“Maybe we should ask for a lawyer; they said we could have a lawyer.”
“Just tell them we didn’t do anything wrong, and we won’t need a lawyer. Tell them what we talked about. OK?”
Peirce returned to the observation room with a juice box in his hand. He took a pull on the straw, made an unpleasant face, and threw the half-full container into the trash.
“Alicia pack your lunch, Boss?”
Peirce’s eyes drilled into Holloway for a long moment. Then he said, “They say anything we can use?”
“Not really, but aren’t the detectives from robbery going to do the interview?”
“I don’t think this is just about robbery,” Peirce said. “I think it’s about our murder case, and I want first crack at them.”
“You’re the boss,” he said, looking at the juice box in the trash can and smiling as he watched Lieutenant Peirce walk into the interrogation room.
“Are you ladies comfortable?” he asked as he stepped into the room.
“I could use a Diet Coke,” said Emily.
Henrietta shook her head. “No, nothing, we’re fine, we’re both fine.”
Peirce smiled and tapped the file folder he held in his right hand several times. Then he slowly walked once around the room, causing both women to turn their heads first right, then left, to follow him as he circled behind them and then settled in a chair at the front of the table, back where he had started.
“Would you like to tell me where all the jewelry we found in your house came from?” Peirce asked.
“First,” Henrietta said, “I never saw that jewelry before. I don’t even think it’s real.”
“Oh, it’s real all right, and each piece was stolen within the last year. Here’s another piece of news that you might be interested in. Most of the jewelry was originally sold, before it was stolen, by the jewelry department your daughter Sylvia managed.”
“Well, I guess you’d have to ask Sylvia about that, if she were alive. Maybe she stole the stuff back and planted it in my house.”
“What about Mortimer Banks?” Peirce asked. “Did he have anything to do with the theft?”
“Mortimer who?” she said. “I don’t know anyone named Mortimer.”
“Well, let me tell you what I know. First, I saw Mortimer Banks leave your house yesterday and drive away in Emily’s car. I know you know him. Now, let me tell you what I think. I think both you and Emily took information from Sylvia, with or without her knowledge, about the purchase of jewelry from her store. I think you gave that information to Mortimer Banks, and he burglarized the houses.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I also think that Sylvia either found out about the thefts or wanted out if she was part of it, and either Mort, one of you, or all three of you murdered her.”
“That’s crazy,” Henrietta said, her lip beginning to quiver. “I loved my daughter. I would never hurt my baby, and Mort was with me the night she died. We were all together at my house. Ask Mort, if you can find him. I haven’t seen him since he left in Emily’s car.”
“We know where Mort is. He’s here in this building.”
“Then ask him. He’ll tell you we were all together at my house when she was killed. You should be out finding the bastard who killed my baby; not accusing us. I loved her. She was my baby.”
Sam Peirce sat in silence as Emily rubbed her mother’s shoulder and offered her handkerchief to dry her mother’s eyes. “None of us killed Sylvia,” she said.
Sam turned to face the mirror on the wall behind him. He placed his thumb under his chin and motioned a cut sign to Holloway so that he would turn off the recorder. Although they may have been involved in the burglaries, he was satisfied that the two women were not implicated in the murder of Sylvia Radcliffe. Now he began to feel extremely uncomfortable. He knew the time had come to deliver more bad news to this woman. Sam raised his hand to his chin and felt the stubble already growing back on his face.
“Henrietta, there is something I have to tell you.”
19
Three days had passed since Franklin, in a manic state, had run from Ruth Klein’s office shouting that he would prove that his dreams were premonitions of the future and that his psychic abilities would lead him to find the real killer of Sylvia Radcliffe. Ruth tried again—well, actually for the tenth time in the last two days—to reach him by telephone. Her concern for his safety, and the safety of everyone around him, was growing with each failed attempt. Now she found herself driving through his neighborhood, not really knowing why, but feeling compelled to do something—anything. Her conscience just wouldn’t let her rest until he was either checked into a hospital or in jail. The man had become a menace to himself and anyone who might cross his path. She pulled her car to the curb, directly in front of Franklin’s house. His silver Toyota was parked in the driveway, and she could see lights on in several of the rooms.
He could have hurt himself or possibly even committed suicide. He said he might be dead before next Tuesday. Had he been making a threat? Guilt now became Ruth Klein’s dominant emotion. While she was busy chastising herself for waiting so long to take action, she dialed his number one last time from her cell phone. Six rings, seven, eight, nine…maybe he was hurt and couldn’t answer, or worse.
Ruth marshaled her courage and walked to Franklin’s front door. Once on his wooden porch, she leaned over the railing to see into the brightly lit living room. Her attention was immediately drawn to the amount of debris on the floor and the furniture. There were pizza boxes, beer and soda cans, empty paper coffee cups, and cake wrappers everywhere. At least he’s eating, she remarked to herself to ease the tension. Maybe it’s the maid’s day off. Then she realized that she could be blowing this whole thing out of proportion; there may be nothing wrong at all. Leaning farther over the railing, she noticed that the mirror on the living room wall was covered by a bedsheet that had been tacked to the wall and reinforced with duct tape. That didn’t seem exactly normal, but he could have a logical explanation, like maybe he’s given up being psychic to become a vampire. That thought amused her.
