See Me (46 page)

“I don’t understand it, either.”

“I wish the police had found him. I hate knowing that he’s still out there… following and watching and planning and hiding. What good will a restraining order do if they can’t serve him? And what if he shows up again before they do? I thought about leaving town, but what if he follows me? Or tracks me somehow. I mean, even I didn’t know I was going to be here tonight, so how did he know? And how did he know I’d be at the bar?”

“I’ve been wondering about those things, too.”

“And? What am I supposed to do? I just want to feel…
safe
.”

“I have an idea. It might be a bit over the top, but…”

“What is it?”

He told her.

M
aria was sleeping on the couch when she felt Colin kiss her good-bye and whisper that he’d be back by eight o’clock. She was dimly aware of him slipping out the garage door. Surprising herself, she was able to get a few more hours of sleep before the sounds of the household roused her.

Over coffee, she shared Colin’s plans with her family. They listened with surprise. Her parents would have preferred that she stay where they could keep an eye on her, but they understood Colin’s reasoning and accepted her decision, asking only that she stay in touch.

Colin showed up at her parents’ house around eight with a disposable cell phone and followed Maria back to her condo. There, she showered, changed into jeans and a white T-shirt and black pumps, and packed an overnight bag. By nine, they were at the courthouse, where Maria completed and filed the necessary paperwork for the 50C. Margolis had been good to his word again; the clerk said that they’d get it before the judge to sign before the court convened for the day.

Using the disposable phone, Maria texted Margolis her number and asked that he keep her informed as to any progress regarding Lester Manning.

To her surprise, Margolis called less than half an hour later and asked to meet with her at a coffee shop. “It’s a couple of blocks from the courthouse, and we’ll be able to talk in private,” he said cryptically. She felt good about the fact that she’d filed the paperwork and decided to go with Colin’s idea. For the first time since all this had started, she’d acted instead of reacted. While there was no guarantee that they’d be able to serve Lester with the court order, taking the initiative made her feel as though she had some semblance of control.

At the coffee shop, she and Colin sat in a corner booth where they could watch for Margolis’s arrival.

When he finally walked through the door half an hour late, it took only a second for him to spot them. As he wove his way between tables, Maria noticed the way the fabric of his ill-fitting blazer tightened around his biceps. Like Colin, Margolis seemed to spend a lot of time in the gym.

He paused near the register to order a cup of coffee and then slid into the booth across from Maria and Colin. When he glanced at Colin, she thought she detected a trace less of his usual animosity.

Or then again, maybe she was just imagining it.

“Any problems with the Fifty-C this morning?”

“No,” Maria said. “And thank you for your help. It’s clear they were expecting me.”

He nodded. “Judge Carson will be in court today. I left word with his clerk, so there shouldn’t be any holdup. If you don’t hear from them, let me know.”

“Sure,” she said.

The waiter came by, dropping off the cup of coffee. Margolis waited until he left before speaking again.

“How did you hold up last night?” he asked Maria.

“I didn’t sleep well, if that’s what you’re asking. But at least Lester didn’t come back.”

He nodded. “I checked this morning and he wasn’t spotted on any of the patrols, either. But he’ll turn up. A guy like that tends to stand out and make people nervous, which means that calls come in. I’m confident someone will let us know when he shows up.”

“If he’s still in town,” she said. “For all we know, he could be back in Charlotte by now. Or God knows where else.”

“If he is, he’s not in the hospital. I checked this morning. No sign of him. You should also know that I had my friend drive past the Manning place this morning. No sign of him there, either in the garage apartment or the house.”

She nodded.

“On another note,” he went on, “I spoke with the sheriff’s department, and they’re okay with me serving Lester when we do find him. That’s actually good news. It’s not always that easy. But I’d hate for Lester to be located and then not get served because there are no sheriffs readily available and he disappears again before they can.”

“So that’s the plan?” Maria asked. “To wait until he shows himself?”

“I’m not sure there’s another option. I’m just trying to make the best out of a bad situation.”

“Is that why you wanted to meet with me this morning? To tell me you couldn’t find him?”

“No,” Margolis said. “A couple of interesting bits of information turned up and I wanted to get your take on them.”

“I thought you weren’t at liberty to talk about the investigation.”

“You’re right,” he said. “Which means I’ll have to limit some of what I tell you. Still, I wanted to talk to you because I need your help.”

“Why?”

“Because the more I look into this situation, the less it seems to add up. I’m hoping that you can help me put the pieces together.”

Welcome to my world
, Maria thought.

Margolis went on. “Regarding the situation last night. I told you I was looking into possible weapons violations. But like everything else in this case, what seemed obvious isn’t. So let’s start with this: Lester does
not
have a gun permit. Nor has he legally purchased a weapon, which I thought was great news for you. However, it turns out that Avery Manning, the father, does have a permit for a handgun purchased about a year ago.”

“And?”

“The problem is that Lester and Avery, father and son, live at the same address. It’s not illegal to borrow someone’s gun if the weapon is properly permitted. So I can’t make a case on that, unless Avery Manning didn’t give permission. But there are even more complications.”

“Such as?”

“Avery Manning came to see me this morning.” He let those words hang before continuing. “That’s why I was late getting here, by the way. I figured it was better to meet with him before I talked to you. The story took yet another twist.”

“What?”

“The gun may not have been real.”

“Excuse me?”

Margolis picked up his spoon and stirred his coffee as he went on. “Let me start from the beginning, okay? We sit down and the first thing I think is that Dr. Manning looks like crap, which made sense as soon as he told me he’d just driven in from Tennessee. He was clearly upset. He must have mowed through an entire pack of gum while we were sitting there, chewing and spitting out one piece after another. Although he didn’t attempt to control the conversation, which surprised me based on the way you’d described him. But anyway, I ask him what I can do for him, and he immediately says that Lester has left Plainview, and that he was worried Lester might come to see you. He begged me to warn you and to tell you that if he showed up you should call the police. He went on to say that Lester was in an acute delusional phase, and that he’d been struggling with this disorder for years, yada yada yada… pretty much all the same things he’d told me before.”

