What the Fly Saw

by Frankie Y. Bailey

  A door opened and Sarah Novak appeared in the upstairs hallway. “I want you all to get out of my house now. Do you understand me?”

  “Scott asked me to come,” Woodward said. “I want to speak to him before I go.”

  “Mom.” Scott appeared, wearing his robe. “Mom, I do want to talk to her.”

  “Scott, go back to bed.”

  “Mom, I need to ask her to help me get in contact with Dad. I need to know if Dad hates me.”

  “Scott, your father loved you,” Sarah Novak assured him.

  “I killed him. I killed him,” Scott said. “I have to know if he hates me.”

  * * *

  It was McCabe who told Sarah Novak to call her lawyer and have him meet them at the station house. Baxter had taken Scott back to his bedroom to get dressed. Novak was simply standing there, hands clenched at her sides, staring into space. McCabe touched her arm and told her to call a lawyer for her son.

  As she did, she caught a whiff of the fragrance from the séance. The fragrance that had smelled so familiar.

  “Are you wearing lavender?” she heard herself ask.

  “What?” Novak said.

  “Nothing. You need to contact your lawyer.”

  Luanne Woodward took Novak’s arm. “Come along, honey. Luanne’s here. It’s going to be okay. Is your room down the hall here?”

  “Yes,” Novak said, and allowed herself to be led away.

  Reverend Wyatt, who was standing at the top of the stairs, shook his head. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe Scott would kill his father.”

  McCabe said, “We won’t know exactly what happened until we interview him about that night.”

  “Megan will be home soon.”

  “I’m not sure what her mother will want to do,” McCabe said.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Wyatt said. “I’ll wait for Megan and arrange to drop her off at the home of one of her friends.”

  “Thank you,” McCabe said.

  Baxter and Scott were coming down the hall. Scott looked thin and tired and a lot like the man that they had seen in the surveillance footage. Scott was his father’s son.

  And if he had killed his father, his mother might find that was more than she could bear.

  * * *

  At the station house, the lawyer Sarah Novak called spent almost forty-five minutes talking with his client. Then Novak went in and talked to her son. She came out and sat down in one of the chairs in the hallway. Her face was flushed. She was shaking.

  McCabe decided to give her some space.

  The lawyer went in again. When he came out, he said that Scott, who was legally of age, had decided that he wanted to make a statement. His mother had not been able to dissuade him, but she was registering her objection.

  McCabe and Baxter went into the interview room. The lawyer came back in and sat down at the table beside Scott.

  McCabe touched the console, turning on the cameras and audio. She noted the date and time, the subject being interviewed, and those present. Then she read Scott his Miranda warning.

  “I understand,” he said. “I want to make a statement. I can’t live with this anymore.”

  McCabe nodded. “Tell us what happened.”

  “Dad—he said he was all right. He told me to go home, and not tell Mom what had happened. He said he would call the paramedics and think up a story. He said not to tell Mom because she would be upset. He said the most important thing was protect Mom and Meg.” Scott pressed his hands to his eyes and leaned forward over the table. “He said he was all right. I wouldn’t have left him if I had known he was dying.”

  “You shot your father with his bow?” McCabe asked.

  Scott sat back. He dashed at the tears on his cheeks, sniffed, and swiped at his nose.

  McCabe asked him again. “Did you shoot your father with his bow, Scott?”

  He nodded. “Yes, I shot him.”

  McCabe turned to Baxter. “Mike, could you get Scott some water. And tissues. There’s a box on my desk.”

  “I’ll be right back,” Baxter said.

  “Just relax for a few minutes,” McCabe told Scott. “We’ll go on as soon as my partner gets back. Okay?”

  Scott nodded. He sat there, staring down at the table.

  When Baxter returned with a glass bottle of water, Scott took several gulps. Then he reached for a handful of tissues and blew his nose. “Okay, I’m ready now.”

  “Why did you kill your father?” McCabe asked.

