See Me (39 page)

When she pulled into the lot, Colin was waiting outside the station, wearing sunglasses, shorts, and a T-shirt. She waved as she got out of her car, hoping it would hide how nervous she was but suspecting that Colin would know anyway.

He gave her a quick kiss before pulling open the door for her. Maria felt a sense of déjà vu as she glanced around. Unlike their first visit, however, Margolis didn’t keep them waiting long. They’d barely taken their seats before she saw him striding toward them from the rear of the building. Again, he was holding a file, and he used it to motion them forward.

“Come on,” he said. “We’ll talk where we did before.”

Maria smoothed her skirt as she stood and walked beside Colin, past the others working at their desks, past the group of people collected around the coffeemaker.

Margolis opened the door and pointed to the same chairs they’d used before. She and Colin took their seats as Margolis moved to the far side of the table.

“Should I be worried?” Maria blurted out.

“No. Long story short, I don’t think Lester’s going to be a problem.”

“What does that mean?” she pressed.

Margolis tapped his pen against the folder before flicking a thumb at Colin. “It seems you’re still spending time with this particular problem child. And I don’t know why you keep insisting he come with you when we discuss your case. There’s no reason for him to be here.”

“I want him here,” she said. “And yes, we’re still spending time together. Happily, I might add.”

“Why?”

“I like his body and he’s fantastic in bed,” she answered, knowing it wasn’t any of his business and not bothering to hide her sarcasm.

Margolis smirked, but there was no humor behind it. “Before we begin, let me set the ground rules. For starters, the fact that you’re here at all is simply because I told you I’d look into your allegations, and because I told you I’d be in contact. Because your tires were slashed in addition to possible stalking violations, this is a potential
criminal
investigation, and in such an instance, ongoing investigations are generally not discussed. Still, because there’s also the potential for a
civil
no-contact order – the Fifty-C – I’m choosing to meet with you and keep you as informed as I think appropriate. Also, keep in mind that because Lester Manning has
not
been served a Fifty-C, he has – like everyone else – certain and expected rights to privacy. In other words, I’ll tell you what I think is important, but I won’t necessarily tell you everything I know. I also want to add that most of what I’ve done has been via the telephone. I’ve had to rely on a detective friend of mine in Charlotte for a few things, and frankly, I’m not sure how much more I’m going to be able to ask of him. He’s already gone out of his way, and like me, he’s got cases that are higher priority. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” he said. “First I’ll walk you through the approach I took, then a bit of what I learned.” Opening the folder, he pulled out his notes. “My first step was to familiarize myself with all the background information, so I perused the relevant police files. That included everything having to do with the first assault on Cassie Manning, the arrest and conviction of Gerald Laws, court documents, and finally, information regarding the murder of Cassie Manning. After that, I reviewed your first stalking report – the one you made after you received the notes in Charlotte – and I spoke to the officer in charge of that particular case. It wasn’t until late Tuesday evening that I felt like I had a pretty good grasp of everything.

“Now, with regard to Lester Manning, I’m comfortable telling you what you could probably learn on your own with a simple public records search.” He glanced down again. “He’s twenty-five years old and unmarried. High school graduate. He doesn’t own any real property and there are no cars registered in his name. He lists his phone number and address as the same as his father’s. With that said, I’m not sure how much time he actually spends there.”

Maria was about to ask a question, but Margolis held up his hand to stop her.

“Let me finish, okay? You’ll understand why I say that in just a couple of minutes. Now, I can share the next bit of information because I think it’s important to the Fifty-C, but I’m not going to go into heavy details because those may or may not be important to any future criminal case, all right?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Since Cassie’s death, Lester has had some problems with the law. He’s been arrested four times, but not for anything violent or dangerous. It’s all minor stuff – trespassing, vandalism, resisting arrest. Things like that. It turns out that Lester has a fondness for squatting in vacant houses. In each case, the charges were eventually dropped. I haven’t looked into the reasons, but in cases like these, it’s usually because there was little actual damage.”

Beside her, Maria saw Colin shift in his seat.

