Jordain started to ask his next question when the phone rang. He let it go until the third ring, then grabbed it, said his name, listened, said a brief yes, and then hung up. “Follow-up on the Bullard case. Nothing that can’t wait. I was about to ask if there are other places as easy to get it as a hospital.”
“Yup.” He checked the sheet. “Army supply units would have it. Any doctor might prescribe it. The prescription eye drops would most likely go by the brand name Homatropine or Isopto Atropine, which of course you could get from an online pharmaceutical site. Know what else? You can buy the stuff from any shop or Web site selling Wiccan supplies. They use it to introduce hallucinations. Butler checked and found three atropine injectors for sale at eBay.”
“Paper trail,” Jordain muttered.
“There’s an even easier way to get it. You can grow it yourself. Or take a field trip with a little pocket knife to one of the dozens of medical gardens attached to so many museums and schools. Quite a few have a poison garden and-”
“Damn it, Perez, I got it. You can get the stuff anywhere and everywhere. I can get the stuff. Butler can get it. It’s a no-brainer. It’s probably even growing in Central Park.”
“Probably.”
“Great, so, we know the what. Do we know anything about the how? Do you know the details?”
“That’s the part you aren’t going to believe.”
Jordain’s expression went from serious to impatient, tinged with slight annoyance.
“The poison entered her system through mucous membranes. Specifically through the membranes in her vaginal wall.” He paused.
Jordain made a hurry-up motion with this hand.
“The atropine was mixed into the lubricant she slathered on her dildo.”
Thirteen
I opened the door to the English lab at five twenty-five to find three members of the group sitting there in the shadows. Hugh was scrolling through a PDA. Barry seemed to be sleeping with his head on his arms, which were folded on the desktop. Amanda also had her eyes closed, but she had headphones on and from the sway of her shoulders she was clearly engrossed in the music she was listening to.
The original group consisted of eight boys who ranged in age from fifteen to eighteen. They’d been meeting with me late every Tuesday afternoon since early November after the Park East School on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Six weeks later, the principal had recommended four girls join the group. Each of them, with the exception of Amanda, had been sexually involved either with one of the boys in the group or with one of their friends. The three of them were adapting well. They were even helping the boys to open up a little.
But Amanda sat in each session not participating-fidgeting, anxious, waiting for something, ready to jump up and bolt at any second. Since she was the only teenager who had asked to join the group her actions and silence worried me.
I switched on the light and walked into the classroom.
Hugh looked up, Barry continued sleeping. Amanda started and opened her eyes.
“You might want to wake Barry up,” I said to Hugh as I took off my coat. “Then the three of you can help me put the chairs in a circle.”
Amanda looked down at her finger. There was a small, fresh cut on her left thumb, an angry half moon of dark, dried blood. She was touching it lightly with the forefinger of her right hand. The shape was familiar to me-it was the shape a chisel made when it slipped on the wood or marble you were sculpting.
“You shouldn’t move chairs with that. Does it hurt?” I asked her.
“It did.”
“How did you do it?”
“In art class.”
It was the most she’d said in three weeks.
“Sculpture?”
She seemed slightly surprised.
“Do you like art class?” I asked.
She shrugged, the kind of shrug that meant yes, not no.
“I’d like to see your work. I’m something of an amateur sculptor.”
“I don’t show my stuff to people. Ever.”
Too much emotion in the sentence, but I was thrilled to have heard it. “Sometimes I do. Because if I keep it secret, it gets too important.”
She was staring at me.
While the boys formed the circle, the rest of the group straggled in. Timothy, who was one of the brightest but also most disturbed kids, walked in talking on his cell phone. When he saw me, he ended the call.
Amanda’s eyes followed him across the room. She seemed to settle down a little now that he was here. When he glanced over and saw her, he gave her an almost imperceptible smile. They had a bond, but what kind of bond I didn’t yet understand.
I asked Timothy to help with the last few chairs, and he grudgingly threw his coat and knapsack on the floor and went to work. Jeremy came in with Charlie. Both clean-cut and well groomed, they always arrived and left together. More than anyone else, they participated in these sessions, and I kept hoping they’d influence the rest of the kids, who were there in body only.
A few seconds later Jodi arrived, a Goth with a long black coat that swept up the dirt on the floor. Every week she came in elaborate clothes and makeup. Ellen and Merry came in right behind her. Jodi’s opposites, these two smiled, were poised and were always dressed in clothes that would have seemed ridiculously expensive on grown women.
Altogether they were a cross-section: a Goth, a brain, two preppies, a retro hippie, an art student, a musician, two fashionistas. But they did share an interest that was seriously affecting their lives: the boys were severely addicted to Internet porn, and fearless when it came to ignoring the rules against going to X-rated sites while in school. None of them had been caught in the act, but there had been enough evidence of their travels to put them in jeopardy. Therapy with me was the only thing keeping them from expulsion.
The girls had been affected by the boys’ addiction. Their self-esteem had been brutalized, and they had been flagrantly acting out, hoping to get the boys to pay more attention to them. Their parents and teachers were worried.
And then there was Amanda.
We started that Tuesday night only five minutes late, which was better than usual. Right away it was clear that everyone was jittery, especially Timothy, who literally couldn’t sit still. Hugh kept casting glances at him as if making sure he was all right. Amanda kept looking over at him, too, but as if she knew he wasn’t okay. Jeremy was tapping his foot on the floor in a precise rhythm and Charlie was biting his nails.
When Timothy clicked his pen for the fifth time in a row, I asked him to tell me what was going on.
He shrugged.
Charlie cleared his throat.
Jeremy turned and looked out of the window so that I couldn’t see his face.
Amanda opened her bag and fished around in it for a few seconds, brought out a Band-Aid and proceeded to put it over the cut.
“Timothy?” I asked again.
He didn’t respond.
The Goth girl, Jodi, leaned over and whispered to him. It sounded to me as if she’d said tell her, but I wasn’t sure, so I asked her to repeat what she’d said so we all could hear it.
“It was nothing.”
“Timothy, do you want to tell us what Jodi said?”
He shrugged.
“I think she said ‘tell her.’ Is that right?” I pushed.
Timothy still didn’t answer.
“Jodi, is that what you said?”
She looked at me but didn’t respond. Living with a teenager myself, I knew that more often than not, no answer was code for the affirmative. But why wouldn’t she answer? What was she scared of?