Every Fifteen Minutes

by Lisa Scottoline

  “Marie, let’s sit down and I can explain—”

  Suddenly, the screen door opened, and a large bearded man entered the living room in a blue Montgomeryville Motorcycles T-shirt, grimy jeans, and worn workboots. His dark eyes zeroed in on Eric behind his wire-rimmed glasses that kept sliding down a bulbous nose. His fleshy lips contorted into a scowl, buried in a dark unruly beard. “Marie, is this the guy?” he asked, glowering at Eric.

  “Yeah.” Marie turned on Eric. “This is Zack, my boyfriend I was telling you about, and he’s been on the road two straight days, trying to get home. You tell Zack what you did to my son, and you tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but or he will beat it out of you. Zack loves my Max as much as I do, he’s going to be his stepfather someday. This ends here and now!”

  “Zack, I’m Dr. Parrish.” Eric stood his ground. “I’m Max’s psychiatrist and I’d never do anything to hurt him. I’m trying to find him and I fear he could harm himself.”

  “Oh really?” Zack came over, frowning with menace. “We had no trouble until Max started seeing you, then he disappears, and I gotta tell you, it just doesn’t sit right with me, you showing such interest in him, coming over here and looking in his room—”

  “Wait, Archie, is that you?” Laurie asked from the doorway, stepping into the room, but the big man whirled around to face her.

  “Dr. F?” Zack broke into a grin, showing yellowed teeth. “What’re you doing here? How’ve you been?”

  “I’m fine, thanks!” Laurie reached up and gave Zack a big hug. “How are you? You look great!”

  Eric had no idea what was happening, but he was going with the flow. He glanced at Marie, who seemed vaguely deflated that there wasn’t going to be a cage match in her living room.

  “Dr. F, I’m almost a hundred percent! The neurologist you got for me did an awesome job, and Bryn Mawr Rehab was great. I learned my lesson. I always wear my helmet now.”

  “Terrific! You’re not even limping. That’s excellent.”

  “Thanks.” Zack turned to Marie. “Babe, this is Dr. F, the one I told you about from my accident. We should invite her to the wedding.”

  “For real?” Marie asked, surprised. “That Dr. F?”

  “Yes, she’s the best little doctor I ever had.” Zack seemed to address the room, expansively. “I got in a motorcycle accident about nine months ago, some teenager ran a stop sign, and man, it didn’t look good. They had to Medevac me to the hospital. Dr. F fixed me up, then she got me an appointment with this big-time neurologist. He only took me because she said so.” Zack threw his arm around Laurie, tugging her to his side like the prom picture from hell. “He knew his stuff, but he wasn’t a sweetheart like Dr. F.”

  “Wow,” Eric said, nonplussed. He met Laurie’s eye, receiving her I-told-you-so message.

  Marie frowned. “I don’t understand something. I get that she’s Dr. F, but who the hell is Archie?”

  Zack frowned, sheepish. “Archie’s my real name, babe. I never told you. I mean, do you blame me?”

  “Archie?” Marie repeated, incredulous. “Like Archibald?”

  “No, like Archie Andrews.” Zack shrugged his heavy shoulders.

  Laurie looked up at Zack. “Archie, I know that you and Marie are upset about Max, but hear me out. Eric is one of my oldest friends at the hospital, and I vouch for him. I swear to you, he has Max’s best interest at heart.”

  “Hmph.” Marie frowned, more deeply, and Marie’s cell phone started ringing again.

  “Don’t you think you should get that phone?” Eric asked Marie, gingerly. It went against his every instinct not to check a phone. “Someone is really trying to reach you. You never know, it could be Max.”

  “It’s only bill collectors, they call all the time.” Marie waved at the air. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re having an old-home week but that doesn’t change anything, not for me. I still haven’t heard why Dr. Parrish was at the police station today, and how all of the sudden the cops think Max murdered that girl.”

  Zack looked over at her. “Marie, we should sit down and talk, try to figure it out together. Try not to be prejudiced or talk smack. We need to cool our jets and get you a nice cuppa coffee. Huh, babe? What do you say?”

