by Mike Markel
Gerson looked at Ryan, then at me. “I don’t believe Mark has had a romantic relationship with anyone.”
Ryan said, “The way I read it, when Mark said Maricel was his, was that she was not yours. Does that make any sense to you?”
“As I said, I cannot believe Mark had an adult relationship with Maricel. Whether he believed he did—that I cannot say. From my understanding of his disease, I think it’s possible that he thought he did, or he thought that Maricel was, in some way, his girlfriend.”
“But about the ‘not yours’ part,” Ryan said. “Would there be any reason that Mark might think you were having a sexual relationship with Maricel?”
Gerson looked at Ryan. Then, his head bent down, he leaned forward and rested his arms on his legs. Ryan walked around and stood right in front of him. “Detective, what I said in the service this morning was the truth. Maricel was my daughter. I made it very clear that I did not act as a father should. I did not provide the love and encouragement and support that I should have. But I never acted inappropriately with her. I never thought of her in that way, and I never took any action that anyone could interpret in that way.” Then he looked up again, directly at Ryan. “Never.”
“But what Mark might have thought?”
He shook his head. “I do not know, from one moment to the next, what Mark might be thinking, about anything. About his mother, about me, about Maricel. About anything.”
“Dr. Gerson,” I said, “would you please get in touch with me immediately if you learn where Mark is. I promise you, we will not hurt him. But we do need to talk to him.”
We left him there, on the bench, and started to walk back on the Greenpath toward the university, where I’d parked the cruiser.
“You still think Gerson might be lying?” I said.
We had disturbed a blue heron, down by the river, which flapped its massive wings, skimming the water and climbing into the chill air.
“Yes,” Ryan said, “I still think he might be lying.”
We kept walking. In the distance was the little grove where Maricel’s body was discovered a full week ago. The crime scene tape was now gone, the site just like it had been.
“He describes his wife reacting like he kicked her in the stomach,” Ryan said. “Okay, that might be just from hearing about his infidelity twenty years ago. But remember when she told us that her husband has always been attractive to women? She could have had suspicions about what was going on with Al and Maricel under her roof. She could have known he was having an affair with her.”
“With his daughter?”
“We still don’t know she’s his daughter,” Ryan said, like a lawyer raising an objection.
I said, “And Mark saying ‘she was mine’?”
“On the one hand, it could be a perfectly innocent interpretation. Mark thought he had some kind of adult relationship with her, then he finds out she’s his half-sister. Instead of having an adult relationship with her—something separate from his parents—he learns that it was just like it’s always been: like him and his sister, Judy. Or him and his twin, Mitch. He’s still the kid in the family. He’s in the back seat of the car with Maricel, with Mom and Dad sitting up front.”
“On the other hand?”
“On the other hand, Mark thinks—or knows from talking to Maricel—that she was not his half-sister. And he thinks—or knows from talking to her—that his father was having an affair with her. What better get-out-of-jail card could Al have than that his son is a schizophrenic. They have hallucinations. That’s what they do. Anything his son accuses him of is automatically suspect—if I were on the jury, I’d have to vote for reasonable doubt.”
I said, “So what do you think we should do next?”
“I think we should try to find Mark. And see if Maricel had a bank account.”
We made our way back to the cruiser and drove back to headquarters.
“I’ve got an idea,” Ryan said as we walked over to our desks. “Let me get in touch with Verizon, see if Mark’s got GPS tracking on his phone.”
“His phone has that?”
“Maybe it does. And he has to have it enabled or it doesn’t work. He’s smart enough to understand the technology—and know how to turn it off.”
“You do that. I’ll work on Maricel’s financials.”
I routed the request through the chief’s office, which officially requisitioned Maricel’s banking information from the state banking association. I wasn’t worried that the chief would try to block it: since she was a deceased adult whose murder we were investigating, his authorization was automatic.
