He raised an eyebrow as if to ask what was going on. I shrugged and nodded toward the kitchen, then made a drinking motion with my hand. I then turned and sat back down in the wingback chair where I had started out. Marcel walked around and took the wingback facing me, leaving the couch for Jennifer.
She returned, carrying three bottles of water. Without asking, she handed one to Marcel and then handed one to me.
She looked into my eyes and smiled. I could've sworn she had refreshed her lipstick, maybe even her eyeshadow. In the living room's low light, she was very attractive, but she knew it. She took a seat on the couch, opened her bottle of water, and looked at me again. "Where were we, Michael?"
"We were discussing the toxicologist's testimony. I was pointing out to you the key parts and trying to explain why I needed a list of your medications from your pharmacy to ask the court to amend the record with a list of your medications—just so the news media finds out you’re clean. I'm sure you understand."
What a whopper. But she took it right in.
She fixed me with a very firm look. "I think I understand perfectly what you're saying. I'm still not convinced I should let you have my entire list of medications. As a physician, I consider that personal and believe you are crossing a boundary in my private life by even asking. Is there anything else we need to talk about?"
"That's very disappointing. I'm going to send you an email confirming that I asked for that list, and you denied it. I don't consider it a smart thing to do, and I would like to caution you that you're making a mistake. Nevertheless, you've made up your mind, and so there's not much else to say. I think we’re ready to leave, so you can get on with your night. At any rate, I'll do the best I can with what I have to work with. You can be sure of that."
Marcel and I followed Jennifer to the front door and went outside after telling her thank you and goodbye. We climbed into my car and breathed a sigh of relief.
"Holy Mother," said Marcel. "She came looking for me and caught me in her bathroom off her bedroom. I didn't even know what to say. Then she said, ‘What, you couldn't find the guest bathroom at the end of the hall?’ I had no idea what to say. So I told her I thought she said the second door, which I found was the door to her bedroom. At any rate, she gave me a look and turned around. I followed her out of the room, and she went right, and I went left. She didn't say anything to you about it?"
"No, she never brought it up. Anyway, what did you find out?"
"I found out that her medications were many, and she is getting them filled at CDN pharmacy downtown. I memorized what she was taking. First, there was Risperidone."
"An antipsychotic."
"Then there was also one called Lamictal."
"A mood stabilizer."
"There was also one called Seroquel."
"For sleep. She must have insomnia. Who wouldn't after they murdered their husband?"
"We've decided that, have we? I thought the jury found her not guilty," said Marcel.
"I'm just tired. At this point, I'm not sure what I believe. So, what else did you find in her cabinet?"
There was one that was a blue pill."
"What? You opened the bottles and looked inside?"
"I guess I did. Then there was also one called Duloxetine."
"Depression medication. Pretty common. Anything else?"
"Yes, there were several others, but I'm not hitting on them right now."
"You didn't see anything that said aconite or any of the other poisons we've discussed?"
"Nothing like that. There were over-the-counter meds like Tylenol PM, Benadryl, some cough syrup. Stuff like that."
"Well, the one called Risperidone. That one is the tipoff. That one is an antipsychotic if given in a high enough dosage. You remember how many milligrams?"
"No, I'm lucky I even remember the name Risperidone. Sorry, but it was very fast and I didn’t get the amount. She walked in on me just as I had closed the medicine cabinet and was pretending to wash my hands."
"Well, now, if we can just figure out a way to get CDN pharmacy to turn over her purchases over the last twelve months…"
Marcel sat up in his seat. He looked over at me and said, “Let's leave that one to me. This time I won't tell you my methods."
"Fair enough. I'm not asking, and you're not telling."
55
Michael
The next day, just after one in the afternoon, I was sitting at my desk and looking out my window. It was pouring rain outside, and the raindrops were running down my window in rivulets. I was thinking about Jennifer and her closeness last night. She had turned out to be a 100% different person than when we first met. I didn't know if it was her mental state, or if she was playing me because of her legal problems, or both. I only knew that I was uncomfortable, and I became more certain by the hour that I needed to withdraw from her appellate case.
