1 The Question of the Missing Head (11 page)

That seemed to contradict what Arthur Masters had told us. “Your ex-wife was in touch with her brother while you were married?” I asked.

“Sure. Called him once, maybe twice a week. They were thick as thieves.”

I looked at Ms. Washburn, who seemed as baffled as I felt. It was Lapides who pressed the issue, however. “Arthur Masters said she never spoke to him after you were married,” he told Powell.

“Then he’s lying.”

“You’re sure you’re remembering right?” Lapides tried. “Rita spoke to her brother at least twice a week?”

Powell nodded. “Every week. They got together for lunch every once in a while, too. The mother wouldn’t give her any money—that’s why Rita got the job at the bank—but her brother used to slip her something every once in a while over lunch. I never wanted to … to take it, but Rita said it was family money, and she was entitled to it.”

“Where did you wife work?” I asked him. There wasn’t going to be much more time. Powell’s speech was slowing, and he would not be especially helpful as a witness for much longer.

“At the United Station Bank in Morristown,” he answered. “She was an officer in the bank by the time she quit working and left me.”

“She stopped working at the same time she filed for divorce?” That didn’t seem to make sense—Rita certainly would have expected less money, not more, when leaving her husband.

Powell nodded too enthusiastically, like an alcoholic trying to be sincere. “Stopped working the day she moved out of the house. Got herself an apartment in Madison. Started going to the country club again. My friends who still work there told me.”

I estimated, based on the tone of Powell’s voice and his half-closed eyes, that only one more question would be answered coherently. “Did you wife ever mention Dr. Rebecca Springer?” I asked him.

“Becky?” Powell said. “Becky Springer? They went to high school together.”

nineteen

I was correct about
Powell—after he made that rather amazing statement, he was no longer a credible witness. His responses to questions tended to be off-topic, mostly concerning how much he had come to love his ex-wife and how stupefied he was when she left him. Beyond that, we got very little from him, so Lapides terminated the interview less than five minutes later.

“This question continues to become more perplexing the more we discover,” I told the assembled group. Lapides had checked with his Information Technology expert to be assured that the interview had been saved to a hard drive and a disk for later use. Now the Johnsons, Lapides, and Ackerman stayed behind Ackerman’s desk, while Ms. Washburn joined me in the larger part of the room. I paced; Ms. Washburn stood with her notebook and watched.

“Rita Masters-Powell and Rebecca Springer went to high school together?” Ackerman said. “Does that even mean anything?”

“Not necessarily.” Lapides, doing his best to be the detective in charge of the investigation, stood fully straight and made a great effort to appear confident. “Sometimes things really are just coincidences.”

“I don’t believe that is the case here,” I broke in. “Two women involved in these two crimes, that closely bound, and they had a previous relationship that went back decades. Ms. Masters-Powell knew Dr. Springer well enough in her adulthood that her ex-husband knows the name without having to check, even in what was clearly an impeded state of mind.”

“What about that?” Commander Johnson asked. “Isn’t is possible that Powell was just answering with what he thought you wanted to hear? By that point in the interview, he clearly was not completely awake and alert.”

I checked my watch. It was 5:07 p.m., which meant I no longer had to exercise every twenty minutes. That regimen is observed only from eight a.m. to five p.m., my normal hours at Questions Answered, in order to work most efficiently.

“If he had merely said that his ex-wife knew the doctor, that might have been his intention,” I answered. “But he added the context, that they knew each other since high school. That was not something he could have taken from my question; it was a detail he volunteered on the spot. I believe it to be true, but I imagine that your employee records on Dr. Springer will bear me out, won’t they, Dr. Ackerman?”

Ackerman sat back down at his computer station and readjusted the flat-screen monitor to face him in a seated position. He began to work the keyboard, and in less than a minute, stopped and scrolled down a page on his screen.

“Rebecca attended West Morris Mendham High School,” he confirmed. “I can check the educational records on Ms. Masters-Powell, but they probably show the same school during the same years.”

“Please do confirm it, though,” I said. “We want to be sure of our facts.”

Ackerman began the task, but Amelia Johnson was not willing to wait. “So they went to high school together,” she said. “I went to high school with Queen Latifah. Doesn’t mean we’re tied together in any way, shape, or form. She was just Dana Owens then, anyway.”

“We have some evidence, strictly on the word of Ms. Masters-Powell’s ex-husband, that they saw each other more recently than high school,” I reminded her. “Did Dr. Springer have any family?” I asked Ackerman.

“I told you,” Lapides broke in. “She was divorced and had no children, remember?”

“Yes, but did she have parents, siblings, someone in the area who might have known about her friends? Ackerman?”

