Deadly Beloved

by Max Allan Collins

  “Nice meeting you, too,” Dan said.

  Then he got back on his cell phone. The intruder was only moaning now, but that still meant Dan had to work a little to get his voice up over it and be heard.

  “Me again, Ms. Tree—got interrupted by a guy lookin’ for a ski lift.”

  “You all right?”

  “Fine. Took several highly skilled martial arts moves to bring this boy down.”

  “Martial arts?”

  “Yeah. First move, kick him in the ass. Second move, kick in the balls. Pretty much all you need to know in the ancient discipline I follow.”

  “Anybody we know?”

  Dan paced as he spoke, watching his captive but keeping a certain distance. “Not from my social circle. Of course, you draw from a wider range of assholes, Ms. Tree, than a clean-cut kid like me.”

  “Want me to call Rafe?”

  “Naw, I’ll do it. Funny thing, Masked Marauder had a chance to leave, but changed his mind and came back for something.”

  “Back for what?”

  Dan paced with purpose now, looking at the floor, seeking the object in question. “Something he brought with him, something small and solid, metal maybe. He threw whatever the hell it was at me, when I got the drop on him and...whoa.”

  “Dan?”

  Dan knelt over something that looked very familiar: a small shiny deco clock radio.

  “Dan?”

  “Hang with me, Ms. Tree.”

  Dan and his cell phone moved quickly to the bedroom and in seconds he was holding the clock radio he’d just recovered up next to its identical twin on the nightstand.

  “We got that rare kinda B & E guy, Ms. Tree,” he said.

  “What rare kind is that?”

  “The kind that brings a replacement along for what he steals....”

  SEVEN

  Dan Green and I were in the small, dimly lit observation booth looking through our side of the half-silvered mirror onto the brightly lit interview room where Rafe Valer—in shirt sleeves, loose tie and empty shoulder holster—prowled like he was the one caged.

  Meanwhile, his suspect sat calmly at a small table, on which—like an odd centerpiece—rested a transparent evidence bag holding a metallic deco clock radio. A uniformed officer stood guard in one corner.

  The intruder from the Addwatter apartment, still attired in black but sans his ski mask, stared unknowingly at Dan and me, blank-faced; he’d been stonewalling for the fifteen minutes we’d been watching this.

  His features were a little too bony to be handsome despite light blue eyes; his blond hair was in a military crew; and his age was hard to make—somewhere in the no man’s land between twenty-five and forty. He kept his arms folded and he rarely blinked and eye contact with his interrogator was also rare.

  We did know that his name was Ron Grubb—he hadn’t given it up (his vaguely military bearing did not extend to offering name/rank/serial number); but several bullpen detectives seeing the perp hauled in had recognized him from other busts, as the homicide lieutenant was referencing right now.

  “This isn’t just another B & E collar, Ron,” Rafe said, still prowling one side of the table in the little room. “This time you’re cutting yourself in on murder.”

  That finally got a reaction out of Ron, though not anything desired: he laughed, once. Still not looking at Rafe.

  Rafe stopped pacing and planted himself next to the suspect. “You find that funny, Ron?”

  Looking at himself in the mirror (and inadvertently at Dan and me), Ron said, “It’s funny, you waving murder at me. I’m the one that got assaulted.”

  Rafe’s eyes and nostrils flared. “Spare me that story again....”

  But Ron did not spare Rafe or us.

  As we’d heard three times, in rote response, Ron said, “Got a friend in the building. Got off on the wrong floor. Saw a door ajar and heard suspicious noises and checked it out.”

  “In a ski mask and gloves.”

  “It’s winter, in case you didn’t deduce that yet, Detective.”

  Now Ron’s face swung to look up at Rafe and a small trace of a sarcastic smile was there if you tried hard enough to see it.

  “And anyway, did I have a ski mask on when your boys found me? On the floor? Roughed up by that snotnose P.I.? Maybe you’re cutting yourself in, Lieutenant—on a lawsuit.”

  Rafe drew a breath, expelled it, then began to pace again.

  And Ron just sat there smugly at the table, arms folded, face stony.

