Wagner went about her work quietly and efficiently while the others chatted around her, most of them talking in Spanish. She stuck mostly to herself, just as Perkins had described. Hers was the first cart onto the freight elevator.
I didn’t follow her upstairs. The hotel corridors would offer no cover, and my priority was to interview her at home later, as myself. That meant a limited surveillance for Bill at the hotel.
My best opportunity came during the lunch hour, when the staff cafeteria was filled to capacity. Mary sat by herself at a table near the door, eating a tuna salad sandwich, writing in a clothbound book, presumably a journal of some kind. I wanted to see that journal. Her conversations with the people around her seemed to be little more than polite hellos and good-byes. The perfect employee.
I decided to pull myself out at that point, and went back to Perkins’s office in the basement. I gave him a courtesy debriefing. As we were talking, my beeper went off.
“Excuse me.” I got Karl Page in the crisis center.
“I thought you’d want to know right away—yeah, just a second, I’ll be there—her time sheets check out perfectly. Mary Wagner wasn’t at work for at least two hours before and two hours after every estimated time of death. No exceptions. Cha-ching!”
“Okay, thanks. I’m out of here. She’s working today.”
“When did you last see her?”
“About ten minutes ago. I have to go, Page.” Perkins was looking at me expectantly, and I didn’t want him asking too many questions. The receiver was halfway back to the cradle when I heard Page shout, “Wait!”
I gave Perkins a sorry with my eyebrows. Sometimes Agent Page could be a little exasperating, almost as if he was trying too hard.
“What, Karl?”
“Mary Smith’s last e-mail, Alex. The murder that’s supposed to happen by twelve tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I got it,” I said, and hung up the phone. I already knew what Page was trying to tell me.
Tomorrow was Mary Wagner’s day off.
Chapter 90
I WAS ALREADY CONVINCED it was crucial that I try to speak with Mary Wagner before the trauma of an arrest. That was my strong gut response on this strange case. I knew LAPD was going to be under a lot of pressure to move quickly, though. It meant I had to move even faster if I could.
I hurried back to the Bureau and found Van Allsburg in his office. “Don’t ask me. Not my call,” he said, after I’d made my case for the interview. “If Maddux Fielding wants to move in on her—”
“Then do me one favor,” I said.
Minutes later, we were on the phone in Fred’s office. I knew Maddux Fielding probably wouldn’t take my call, but Van Allsburg got patched through right away.
“Maddux, I’ve got Alex Cross here. He’s making a pretty good argument for holding off on Mary Wagner, just long enough to interview her.”
“How much more do you think we’re going to get on her?” Fielding asked. “It’s done. We’ve got plenty to take her in.”
“It’s all circumstantial,” I said into the speakerphone. “You’ll have to let her go.”
“Yeah, well I’m working on that.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, already starting to fume. “What aren’t you telling us, Maddux? What’s the point of shutting us out?”
He ignored my legitimate question with one of his trademark stony silences.
“Listen, between LAPD and the Bureau, she’s under constant surveillance; she hasn’t shown any sign of making a move. We know her timetable. Let me just talk to her at home. This could be a last chance to get her in a nondefensive state.” I hated the conciliatory tone of my voice, but I knew the interview with Mary could be important.
“Detective, I know you and I have our disagreements,” I said, “but we’re both going for a quick resolve here. This is what I do best. If you’ll just let me—”
“Be at her house by six,” he said suddenly. “I’m not making any promises to you though, Cross. If she doesn’t go home after work, or if anything else changes, that’s the end of it. We grab her.”
By the time I had arched my eyebrows, there was a click on the line and the call was over.
Chapter 91
SHE DIDN’T BOTHER to use the chain lock. I heard it rattle on the back of the front door as she opened it.
“Mary Wagner?”
“Yes?”
Her large feet were bare, but she still wore the pink maid’s uniform from the Beverly Hills Hotel. She smiled engagingly before she knew who I was.
“I’m Agent Cross with the FBI.” I held up my ID, which included my shield. “May I come in and ask you a few questions? It’s important.”
Her tired face sagged. “It’s about the car, isn’t it? Lord, I wish I could just paint that thing or trade it in or something. I’ve been getting all kinds of embarrassing looks—you wouldn’t believe.”
Her manner was more outgoing than anything I’d seen at the hotel, but she had the beleaguered, animated quality of a public-school kindergarten teacher with way too many students.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “It is about the car. Just a formality; we’re following up on as many blue Suburbans as we can. May I come in? It won’t take long.”
“Of course. I don’t mean to be rude. Please, come on inside. Come.”
I waved to Baker on the curb.
“Five minutes,” I called out, mostly just to let Ms. Wagner know I wasn’t alone at her house. Hopefully, the unmarked LAPD units up and down the street were more invisible to her eyes than mine.
I stepped inside, and she closed the door behind me. Adrenaline shot through my body in an instant. Was this woman a killer, possibly an insane one? For some strange reason, I didn’t feel threatened by her.
The neatness of the house made a strong first impression on me. The floors were recently swept, and I saw no signs of clutter anywhere.