“She did go to West Morris Mendham High School, and she was there for two years with Rita Masters,” Ackerman said, answering a question from a few minutes before. “Let me scroll up to her family records …”

“Where is this getting you?” Amelia demanded. “It’s not helping to clear my husband’s name.”

“Mrs. Johnson, our goal here is to arrive at the truth,” I informed her. “If we try to apply the facts to a theory, rather than collect facts and see where they lead us, we will no doubt arrive at an incorrect answer to the question.”

“What does that mean?” Amelia asked.

“We are not trying to vindicate the commander,” I explained. “We’re trying to find out what happened.”

Amelia’s eyes flashed anger, which startled me. It had never been my mission to advocate for the commander; it made no sense that she should expect me to do so. If her husband had indeed participated in either of the crimes being investigated—and there had been no conclusive evidence for either position on that question as yet—I would indeed be foolish to spend my time trying to prove his innocence. It would be like attempting to prove that the Boston Red Sox have won more World Series than the New York Yankees—no matter how much a dedicated Boston fan would like that proposition to be true, the facts clearly prove it otherwise.

But before Amelia could voice her indignation, Ackerman pointed to his screen. “Rebecca didn’t have any siblings, but her father is still living in Mendham,” he said, sounding proud of himself for his ability to look up his business’s own personnel records. “Has he been notified, detective?”

Lapides picked up a clipboard he had placed on a side table and began leafing through the pages clipped to it. After a moment, he said, “Yes. He was advised of the loss this morning.”

“Call him and ask if his daughter was close to Rita Masters-Powell,” I suggested.

Ms. Washburn coughed, which I interpreted as a way of getting my attention. “Maybe we could find a classmate, or a current friend, to ask,” she said. “I think Dr. Springer’s father might be a little upset today.”

I almost protested, thinking that Dr. Springer’s father would benefit from our discovering who had murdered his daughter, but it occurred to me that Ms. Washburn might be applying an emotional context that I may not have considered. Mother often does the same thing for me in certain situations. I have found it best to defer to her judgment in such situations.

“Perhaps so,” I agreed with Ms. Washburn. “Detective, have you found any close friends of Dr. Springer’s?”

Lapides went back to his clipboard. “There’s an Amy Fitzgerald,” he said. “She knew the doctor from medical school; she was an instructor there. I’ll have a uniform get in touch with her.”

“Maybe you could see to it yourself,” I urged. “It would be helpful for you to talk face-to-face to Ms. Fitzgerald, to gauge her reactions, her comfort level answering the questions.”

Commander Johnson’s eyes widened. “Lapides?”

“Yes?” the detective responded.

“No, I just meant … I’m saying, reading a person’s face, getting a feel for whether they’re lying …” The commander seemed to be backpedaling from something he had wanted to say. “It doesn’t seem like those are your best things.”

As soon as the commander began speaking, I turned my attention to Detective Lapides’s face. I’ve made it a priority to learn as much as I can about facial expressions. Their interpretation does not come naturally to me, so a great deal of practice has been necessary—and helpful—for me to read faces. I’m still not an expert, and perhaps not even as proficient as a person without Asperger’s Syndrome, but I have come far from where I began.

In this case, it occurred to me from Commander Johnson’s tone that he was going to say something derogatory about Lapides, and as his speech progressed, that became more and more evident. Seeing how the detective reacted facially would tell me much about the situation, and about Detective Lapides.

At first, he looked merely surprised. But as the commander continued, the detective’s expression took on an air of sadness—he appeared to concur with Commander Johnson’s assessment of his interrogation technique, and was unhappy about what he saw as a major shortcoming. But by the time Commander Johnson finished speaking, Lapides’s expression had changed.

Now, he appeared purely angry.

“I can handle it,” Lapides said through clenched teeth. “Don’t you worry.”

Since I had seen the detective in action only when he was questioning Ms. Washburn and myself, my experience was limited, and my assessment incomplete. It was entirely possible that Commander Johnson’s expression of contempt was merited, but I could not be certain of that now. Again, it was Ms. Washburn who stepped in diplomatically to defuse the situation.

“Maybe you should bring Ms. Fitzgerald here, so that we can all see how well you do,” she suggested to Lapides. “I’ll bet you can prove Commander Johnson wrong.”

“That seems to be what everybody around here wants to do,” Amelia Johnson muttered.

Lapides took the bait, not having heard Amelia’s comment. “I’ll do just that,” he said.

