Big Sick Heart: A Detectives Seagate and Miner Mystery

by Mike Markel

  “Arlen came to my room, as he does every night when we are traveling, at ten o’clock to wish me goodnight.”

  “I apologize for getting into personal territory here, Ms. Hagerty, but can you tell us why you and Mr. Hagerty stayed in separate rooms?”

  “Mr. Hagerty, as you know, was somewhat overweight, and one of the results of that is he suffers … he suffered from a condition known as sleep apnea. I won’t go into a long explanation. The simplest way to answer your question is to say he snored, making it impossible for me to sleep. We maintained separate bedrooms at home, as well.”

  “And last night,” I said, “when he stopped by at ten, did he seem any different than he usually does? Did he seem upset about anything, or troubled or afraid?”

  “No, he seemed perfectly normal. He had had a nightcap with Jonathan, as you know, and he seemed content. He thought the debate had gone well.”

  “Did he mention anything he had to do, anyone he was going to meet with? Anything out of the ordinary at all?”

  “No, no, and no to your three questions.” She unfolded her hands and placed them on the arms of the chair. She uncrossed her legs and re-crossed them in the other direction. She kept looking straight at me, as if I was the only other person in the room.

  There was a knock at the door. Margaret looked to Ryan, like he should seize this opportunity to participate.

  Ryan said, “I’ll get it.” It was Housekeeping with another chair. He carried the chair in and sat down. “Sorry,” he said, for no reason.

  “Ms. Hagerty, I apologize in advance for this next question, but I have to ask it. It’s a routine part of any investigation—”

  “I understand, Detective Seagate. No, I can provide no alibi. I was here in this room, alone. As I do every night, I read for about twenty minutes in bed. Then I turned off the light and went to sleep.”

  I glanced over at the bed table. There was a hardcover book, with a tooled leather bookmark sticking out of it. “And you heard no unusual noises and were not awakened?”

  “Correct, Detective.”

  Ryan had his notebook open and was taking notes.

  “I see.” I paused a second. “I’d like to ask you a few questions about Jonathan Ahern and Connie de Marco, if you don’t mind.” She nodded. “Let’s start with Mr. Ahern. How did you and Mr. Hagerty meet him? What kind of man is he?”

  “As you may or may not know, Arlen and I have been appearing for some eight years at various civic functions and college campuses. Although the specific topics of our talks have changed over the years in response to new developments and events, we have maintained a consistent focus on family values and respect for the rights of the unborn. At one appearance at a community college in Macon, Georgia, several years ago, Jonathan was in the audience.

  “During the question-and-answer portion of the program, he stood up and asked a number of well-formulated questions. His manner was polite and respectful, and the audience appeared to like him. At colleges, there are always a number of people in the audience who oppose our agenda. That night was no exception. His questions elicited considerable applause from the audience. I think it was at this moment I devised the idea of a debate format as a means of presenting our message. At the conclusion of the program, I sought him out, and we had an interesting chat. The topic was stem-cell research.”

  “How soon before you started incorporating Mr. Ahern into the program?”

  “Not long after. The next night we presented our program in Atlanta, and we brought him up onto the stage to deliver a kind of rebuttal. It went extremely well. That night he was—as he continues to be—articulate, well informed, and diplomatic. I noticed his potential right away.”

  “What sort of man is he?”

  “To be perfectly frank, Detective Seagate, I do not know him personally. I know he had some minor position in politics as some kind of assistant to a Democrat in the state legislature in Georgia, but I believe he was no longer in that position when we met him in Georgia. I spend very little time with him when we travel. Arlen liked him—I imagine you and Detective Miner saw their camaraderie when you went out with them that night. But I never socialize with Jonathan.”

  “The fact that Jonathan and Mr. Hagerty were on different sides of the issue—you don’t think that could have led to an argument that got out of hand?”

