyes when she looked up from her laptop that she hadn’t slept last night after bringing Calder in.
There was a fast food coffee cup on the desk next to a full legal pad of notes, and her jacket was draped over the back of her chair in a way that suggested it hadn't moved in hours.
"Did you go home at all?" Kate asked.
"I will tonight," Sloane said, which was not an answer. Kate smiled thinly at her as she set her travel mug down and looked at the legal pad. Sloane had apparently been building the full picture of the case and Calder’s motivations while Kate slept, and it was detailed. "
“You’re just in time,” Sloane said, leaning away from her laptop and sipping from her coffee.
“They just moved Ruth Calder to Interrogation Room 4. If you weren’t here by nine, I was going to text you to ask you to hurry up.
” She chuckled at this, but Kate knew she was serious, She wondered how long Sloane would have waited on her before going in on her own.
“I’m ready if you are,” Kate said.
Sloane gave a little clap of the hands and got to her feet. Kate wondered if the almost playful demeanor was the result of capturing the killer or a lack of sleep. Maybe a bit of both, Kate decided.
“Has she asked for a lawyer?” Kate asked as they made their way down to the interrogation rooms.
“Nope. She declined one twice,” she said, stifling a yawn with the back of her hand.
Kate almost felt a little guilty for getting at least some sleep while Sloane had been burning the midnight oil. But the guilt quickly turned to envy. Kate remembered those days and, for reasons she could not quite fathom, missed them.
They were in the interrogation room at 8:45 with Ruth Calder across the table.
Ruth looked no different than she had in Diane Marsh's kitchen the night before.
Kate wondered if the woman had managed to sleep or if the shock of understanding what was truly happening had kept her awake.
Her hands were folded on the table in front of her and she looked at them both when they came in, but without much emotion.
Sloane sat down across from her. Kate took the chair to Sloane's left and said nothing. She was waiting to see how Sloane would play this… how she would handle it on zero sleep.
"Ruth," Sloane said. "I want to go through some things with you and I'd like you to help me understand them. Can you do that?"
Ruth looked up. "Yes," she said in a flat voice.
"How long were you a member of Dr. Hale's program?"
"Fourteen months." The question came quickly and with no emotion. Kate got the sense that she was speaking to a programmed robot.
"And you attended sessions regularly during that time?"
"Every week. Sometimes twice."
"At some point during those fourteen months," Sloane said, "you accessed intake questionnaires that didn't belong to you. Patient files for other members of the group. Can you tell me how that happened?"
Ruth was quiet for a moment, not evasive, more considering.
"Richard left his laptop open," she said.
"In his office. He did it more than once.
He was careless with it. I guess he trusted me.
He was very… honestly, he was very stupid whenever he started trusting people. He was very open, very vulnerable."
"You went through his files?" Kate asked
"I was curious at first," Ruth said. "About the other women. Who they were. What they'd written about themselves."
"And what did you find?"
"Everything." She said it without particular emphasis but Kate saw something in her eyes, a sort of flicker that made her wonder if this was something she’d always wanted to get out.
"The intake forms were very detailed. Hale required a lot of information upfront. I knew this, of course, because I’d filled out the damned things.
Full name, address, employment, family situation.
He wanted the complete picture, he said. So, he could tailor the program."
Kate watched Ruth's face as she went through it.
There was no bitterness in her voice, no visible anger.
She was recounting it the way someone describes a process that worked exactly as intended.
But there was something else there, something behind it all that might behind the reason she was being so forthcoming with them.
Maybe she was more than happy to prove that she had been able to easily manipulate and tear down the very system she felt had failed her.
"When did curiosity become something else?" Sloane asked. “What made you want to go to these extremes?”
Ruth looked at the table again and Kate thought she saw something like either resentment or what could have been regret.
It was hard to tell in people in a state of shock.
"When I read about the ones who were happy," she said.
"Over and over again, everything was just working out for everyone else.
These were the ones who had written about their lives like their lives were gifts.
Like everything had come to them easily and they were just waiting for more.
" She paused, and when she looked up again her expression had not changed.
"My husband left me for one of those women.
Not literally. But that type. Someone who moved through the world without cost."
"So, you identified women in the group whose situations resembled that sort of woman," Sloane said. “That sort of story.”
"Yes." She practically gasped the word and Kate was sure that something was giving way within Ruth. Maybe she wasn’t fully understanding what she had done, but it wasn’t far behind.
"And you used the forum to monitor them," Kate said.
