by Blake Banner
I cleared my throat. “Had that started to change recently?”
She winced. “Kind of, but let me get to that, because there are other things you need to understand. When Lee moved in, it was absolutely no surprise to me that almost right away he started to cause problems.”
“What kind of problems?”
“The first month or two he was quiet and sullen. He refused to play with Marcus and Lea, he refused to speak to anyone, and he barely ate. I warned them both that he was going to be a problem, but they insisted he just needed to adapt and find his own place in the family structure.”
Dehan asked, “And did he?”
Wagner gave a humorless laugh. “Oh he did! Boy did he! And then some. He became aggressive and foulmouthed. Poor Marcus was always frail and sensitive. Lee caught on to this very quickly and he started bullying Marcus mercilessly. He would punch him, kick him, swear at him, steal his clothes and toys… He was a monster. And Brad and Emma, who did not believe in punishing, tried to deal with it by having meaningful dialogues and family conferences, where everyone was free to say what they felt.”
She threw back her head and laughed. “Well at first Lee would use those gatherings to swear, insult Brad and Emma, hit Marcus, once he even pissed on the floor. But pretty soon he realized that if he played along and pretended to be ‘growing’ and ‘learning to integrate,’ Brad and Emma would get such an ego rush, and be so pleased with themselves that he would become the blue-eyed boy, so to speak, and any complaints that Marcus and Lea made against him would put them out of favor with Brad and Emma.”
“Shoot, that’s smart.”
“Cunning. Lee was not especially intelligent, but he was about as cunning as they come.” She paused a moment to think. “Well, obviously, that was not a situation that could go on indefinitely. It was not sustainable, and it was Emma who began to give under the strain. He was vile to her. He was always making lewd suggestions, insinuating that she was having affairs at work, that when he was older he would become her lover…it went on and on and in the end she began to crack.
“When he saw that, as far as she was concerned, his days were numbered, that was when he came up with the blackmail scheme.”
“Wait.” I raised my hand. “Hold on a moment. What do you mean exactly by, ‘his days were numbered’ as far as Emma was concerned?”
She put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, God no. I didn’t mean that at all. No, I mean that he had lost her as an ally and she was beginning to think in terms of actually returning the child into foster care. Brad was dead against it, but the strain had started to get to Emma and I know she was very unhappy, and so were the kids.”
“And that was when Lee came up with the blackmail idea.”
She nodded. “Initially it was just a way of ensuring they did not send him away. He had some idea that Brad and I were involved because, though we didn’t advertise it, neither did we hide it. The five of us, me, Emma and Brad, and the kids, were very comfortable with each other, so it was not exactly a secret. Thing was, Lee was such an ignorant little brat that he thought he had detected an affair. So he threatened Brad with revealing that supposed affair to his wife. Brad laughed.”
Dehan nodded. “He told us about that. He called his wife and showed her the photograph.”
“Yeah, that wasn’t a brilliant move, as it turned out. Lee was humiliated and furious. He told his aunt about it, and that sweet, lovely woman turned out to have a pretty deep dark side. She saw the potentials that Lee was too young and too naïve to understand. We had mentioned to her, just chatting, that we had plans to set up a rehabilitation clinic in White Plains. It came up because she worked with Dr. Garrido at the rehabilitation center in the Bronx. It was an innocent comment that had far-reaching consequences. She realized that if our relationship was conducted quietly and discretely there would be no consequences, but that if it was brought to the attention of the university and the press, the consequences could be catastrophic. It would put an end to the clinic, to our careers, to everything.
“So she took it upon herself to spy on us, follow us and photograph us. And then she went to Brad and Emma with her photographs and demanded payment for her silence. Brad, naturally, was all for what he called ‘publish and be damned!’, but Emma and I persuaded him to think of the kids and of his family as a whole. In the end we decided to tell her we were prepared to pay a sum every month, equivalent to a salary, for her silence. She agreed, and for a short while we had relative peace. Even Lee seemed to settle down for a while.