  “That is out of the question. Both Jonathan and Arlen are adults. They understand that such issues are matters of public policy that need to be resolved in the legislatures and courts. Arlen has always opposed the violence espoused by the radical fringe of the right-to-life movement, as he makes clear in the debate. And Jonathan comes from a legislative background, as well. Let me add one other point, if I may.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “As I am sure you have discovered or will soon discover, Jonathan Ahern travels with us on these debates. His formal association is with the organization he runs called Research Horizons, but he is on our payroll when he travels with us. We cover his expenses and have him on a per diem. I do not wish to appear petty, but I am not sure what means of support Jonathan would rely on were it not for our debates.”

  “Thank you. That’s useful information,” I said. “Let me turn to Connie de Marco. What can you tell us about Connie?”

  “Connie is our assistant. She travels with us and makes all arrangements. She handles the charters, the limousines, the food, the hotels, the correspondence with the colleges and the event planners. Without Connie, we literally could not make our presentations.”

  “How did you and Mr. Hagerty meet her?”

  “As I have explained, Soul Savers, over the years, has been a voice for family values and the rights of the unborn. One of the activities of which we are most proud, although it is not well known to the public, is assisting people in crisis. Every year, we minister to thousands of lost souls in need of guidance. Connie was one of those lost souls.

  “She came to our crisis center in Colorado Springs some three or four years ago. She had a very troubled background, including sexual abuse at home, an abortion, drug abuse, prostitution, homelessness. We took her in, got her off the streets, and helped her finish school. Arlen recognized her potential and arranged for her to begin working at Soul Savers headquarters. Eventually, she began to travel with us. She is a Godsend.”

  “I see.”

  “Soul Savers is a big organization, and like all big organizations, it comes with its share of bureaucratic complications and difficulties. But when I look at Connie, I am reminded of our core function and our purpose. We save souls, one at a time.”

  “That must give you great satisfaction,” Ryan said.

  “It certainly does, Detective Miner. It certainly does.” She rewarded him with a suggestion of a smile.

  I said, “And what sort of person is she, I mean, personally?”

  “Connie is very efficient. In terms of the presentation she makes, she has grown considerably in the years she has been with us. As you can imagine, when we first met her, she was quite rough around the edges. She didn’t know how to speak, how to dress, how to eat properly, anything. I have taken a special interest in working with her, however, and I think the results will be obvious to you when you meet her. I am quite proud of how far she has come.”

  “Well, yes, we will be talking with her soon,” I said. “We look forward to meeting with her. I have one more question, Ms. Hagerty.”

  “Proceed.”

  “Do you know of anyone who might have wanted to hurt Mr. Hagerty?”

  Margaret Hagerty remained motionless and silent for a moment. “I am as mystified as you are.”

  I stood, and Ryan followed my lead. “Ms. Hagerty, again, our condolences for your loss, and we appreciate you making the time to meet with us.” Margaret Hagerty nodded from her chair. “We might need to meet with you again as the investigation proceeds, but we will certainly try to respect your time during this difficult period. And, of course, we will keep you inform
ed at all times of the progress of the investigation.” I handed her my card. “Please do not hesitate to call me if you can think of anything that will help us in our investigation or you simply want to talk.”

  “Detective Seagate, Detective Miner,” she said, nodding to each of us.

  * * *

  “Margaret Hargerty’s something, huh?” Ryan said, once we were back in the hotel meeting room off the lobby.

  “Yeah, she’s something, all right. The question is, What?”

  “What’re you getting at?”

  “Okay, let’s start with what we saw.”

  Ryan said, “I saw a sixty-year old lady, very together, she’s got some money, knows how to give orders, expects people to follow them.”

  “That’s right. The room’s already made up, so either she did it herself or she got Housekeeping to do it. She calls Housekeeping to get you a chair, I guess so you don’t sit on her bed and get cop cooties all over it. She tells us she’s planning to leave town this afternoon.”

  “I was wondering about that. Could she possibly think we’d let her jump on a plane, toss her husband in cargo, and take off?”

