by Blake Banner
“Detective John Stone, I’m here to see Dr. Margaret Wagner.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No, but it is important.”
“Well, I’m afraid you’re out of luck, Detective Stone. Dr. Wagner went out about an hour ago, and she hasn’t returned.”
“Can you tell me where she went?”
“No. I have no idea where she went. She received a private call, said she was going out and didn’t know when she would be back.”
I looked at the badge on her right breast and read it. I spoke quietly but persistently.
“Mrs. Sykes, we are investigating a homicide in which two children were murdered. They were Dr. Brad Mitchell’s children. Today, another homicide was committed in the same case, and one of the witnesses was murdered. I urgently need to talk to Dr. Wagner because, you see, she is also a witness in that case and she might be at risk. So, I need the number of the person who called her. You don’t have to give it to me, but it would be deeply irresponsible of you if you refused. Do you see that?”
She smiled at me with bedroom eyes. “You don’t need to try that hard, Detective. I assure you, I am easy to persuade.”
She checked the screen in front of her and scribbled a number on a piece of paper, then handed it to me. I thanked her and took the number outside to the car. Sitting behind the wheel I checked Brad Mitchell’s number on my cell. It didn’t match, so I checked Emma Mitchell’s number. It did match. I called Dehan.
“Yeah, Stone.”
“You got Brad but not Emma, am I right?”
“What are you, psychic? Sanchez said both Mitchells went out shortly after we left. Brad went to work, but Emma never turned up.”
“No, she called Dr. Wagner a little over an hour ago and Wagner went out to meet her. She hasn’t returned, and she told her receptionist she didn’t know when she’d be back. Can you get a GPS fix on Wagner and Emma Mitchell’s phones?”
“Yeah, what do you want me to do when I find them?”
“Depends where they are. If they’re in the city, take a couple of cars and pick them up. If they’re in White Plains, tell me and I’ll go talk to them. Make it snappy, I’m on my way back.”
“OK, Boss.”
She hung up and I sat staring at the dash for a couple of minutes, then fired up the big growler and headed down the drive.
She called me back as I was approaching White Plains.
“OK, we have Emma Mitchell at the Farmers Market at the intersection of Martine Avenue and Court Street. I can’t be exactly precise, but she’s either buying tomatoes in the street or she’s in Macy’s. Right now she doesn’t seem to be moving.”
“No sign of Wagner?”
“No, none.”
“OK, I’m on my way.”
It was a five-minute drive. I parked on Mitchell Place—it seemed somehow appropriate—and walked a hundred and fifty yards to the heart of the market at the intersection. There were hundreds of people, perhaps a thousand or two. It was information overload. The stalls: red, green, blue, yellow; the clothes: every shade of color under the sun from beige to crimson, lemon yellow to blue, orange and green; and faces and bodies, thousands of faces and bodies of every shape and description, all of them moving, jostling, walking, pushing; not a single one where it had been fifteen seconds earlier. I felt a sinking sensation in my gut. Where should I begin? How did you search a place that was constantly changing?
I moved slowly through the crowd while it flowed past me like a teeming river. I tried to scan the faces, the clothes, the hair, looking for something recognizable, somebody who might be Emma Mitchell. There was nothing. As I walked I pulled my cell from my pocket and called Dehan.
“Hey.”
“I’m at the market, walking north along Court Street. Where should I be looking?”
“OK, you have Macy’s ahead of you on your left, across Martine Avenue. She’s either at a stall there, beside the store, or she’s inside Macy’s. I figure she’s talking to somebody because she has hardly moved in the last fifteen minutes.”
“OK, I’ll check the market stalls. Stay on the line and tell me if she moves.”