So when she called me on the phone and asked me to come to meet her down at the lakefront, I agreed. Anything to get an admission about the aconite out of her. I slipped the voice-activated recorder in my shirt pocket. Now I was ready.
Five minutes later, I was headed for the lakefront and the beach. The skies had cleared, and the rain had stopped. Then the sun came out, and it was one of those steamy days you can only get in Chicago.
The taxi dropped me at Navy Pier. I began walking toward the beach until I saw a blond woman sitting down at the water's edge. I stepped onto the sand and kept walking. Fifteen feet away, I realized Jennifer was doubled over in pain and softly crying. Then I saw it—blood spilling out from her thigh.
"My God, Jennifer! What in the world has happened here!"
She looked up at me, her face contorted in pain, tears streaming from her eyes, and moaned, "Elise shot me in the leg. It hurts too much for me to let go. Please dial 911 and get me some help. God, Michael, I'm so glad you came. That woman has gone nuts and is in a rage at me because I appealed the case. She said she wasn't going to leave me alone. If she had to, she would shoot me in the head next time. Honestly, I thought she was going to kill me. Anyway, she threw the gun out in the lake and ran for the sidewalk. I fell on the sand and haven't moved since. I think my purse is over there, behind me, and it has my cell phone inside. I just couldn't reach it. I can't even crawl."
I didn't hear the last of it since I was too busy dialing 911. It didn't take long. Just a couple of minutes and I could hear the sirens coming. Then the paramedics were running across the sand with their gurney. They fashioned a tourniquet and loaded her onto the gurney, and took her back to their ambulance. Then they were gone.
I was totally stunned. Elise in America? I immediately did not believe it. I didn't think Elise had it in her to come to America and shoot Jennifer. But had Jennifer shot herself? I had great difficulty believing that, too. That would take a twisted mind, somebody much further gone than I had thought. So, I collected myself, trudged back across the sand, and hailed a taxi. I rode back to the office and hurried upstairs to get Marcel. I stopped at his office and asked him to come to mine. There, I told him what happened.
"I don't know, boss. It sounds to me like we got a very sick woman on our hands."
"What do you mean? The Risperidone convince you?”
"I mean, I don't believe a damned word of it. There's no way in the world Elise Ipswich traveled here from France to shoot this woman in the leg. Stop and think about it. It's ridiculous. There's nothing to be gained by it. It's the sort of thing only a very deranged mind would come up with and try to get you to believe. You know what I mean?"
"I know exactly what you mean. But you know what worries me? If she would go to this extent and shoot herself in the leg, what else might she do?"
"You thinking what I'm thinking?"
"I sure am. Elise is missing, and we've got a crazy woman on our hands. Someone needs to find out about Elise. I'm very fearful for her. I was before, but now I'm concerned to the point I'm ready to start looking myself. The only thing is, if Jennifer did something with her,
she would be all but impossible to find without Jennifer's help."
"We're going to have to keep going at Jennifer like we planned. Take her down one step at a time, and make it fast. I mean, what if she's got her kept alive somewhere? What if she's hurting her? Do we know anything about Çidde, the little girl?"
I got up from my chair and grabbed a bottled water from Marcel’s mini-fridge. "Marianne told me she was talking to Janice over at Wilder's office, and the little girl is all right. She's with Elise's mother, who the school called the day Elise didn't come to pick her up."
"Well, that's a relief. So, what's next with Jennifer?"
"First, I need that list of medications from CDN pharmacy. Any luck with that?"
"I just happen to have that list in my office. Don't ask me how."
"Really? How much did it cost us out of pocket?"
"And here I thought you didn't want to know anything about my methods. Don't ask, don't tell."
"Run get your list. Let's have a look."
