CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Jessie tried not to jump to conclusions.
Normally, if a woman was stabbed to death and her husband was found in the home, drenched in blood, they’d cuff him then and there.
And that might still happen. It was certainly possible that the doctor had heard about the murders of other immigrant women and used them as a cover to kill his own wife.
But that couldn’t be the default position for their questioning.
Jessie’s level of suspicion would depend on his answers.
“Dr. Williamson,” Delco said softly as the man opened his eyes. “This is Detective Goodwin and Ms. Hunt. They’ve been assigned to your wife’s case.”
“Hello,” Williamson said wearily, starting to push himself out of the chair.
“That’s okay,” Jessie told him. “We’ll come to you.”
Williamson slumped back into the chair heavily. “Thank you,” he muttered.
They walked around the bed and stood in front of him.
Jessie did her best to evaluate him, independent of the blood on his clothes and skin.
The man looked to be in his early 40s. He had salt and pepper hair and a day’s worth of scruff on his face.
He was handsome and had the lean look of a runner or biker.
He was wearing a dress shirt and slacks, both of which were blood-stained.
On the floor beside him were a tie and sport coat, also marked with red streaks.
“We’re sorry for your loss, Dr. Williamson,” she said quietly.
“Thank you,” he said, looking up at her with red but alert eyes.
“I know you probably have a whole procedure where you treat the loved one with kid gloves. You don’t have to do that with me.
I want to get whoever did this, so please ask your questions directly.
I won’t take offense and I’ll try to be as helpful as possible. ”
“We appreciate that, Dr. Williamson,” Sam said, standing beside Jessie. “Let’s start with timing. When did you get home?”
“Maybe around 6:10?” he guessed. “The traffic from the hospital was unexpectedly light so I got back a little earlier than I expected. You can check my phone GPS if you need to be more exact.”
Jessie continued from there. “Sergeant Delco mentioned that you thought you might have scared the killer off. What made you think that?”
"I came in through the garage and called out to Ana that I was home," he explained.
"There was no answer, but a couple of seconds later, I heard a door close.
I'm pretty sure it was the front door. I assumed it was her, maybe going outside to greet me late, or coming back in.
So I called out again but still got no answer.
I think when I called out that first time, the killer heard me and rushed out the front. "
“Okay,” Jessie said, “so what did you do next?”
“I went into the kitchen to toss my keys in the bowl. That’s when I knew something was wrong.
I saw the blood everywhere. I started shouting for Ana but then I saw her on the floor.
I rushed over and assessed her. There was no pulse but I tried to revive her anyway.
I did CPR. I stuffed a napkin in the wound by the carotid artery but it was useless.
She was gone. That’s when I called 911.”
“So that’s how you got so bloody?” Sam asked.
Williamson sighed.
“Yes. I know it looks suspicious. But I was just trying to save her. If you need me to take a polygraph or something, I will. I know the husband is always the first suspect.”
“Maybe not always,” Jessie said, though she wasn’t ruling it out. “Have you been paying attention to the news today?”
He shook his head, looking genuinely befuddled.
“I’ve been in surgery nearly non-stop since around seven this morning,” he said. “And when I take breaks, I prefer to listen to music to recalibrate. Why?”
Jessie saw no reason not to be forthright about information that was everywhere already. “Two other women, both green card holders who’d married Americans in the last few years, were found stabbed to death in their homes.”
Williamson’s red eyes went wide as he processed what she’d said. When he spoke, his voice was quiet.
“You think this is connected?” he asked.
“Very possibly,” Jessie said. “That’s why we have other questions. We know it might be hard to stay clear-headed in a moment like this, but the more forthright you can be right now, the better.”
“Of course.”
“Thank you,” Sam said. “Firstly, do you have security cameras?”
“Yes,” Williamson said. “I mean we have one. It’s a Ring camera for the front door. But the battery was low so I removed it this morning to charge it up. I was going to replace it when I got home.”
Jessie watched Sam try to hide his frustration and decided to take over so she could direct Williamson’s attention to her. If he was innocent, he didn’t need to see a cop looking at him like it was his fault they couldn’t ID his wife’s killer.
“This question might seem random,” she said, “but do you recall the name of the immigration lawyer you used to help Ana get her residency?”
“Sure,” Williamson said. “We used Maribelle Sanchez. She was recommended to us by my personal attorney, who did research on immigration lawyers.”
“Have you ever heard of a lawyer named Richard Paulson?” she asked.
He shook his head. “The name doesn’t sound familiar. Why?”
“No reason,” she said before turning to Sam. “We should have Jamil or Beth check in with our stakeout unit to see what’s what.”
