The Blue Journal (25 page)

“If she brought anyone back to the house it would have been on my days off.”

Walker warned her that withholding evidence in a murder case is a serious crime in and of itself. That earned him the closest thing to a laugh he had yet seen from the woman.

“Detective Walker,” she said evenly, “you admit that you're familiar with my history. I was a victim of abuse for decades and voluntarily spent nearly five years in a mental institution. Do you really believe there is any threat you can make that would intimidate me?”

“No,” Walker conceded, “there probably is not.”

Nettie took her time answering each of his remaining questions, but she did not hedge or stall. She was actually quite forthcoming, he thought, for someone who was still holding something back.

Later, as they were saying good-bye at her front door, he stopped to confirm one more thing. “You're still working for Stanley Knoebel?”

“Yes,” she said.

He stepped outside, squinted into the afternoon sun and then had another look at her. “I'll be in touch.”

“I assume you will,” she replied pleasantly, and without saying good-bye simply shut the door behind him.

Back in his car, heading down the East Side Drive, Walker kept replaying Nettie Sisson's comments in his mind as if there were more to what she said than he was seeing, as if there were some way to reconcile her contradictions.

She believed that Dr. Knoebel knew something of his wife's infidelity, yet elected to remain with her. Whatever else Nettie knew about that part of their marriage, she was keeping it to herself. The way Nettie saw it, the doctor had made his choice. There was nothing to be gained by piling on more information, more evidence of Elizabeth's betrayal. The only result would be to intensify his pain.

Nettie instinctively understood that every man has his breaking point, and she was unwilling to push Dr. Knoebel to the edge. What if he found out more than he could handle? What if he learned that his wife had more than one lover? Or more than two? What if he discovered the diary?

Dr. Knoebel may be a respected member of the community, as Chief Gill insisted, and he might be worthy of Nettie Sisson's devotion, as she described it, but he did not deserve to be protected from a murder charge. As Walker drove on he prepared himself for his next round of questioning. He was heading into New York to personally verify the distinguished surgeon's whereabouts on the day of his wife's death. He wanted to know whether or not Dr. Knoebel should be his prime suspect.

CHAPTER 29

Linda Stratford did not usually visit her husband in his office and so, when she showed up there on Monday afternoon, he did not do well hiding his surprise. They shared a perfunctory kiss, then she sat in the chair across the desk from him.

“I was shopping,” she explained before he could ask, “thought I would stop by and say hello.”

“Well I'm glad you did.”

She responded with a look he had seen countless times—a slight tilting of the head and narrowing of her eyes that said,
Save it Robert
. After the moment passed, she asked, “What's new and exciting?”

“New and exciting? In my humdrum workaday world?”

“Any word from your friends in Hartford about the nomination?”

Stratford drew in a deep breath and sighed. “Nothing good, unfortunately. Kelleher called. We talked it over and he told me I don't have enough experience to make a run at a national office.”

“National office? How much experience does it take? Our congressional district is about as big as a trailer park in upstate New York.”

Stratford laughed. She could always make him laugh. “You're probably right, but running Darien is not an obvious launching pad for the United States Congress.”

“Maybe not,” she admitted, “but nowadays what is? We've had everything from haberdashers to community organizers in the White House, right? And the party doesn't have anyone half as appealing, one-third as electable, or one-tenth as bankable as you. When are they going to get their small minds around that concept?”

“I think they're beginning to understand the bankable part,” he told her. In a wealthy state, there were many wealthy men and women inclined to spend large parts of their own fortunes to gain political office. Even in that arena, it was well known that Robert Stratford, with his wife's family money behind him, was more willing than most to write the checks necessary to advance his political career.

“They better wake up and smell the roses. They need a winner in this election and you're it.”

Stratford nodded, comfortable in the role of a politician acknowledging someone's support, even his wife's.

“So,” she said, “what's new with our local whodunit?”

“Not much to report I'm sorry to say.” He shook his head. “Frankly, it's becoming a source of concern for me. The media interest in an unsolved murder isn't going to do my chance at a candidacy any good. Death by gunshot? Reporters looking for a scandal under every hedgerow? This is not going to have a happy ending, and remember, right now I'm the face of this town.”

“You know what they say my dear, there's no such thing as bad publicity. You just keep getting that handsome kisser of yours on television, the Internet, and in the paper. Later on people won't remember why they saw you, they'll just remember that they did.”

“Maybe you're right,” he replied, his tone telling her he was unconvinced. “But if things go wrong, I'm the man on the front lines. As you can imagine, Gill wants to have as little to do with this as possible.” He shook his head. “Can you believe that's how a police chief behaves when there's been a murder committed in his own town?”

“Gill's been on the force since I went away to boarding school, and he's the same candy ass now as he was then. There isn't a toe in Darien he avoids stepping on. That's how he's kept his job all these years.”

Stratford frowned. “Might be a lesson in that for all of us. Meanwhile, he's dumped the whole thing on this detective that came up from New York a few years ago.”

“Lieutenant Walker.”

“You know him?”

“I cannot tell a lie Robert, I've been following this story, just like the rest of your constituents. Walker is getting more media coverage than you and Gill combined.”

“I've noticed, and it's amazing to me. Word is that he's a good cop, and very low-key when it comes to drawing attention to himself.”

Linda's eyes narrowed again. “Maybe yes, maybe no. And maybe he's not as dull-witted as he appears.” When Stratford reacted with a puzzled look, she said, “I've seen him on television.”

“He's been interviewed?”

“No, just shots of him leaving headquarters this morning, refusing comment. A stoic type.”