  “I don’t know,” Marie answered, uncertain. “I think we need to go have a little kitchen talk.”

  “Fine.” Zack motioned Eric onto the couch in front of the television. “Doc, sit down with Dr. F, and we’ll go get coffee.”

  “Great idea,” Eric said, heading to the couch.

  “I agree, Archie, uh, I mean, Zack.” Laurie sat down next to Eric on the couch, just as Marie’s cell phone started ringing again.

  Zack turned to her. “Babe, maybe you should get that. It could be Max, you never know.”

  “All right, fine.” Marie slid her phone from her dress pocket.

  Eric glanced at the muted TV, then did a double-take. “Oh my God, no!” he cried out, in shock and horror.

  “What?” Laurie asked, but then she turned to the TV and saw what he meant, gasping aloud. “Marie, Zack! Look!”

  But Eric was struck dumb. He stared at the TV, which showed a live-action nightmare unfolding in real time.

  STUDENT BOMBER AT MALL, read the bottom of the screen. Above it was a videotape of the King of Prussia Mall, surrounded by arriving SWAT vehicles, police cars, and fire trucks, their lights flashing.

  Next to the video was a grainy cell-phone picture.

  There was no doubt about who was in the photo.

  The student bomber at the mall was Max.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  “Give me the keys!” Eric ran, with Laurie beside him, to the BMW while Zack and Marie hurried to his red pickup truck in the driveway.

  “Eric, I’ll drive.”

  “Let me.” Eric had to be in control of something. He had to make this mission his own.

  “Drive safe.” Laurie tossed him the keys and he caught them, jumped into the driver’s seat of the BMW, shoved the key in the ignition, and took off as soon as Laurie was in the seat beside him.

  “Don’t worry, we can fix this,” she said, but Eric knew it was his problem to fix.

  “I can’t believe how wrong I was. I still don’t believe it.” Eric gunned the powerful engine and tore down the dark street. The high beams of Zack’s truck appeared behind him. They hit the end of the street together, and Eric hit the gas around the turn.

  “Take it easy.”

  “There’s no traffic, and I’m fine.” Eric gripped the steering wheel, holding it hard. “Why don’t you try to get the cops on the phone? Tell them we’re on the way. Ask for Detective Rhoades or Pagano.”

  “Okay, but what do you think you’re going to do at the mall?”

  “I’m going to try to talk to him, I’m gonna try to talk him out of it.”

  “Who? Max?”

  “Of course, Max.” Eric steered past the smaller homes that dotted the neighborhood. Lights shone from the windows. The streets were quiet and dark. A man walking a German shepherd stopped to look as the BMW and pickup sped past, going too fast.

  “Why you?”

  “He’s my patient.”

  “It’s not like at your office. He’s at a mall, taking hostages, and he’s got a bomb.”

  “All the more reason he needs to talk to me.” Eric steered into the darkness, taking a right turn. He didn’t need GPS. He knew the back roads to Route 202, which led directly to the mall.

  “How? What would you say?”

  “I don’t know, I’ll figure it out. I know this kid, he’s doing this out of desperation. He doesn’t want to kill anybody.”

  “Eric, he killed Renée.”

  “We don’t know that for sure.”

  “You can’t seriously doubt that, can you?”

  “Part of me does.”

  “Even now? Sure as hell it is him at the mall.”

  “I know that.” Eric had been right about the repeated calls to Marie’s cell.
It hadn’t been bill collectors or Max, but the cops telling her to come to the mall. “Part of me knows him and has faith in him. He’s not a violent guy. It’s not in his psyche.”

  “So he snapped, isn’t that possible? Isn’t that exactly what you were afraid of the first night in the emergency department? That when his grandmother died, he’d have a psychotic break?”

  Eric didn’t say anything for a minute, concentrating on driving at speed. He sensed Laurie was right, but he couldn’t bring himself to concede. There was something wrong, something that didn’t fit. Eric hadn’t assessed Max as a bomber, even after any break.

  “Eric, I understand why we’re going there, to see if we can help. To be there if we’re needed. But you can’t take this on.”

  “I took it on when I took him on.” Eric accelerated past the fancier homes, circular driveways, and ADT Security decals.