“Other than that, I wasn’t able to learn much, so I called Dr. Manning, Lester’s father. I left a message, and surprising me, I got a call back within a few minutes. I identified myself and told Dr. Manning that I was hoping to speak to his son, and I will say that he was entirely cooperative and more forthcoming than I expected. Among other things, toward the end of our second conversation, he gave me permission to disclose the full nature of my call with him to you. Does that surprise you?”

Maria opened her mouth, then closed it again, not sure what to say. “Should I be surprised?” she finally asked.

“I was,” Margolis said, “especially given the way you described him to me. But anyway, when I asked him if he knew where I might be able to find Lester, he asked me the reason, and I told him that it was regarding a police matter. To which he responded, and I quote, ‘Does this have anything to do with Maria Sanchez?’ ”

Margolis let the words hang before going on. “When I asked him why he brought up your name, he said that it’s not the first time you accused Lester of stalking. He said that after his daughter was murdered, you made the same accusation regarding some disturbing notes that had been sent to you. He insisted that his son, Lester, was not responsible then, and that he sincerely doubted that he was responsible for anything you were claiming now. He also said to tell you that while he does feel that you made a mistake by opting for the lesser charges, he’s well aware that Gerald Laws was responsible for Cassie’s death, and neither he nor his son blames you for what happened.”

“He’s lying.”

Margolis ignored her comment. “He told me that he’s not taking patients at the present time, and explained that he’s currently working in Tennessee for the state prison system. He said that he hasn’t spoken to Lester in weeks, but that Lester has a key to the house and occasionally stays in the apartment above the garage. He said that I’d probably be able to find Lester there. When I asked what he meant by ‘occasionally,’ Dr. Manning was quiet for a beat, and when he spoke again, I got the sense that I’d touched a nerve. He told me that ‘Lester is a bit of a nomad’ and there are times when he has no idea where Lester sleeps. I think he was referring to Lester’s habit of staying in vacant houses. When I pressed him, he added that he and his son are somewhat estranged these days, and for the first time, he sounded almost… apologetic. He reminded me that Lester was an adult and made his own decisions and there was only so much he could do as a father. He also added that if Lester wasn’t in the apartment at the house, my best bet was to try to find him at work. A place called Ajax Cleaners. It’s a janitorial service with a lot of commercial clients. He didn’t have the number offhand, but it was easy enough to find, and so my next step was to talk to the owner, a guy named Joe Henderson.”

Margolis looked up from his notes. “Are you following me so far?”

When Maria nodded, Margolis went on.

“When I spoke with Mr. Henderson, he said that Lester wasn’t a full-time or even part-time employee. He worked as an on-call employee – someone who could cover shifts when they were short-staffed or whatever.”

“How could they call him if he doesn’t have a phone?”

“I asked that very same question. The way it works there is they post open shifts on the employee section of their website – Henderson said it was easier to get a list of people and have them check than always scrambling to get the shifts covered. I had the sense there’s quite a few people who check the list regularly. Anyway, Lester sometimes worked two or three nights a week, but in the last couple of weeks, he hasn’t worked at all. Nor has Mr. Henderson heard from him. I found that interesting, so I called the house a couple of times, and no one answered. In the end, I sent my friend over there, and as far as he could tell, no one had been in the house or the apartment for at least a week. There were flyers in the mailbox, newspapers on the porch, that kind of thing. So I reached out to Dr. Manning a second time. And this is where things get kind of interesting.”

“Because you couldn’t reach him?”

“On the contrary,” he said. “Again, I left a message, and again, I got a call back within minutes. When I told Dr. Manning that Lester hadn’t been at work and that it didn’t appear that anyone had been at the house or apartment, his surprise gave way to concern. He asked again about the police matter – I hadn’t yet told him what it was – and I mentioned that I was looking into a case of slashed tires. He insisted that Lester wouldn’t do such a thing. He said his son isn’t violent; if anything, he’s terrified of conflict of any sort. He also admitted that he hadn’t been as forthcoming about Lester in the previous call as he could have been. When I asked what he meant, he told me that Lester…” Margolis reached for a page in the file. “Suffers from a delusional disorder, more specifically, ‘
persecutory delusions of the nonbizarre type
.’ While his son can generally function normally for extended periods, there are times when the disorder enters a more acute phase, sometimes lasting more than a month. In Lester’s case, it has its roots in the occasional usage of illegal drugs.”