“If you're saying our friend Detective Walker is someone we need to keep an eye on, I'm already on it. Meeting him for drinks tomorrow night. Good?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“If he solves the case, you're going to want to stand right beside him in the spotlight. On the other hand,” she said with a wry grin, “if he screws it up, you'll want to stay as far from him as possible. Might even make sense for us to be out of town.”

Stratford appeared to be giving that notion serious thought. Then he said, “I wonder if Chief Gill has any travel plans yet.”

His wife laughed. “Gill is a wimp, but he's not stupid. I guaranty you he's figuring this the same way I am. He'll orchestrate things so success will be a duet, but failure is going to be a solo act starring Detective Walker.”

“I think you're right.”

She paused for a moment, then asked, “What about your friend Randi?”

“What about her?”

“The Knoebels were her patients and you're her lawyer. That puts the two of you right in the middle of all this. Is that going to be an asset or liability for you?”

“I wish I knew. This is already causing her some serious issues.”

“And you want to be her knight in shining armor.” When he responded with a disapproving look, she said, “I know that's who you are, my sweet. But this is one time you need to think about yourself first. To think about us.”

“Of course.”

Linda leaned forward and said, “Is that really what has you worried? Is it about her?”

He sat up and met her intense gaze. “Absolutely not.”

“So what then?”

“I'm not sure,” he said. “I just felt that things were going so well, that we had a real shot at the nomination.”

She liked his use of the word
we
. “We still do,” she insisted.

“Maybe so, but I can't shake the feeling that a lot is going to depend on how this murder investigation plays out.”

Linda sat back and offered him a warm smile. “Yes, and I realize how much you absolutely despise not being in control of every situation.”

Stratford smiled. “You know me too well.”

“Well enough to know that it's not just the situation you want to control.”

“You mean . . .”

“Yes. The outcome too.”

CHAPTER 30

Prior to his drive into the city, Walker had telephoned from his office, arranging to meet the two doctors Knoebel claimed he had drinks with the night Elizabeth was shot.

He arrived at the main building of the medical center and was shown to a small conference room and told to wait. The two physicians were paged, but it was more than thirty minutes before they finally walked in.

Walker ignored their lateness—they were, after all, doctors. But he did not hesitate to express his surprise that they had combined the two appointments into one. It was not Walker's preferred method of conducting an interview, and he had made it clear they were to be separate discussions.

“We're not violating any rules, are we officer?”

Walker felt at home in New York, but also knew he was way outside his legal jurisdiction. All he could offer in response was a knowing smile. “Not yet, you're not,” he told them.

They got down to business, each of the doctors quickly confirming that they had indeed been with Knoebel for drinks on the evening in question.

“Why are you so sure of the date and the time?” he asked.

That was easy, they told him. First, each of them carried an iPhone that kept tabs on every minute of their lives, past, present and future. Second, their hospital and office records corroborated the times they made rounds that day, the patients they saw and so forth. They assured him that they had each verified all of that in anticipation of this brief interview—putting special emphasis on the word
brief
. Finally, each man distinctly recalled hearing the news the following day that Knoebel's wife had been murdered. Naturally, that fixed the events of the prior evening indelibly in their memories.

“Naturally,” Walker said.

They were also certain of how much time they had spent with Knoebel, which matched his recollection to the minute.

The interview over, Walker visited the administration office. The hospital records, which they pulled for him minus anything that might be a potential violation of HIPAA, also matched Knoebel's story. He was in surgery until the afternoon, then made his rounds, seeing patients. There was a brief period that was unaccounted for late in the day, before he met the other two doctors for cocktails, but in that window of time it would have been impossible for Knoebel to make the drive home to Connecticut and return to join his colleagues back in New York at the hour they had all confirmed. The only possibility was that he returned to Connecticut afterward, but if that were the case, he would not have gotten home before nine that night.

Jake had placed the time of death around four and Mrs. Fitzmorris spotted the sedan speeding away from the Knoebel driveway around five.

Walker completed his disappointing review in the administration office, then telephoned the coroner's office.

“Nine o'clock? No way,” Jake told him. “She was dead for hours by nine o'clock.”

“Uh huh.”

“Any chance Knoebel had time to make a quick run back and forth to his house in between any of his appointments?”

“No,” Walker told him. “Between his rounds and the operating room records here, Knoebel barely had time to change his mind that day. The only time slot unaccounted for is less than an hour.”

“Not enough time for a round-trip to Connecticut.”

“Right.”

Walker left the hospital and strolled three blocks to the indoor lot where he paid an exorbitant fee for the privilege of parking his car for less than two hours. In the old days he could have ditched his car in the middle of Times Square and not worried about a thing. He would have just snapped down the visor and clipped on his NYPD decal.

Things change.

“Autumn in New York,” he said to himself as he slid behind the wheel and prepared to make the drive home. He wished he had the Sinatra disc with that song on it. “Autumn in New York.” Brings back memories.

When Walker and his wife first moved to Connecticut they made trips into the city all the time. Visited friends. Went to their favorite restaurants in the old neighborhood. Came into town for movies that were never going to make it to the multiplex in the burbs. After a while, though, the trip seemed to get longer, the friends in New York fewer and the visits less frequent. They had created a new life someplace else.

He just never anticipated how different that new life would become.

Walker was surprised at how melancholy that made him feel today. He decided to take a detour, heading slowly down Fifth Avenue along Central Park, then turning left on Seventieth Street and coming back up on Madison, passing the overpriced boutiques and art galleries that line the avenue on both sides.