Mary, Mary (22 page)
SHE MUST HAVE SEEN THE HOLSTER
tucked inside my jacket. In a split second, she reached up and her hand was on the butt of my Glock.
“No!” I yelled. “Mary!”
I instinctively knocked her back into her chair, but the gun wrenched free from the holster and she had it. I caught a flash of her eyes, which were glazed and crazy.
I dove at her, grabbing her wrist with one hand and the gun with the other. I continued to yell her name.
Next, the two of us fell over the chair as it went down with a loud crack.
I was vaguely aware of people scrambling all around us. My focus stayed on her.
She strained, red-faced, slamming my side with her free fist. I now had a knee on her chest and one hand still on her wrist, pinning the gun to the ground, but she was as strong as she looked.
And her finger was already wrapped around the Glock’s trigger. She squirmed hard, turning the barrel of the gun toward herself—and tilting her head to meet it. She knew exactly what she was doing.
“No! Mary!”
With a rush of adrenaline, fighting an equal surge of resistance from her, I managed to lift her gun hand toward the ceiling. Then I smashed it back down, very hard, against the floor.
The Glock fired once into the wall of the interrogation room, even as it fell out of her grasp. I snatched it up, the shot still ringing in my ears, the side of my face numb.
There was a brief, suspended moment of near silence.
Mary stopped struggling immediately, and then, in an unbelievable echo of the previous day’s events, the police descended on her like a small army. They picked her up as she flailed once again, arms and legs whipping crazily.
I could hear her unchecked sobs as they carried her away.
“My babies, my babies, my poor babies . . . Where are my children? Oh, where? Oh, where? What have you done with my children?”
Her voice receded down the hall until a heavy door slammed with great finality, and she was gone. Not surprisingly, I didn’t get the chance for another interview.
To make matters worse, if that was possible, I saw James Truscott as I left the building about an hour later. He was among the throng of reporters gathered outside waiting for any tidbit of news.
He yelled at me, “How did she get your gun, Dr. Cross? How’d that happen?” Somehow, Truscott had already gotten the story.
I COULD ONLY WONDER
about the causes and the full extent of Mary Wagner’s mental illness and the obvious torment and stress it was putting on her. There certainly hadn’t been any time for a meaningful psych evaluation, and my part in the investigation was coming to an end now, whether I liked it or not. And, to be honest, I had mixed feelings.
By early that afternoon, Mary’s state of mind was a moot point. LAPD’s search of her house had turned up a holy trinity of evidence.
A Walther PPK, discovered under a blanket in her attic crawl space, had already shown a preliminary ballistic match to the weapon used in the murders.
CSI had also found half-a-dozen sheets of children’s stickers and, most significant, stolen family photographs from Marti Lowenstein-Bell’s office and Suzie Cartoulis’s purse. Both Michael Bell and Giovanni Cartoulis had positively identified the photos as having belonged to their murdered wives.
“And best of all, most important anyway,” Fred Van Allsburg told the small group of agents assembled in his office, “twelve o’clock came and went today without incident. No new victim, no new e-mail. It’s
over
. I think I can safely say that.”
The mood was grimly congratulatory. Just about everyone was glad to leave this one behind, but the details of the case would haunt most of the team for some time, just as the D.C. sniper case still lingered in the J. Edgar Hoover Building back East. It’s an unsatisfying and unpleasant feeling, but also part of what drives us to do better.
“Alex, we owe you one on this.” Van Allsburg finally came over to me. “Your work on the case was invaluable. I have to say that. I see why Ron Burns likes you close to home.”
A few uneasy laughs went through the room. Agent Page reached from behind and patted my shoulder. He would go far in the Bureau, if he could keep his passion for solving crimes.
“I’d still like to take a peek at that final evidence LAPD found. And maybe get a real interview with Mary Wagner,” I said, diverting back to what
I
thought was most important.
Van Allsburg shook his head. “Not necessary.”
“There’s no reason for me not to stick around another day—” I started to say.
“Don’t worry about it. Page and Fujishiro are good for the details; I can back them up. And if we really need you again, there’s always frequent-flier miles, right?” His tone was artificially bright.
“Fred, Mary Wagner wouldn’t talk to anyone before I came. She trusts me.”
“At least, she did,” he said. “Probably not anymore.” It was a blunt statement, but not aggressive.
“I’m still the only person she’s opened up to. I hear LAPD is getting nowhere with her.”
