Sisyphus
Previously: Jeannie and Mark chat with students at Xavier Prep.
02:53 PM - Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Hayes Valley, San Francisco
Mark pulled to the curb at Gough and Hayes and Jeannie popped her door to get out.
“I’ll be back over in about an hour or so.”
“Okay, take your time.” Mark said. “I’m going to chat with my guy at the DOJ and make a visit to the Thomases — I want them to know before we make any big moves.”
“Yes.” Jeannie’s face got serious. “Do you think they would issue a search warrant?”
“I think we have enough, but I’m going to talk with him. The moment we do it though, it’s going to be a media circus. Alexa will be on the front page of every paper, maybe even nationally. I don’t want that to happen without them fully understanding the scope of it all.” Jeannie nodded.
“Okay, I’ll see you in a while.”
Thirty minutes later, Mark pulled up in front of the Thomas house on Infantry Terrace. Mounting the stairs, he saw an evergreen wreath with a wide, pale gray ribbon shimmering from the front door. The dull murmur of voices could be heard out on the porch. Knocking softly, he tried the door latch and it opened. Carole Thomas, in jeans and a dark gray sweater came out from the living room, where a half-dozen people were gathered, all chatting. She wore no makeup, and had dark circles under her eyes.
“Agent Greenberg, it’s good to see you.” Her voice was quiet, tired.
“Hi Mrs Thomas, I’m sorry to barge in, but I wanted to chat with you and your husband briefly if I can.” She nodded, eyes darting nervously.
“Y-yes, of course. Spiro is in his office — we can go up there. Some of our family from New York just arrived.” She gestured to the room behind her before moving toward the stairs. “It’s Alexa’s Grandma, and Spiro’s mother and sister. More cousins are coming too.” She heaved a sigh, voice dropping. “Spiro is not himself.”
“Yes, that’s understandable.” He matched her volume as they climbed the stairs. “Have-have either of you talked with anyone, a counselor? I can get a social worker to come?”
“It’s - it’s okay. We’ve been talking with the priest at St. Vincent de Paul — we’re going to have a Mass for her on Thursday.” They arrived at the top floor, and Carole tapped lightly on the office door which was a jar. Swinging open, the door revealed Spiro Thomas, standing at the window staring out at the mass of eucalyptus trees outside. “Spiro —?” Carole said quietly, approaching her husband. Mark held back in the hallway as Carole whispered to her husband for a few moments. “Agent Greenberg, please come in.”
Mark approached and held out a hand toward Spiro Thomas, who gave it a firm shake, belying the marked fatigue on his face. A grizzled gray shadow had spread over his jaw and his unkempt hair appeared a tone grayer than it did on Saturday. His shirt had a coffee stain on the front while a faint whisper of body odor came off of him.
“Thank you for seeing me.” Mark began, looking between the two of them. “I just wanted to update you on a few things.” Carole wound her arm around her husband’s waist gently, almost to prop him upright. “First, we’ve done extensive interviews but we will continue to do more. From this initial round we have learned enough to initiate a search warrant of the Hartman residence. I’ll be working with my colleague at the DOJ to write the warrant and then we will need a federal judge to sign it, which could take a few days.”
“I’m - I’m sorry, why the DOJ?” Carole asked tentatively.
“Ultimately, this is federal land, and the investigation is the purview of the US Park Police, along with the FBI. Of course, Officer Hagen represents the local police force, which may also be a factor.”
“How is that?” Spiro’s brow was bent.
Mark swallowed. “Depending upon what the DOJ wants to do, they may kick the warrant over to the local DA’s office to execute the search. It’s likely as the Hartman home is within the city and county of San Francisco, so it gets tricky. It will really be up to the DOJ.”
“I - I understand.” Spiro managed to whisper.
“I’m sorry, I know it’s confusing.” Mark tried a slight smile, “It’s very arbitrary and a lot of legal give-and-take and depending upon what’s on the docket—”
“Yes, I see.” Spiro nodded slightly.