Back to business. In the far right corner of the room, she saw an open doorway that appeared to lead to the kitchen. If she could just lean a little farther over the railing, she could see. Suddenly her feet began to slip on the porch floor, and she stifled a scream as she fought to regain her balance. Then a hand grabbed her arm just below the shoulder, and the scream was let loose with all its pitch, power, and volume.
“Dr. Klein. Are you all right?”
Ruth Klein caught her balance, with Franklin’s help, by leaning back against the wooden porch railing.
“Fine, I’m fine. I was just about to ring your bell when I slipped. New shoes—I’m going to have to scuff up the leather soles a little before I kill myself.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” Franklin said, either ignoring or not realizing that she had not been invited. “Come in, come in. Wait until you see all the progress I’ve made.”
Franklin led Ruth to the kitchen, pulling her along behind him. “I’m almost ready,” he said, “I just need another minute.”
Franklin sat at his kitchen table reading from a newspaper clipping and making notes on a ruled yellow pad. He folded the clipping several times and placed it in a paper bag on the floor at the right of his chair. Ruth stood in the kitchen, shifting her weight from foot to foot, uncertain as to how to proceed.
“Franklin, I’m worried about you. We need to have a quiet discussion.”
“No, it’s OK. I’m just about ready.”
With a sweep of his arm, Franklin cleared the table of paper plates, cardboard boxes, napkins, and empty plastic bottles. Ruth stepped back just in time to avoid being spattered by the rubbish on its way to the floor.
Then he reached into the paper bag and began to pull out strips of newspaper one at a time. Some of the articles were wrinkled from being stuffed in the paper bag, and some had stains
from pizza sauce, coffee, and other unidentifiable substances. They all had torn edges, but the edges were very neatly torn. The clippings were straight and square and complete, and he handled them with reverence, as if each one was a precious record of an important moment in his life, a part of a scrapbook of his major achievements and noteworthy memoirs recorded for posterity.
Ruth watched as he carefully unfolded each of the clippings and arranged them in precise rows on the kitchen table. He aligned the articles into columns from top to bottom and the columns into rows from left to right. Her eyes widened as she observed how he moved with deliberate confidence, focusing on every minute detail of his task. She made a mental note: Add anal retentive to his list of idiosyncrasies.
The articles he had chosen to save were reports of crimes, mostly burglaries and other odd events that had occurred during the last few months. Each one had a date written across its top in black marker. Next Franklin placed a piece of yellow notepaper containing a few paragraphs of handwritten notes under each column. Ruth leaned over to read one of the yellow pages and then jumped back as Franklin said in a loud voice, “They’re my dreams. Each sheet of yellow paper is a different dream, a dream of a crime or some other event like this one.”
He pointed to an article on the table and handed Ruth the yellow paper beneath it. Ruth read the newspaper headline aloud: “‘Wolf Escapes from Game Preserve and Frightens Hiker in State Park.’ What does this have to do with you?”
“I dreamed it,” Franklin said. He snatched the yellow paper back from Ruth’s hand and read the account of his dream of walking in the forest and being confronted by a wolf.
“Look at the dates. The dream happened three days before the hiker reported seeing a wolf on a trail in the state park.”
“That’s an interesting coincidence, but that doesn’t prove anything. You might have heard or read that the wolf had escaped from the preserve days before and forgotten all about it. Later, the dream was simply manufactured from your subconscious mind to match the real event.”
Ruth shook her head. This was going nowhere, and he was becoming more agitated by the minute. She checked her pocket for the pepper spray, just in case. She pulled her cell phone from her jacket and, while Franklin was distracted with his clippings, typed in 911 but did not press call.
“No, that’s not true. Here, look at another one.” He handed her another clipping.
The article was an account of a break-in at the crime scene of Sylvia Radcliffe’s home several days after her murder. The article described an intruder, a man in a blue shirt with a stocking over his head, escaping from the house by throwing a chair through a window, climbing on the roof, and evading police.
“This is the dream I told you about in our first session, weeks before it happened.”
Ruth offered a dubious smile as she calculated the date of their session and then looked at the date on the article.
“I see the similarity,” she admitted, “but I’m still not a believer. You’ll need some harder evidence if you’re going to convince me that you had some sort of premonition. I don’t recognize that such things even exist.”
Franklin scratched his shoulder and rubbed his chin, trying to think of a way he might convince her that his logic was sound.
“I’ve got it.” He picked up another article and handed it to Ruth.
This one described an automobile accident after a police chase that took the life of a man, Mortimer Banks. The article went on to say that the police believed that Mr. Banks was in fact the burglar who had broken into the Radcliffe home. The suspicion was based on police eyewitness reports, a stocking mask, and other evidence, not described, found in his pocket.
“The burglar in my dream took something from the dresser and put it in his pocket. It looked like a small black plastic case just a few inches long and maybe an inch wide. If we could find out what he had in his pocket besides the stocking mask, it would prove that I really saw him.”