“Like I said, you’re just a plane ride away if we need you back. I spoke about it with Director Burns and he agrees. Go home to your family. You have kids, right?”
“Yes, I have kids.”
Hours later, packing my bag at the hotel, I was struck hard with another kind of realization: Actually, I couldn’t wait to get home. It was a huge relief that I’d be back in D.C. again, with no immediate travel plans.
But—and the
but
was important—why had that fact been so far from my mind in Van Allsburg’s office? What were these blinders I wore, and how did I keep forgetting I had them on? What kind of dramatic wake-up call did I need before I got the message?
On the way to the airport I figured out another piece. It just hit me. The
A
’s and
B
’s on the children’s stickers at the crime scenes. I knew what the letters meant. Mary’s imaginary children’s names—Ashley, Adam, Brendan. Two
A
’s and a
B
.
I phoned it in on my way out of L.A.
THE STORYTELLER WAS DONE KILLING.
Fini.
It was over, and no one would ever know the whole truth about what had happened.
End of story
.
So he threw himself a party with some of his best buddies from Beverly Hills.
He told them he’d just gotten a gig writing a screenplay for an A-list director, a big, dopey thriller based on a dopey bestseller. He’d been given license to change anything he didn’t like, but that was all he could say about it right now. The director was paranoid—so what’s new? But a big party was definitely in order.
His friends thought they understood what was going down, which gave him some idea how little they knew him. His best friends in the world—and hell, none of them knew him at all. None of them suspected he could be a killer. How fricking unbelievably crazy was that? No one knew him.
The party was at the Snake Pit Ale House, a bar on Melrose where they’d held a fantasy football league during his early days in L.A., soon after he’d arrived from Brown University to act, and maybe dabble at writing scripts—serious, worthy stuff, not box-office crap.
“The order of the night is free beer,” he said as each of his buds arrived at the bar, “and wine for the wussies among you. So I guess it’s vino all around?”
Nobody drank wine, not one of the fourteen pals who came to the bash. They were all glad to see him out and about, and also about his new gig—though some of the more honest ones admitted they were jealous. Everybody started calling him “A-list.”
He and David and Johnboy and Frankie were still at the bar when it closed at a little past two. They were overanalyzing a movie called
We Don’t Live Here Anymore.
They finally more or less stumbled outside and exchanged Hollywood hugs on the street next to Johnny’s fucking Bentley—talk about A-list—the spoils of the last movie he’d produced, a 400-million-dollar grosser worldwide, which made all the rest of them sick because all he’d done was buy a dipshit graphic novel for fifty thousand then sign up the Rock for ten mil. Genius, right? Yep—’cause it worked.
“Love ya, man. You’re the best, you sick, obnoxious, ostentatious bastard. You too, Davey!” he yelled as the silver Bentley pulled away from the curb and sped west.
“I know—I’m just a
bastard
right now,” David yelled back. “But I have dreams of being sick, obnoxious, and ostentatious, too. And
talented
—which is what’s holding me back in this town.”
“Hey, man—I hear you, I feel ya,” he yelled.
“Seeya, A-list! Ya hack!”
“I’m just a storyteller!” he yelled back.
Then he was kind of floating down a side street to his own car, a seven-year-old Beamer. Not a Suburban. He was definitely three sheets to the wind. Happy as a pig out of a blanket—humming Jimi Hendrix’s “The Wind Cries Mary.” An in-joke that only he would get.
Until suddenly he began to sob, and he couldn’t make himself stop, not even when he was sitting on the lawn of some grungy apartment building with his head down between his legs, bawling like a baby.
And he was thinking,
Just one more, just one.
One more kill and I’ll be good
.
THE NEXT MORNING,
he couldn’t sleep, and he drove up and down Melrose—past L’Angelo, which used to be Emilio’s; the Groundling Theater where Phil Hartman got his start; Tommy Tang’s; the original Johnny Rockets; the Blue Whale. His city, man. His and Proud Mary’s.
It was around 5:30 or so when he bounced into the Starbucks on Melrose, which used to be The Burger that Ate LA back in the day. Man, he did not like Starbucks, but they were open, the greedy little Yuppie bastards. The numbers dictated that they be open, right? The numbers ran everything these days.
And here he was—proving the number crunchers right. Five-thirty in the
A.M.
and he was already making their day.
God, he despised these dipshit coffee places, the new McDonald’s, overpriced rip-offs. He remembered when a cup of coffee was fifty cents, which seemed about right. But “Sumatra blend”—now that was worth two-fifty if it was worth a nickel. For a
tall,
which really meant a
small
.