  “I didn’t intend to,” Scott said. “He was talking about drugs, asking me if I had ever used drugs, and that made me … I wanted to talk to him about him and Mom and about the woman I’d heard him talking to on his ORB. And he was grilling me about using drugs. I just … I didn’t even think. I just picked up his bow and an arrow … I don’t know what I meant … I shouldn’t have hit him. I didn’t even really aim. But he moved just as I … I wasn’t trying to hit him … I just wanted him to stop talking so I could ask him about that woman.”

  “So you shot the arrow not intending to hit your father. And then what happened?”

  “He made this sound and he was clutching … and I saw the arrow and the blood. I ran to help him, but he waved me away. He told me to go … to go home and not tell Mom what had happened. He said he’d get help as soon as I was gone.”

  “So your father had his ORB?” McCabe said. “You saw it?”

  Scott frowned. “I didn’t see it. But he must have had it. He wouldn’t have gone to the funeral home without a way to tag Mom and make sure we were okay.”

  “Yes. Earlier that evening, he did speak with your mother from the funeral home. But we don’t know if he had his ORB with him in the basement.”

  “I didn’t see it,” Scott said. “Why would he tell me to go if it was upstairs?”

  McCabe said, “The woman you mentioned hearing your father talking to … when did this happen?”

  “I think it was on that Tuesday before … before—”

  “Before your father died?”

  Scott nodded. “Dad was in his office at home. I needed to ask him something. The door was open a little and I started to knock. I heard him say, ‘I’m looking forward to it, too.’ And then I heard this woman laugh.”

  “Did you hear the woman speak?”

  Scott shook his head. “Dad said, ‘Got to go’ and he ended the transmission. I thought he might have heard me outside. But he didn’t come to the door.”

  “So you don’t think he knew you were there?”

  “I think he heard Mom’s car. When I got back out to the hall, she was at the door.”

  “Did your father know you were at home?”

  “Yes, but I had told him I had some homework to do. And when he knocked on my door, I had my headphones on listening to music. He probably didn’t expect me to come downstairs.”

  “And you didn’t say anything to your father about what you’d heard?”

  “I thought maybe I was wrong. That he had been talking to a friend of his or something. I mean, people can have people of the opposite sex as friends. I know girls who are my friends.” Scott swallowed hard. “But Mom was acting weird, too. And when he went out to the funeral home that night, she looked so sad. That’s when I thought he must be seeing some other woman and Mom must suspect. And I was going to remind him about what he was always telling us about how family was the most important thing in the world. I was going to ask him to stop seeing the woman.” Scott swallowed again, and tears started sliding down his face. “I didn’t intend to kill him. I didn’t … I loved my dad.”

  The attorney said, “You have your statement, Detective McCabe. I think that’s enough for now.”

  “I’m sorry, Scott,” McCabe said. “There’s something else we need to ask you about.”

  He raised his head and scrubbed at his nose with the tissues clutched in his hand. “What?”

  “Luanne Woodward. You tagged her and asked her to come to your house.”

/>   “I thought she might be able to help me contact Dad. I wanted to tell him again that I didn’t mean to hurt him. I tried praying, but I … I thought maybe she could get through to Dad.”

  “Because of what happened at the séance?”

  Scott nodded. “It was scary with the bell and the door crashing open. But then I thought if Dad was still here, that he might be angry at me. I thought if Luanne could reach him—”

  “Scott, do you remember earlier that evening when Luanne came in from the kitchen eating chocolate pecan pie?”

  He nodded. “Uncle Bob’s wife wanted some. But Velma came in and she said there wasn’t any more left.”

  “Do you know how to cook?” McCabe asked.

  “Sure. Mom says everyone should know how to cook. Why?”

  “Ever bake a pie?”

  The attorney cleared his throat. “Detective McCabe, my client is here to answer questions about his father’s death. What is this about?”

  “Someone tried to poison Luanne Woodward. Did you do that, Scott? Did you take a chocolate pecan pie laced with arsenic to Luanne’s house and leave it on her front steps?”

  Scott’s eyes went wide. “No! I wouldn’t have … Why would I…? I don’t even know where she lives.”

