Mortal Crimes 2

by Various Authors

  Barbara Wingate’s expression clouded. “That was a scare. She’s all right, except she’s embarrassed. She felt we were making too much fuss of her, making her go in the ambulance.”

  Her lovely eyes sad.

  “She’s all right now, though?”

  Josh, who had followed them to the door, said, “It’s up and down. Isn’t it, Mom?”

  An undercurrent of anger in his voice. More than just anger over the Luke Jessup flap. She recognized it, had acted that way herself when she was a teenager. Almost as if Josh were trying to separate himself from his mother by challenging her. He was a little old for that, but family dynamics could be weird.

  “She’s been sick since she’s been here,” Josh added. “Ever since Kathy and Mike died. All those trips to the Health Clinic, I guess it’s just something my mother is going to have to live with.”

  Laura looked at Mrs. Wingate, who acted as if nothing were amiss. She’d make a good poker player. Cool and unruffled, those wide green eyes holding Laura’s.

  All those TV shows and movies and books that had inculcated Laura as a child: Beauty equals Goodness. That kind of conditioning made it hard to think of Barbara Wingate making her own child sick.

  But Laura had seen a lot in her three years as a detective. She’d seen people who could lie as easily as breathing.

  And not all of them were cops.

  *

  When they got to the barn, Luke Jessup was already digging post holes for a new pen beyond the barn. He was as he’d been described: scruffy. His dark blonde hair had been pulled into a long ponytail, which went well with the beard. As with many people who slept outdoors, it was hard to tell where his brown long-sleeved shirt ended and his dark complexion began. It was not a healthy tan, more like a combination of sunburn and grime compressed into one ugly color. But he handled the posthole digger well and wore new yellow gloves.

  Laura called to Jessup and he looked up. His eyes were electric blue in his dark face, aware and intelligent. She realized that if he cleaned up, he’d be a good-looking man.

  When he saw her badge, he said, “You the detectives I’m supposed to talk to?”

  “That’s right. This is my partner, Richie Lockhart.”

  He set the posthole digger down and the three of them walked into the shade of an ash tree. It was warm already this morning, Indian summer holding, but Laura noticed that the edges of some of the leaves were beginning to turn yellow and gold. Fall was on its way.

  Jessup removed the yellow gloves and wiped at his face. He was dripping sweat. Laura thought he must be a good worker.

  They went over what he had seen, which didn’t vary from Dave Soderstrom’s account. He woke up to shots and saw a man walking around a tent, shooting.

  “Did he seem calm?”

  “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but it was way across the lake.”

  From that distance, he couldn’t tell what kind of clothes the shooter was wearing, although he guessed that it was a long-sleeved shirt and long pants, just from the shape.

  “He left right after he was done shooting?”

  “Uh-huh. Looked like he just jogged up the road.”

  “Jogged? You said ‘walked’ in the report.”

  “Seems to me he jogged. He knew firearms, though. The rifle was pointed at the ground.”

  “The rifle was pointed at the ground?”

  “Yeah. The way he carried it, I could tell he knew his way around firearms. You know, casual.”

  “You didn’t see the vehicle?”

  “That was farther up near the road. He just disappeared into the trees.”

  Laura thought of something. “He didn’t stop to pick up his shells?”

  “Nope. Unless he came back later.”

  Unless he came back later.

  “Did you stay around afterwards?”

  “Nope, I boogied.”

  “You didn’t go to the tent to see if anyone was alive?”

  “Ma’am, the way he shot into that tent, I knew there wouldn’t be any point. Besides, I didn’t want him to shoot me.”

  “Why didn’t you go to the police right then?” Richie asked.

  “Somethin’ told me not to.”

  “What do you mean something told you not to?”

  He kicked at the dirt. “I just thought I should keep it to myself. Police would find them soon enough.”

  Richie and Laura looked at each other.

  “Where have you been all this time?” Laura asked.

  He looked at her. “I was holed up in Miz Wingate’s trailer.”