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “What’s happening here? You trying to vindicate yourself? Redeem yourself for not turning him in to the police?”

  Eric couldn’t think clearly enough to answer her questions. His heart hammered. He knew Laurie was trying to help, but he wished she would be quiet.

  “Eric, the police called Marie. She’s the one they think can reach him.”

  “That’s because they don’t know her or the family history.” Eric steered onto the main drag and whizzed past Chili’s, Target, and Cold Stone Creamery with Zack’s truck behind him, running red lights. The traffic was light, and there was no police presence. He assumed the surrounding jurisdictions had been called to the mall.

  “They met her today. They saw her. They saw that the place is a mess, even if she wasn’t drinking, it’s not hard to figure out. They’re detectives.”

  “So what’s your point?”

  “They called her because she’s the mother.”

  “They called her because they had nobody else to call.”

  “They could’ve called you.”

  “How?” Eric spotted the turn that lead to Route 202 up ahead and accelerated smoothly. “How would they reach me? They have my cell phone, and we weren’t in the office. Besides, they suspect me of Renée’s murder. They probably suspect both of us at the same time, either individually or together. Like Marie with her crazy theory that I killed both Max and Renée. Laurie, do me a favor and try to reach the police. I can’t talk. I want to concentrate on getting there.”

  “Okay, okay.” Laurie reached for her phone, and Eric checked the dashboard clock: 9:13. He imagined Max watching the second hand on his watch, in the throes of his compulsion. Max was at greater risk for suicide than he had ever been, now that his grandmother and Renée were dead.

  “Laurie, I just realized something. Max doesn’t want to kill those kids. He’s committing suicide. This is going to be suicide by cop.”

  “You think?”

  “Yes. A patient like Max would be likely to commit suicide by cop. He’s desperate and scared. He wants to die, but he’s not able to bring himself to pull the trigger. So he’s going to put himself in a position where the cops will pull the trigger for him.”

  “How grim.” Laurie sighed. “It must be so awful to be in that kind of despair.”

  “Exactly, and there’s a part of him that is angry at Marie, too. If I had to suss it out, he wants her to see how much he’s hurting, because she ignores him.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “And at seventeen years old, he lacks the empathy to realize that he’s ruining that cop’s life, too. Nobody in law enforcement wants to shoot a kid, but Max isn’t going to give them any choice.”

  “Yikes.”

  “I know.” Eric gripped the steering wheel and aimed the car like a bullet through the dark night. They flew down Route 202 to the mall, passing trucks and tractor trailers. The speedometer went from seventy-five to eighty to eighty-five. Ahead were the lights of the Costco, Best Buy, and movie multiplex. The green exit sign popped into view, and they followed its curve with Zack’s truck behind, powering together onto the four-lane road that ran past the massive King of Prussia Mall complex, the Plaza first and the Court behind.

  “We’re here.” Eric slowed to a safer speed and lowered his window. The entire Plaza area was being cordoned off. Traffic was being detoured. Cops with orange flashlights were waving traffic onto one lane, farthest from the scene.

  “I can’t reach the detectives.” Laurie looked over, phone in hand. “They won’t give me any cell numbers.”

  “Keep trying.”

  “They’re not gonna let us drive through to the mall.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Eric stopped at the last red light before they cordoned off the street. TV news vans with network logos lined the road, their spiky microwave towers puncturing the black sky. Police cruisers, ambulances, and other first responders barreled past them in the far lane, sirens wailing and red lights flashing. The traffic light turned green, and Eric cruised to a cop directing traffic. “Officer, we need to get to the mall—”

  “Sir, no, move it out, move it out!”

  “Officer, the red pickup behind me is the boy’s mother, the bomber’s mother.” Eric made himself say the words. “I’m the boy’s psychiatrist, Eric Parrish. The police called us and said to get to the scene, right away. You have to let us through.”

  The cop frowned under the patent bill of his cap. “Sir, I’ve had reporters lying through their teeth to get closer to that mall.”

  “Officer, you can verify this information. We were called by Detectives Rhoades and Pagano of the Radnor Police. We’ve been calling to tell them that we’re on the way.”