I shouldered my way through the crowd and crossed the avenue. A vegetable stall, a bald guy in a suit and a trench coat. A woman in a pink and white wool hat buying tomatoes. A girl with piercings in her nose selling potatoes to a black woman in a fur hat. Both laughing. A fruit stall. A stack of bright orange oranges. A gay couple buying apples. A woman pointing at a pineapple. The guy selling it, big, with big hairy hands. A stall selling clothes. A blonde woman inspecting a sweater. A cheese stall. A man in jeans and a Barbour tasting a slice. A black guy talking to him and pointing at the cheese. Kids running, chasing each other. A woman with a red bike. Faces. Hundreds of faces. And hundreds of milling bodies. Dehan:
“You went past her.”
I stopped, turned, scanned every face in a fifty-foot radius.
“She’s not here.”
“Go inside then. She must be in Macy’s.”
I pushed through the crowd and through the glass doors into Macy’s. The aisles were as packed as the streets had been outside. I stood and scanned each stream of humanity as bodies jostled by me.
“This is impossible.”
“Stay with it, big guy, she’s there. Keep moving north.”
“North?”
I made a mental adjustment and started walking past perfume and makeup stands. I saw an escalator and rode it to the next floor. Through acres of plate glass I could see people milling around clothes racks, pausing, taking clothes and looking at them, feeling them, holding them up against their bodies, checking mirrors.
“You’re practically on top of her. Where are you?”
“Clothing department.”
“Dressing rooms.”
“Hell…”
I moved past the racks, searching the crowds, wondering what the hell Emma Mitchell was doing at Macy’s in White Plains shopping for clothes. It was bizarre. And why wasn’t Wagner with her?
“Any sign of Dr. Wagner yet?”
“Nothing.”
“Have you spoken to Brad Mitchell yet?”
“No. I was waiting for you.”
“What the hell is she doing here, Dehan?”
“Ask her.”
“I would if I could find her.”
I came to the dressing rooms. There was a woman in her fifties folding clothes. A badge on her chest said her name was Lisa. I showed her my own badge and said, “I’m looking for a woman, late forties, blonde, blue eyes, slim, attractive, her name is Dr. Mitchell. Is she in there?” I pointed at the changing rooms.
She looked at me with large, brown eyes and said, “I don’t know.”
“Would you mind looking for me? This is a murder inquiry, and I need your help.” I smiled at her and tried to mean it. She smiled back.
“Well, since you ask so nicely. What’s it worth?”
I gave her twenty bucks and she winked at me, then went inside and started calling, “Dr. Mitchell! Dr. Mitchell!” I heard a few curtains swish open and then closed again, with a few muttered, “Sorry, darlin’,” and then she came back. “No Dr. Mitchells here, handsome. Maybe try the johns. They’re over there.”
“Thanks.”
“You want help there, too?”
I gave her another twenty and followed her through the store, listening to Dehan saying, “…blonde, blue eyes, slim, attractive…yes indeed. Blonde, blue eyes, slim…attractive…”
We came to a short passage. The men’s toilet was on the right. On the left was the women’s. She pushed through the door while I waited outside, and I heard her voice asking, “Is there a Dr. Mitchell here? Is there a Dr. Mitchell in the house?”
She was funny. There was a murmured response and some laughter. Then I heard knocking, and, “Dr. Mitchell?”
Silence. A moment later a couple of women came out, gave me a strange look and walked past.
“Dr. Mitchell…?�
��
I went to the door and pushed it open. There was a small group of women gathered around the shop assistant, who was gently pushing open a cubicle door. They all stopped to look at me. I held up my badge. “NYPD. What’s going on?”
Lisa looked at me. “There’s a woman in there, but she ain’t answering. These girls say she’s been in there a few minutes now.”
One of the girls spoke up. “She was in there when I come in, and she’s still there now. She ain’t talkin’, answering nor nothin’.”
I went to the cubicle door and gave a firm push. Something heavy gave and slumped. I put my head around the door and saw Emma Mitchell sitting on the toilet, with her head leaning against the wall, staring at the door with bulging eyes and a slack mouth. At a glance I could see the four holes in her left breast, and the large bloodstain that had oozed from them. I could also see the powder burns on her dress.
