Hester and I sat him back up in his chair. Physically, he seemed to be just fine. Hester got a wet paper towel and wiped his face, clearing away the tears, mucus, and spittle and that seemed to help. It at least made him easier to look at. I figured the ambulance would take about fifteen minutes.
And, of course, Attorney Junkel picked that moment to make an entrance.
“What's going on here?” asked a strident, courtroom voice. I didn't even have to turn around to know it was Junkel.
“Hi.”
“What have you done to my client?”
“Very little, actually.” I shrugged. “Basically, we arrested him,” I explained.
“How are you, son?” he asked.
“Toby is shitty,” said Toby. “And Toby thanks you for asking.”
Junkel looked at me. “Just what is going on here?”
It took about all I could muster not to answer him in third person. What I said was, “We arrested Toby for breaking in to the Freiberg Funeral Home, and driving a stake into the chest of the corpse of Edie Younger.”
You just don't get to see an attorney look like that every day. His eyes widened, and his jaw dropped perceptibly. Seeing his startled look, I had an inspiration.
“It's either a simple misdemeanor, or, if you consider it a hate crime, it becomes a serious misdemeanor. The statutory bond for the most serious one is fifty dollars. Cash.”
“Can he post?” asked Junkel.
I played my ace. “Nope. Looks like he's ours.”
It worked. Just to spite me, Junkel reached into his back pocket, pulled out his billfold, and removed a fifty-dollar bill. Why not? He'd probably received a call from Jessica Hunley, he was on retainer, and the bill would now include a fifty-dollar expense.
“The hell he is,” he said. “He's now in the care of his attorney!”
I looked down at the money, then up at Junkel. “I suppose you'll want a receipt?” I tried to sound disappointed.
He glared at me. “Of course I will.”
I thought for about two seconds about a possible aiding and abetting in a murder case as another charge for Toby. But to pop him on his statements, while in his current state, would just be asking for trouble. We didn't have any good evidence against him yet, and moving too soon would tip our hand. I rejected the notion.
“And you might as well also help him with his committal to the Mental Health Institute. We've started that. You might not have noticed, but your client is pretty well pharmaceutically enhanced,” I said.
Eventually, the mental health referee came up, pretty much took one look at Toby, and told Junkel that, “Your client's having a bad trip,” and offered to sign Toby into the MHI for detoxification and counseling. Translated, that was roughly a three-day involuntary commitment. I was very pleased with detox.
“Unless, of course, your client wished to commit himself,” said the referee. I could tell he was thinking about the paperwork. “If that's the case, all this would be unnecessary.”
Junkel leaped at the offer, so Toby obligingly agreed to commit himself. Cheap trip, as he could check out any time he wanted to, he would be guaranteed to be back out in three days, and his attorney was going to have to figure out how to haul him to the mental health facility at Independence. But at least he wasn't a drain on our meager resources.
Besides, with what we actually had on him, it would have been three and out, anyway.
About two hours after we had arrived at the office, Toby was on his way. As we helped pack him into Junkel's car, he giggled, and began to say “Plonk, plonk,” faster and faster.
“What's he saying?” asked Junkel. “Isn't plonk a term for cheap wine?”
“I dunno,” I said. “Maybe he's thirsty.” Actually, plonk, in this instance, is a usenet term, and it's the sound that a novice internet user makes when he hits the bottom of the kill ffle. To be “kill ffled” means that his correspondents have told their computers to automatically ignore anything from him. The meaning here was that Toby was, if not already dead, considering himself as good as. I felt no compunction to enlighten Junkel. Let him ask his own kids.
Toby hadn't been out the door five minutes, when Dispatch told me that Lamar was on the phone. He was calling from the church hall, where the after-funeral luncheon was winding up.
“Hi, boss.”
“Marteen told me the details,” he said slowly, evenly. “All of 'em.”
“Shit, Lamar, I really didn't want you to have to deal with that.” I was about ready to kill the funeral director, too, but didn't say so.
“I want whoever did it, Carl. I want him bad.”
A good moment, at last. “Oh, we already got him. He's charged, and on his way to MHI.” I thought for a second. I figured I better tell him. “We think the same suspect was there when she was killed, Lamar. He's shaping up as an accomplice. We only have his verbal statement to that effect, and he was wasted when he said it. He's telling the truth, but we have absolutely no hard evidence. I think we should have some pretty soon.”
After a pause, Lamar asked, “Who is it?”
“Toby Gottschalk. There's more, but it'll have to wait.”
“Fine. So long as you got him.”
“What I have to find out now is where she was killed. But we're working on that.”
TWENTY-SIX
Tuesday, October 10, 2000
12:09
Hester and I had a fast chat.
“Toby admitted to conspiracy to commit murder,” she said. “If I heard him correctly.”
“Yeah,” I answered. “I think you did. Not any evidence but his statement, yet, though.” It was not nearly enough, even if he'd been completely rational and had provided it in writing.
“True. But it opens the doors wider and wider.”
“Damn, Hester, we really gotta find out where Edie was killed. There has to be evidence all over the place, wherever it is.”
“We also have to find Peale. Any ideas?”
“I'd like to talk to Jessica Hunley about him,” I said.
“Me, too. You think Toby was on meth? Or ecstasy?”
“I'd say both of them, plus a little home grown psychosis. Too bad, he's sort of a bright guy.”
“When he talked to Peale, and from what he just told us I think we can safely assume it was by telephone, he really must have been convinced. He even thought he was stronger,” she said.
“Yeah.” It obviously hadn't occurred to Toby that, since the autopsy, Edie's internal organs weren't all in the same place, or in the same condition, that they had been when she was alive. Not to mention that the chest had already been opened, to enable her heart and lungs to be removed for examination. It was no wonder the stake had gone in so easily. He probably could have just leaned on it, and it would have penetrated into what had once been her mediastinum, and gone all the way to the spinal column.
“You know,” I said, “he mentioned something about striking the stake. We didn't find anything. I wonder what he used, and where he put it?” Evidence.
“If he was as wired then as he is now,” said Hester, “he probably used his forehead.”
I checked my “to do” box at the dispatch counter. There were three notes in it, from the dispatcher who had gotten off duty at 09:00. The first said she'd received a phone call from the DCI crime lab. The blood in the white body bag we'd found in the trash had been human, as expected, and the lab had confirmed the blood type with our pathologist, Dr. Peters. It was the same as Edie's. Type B negative. Not a lot, but one more little piece of the puzzle. We'd have to wait quite a while for DNA matching.
The second note was hand written on a teletype page. It was confirmation from the London Metropolitan Police, and indicated that there was no such person as Daniel Peale in the London Directory. The third said that Dr. Peters had called, and wanted to talk to me as soon as I came in.