Marcel left, and I took the opportunity to call Frank Wilder.
Once he got on the phone, I didn't waste any time. "Frank, Michael Gresham here. My client, Jennifer Ipswich, was just taken to the hospital with a gunshot wound to her thigh. It didn't look that serious, but it is serious legally because I think it might prove my client’s state of mind. Here's what I'm wondering. Jennifer told me that Elise shot her and threw the gun into Lake Michigan. Here's the sixty-four-thousand dollar question—is Elise actually in Chicago?"
"Michael, of course not. Elise is still missing. If I had my way, I would hang your client up by her thumbs and beat it out of her until she told me what she’s done with Elise."
"Actually, I might do some of the beating with you. I'm very worried, Frank, and I'm doing what I can with Jennifer. I've got some more ideas. I'll get back to you in short order."
"Thanks for calling, Michael. In the meantime, I'm off to Paris again since the police think they might have another lead. I'll call you if anything important comes up. You do the same with me."
"You got it. Talk later."
Marcel came back into my office with the printout. We sat down and started going through the pages. It turned out it was mostly the same items over and over again. Most significantly, none of the prescriptions were written by Jennifer Ipswich.
Thirty minutes later, we had finished going through the medications purchased from CDN pharmacy over the preceding year. Nothing had caught our eye.
I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling. "I think we need to have a look at her house without her there. Are you up to that?" There I was, asking Marcel to commit a crime. But, I decided, sometimes it was necessary to commit a small crime to solve a large crime. I had no doubt that Jennifer had done something with Elise at that moment, and I was going to find out what.
"Our minds are operating on the same level," said Marcel. "My only concern is getting inside of her house and having her suddenly return home or having the kids return home from school unexpectedly. Is there some way you can keep her busy?"
I knew only too well how to keep her busy. I knew the gunshot wound was going to turn out to be fairly inconsequential, and she would probably be released home tomorrow. If we were going to do it, we were going to have to do it now.
"Marcel, I would like to see you there within the hour. She's at the hospital. They’ll probably keep her overnight, and I'm guessing the kids are still at school. If you hurry, I think there’s going to be a window of time for you to get in there and do your thing."
Marcel jumped up. “I'm on my way. Funny thing, this time we both know my methods."
"Yes, this time we both know. So sue me."
56
Marcel
The lock on Jennifer Ipswich’s door was electronic, and Marcel was inside in six seconds, softly closing the door behind him. He knew the rooms and went straight for Jennifer's bedroom. It was built in an L shape. At the bottom of the L were her bed and the door leading to her bathroom. There was a desk, a file cabinet, and a couch on the vertical of the L. He began rummaging through the desk.
Any evidence that would put him on the trail of what might've happened to Elise and Joe was fair game. He noticed there was a camera, a Canon EOS. He picked it up and examined it. There was still a SanDisk inside and two SanDisks free in the drawer. He pocketed all three disks and resumed his search.
When he had completed his search of the desk, he then went to the filing cabinet and began opening drawers. Patient files back to front, all drawers.
"What in the world?" he muttered. He could not think why Jennifer would have patient files at home in her bedroom. He continued with his search.
He then went to her nightstand and bent to that. He found a .38 pistol in the nightstand on the right side of the bed and found miscellaneous reading materials on the nightstand on the left. He examined the .38 revolver with his latex gloves. It wasn't loaded, and he didn't see any bullets in any of the drawers. He carefully replaced the weapon and then searched the other two bedrooms, one a girl's room and one a boy’s room. Nothing there.
He went into the kitchen and searched through those drawers.
He walked through the other door out of the living room and found her office on the other end of the house. There was a supply cabinet, locked with a padlock, which he picked and pulled open. The cabinet was filled with medications, so he pulled out his recorder and read them aloud. When he had completed his list, he closed the cabinet, relocked it, and continued searching the office. He located typical medical equipage, a couple of stethoscopes, ear, nose, and throat examination lights, and the like. And there was an odd one, a tattoo machine, and needles. Of course, he thought, used for marking IDs on children. He had heard that was a “thing” now with so many children being kidnapped.
