Chapter Forty-Seven

The next day, Garcia took a trip to Morningside High School in Inglewood, to talk to Roberto De Souza – the psychologist who ran the second domestic violence support group that met on Tuesday evenings.

By the morning, Research had managed to finally fully backtrack De Souza's life, adding him to the ‘no red flags' list. He'd been living in LA since the age of eighteen, when he relocated from Puerto Rico on a full UCLA academic scholarship. He majored in Counseling Psychology and, in addition to being the senior counselor at Morningside, he ran four free therapy support groups around Los Angeles – domestic violence, self-harming, depression and anger management.

At Morningside High, Garcia's lunchtime meeting with De Souza ran smoothly, but with no reward. Garcia showed him a couple of photos of Shaun Daniels but, despite taking his time studying both photographs, De Souza didn't recognize him at all. He had been running the Westmont domestic violence support group for the past five years, and he was positive that Shaun Daniels had never been to any of their sessions. In fact, he was positive that he'd never seen Shaun in any session from any of his other three support groups either.

In the morning, Hunter had briefed Garcia on the results of his meeting with Keri Liftridge the night before. Just like they had anticipated, there was now a very good chance that their killer didn't stick to just one support group. He bounced around, maximizing his victim choice. And if the killer could do it, so could anyone else.

Different groups offered different types of support… different types of feedback, but more than that – many people struggled with more than just one type of problem, and some problems were directly related to each other: for example, domestic violence and anger management, depression and anxiety, or substance use and addiction. It wasn't uncommon for a person to take part in more than one type of therapy, or attend more than one support group at a time. Terry Wilford could've easily been such a person. He could've also been alternating between both Tuesday evenings' domestic violence support groups, or even trying different ones on different nights, whenever he managed to get the night off. For that reason, Garcia also showed De Souza a photo of Terry, but De Souza had never seen him before either.

‘Just one last question before I go, if I may?' Garcia said, getting to his feet. He'd been sitting before De Souza's desk in his small office in Building C, inside the school campus.

‘Of course,' De Souza replied, using both hands to tuck two loose locks of his longish black hair behind his ears.

‘Do you happen to have a member called Michael in your Tuesday evening support group at the moment?'

‘Michael?' De Souza's voice was naturally quiet, just a notch above a whisper.

Garcia nodded. ‘He's the silent, observant type. Tends to take a pass when his turn comes to share with the group, but pays a lot of attention when others are speaking.'

De Souza sat back on his chair while he searched his memory.

‘Tall, almost six-foot,' Garcia added. ‘Dark hair… athletic build? When he was young he broke a couple of his fingers in one of his hands and they didn't exactly heal properly, so they seem a little odd… a little curved at the knuckles. Maybe you noticed something like that with one of your members?'

De Souza was still searching.

‘Please bear in mind that he doesn't have to be a current member. Maybe he attended a few group sessions a while back, and I mean any of your groups, not necessarily just your domestic violence one.'

De Souza poked the inside of his left cheek with his tongue.

‘Umm…' He adjusted his glasses on his wavy nose. ‘Now that you mention it, I think I did have someone like that in a group.'

Garcia's eyebrows lifted up. ‘Really? When?'

More tongue rolling against the inner cheek. ‘Not that long ago, actually. Maybe four… five weeks. Like you've said – quiet guy, quite shy, didn't speak much… very observant.' He lifted his right hand at Garcia. ‘But many are when they just join a support group. They're always hesitant because the admittance of guilt isn't easy, so instead of talking, they just observe.'

‘The fingers?' Garcia asked.

De Souza nodded. ‘Yeah. On his left hand, you mean?'

‘I can't be sure.'

De Souza took an extra moment. ‘Neither can I, but I did notice them a couple of times. It's one of the things I do a lot in my sessions. As a member is speaking, I tend to observe the rest of the group. You can learn a lot from their reactions to other people's accounts – their expressions… their movements.'

‘Anything else you noticed about him?' Garcia asked. ‘Anything kind of memorable? Tattoos? Scars? Anything?'

De Souza went back to thinking mode.

‘No,' he said after several long seconds. ‘Nothing comes to mind, but…' There was a headshake.

‘But?'

‘But like you've said, he wasn't in my domestic violence support group.'

‘No?'

‘No,' De Souza confirmed. ‘He came to a few of my anger management group sessions. And…'

Garcia waited.

‘I'm sure that the name he used wasn't Michael, which isn't surprising. Most group members don't use their real names.'

‘Can you remember the name he used?'

De Souza tried, but gave up after a while. ‘No, I'm sorry.'

Garcia thanked him, but just as he was about to exit the office, De Souza stopped him.

‘Russell,' he called out.

Garcia turned to look back at the psychologist. ‘I'm sorry?'

‘The name he used.' De Souza nodded with conviction. ‘It just came back to me. It wasn't Michael. It was Russell.'