by Blake Banner
I crossed the room so that I was standing barely a couple of inches from him. “He just told us, ‘Dad is coming.’”
His eyes went wide. “He said that?”
“He’s been six years in this state, and it took me all of five minutes to get him talking. First he started weeping. Then he clung to Dehan’s arm and smiled at us. After that he spoke. He said, ‘Dad is coming.’” He swallowed hard and I pressed a finger against his chest. “Maybe it’s time you stopped being Dr. Mitchell for a while, and started being Dad. He needs to talk, and he needs to talk to a friend, or a father, not to a damned doctor!”
He shook his head. “You’re insane.”
“Why?”
“Because of my wife, God damn it! She will never allow it!”
Thirteen
We left Nurse Thelma with Marcus and went down to the living room. He gestured us toward the sofa and chairs and went to the sideboard to pour himself a generous whiskey, neat. When he’d taken a pull, Dehan asked him, “What is it about your being a ‘dad’ for Marcus, that your wife would object to?”
He gave her a curious look, approached the chair beside the sofa where Dehan had sat, and lowered himself into it.
“After Lee and Lea were murdered, and Marcus was diagnosed with catatonic depression, naturally I set about finding the best people to treat him and help him come to terms, in as much as any person can come to terms with such a thing, with what had happened, with his traumatic experience.” He paused and took another swig. “Naturally, as you’d expect, all those therapists agreed on one point, that he needed to address—and deal with—what had happened in the shed; but more to the point, more precisely, it was not the event itself he had to deal with. It was the memory of what had happened, his emotional response to what had happened.” He shook his head, as though dismissing any argument to the contrary. “It is not the event that lives on in Marcus. That would be absurd, a physical impossibility. It is his emotional response that lives on within his memory, and is poisoning his mind and his emotions. And it is the memory of the event which needs to be dissolved, and dealt with. And for that he needs to replay the memory and disassociate himself from it emotionally.”
I said, “But your wife will not allow him to do that.”
“No.” He took another swig and shook his head. “She says it is out of the question. And when we have tried, she goes completely hysterical, threatens to divorce me and take Marcus with her… More trauma for the boy, more suffering, more unhappiness. For the last five and a half years she would not even allow me to visit the boy in his room unless she was there. If I want to see him I have to sneak home while she’s at work.”
“Where is your wife now? I would have expected her to be here.”
“She’s teaching a seminar and has probably given strict orders that she is not to be disturbed. Otherwise I assure you she would have been here before me.”
I reached in my pocket, pulled out the court order and handed it to him. He read it carefully and nodded. “Good.” He placed it on the table beside his chair. “Good, maybe this way the boy will get the treatment he needs.” He paused a moment. Then he frowned at me. “You say he spoke… That is extraordinary.”
I recounted what had happened. About halfway through he began to smile. When I had finished he asked me, “Have you studied any psychology, Detective?”
I shook my head. “Not really. I have read a fair bit of Freud, Watson and Skinner,” I smiled, “the other Mitchell, the English one.”
“Juliet, she’s a very fine psychoanalyst. One of the few women who truly understand Freud.” He paused, nodding at the floor. “Your instinct led you very surely to what poor Marcus needed.”
“It was common sense, Dr. Mitchell, nothing more…”
“You are quite right, but common sense is something that somehow seems to dissipate in rarefied, academic environments.” He buried his face in his hands and his voice became muffled. “That is what I need: to dispense with all the bullshit and get real again, remember who I was before I became Dr. Brad Mitchell. It is so easy to lose one’s way. Common sense, yes. A lot of it is common sense.”
Dehan spoke up. “Something inside him wanted to vomit out the memory, just like your stomach wants to vomit out food that is off, or too much tequila or whiskey.”
He laughed. “Psychic reflux?”
