A Voice Cries Out
Chapter 22
He insisted she come with him. Reid hadn't been alone with his father in over twenty years…..not when William was conscious, anyway. He wasn't quite ready to break that pattern just yet.
For JJ, it was an experience bordering on the bizarre. She'd written to William several times, when Reid was critically wounded, when their daughter was born, an occasional holiday card. He'd responded, intermittently, with a gift of a plant or flowers, and a card vaguely addressing all of them. In some ways, she'd understood her husband's feeling of rejection from the elder Reid. She'd reached out, and he had, virtually, tossed something from a distance, rather than accepting her hand. And yet, he'd given her one of the most precious gifts of her life. Surely there had to be something worthy in him.
The couple approached the ICU hand-in-hand, and were met by Dr. Casagrande at the entrance to William's bay.
"We stopped the meds a few hours ago. He's reasonably alert, and he seems oriented. He doesn't remember being in the desert, which is probably a blessing. He may have some other memory gaps, but you'll probably have to help us determine that. His kidneys haven't quite bounced all the way back yet, but otherwise, he seems remarkably well for someone who's been through what he has."
"Thank you, Doctor. Will you be moving him from the ICU, then?"
Casagrande mistakenly assumed Reid wanted to be able to spend more time with his father.
"We'll move him to step-down in a couple of hours. He'll need the cardiac monitor until we trust his kidneys to keep his potassium in check. But I can relax the five minute rule for you."
A brief nod served as his farewell as the physician moved off to attend to another patient. That left the two profilers to take a deep breath, share a look of support, and enter into their encounter with William Reid.
The bed propped him at a 45 degree angle, and there were still plenty of wires and tubes to be seen. But his eyes were open, and his gaze sharp.
"Spencer! They told me my son was here, but I didn't…I didn't think...…Spencer."
Reid couldn't move his voice past the lump in his throat. Whether it was there from relief, or anxiety, or pity, or anger, he couldn't have said. He was only sure it wasn't love that was creating the obstacle.
William either didn't notice his son's lack of response, or he chose to ignore it. His next words were directed at the woman standing at his bedside. He looked from her face, to her hand clasped in his son's.
"You must be….." he stumbled, not able to retrieve her name. "I'm sorry. I guess my memory isn't very good at the moment."
"I'm Jennifer. But most people call me JJ. I'm.."
Voice freed, Reid spoke over her. "She's my wife."
"Ah, yes. Your wife. Congratulations. I'm sorry I didn't make it to the wedding. Or maybe I just don't remember it."
The couple's eyes met for a split second. There had been no chance William Reid would be invited to their wedding.
Does he not remember that? What else has he forgotten?
JJ stepped closer to the bed. "We're glad you're going to be okay, Mr. Reid."
William gave her a half smile that was so similar to her husband's that JJ's eyes widened.
"'Mr. Reid' sounds very formal for a father-in-law, doesn't it? Please, you can call me 'Dad'." Then, unable to translate the look that had come over her face, he added, "Or William."
Positioned between Reid and his father, JJ felt the tension arcing through her as she responded. "William, then."
A relationship that has been disrupted for over two decades doesn't much lend itself to small talk. Eventually the rift must be addressed, the wounds laid open, the pain acknowledged. He'd been able to avoid it when he'd kept his distance, but now, standing at William's bedside, Reid knew he wouldn't leave Las Vegas without entering into that rocky terrain. He would either leave reconciled, or permanently disconnected. But he also knew that he wasn't ready for it just yet...and neither was William. If they were to have a conversation, it would have to be about something else.
Reid, the son, still had his heart in his throat. So Reid, the profiler, took over.
"Dad, I have to ask you some questions about what happened. Do you think you can answer them for me?"
"I'll try. But apparently I was found in the desert, and I have no memory of being there."
"That's what Dr. Casagrande said. Maybe you can start with the last thing you do remember."
"All right. I remember….." Then, distracted by another thought. "Wait, Spencer…..are you actually investigating this? Is the FBI involved?"