Margolis looked up. “The doctor went into a bit more about the specifics of Lester’s disorder – way more than I needed to know, in fact – but essentially, it can be boiled down to this: When Lester is in an acute phase – when the disorder moves from simple paranoia to actual delusions – Lester ceases to function entirely normally. In these moments, Lester strongly believes that the police are out to get him and that they’ll stop at nothing to put him in prison for the rest of his life. He’s convinced they want to hurt him, and he’s convinced they will set other prisoners against him. He also has the same delusions about you.”

“That’s ridiculous. Lester’s been stalking me!”

“I’m just telling you what the doctor told me. He also told me that Lester had been arrested a few times. It was always during an acute phase, which was why he would resist arrest. The police would generally use Tasers to subdue him, and Dr. Manning added that on two separate occasions, Lester was beaten by other prisoners while he was locked up. That, by the way, goes to what I said earlier about my suspicion as to why the charges were dropped. I’m guessing that Lester wasn’t coherent and it didn’t take all that long for everyone to figure it out.”

Margolis let out a sigh. “But back to Dr. Manning. Like I told you, he sounded worried and he said that if Lester wasn’t at the house or working regularly, then he was likely in an acute phase. Which also meant he’d likely be in one of two places: either hiding out in a vacant house somewhere, or at Plainview, which is a psychiatric hospital. Lester’s checked himself in there numerous times in the past, more frequently since his mother died. In her will, she left a trust fund large enough to cover the cost of his treatment there. It’s expensive, by the way. I couldn’t get any answers on the phone, so I called my friend again and asked if he could head over to Plainview in person. He did that this morning, about an hour before I called you. And sure enough, Lester Manning is currently a patient there. He admitted himself voluntarily, but that’s about all the detective could really tell me. As soon as Lester learned that a detective wanted to talk to him about Maria Sanchez, he just… freaked out. My friend could hear him screaming from down the hall and the next thing he knew, a couple of orderlies were rushing in that direction. Like I said, interesting, don’t you think?”

Maria wasn’t sure what to say. In the silence, she heard Colin’s voice.

“When was he admitted to the hospital?”

She watched as Margolis’s eyes shifted toward Colin.

“I don’t know. My friend couldn’t find out. Medical records are confidential and that kind of information can’t be released without the patient’s permission. That clearly wasn’t going to happen. At least, not right then. But my friend knows what he’s doing, and so he asked one of the other patients, and the guy said that he thought Lester had been there for five or six days. Of course, considering the source, you’d have to take that information with a grain of salt.”

“In other words, it’s possible that Lester slashed the tires and left the notes.”

“Or he might have been in the hospital. And if he was in the hospital, then obviously it isn’t Lester.”

“It has to be him,” Maria insisted. “I don’t know who else it could be.”

“How about Mark Atkinson?”

“Who?”

“Cassie’s boyfriend. Because I looked into him, too. It turns out that he may or may not be missing.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’m still doing some preliminary work on that, but here’s what I can tell you. Mark Atkinson’s mother filed a missing persons report on her son about a month ago. But after I talked to the detective and right before I called you, I spoke with her to get more information, and I’m still not sure what to make of it. She told me that in August, he sent her an e-mail saying that he’d met someone online and that he was quitting his job and going to Toronto to meet her in person. She had no idea what to make of that, but in the e-mail, he told her not to worry. He said he’d prepaid his rent and that other bills were being paid online. The mother says she received a couple of printed letters from him saying that he was on a road trip with the woman, one of them postmarked from Michigan and another from Kentucky, but according to her, they were – and I quote – ‘vague and strange and impersonal, and not what my son would write.’ Other than that, there’s been no contact with him, and she insists that he’s missing. She says he would have called or texted her, and the fact that he hasn’t done those things means that something has happened to him.”