I withdrew my head. “You ladies are going to have to stay here for a while. Dehan?” This last I said into the phone. “You’d better get yourself here ASAP.” I moved to the door and stepped outside. “I found her. She’s in a cubicle in the john. She’s been shot in the chest four times. Put a BOLO out on Dr. Margaret Wagner. I’m going to hang up and call the local PD. I’m going to need some backup.”
I hung up and called the local PD, then went back into the toilet. The shop assistant was peering round the cubicle door. I growled at her, “Tampering with evidence is a felony, Lisa. Don’t touch a thing. The woman in there has been murdered. The White Plains Police Department is on its way. Meanwhile, you can start by giving me your names and addresses.”
They all stared at me blankly, and then all as one said, “Murdered?”
Sixteen
They had to take the door off the cubicle so they could pull her out and lay her on the tiled floor. She looked shocked, like the ceiling was the last thing she had expected to see above her that day. The Westchester Medical Examiner had come in from Valhalla and found that Dr. Emma Mitchell had been shot in the heart four times at point-blank range. The shots had been tightly grouped and had all but destroyed the heart. That was the prima facie cause of death, pending a thorough examination. He would send a copy of his final report to Frank and to me by email.
After some wrangling between the local chief and Inspector John Newman at the 43rd, the local PD handed the case over to me as part of my current, active investigation, in exchange for the promise that I would send them a full report once the case was closed. The local crime scene team moved in to dust and photograph, and a couple of uniforms stayed on to take statements from all the women who had been in the toilet when the body was discovered, before they were allowed to go home or continue shopping. The statements told me nothing I didn’t know already.
Dehan arrived when I was examining the lock of the cubicle, where the door was propped against the wall. I looked up as she approached.
“It’s not broken, but Lisa told me the door was not locked when she pushed it open.”
“Lisa?”
“The shop assistant I paid forty bucks to, to see if Emma was in here.”
She went and stood looking in at the cubicle. “Is she tall and slim and attractive?”
“I wouldn’t know. I have eyes only for you. So, they both came in here to freshen up. Emma went into the cubicle, there was nobody else in the toilet, so Margaret seized the opportunity, leaned in before Emma could lock the door, and pumped four rounds into her heart. Then left at the hurry up.”
“Jesus, Stone. This is like trying to untie the Gordian Knot with woolen mittens over amputated fingers.” She turned to face me and sighed. “She’s behaving like somebody who is tying up loose ends. But what loose ends has Margaret Wagner got? Is she the one who was blackmailing Brad? Is that why he set her up in the clinic? As part of the payoff? Jeez, I tell you Stone, I’m getting brain-ache.”
I nodded. “Tying up loose ends is right. We need to go and talk to Brad. There’s an outside chance he knows where she would go. If anybody can tell us about her, it’s him.”
“But hang on a minute, Stone, am I alone in wanting to know what possible motive she could have for wanting to kill Sonia? Emma I get, at a stretch, though why she would want to kill her now, after all these years, precisely when the police have started looking at the case again, beats me. But at least there is the age-old motive of jealousy. But Sonia? Why?”
“No, you’re not alone, Dehan. It’s just that we have no one to ask right now. Let’s go ask Brad. Until we find Margaret Wagner, he’s the only person who might know.”
She stared around the toilet for a moment, like somebody she could ask might appear on one of the walls. Then she sighed again.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Ride with me. We’ll collect your car tomorrow.”
Dehan talked and I listened all the way back to the Bronx. By the time we got there and walked into the stationhouse, things were about as clear as they had been when we’d left Macy’s in White Plains. We had Brad taken up to interrogation room two and went to get some coffee.
When we entered the room five minutes later he stood up. His face was flushed and his eyes were bright with anger. Dehan placed a cup of coffee in front of him. He ignored it.
“What the hell do you think you’re playing at? I demand to see my lawyer! If I am not under arrest you cannot keep me here! I have cooperated with you in every way possible, but I have been here over three hours!”
We sat and watched him in silence until he sat down. When he’d done that he said, “I am waiting, Detectives. And I should warn you I am not without influence in this town.”