Reid explained that they'd been called to Las Vegas for another case, and the overlap in timing with William's disappearance. "So we're extending our time here a little, and looking into it. That's all."
Whether or not it made sense, it seemed to placate William. He resumed his original train of thought.
"Oh. All right. You asked about the last thing I can remember…..I'm not sure if it's the last thing, but I remember being at home. I remember going through some files…" He'd been looking into the distance, but now adjusted his gaze to look at his son. "I've been thinking it might be time to retire, and I wanted to sort through some things beforehand, so I was going through a lot of papers."
Reid's antennae were up at that, but William seemed to be struggling with the rest of his memory.
Seeing it, JJ made a suggestion. "Maybe I could try a cognitive interview with you."
"Cognitive interview?"
Reid explained. "We try to help your memory by reminding you of some of the non-related things about the day. Sometimes people can get a mental block about something, but going after it from a different angle helps."
William started to shrug, but the movement seemed to cause him pain. "I guess I have nothing to lose. Go ahead."
"Are you sure you're comfortable enough?"
"I'm fine, as long as I don't move too much."
The denial was so like one that Reid might have given her. Another thing that's like father, like son.
"All right, let's start. You said you remember going through files. Do you remember what time of day it was? Did you go through them in the garage, or did you take the files inside?"
William looked at her sharply. "How do you know where I keep my files? Have you been to my home?"
Seeing that the interview was already off to a rough start, Reid broke in. "We've been looking into your disappearance, Dad. You were gone more than a week. We had to look for anything that might give us a clue."
William was starting to understand a bit better. "So you already know something, don't you? And you're trying to see if I remember it?"
"We have a theory, Dad. But we can't be sure until you can tell us whether we're on the right path."
"Well, what's your theory?"
JJ took the conversation back. "It's better if we help you to remember on your own, Mr. …William."
The lawyer in him understood. "Ah. Holds up better in court, right?"
She smiled. "Yes, that. And it gives us better confirmation if your memory brings you to the same place that our theory brought us."
William leaned back into his pillow and closed his eyes. "All right, then. We may as well give it a shot."
As JJ led him slowly through a memory of examining files and sorting papers, Reid watched, bemused. He'd never thought this day would come, when he would see his father and his wife together in the same room, let alone engaged in the same task.
"So, you went through your accounts, old tax returns….did you find anything …..else….in there? Anything unusual?"
"No, not that I can remember."
The couple exchanged looks of disappointment. This had seemed a promising avenue, but they were at a dead end.
"But….now that you mention it…..I did find something unusual. But it wasn't in the file cabinet." William seemed to become more animated with the memory. "I'm a little clumsy, you see…."
Having heard yet another similarity between father and son, JJ dared not look at her husband. His hands were the most coordinated part of him.
"…and I lost my balance, and sort of fell into the wall, which knocked a box off the top shelf. That's where it was. Danny….." His voice suddenly infused with sorrow.
"Uncle Daniel?" Reid realized, too late, that he'd broken into the cognitive interview.
William looked at his son. "You remember him? You remember Danny?"
Despite his feelings about his father, Reid hated to disappoint him in this. The man seemed so earnest.
"Not exactly. But I remember about him." Not mentioning that the past few days had taught him far more about Daniel Reid than he'd ever known before.
"Oh. I thought, maybe…..but never mind. I was telling you that I knocked over a box, and everything inside it spilled all over the floor. Danny's baseball glove, his Eagle Scout badge….and a bunch of his papers."
Breaths held, JJ and Reid waited for it.
"He had a double major in college, did you know that? Physics and engineering. He was getting his Ph.D. in physics, and thinking about studying astrophysics. At nineteen! Imagine!"
JJ suppressed a smile. Yes, she could definitely imagine that.
"Most of the papers I found were from his college courses, but there was one that was still in one of those plastic folders, like he hadn't handed it in yet. And then I noticed the date, and I realized…."
"You realized he'd never had a chance to hand it in," his son provided for him.