  In our dark little observation booth, Dan said to me, “Rafe says my buddy Ron’s at the head of his class in B & E busts, over the last decade or so.”

  “Yeah, and only one conviction.”

  “Desert Storm vet.”

  I nodded. “No question the guy’s a pro. And watch him ride this storm out....”

  Over on the bright side of the glass, Rafe leaned in and plucked the bagged radio from the table and thrust it in his guest’s face.

  “You know what this is, Ron? This is the radio you brought with you.”

  Again, Ron was not returning Rafe’s gaze, nor was he acknowledging the object waved in front of his face.

  The perp said, “So owning a radio’s a crime now? Wow. Gotta write that one down.”

  “The other radio’s in the lab, who already confirmed finding a transmitter inside it.”

  “Inside what?”

  “The other radio!”

  “Other radio? What other radio?”

  “The one on the nightstand in Marcy Addwatter’s bedroom.” Rafe shook its bagged twin at Ron. “The one you were planning to swap out with this one!”

  Ron’s brow tightened. He actually looked at the bagged radio. And he thought for several long moments.

  Then he said, “Let’s say—hypothetically—I knew that the lady of the house whacked the man of the house, the other day.”

  “Let’s say.”

  Ron shrugged. “And, so, you know, it was common knowledge nobody was home. A guy with a rap sheet like mine might go in for a look around, right? Nothing to do with the hubby’s murder, other than it cleared the path for a little plunder. Hypothetically.”

  Rafe’s eyes were tight as he leaned in over the suspect. “You’re right, Ron, nobody was home...’cause the lady of the house killed two people, including the man of the house. Safe to go in and remove evidence in a murder case....”

  I said to Dan, “Rafe overplayed it.”

  Dan said, “Yeah. Think he did.”

  Back on their side of the glass, Ron’s hands went up. “Okay, that’s it. I humored you. Now I want my lawyer.”

  Rafe backed off, stood there with hands on hips regarding the stony break-in artist with contempt, then turned to the uniformed cop in the corner.

  “Lock his ass back up,” Rafe said, and went out.

  Dan and I were watching as the cocky Ron was escorted out by the uniformed cop when Rafe entered our booth.

  I turned toward the lieutenant, who made a face and said, “Yeah, I know. I sucked in there. Let the prick get to me.”

  “Guy was very carefully picked, Rafe,” I said. “B & E expert, ex-military. You couldn’t’ve got anything outa him with water-boarding.”

  “But it would have been fun to try.”

  “No argument.”

  Rafe thrust a finger toward the glass. “See how close he came to copping on the B & E part of it?”

  I frowned. “Yeah, what do you make of that?”

  The Homicide cop’s smile looked sick. “Active boy like Ron, ten, twelve years, only one conviction? Why?”

  “Good at what he does?”

  He shook his head. “Higher-priced legal counsel than a Grubb should rate. The kind of legal counsel a much wealthier client might afford. Say, a client named Muerta.”

  Dan offered, “Or a client like our nameless Event Planner, maybe.”

  Rafe was nodding. “Yeah, a good break-in man could come in real handy for a guy manipulating ‘events.�
� ”

  I admitted it made sense.

  Rafe folded his arms and stared into the empty interview room. “Nothing in Ron’s package, though, pertaining to electronics....We know he was gonna switch that radio out. Somebody was wirelessly sending ‘voices’ into that woman’s bedroom. Screwing with her head.”

  I shook my head. “But why was she so susceptible?”

  Rafe rolled his eyes. “Michael, she’s a fuckin’ schizo!”

  “Rafe, Marcy Addwatter is mentally ill, and—”

  He threw his hands up. “Right, yeah, perfect time to go suddenly P.C. on me, Michael.”

  I held up a palm. “That’s not it—my point is, Mrs. Addwatter had been functioning perfectly well, for years. Stabilized on her medication.”

  But Rafe was too frustrated, with himself mostly, for any of my words to get through to him.

  Just before he went out, he looked back to say, “I’m getting back to the lab—see if I can get lucky for a change, and find fingerprints or anything else we can track....”

  When Rafe was gone, I turned to Dan. “I want you to check out that condo complex.”

