The Blue Journal (39 page)

“You'll find out soon enough. They want to talk with you. I guess they want to talk with everybody who ever met these people.”

“Should I bring a lawyer, Thomas?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You called Mark, and he went with you. Should I call him too?”

“I don't think I like your attitude. What's with the attitude?”

“It's a simple question. I don't understand why you needed a lawyer to answer routine questions about Stanley Knoebel. You hardly know the man, right?”

She watched as his anger visibly rose again, then fell, the color having flooded his face, then quickly drained away. He stood up and stomped around the room, acting as if he were ready to explode, then backing off.

He was not sure how to respond, and his uncertainty made everything plain to her.

“Tell me, Thomas.”

“Tell you what, for chrissake?” When she didn't respond he said, “Let's just drop it, okay?”

“Tell me,” she said again. “It's all right. Just tell me the truth. I'm entitled to know.”

“Know what, for crying out loud. There's nothing to tell. You'll see for yourself. They'll ask you a bunch of bullshit questions and that'll be the end of it.”

“That's not what I'm talking about. You know goddamned well what I'm talking about. I have to know. I have to hear you tell me.”

“Tell you what? What? This is a sick conversation. I don't understand what you're saying and I don't understand what you're asking. What do you want from me?”

“The truth.”

“I told you the truth.”

“No, I mean the truth about Elizabeth Knoebel.”

“Listen to me, Fran. There is nothing I can tell you about Elizabeth Knoebel. There is nothing else here that means anything. You're looking for something that isn't there. Okay? Please try and see that.”

“You're wrong. You don't know how wrong you are. It doesn't end here. You'll see. It's worse than you think.”

“What? What the hell is worse than I think? Speak English, will you please?”

“It's worse than this, don't you understand?”

He looked at her and saw something in her eyes that was completely unnerving. He hesitated, then in a softer voice said, “Look, I know it's upsetting. This woman gets killed, we have to talk to the police about it. I know it's upsetting. But don't make it into something it isn't. Are you listening to me, Fran? Don't make it into something it isn't.”

Fran Colello did not want to make it something it was not. She said, “With everything that's happened, and everything that's going to happen, all I ask is that you tell me the truth.”

Colello felt like punching his hand through the wall, or something worse, but instead he stormed out of the room, out of the house, jumped in his car and headed for the Black Swan to get drunk. He went without telling her the truth.

A short time later, when Detective Walker called Fran to set a meeting for her interview the next day, she knew it was too late.

CHAPTER 50

Back in his office the next morning, Walker was arguing on the telephone with a hospital administrator in New York.

“What are you telling me?” he demanded. “Was Doctor Knoebel in the operating room that afternoon or wasn't he?” He looked up at Kovacevic, his frown displaying part exasperation and part accusation, a signal to the junior officer that somehow this was his fault.

Kovacevic remained standing while Walker had the woman on the other end of the call explain it to him one more time.

“Okay,” the detective responded, “I think I got it. The answer is that there is no answer. You're telling me there's no way of verifying the times Doctor Knoebel came and went from the operating room that day, other than questioning every nurse and doctor in the entire hospital.” He nodded at her reply. “All right. Well thank you again,” he said, then slammed the phone down. “Damn.”

“No good, huh?”

“No good. She says Knoebel could have been anywhere. He might have gone up to the gallery to observe the surgery from above. He could have been in and out of the OR. He could have been in the john for all they know. There's no way to check for sure, unless everyone who was in the hospital that day is willing to say he wasn't there during those critical afternoon hours.”

“Fat chance.”

“Exactly. No one is going to sink him that way, especially since they're not in the habit of looking at their watches while they're in the middle of surgery. How the hell could anyone be sure, unless they saw him get in his car and leave?” Walker scrawled a note to himself in the file. “Run another check with the parking garages around the hospital. Find out where he normally parks, but if he really murdered her we've got to figure it was planned well in advance. He wouldn't have used his regular garage.” He looked up. “All the same, if he's going to rely on this alibi, it's got some holes in it.”

Kovacevic nodded.

“Okay, what else do you have?”

Kovacevic paused.

“What is it?” Walker asked.

“It's Doctor Conway, sir.”

“What about her?”

“I keep thinking about those anonymous notes.”

“What about them?”

“Maybe they were supposed to work as some sort of reverse psychology or something. They help to rule her out as a suspect, don't they?”

Walker studied the young officer for a moment. “Sit down,” he told him.

Kovacevic planted himself in the chair beside Walker's desk.

“So, you think Randi Conway should be a suspect?”

“I don't know, sir. What do you think?”

Walker responded with a frown. “I've considered it, believe me.” He scratched his chin and stared straight ahead for a moment. Then he shook off the thought. “You know Kovie, I think this job is turning you into a cynic.”

The junior officer smiled. “I suppose that's a compliment, coming from you sir.”

Walker laughed. “Whatever it is, don't lose that edge. So tell me, where's her motive?”

“What if Mrs. Knoebel did something to Doctor Conway we don't even know about?”

“Possible. But what about our gallery of cheaters and disgruntled spouses? It takes a lot to drive someone to murder. ”

Kovacevic nodded.

“It's possible Doctor Knoebel murdered a cheating wife. Then we have Elizabeth Knoebel's lovers. Maybe one of them got an idea of what she was up to, diary or no diary.”

“Like you said, it takes a lot to turn someone into a killer.”

“What about the wives? It seems every one of those women hated her.”

“They had good reason to, if they knew what she was doing.”

“Yeah.” Walker rubbed his eyes. “It's like I told Gill, we've got too many damned suspects. But let's go back to those two anonymous notes for a moment. There's something about them that bothers me too.” He thought it over. “It's all too easy,” he said.

“Sir?”

“Everything points to one of Randi's patients.”