“Then Lea and Lee were killed.”
I raised my hand again. “Dr. Wagner, let me ask you, were you there that day? Were you at the breakfast table?”
“No, I was away in San Francisco, at a seminar, and I can prove it.”
“But they confided in you as to what happened that day?”
“Yes, they telephoned me that evening and told me about it.”
“What was it exactly that they told you?”
“That they had been reading the paper and drinking coffee after breakfast, in the kitchen, they had heard screams and rushed to the shed. There they had found Lea and Lee, dead.”
Dehan cut in. “Did they say which one of them arrived first?”
She paused to think and frowned. “Now that you mention it, no. But I think they said Brad found them. I have always understood it that way. Anyhow, that was six years ago, and for the past six years we have paid Sonia faithfully every month. But, about six weeks ago, roughly, Sonia spoke to Brad and told him that she wanted her cut, as she put it, from the proceeds of the new clinic. Her cut was to be twenty-five percent of the profits, annually. He told her no, categorically. So she said she would send all the photographs she had to the university, and to the press. She also said she would tell the cops Lee had tried to blackmail them and that she suspected one of them had killed him. She said she would destroy the three of us.”
I nodded. “So Emma killed her.”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“It had to be either her or you. You would have used the .45 that Brad gave you, and you wouldn’t have missed.”
She gave a soft grunt. “That’s for sure.”
“So what happened in White Plains?”
“She had been in a state of anxiety ever since Sonia had threatened to send the photographs to the university, and to go to the cops. When you showed up and started asking questions, and especially when you decided you wanted to talk to Marcus, she started spiraling out of control. She and Brad had argued. He had told her several times he would take care of it, but she didn’t believe him. Brad talks a good fight, but the fact is he’s full of shit.”
She sighed, seemed to gather her thoughts and continued.
“She called me at the clinic. She seemed to be on the edge of hysteria. She said she needed to see me urgently. I told her to come to the clinic but she said no. She didn’t want to be seen. She wanted to meet at the entrance to Macy’s.” She gave a small laugh. “I told her it was market day and the place would be full of people. She didn’t care. That was where we had to meet.
“When I got there she was jumpy and real nervous. She told me she had done something crazy. I asked her what and she kind of bundled me into the corner of the door, got real close up to me and said she’d killed Sonia.”
She shook her head and looked away out of the window. She bit her lip and shook her head again. I could see that she was crying.
“I couldn’t believe it. I had known her for years. I loved her. I would never have imagined her capable of doing something like that. She said she’d had to do it, to protect Marcus.”
I said, absently, “To protect Marcus?”
“He needs constant care. If the clinic fails it will be a financial catastrophe for all of us, but especially Marcus. He will have no one to care for him.”
“So what did you do?”
“I told her she had to go to the cops, get a lawyer, plead temporary insanity. I would certify i
t. I remember when I said that she laughed. It was a weird laugh. It made my skin crawl. She said, ‘I know you would, darling,’” she hunched her shoulders and ran her hands over her upper arms. It still makes me shudder. Then she said she was desperate to use the restroom, and would I go with her, then we’d have lunch and talk about what to do. I agreed. My idea was, while she was in the restroom, I would call Brad and the cops. But it didn’t work out that way.
“When we got there, she started acting real crazy. There were a couple of women in there and she chased them out, saying she needed the place to herself. And that was when she pulled the gun on me. It was a small revolver, .22 caliber. She was waving it around like a crazy woman, pointing it in my face, at my chest, repeating over and over that she’d killed Sonia and she’d have no problem killing me.”
Dehan interrupted. “But what was her motive?”
“She said she knew that Brad and I were conspiring to get rid of her, and once she was gone he and I would get married.”
“How did she think you were going to get rid of her?”