Ruth was confident that this was all Franklin’s active imagination and stemmed from his need to gain absolution for his crimes—or at least ease his conscience—but he made an interesting point. If she could prove him wrong, or at least show that his proof did not exist, he may more readily accept her advice. She carefully read the article and noted that the police officer involved in the incident was none other than Lieutenant Peirce. Maybe a call to the good lieutenant would help end this dilemma.
***
The hot shower poured down on Sam Peirce’s head. Steam rose around him, forming a heavy fog that settled on the clear glass doors. He took a deep breath. The water vapor cleared his head. The streams from the jets beat against his sore muscles. The large tile shower enclosure sported six water jets to knead and massage aching body parts, but Sam liked the rain shower head best. He closed his eyes and breathed through his nose. The water beat against his head and then cascaded in rivulets over his face and down his body. He’d had only four hours’ sleep and wasn’t sure if this morning’s shower was a help or a hindrance to preparing him for a busy day. He thought about the murder of Sylvia Radcliffe and how he might never know for sure if Mortimer Banks was the killer. Sylvia’s mother and sister swore, of course, that he didn’t do it, but if he had lived and been convicted, they very well could have been arrested as accessories to murder. Their testimony was useless. Of course there was no explanation, so far, for the mysterious silver car seen by a neighborhood woman the night of the murder and by the security guard days later. Probably just kids joy riding, an unrelated coincidence.
Sam reached for the temperature control and turned it all the way to cold to shock his system awake. A shrill scream sliced through his throbbing head, and a fist punched him in the middle of his back.
“Why did you do that?” Alicia Goodman cried as she pulled a towel into the shower to protect her naked body from the freezing cold water. “You’re going to give us both a heart attack.” She grabbed at the controls.
Sam wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. “I’ll keep you warm,” he said. Then he pulled the towel from between them and tossed it to the back of the shower enclosure.
An hour later, Sam Peirce was out of the house and heading down Route 415 at a brisk pace. The new gray running outfit and Rockport shoes that Alicia bought for him fit pretty well, but he felt a bit uncomfortable wandering around the streets without his usual business suit or at least a sport coat. The hooded sweatshirt jacket he wore barely offered enough room to fit his shoulder holster and off-duty gun underneath, and he felt that anyone who saw him would see the bulge in his shirt and wonder. Maybe I should have put the gun in my underwear; let them wonder about that bulge. The sun was just rising above the trees. Sam raised his hand to his forehead to shield his eyes from the glare and squinted, watching for oncoming traffic as he crossed the road. He looked over his shoulder back toward the house. Alicia Goodman stood on the top step, straining to see his progress before she drove to the hospital for a day of surgery. Sam patted his pockets, then held up his empty hands. He made an exaggerated gesture as though he were smoking a cigarette and smiled. Alicia shook her head, offered a dismissive wave, and got into her car.
A satisfied smile materialized on his face and his eyes grew bright as he watched her drive away. He reached the far curb, crossed the sidewalk, opened the door, and walked into Dunkin’ Donuts.
Sam hurried across the tan-and-black checkerboard tile floor and leaned both hands on the counter. He pointed at the rack of freshly made doughnuts and ordered two chocolate-covered Bavarian cream-filled and a large coffee.
At a small maroon table in the corner of the restaurant behind a fake potted yucca plant, Lieutenant Sam Peirce sat with his purchases and poured two small containers of cream and two packets of sugar into his coffee.
He stirred the cup and stared at the doughnuts, sure that the doughnuts he bought in the past were bigger. Sam was about to lift one of the oozing sweet pastries to his mouth when his cell phone rang. How c
ould she know?
He checked the incoming number and was relieved to find that it was unfamiliar.
“Lieutenant Sam Peirce—may I help you?” He hoped his voice would not show his annoyance at being disturbed while indulging one of his few remaining vices.
“Lieutenant Peirce, it’s Ruth Klein. I’m sorry to call so early, but I was wondering if you could answer a question for me pertaining to the Sylvia Radcliffe murder?”
That sounds like something I’m supposed to say, he thought. “How can I help you?”
“I read in the newspaper that a man killed in an automobile accident was suspected of breaking into Sylvia’s house because of items found in his pockets. Would you be able to tell me what those items were?”
This woman knows something more about this case, Sam thought.
“Dr. Klein, since this is an active murder investigation, and since your patient was the victim and is now deceased, isn’t it true that doctor-patient privilege no longer applies?”
“That would depend on the question. Anything personal that doesn’t pertain to the crime would still be privileged.” Ruth had not yet offered any new information, but Sam was hopeful.
“I’ll tell you what was in his pocket if you tell me why you want to know.” Sam realized that his case had hit a stone wall and that Dr. Klein may be one of the few opportunities left for a new lead.
Ruth decided that she could do this if she trod carefully without raising his suspicions about Franklin or herself.
“I have information that might be pertinent to the case and might not violate privilege, but it all depends on what was found.”
“It was a computer flash drive, but I can’t tell you what was recorded on it. Now what can you tell me?”
Sam now believed that Sylvia must have told Dr. Klein about the flash drive and maybe even about the burglaries in one of her sessions. A confirmation that Sylvia knew about the crimes would go a long way toward motive for her murder.
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