“But yesterday, he wasn’t even sure if his son was in the hospital.”

Margolis took a sip of his coffee. “He said the hospital called him as soon as the staff realized that Lester was missing, as he’s the emergency contact. Apparently, when Lester didn’t show up for his appointment with the social worker, the staff spent a couple of hours searching the hospital before they realized he must have left the grounds. That’s when they called Dr. Manning.”

“How is that even possible? It’s a psychiatric hospital. Don’t they watch their patients?”

“According to Dr. Manning, Lester’s been there regularly enough to understand the routines and he’s familiar with the staff. The administrator also emphasized that there was no reason not to trust Lester. Lester had entered the hospital voluntarily and he’d never run off before. So free time comes along and they’re guessing that Lester just… slipped away. After that, he either has use of someone’s car, or someone picked him up, and he made his way to Wilmington. And he obviously had a gun stashed somewhere along the way.” Margolis shrugged. “What can I say, he’s paranoid.”

“If he wanted to warn me, why didn’t Dr. Manning call you as soon as he found out?”

“He did,” Margolis said, his expression letting her know he was just as surprised as she was. “He left me a voice mail last night, but unfortunately, I didn’t get around to listening to it until this morning, after I’d already met with him. Even then, I’m not sure how much good it would have done. The call came in after Lester had already been at your place.”

Maria nodded.

“Anyway, after we went over those things, I told Dr. Manning that Lester had not only shown up at your parents’ last night and confronted you, but that he had a gun. At that point, Dr. Manning became even more upset. Then, after he’d seemed to calm down, he insisted to me that Lester’s gun couldn’t have been real.”

“Of course he’d say that.”

“That’s what I thought, too. I asked him how he could be so sure. He said that he owned only two guns: an old shotgun he’s had since he was a kid that he said might not even work, and the handgun I told you about, which he keeps in a locked case in the trunk of his car. He added that there was no way he’d ever leave it at the house where Lester could get his hands on it.”

“I know what I saw!”

“I don’t doubt that, but let me finish,” Margolis said. “Dr. Manning told me that while Lester didn’t have a
real
gun, he owned a pellet gun. He said he bought it for Lester when he was a teenager, and he’d assumed that it was in one of the boxes in the attic with Lester’s other things. It’s possible, he said, that his son may have retrieved it at some point in the past. So my question to you is whether it’s possible that Lester may have been holding a pellet gun.”

Maria tried to recall the gun but couldn’t conjure up the necessary detail. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “It looked real to me.”

“That’s not surprising. Same color, same size, it was dark out, and you were terrified. Who knows? But it might explain why Lester never raised it. Because he thought you may have noticed that the muzzle was too small.”

Maria thought about it before finally shaking her head. “It still doesn’t mean that Lester’s gun wasn’t real. He could have bought it at a gun show. Or bought it on the street. It’s not impossible.”

“True enough,” Margolis conceded. “As of now, I’m not ruling anything out.”

“And how do you know that Dr. Manning was telling the truth about his gun in the first place?”

“Because he showed it to me after the interview, when he was leaving. And yes, it was in a locked case in his trunk.” When Maria didn’t respond, Margolis went on. “There’s something else you should know.”

“What’s that?”

Margolis reached into the file and pulled out an admission form from Plainview Psychiatric Hospital. He slid it across the table to Maria.

“Lester Manning was in the hospital the night your tires were slashed. I received this fax from Plainview this morning. You can see the date he entered the hospital.”

Even as Maria stared at the document in front of her, she didn’t quite believe it.

“Are you sure this is real?”

“Yes. Dr. Manning made the request while I was there, and the fax arrived a few minutes later, directly from the hospital.”

“Couldn’t Lester have sneaked out? Like he did yesterday?”

“Not that night. According to their records, he was in his room all night. Staff checked on him every thirty minutes.” Maria said nothing. In the silence, Margolis took a sip of his coffee. “Which is part of the reason I wanted to meet with you. If someone else slashed your tires, who could it be? When I posed that question to Dr. Manning, he told me to look into Mark Atkinson.”

“Why?”

“Because Atkinson might be trying to frame Lester.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Maybe… unless Atkinson knew Lester and had a possible reason. And it just so happens that it might be the case. Lester was the one who introduced Cassie to Atkinson in the first place.”

It took a few beats for Maria to absorb this. “Lester and Atkinson knew each other?”

“They both work for the same janitorial company. Or used to, anyway. According to Dr. Manning, after Cassie died, Lester and Atkinson had a falling-out. Lester confronted Atkinson about failing to protect Cassie when Laws showed up, called him a coward, and they got into a fight. There’s no record of it, but that doesn’t mean anything. Most of the time, in situations like this, the police are never called. Long story short, according to Dr. Manning, Atkinson was pissed.”

“And you know that for certain?”

“Not about the fight. But it’s true that Lester and Atkinson worked together. After we talked yesterday, I spoke to Atkinson’s mother again, and then a supervisor at the janitorial company. That’s what I meant, by the way, when I said that I was looking into different angles. Because something about the way Atkinson just up and left town bothered me as soon as I learned about it. I can
kind of
accept the idea that he ran off to meet the woman of his dreams or whatever – guys can be stupid like that – but no contact with his mom except for a couple of letters? That had been printed from a computer? No calls or texts to his mom or his friends? When all this with you just happens to be going on? It didn’t sit right with me.”

“I still don’t understand why Atkinson would come after me, though. Like I told you, I’ve never met the man.”