“The main thing that I —” Mark faltered looking at Spiro. He swallowed hard. “I want both of you to understand is that if they execute a search warrant, be it Federal or local, this case is going to go right into the media.” He looked at both of them for emphasis. “We will do what we can to keep your daughter’s name from being revealed, but ultimately, it will likely come out, either through the kids that were at the party, or unintentionally via someone in law enforcement. We’ve given directives of complete silence, but the bigger the investigation, the more people involved—”
“The more likely it is that someone will talk.” Carole ended for him. Her shoulders sagged with a sigh.
“I want to do everything I can to make sure you keep your privacy, and Alexa’s, and that you won’t be hounded by any press.”
“But you can only do so much, we get it.” Carole said. “Why- why don’t we do a press conference?” This caught Mark off-guard. He blinked at Carole Thomas, mouth gaping.
“Well, that is an option,” he asserted, “and it may help. Prepared statement, no questions. We were also going to set up a tip line through the local PD, so a press conference would get the word out about that. But, again, it would be a lot of coverage, articles, speculation — Alexa’s image would be on every front page in California.” A quiet sob rattled out of Spiro. “I’m sorry to say that, but I’m trying to imagine…what could be the worst of it.” All were silent for a long moment.
“When would they execute the warrant?” Carole asked.
“Usually this kind of thing happens very early on a Friday morning.” She nodded in response; Mark could tell she was thinking it through.
“I - I have some experience in crisis PR, but I never thought I’d be doing it for my own family.” She looked up at Mark, “I’ll do it. I’ll write a statement. But I want you to kick off - all of the law enforcement, whatever lawyers involved. I want them all there. I want whoever did this to see how many people are trying to — “ she broke off. “To help us.” She finally whispered.
“We have a funeral scheduled for Thursday,” Spiro said, “So, Friday would be fine. And if you and your team wanted to come to the funeral you would be welcome.”
“Okay. Yes, any way you want it.” Mark agreed. “And we’ll be there Thursday.” Mark shook hands with Spiro and Carole brought him back downstairs again, pausing at the second floor landing. She turned to look at him.
“Agent Greenberg — what did the statement say? The one that was in Alexa’s purse?” Her tired eyes held a plea.
“Lake Tahoe? It was — it was bullying. Seb Podesta was very drunk and his friend tried to coerce Alexa.” Carole flinched slightly. “But, you’d have been very proud of her — she stood up for herself and got back to her friends. I think she might have been more disappointed in Seb than anything else.” Carole sighed and shook her head slightly.
“Disappointed in Seb. That sounds about right.”
Jeannie went up the one flight of stairs and into the small windowless waiting room with its West Elm armchairs and faux fiddle leaf fig. Her therapist, Greg, opened the inner door quickly with a smile, ushering her into the inner office. This was bright, lit by a full bay window over Gough Street which held an armchair that was Greg’s seat. Settling into the end of the sofa nearest to the window, she didn’t know where to begin.
“Everything’s changed since Saturday…” Jeannie told him everything that had happened since Saturday morning, feeling her chest release as she finished.
“This sounds…like quite an unexpected opportunity. How does it feel?”
“It feels good. Good to be trusted, good to meet some high expectations, good to be on a team that I respect and where I’m respected….But.” Jeannie gestured with her hands.
“But…?”
“I mean, it’s awful. The case. It turns my stomach every time I think about it, and that’s all the time right now. The whole thing scares me, and I feel out of my depth, and like I’m heading right for another failure.”
“What if you are?” Jeannie half scoffed and half chuckled.
“Then, I guess I’d be par for the course.”
“Well, let’s reframe that one.”
“Okay, I’d have learnt valuable lessons that I can build on.”
“That’s better.” Jeannie liked Greg because he kept his humor while always giving her enough of a push. Here he gave her a half smile. “Have you told Chris about all of this?”