I smiled. “Something like that. I’m not a psychiatrist, but Detective Dehan and I both saw clearly that he needed to talk.” I gestured at the paper on the table beside him. “That court order places no limit on how often or how many times we can talk to him. I mean to give him time to rest, and then talk to him again, and again, until we find out what happened that day. Do you plan to obstruct us?”
He threw back his head and laughed out loud. “Obstruct you? I could not be more grateful to you, Detectives! This has been a living nightmare for me for the last five years, since Emma effectively robbed me of my son, my last, remaining child. I love her dearly, but she can be excessively controlling. Now, there is some hope that I might get my boy back.” He paused, tilted his head on one side and gave a small, eloquent shake. “But you must know that my wife will be a very different story.”
“Yes.” I nodded. “I am aware of that.”
“She will fight tooth and nail to stop you.”
Dehan cleared her throat. “Dr. Mitchell, there are a couple of questions I would like to ask you. Marcus could not possibly have known that you were arriving when you did. So, what do you think he meant by, ‘Dad is coming’?”
He took a deep breath and held it. “Off the top of my head I’d say that he was perhaps reliving that day, that terrible thing had happened and he could hear me calling to them, and running toward the shed.”
She nodded. “The other thing…” She hesitated a moment, gathering her thoughts. “You’re an eminent psychiatrist, your wife is a doctor of sociology. I believe that sociology requires at least a basic understanding of psychology, and having lived with you for…how long?”
“Twenty-five years.”
“Having lived with you for twenty-five years, as a highly intelligent woman, she must know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Marcus needs to face what happened and deal with it.”
He was nodding. “And your question is, why is she so deeply opposed to it?”
“Yes. If she was hysterical, or stupid, even uneducated, I could understand it. But she is a university professor who must have a good understanding of psychology…” She shrugged. “It makes no sense to me at all.”
He gave a small snort of a laugh. “If you’re thinking that she is trying to conceal evidence, you’re wrong, plain and simple. It’s nothing that exotic. Parents—not just women, men will do it as well—can get intense, hormonal reactions when their children are in danger. Hormonal imbalances can turn intelligent people into raging morons, idiots and savages…”
“Killers?”
He looked her in the eye. “Oh, for sure. It sounds absurd, but a surge in certain hormones can bring out the very darkest in the human soul.”
I studied his face a moment, wondering if he was trying to tell us anything. I decided I wasn’t sure and said, “I have a final question for you, Dr. Mitchell. Where were you last night between eight and midnight?”
“Why, I was at home.”
“Can anyone vouch for that?”
He frowned. “You’re asking me for an alibi? Why do I need an alibi for last night?”
Dehan said, “Can you answer the question please, Dr. Mitchell?”
“I was at home with Emma.”
I sighed. “Can anyone besides your wife vouch for that?”
“No.” He thought about it for a moment. “No, we were alone. The nurse had gone. But why? Why are you asking me this?”
I studied his face carefully as I spoke. “Sonia Laplant, Lee’s aunt, was murdered last night.”
His face went tight, contracted, and he stared at me, then at Dehan and back at me again. “Sonia?
Why? That’s insane! And you think that I…? Why on Earth would I want to kill poor Sonia, for God’s sake?”
Dehan shrugged. “For that matter, why would anyone want to kill Lee, or Lea? Logical explanations are something this case is pretty short on, Dr. Mitchell.”
He kept staring at her, like she’d said something outrageous. I asked him:
“Did you and Sonia stay in touch after you adopted Lee?”
He turned to me. “In touch? No. Why would we?”
“So you had no contact with her at all after Lee moved in?”
“No, I mean, minimal. We had sporadic contact, but nothing you could call staying in touch. When Lee pulled his attempted blackmail prank she spoke with Emma, but aside from that, no, nothing to speak of.”
Outside, the sound of a car pulling into the drive made us look. It was a silver Mercedes. Brad Mitchell got to his feet and spoke absently, staring out of the window.
“Emma…”
We heard feet running, the key in the lock and then the other Dr. Mitchell burst into the room. She stopped dead, with the door open, staring from me to Dehan, and then her husband. Her voice, when she spoke, was shrill with anger.