“Randi, sir?”

“Doctor Conway,” he said with a grin. “But think about it, Kovie. She gets two notes. Her office is ransacked and her files scattered around. What do the notes mean? Nothing, far as I can tell. She doesn't believe any of her records are missing from the break-in. Sure, someone might have read something, but so what? Or they might have been looking for the diary. But somehow it all feels manufactured. I mean, what if the murderer is not one of her patients? What if it's someone who knew Elizabeth Knoebel, knew Randi Conway was her therapist, and has been doing everything possible to send us in the wrong direction?”

“If you're right, it's working.”

Walker nodded. “People have affairs every day. And they get caught every day. But they don't resort to homicide. I'll grant you that the Knoebel woman is an extreme case, and the stuff she was writing takes things to another level. But did any of our unhappy players know about the book? Except Nettie Sisson? I don't think so, or at least we have no indication that they did. I don't even think Randi Conway knew, based on her reaction when I showed it to her. But maybe our killer did.”

Kovacevic nodded.

“I'm asking you, do you really believe Colello went off and shot Elizabeth because his wife might find out about their affair?”

“No, I really don't.”

Walker shook his head. “Neither do I. Can I see Fran Colello shooting her? Maybe. But there's got to be someone with more at stake here. Or a combination of real danger and a warped mind.”

“Which leads us where, sir?”

Walker picked up the phone. “I have a message from Doctor Conway, says she wants to meet with me. Asked me to bring the photographs of the murder scene.” He punched in her phone number. “Time to make that date.”

CHAPTER 51

An hour later Anthony Walker arrived at Randi's office. She was working her way through a cup of coffee.

“Got any more of that?”

“Help yourself.” Randi pointed to the machine on her credenza. “That's a refrigerator underneath, if you need milk.”

“Black is fine.”

“Did you bring the photos?”

Walker casually dropped an envelope on her desk, then went over and picked out a ceramic mug and had a look inside. “Anyone ever wash these things?” he asked.

Randi smiled weakly. “Sometimes I do, sometimes the cleaning lady. Sometimes no one. Pretty grungy, huh?”

“This one doesn't seem to have anything moving in it. Should be all right.” He filled the cup and sat down in the chair across from her.

She looked at him, a flush in her cheeks as she asked, “Will we be okay? You and me, I mean.”

“Yes,” he said. “I think we will.”

“I do too,” she said with a smile.

He waited as she began to study the photos, then asked, “So what gives?”

Some of the pictures were more gruesome than others. Each of them offered a stark portrayal of Elizabeth's violent death. “The room. I told you, I believe more than one of my patients was in that room.”

“I already told you, I know one of them was Thomas Colello.” She began to say something, but he showed her the palm of his hand. “It's okay. He already told us he was there, at least once.”

“He did?” Randi shook her head. “All right, I'm not even going to ask about that right now. I'm more interested in the other man. He was talking about this room in group the other night. I'm sure of it.” She returned to the photographic images. “It didn't hit me at first. I've never been to the Knoebels' home and I had only seen these pictures. But Thomas knew right away. Strange. I couldn't figure out why he became so angry. I was looking for something deep-seated, you know? Some issue between him and the other man.” Now she looked up at Walker. “The weight of knowledge can really slow you down sometimes.”

“I wouldn't know. I've never had enough for it to get in my way.”

“Save the ‘aw shucks' routine, Anthony,” she said with a smile. “Use it on someone who hasn't heard your theories on life and marriage.”

Walker wrapped his hand around the mug, ignoring the handle, then slowly drank some of the hot coffee. All the while, he watched Randi. “So? You going to tell me who this was or should I start guessing?”

“Look, I wouldn't have called you here if I didn't want to cooperate.”

“Uh oh. Sounds like I should start guessing.”

“No, it's not like that. I want to wait for Bob. I called him, wanted to make sure we're doing this correctly. After all, it may amount to nothing. It seems there may have been a lot of people in Elizabeth's bedroom. I hate to say it that way, but it appears to be true. What if this other man
was
there? It doesn't mean he killed her, right? I mean, that would be a pretty extreme leap of faith, wouldn't it?”

“I don't know.”

“Suppose I give you his name. Then you'll go and question him, correct?”

Walker took a sip of coffee. “That would be the general idea.”

“Then he'll know I put you onto him. And what if I'm wrong? What if it was a coincidence? What if he had nothing to do with her death? Where does that leave me? I violated a sacred trust, my professional ethics. Then what?”

Robert Stratford opened the door, catching the last of Randi's questions. “I hate to sound like a lawyer, but I think it's safe to say you'll get sued. What would remain of your practice is hard to say. I sure wouldn't want to be telling you any of my secrets once the story got out that you were sharing patient confidences with the police. How about you Lieutenant?”

“Good morning,” the detective glumly replied.

Stratford went over and fixed himself a cup of coffee. He was dressed in a navy blue suit, white shirt with gold cuff links and a yellow tie with little red pindots. His black shoes were as shiny as the hood of a new car. “I'm not trying to be obstructive, just realistic.” He came over and sat in the chair beside Walker. He looked into his mug, then placed it on the desk. “God, Randi, when was the last time you cleaned out that machine?”

“It's not the coffee maker,” Walker assured him. “It's the cup.”

“Oh good.” Stratford picked up the mug, had another good look at it, decided it would be all right and took a sip. “I guess the heat of the coffee should kill the bacteria, right? Now where was I? Oh yes. Randi filled me in on the phone.” He turned to her. “You've looked at the photos?”

Randi gestured toward the group of pictures spread out before her.

“And?”

“And I think I may be right,” she told them.

“Okay. And now we have to decide what to do about it,” Stratford told her.

“I understand.”

“What you told me on the phone this morning,” Stratford said to her, “you still feel the same.”