by Mike Markel
“Make a note for us to pay him a visit tomorrow. We get in his place, we’ll be able to tell if he’s gone.”
“Got it,” Ryan said.
Chapter 34
The purple night sky was lit up by three squad cars and an ambulance, all throwing their red, white, and blue lights into the quiet suburban neighborhood. Ryan was already there when I pulled up. He was talking with one of two EMTs who were lifting the gurney into the back of the ambulance.
“I don’t know,” the EMT said. “BPs way low. I’d say fifty-fifty at best.”
Beneath the oxygen mask, Mark Gerson’s face was pale and lifeless. There was plenty of blood on his neck and all over the wet white shirt and white tie.
“What do we know?” I said to Ryan.
“Mark Gerson broke into the meetinghouse through a side window, slit his wrists with glass, staggered out into the hall, made his way to the baptismal font, shouted a bunch of stuff, and lost consciousness. The EMT says he’s fifty-fifty.”
“Yeah, I got that last part. How did we get notified?”
“The meetinghouse has an alarm system that tripped when he broke the window and got inside.”
“And how do we know about the shouting?”
Ryan looked down at his notebook. “Natalie Thompson, a Church member, was doing janitorial work. She called 911 and reported that he was in the baptismal font.”
“She still here?”
“Follow me.” Ryan led me inside the front entrance. The building was two stories, simple brick exterior, with a dark blue steel roof angled at a good pitch to handle the merciless Montana snows. Next to the front entrance, simple silver letters attached to the brick said Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The next line read Rawlings, Montana.
“So this is a temple, right?”
“No, this is a meetinghouse. Most of the Church activities are held in places like this. A temple is for the most-important covenants.”
“You got a temple here in town?”
“Billings.”
Inside the entrance were three hallways. Ryan led us down the center hallway that opened into a large circular room with upholstered chairs and some religious art on the walls. “This is the main lobby. Come with me.” He pointed down a short hall.
We walked twenty yards to a room with a lot of folding chairs in front of an opened accordion-style room divider and a glass wall. On the other side of the wall was what looked like a small hot tub.
“That’s the baptismal font.”
Ryan led me around to an alcove that opened up to the men’s and women’s restrooms. We walked through the men’s room, which had a couple of showers, and out to the baptismal font. It was sunk about four feet into the floor, covered with plain beige tiles six inches square that you would see in any kind of locker room or pool area. A handrail circled the area, except for where the four steps led to the bottom of the tub.
The water, which half-filled the tub, was pink, with blood stains on the tile a couple inches above the waterline.
A uniform, Truman, stood next to a woman sitting on a folding chair. She was my age, wearing a yellow sweatshirt and blue jeans, running shoes. Blood stains covered her sweatshirt and her hands. She was shaking a little, holding on tight to a wide push broom with one hand and to the chair arm with the other.
“We want to talk to you in a couple minutes,” I said to Truman softly after he walked over to us. He nodded.
“Ms. Thompson, I’m Detective Seagate. This is my partner, Detective Miner.”
She stood and nodded. “Pleased to meet you,” she said in a shaky voice.
“Can you tell us what happened, Ms. Thompson?”
“I was cleaning a couple of the classrooms on the other side of the meetinghouse. I’d already unlocked the entrance to the baptismal font and turned the water on—I was going to clean it. Then I heard the alarm go off. I’d never heard it before. It really scared me.”
“What did you do?”
“For a minute, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if it was a false alarm, you know, or someone was vandalizing the building or breaking in. There isn’t a lot you’d want to steal here—just some computers—but still, I was scared.” She took a deep breath. “I stood there for a moment, listening to see if I could hear anything. I had my cell with me, so I called 911.”
“What time was this?”
“I looked at the time on my phone: it was 9:12. Anyway, when I heard some crashing around, I thought maybe someone was in trouble. So I followed the sounds to this area. As I got closer, I could hear this young man screaming and moaning. Then I saw him, just over there,” she said, pointing, “right there in the font. It was horrible.”