But I knew that financial forensics were getting a lot more complicated. In the old days, the banker’s group would give us whatever they had about accounts authorized to do business in Montana, and that would cover anyone except the really rich shitheads who did their banking in the Caymans or Switzerland. But today anybody can have accounts in Internet banks anywhere in the world. For all we know, Maricel could have an account in a click bank in Monaco that was sucking a thousand bucks a month from the account of another customer, Al Gerson. The Internet is a terrific thing for cops—and crooks.
I met up with Ryan again an hour later. “What’d you get?” I said.
“Mark has a smartphone with GPS, which he turned off.”
“Maricel had eighty-two dollars in a checking account at a bank in town. No big deposits.”
“Where do you want to start looking for Mark?” Ryan said.
“He doesn’t have his own car, so we can’t put a plate number out,” I said.
“The game store?”
Ryan opened his notebook and picked up his phone.
“No, no,” I said. “I don’t want to tip off the guy who runs the place. No telling if he’d say something might scare Mark off.”
“Good point,” Ryan said.
“Let’s take a drive.” We stood up and walked over to the coat rack.
Five minutes later, we were at Game World. “What’s this guy’s name?” I said as I parked on the street and put the visor down to show the police ID.
Ryan looked at his notebook. “Richard Williams.”
We walked past a couple of Goth assholes shivering on the sidewalk and opened the heavy glass doors. There were five boy nerds inside looking at the crap on the shelves and in the metal bins all around the main room.
Richard Williams recognized us and came over. He nodded. “Detectives,” he said.
Ryan peeled off to go look in the back room where we interviewed Mark the other time we’d come in. Richard turned his head to see where Ryan was going but didn’t try to stop him.
“Richard, we wanna talk to Mark Gerson. You seen him today or yesterday?”
“He was in late yesterday. Stayed about an hour. Haven’t seen him today.”
“What was he like yesterday?”
“The truth?”
“Sure,” I said. “Let’s go with the truth.”
“Really fucked-up.”
“Really fucked-up how?”
“You know, herky-jerky, his eyes real big, loud, saying all kinds of shit I couldn’t understand.”
“Did he go into the back room to work on the machines?”
“Yeah.” Richard’s eyes were focused on a couple of guys in oversized black coats with floppy sleeves who were examining some used software in a bin on the other side of the room. I wondered whether he sold as much as the kids lifted.
“Did he talk to you, tell you what was going on? Tell you where he was going?” Satisfied that the two guys weren’t stealing the disks, Richard looked back at me.
“If he did, I couldn’t understand it.”
“Does he hang with any guys in particular you know about?”
“No, the vibe he puts out, he’s kinda scary—even to this group.” Richard’s eyes swept the room.
“Any idea where he is now?”
“From the way he was yesterday, I’d say some other planet.”
Ryan came over to us, holding a cell phone. “Do you know if this is Mark’s?” he said to Richard.
“Could be,” he said. “It’s not mine.”
“All right.” I handed Richard my card. “You know where Mark is, you give me a call, okay?”
He nodded, and we left.
In the car, Ryan turned on the phone and pushed some buttons.
“Anything?”
“Just a second,” he said, pulling a notebook out of his briefcase. “Last call he made was to Maricel.”
I was surprised. “He hasn’t used his phone in over a week?”
“He called her last night.”
“Last night? Great,” I said. “He phones dead people. If she’s Mormon, where is she now?”
“She’s in the spirit realm.”
“That’s a dead zone, right, even for Verizon?”
“I’m pretty sure of that,” Ryan said, “but he might have left her a message.”
“Can we get that from Verizon?”
“Should be able to. I’ve worked with them before. Let me try back at headquarters.”
Chapter 33
“Play it again, please.” Ryan had the phone cradled between his ear and his shoulder as he typed. “‘I am so sorry about what has happened. But I know now that you and I are sealed together, and I will be with you soon.’ Great. Thanks a lot.” He hung up the phone.