  “Did you know Luanne says she’s your father’s half sister?” Baxter asked.

  Scott’s eyes widened even more. “She must be making it up. Dad was an orphan.”

  McCabe said, “But she may really be your father’s sister. I’ll let her explain that to you and your mother and Megan.”

  “I didn’t do that. I didn’t try to poison her.”

  * * *

  Sarah Novak was still sitting in the hall when her son was taken out of the interview room. She came to her feet.

  “I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to,” Scott said as he was taken past her.

  Novak watched until her son was out of sight. Then she turned to McCabe and Baxter. “I have to go pick up my daughter.”

  McCabe said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Novak.”

  “Thank you.”

  Novak walked away, back stiff, as if she were in pain.

  McCabe said, “I don’t think Scott tried to kill Luanne.”

  Baxter said, “If the kid didn’t make Luanne a poisoned pie, who did?”

  “There’s another question. If Scott didn’t take his father’s ORB, who did?”

  “He could have been lying,” Baxter said.

  “He could have been. But I believed him.”

  “Intuition, partner?”

  “How to Detect a Lying Suspect 101.”

  “Okay, if you’re right, that would mean after Scott left, someone else came in. This person would have seen our vic had an arrow in his chest. Instead of helping him, he or she picked up Kevin’s ORB and walked out.”

  McCabe said, “His son may not have wanted Kevin Novak to die, but maybe someone else did. Someone who decided to make good use of an accidental shooting.”

  “You have someone in mind?”

  “Luanne’s photo collection got me thinking about postmortem photographs. Since the nineteenth century, photographers have been taking photos of newly dead people—of babies and dead relatives, of outlaws who had been shot or hung.”

  “This is going somewhere?”

  “Come on. I’ll show you.”

  * * *

  Baxter sat on the edge of his desk studying the crime-scene images on the wall. “What am I looking for?”

  “Our victim with Ernie the skeleton. Suppose Kevin didn’t pull Ernie down accidentally when he fell? Suppose he was trying to stage his own death photo?”

  Baxter got up and walked over to the wall. “Victim on his side, hugging skeleton. What do you think he was trying to say?”

  “What do you think of when you see a skeleton?”

  “Graveyards, closets—”

  “And doctors?”

  “As in Dr. Burdett? What’s his motive? And what do you think the lou’s going to say when we tell him we have a suspect who confessed to shooting the arrow, but we think someone else might actually be responsible for Kevin Novak’s death?”

  “If we can prove someone else was responsible,” McCabe said, “Sarah Novak and her children might be able to survive this.” McCabe brought a document up on the wall. “I asked Research to see what else they could find on Burdett. One interesting tidbit turned up. He has privileges at the psychiatric facility where Lisa Nichols was being evaluated.”

  Baxter looked from the document to her. “Tell me you aren’t on that again. A psychiatrist has privileges at a mental hospital and you think he’s part of some kind of conspiracy.”

  “I said it was interesting. I didn’t say anything about a conspiracy,” McCabe said. “The only way Dr. Burdett might have been involved in Nichols’s death would be if he somehow got her to take the pills. And I don’t know why he would want to do that. But learning more about his practice did start me thinking about a question my dad asked. We were talking about Burdett, and he asked how—or really why—someone with Burdett’s background would end up in Albany.”

  “He’s from Boston,” Baxter said.

  “And so was his wife. Maybe he came to Albany because he wanted to be close, but not too close, to family. Maybe he wanted to get out of the City. Since he arrived, he’s been active in his church and busy with his practice, but he doesn’t seem to have had any romantic involvements.”

  “Maybe he’s still in mourning for his wife.”

  “That’s possible. But what I’m getting at is Burdett’s solitary lifestyle. He told us he was alone during the blizzard because he isn’t currently involved with anyone.”

  “And that means what? If being unattached makes someone suspicious, we’d both qualify.”