"I never posted anything," Ruth said. "I just read. Checking in. They announced everything. When things were going well, when they'd had a breakthrough, when they felt like themselves again." Her voice was flat and even and—yes, Kate was sure of it now, resentful. "They couldn't wait to say so."
"And that's when you acted," Sloane said.
Ruth didn't answer that directly. She looked at the wall to Kate's left as though she was working through something internally and had forgotten they were waiting.
"Ruth," Kate said. She made a point to keep her voice soft and conversational. "The victims. Carol Paige. Donna Holt. Nancy Briggs. How did you select them specifically?"
Ruth looked at her, unblinking. "Honestly? There was no reason. It just… it came down to whatever I saw that made me feel like things were just unfair. Carol… she was so over the moon about this new guy. A date or two under her belt and she’s talking like her entire world had changed.
It was… I couldn’t handle it. That’s all there is to it. ”
“And the others?” Sloane asked.
“I just told you. I didn’t premeditate any of them.
I would just see posts and then go… go red.
Just so fucking angry…” She started almost growling the words near the end and seemed to recognize how emotional she was getting.
She took a moment to collect her breath and then looked to them both as if everything was as fine as it could be.
"You accessed their addresses through the intake files?" Sloane said.
"Yes."
"Did it occur to you," Sloane said carefully, "that these people were in that group because they were suffering? That what they were posting was the result of a lot of pain?"
"Yes," Ruth said. "It occurred to me."
"And?"
Ruth looked at her steadily and shook her head.
"My husband's girlfriend was also suffering, apparently.
She had a difficult childhood and a lot of unresolved grief and she was doing the best she could.
He told me all about it when he explained why he was leaving.
" She unfolded her hands and placed them flat on the table.
"Suffering is not a defense. With all due respect. "
Kate paused; she couldn’t tell if she was legitimately considering Ruth’s comment or was just trying to let the woman see that she was listening—that she was paying attention, rather than just passing her off as a psychotic murderer.
“Is there anything else you want to add before we’re done here?” Kate eventually asked.
"Richard Hale should have locked his laptop," Ruth added. "He asked people to trust him with the worst things about themselves and then he left it sitting open on his desk. He’s just as guilty as I am.”
"Oh, I think that’s a bit of a reach on your part," Sloane said. "However, he's currently being questioned in another room about his security practices."
Something passed across Ruth's face at that, brief and unreadable. Then she nodded once and looked back at the table.
Sloane closed the notepad and stood. Kate stood with her, and neither of them said anything further to Ruth. Kate did notice that Ruth kept her eyes locked on them as she left, with a bit of dashed hope in her eyes.
In the hallway, Sloane pulled the door shut behind them and stood with her back against the wall for a moment. Kate stood across from her.
"Hale," Kate said. “What’s going on there?”
"His attorney got here an hour ago," Sloane said.
"He's going to cooperate. He doesn't have much choice.
The intake forms, the data storage, the access logs on his laptop, it's all there.
" She crossed her arms. "It’s obviously not a crime, but he's looking at serious exposure.
Negligence at minimum, possibly more depending on what the legal team decides to pursue. "
"He built a program asking vulnerable people to share everything about themselves and then treated that information like it was his personal filing cabinet," Kate said.
"His attorney keeps using the word inadvertent," Sloane said.
"I imagine he does."
Sloane looked at the closed door of the interrogation room. Through the narrow reinforced window, Ruth Calder was still sitting exactly as they had left her, hands flat on the table, looking at nothing.
"She's not going to fall apart in there," Sloane said. "I think once the shock wears off, though—maybe when she’s in a holding cell and has to sit with it…"
“Yeah, it’ll come down on her then.”
“She looked like she might be in shock, right?” Sloane asked.
Kate nodded. “I saw that, too.”
Sloane sighed and rubbed at her eyes. “I’m going to go do the official debrief with DeMarco in about ten minutes. Interested?”
“Only if you promise to go home afterwards and get some sleep.”
Sloane smiled and said, “Deal.”
Kate followed her down the hallway, watching Sloane move with a tired but determined step.
Kate personally felt the satisfaction of another case closed even though she had spent most of it in the passenger seat.
Yes, she knew she’d pitched in here and there occasionally, but this had been Sloane’s case.
Kate had no idea how much longer she’d be doing this part-time thing. But if she got to watch Sloane continue to develop and grow with each case they shared, she was more than willing to keep occupying the back seat.
As it turned out, the view wasn’t all that bad.