“What’s ‘sealed together’ mean?”
“‘Sealed together’ is LDS for the permanent bond between a married couple—or any family member, really. And ‘I will see you soon—’”
“I know what that means,” I said. “Shit.” I picked up the phone and dialed Al Gerson at the university.
“This is Detective Seagate, Rawlings Police Department. I need to speak to Dr. Gerson.”
“This is Mary, his assistant, Detective. He’s in a meeting now. Can I ask him to—”
“I want you to call him, right now.”
“Detective, the provost is meeting with the dean—”
“Mary, listen to me. If you can’t reach him by phone, have someone go to wherever the hell he is and give him a message. Tell him it’s about Mark. Tell him it’s urgent. Have him phone me immediately.” I gave the secretary my cell number and hung up.
Thirty seconds later, my cell rang. I looked at the screen. It was Gerson. I put it on Speaker.
“Dr. Gerson, thanks for getting back to me. I wanna let you know where we are with Mark—”
“Is he hurt?” His voice was fast, high. He was panicked.
“No, Dr. Gerson, slow down. We haven’t found Mark yet, but we think he’s having another psychotic episode.”
“Oh, my Lord. What happened?”
“Listen, Dr. Gerson, we don’t know what’s going on. But he called Maricel—”
There was a pause. “He did what?”
“He phoned Maricel yesterday. Called her cell phone. He left her a message that the two of them are sealed together, and that’s he’s gonna join her soon.”
“Can you figure out where he is from the phone?”
“No, we tried that. The best thing you can do right now is help us find him as soon as possible.”
“Of course, of course. What can I do?”
“I’m gonna ask you once more: Can you tell me anything about where he might be? If you know where he is, you have to tell me right now.”
“No, Detective.” The terror was coming through loud and clear in his voice. “I have no idea where he is.”
“Is one of your cars missing? If we had a plate number and a vehicle description—”
“No, both of our cars are accounted for. He’s not in one of our cars.”
“All right, Dr. Gerson. I know I’m scaring you—and I don’t mean to do that—but I need you to understand how important this is—”
“Yes, Detective, I understand. I’m going to call Andrea immediately, and if there’s anything either of us can do, I beg you—”
“That’s good, sir. You call Andrea. And call me at this number immediately if you get any information about where Mark is. If you can think of any friends, any places he might be, you call me, all right?” I ended the call.
Ryan was looking up at the ceiling. “Where’d you go, Mark?”
“He’s not at home, not at the game store. Out at the dump site at the river?”
“Want to head over there?”
“Let’s send a team of uniforms, in case we need to look somewhere else.” I paused. “Anyone he’d get in touch with?”
“It’s not Hector, that’s for sure.”
“No, it’s not Hector,” I said. “Assuming he hasn’t gone home to Mommy, the only other players are Amber and Jared.”
“I don’t see Mark going to Jared,” Ryan said. “Mark would know that a guy like Jared wouldn’t have any patience with a freak like him. Besides, if Maricel told Mark about that three-way with Jared and Hector, Mark wouldn’t go near Jared.”
“That leaves Amber.”
Ryan nodded.
“We might as well try her,” I said. “Maybe she was the bridesmaid when Mark and Maricel got sealed together.”
We got up, grabbed our coats, and drove out to Amber’s apartment.
I knocked on her door, announced who we were. One set of footsteps approached the door. She let us in. She was dressed for classes: jeans and an oversized CMSU hoodie, hair pinned back by plastic clips. She had on tan suede boots, calf-high, crepe soles, like she had just come in or was about to go out.
“Amber, we’re looking for Mark Gerson. You know where he is?”
“Mark Gerson? No,” she said, a puzzled look on her face. “Why would you think he’d be in touch with me?”
“No reason, really,” I said. “It’s just we need to find him. We think he’s kinda freaked out and he needs medical attention.”
“I haven’t seen him.”