A wooden cutout hung in the front hallway. It was in the shape of a curtsying farm girl with the word Welcome stenciled across her skirt. The relative disrepair outside, I suddenly realized, was the landlord’s domain. This was hers.
“Please sit down,” she said.
Mary Wagner gestured me toward the living room through an archway to my right. A mismatched sofa and love seat took up most of the room.
Her television was on mute, and a can of Diet Pepsi and a half-eaten bowl of soup sat on the worn redwood coffee table.
“Am I interrupting your dinner?” I asked. “I’m real sorry about that.” Not that I was going to leave.
“Oh, no, no, not at all. I’m not much of an eater.” She quickly turned off the TV and cleared the food away.
I stayed in the hall and glanced around while she put the dishes on the kitchen counter in the back. Nothing looked out of place. Just a regular house that was almost too neat, uncluttered, spick-and-span clean.
“Would you like something to drink?” she called out from the other room.
“Nothing, thanks.”
“Water? Soda? Orange juice? It’s no bother, Agent Cross.”
“I’m fine.”
Her journal was probably here in the house, but nowhere that I could see. She’d been watching Jeopardy! on TV.
“Actually, I’m out of orange juice, anyway,” she said genially, coming back toward me. She was either completely comfortable or very good at faking it. Very odd. I followed her into the living room, and we both sat down.
“So, what can I do for you?” she asked in a kindly tone that was oddly unsettling. “I’d like to help, of course.”
I kept my own tone casual and nonthreatening. “First of all, are you the only driver for your car?”
“Just me.” She smiled as though the question was vaguely funny. I wondered why.
“Has it been outside of your supervision at any time in the past six weeks or so?”
“Well, when I sleep, of course. And when I’m at work. I do housekeeping at the Beverly Hills Hotel.”
“I s
ee. So you need the car for transportation to work.”
She fingered the collar of her uniform and eyeballed the pad in my hand as though she wanted me to write that part down. On an impulse, I went ahead and did it.
“So I guess the answer is yes,” she went on. “Technically, it has been outside of my . . . whatever you said. Supervision.” Her laugh was a tiny bit coy. “My purview.”
I scribbled a few more notes of my own. Eager to please? Busy hands. Wants me to know she’s intelligent.
As we continued, I watched her as much as I listened. Nothing she said was really out of the ordinary, though. What struck hardest was the way she concentrated on me. Her hands kept landing in different places, but her brown eyes didn’t travel very far from my own. I got the impression she was glad I was there.
When I stood up at the end of the interview, as if to leave, her face dropped.
“Could I bother you for that glass of water?” I asked, and she brightened visibly.
“Coming right up.”
I followed her as far as the doorway. Everything in the kitchen was neatly arranged, too. The counters were mostly empty, except for a four-slice toaster and a set of country kitsch-style canisters.
The dish rack next to the sink was full, and there were two steak knives among the clean silverware.
She filled a glass at the tap and handed it to me. It tasted slightly soapy.
“Are you originally from California?” I asked conversationally. “From around here?”
“Oh, no,” she said. “Nowhere near as nice as this.”
“Where’d you move from?”
“The North Pole.” Another coy laugh and a shake of the head. “At least, it might as well be.”
“Let me guess. Maine? You strike me as a New Englander.”
“Can I get you a refill?”
“No, thank you. Really, I’m fine.”
She took the water glass out of my hand, not yet half empty, and turned toward the sink.
That was when all hell broke loose.
First, I heard heavy footsteps and a loud shout coming from just outside.
Almost immediately, the back door burst open with a crash of splintering wood and glass. I heard the front door crashing in as well.
Then police officers streamed into the kitchen from both sides, flak jackets on, their weapons drawn and pointed at Mary Wagner.
Chapter 92
MARY DROPPED THE WATER GLASS, but I didn’t even hear it break. Suddenly the kitchen was filled with loud shouting, as well as Mary’s frightened screaming.
“Get out of my house! I didn’t do anything! Get away from me, please! Why are you here?”
I held up my badge in front of me, unsure if the LAPD assault team even knew who I was.
“Get down on the floor!” The lead officer’s pistol was pointed at Mary’s chest. “Get down. Now! On the floor!”
In a matter of seconds, Mary Wagner was a total wreck. Her eyes were unfocused, and she didn’t even seem to hear the officer shouting at her.
“Get down!” he shouted again.
She backed up, still screaming, with her arms and shoulders in a hunched, defensive position.
I could only watch as her bare foot came down on a piece of the broken water glass. She yelped pitifully, then jerked to one side as if she’d been slapped.
Her free foot slipped in the water, and twisted under her. With a fast pinwheeling of arms, she went down hard.
The police assault team was on her in a second. Two officers rolled Mary over and handcuffed her from behind. Another one read her rights, the words probably coming too fast for her to understand.
Someone took my elbow and spoke in my ear. “Sir, could you come with me, please?”
I ignored whoever it was.
“Sir?” The officer grabbed at me again, and I angrily shook him off.
“She needs first aid.” But no one seemed to hear me, or if they did, pay any attention.
“Ma’am, do you understand everything I’ve told you?” the arresting officer asked. She nodded shakily, still facedown on the floor. I was fairly certain she didn’t understand any of this.