“Describe what you saw and heard,” I said. Ryan was taking notes.
“The font was still filling up with water. The young man was dressed in baptism clothes, white pants, white shirt, long sleeves. A white tie. But they were all covered with blood. Blood all over his arms. I ran toward him and I could see that he had cut his wrists, both of them. Oh, dear Lord, I’m sorry,” she said as she started to shake more and began breathing shallow.
Ryan came over to her and held her. It looked like they knew each other. After a minute she started to calm down a little.
“Can you remember anything he said?”
“It was crazy. He wasn’t making sense, like he was having some kind of nervous breakdown. Something about how he killed her. He didn’t say who she was. But he kept saying ‘I killed you.’ And how he didn’t mean to do it. He apologized over and over again. Then there was something about how now they were really married.” Natalie Thompson shivered. “I’m sorry, just repeating what he was screaming is giving me the shivers here.”
“It’s okay,” Ryan said. “You’re doing great.”
“Yeah, Ms. Thompson,” I said, “you’re helping us a lot here. So what did you do then?”
“When I realized that he was in trouble—that he was badly injured—I called 911 again and told them to send an ambulance.”
“Did you go to try to help him, you know, when he was in the water there?”
“I was shaking so bad I didn’t think I could help him much, but I tried. I turned off the water. I went over to the entrance to the font.” Her eyes were wet. “I told him I’m here to help him, you know, to try to calm him down. That’s when he seemed to notice me for the first time.”
“What did he do?” I said.
“It seemed to agitate him more. He started screaming even louder. Telling me to stand back, not to come any closer. He had a big triangle of glass in his right hand, and he started waving it at me, like he was going to come after me with it, or maybe cut himself more. I told him I wasn’t going to hurt him. That I’d called for an ambulance, that it would be here in a few minutes. But he didn’t seem like he understood what I was saying, so I pulled back some more. He kept saying the same things over and over again. You know, how he killed her, how he didn’t mean to do it. Then, about how they were married now.”
“Then the ambulance came?”
“No,” she said, talking a deep breath, “before the ambulance got here, he started to get blurry, like he was going to pass out. The water in the font was getting darker. His speech started to slow down, get fainter. Then his eyes closed and he passed out.”
“What did you do?”
“He went under the water. I went to the side of the font and pulled him up by the shoulders. I managed to get him up onto the steps so he wouldn’t drown. There wasn’t anyone else here, so I couldn’t leave him to get some kind of tourniquets for his arms, so I sat there with him, holding his arms up, trying to stop the bleeding with my hands. I didn’t know what else to do. I sat there with him and prayed.”
“And then the ambulance came?”
“I think it was just another couple of minutes, not much longer. There were two EMTs. They lifted him up and put him on the gurney.”
“Before he went unconscious, can you remember any
thing else he said?”
“I heard this name over and over. It was Marcel or something like that.”
“All right, thank you, Ms. Thompson,” I said. “I realize this was a very upsetting episode, but I need you to know you saved this boy’s life. You really did—by calling it in the first time, then the second time for the ambulance. And keeping him from drowning. You saved his life.”
Natalie Thompson started to cry and almost collapsed in Ryan’s arms.
By this time another two uniforms had come in. I turned to one of them, a woman named Buss. “Can you make sure Ms. Thompson gets home?”
Officer Buss nodded and said, “Will do.”
Ryan and I walked over to Officer Truman. “You were first on scene?”
He nodded.
“Walk us through it,” I said to him.
He led us out the front entrance, into the frigid night, then around to the west side. “Here it is.” Truman pointed to the double casement window, one side shattered.
I stuck my head up close to the opening, careful not to step in the glass shards lying on the brown grass. It looked like some kind of classroom for little kids, with all kinds of crayon drawings pinned to bulletin boards and little desks neatly arranged off to one side. There were some bloody glass shards on the floor just inside the window, then a set of bloody footprints snaking across the tile floor.