“What the hell is going on?”
Brad Mitchell picked up the piece of paper and held it out to her. “They have a court order, dear.”
She stared at it, like it was an insult. “A court order…?” She shifted her eyes to meet mine. “I’ll have your job. I’ll ruin you. I’ll destroy you. Have you…?” She turned to her husband. “Have they hurt him? Have they been in? Did you stop them?”
I stood. “Get a grip, Dr. Mitchell. I’m going to ignore the stupid things you’re saying because you’re upset. But I am going to need you to get a grip.”
Her face flushed red. “A grip? Are you trying to patronize me? Is this some macho sexist shit? The NYPD sending its big bully to intimidate a helpless woman?”
Dehan was on her feet. She came over beside me and looked down at Emma Mitchell.
“Why don’t you talk to me, Dr. Mitchell? Why don’t you threaten me with the loss of my career? You going to destroy me, too? You going to accuse me of being a big, macho bully?”
Emma Mitchell’s mouth worked but no sound came out.
“Quit griping and do something for your son, for a change. Yes, we were upstairs in his room. Yes, we talked to him, and yes, within just a few minutes he spoke to us. Six years you’ve had the poor kid stewing in his own damned nightmares, and today, for the first time, he was able to get some of that crap off his chest. You don’t want to hear it, but that’s tough shit, Doc, because you’re going to hear it. He hugged me and he smiled at Detective Stone, and then he spoke to us. And you know what that smile said to me? It said he was grateful. Because what you have been doing for the last six years is to keep that poor little bastard locked in hell, and Detective Stone just gave him the key to get out.”
They stared at each other in silence, then Emma Mitchell spoke in a dangerous whisper.
“Get out of my house, and don’t ever set foot in here again.”
I took the court order from Brad Mitchell’s fingers and handed it over to his wife.
“This is a court order requiring you to give us access to Marcus Mitchell, so that we can speak with him. If you defy this order, you will be in contempt of court and liable to a prison sentence.”
I paused to examine her expression. I figured she wasn’t listening to a damn word I was saying. She was just staring at me like she wanted to tear out my heart and eat it. I sighed.
“We are conducting a multiple homicide investigation, Dr. Mitchell. If you try to obstruct us, I will prosecute you to the full extent of the law. You had better pipe down before you go too far. We will give Marcus every care and help we can, but we will talk to him.”
“Get out.”
I nodded. “OK, we’ll go. But we will come back, and we will continue talking to him.”
She pointed a trembling hand at the door.
“Out!”
I glanced at Brad Mitchell, but he avoided my eye. I gave Dehan the nod and we left, stepping out into the cold, bright morning. We walked to Dehan’s Toyota. She opened the driver’s door and I turned, leaned my back on the car, looking at the broad, living-room window where I was in full view, and pulled my cell from my pocket.
The chief answered after a couple of rings.
“John, how’s it going? All good?”
“The Mitchells weren’t in when we arrived. The nurse allowed us to see the kid and we managed to get him to say a few words.”
“Oh, you did? That is extraordinary.”
“Yeah, nothing very enlightening. He just said, ‘Dad is coming.’ He got very emotional and cried a lot, but he also smiled at us and hugged Dehan’s arm. I’m not sure what it all means yet, but we both had the feeling he was really grateful for the opportunity to talk. After that he went to sleep. Then Brad Mitchell turned up, we spoke to him and he was very cooperative. He welcomes the chance of therapy for the kid.”
There was a frown in the chief’s voice. “Then why doesn’t he provide it? He’s a psychiatrist, for crying out loud!”
“The problem is the wife, sir. She is opposed to it and has just thrown us out of the house. She says she plans to get me fired and to destroy me. She is going to cause problems. Sir, we need the Mitchell house watched, and if she tries to remove the kid, we need her to be arrested.”
He was silent for a moment, then said, “Yes, very well.”