  “We don’t know those guys. We’re Upper Merion P.D.”

  “Officer, there’s going be a lot of different jurisdictions here, but we have to get through. You want to be the one who stops us, when we were summoned here?”

  “Okay, go.” The cop waved them into an open lane to the left, behind a line of smoking flares.

  “Thanks, Officer.” Eric hit the gas and signaled to Zack to follow him.

  “Pretty fancy footwork.” Laurie smiled, tense.

  “Beginner’s luck.” Eric drove down King of Prussia Road, got in the left lane, and turned onto Mall Road, which bisected the mall complex, dividing the older Court on the right from the newer Plaza on the left. “Where’s the video store, in the Court or the Plaza? Can you look that up on your phone?”

  “Hold on.” Laurie looked down, touching buttons on the phone. “It’s in the Plaza. Right downstairs, next to the Starbucks.”

  “So which mall entrance do I want? The first one on the left?”

  “Yep.” Laurie pointed. “That’ll be the closest.”

  Eric steered down Mall Road, craning his neck as he drove, trying to see the large parking lot in front of Lord & Taylor, which was controlled chaos. Police were hurrying terrified shoppers from the mall, a stream of men, women, and children running for their lives. Shouting, crying, and screaming wafted through the car window. Cops and other personnel were erecting a large white tent for a command center. Fire trucks were pulling up with firefighters, and boxy white ambulances idled, at the ready. Black Humvees unloaded black-helmeted SWAT teams. Official personnel ran this way and that, in uniforms of all types, including dark FBI and ATF windbreakers. Lights and portable generators were being connected, and sawhorses unloaded from the back of municipal trucks to set up a barricade.

  Eric felt horrified to think that the person causing the terror was his own patient. “This is a nightmare. These poor people. I pray nobody gets hurt. Max doesn’t know what he set in motion here.”

  “Eric, I’m so sorry I got you into this.” Laurie sighed, eyeing the scene.

  “No, it’s okay. Max needs help. This is proof, as awful as it is.”

  “But somebody else could’ve helped him, another psychiatrist. I got you into it, and look what happened. The cops, your job.”

  “I wouldn’t want an
ybody else to do it,” Eric said, realizing he meant it once it was said aloud. “I want to be the one to help him, and in a way, he’s helping me.”

  “Now you’re talking crazy.”

  “Who better?” Eric turned left onto the uphill ramp that led to the Plaza. The Neiman Marcus was to his right and the main entrance straight ahead. The ramp was blocked at the top by a line of uniformed police in front of sawhorses. Eric drove slowly toward them, with Zack’s truck behind, and cops broke out of line and started running toward him down the ramp, motioning for him to stop, waving flashlights or their hands.

  “Sir, you’re not permitted on his road!” shouted one heavyset cop, as he reached the car, and Eric braked.

  “Officer, I’m the bomber’s psychiatrist and I’m here with his mother. We were called here by Detective Rhoades of the Radnor Police. You have to let us through.”

  “I didn’t hear anything like that.” The heavyset cop peered into the BMW at Laurie. “She the mother?”

  “No, she’s an emergency physician. The boy’s mother is in the truck behind me, with her boyfriend. You have to let us through.”

  “Sir, you two are just medical personnel, and we have all the first responders we need. The mother and the father might be getting through, but you and the other doc aren’t going anywhere until I check with the brass.” The heavyset cop turned around, jogged back to the other cop, and they spoke, their caps bent together. Another cop ran back to Zack’s truck, while the heavyset cop took off, hustling away to the line of cops.

  “Eric, oh my God, look. Snipers.” Laurie pointed, and Eric looked up at the flat roof of the Neiman Marcus, where SWAT members in black gear were taking positions at the corners of the building. He could see that the position offered the best angle on the mall entrance, which was a panel of four doors set in a massive glass wall, but he couldn’t see through the entrance.

  “Laurie, where exactly is Video City?”

  “Hold on.” Laurie looked down at the mall map on her phone, the bright blue light illuminating her face from below. “The first store at the entrance is the bank, the second is a Sunglass Hut, then the third is Video City.”