  That surprised him. “Haven’t we found what we were after? Proof our mysterious Event Planner prodded Marcy Addwatter into—”

  “We’re only getting started. Just because our client has a history of mental illness that doesn’t mean she’d immediately accept voices coming from her clock radio as God talking. And why didn’t her husband, in the same bed, hear those broadcasts?”

  Dan was frowning, studying me. “Where are you headed with this?”

  “You’re headed to the condo. Wireless transmitters have limited range. Somebody in that building must have rented or sublet space or at the very least used the basement. Poke around.”

  Obviously this didn’t sound like a good time to Dan, who asked, “Isn’t this more like Lt. Valer’s area?”

  “Yeah, but he needs a warrant.”

  And Dan beamed at me, and opened the door and we both stepped from darkness into light.

  In the city jail visitor’s area, Marcy Addwatter—still in prison orange—sat across from me and we talked to each other on our phones through the Plexiglas. Still sans make-up and pale as death, the fright wig of permed hair unchanged, she was no longer in shock, though apparently still medicated, her eyes less than bright, her speech slow.

  “Marcy, the last few months, was your husband away on business much?”

  “Frequently.”

  So they waited till she was sleeping alone to mess with her head.

  “Marcy,” I said, “you were hearing voices, but they weren’t inside your head.”

  “They weren’t?”

  “Not hardly. They were inside your clock radio.”

  She frowned. “I don’t understand....”

  “Somebody was sending you messages, electronically, wirelessly, designed to control you. Manipulate you.”

  For the first time, she gave me a smile, though of course it was a bitter one. “Wouldn’t I know if...if my radio was talking to me?”

  I leaned forward, tried to pass my sense of urgency onto her. “Dark bedroom, middle of the night? Who could say where the voices were coming from?”

  She wasn’t with me. “I don’t know....”

  “Anyway, I have another theory that, if I’m right, would explain why you might be predisposed to believe in such voices. I’ve got Mr. Levine checking on it right now, and...speak of the devil.”

  Bustling into the visitor’s area, Bernie Levine took the empty seat beside me. He was clearly excited, but whether in a good or bad way, I couldn’t tell.

  “Ms. Tree,” he said sotto voce, “put the phone down.”

  I made a “just a second” gesture to Marcy, and went to hang the phone up but Levine took it and spoke to his client: “Marcy, I need a few moments with Michael. Won’t take long.”

  Then, as Marcy hung up, frowning in confusion, Bernie also hung up and leaned in to me, close. I could feel Marcy’s eyes on us as we spoke.

  “You were right, Ms. Tree—the medication Marcy brought in with her, which she’s still been taking?... Placebos.”

  Yes! I thought, and asked, “And her sleeping medication?”

  Levine took a pill bottle from a pocket of his well-tailored tweed suitcoat and brandished it in my line of vision.

  “Not her right prescription,” he said, “by a long shot.”

  “What is it?”

  “This junk makes you sleep, all right...and prone to hallucinate, and hyper-suggestive.”

  This defined when bad news became good news—that somebody had put Marcy Addwatter through this was horrible; but that we’d caught them at it was wonderful.

  “We’ve caught a break,” I said. “I was afraid somebody might’ve had a chance to swap her medication out, like they tried with the radio.”

  Bernie gestured toward our mutual client, who clearly was wondering just what the hell was going on. “Marcy came straight from that motel crime scene to this lock-up—both her medication bottles in her purse.”

  “Better to be lucky than smart. Is she on any real meds at the moment?”

  “Sedatives provided in-house.”

  I patted his sleeve. “Good work, Bern...I need to talk to Marcy.”

  I got back on the phone and nodded to Marcy to do the same, which she did.

  “Marcy,” I said, “I need you to give me permission, through Mr. Levine here, to do something....”

  *

  “My God,” the doctor said, “I hope you immediately informed the jail physicians and got the poor woman back on her anti-psychotics.”

  “Bernie Levine was on top of that,” I said. “And we figured Marcy might do better with a sleeping pill prescription that didn’t include side effects of hallucinations.”

  Dr. Cassel said nothing but, out of the corner of an eye, I saw him shuddering.