She didn’t specifically mention Paulson but he clearly knew who she was referring to and nodded, pulling out his phone to send a text. She returned her attention to Williamson.
“Were you happy with Ms. Sanchez’s work?”
The doctor shrugged. “She got the job done. To be honest, I never really thought about it too much. Everything seemed pretty straightforward.”
Jessie didn’t comment on the fact that securing residency wasn’t as straightforward for many other folks. Tonight wasn’t about shaming a new widower.
“I requested an update,” Sam said, looking up after sending the text. “Dr. Williamson, did you or Ana have any memorable disputes with anyone recently?”
“What do you mean?”
“For example,” he clarified, “did anyone give either of you a hard time, maybe because of Ana’s immigration status, getting the green card, marrying an American—stuff like that?”
Williamson managed a weak smile.
“I understand the question and we did occasionally get teased, but not because of that,” he said.
“First of all, any ribbing was always good-natured and mostly from my friends or colleagues. And it wasn’t because Ana was an immigrant.
It was because she was a gorgeous, Amazonian model married to a wrinkled, graying guy fifteen years her senior.
People would joke about whether I could keep up.
It was never mean-spirited, but once we told our story, the teasing usually stopped. ”
“What story is that?” Jessie asked.
He smiled again, this time more warmly.
“Ana came to L.A. because her childhood friend, Gala, had a heart abnormality that couldn’t be treated back in Ukraine.
She was doing very well as a model and paid for Gala to fly here to get the procedure she needed done.
She paid for their lodging and all of Gala’s care out of her pocket.
She did some research and chose me to do the procedure. ”
“That’s how you met?” Jessie asked.
"Yes, she did a lot of online research and interviews with people and I guess my name kept coming up, so she booked an appointment.
After I agreed to take Gala on as a patient, Ana was there every step of the way in the lead-up to the procedure, during the 7-hour surgery, and throughout Gala's recovery process. "
“And you developed a romantic relationship?” Sam pressed.
“At some point during all of that, we fell in love,” Williamson said.
“I think I did a solid job with her friend, which endeared me to her. And I was smitten. At first it was because of her beauty, I’ll admit.
But over time, it was other things. She was so kind and gentle with her friend, and so devoted too.
She was like a pit bull when she thought the aftercare wasn’t meeting her standards.
But she never tried to bigfoot anyone. She never mentioned being this well-known model.
She was so self-effacing, even awkward. You’d never know it by looking at how confident she seemed in her photos, but when the camera wasn’t clicking, she was goofy and clumsy. It was incredibly endearing.”
He paused and swallowed hard, struggling to maintain control of his emotions.
“Did she ever get any threats related to her modeling?” Jessie asked, moving on quickly to keep him from losing it.
“Not really,” he said. “She did get some borderline stalker-ish fan mail, but it was never overtly threatening and it always went to her modeling agency, not directly to her. I had a private detective check out the senders and the messages were all from guys back in Eastern Europe. None of them had ever been to the U.S. and none had criminal records.”
“This doesn’t seem connected to that,” Jessie said. “Still, we may want to talk to your investigator. And we would love that GPS data you offered to give us from your phone and from your vehicle as well. It could help us nail down a more accurate timeline.”
She didn’t mention that it might also help nail down his alibi.
“Not a problem,” he said.
“We will likely have more questions for you,” Jessie said, “but for now, we’re going to leave you in the good hands of Sergeant Delco. Please follow his instructions. That will help us immensely.”
Williamson nodded vaguely as they left the room. Once in the hallway, Sam pulled out his buzzing phone.
“Just heard from the unit watching Richard Paulson,” he said. “The man hasn’t left his apartment since we were there.”
Jessie nodded as they headed for the stairs. She was already skeptical of his involvement the moment she heard that he wasn’t the Williamson’s attorney. But eliminating him as a suspect didn’t improve the situation. They were still at a loss.
As they descended the stairs, Jessie caught sight of the dining room in the distance.
Unlike the other two they’d seen today, it was pristine.
It was a break in the pattern, but maybe not a huge one.
All the victims were still found at tables where families gathered for meals.
In the first two instances, the green cards were left on plates.
That would have likely been the case with Ana too, had Marcus Williamson not come home early.
Jessie wondered if the killer was trying to make some kind of statement by that placement.
Family meals were traditionally considered a time of warmth and comfort.
Was the murderer trying to say something about that by disrupting that environment so violently?
By wrecking a mainstay of happy homes, were they trying to comment on these women?
Maybe suggesting that they were, in some way, homewreckers?
Increasingly, she got the sense that as political as these killings seemed to be on the surface, that might not be their primary intent. The intimate nature of the killings, the use of blunt scissors, the plates, the green cards lying there.
Somehow it all felt…personal.