“And, sir, I’d like to make it obvious. Let’s have a patrol car sitting outside the front gate. I want to send her a clear message. She can’t threaten and browbeat the police department.”
“All right, John. That’s fair enough. I’ll send Sanchez and Olvera. They’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Thank you, sir.”
I hung up. Dehan was leaning with her forearms on the door, smiling at me.
“You’re a nice guy, Stone. You have a lot of heart and compassion. I like that in you. But you are also a real son of a bitch. And I say that with the greatest admiration.”
I smiled at her, then stared back at the big windows. I could see Emma Mitchell staring back at me.
“I am not motivated so much by wanting to bring Emma Mitchell down a peg or two, though I do want to do that. I am more concerned with the kid, Marcus. I worry for him.” I turned to look at Dehan. “Is she trying to protect him, however misguided? Or is she trying to silence him? She’s a dangerous woman, Dehan. How far will she go to get what she wants?”
The smile faded from her face and she followed my gaze to look at the window.
“Jesus, I had never seriously considered her as a suspect, Stone.”
“I wonder if Brad has. She is very intense, and he is scared of her.”
She nodded. “I noticed that. He obeys her.”
I sighed. “What the hell did that poor kid witness? What happened that day, Dehan? Who went down to the shed?”
“They both claim they both did…”
I grunted. “But logic dictates that whoever went down, killed the kids.”
She screwed up her face. “So, if it was one or both of the Mitchells, why didn’t they kill Marcus?”
A prowler turned into the road, cruised up to us and parked in front of the Corolla. The doors opened and Sanchez, five foot four of solid muscle, and Olvera, six foot two of solid muscle, climbed out and joined us.
“Detectives.”
“Good morning, Sanchez, Olvera, we need some surveillance on this place.” I pointed openly at the house, knowing that Emma Mitchell was watching me. “Our primary objective is to prevent them from removing a young man of about seventeen. He is in a catatonic state and we are trying to get protection from the court. He also happens to be our only witness in the homicide of two kids.”
Olvera nodded. “The Mitchell case.”
“Correct. So, if they try to remove the kid, you stop them. Arrest the mother if you have to.”
“You got it, Detective.”
“But one other thing, this is also a display of force. So there is no need to keep it low key. This woman has threatened us with destruction and the loss of our jobs if we carry out an order of the court, so let’s show her just how worried we are.”
Sanchez grinned. “Sure thing, Detectives.”
We thanked them and left.
Fourteen
Headed north on Castle Hill, Dehan asked me, “How worried are we?”
“Very.”
She gave me a curious glance. “Why? What has you worried suddenly?”
I screwed up my face, trying to squeeze some coherent thought out of my brain. “I think I have been looking at this all wrong.”
“Suddenly you’re thinking that Emma Mitchell is the guy.”
“What would her motive be?”
She made a face, glanced in her mirrors and came to a halt at the lights on the Bruckner Boulevard.
“I don’t think she’s got one, Stone. Aside from anything else, look how damn protective she is of her son. I can’t see a woman like that hurting her daughter.”
“Nyah…” I said, like I meant it.
“Nyah? What the hell does nyah mean?”
“She is hurting her son, Dehan. She’s one of those women who smother-mother.”
“Smother-mother. That’s great.”
“Yes, one of those women who overprotect, and end up causing more harm to the kid than what they are trying to protect the kid from…”
She gave me a bland look. “Ain’t it sad when bad things happen to good sentences? That said, for some reason I understand you. But even so, those women hurt their kids by overprotecting them, not by sticking knives in them. I just don’t see Emma Mitchell hurting her own daughter, whatever the case about Lee. Your phone is ringing.”
I pulled my cell from my pocket. The screen said it was Joe, from the lab.
“Joe, what have you got.”
“John, if you’re free, you need to come and see this.”
I glanced at Dehan. “Head for the lab. We’ll collect the car later.” To Joe I said, “We’re on our way, what is it?”