Chapter 17
Week 06

According to Reid's financials he was still paying for membership at the CalTech faculty club. They hadn't thought anything of it at the time, but to the IIU team it seemed odd so they looked into it. Turned out the CalTech club had a reciprocal agreement with the University Club in DC. "Is Dr. Reid in regular attendance here?" Kelly asked the desk clerk, quietly.

He checked the computer. "It looks like Dr. Reid primarily avails himself of the fitness center." He said. "He checks in about three times a week in the evening."

Bingo, a quiet gym with no teen-agers. Kelly called up Eric's picture on her tablet. "Have you ever seen this man around?"

"No, I have not."

"How about this man?" She showed the sketch. "He's shorter, very portly, grey hair."

The clerk thought a bit. "Yes, I believe he has been here. He was a guest of one of our members, he's not a regular."

"Do you have a name?"

"Oh…it was months ago. I'm sorry."

"You said Dr. Reid primarily avails himself of the fitness center." Rossi said. "Does he ever use any of the other facilities?"

"He and Mr. Petrossian occasionally book the secure meeting room for the evening."

"Secure meeting room?"

"Ah, the technical term is a SCIF. We installed one some years ago at the request of our members."

"Do you have contact information for Mr. Petrossian? Does he have a first name?"

"Mr. Harvey Petrossian. I do, but he stepped into the periodical room a few minutes ago; a shorter gentleman, balding, wearing a blue tie."

"Perfect. Thank you." The three agents followed directions into the periodical room. There they found three men reading, but only one fit the description. "Harvey Petrossian?"

The man in question looked up. "Yes?"

They showed their badges. "We're with the FBI; we need to ask you a few questions."

Harvey Petrossian calmly stood, smiled, and walked out of the room. The three agents stared at each other a moment. By the time they reached the hallway he was gone. "What the hell?" Mike asked.

"I have no idea." Rossi replied.

In the meantime Katie was sitting in a diner across town with a DC Metro detective who would be listed in her notes as 'Bill', a friend of Reid's. "Thank you for meeting with me; I know how difficult this is for you."

"So long as this stays strictly off the record," 'Bill' replied. "We're not supposed to talk about it but Spencer's been gone too long. He's in trouble, I want to help."

"Let's start at the top. Is he clean?"

"Yep. Has been for over five years now. How he managed it I'll never know, but he has."

"Why do you say that?"

"Some of the crap he's been through. Got shot for one thing, and never touched it after he left the hospital. And that was, what, two weeks after he got out for something else."

"What?"

"Couldn't tell me. Said it was National Security."

"Was he tempted?"

"Not then."

"When?"

"When his partner died. I didn't get all the details but some ex-boyfriend or something. Or so they told him at the time."

"Told him?"

"Yeah, turned out his unit lied to him, she didn't die. They sent her away to recover, cover her ass while they hunted down the guy who did it. To be honest if someone did that with my partner I'd quit, and advised him to do that."

"In this economy?"

"Uh, yeah, you do realize he has that whole three doctorate genius thing going? He said he wouldn't leave his friends. I pointed out that friends don't pull that crap, they don't manipulate you, but he wouldn't listen. You ever hear the term learned helplessness?"

"He believed that being manipulated by people he thought he could trust was normal? He didn't react at all?"

"Yeah, he reacted. He shut down tight and let them give him all the crap they wanted. He became Mr. Pleasantly Bland, everything is hunky dory; I'm keeping everything in. And let me tell you he is a master at that game, I didn't even know he had a girlfriend let alone that she'd had her brains blown out right in front of him until whatshisname, LaMontagne, came around looking for him. And I don't blame him for it, I know cops give you crap when they like you but some of the people in his unit took it too far. There's this one chick, joined up as a liaison a couple of years before him, but got promoted to full on SSA nine years after him and they treat her like she ranks him, let her treat him like some baby brother. Another guy in her unit's just as bad. Now I know he's a little weird but come on. They need to have a union to deal with that crap."

"So he never told you about Maeve Donovan?'

"Was that her name? Nope, never a word. Trust me, to make the mistakes we made and keep going you have to compartmentalize, and I mean compartmentalize hard. Nothing in one part of your life crosses to the next, not ever. He was a master of that game too."

"If he wasn't sharing why did he keep going to group?"

'Bill' gave her a patient look. "Little secret, he's not the only Fed."

Katie nodded. "And if he stopped showing up they would assume he was having problems again."

"Yeah. So he burned one night a month sitting there to keep up appearances." 'Bill' sipped his coffee again. "I still don't know how he managed to sit still that long, not that he ever really did."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, you know, he twitches. Sits in the back and makes these silly little drawings just to keep moving. If he doesn't have some toy or something to keep his hands busy he starts rocking like one of those little kids with the…the…"

"Autism?'

"Yeah, that. Babbles like them too sometimes. But he's a dammed good cop, being weird's no excuse for keeping him the baby of the unit. He ever wants out of there tell him DC Metro will gladly have him, he'll get respect there."

"I'll let him know."