And the goateed schmo minding the store was too busy setting up shop to give any attention to his paying customer, his early bird, the day’s first sucker.
He let it go for a minute or so, but the jerk was starting to piss him off royally.
“Be right back,” he finally told the superbusy “barista” behind the counter, and the guy still hardly noticed him. What an ass and a half. No doubt, an actor out of work. Too good for the job, right? With an attitude—which was supposed to be a good thing these days.
A minute later, he reentered the Starbucks with a piece in his jacket pocket. He was starting to rev-up now. This was probably stupid, definitely not too smart, but God, it felt pretty good.
Hey, pal, my gun is getting thirsty.
Right then and there, the decision was made. This arrogant fuck wannabe actor was going down for the count. He was tomorrow’s headlines today.
“Hey, buddy, I’m waiting here for some coffee. You got any coffee at Starbucks?”
The barista didn’t look up from his busy work even then, just waved a free hand. “Be with ya.”
The Storyteller,
the
Storyteller, heard the door open behind him. Another sucker arrives.
“Hey, morning, Christopher.” A woman’s chirpy voice came from behind. He didn’t even turn to look at her. Screw her, too.
“Hiya, Sarah,” called the counter guy. And he was suddenly all chirpy, too.
Now
the jackass came to the front, now he wakes up.
For Sarah.
And that’s when he shot the dude in the chest, right in the Starbucks apron.
“Forget the coffee, Christopher. Don’t need it now. I’m already wired.”
Then he turned to see about the woman. First time he ever looked at her.
Chirpy-looking blonde, maybe midthirties, wearing a black leather jacket over black pedal pushers, black thongs, too.
“Hey, morning, Sarah,” he said, casual-like and friendly as a cocker spaniel off its leash in the park. “Wearing black for the funeral?”
“Excuse me—”
And he shot her, too. Twice. Then one more for the barista.
Just one more kill, right?
he was thinking.
Well, maybe two more.
He robbed the cash register, took Sarah’s ratty buckskin pocketbook, and off he went into the early morning L.A. smog, heading west, across Stanley, Spaulding, Genessee.
Mary Smith rides again, right?
I LOOKED AT JANNIE
in the rearview mirror. “The Spy Museum, huh?” I asked.
She nodded. “Absotootly!”
Jannie had drawn Saturday afternoon in our little lottery. Tonight was mine, Sunday day was Nana’s, and Sunday night was Damon’s time to howl. The Cross Family Weekend was all mapped out, and it was already under way.
We spent the afternoon learning about ninja, cloak-and-dagger, and shadow spies, a construct I must have missed in my classes at Quantico. The kids tested their powers of observation in the School for Spies, and even I was impressed with some of the future-world props and models they had in the 21st Century section.
Since dinner was my choice, I decided to introduce everyone to Ethiopian food. Jannie and Damon did fairly well with some of the more exotic tastes—except for the
kitfo,
essentially steak tartare. Still, they liked eating with their fingers, which Nana called “real down-home cooking.”
When Jannie and Nana went off to the ladies’ room, Damon turned to me. “You know, you could have invited Doctor Coles. If you wanted,” he said, then shrugged.
I was touched by the man-to-manness of Damon’s remark. I’d even say it was adorable, except that he’d hate it if I saw it that way. “Thanks, Day,” I said, playing it straight. “Kayla and I are having dinner on Tuesday. I appreciate the thought.”
“She’s a good lady. Everybody thinks so. You need somebody, you know.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“And she’s the only person I’ve ever seen who can make Nana do stuff she doesn’t want to.”
I laughed, liking that he had noticed so much about Kayla, and his observations were mostly sharp and true.
“What’s so funny?” Nana asked, suddenly at the table again. “What did I miss?”
“What is it?” Jannie asked, demanded actually. “I want to know what’s going on. Was it about the Spy Museum? You two mocking me? I will not be mocked.”
“Guys’ privilege,” Damon said.
“I bet it was about Doctor Coles.” Jannie’s voice turned to a squeak as her instincts landed her in exactly the right place. “We like her, Daddy,” she said, when I had neither confirmed nor denied her guess.
“Yeah, but you like everyone.”
“Guess where I got that from?”
“We need to have her over for dinner,” Nana piped up.
“Just not Tuesday,” Damon told her.
Jannie grinned, and her eyes got wide. “Yeah. Tuesday night is date night. Right, Daddy? Am I right?”