“She didn’t make a lot of sense, to tell you the truth. She was terrified that we would allow Marcus to start talking. I told her surely that would exonerate her and Brad and work against Sonia. But she was hysterical and convinced that we were going to manipulate Marcus and fill his head with false memories.”
She stopped again, staring down at her hands in her lap.
“Anyhow, it became clear nobody was coming to my rescue. She pushed me violently toward one of the cubicles and I knew she was going to kill me. I acted without thinking. I twisted the gun out of her hand, spun her round and pulled the trigger, the way my daddy taught me. Before I knew it she was dead, and I bolted. I came home, told Mom and Daddy what had happened and tried to think what the hell to do.” She heaved another big sigh. “I’m glad you showed up. I might have done something really stupid.”
My mind was still lingering over something she had said. I dragged my mind back to it and frowned at her. “You still have the gun?”
“It’s back at the ranch. All the prints are still on it, though Daddy tried to persuade me to wipe them off.”
Dehan shook her head. “That’s something we don’t really need to know. It’s enough that you tell us that for the last couple of days they have been trying to persuade you to hand yourself in.”
She smiled. “Oh, yes, I guess so.”
I said, “We’ll have to take you back with us, Dr. Wagner, you realize that? We’ll need the gun, too, but I am going to recommend to the DA that they do not prosecute. But we will need your full testimony to close the case on the murder of Lea and Lee.”
Her eyebrows rose and her face said she was surprised.
“You are going to close that case?”
“Yes. Just as soon as we get back to New York.”
We rose and made our way out to the car. Dr. Wagner climbed in the back of the Jaguar and Dehan and I slung our bags in the trunk.
“So you are going to close the case? Were you going to tell me about it at some point, big guy?”
“I assumed you picked up on what she said.”
“What she said?”
“Yeah, about Emma. All we need is to confirm it with Marcus, but I think it’s pretty clear, don’t you?”
She nodded a couple of times down at our baggage. “About Emma.”
I smiled and said, “Exactly. Come on, let’s get going.”
Twenty
Dr. Simone Robles was sitting beside Marcus, with the cool sunlight from the bedroom window slanting across her ebony face. She had a notepad on her knee and she was watching me carefully. Marcus was on her left, propped up in his bed. He was also watching me. Dehan was sitting on a straight-backed chair on his left, holding his hand, and beside her was Dr. Wagner, in an armchair, watching Brad Mitchell across the other side of the bed, beside Simone Robles.
I was at the foot of the bed, in another armchair. I was watching Marcus. I smiled at him and saw the flicker of a response.
“Marcus, it’s nice to see you again. You do not have to speak if you don’t want to, but I think I have worked out what happened all those years ago, in the past, and all of these people here really need to know.”
He blinked, and I saw a faint wash of color in his pale neck and cheeks. I smiled again.
“So I’ll tell you what we are going to do. I am going to tell all these people what I think happened. And if you think I am wrong about anything, you let me know. You can either interrupt me and say, ‘Come on, John! You’re talking out the back of your neck, dumbo!’”
There was a small ripple of sniggers around the room, and I saw a twitch of a smile on Marcus’s face.
“Or,” I went on, “if you want to you can tell me I’m right on the money. But if you prefer not to talk yet, you can just squeeze Detective Dehan’s hand. Once is ‘That is correct,’ twice is ‘That is wrong.’ OK?”
After a moment Dehan smiled at me and said, “That is correct.”
Simone looked at Mitchell and raised her eyebrows. He looked at me and I like to think there was a touch of awe in his expression. Who knows?
“So, you, Dr. Mitchell, and your wife were in the kitchen, as you told us, reading the Sunday papers. You had the kitchen door and windows open, and the kids were outside playing. At first, Detective Dehan and I had played with the idea that a sixth person had entered the house, either invited by one of you, or by Lee, and that that person had killed Lea and Lee. But when we examined the house we realized that the only form of access was via the driveway, and that anyone arriving that way would risk being seen by you. Also, because the kids and the shed would be invisible to anyone approaching that way, it would make the crime one of opportunism. Which made no sense because the opportunity only became apparent after the person had entered the backyard. It made no sense.