  “No. She knows there’s gotta be an autopsy, and it has to be done here.”

  “So what’s the point of her telling us that?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe she’s telling us we’re putting her out. You know, putting us on notice.”

  “But we saw her phone someone—probably Connie—to tell her to cancel the plane, right?”

  I started walking the perimeter of the room. “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean anything. She could’ve told Connie to make those arrangements, to make it look realistic. Or, shit, maybe she wasn’t even calling anyone at all when she picked up the phone. The little red light goes on as soon as you pick up the phone.”

  Ryan said, “What do you make of the fact she seemed so together? Could she be that cool with her husband just murdered?”

  “Yeah, she really did seem poised. But I’ve seen that before. Right after it happens, the spouse can sorta be in shock, so they do what they know how to do. For her, it could be she cleans up the room and puts on her good clothes. She might fall apart later.”

  “Like she’s exerting control,” Ryan said.

  “Exactly. When shit happens, you retreat. You impose order wherever you can. That’s why you make sure everything looks in place.”

  “Yeah. Did you see the book on the night table? With a real bookmark, not a scrap of paper?”

  “Maybe that’s what’s going on,” I said, “or maybe it’s just a prop for her story about Arlen coming in to say goodnight at ten.” Ryan was sitting in a chair, his eyes following me as I circled the big table in the middle of the room. “Okay, let’s see what we’ve got right now for suspects.”

  “Start with Margaret.”

  “Sure,” I said. “What’s her motive?”

  “Easy. He’s having sex with someone: Connie, Jonathan Ahern, hookers. It doesn’t matter. But it’s not his wife. She finds out. She’s angry, humiliated.” He paused. “You know, there’s one thing I wanted to ask you about.”

  “What’s that?” I said.

  “Did you notice Arlen’s room and Margaret’s room aren’t next to each other? Connie’s between them.”

  “That could be just the way it worked out this time.”

  Ryan took out his notebook. “I think it’s worth a call to the clerk who checked them in yesterday—see if they said anything to him about it or just booked the four rooms.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Long shot, but worth following up.”

  “Could Margaret not know that her husband is having sex with someone else?”

  “It’s probably more like she doesn’t want to know,” I said, “so she ignores the signs that are obvious enough to everyone else. Or maybe she just doesn’t care.” I knew we didn’t have enough to go on yet. “Okay, what about her role in the Soul Savers business?”

  “Yeah, she’s jealous that Arlen is the front man and getting all the attention. And maybe all the bucks?”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Did you notice she said it was her idea to put Jonathan up on the stage?”

  “Yeah, and she said she sought him out that first night in Georgia. She sees that she’s the brains.”

  “We definitely have to get to the bottom of that,” I said. “Follow the money and the perks. Okay, another suspect.”

  “Jonathan Ahern,” Ryan said.

  “Motive?”

  “He disagrees with Hagerty on the issues?”

  “Okay,” I said. “But Margaret says they’re adults about it. And we saw them acting like buddies last night at the bar.”

  “Right, but maybe Ahern was faking it, really hated Hagerty.”

  “True. What do you make of Margaret going out of her way to tell us Soul Savers is supporting Ahern?”

  “Well,” he said, “it’s something she has to figure we’re going to find out eventually, so she gets points for tipping us off to it.”

  “Or it’s her way to tell us he’s a lowlife who’s sponging off people he doesn’t even agree with.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “But her argument is plausible: he doesn’t have any other means of support. Maybe Research Horizons is just a website and a P.O. box, and they don’t even have enough money to support him. So if he kills Hagerty, there goes his own job.”

  “Okay,” I said. “What about the sex angle?”

  “Let’s see. Ahern could be having an affair with Connie.”

  “Or with Hagerty.”

  “If he’s involved with Hagerty,” Ryan said, “they could’ve had some kind of fight. But there’s no evidence either of them is gay.”