Truman said, “When he broke this window, it set off the alarm.”
“Let’s go in,” Ryan said.
Truman led us back to the main entrance. We headed down one of the hallways toward the classroom. The footprints, now getting fainter, led us down another hall, back toward the lobby, then down the hall toward the restrooms and the baptismal font.
I said to Ryan, “Is this the meetinghouse the Gersons use?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I looked it up.”
“So presumably Mark Gerson knew his way around the building?”
“We can’t be sure,” Ryan said. “He’s probably been coming here since he was an infant, but it’s not clear how often in recent years. He’s not here every Sunday, that’s for sure. And given his mental state tonight, I wouldn’t make too much of exactly where he went.”
“But we’re pretty sure he was headed for the font, right?”
“No doubt about that,” Ryan said. “Has anyone called the Gersons yet?”
“No.” I took out my phone and dialed their home. “Dr. Gerson, Detective Seagate.”
“Did you find Mark?”
“Yes, sir, we did. He’s being transported to the hospital right now.”
“Oh, dear Lord, what happened?”
“We’re not exactly sure, sir, but he was found in the baptismal font at your meetinghouse. He’s sustained some injuries, we’re not sure how extensive.”
“Is he in danger of dying?”
“We don’t know the specifics, sir. He’s being transported in an ambulance right now. My partner and I are gonna go to the hospital now.”
“Thank you, Detective. Thank you.”
Chapter 35
Ryan said, “Ms. Gerson’s not here?”
Al Gerson shook his head. “When I told her Mark had been injured, she fell apart. No way she could handle coming to the ER.”
Ryan and I were silent. When someone is as busted up as Gerson and his wife were, I never know how to talk to them. The cop part of me wanted Gerson to keep talking, since I might learn something, even though I knew it was taking advantage of him. I didn’t think Gerson was the one, but Ryan was still pissed at him for being a crappy Mormon, so I wasn’t the only one wanted him to keep talking.
Gerson started up again on his own. “I called her doctor. He came over, gave her a shot.”
“Is she gonna be okay?” I said.
He looked at me. “That’s one of those questions, Detective.” He paused. “Short answer: She’ll make it through this situation. One of our friends is over at our house. She’s a nurse. Andrea’s sleeping. Sort of sleeping, anyway. Long answer: No. I don’t think Andrea is ever going to be okay again.”
Ryan said, “I realize you’re going through a terrible time here, Bishop Gerson. But please don’t give up on Heavenly Father. He’d never give up on you—or on Mark.”
Al Gerson walked over to Ryan and put his arms around him. Gerson was weeping. Ryan held him tight, his eyes closed.
I could tell Ryan believed what he was saying. He wasn’t working Gerson. Normally, I’m embarrassed by this kind of thing and I’d roll my eyes at it, but now I felt pulled in. It was envy. That’s what it was. I wanted what these two guys had. I like to think it isn’t all my fault that I don’t have it. Sure, I couldn’t pay the price. But I think it’s more you either have the aptitude for faith or you don’t. I didn’t. If I did, maybe I could walk the walk.
After a long moment, the two guys separated, Gerson wiping at his eyes. “I’m sorry, Detective Seagate. I hope you didn’t take my answer the wrong way. Sometimes I fall back on my defensive ways as a teacher. You know, analyze the question. I’m just very frightened.”
“I understand, Dr. Gerson. I didn’t take it the wrong way.” I paused. “Did you get a chance to talk to a doctor or anything, you know, about Mark’s condition?”
“No,” he said, wiping at his eyes. “They told me that he sustained serious injuries and that they’d be able to tell me more in a little while.” He was silent a moment. “Would you please tell me what you know?”
“We think he was having a psychotic episode. He broke into your meetinghouse, through a side window. He cut himself up in the process. He made his way to the baptismal font, where we think he kind of passed out.”
Ryan spoke. “Sister Thompson was working there. Do you know her?”