“Ma’am, I need you to say yes or no. Do you understand everything I’ve told you?”
“Yes.” It came out as a gasp. Her breathing was ragged. “I understand. You think I did something bad.”
That was enough. I pushed my way through the cops and knelt down next to her.
“Mary, it’s me. Agent Cross. Are you all right? Mary? Do you really understand what’s happening now?”
She was still panicked but not dissociated. I made sure the shard was out of her foot, then wrapped it in a dish towel and helped her sit up.
She looked around, wide-eyed, as if scanning the room for anything familiar.
“Mary, they’re placing you under arrest. You need to go with them now. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“All right, we got it.” A cop maybe half my age stepped in.
“Just give me a second here,” I said.
“No, sir,” he answered. “We are to take the suspect into immediate custody.”
I turned away from Mary and kept my voice low. “What do you think I’m trying to help you do here?”
“Sir, my instructions are clear, and unequivocal. Please step away. This is our arrest.”
My only alternative to giving in was a truly ugly scene. I thought seriously about it, but knew my argument wasn’t with the arresting officers—it was with their boss. Anyway, the damage was already done.
Within seconds, they had Mary Wagner on her feet and were pushing her out the door. The stained dish towel lay crumpled on the floor, where a long red smudge marked the linoleum.
“First aid!” I yelled after them, not that they could hear me anymore, not that they gave a damn about what I had to say.
I swear, I wanted to hit someone. My frustration and anger boiled over, and I knew where to take it; I wheeled on the nearest sergeant.
“Where the hell is Maddux Fielding?” I shouted at the top of my voice. “Where is he?”
Chapter 93
“BACK OFF, CROSS!”
Fielding said it before I even reached him. He was out on the sidewalk in front of Mary Wagner’s house, conferring with one of his arresting officers.
The block had been transformed from suburban normalcy into the kind of police scene most people never see, or want to.
A dozen or more black-and-whites clogged the street, most of them with their flashers still rolling.
Bright-yellow crime scene tape was being strung across the chain-link fence, and a barrier of sawhorses bracketed the property, holding back a fast-growing crowd of lookyloos who wanted to see a little true-crime history in the making.
Mary Smith lived right in that house. Can you imagine? In our neighborhood?
I saw that a couple of news vans were already on site as well. I wondered if Maddux Fielding had prearranged a little coverage for his Big Get, and it made me even angrier.
“What was the purpose of that?” I yelled at him.
All I could see was his smug expression as he grudgingly turned to look at me.
“You compromised a key interview, not to mention her personal safety and mine. Both unnecessarily. I could have been shot. She could have been shot. You made a carnival out of this arrest. You’re a disgrace to the LAPD.”
I didn’t know or care who was listening in; I just hoped it was embarrassing to Fielding. Maybe this was a language that he spoke. His face remained inscrutable.
“Agent Cross—”
“Do you know what you may have just done to your chances for a confession?”
“I don’t need one!” he finally shouted over me. “I don’t need one because I have something better.”
“What are you talking about?”
He nodded condescendingly. Information was the valuable currency here, and he had it. What the hell was he holding back?
“You can probably see
I’m busy,” he told me. “I’ll make my report available to the Federal Bureau—as soon as it’s ready.”
I couldn’t walk away. “You gave me time for this interview. I had your word!”
He had already turned away but now pivoted back on me. “I said if anything changed, it was over. That’s precisely what I said to you.”
“So what changed, goddammit?”
He took a beat. “Fuck you, Agent Cross. I don’t have to give you answers.”
I lunged at him, and it was probably exactly what he wanted. Two of his monkeys stepped between us and pulled me back. Just as well, but it would have felt good to erase that cynical sneer off his face, even better to briefly rearrange some of his features. I shook off the two officers and walked away.
Before I’d even begun to calm down, though, I was dialing my cell phone.
“Jeanne Galletta.”
“It’s Alex Cross. Do you know anything about the Mary Wagner arrest?”
“Fine, thanks. How are you?”
“Sorry. But do you, Jeanne? I’m at her house right now. It’s an incredible mess. You wouldn’t believe how it went down.”
Jeanne paused. “I’m not on that case anymore.”
“Would I get a different answer in person?”
“You might.”
“Then give me a break. Please, Jeanne. I need your help. I don’t have time to run around.”
Her voice finally softened. “What happened out there? You sound really upset.”
“I am upset. Everything blew up. I was right in the middle of interviewing her when LAPD burst in like a damn clown car at the circus. It was ridiculous, Jeanne, and unnecessary. Fielding knows something, and he won’t say what.”
“I’ll save you a step,” Jeanne said. “She’s the one. She did those murders, Alex.”
“How do you know? How does LAPD know? What is going on?”
“You remember the hair that was found at the movie theater when Patrice Bennett was killed? Well, they pulled one off Mary Wagner’s sweater from her locker at the hotel. The results just came through. It’s the same hair. Fielding ran with it.”
My mind raced, placing this new bit of information alongside everything else. “I see you’re doing a good job staying off the case,” I finally said.