  “This whole time? What about church?”

  He rubbed his neck. “I didn’t make it to church this week.”

  “Why was that?”

  “I was too sick. Must’ve been some kind of flu or somethin’. Couldn’t barely move.” He put his gloves back on. “I sure was glad I had some place to stay. Miz Wingate took care of me like she was my own mother, bringing me soups and stuff. I only started feeling better yesterday.”

  “How long have you been sick?”

  “I guess I came down with it a day or two after I saw the shooting. Stayed up all night, trying to find out what was getting at the chickens.”

  “Chickens?”

  “Something’s getting in, because we’ve lost two since I’ve been here.” He shook his head. “I reinforced that fence so well, hard to believe anything could get in.”

  Laura couldn’t think of anything else to ask him, so she went for the tried and true. “Did you know Dan Yates or Kellee Taylor?”

  “I seen Kellee around, and I knew Dan on account I met him a couple of weeks ago, right here.”

  Laura perked up at that. “On this ranch, you mean?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Any special reason he was here?”

  He shrugged. “He’s a friend of Miz Wingate’s son. The police officer. I know that much.”

  As Laura and Richie walked back to their respective cars, Richie said, “That Barbara Wingate sure is something.”

  “I know.”

  “Did you notice there wasn’t any kid stuff around the house?”

  “Kid stuff?”

  He shrugged. “Hey, if it was my house, there’d be an ant trail to the kitchen—you know, backpacks, books, toys, Game Boys. That’s one neat house. Everything in its place, like out of Better Homes & Gardens.”

  “So?” Laura didn’t have children, so the world of children wasn’t very real to her, kind of like the mysterious conjuring of Barbara Wingate’s pies.

  Richie shrugged. “It’s just weird, that’s all.”

  *

  Following Richie back to the motel, Laura thought about Richie’s comment on the house. Nothing to show a kid lived there.

  Barbara Wingate, the perfect woman. Beautiful, kind, strong. More persona than person.

  Was Erin just window-dressing on Barbara Wingate’s stage set?

  At the motel, Richie put The Club on his Monte Carlo steering wheel and slipped into Laura’s brown Impala. He ran his hand along the dash. “Much better.”

  “Jesus.”

  “No, Jesus would drive a Monte Carlo.”

  Laura pictured that for a moment. It made her smile.

  They spent the rest of the day looking for Bobby. They tried his house twice and his mother’s house once. They tried his friends. Turned out he didn’t have many. He had kept a pretty low profile for someone who had lived in Williams most of his life. They did learn, however, that he had quit his bread route.

  “Something’s brewing,” Richie said as they ate dinner outside on the patio at Cruisers. “Why wouldn’t he just come back home? Where are they?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “You think he’s good for it? Dan and his girlfriend?”

  Laura thought about the calls Dan made to Shana’s cell. She thought about what had turned up on his computer: a half dozen ecoterrorism sites bookmarked, including the blog that contained the reference to the Ea
rth Warriors. “He’s the best bet so far,” Laura said.

  When they got back to the motel, Richie told her he was going to be early. “I’m beat. The kids kept me up late last night.”

  She almost told him to put a sock in it, she knew the truth and didn’t want to hear it anymore. But why bother? Clearly, it was important to him to maintain the illusion that he was happily married.

  She guessed he was entitled.

  *

  The next morning Laura walked to the Williams–Grand Canyon News building on Third Street, a couple of blocks away from the motel.

  Laura entered the small front office, half of it taken up by an old black printing press, strung with fake cobwebs and decorated with skulls for Halloween. A counter ran along the left-hand side of the room, dividing the work space from the entrance area. A thirtyish dark-haired woman with the name tag LILA JOHNSTON smiled and said, “May I help you?”

  When Laura told her what she was looking for, Lila led the way into the back. “Let’s go to the conference room,” she said. “I think I can put my finger right on it.”

  Laura pushed through the swinging door and followed Lila into a small room with a large table.

