“He was depressed, and you abandoned him when he needed you,” the father muttered.
Mrs. Wiggins made a small sound at the back of her throat, something like disapproval, but she said nothing. That told Laura a lot. Even though the older woman didn’t want to argue or talk badly about anyone in front of the FBI, she clearly didn’t disagree with the statement.
He’d been depressed. That put Laura in mind of a thought. She looked up at Nate, saw him having it at the same time. Someone who was depressed needed a friend, needed someone to listen to them. Was that what the mannequin had been? Exactly what John Wiggins needed – a friendly ear?
“Was your son seeing a therapist at all?” Laura asked.
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Wiggins said, making an airy, quick movement with her hand in the air. “Not one that he saw in person, a lot of the time. They had a few sessions, but mostly it was kind of on-call, I think. He phoned him when he needed help. And they had call sessions, too, over the – you know, the video thingy.”
“Video call?” Laura asked, just to confirm she was interpreting that right. At the woman’s nod, she continued. “Do you have the name of his therapist? They might be able to give us some insight into John’s mind recently and whether he had expressed any fears or worries.”
“Yes, I think we have it somewhere,” she said, casting around. “It was someone I know who gave us the referral, said he was the best in the local area… oh, over there, on top of the mantle.”
Laura made to move, but Nate had already beaten her to it, scouting the various bits of paper and knickknacks along the mantlepiece until he lifted one up. “Is this it?” he asked. “Dr. Usipov?”
“Yes, that’s him,” the woman nodded. “He did John a world of good and helped him through so much. We really thought he was starting to turn a corner.”
“Sorry,” Laura said, shifting and glancing around a bit. It was clear this had once been a family home, from the framed photographs on the walls and the battered seating in the room – too many seats for just the two of them. “Was your son living here more recently?”
“Yes. Well, he had to, didn’t he?” the father said, bitterly.
“I’m living in our marital home,” Sara said, her voice strangely ghostlike. It was as though she had withdrawn from the situation entirely and couldn’t quite believe where she was any longer. “My lawyer said it was the best way to ensure I got something in the divorce. That if I was the one to move out, I might lose my right to it.”
Laura clamped her mouth firmly shut. She had her own experience with divorce. She knew what it could be like – how nasty it could get. She’d been left with almost nothing when she lost Marcus. Not even the right to see her own daughter. Whatever Sara could do to claw something out of the marriage, that was her prerogative. Laura knew enough not to judge.
But she also knew what it felt like to be on the losing side, and John Wiggins must have been in a terrible place mentally before he died.
“I’m sure you’ve told the other police officers who spoke to you as much as you can, but just in case there’s something missed in the handover – can you tell us anything more that might help us to identify John’s killer, or trace his movements on the day he died?” Laura asked.
There was a general shaking of heads in the room.
“We hadn’t spoken for months,” Sara said.
“Even though he was back here, he was living his own life,” the mother added. “We didn’t keep tabs on him. He was a grown man. It was hard enough for him to be back here, without us asking him what he was doing every few minutes. He spent a lot of time out, at work or doing whatever it was he did.”
Whatever it was he did. That was vague enough to be completely unhelpful.
“Well, if you do think of something,” Laura said, standing up slowly and placing a couple of business cards on the table, “please do call us and let us know, any time. Day or night.”
At least they had something to go with. Something that might prove instrumental – because a therapist would have to be the person with the best chance of knowing what that reassuring, friendly pose was all about.
Or, perhaps the best chance of being a suspect.
She and Nate made their slow exit, Nate having to fight off Mrs. Wiggins’s offers of a small slice of cake or a cup of tea to keep him going on the road as thanks for his help in getting her to her seat. Laura eventually moved outside without him, grabbing her phone and dialing the number that Captain Ortega had given them to call the local precinct’s team on the case.
“Hello, this is Detective Thorson. How can I help?”
“Detective Thorson,” Laura replied. “This is Special Agent Laura Frost. I trust Captain Ortega has briefed you on our involvement?”
“Yes, he told us to expect a call from you,” the detective said. Laura thought she could hear something in her voice, almost like she was sitting up straighter.
“I’m looking to check something,” Laura said. “Do you have the call logs for John Wiggins from his service provider yet?”
“Yes, we do.” There was the sound of some shuffling, perhaps of papers.
“Okay, look up the number for a therapist for me and check it against the logs,” Laura said. “Dr. Usipov.”
There was a long pause. Laura heard a little muttering down the line as the detective read numbers from the screen to herself, and then repeated them while scanning down the log.