With a new expression of determination on his face, Lapides turned to leave the room. But before he began walking, I noticed Ms. Washburn trying to catch my eye. She signaled toward Lapides with her eyes, and I nodded. I hoped the intent of the message was the same on both our parts; having worked with Ms. Washburn for just one day, I couldn’t be sure, but every instance so far had shown a rapport that I would have considered extremely unlikely after such a short acquaintance.

She intercepted Lapides on his way out of the room and spoke very quietly to him for just a moment. He nodded and walked out.

“What was that all about?” Ackerman asked when Lapides had left.

“I was encouraging him,” Ms. Washburn answered. “I thought what Commander Johnson said to him was mean and unfair.”

Amelia Johnson gasped at the impudence of it all and turned to leave the room. “The depth of this conspiracy is unbelievable!” she shouted as she left.

Her husband made no move to stop her. He actually seemed to exhale after she was out of the room.

“This squabbling isn’t getting us anywhere,” Ackerman said, mopping his brow with a handkerchief. “How much time do we have left before Rita’s remains are no longer viable?” He looked at his watch, something he’d done frequently since we’d come into his office.

“There are too many variables to answer that question,” I responded. “We do not know who has the material, or what equipment they have to preserve it. In theory, someone could keep the cranium frozen indefinitely, in which case we have nothing to worry about in terms of time.

“But if there is no means of preservation at the site where the thieves have taken Ms. Masters-Powell’s remains, we have probably already lost any possibility of recovering them safely,” I continued. “And since Ms. Masters-Powell’s family is already aware of the situation and we have still had no communication with the thieves, I suggest that it is best for us to assume the cranium is being preserved properly, since we have no recourse if it is not.”

Ackerman’s mouth flapped open twice, but he said nothing. He seemed stunned.

Commander Johnson, arms folded behind Ackerman’s desk, appeared completely unaffected by my analysis. His interest was the facility’s security, nothing else. Whether or not a Masters family fund continued to pay a somewhat upscale monthly fee was not his concern.

“We should be spending this time trying to track down the thieves,” he said. “If the head is still usable or not, they still broke into this facility and stole secured property.”

“An excellent point,” I agreed. “How do you think we should proceed from here?” I have found, after a good deal of trial and error, that appealing to most people’s egos usually has the effect of increasing the flow of information and avoiding uncomfortable scenes. Mother tends to believe this is strictly a male trait, but I have seen it work with women as well.

Sure enough, Commander Johnson’s chest seemed to swell as he took an even more erect stance and very visibly considered the question. “What you’ve been doing so far has been ineffective,” he began. Social skills training would have benefitted the commander, as criticism is rarely the best conversation starter. “It’s not your fault; you are not experienced in security and criminal justice.”

“What do you suggest?” I reiterated. There was no sense in debating who might be at fault when the theft and the murder took place under the commander’s watch, before I was consulted at all.

“Physical evidence,” he answered. “Interviewing witnesses can only take the investigation so far. What is the physical evidence present at the crime scene?”

“Detective Lapides has gathered the evidence so far,” I said, and did not react when the commander rolled his eyes at the mention of Lapides’s name. There was no time now for this juvenile turf war. “But what I saw consisted of the receptacle for Ms. Masters-Powell’s remains, which had been removed from its storage site, behind Dr. Springer’s body, which was face down on the floor, blocking the door to the chamber. There was a bullet hole in the receptacle, but not in Dr. Springer. The rest of the receptacles were undisturbed, or at least appeared so to the naked eye. There was no blood on the floor, as Dr. Springer was not shot, but suffocated. In the outer chamber, there was no sign of a struggle, nor was the alarm system activated. Is there anything I am leaving out, Ms. Washburn?”

She seemed startled at my addressing her. “Not that I saw, Samuel,” she said.

I turned to face the commander and waited for his assessment. It was not long in coming.

“Very good,” he pronounced my report. “But another examination of the scene, by a trained eye, couldn’t possibly hurt.”

I was about to agree with him but to avoid noting that his eye was no more trained than most, when Lapides opened the door to Ackerman’s office and walked back inside. He was wearing a most unfortunately smug grin on his face.

Lapides strode directly to Ackerman’s desk and pulled a paper from his inside jacket pocket. “There!” he said. “A warrant signed by a judge that gives my technology expert access to your video surveillance system.” He slapped the paper down onto Ackerman’s desk with a theatrical flair. “He’ll be here inside of an hour.”

Then the detective did something so ill advised that I questioned his social skills as well. He looked at me, winked, and gave me a thumbs-up gesture. He turned back toward Ackerman. “And I will be interrogating Dr. Springer’s friend Amy in the conference room very soon. Be sure to come in and see how I do.”

Ackerman, taking notice of this, narrowed his eyes and positively scowled.