“Dr. Mitchell,” I paused, “there is no easy way to say this. Your wife was murdered today.”
At first he frowned, squinting, like we were stupid and he didn’t understand what we were saying. Then his skin turned gray as the reality of it set in.
“Emma? What are you talking about? How…? I mean…” He looked from me to Dehan and back again. “I don’t believe you. Are you sure? Where is she? I want to see her.”
“Yes, we’re sure, Dr. Mitchell. That’s why you’ve been kept waiting so long. We wanted to talk to you both, but when we went to get your wife, she was not at home or at work.”
He was still incredulous. “Where was she? What happened?”
“We’re not sure. We’re hoping you can help us explain it. She was at White Plains.”
“White Plains? What the hell was she doing there?”
“She called Dr Wagner. Dr Wagner left the clinic to go and meet her, saying she didn’t know when she’d be back. It looks as though they met in White Plains.”
“She met with Margaret? What for?”
Dehan answered. “We don’t know, Dr. Mitchell. That’s what we are trying to tell you. Can you think of any reason why your wife would call Dr. Wagner and arrange to meet her there?”
His frown was growing deeper. “Well, why don’t you ask her? What does Margaret say?”
“Margaret has disappeared.”
“What?” Neither of us answered. There was a heavy silence in the room. He said, “What are you telling me?”
I leaned forward, holding his eye. “Dr. Mitchell, is there anything you need to tell us about Dr. Wagner? Anything you feel we ought to know?”
“No! No! Why? Just tell me what’s happened!”
“We found your wife at Macy’s, in the ladies’ toilets, in a cubicle. She had been shot four times in the heart with a .22. We’re waiting on ballistics, but it seems to be the same weapon that was used to kill Sonia.”
“Dear God, sweet Jesus…”
He sank back in his chair. After a moment he covered his face with his hands and began to sob. Slowly he curled forward until his head was on the tabletop, making a painful keening sound. Dehan stood and left the room. I waited, watching him, wondering if any person could put on such a convincing act, or if what I was seeing was for real.
The door opened and Dehan came back in
with a cup of water and a box of tissues, which she placed in front of Mitchell. She put her hand on his shoulder and spoke softly.
“We can do this later, Dr. Mitchell, but we really urgently need to know where Dr. Wagner is.”
He looked up at her and his face was wet and shiny. “You can’t think that she…”
“We don’t think anything, Dr. Mitchell. But your wife has been murdered and Dr. Wagner has disappeared. We don’t know what’s happened, but it stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if she didn’t kill your wife, she might well be another victim of the killer. So either way, we need to find her.”
He swallowed and nodded. “Yes.” He nodded some more. “Yes, of course. It’s just so hard to take in. And poor Marcus… What am I going to do?”
“You could start,” I said, “by telling us the true nature of your relationship with Dr. Wagner.”
He stared at me with a slack mouth for a long moment, then took some tissues and blew his nose and wiped his eyes.
“When I married Emma, we both agreed that there were likely to be other people over the years. True fidelity is hard to come by, and when you find it, often enough it is false. So when Emma has had affairs, I have ignored it, and when I have had affairs she has turned a blind eye. We agreed that we wanted each other as partners, as a family, but we also acknowledged that sexually we both needed variety. It worked for us.”
Dehan frowned. “But Dr. Wagner was something more than that.”
He sighed. “Yes, Margaret was somewhat more than that. The problem with Margaret was that I fell in love with her, and she fell in love with me, but then…” He held my eye a moment and then turned to Dehan. “Then Emma became infatuated with Margaret too, and Margaret enjoyed all the attention and the flattery and she and Emma ended up having a brief affair.”
Dehan sat. “Wow, way to keep things simple.”
“Keep it in the family,” he said, with a hint of bitterness. “In the end the affair with Emma ran its course, but my relationship with Margaret never quite ended. We have a lot in common, we genuinely enjoy each other’s company.” He sighed. “Anyway, that’s why we found it so funny when Lee tried to blackmail me.”