Again, he ransacked her desk. He didn't know what he was looking for, but that didn't stop him. All the while he searched, he wondered how he was ever going to get her SanDisks back into her camera and drawer. He said a silent prayer they would reveal something, but he wasn't that hopeful.
Twenty minutes later, he had concluded his search of the house and let himself out the front door, locking it behind him. He stripped off his gloves and headed out the door.
Two of the disks contained vacation pictures, presumably Disney World in Florida. Some of the frames included pictures of Joe wearing a Mickey Mouse hat and eating cotton candy. The third disk was blank and contained no images or files when he reviewed it on his computer.
Marcel decided to take all three disks to a forensic computer scientist he used in Arlington Heights. He drove out there on the freeway after making an appointment. The man lived in a house trailer with a flower bed out front and a relatively unstable set of three stairs leading up to the door. Marcel climbed them and knocked. The man came to the door, wearing a bathrobe and cowboy boots. "Marcel, come right in. Let's have a look at these disks of yours."
The living room area was crammed with electronic equipment, green LEDs, and the whir of fans, and the buzz of fluorescent lights. "Grab that chair," the man told Marcel.
"Emmanuel, I'm particularly interested in the blank disk. It was loose, not inside a wrapper, which tells me there’s a pretty good chance it one time contained something."
Emmanuel said, "The process of retrieving digital evidence may seem complex to most people, but I have special software to examine the disk and retrieve any deleted files. Why don't you go get coffee and come back in one hour?"
An hour later, Marcel returned. This time a voice yelled from the inside, “Come right on in. I've got something here that's gonna knock your socks off."
Marcel let himself in and went to Emmanuel's computer screen. There, on the screen, was the picture of a human foot. He leaned closer.
“Woman’s foot,” said Emmanuel. “No hair.”
“Holy Mother,” Marcel whispered. He let out a long, slow whistle. "Looks like it was severed in one swipe with a meat cleaver. Clean
margins all the way around. Are there any more pictures?"
"I'm going to page through them. I think there are six in all."
The screen began changing with different shots of the foot. When number six came up, it was a picture taken of the inside of the foot and ankle. There, on the ankle, was a Chinese character. "What in the world does that mean?" Marcel wondered out loud.
"Got you covered, buddy. I shot this picture down to my friend Andy Ling at One-Day Cleaners. The character means 'mother.'"
"Mother? Did you say it means mother?"
"According to Andy, that's what it means. And he's from Taiwan and should know."
"I've got an idea. I gotta get back to the office, Emmanuel. Send me your bill."
“Does five-hundred sound okay?"
“Five-hundred sounds perfect. Just don't say what the work was for."
"Got you."
Marcel left and jumped in his truck. He headed back downtown on the I-90 freeway. He impatiently rode the elevator up, and when the door opened, all but ran for his office. "Michael," he called out as he went past his office, "come on in. You gotta see this."
57
Michael
Marcel ran past my office in a huge rush. I turned the page on what I was doing and went to see what he had. He spun his laptop screen around for me to see. There, in red, white, and black, was the image of a human foot. It was a very gnarly image. The foot looked dirty, and most of the toenails were broken.
"All right," said Marcel. "Look at this tattoo on the inside of her foot."
"Wait, why do you say her?"
"Because, like Emmanuel says, there's no hair any place. Guys have hair on their toes and ankles. She does not. Besides, look at the size of it. Now, this right here, this tattoo, a Chinese man told us this is the Chinese character for mother. That's how else I know it's a woman's foot. She's a mother. Do you see where I'm going with this? This came out of Jennifer Ipswich's desk. Somebody did some postmortem surgery."
Girl, Under Oath (Michael Gresham Series) Page 18