“Oh he knows. We spent time together on Sunday afternoon.” Jeannie faded a bit but took a deep breath. “We talked, and then we…not talked?”
“You were intimate?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And then we talked and fought. And fought. And he surprised me with a brand new kitchen.”
“What?” Greg’s face contorted in confusion.
“Yes. A very grand gesture. A whole new kitchen, exactly the way I’d planned it. Everything I’d selected down to the tile and paint colors and hardware. He said it was so I’d move home.”
“Well…wow. Did - did you have any idea he was doing this?”
“No. And that’s what bothers me about it. It’s amazing, but it was something I wanted us to plan and do together, and he always had excuses. So we fought about that, and talked some more…and you know, sometimes the not talking does us a lot better than the talking.”
“That’s normal. Intimacy is always a way to come back to your partner, especially if that’s one of the only ways you’re simpatico.”
“We’re mostly simpatico, I think.” Jeannie considered silently. “I - I think we’re going to be okay, finally. I think there’s been sort of a shift — maybe that’s just a gut feeling, but we both explained our versions of the last year or so, and we seem to understand each other. But I —” Jeannie didn’t know how to proceed. Greg waited. “I’m worried about myself, more than I’m worried about the two of us.”
“Explain that.” Jeannie sighed and felt tired all over.
“I - I’ve really been missing my mother, you know.” Her voice cracked slightly. “And, and I told a family friend the other day that I hadn’t really had time to grieve her. And I haven’t. And I worry…” She paused, trying to tamp down the tears that were about to start. “I worry that I have all of this pain inside of me that I can’t get out, and, and that that’s all I’ll have to give him is my hurt, and he doesn’t deserve that. I worry that my hurt will…I don’t know, sort of drown us? It feels that way. Like, every day I’m Sisyphus, rolling this rock of all of my heartbreak — “ She gasped, trying to breathe. “And, I can’t stop. Some days it feels bigger, some days smaller, but it’s still there every day, and since I know Chris, he’d want to take it on and push that rock for me.” She paused again for a long moment. “This case just feels like it’s adding more to the rock, or maybe it’s a separate rock, or….I don’t know. It hurts to be in it all day every day, but hurts in a different way.”
“Dig into that for me?” Jeannie rolled her eyes a little, trying to find a new tack.
“I’ve - I’ve realized that maybe one of the reasons I went into the police is because everything is so ordered, you know. All the rules and policies and orders and even the uniform — I don’t have to think, I can just follow everything that’s laid out for me. That was part of the appeal. The not-thinking. I’d spent years thinking so much — school, work, politics, law school — Mom got sick, and then died and I pressed on thinking thinking thinking — I kind of broke my brain when life broke my heart.” She heaved a heavy sigh. “So I found something that didn’t make me think...which was good, even more so when Dad had his stroke. It was all fine until this last weekend, until this case. And now I’m all thoughts and emotions again, and Chris wants me to move back home…and it terrifies me.”
“What if you…let the rock fall? Just let it smash?” Jeannie was thoughtful for a while.
“I don’t know that that would do any good. It’s contained in the rock, you know? What if it smashes and I have to run down all the little pieces?”
“You could just let them go.” Jeannie chuckled.
“Easy for you to say.”
“It is, but you do have to let go of these things, Jeannie. You have to find a way to grieve, find a way to let the rock smash.”
“I know. I know I do. But, it’s like, the rock is my friend now, you know? It’s familiar.”
“Of course. And it’s a tough habit to break, but you have to do it if you’re going to move on. Do you want to move on?”
Jeannie nodded slowly, not quite grasping the idea of moving on and what it would mean.
“What do you do when you grieve? Where do you go? I don’t want to do it in front of Chris or anyone else — I, I can’t. He doesn’t deserve that.”
“Maybe…take a trip somewhere by yourself. A long weekend?” Jeannie nodded again.
“Start to make some plans for yourself Jeannie, and a short trip might just be the start. You know…if you don’t break the rock, it could break you.”