“I was expecting you,” Julia Peterson said.
We were in her office at Freedom High, sitting across from each other at the conference table. She was wearing a suit similar to the one she had on when I first met her, except this one was a muted brown. Her auburn hair was neatly groomed. She had on very little makeup. She seemed tired and more stressed than she had been at our earlier meeting. Several bottles of water sat chilling in an ice-filled bucket. Drinking glasses had been placed in front of us.
“Expecting me because?”
“I’ve tried to keep abreast of the investigation. I’m curious to know how you’re faring.”
“As well as can be expected.”
“Which means?”
“For the most part we’re dealing with a number of frightened youngsters, unfamiliar with police procedures and intimidated by them.”
“Is there a way I can be helpful?”
“I have a few questions if you’ve got time for me.”
She took a sip of water. “Of course.”
“How well did you know the deceased?”
“Henry Carson?”
“Yes.”
“Not too well. We were colleagues.”
“I remember you saying you didn’t socialize with him.”
“That’s correct.”
“It was you who hired him, isn’t that so?”
“It is. If memory serves, I interviewed him twice.”
“After which you hired him.”
“Yes.”
“You thought highly enough of him during your first interview to invite him back for a second?”
“Actually, that wasn’t the case.” She shifted in her chair and ran her fingers through her hair a few times. She took another sip of water and began fidgeting with a pen, mindlessly clicking the ballpoint. She seemed uncomfortable. “He was most anxious to get the job. After our initial conversation, he phoned several times and also wrote, suggesting that if I was seriously considering his candidacy, he’d be willing to return for a second interview. He offered to do so on his own dime. He was very aggressive.”
“Did he?”
“Did he what?”
“Did he return on his own dime?”
She didn’t answer right away. “He was sitting in my waiting room one morning when I arrived for work.”
“You hadn’t been expecting him?”
“No.”
“But you met with him again just the same?”
“I did.”
“How did that go?”
“He succeeded in making an impression. He was quite insistent. I told him I had yet to make up my mind. That I was also considering two other candidates.”
“How did he react to that?”
“At first he seemed disappointed. Then he began campaigning for the job.”
“Campaigning?”
“He insisted we meet later that same day. He invited me to have drinks with him.”
“And?”
“I did. Reluctantly. He was very persuasive. He was sensitive to our being seen together here in Freedom, which he felt could be interpreted unfavorably by anyone who might come upon us, so I met him in the lounge of the San Ysidro Ranch in Santa Barbara.”
“And it was there that he made the case for his candidacy?”
Our conversation had succeeded in raising her anxiety level. She continued to fiddle with the pen.
“Am I making you nervous?”
“No. No. Not at all. It’s just that I hadn’t thought of those days in a while and in light of what happened to Henry, they appear to have had an impact on me.”
“Would you prefer we stop?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
“May we go on?”
“Yes. You asked about him making the case for my hiring him.”
I nodded.
“As I said, he was very aggressive. His was a commanding presence. He appeared capable and fit. He was also a charming person, self-effacing and diffident.”
“Diffident?”
“Let’s just say he made his case by underselling himself. Which was not so with his competitors.”
“So he won the job?”
“Not then.”
“When?”
“When he came back a third time.”
“A third time? You initially said you saw him only twice.”
“I’m sorry. I must have been confused. Yes, there was a third time. Also paid for by him.”
“Hardly seems like an undersell.”
A silence fell upon us. Ms. Peterson continued to exude a palpable uneasiness. As if she knew what might be coming and was terrified by it.
“What happened during his third visit?”
“He convinced me he was the right person for the job.”
“How?”
“How did he convince me?”
“Yes.”
“His enthusiasm for the job and for moving to California was infectious. Clearly he was capable and qualified. At the end of the day, I felt he was the superior candidate.”
“When did you become aware of his behavioral aberrations?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“When did you realize he was a sociopath?”
She gasped. It was as if all of the air had suddenly been punched out of her. She collapsed into herself like a rag doll. “I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t know he seduced half the girls on the swim team?”
She sat frozen on the spot, refusing to look at me.
“When did you find out?” I asked.
She glanced at me and shuddered visibly. She spoke softly, her voice drained of emotion. “I stumbled upon one of his parties.”
“A play party?”
“If that’s what it was called, yes.”
“And you knew about it because?”
“We had a scheduled meeting. When he didn’t appear, I went around to the pool house and came upon one of the swim team boys who was in a big hurry to leave. Said he was late. When I asked him what for, he said something about a team event. I watched him leave and then followed him.”
“And he led you to a party.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I was devastated.”
“Was Henry Carson there?”
She nodded.
“He saw you?”
“He did.”
“And?”
“It was as if I didn’t exist. He looked right through me.”
“You were sleeping with him?”
She looked first at me, then away. “Yes.”
“You knew he was married?”
She nodded.
“And now you knew about the parties.”
I watched as the realization hit her, as she came to understand that life as she knew it was now over. “I hated him,” she murmured as if to herself. “I wish I had killed him myself.”
Suddenly she stood. “I can’t talk anymore.”
She stepped to her desk, picked up her purse and ran from the building.
I took out my cell phone and punched in a number. Marsha Russo picked up the call. “She’s on the run.”
“Copy that. You still want us to pick her up?”
“I do.”
“And detain her?”
“Yes.”
“Aiding and abetting?”
“That’s the charge. What really concerns me is her psychological well-being.”
“Meaning?”
“I want to make certain she doesn’t off herself.”
“And you think that busting her is the best protection.”
“I do. Arrest her and get her settled. And make certain she’s under a twenty-four-hour watch. She poses a threat to herself.”
“County?”
“Yes.”
“There she is. I see her.”
“Go easy on her, Marsha. She’s damaged goods.”