Chapter 25
"I was afraid that waiting room full of patients was going to riot when I slipped in before all of them. Thanks for the time, John."
"Thank you for coming, Chantal. I know this must be important."
"I'm going to play this tape for you and I want you to see if you recognize the voice. It's a caller on a talk show."
"Okay, sure thing."
John's face was washed with fear as he heard the caller say that his wife should be tied to a rock and drowned. Chantal looked at him intently.
"You know who it is, don't you, John?"
"No, of course not. What makes you say that?"
"I can see it all over you. You know who it is, don't you?"
"No, I don't. What's this all about? Are you saying I murdered my wife or know who did it?"
"I'm saying, John, that you are too guilty or frightened or something to letting your conscious mind be aware of what you know. There's a voice inside of you that you don't want to hear."
"Now you sound like Francis. He says there's something inside me that won't let me see."
"Seeing, hearing, it's all the same at this level. Open up."
"I don't know how, Chantal. I admit that I think you're right. I have no rational reason for thinking that but I do and have been trying through meditation to open up."
"The breakthrough will come, John. It will come when you don't try quite so hard. There are lots of ways to get to the unconscious. Here, take this sheet of paper and this pencil and draw. Just draw for a few minutes while I play the tape of that voice over and over again."
John drew swirls and stars and trees and mountains, crosses, the Star of David, flowers, and then a car and a house--his house. The intensity of the moment produced a spontaneous trance in John and Chantal capitalized on it by speaking in a soothing monotone so as to access John's unconscious through the trance.
"Chantal, the person with that voice was sitting in this car the night Beth was murdered."
"And if you saw that and somehow didn't respond to that, you're probably feeling guilty and a victim of the distorted thinking cognitive psychologists call emotional reasoning. You feel that you caused her death so you can't admit that you even glimpsed somebody who later turned out to be a murderer. Do you know the person in the car, John; have you ever met him or her?
"Yes, I believe I have met him since that night, not before."
"Did you meet him socially, did you meet him in a restaurant, where do you think you met him, John?"
"I don't think it was socially, I think it was professionally. I met him here; I met him right where you are seated now. His name is Rob, Rob Williams. Chantal, am I responsible for my wife's death?"
"Of course not, John. Keep it together. We can process all of this later. Right now we've got to get hold of Dave. And you've got a waiting room full of patients to see."
"That's right. There's a small office down at the end of the hall. Why don't you go in there and see if you can get hold of Dave. Then let me know what's happening. I'll see my next person in the meanwhile. John left the room in what is sometimes called a "waking trance." He would function well with his patients, perhaps better than usual, since he was listening to himself and all of creation at such a deep level.
The dispatcher told Chantal that Dave was in the car out on the street and she would have him call her back rather than tie up the phone line at the doctor's office. Chantal went to John's receptionist and asked for the file of Rob Williams. The receptionist turned it over to her saying: "The doctor said to give you anything you want. I just hope it helps him."
Chantal went back to the small office at the end of the hall to wait for Dave's return phone call. She reviewed the chart and noticed that Rob had been in the Navy. As she was in the midst of reading about the sad death of Rob's daughter, the phone rang and startled her. She picked up the phone and heard Dave's voice say "What's up, little flower?"
"Plenty. I'm at John's office. He recognized the voice of one of his patients as being the caller on the talk show. We’d better check it out. The guy's name is Rob Williams. He was also in the Navy which ties us in to those fancy knots. Dave, the guy sounds kind of fragile. He's very depressed. His baby daughter died a few weeks ago. Maybe John should be with us when we question him."
"That makes a lot of sense Chantal. I have a few issues related to the case to take care of yet but I'll be over before very long and we can go together. How's that?"
"Sounds good, Dave. I'll read a few of the ancient magazines that are in the waiting room."
"John must be a good doctor if he has old magazines."
Chantal tried to make herself comfortable in the little office and waited for John's door to open so that she could talk to him about the plans she and Dave had made. Each minute seemed like an hour, and she began to feel like a patient waiting for a doctor. To keep herself focused and oriented, she had to remind herself that she was a doctor--a forensic psychologist--whose livelihood and way of contributing to the world was by dealing with issues like this. To calm herself and mobilize her energy Chantal started some deep breathing exercises and concentrated on a spot on the wall--a visual mantra to settle her soul and open her up to whatever there was out there that was running the universe. Chantal became unaware of her surroundings and found that her head was clearing when all of a sudden the door burst open and John came rushing in causing her body to lurch like an old rag doll."
"Chantal, I'm sorry that this is such a delayed reaction, but I just remembered that I referred Rob to Francis because of his depression and Francis agreed to see him. I don't know when they're meeting. We'd better get on the horn and see what's going on over at the monastery."
Chantal picked up the phone and quickly punched in the number. "No answer at Francis private number. There's a monastery number as well, John, but I don't know it by heart. I'll let my fingers do the walking and flip through the Yellow Pages. Here we are, listed under Convents and Monasteries, Salesian Monastery." Chantal punched in the numbers as John called them out. "It's another tape, John. This one saying when the hours of their common prayer are."
"Where the heck can everybody be over there? I have a feeling we better get there fast."
"Agreed. We'll take my car, John, if that's okay"
"No problem there. Let's go out to the waiting room first. I have some bad news to break."
"Ladies and gentlemen: I'm extremely sorry but there's a medical emergency and I have to leave now. I'm not sure when I'll be back. You can wait for me or have our very fine receptionist reschedule you. I'm sorry, I just have to go." And the two of them ran out the front door, leaving not only the patients but also the receptionist quite dazed.
As Chantal was pulling out from the curb, she pointed to the car phone between herself and John and said: "Please try to get hold of Dave and tell him what's happening. His number is in the memory of the phone, I think it's four."
John pushed four, and after a series of beeps the dispatcher from the Police Department answered. "This is Doctor Johnson-Angelo. It's imperative that I speak with Detective Gold."
"I'm sorry, Doctor, he's in the car and I believe en route to your office. I'll see if I can patch him through to you. Please hold."
"They're trying to connect us, Chantal."
Chantal seemed oblivious to everything but the road in front of her. An extremely goal-oriented woman, her goal was to get to the monastery and save Francis if he needed it. The dispatcher came on.
"Doctor, I haven't reached Detective Gold yet. He's probably somewhere between his car and where he's going. I'm going to call his beeper and try to connect you two. Is there any message if I don't get you hooked up?"
"Yes, please tell him that Doctor Fleur and I are on our way to the monastery and that the killer might be there already."
"Very well, Doctor."
"What do you mean they're not here? I was supposed to meet Doctor Johnson-Angelo and Doctor Fleur here."
The receptionist said: "I'm sorry, Detective; I'm just as confused as you are. They didn't say where they were going either. That's so unlike the doctor. All they said was there was a medical emergency and they had to go."
"Did they leave any hint as to where they were going?@
ANo, but they were in that little office in the back there, trying to contact someone or other. Maybe there's a name or number lying around."
Gold ran down the hall and looked around. No telephone numbers written on anything. The room was sparse and neat. He saw the Yellow Pages opened up. He scanned the pages for help. He began with Contractors and then moved into Control Systems, Convenience Stores, Convention Information Bureaus, and then he spotted it. Convents and Monasteries. They were on their way to the monastery.