  I went on: “But I also had to call on a...you should pardon the expression, Doc...head shrinker....”

  The clinic was in upscale Oak Brook and I had to wonder if Marcy had chosen it so that she could do some shopping on the days she had her appointments. If so, that showed how casual her once critical condition had become over years of functional stability.

  I promised the receptionist I needed only five minutes between patients to ask Dr. Sanders a handful of questions, calling it police business, flashing my Illinois private operator’s license with badge and, as usual, having it pass muster. If it hadn’t, I could have had a call put into Rafe, who would vouch that the Tree Agency was working with the police on the Addwatter matter.

  And this was the first thing I explained to Dr. Sanders, an attractive brunette in her fifties in dark gray-framed designer glasses and a tailored gray suit and darker gray silk blouse that went with her striking gray eyes, though there was no gray in her hair, which she wore up.

  As I settled into the client’s chair, I stayed in my blue trenchcoat, to send a message that I wouldn’t be here long. After explaining away my “police business” claim, I handed Dr. Sanders a single-spaced typed sheet on attorney Levine’s letterhead.

  “Doctor, I think this affidavit signed by both Marcy Addwatter and her attorney should cut through any patient/doctor confidentiality concerns.”

  Dr. Sanders did not respond; she was reading the affidavit—slowly.

  She was behind a big mahogany desk almost as neatly arranged as Rafe Valer’s, in a fairly large room that included this office area and another space where chairs faced each other for consultations, plus a small kitchenette with a table and chairs and a fridge and a counter with coffee-maker.

  Despite the latter, I had not been offered anything to drink. On the other hand, my chair was a padded leather one and comfy, and the general tone of the place—pale blue walls, sunny landscape paintings—was soothing.

  Dr. Sanders’s icy smile, however, wasn’t all that soothing—her lipstick was dark red and the effect was that of a cut in her face.

&n
bsp; “We can talk,” Dr. Sanders said, as she placed the affidavit on her desk ever so perfectly. Neatness issues.

  I kept my tone pleasantly businesslike. “As Marcy Addwatter’s psychologist, you met with her monthly, I understand.”

  Her eyes went to mine but somehow didn’t meet them. “Yes.”

  “How would you characterize her condition?”

  She could rock in her chair and she did, a little. “Under medication? Stable.”

  “Are there...degrees of stability?”

  Half a smile flicked, tiny annoyance registering. “Ms. Tree, Mrs. Addwatter is severely schizophrenic. It’s a small miracle she’s done as well as she has.”

  “But she has done well?”

  “Very well.” The smallest of sighs. “And that may be the problem.”

  “How so?”

  Her shrug was barely perceptible. “Patients who think they’re doing fine sometimes take it upon themselves to go off their meds.”

  I nodded. “If, for whatever reason, Marcy Addwatter were off her medication...and if she learned her husband had started cheating again...could that add up to, well...murder?”

  She stopped rocking. “Possibly.”

  “Did you prescribe her medication?”

  “Through referral, yes.”

  I gestured with an open hand, tried to keep my tone non-confrontational. “With patients who’ve been doing very well...particularly those who’ve been stable for years...don’t mental health practitioners sometimes take such patients off their medication? And substitute placebos?”

  She tried to brush that off with her cut of a smile, but her eyes were tight behind the sleek gray-rimmed glasses. “That’s called a ‘drug holiday,’ and Mrs. Addwatter, as events have shown, would hardly be a candidate.”

  “We know that in retrospect.” I leaned forward, and when I spoke I tried to keep the threat out of my voice though it could hardly escape my words. “Dr. Sanders, if you recommended a drug holiday for Marcy Addwatter, we need to know it.”

  The gray eyes opened wider, then settled back into a self-controlled chilly gaze. “If that were true—and it isn’t—that could be a serious case of malpractice.”

  I shook my head. “I can assure you, Dr. Sanders, that if you innocently sent your patient on a drug holiday, that information would be regarded by her legal representatives in the most friendly way. It would aid immeasurably in Mrs. Addwatter’s defense. Any considerations of malpractice would be off the table.”