The attorney reached for the phone, nodding to his glassy-eyed client for her to do the same. She did, sluggishly.
“Marcy,” Bernie said, and he bobbed his head toward me, “this is Ms. Tree. She’s working for us as an investigator.”
“Rich is dead,” Marcy said into her phone.
I could barely hear it through Bernie’s phone, which he cocked to share with me; but got it well enough for her zombie monotone to register.
“I know Rich is dead, Marcy,” Bernie was saying, “but you’re alive, and you’re going to be well again. Have you seen a doctor yet?”
“No.”
“Okay, I’ll work on that. Right away. But first I’m going to turn the phone over to Ms. Tree. Answer her questions, Marcy. She’s our friend. She’s your friend.”
“Okay.”
The attorney let out a breath, sat back, and passed the phone over to me.
I scooched forward.
“Hello, Marcy—my name is Michael.”
The tiniest confusion came into the woman’s eyes. “Boy’s name. That’s a boy’s name.”
“Sometimes it’s a girl’s name. May I call you ‘Marcy’?”
“That’s a girl’s name. Marcy’s a girl’s name.”
Her gaze was unblinking and steered vaguely my way, but she didn’t really seem to be seeing me. Or anything.
“Marcy, how did you know where Rich was this afternoon?”
“Phone call.”
“Who called you?”
“A friend.”
“What friend?”
The barest shrug. “Just a friend. Said he was a friend. Doing what friends do.”
“What do friends do, Marcy?”
“Help. Help friends.”
“When was this phone call?”
“After lunch.”
I tried to put it as delicately as possible: “And this was the first you suspected your husband was—”
But I wasn’t delicate enough, because she came alive, her eyes wide and wild—those eyes had probably looked like that when she shot her husband and his pick-up.
“No! No. I’ve known for weeks. Over a month....We argued. He denied it. Such a good actor. Made me remember the other times.”
“Other times?”
“In our marriage. Years back. When he cheated. Cheated all the time.”
“How have you known for weeks? Other phone calls?”
“Just the one phone call.”
“Then how—”
“Voices. The voices.”
“What voices, Marcy?”
“The voices at night. In the dark. In my head....Could I talk to Mr. Levine, Michael?”
Feeling like I was getting nowhere, I passed the phone back over to the attorney, who brought his chair forward.
I could hear Marcy’s monotone coming scratchily from the phone: “I need something. My head hurts. And I’m awful blue. I’d kill myself, but...”
“Marcy, don’t talk that way.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t do it. What if I went to heaven or hell or someplace? And Richard was there? I’d have to talk to him about this. And I really don’t want to.”
The woman hung up.
Stood up.
The policewoman came over and escorted her out.
Bernie and I lingered momentarily, feeling pretty shell-shocked ourselves.
“Voices,” I said. “That’s par for schizophrenia, right?”
“Right. But a patient on medication, stabilized for years? Why would the voices in her head start striking up conversations now?”
“Was she still on her meds?”
“Yes! That’s my understanding, at least. Ms. Tree, you’ve got to help me.”
“No, Bernie.”
He looked crestfallen. “No?”
I stood. “I’ve got to help her.”
THREE
In the lower level, which is to say basement, of police headquarters on South State Street, I found Lt. Rafe Valer in one of the eight cubicles on the firing range.
Black, in his early thirties, Rafe—in a yellow shirt and a copper-color tie slung out of the way—was so angularly handsome he didn’t look ridiculous in those black-padded earmuffs and the wraparound sunglass-style eye protection. How I looked in the same gear—required of all who set foot on the range—I couldn’t tell you.
I was standing behind Rafe, with a great view as he fired off six rounds from his .38 Police Special, and earmuffs or not, those ringing reports got my attention. The cartoon perp twenty-five yards away had a cluster of shots on his heart.
Rafe half-turned, reloading, and noticed me. He nodded and almost smiled.
“I’ve seen better,” I said.
“That’s why I come in evenings,” he said, in his mellow radio announcer’s baritone, “when this place is a ghost town.”
“Does it help?”
“Does what help?”
I nodded toward the target. “That it’s a white guy.”
He chuckled, snapped the cylinder shut on the reloaded weapon and said, casually, “You’re evil.”
“If so,” I said, sidling up to him, “why do I rate the special privileges?”
“Like what? Civilian access to the firing range?”
I folded my arms and gazed up at him with one eyebrow arched. “Like paving the way for me seeing Marcy Addwatter when the smoke from her handgun’s barely cleared.”
“Actually,” he said lightly, “those were smokeless rounds.”
“Rafe....”
He gave me a serious look. The half-lidded eyes behind the protective glasses were as dark as burnished mahogany. “I don’t like to be manipulated.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning this Addwatter case is too damn pat.” He shook his head, lifted his shoulders. “This is a woman with mental problems, kept under control, by medication, for years...who suddenly flies off the handle? Why?”
I shrugged. “Hubby’s chubbies?”
The dark-brown eyes narrowed. “Did Bernie Levine tell you about the prior incidents?”
“What prior incidents?”
“I’ll take that as a ‘no.’ ” Rafe let some air out. His free hand rested on his hip. “Back when Rich Addwatter was catting around, his wife took a potshot at him on one occasion, and on another, her aim improving, put him in the hospital with a bullet in the upper arm.”
“Is that all?”
“Actually, no. She also clobbered him, once, with a glass ashtray.”
“By that do you mean, clobbered him once, or once upon a time clobbered him?”
“Both apply. And it’s no joke—left him a scar. Gave the poor bastard migraines.”
I shrugged again. “It’s a joke compared to getting shot and killed with a ‘date’ in a sleazy motel room. And, anyway, he’s probably over his headaches now.”
“Some headaches,” Rafe said, as he stared me down, “hang on after you’d figure they wouldn’t.”
I ignored that. “So these past ‘incidents,’ even though she’s been medically stabilized ever since, make her the perfect perp.”
He nodded but he didn’t look happy about it.
“And from Homicide’s point of view, this is a closed case?”
“It should be. It really should. But I swear, Michael—somebody set that poor woman in motion...then expected us to buy it at face value.”
“On the surface, this one’s about as open-and-shut as they come.”
“That’s what bothers me—it’s all surface...but such a perfect surface, we won’t need to dig.”
“And that’s why you’re helping Bernie Levine out, and getting me free passes to the visitor’s room at lock-up.”
He said nothing, but that might have been a smile.
I held my hand out. “May I?”