  “Yeah, I know that,” I said, still walking the room. “But at this point, we’re just talking about the possibilities. When we find out whose sperm is on the towel, we’ll know a little more.”

  “Or Ahern and Hagerty could’ve both been involved with Connie and they got into a fight.”

  “That could make sense. Ahern’s an okay-looking guy, much closer to Connie’s age. Connie’s a junkie hooker shows up at Soul Savers, Hagerty takes her in, starts doing her, but after traveling around with Ahern, those two get together.”

  “Yeah, I like that better than the two guys are gay.”

  I laughed. “Well, I don’t know which image is worse: those two guys in bed, or Hagerty boning the young girl, with his socks on.”

  “One more suspect: Connie.”

  “That one’s easy. He’s doing her. One night she realizes how disgusting he is. He makes her do something kinky and she wigs out. Picks up whatever it was with a point on it and just goes crazy on him.”

  “That is, if she has the physical strength to do it,” Ryan said.

  “Yeah, that’s right. So, we definitely have to check that out when we interview her.” I had another idea. “Boot your laptop, okay? I wanna look at those two sites.”

  Ryan drummed his fingers on the conference table while the laptop came to life. The heating system rattled and hissed in the ceiling, pushing out the warm air with its stale metallic smell. “Okay, here’s Research Associates,” he said as I sat down next to him. “What do you want to see?”

  “I want to see whether the organization has any money.”

  “To see if Ahern really travels with the debate for his spending money?”

  “Yeah. Any reference to other people in the organization? Any photos of the staff or the headquarters?”

  There was a home page, with a little bio of Jonathan Ahern and a thumbnail photo of him. No other people, no list of contributors, no endorsements. The address was a P.O. box. “Looks like Ahern is the whole show,” Ryan said. “Let me look at the source code, see if there’s any credits to someone for making the site.” He hit a few buttons. “No. It’s an old FrontPage template. Ahern could’ve made it himself in half an hour.”

  “Okay, go to Soul Savers,” I said. Ryan pulled up the site. “Now we’re
talking.” While the site was loading, we saw a video montage of Arlen Hagerty speaking to a packed church, Arlen hugging a little black girl at a picnic, Arlen with a furrowed brow sitting at a table in a business meeting, studying important-looking documents. “Looks like the Arlen Hagerty Show, huh?”

  The video faded into a screen that linked to other videos and all kinds of information about the mission, position papers, photos of Arlen Hagerty with national political figures, and instructions on how to get involved with the mission and donate to its causes. Ryan clicked on About Us, which pulled up a group of photos of a stately three-story brick building on a broad expanse of land, the lush green lawns accented by ornamental fountains and massive rock sculptures. White clouds dotted the brilliant blue sky, the sun rays glittering off the golden cross atop the building.

  One of the photos was a group shot of the headquarters staff, with Arlen standing proudly in front of a group of a dozen mostly young, well-scrubbed staffers. They were named in a caption.

  Ryan said, “No Connie in the picture, or Margaret.”

  “That’s interesting, isn’t it? I can understand why Connie isn’t there, but you’d think he wouldn’t diss Margaret. What’s she called in the list of officers?”

  “Vice-President.”

  “Uncool. It’s an expensive site, though, isn’t it?”

  “Judging by its size and complexity, I’d say we’re talking about a full-time person to maintain this. It wasn’t made by a secretary.”

  “Yet no space for Margaret.” I got up out of the chair. “Let’s track down Connie.”

  * * *

  She was in the coffee shop off the lobby, sitting at a small table in the corner, half hidden by a pillar.

  “Are you Connie de Marco?”

  She looked up, then paused. “Yes.”

  I touched my shield. “Detective Karen Seagate, my partner Detective Ryan Miner. Mind if we sit down?”

  Connie’s face was impassive. She nodded, gesturing for us to sit.

  Ryan said, “First, we want to express our condolences. Arlen Hagerty was an important part of your life. His death must be quite a shock to you.”

  She sat there, her expression blank. “Thanks.”