I turned and headed toward the door. “By the way, I saw you made it to the memorial service. No Jared, huh? You break up with him?”
She nodded her head and put on a you-were-right expression. “Yeah, like you said, he’s not who I want to be with.”
“Good thinking,” I said. “If you learn where Mark is, you give me a call, okay? It’s real important.”
“Yeah, no problem.”
I was reaching for the doorknob when Ryan touched my arm. I turned and looked at him.
“Amber,” he said, “you say you broke up with Jared?”
“That’s right.”
“How did that go?”
Amber hesitated, like she didn’t think she had to talk about it. “Not good,” she said. “He called me some names.”
“Really,” Ryan said, nodding.
“Yeah,” Amber said. “You know, ‘bitch,’ things like that. ‘Cunt.’” Her hand came up to her face.
“So he’s gone, right?” Ryan said.
“Couple of days now.”
I didn’t know quite what Ryan was up to. Then I saw him looking at the kitchen area. It was a pair of men’s Nikes under the little table. He walked over to the shoes, picked them up, and turned back the tongue to read the size. “Size 11,” he said. “Karen, what’s the size on the prints we’ve got from the river?”
We didn’t have any prints from the river. “Size 11,” I said.
Amber gasped. “Oh, shit.”
Ryan looked at her hard. “We’re taking these in.”
“You can’t just do that,” she said, walking toward Ryan to grab Jared’s sneakers, but Ryan put his hand out to stop her. “They’re not your property.”
“Sit down, Amber,” he said.
“No,” she said, “I won’t.”
“All right, stand,” he said. “Let me explain the law to you. You let us into your apartment. We didn’t have a search warrant, but you let us in voluntarily, right?”
“I didn’t say you can take my stuff.”
“These sneakers were in plain view under the kitchen table, right?”
/> She nodded.
“Police officers have a right to examine what might be relevant evidence in a capital murder case. That is what I did. I examined the sneakers to determine that they are size 11. Are we in agreement so far?”
Amber looked to me like she thought I might step in and stop Ryan. I stood there, my arms folded against my chest.
“But you are right, Amber,” Ryan said. “I don’t have a right to take the sneakers in without your permission.”
“Good. Then leave them here.”
“Okay,” Ryan said. “Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to call my chief, get a search warrant, bring a forensics team over here, send another one over to Jared’s place. We’ll need probably three or four hours, tops, at the two places. And we’ll need to bring both of you in for questioning.”
She looked shocked. “Oh, my God, no, not again …”
Ryan gave her a look that said she was forcing him into it. “We’ll hold a press conference tomorrow …”
“What do you mean, a press conference?”
“You know, microphones, lights, cameras. We’ll give your name, Jared’s.” Ryan turned to me. “You think the chief would let us talk about the three-way with Maricel and Hector?”
I shrugged. “I don’t see why not.” None of this would happen, of course. But cops are allowed to lie to witnesses. Good thing, or else I’d want to choose another line of work.
Amber burst into tears. “Okay, what do you want?”
Ryan said, “Let us take the sneakers in. The print matches the print we have from the murder scene, we talk to Jared. The print doesn’t match, I’ll personally return his sneakers to you—or to him, since you two are not together anymore.”
“Take the fucking sneakers,” she said through her tears, turning her back to Ryan.
Back in the cruiser, Ryan said, “Thanks for playing along with Amber.”
“No problem,” I said. “You wanted to scare the shit out of her?”
“No,” he said. “All I wanted to do was encourage her to break it off with Jared. I saw my parents do it once to one of my younger sisters. I didn’t expect Amber to go all legal on me.”
“I got a pretty strong feeling she’s on the phone to Jared right now.”
Ryan nodded. “I’m good with that. If he thinks he might have left any footprints at the river, he’ll be hitting the road. Otherwise, he’s got nothing to worry about. Either way, I think Amber might be losing some of that lovin’ feeling for him.”