“There was also the question of escape. The killer had had no opportunity to escape by the time you reached the shed. Emma had told us that when you heard the screams you went to the window. So you would have had to have seen him leave¸ but you didn’t. And if he had left after that, you would have had to have intercepted him as you approached the shed. But when you got there it was empty. So it became very clear to us that there was no sixth person. The murder had to have been carried out by one of you.”
I took a deep breath, leaned back in the chair and crossed my legs.
“But that presented us with another problem. Though blackmail provided some motive for killing Lee…”
“No, it never did!” It was Mitchell, shaking his head. “We never took that seriously.”
Margaret Wagner interrupted him. “Oh, for God’s sake, Brad, pull your head out of your ego from time to time. You were never worried by it. But Emma was worried sick by that threat, and so was I, if you must know. Everybody was sick to their back teeth of that brat except you, because you hardly ever had to speak to the little monster!”
I saw Simone Robles smile as she made notes and raised my hand.
“Excuse me. Save it for later, please. Allow me to continue. From a police perspective, Dr. Mitchell, blackmail provided a motive for killing Lee, but it did not explain Lea’s killing. And whichever way we examined it, we came up with the same problems that the original investigating detectives found. There was no way of explaining Lea’s murder.”
I turned my eyes to Marcus. He was staring at me fixedly.
“Then it occurred to us that the explanation might be a simple one. That Lea’s death might have been an accident. That while the kids were running around she might have tripped and struck her neck on some object, like the side of a wheelbarrow, or a hoe. Then, I speculated, Emma Mitchell might have arrived first, before you, Dr. Mitchell, and seen Lee bending over her dead daughter. Already under intolerable stress from the boy’s threats and behavior, and from seeing her family falling apart because of him, she took the knife and killed him. And then, to try to deflect the blame from herself, one of you cut L
ea’s throat, concealing the bruise and making it look as though an unknown killer had murdered both kids.”
I heard Mitchell rasp, “No, no, never! We would never…!”
But my eyes were on Marcus whose face was bright red, while his knuckles were white where he was gripping Dehan’s hand.
“It was,” I said, “the only viable theory we had. But there were aspects that troubled both Detective Dehan and me. Then it came to me, when Dr. Wagner was telling us about her meeting with Emma in White Plains.
“She said that Emma was terrified that you, Dr. Mitchell, and Dr. Wagner would, and I quote, ‘…allow Marcus to start talking.’ She then added, ‘I told her surely that would exonerate her and Brad…’ ‘But,’ Dr. Wagner said, ‘she was hysterical and convinced that we were going to manipulate Marcus and fill his head with false memories.’”
I paused, sighed and shook my head. “This woman, Emma Mitchell, was holding a gun on Dr. Wagner, accusing her of trying to frame her for the murder of Lee and Lea, so that she and Brad could be rid of her and get married. Emma’s full intention by then was to kill Margaret Wagner; there was absolutely no reason for her to pretend she was innocent of the killing. Her very motive for killing Dr. Wagner was her belief that she was being framed. So clearly, if she believed she was being framed, she didn’t do it.”
There was a deathly silence in the room. Outside, in the backyard, a bird was chirping sporadically. I said, “So, if she didn’t, who did? We were out of options. And then another thing struck me that should have struck me much earlier. It probably would have if we had not been looking at an apparently inexplicable situation. But in retrospect it was obvious.
“If Lea had fallen and struck her throat on a hoe or a wheelbarrow, she would not yet have been dead by the time you arrived. She would have been asphyxiating. But she showed no signs of asphyxia. There was, according to Dr. Mitchell’s account, and the crime scene photographs, a huge amount of blood at the scene. Lea had bled out from her wound, which meant she was still alive when she received it.