  “True,” McCabe said. “But in Burdett’s case, what it means is that he doesn’t have an alibi for the night of Kevin Novak’s murder. We already knew that, but we haven’t thought about it in the context of Kevin’s sleuthing. Kevin was investigating a virtual reality sex club because he and Reverend Wyatt wondered if Bob Reeves was the only church member who belonged to it. What if Burdett were a member and Kevin found out?”

  Baxter looked at the crime-scene image again. “I may be slow, but I think I just got there. If Kevin had discovered Burdett was a member of the sex club and was about to tell Reverend Wyatt, Burdett would have known his days as church counselor were numbered. Wyatt couldn’t have risked keeping him on. Burdett would have been out on his ear just as the New Awakening movement was about to go national.”

  “So,” McCabe said. “Want to go run my crazy theory—complete with skeleton—by the lou?”

  “Your theory might not be so crazy,” Baxter said.

  “Except for Luanne. Even if Burdett had a reason to let Kevin die, why would he go after Luanne? All he had to do was sit tight and let Scott be blamed for his father’s death.”

  42

  Thursday, January 30, 2020

  7:38 A.M.

  McCabe was sitting at the breakfast table staring down into her bowl of cereal when her father came in. The dog began to whack his tail on the floor in greeting.

  McCabe looked up in time to see Angus glare at him.

  “Get up on the wrong side of the bed?” she asked.

  “At least I got to bed,” Angus replied. “I woke up and came downstairs to get myself a glass of juice, and there you were asleep on the sofa.”

  “Thanks for throwing a blanket over me. I fell asleep while I was watching a movie.”

  “What were you watching?”

  “A Hitchcock movie that I happened to come across. Spellbound.”

  Angus poured himself a cup of coffee. “You must have seen that movie before.”

  “Only a few clips.”

  “Reminded you of Lisa Nichols, did it?” Angus said, sitting down at the table.

  “Lisa Nichols was hardly Gregory Peck with amnesia. She killed three people, no doubt about tha
t. What I was thinking about last night was psychiatry and psychiatrists.”

  “Why?” Angus asked. “Because of that shrink you’ve got in your funeral director case?”

  McCabe scooped up her last spoonful of cereal and chewed. “If Reverend Wyatt goes nationwide with arena events, the membership of his church should boom.”

  “It should. Unless he bombs.”

  “And the church’s resident counselor would find himself with new opportunities as well.” McCabe pushed back her chair and reached for her empty bowl. “Got to get moving.” She put her bowl in the sink.

  “Wait a minute, what about this psychiatrist and Hitchcock?”

  “Don’t know yet. I’ll tell you tonight.”

  * * *

  Lt. Dole walked out of the station house with McCabe and Baxter. He was on his way downtown. With the captain out on sick leave, Dole had to join the commander for periodic meetings at City Hall. McCabe hoped neither she nor her family would be mentioned. Her father had not written an editorial in response to Howard Miller’s propaganda. McCabe hoped that meant she was now off City Hall’s radar.

  “Remember what I said, McCabe,” Lt. Dole said. “We clear?”

  “Yes, sir, we’ll handle this carefully.”

  In the car, she checked her ORB for an update from Research. She had asked for more specifics about Dr. Burdett’s psychiatric practice. In spite of what Olive Cooper said about his inability to relate to street people, it seemed Burdett had done some volunteer work in a group home for troubled teenagers.

  At his house on Willett Street, Burdett opened the door himself. He was wearing a richly patterned robe over white silk pajamas. A flicker of surprise crossed his face. “My receptionist isn’t here yet,” he said. “Am I expecting you at this hour?”

  “No, and we apologize for coming by before nine,” McCabe said. “I’m afraid we don’t have an appointment. But we were hoping that—under the circumstances—you would forgive us for dropping by like this.”

  “The circumstances,” Burdett said. “You mean Scott’s arrest for his father’s death. I’m not going to say murder, because from what Daniel told me, it was an accident.”

  McCabe said, “We were hoping you could help us to understand the family dynamics. To be frank, Dr. Burdett, Detective Baxter and I would like to believe Scott. We don’t believe he meant to kill his father.”