  “Just a minute, and I’ll get it for you.” Lila trailed a scent behind her—roses.

  As Laura waited, she looked out the window. An ash tree, its leaves just beginning to turn yellow, glittered against a crystalline blue sky.

  She felt guilty, spending her time on this. Time was slipping away and she was going off on a tangent. But she couldn’t let it go.

  If what she suspected was correct, Erin Wingate was a victim of Munchausen by Proxy.

  Laura remembered the mother at the soda fountain in Flagstaff. What did she say about Erin’s bad spell? It wasn’t the first time? No, she said, This is the third time this has happened.

  Three times, just with the dance class.

  What are the odds?

  As Laura saw it, the question was would Barbara Wingate make Erin sick just to get attention?

  She liked attention. No doubt about that. Everything she did was geared toward gaining it, every move calibrated for the right effect. Laura got the impression that Barbara Wingate saw herself from the outside, just as other people saw her. Constantly aware of her affect on other people.

  Laura wondered where the real Barbara was, or if she existed at all.

  Lila reappeared with a heavy book full of newspapers. She leaned over Laura and the scent of roses was overpowering. “Let me see, I think that was the last week of March.”

  Expertly, Lila’s lacquered nails flicked through the newspaper. And there it was. Mike and Kathy Ramey died in a car accident March 27, on their way home from a fundraiser in Flagstaff. Killed by a drunk driver not ten miles from home. Laura stared at the black-and-white photo of a mangled car.

  She scanned the article. Mike Ramey, 29, and Kathy, 30, were survived by a daughter, Erin. Both Mike and Kathy were general practitioners at the Williams Health Care Center.

  Kathy was nine years older than her brother Josh. Laura wondered why Barbara Wingate had waited so long to have another child. It could be she had been married to another man before. It was a small loose end, but Laura could track it down if it turned out to be important. Right now it didn’t seem to be. She looked for the obituaries of Mike and Kathy Ramey the following week, since the Williams–Grand Canyon News only came out once a week. The only other relatives mentioned in the obituary were Mike’s brother and his wife and their three children. The brother was stationed in Germany.

  Too far away to take Erin? It would certainly be disruptive. At least, though, there was family who could take her if need be.

  Lila watched discreetly from the doorway as Laura looked at the obituary. There was nothing new there, except a suggestion that friends donate to the American Cancer Society in lieu of flowers. Laura also glanced over the obituary for Barbara Wingate’s husband. He had died of cancer several years ago. He had been much older than she was.

  Laura asked Lila if she knew Barbara Wingate.

  “I wrote an article about her last year.”

  “Could I see it?”

  Lila looked pleased. She found the article page quickly and spread it out for Laura. “I’ll be in the front if you need me,” she said.

  The article, written last September, was a puff piece about Mrs. Wingate, cataloging the good works she had done teaching disabled children to ride and rescuing broken-down Thoroughbreds, her charitable work, her former career as a licensed practical nurse in Iowa. Touching lightly on her double tragedies.

  Accompanying the article was a photo of Mrs. Wingate with one of her rescued horses and another, smaller photo. In this one, she was teaching a catechism class to high school kids. A half dozen students sat in a semicircle of folding chairs, Barbara Wingate in the center, writing on a blackboard.

  Looking radiant. In her element—the center of attention.

  An interesting surprise: The student closest to the camera was Jamie Cottle. Laura thought it ironic. When this picture was taken, neither Barbara Wingate nor Jamie Cottle had been aware of the tragedies looming in their future.

  She scanned the article a second time. One detail stuck out—the fact that Barbara Wingate had been an LPN—a licensed practical nurse.

  Although Laura had dealt only tangentially with a case involving Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, she knew the profile as well as anyone in the squad. Number one, people with Munchausen were almost exclusively women. And number two, they were very likely to have worked in the medical profession. They were often bright, articulate, knowledgeable about illness, and spent a lot of time talking to the doctors treating them or their children.