“Yes,” Gerson said. “Natalie. We do know her.”
“She pulled him out and kept his bleeding under control until the EMT guys got there.”
“She saved his life,” Gerson said.
“Yes, she did,” Ryan said.
“I think we ought to tell you one other thing,” I said. “She heard him say things …”
Gerson looked at me like he was unsure whether to ask. Finally he said, “What things, Detective?”
“He said he killed Maricel. And some other things.”
“That isn’t true. He didn’t kill Maricel. He couldn’t have killed Maricel.” Gerson turned away from us, slowly, then started walking away. He drifted over toward the bank of chairs against the wall. He sat down, slowly, as if all his bones and muscles hurt.
I started to walk over to him, but Ryan put his hand on my arm. “Give him a minute,” he said.
“Don’t you want to hear why Mark couldn’t’ve killed Maricel?”
“Just give him a minute, please, Karen.”
Ryan and I walked over to a couple of chairs along the opposite wall and sat down. “He knows we’re here. He’ll tell us what he can—when he can.”
Gerson sat in his chair, his gaze straight ahead, motionless, his hands in his lap. I couldn’t tell if he was concentrating real hard or in some other zone where you try not to think at all. I’ve spent a lot of time in that other zone, even though it almost never worked for me.
There were half a dozen other people in the ER, sitting in rows of plastic chairs. One thirty-something woman was holding her face where Loverboy smacked her around a little. A twenty-year-old guy with a wool hat and baggy pants that were too long for shorts but too short for longs was holding his elbow beneath his dislocated shoulder. A set of young parents had given up trying to control their little boy in Batman pajamas. He was coughing wet and chewy and putting out green snot, which he seemed determined to deposit on every surface within reach. An old guy with patchy hair and a moth-eaten beard sat off to the side, all hunched over like something was chewing at his insides.
A doctor in bloody scrubs came out through the wide swinging doors, walked over to the desk, and said something to the nurse on duty. She looked out over the collection of
sickos and pointed to Gerson. The doc walked over to him. Ryan and I went over, too.
“Mr. Gerson, I’m Dr. Wiley. I want to tell you where we are with Mark.” Gerson stood there, silently. “We’ve admitted him, sent him upstairs to ICU. We’re cautiously optimistic about his prospects.”
“What does that mean?” Gerson said, looking scared all of a sudden, like he hadn’t thought his son could die.
“We were able to stitch up his wounds, but the cuts were quite significant. There could be considerable loss of function in both hands.”
“He cut his hands?” Gerson said.
The doc looked at me and at Ryan. “Oh, I didn’t realize you hadn’t been filled in. Mark slit both his wrists with a piece of glass. He did some damage to the nerve structure.”
“He tried to kill himself?”
The doc shook his head. “That’s not really something I can speak to. I just patch ’em up and send ’em upstairs. We’ve got an excellent hand and wrist surgeon who we’ve already called in. She’s gonna meet with the pysch people on the schizophrenia and work out a plan.”
“Is there anything else you can tell me now?” Gerson said.
“No, that’s it for now. Our first priority was to get him medically stable. We did that. We sewed up his wounds, admitted him. The medical people and the psych team are working now on getting him back on his meds so he doesn’t hurt himself further. And, like I said, our hand and wrist specialist is on it. But we’ve got him sedated now. The med team is probably going to keep him quiet for at least twelve hours.”
Ryan was still touching Gerson, although the guy didn’t look like he was going to fall down in the next couple moments. “Thank you, Doctor,” Gerson said.
The doc nodded and walked back in through the swinging doors.
Chapter 36
“It is 8:35 am. Present are Dr. Albert Gerson, Detective Ryan Miner, and Detective Karen Seagate.” Ryan sat down next to me in the interview room. Dr. Gerson had come in this morning, a little after eight, saying he wanted to confess to the murder of Maricel Salizar. We escorted him to the interview room, and I asked Ryan to turn on the recording equipment.