JJ stepped back, releasing the interview to her husband. The cognitive method didn't seem to be needed at this point.
"Yes, exactly! The date on it was only a few days before Danny died…or before he was found, anyway." William's eyes dropped to the bed, and his volume fell, as though he was speaking only to himself. "In all these years, I've never understood that. Why he would put all that work into his degree, and then go out into the desert and take his own life."
Reid opened his mouth to speak, then looked uncertainly to JJ. A subtle shake of her head told him she thought it wasn't the right time.
Acknowledging William's sorrow, Reid went to his softest voice. "Dad, the paper…..Uncle Daniel's paper.."
It took him an extra beat, but William went back to his story. "The paper….it was about something Danny had been working on. Sound waves. He'd figured out how to concentrate their energy and convert it into an explosive force. I remember that he's gotten the idea from a part of the Manhattan Project. They'd harnessed explosive waves, and Danny figured out how to do the same thing with sound waves." Pride evident in his voice now.
"So there wouldn't be the need to use chemicals at all," Reid joined his father in appreciating the breakthrough his uncle had made.
"That's right. I remember asking Danny if it meant we could fight a war without ammunition. But he said it was only good for small things. At least, that's how it was then."
"Dad, do you remember what you did with Uncle Daniel's paper?"
"I put it back in the box. I left all of his things together."
That didn't jive with the recent finding, so JJ probed, "Did you ever go back and look at it again?"
William's brow furrowed in a visible effort to jog his memory. Reid and JJ began to fear they'd reached his point of amnesia. If so, they might never understand exactly what had happened. But then William began to speak again.
"I…...think…no….wait...yes. Yes! Oh, my God, I remember it! But I don't know how…"
"Dad?"
"Spencer, I remember. It was a few weeks after I'd been going through the files, and I saw an article in the newspaper. It was about Dr. Albrecht. I remembered him from when Danny worked in his lab. The article said he was being honored at the dedication of a lab his family was donating to the school. It gave a whole recap of his accomplishments. He was actually the one who discovered how to channel explosive waves for the atomic bomb, did you know that? They called it the 'Albrecht Lens', although it was only a lens in concept."
JJ made a mental note to have Garcia research the article as William continued, his voice taking on a noticeably darker tone now.
"And then the article went on to say that, while he'd achieved fame through the lens, his fortune had come from something else. He'd become wealthy from a patent on the process of using sound waves to create small explosions. It's used in surgery sometimes, like with gallstones. To me, it sounded a lot like what Danny's paper had been about."
"So, what did you do?" asked his son.
"I researched it. It took me a while, because the articles back then weren't on line. But I went to the University library and a wonderful young librarian helped me look into it. She found the article where Albrecht described the process, and it was almost exactly what Danny had described in his paper…..but it was published six months after Danny died."
JJ wanted to be clear. "Are you saying you think Albrecht stole the idea from your brother? Or do you think he built on your brother's work after Daniel's death."
William's voice was full of conviction. "Everything in Albrecht's article was in Danny's paper already. It was all Danny's work. I just thought Albrecht took credit, when he should have acknowledged that Danny had figured it out. That's what I planned to tell him."
"Tell him….when?" asked JJ.
"I went to see him. It was the night before the lab was being dedicated, but there was supposed to be a small reception with the president of the University. I wanted him to acknowledge Danny's role. It was Danny's work that helped Albrecht donate the lab."
Reid's indecision resolved. It was time.
He cleared his throat. "Dad… we have reason to believe that Uncle Daniel didn't take his own life. We think he was killed. Murdered."
William looked like he was having trouble processing the words. Seeing his distress, JJ added, "We think he hadn't given up on his life, Mr….William. We think you were right to wonder why he would have put so much work into his thesis, and then committed suicide. We don't think he did that. We think his life was taken from him."
William just stared at this stranger who was also his daughter-in-law. "You think….. but….but, do you think…my God, do you think he was killed for what he discovered? Danny!"