  The term “Munchausen” was coined by a doctor in the 1950s to describe patients who faked acute illnesses and dramatized their medical histories. The doctor got the name from a historical account of the Russo-Turkish wars by a flamboyant German baron named Karl Fredrich von Munchausen who made up fantastic stories about his time in the Russian cavalry.

  Munchausen by Proxy was worse. Instead of doing bad things to yourself to get attention, you did them to someone else—usually a child in your care. Laura remembered a recent case that received worldwide attention. A woman faked her daughter’s cancer, convincing everyone—doctors, hospitals, even the child herself—that the illness was real. The child had been subjected to painful and traumatic bouts of chemotherapy and other radical treatments.

  Laura went over what she knew about Erin. The incident at the soda fountain in Flagstaff, the fact that incidents like it had happened at least twice before. The day Laura had met Erin. The way the girl acted listless, disinterested in the world around her. Jillian’s portrait of a much different girl, one who was active to the point of breaking her arm.

  When had that change taken place? After she moved in with her grandmother?

  Be careful. If she acted on this, serious consequences could result. Erin could be taken away and put in a foster home. If she went ahead, she’d have to make sure she did everything right.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The Williams Health Care Center was four blocks over, on Seventh Street just south of the Safeway. One-story building, plate glass windows along the front, the center’s name in letters across a rock face outside. An ambulance parked to the left.

  Inside, the place was small-town homey. Quilts on the walls, cornflower-blue chairs lining the perimeter of the common area on the left, a TV set mounted in the corner. Directly in front of her a long blond-wood counter angled back to an inside door, the length topped by plastic windows. Chairs pulled up to each window for patients to demonstrate their proof of insurance.

  Laura had spent an hour on the phone with the doctor who testified in the Lynette Stokes case. Lynette Stokes was a Tucson woman who had cut her infant repeatedly and rubbed dirt and even garbage into the wounds to make him ill. In the long run, it had gotten her more attention than she’d planned for. The baby had been adopted by
the assistant prosecutor on the case and was flourishing.

  Laura expected the doctor to tell her she didn’t have enough to go on. Instead, he suggested she talk to Erin’s doctor and let him know her concerns.

  “Most of these cases are based on circumstantial evidence,” he’d told her. “Let me ask you this. How would you feel if you didn’t pursue it?”

  So here she was at the Health Center, mulling over what to say. She didn’t want to go in with guns blazing. If it came to the point where it turned into a criminal investigation, she would take what she had to the Yavapai County sheriff’s office, since Barbara Wingate lived in their jurisdiction. She was reluctant to do that now. She knew enough about small towns to understand that if locals investigated, whether or not Barbara Wingate actually abused her granddaughter, the presumption of guilt would stick to her like flypaper.

  Laura asked the receptionist if she could talk to Erin Wingate’s doctor.

  The young woman glanced at the clock—almost noon. “That would be David Sanchez. You want me to page him?”

  “Not if he’s busy.” Laura handed the woman—her name tag said RENEE—her card. “I’m always reachable by my cell—”

  “It’s okay. It’s lunchtime anyway.”

  Laura waited in the common area, listening as the young woman spoke into an intercom, then looked up brightly. “He’ll be right here.”

  When she saw Dr. David Sanchez, her first thought was Doogie Howser. He was very young, except for intense dark eyes that seemed to probe politely. He wore a white lab coat over chinos and bright white tennis shoes.

  “You wanted to talk to me?”

  “I wanted to ask you about one of your patients.”

  She saw the switch go off behind his eyes. “You must know that as a doctor, I can’t tell you anything about my patients.“

  “I understand. I’ll do the talking.”

  He looked at his watch. “There’s a place on the corner that has good coffee. I can spare a few minutes. But don’t think I’m going to let you talk me into saying anything.”

  They sat outside at one of two metal tables in the shade of the striped awning. Dr. Sanchez crossed his legs at the knee and took a sip of his coffee. “I’m not sure I should even be here.”