CHAPTER NINE
Hospitals used to hold fond memories for Kate. Her father’s work typically took him far from home, especially as his career transitioned to a research focus, but when Kate was very young, she’d sometimes visit him at Midland General, the hospital in Chicago where William Valentine got his start.
She used to walk through the cardiology wing, fascinated at the lights and machines, amazed at the dozens of nurses, doctors, orderlies, technicians, surgeons, and pharmacists, all of them dedicated to helping sick people get better.
She vividly remembered standing outside of a room while her father talked with one of the other surgeons and watching a nurse, an anesthesiologist, a surgeon, and a primary care physician talking a patient through a coming surgery.
She used to think it was wonderful that a sick person could have so many people focused on helping them feel better.
After her father died, those memories soured. Now, walking through the halls of New Castle Regional Hospital, the lights were too bright, the odor the chlorinated rot of half-hidden death, every beep from every machine a mockery. Here goes another one. One more. One more.
“Why don’t you let me take lead on this one, Kate?”
Kate jumped at Marcus’s voice, which was a pretty good sign that Marcus should take lead. “All right. Good idea.”
Among Marcus’s talents was an uncanny ability to make people talk to him.
He could intimidate a cagey suspect and convince him through sheer willpower that his best bet was to tell Marcus everything he knew.
Or, in situations like these, he could put on a gentle charm that could crack through any shell of shock or grief and cause the subject to lay their soul bare to him.
When Kate saw Carol, she knew they’d need that gentleness and charm.
Carol resembled Donna, no surprise considering they were related.
She was older, with a short bob haircut rather than Donna’s tight-sided crewcut but the same amber color that hadn’t entirely ceded its brightness to gray.
She had soft hazel eyes, and a build just giving way to the sag of age, though Kate wouldn’t call her overweight.
Where they differed was a certain softness in Carol that had been missing from Donna.
Granted, Donna was in rigor, but the lines in her face were more than just the stiffness of death.
Carol had lines, but where Donna’s were crevasses at the corners of her eyes and spiderwebs at the corners of her mouth, Carol had a single deep groove underneath each eye and deep canyons that ran almost perfectly straight across her forehead.
She stared vacantly at the agents as they entered the ICU. She wasn’t hooked up to any instruments, and no IV dripped lifesaving fluids into her veins. She’d been brought here as a precaution due to the visible signs of shock she showed when police arrived, but it looked like those had cleared up.
More likely than not, the hospital would release her once Kate and Marcus were finished.
In the meantime, she was sitting in a hospital trying to process the reality that if she ever saw her sister again, it would be briefly in a casket before she was lowered forever into the ground, sealed into a crypt, or immolated to ash.
Kate swallowed and looked at Marcus, willing him to start the interview before her own discomfort interfered.
Marcus got the message. He smiled at Carol, a soft, sincere, breathtaking look that communicated, trust me, you’re safe with me, I won’t let anything hurt you. “Good morning, Mrs. Prather. How are you feeling?”
Kate looked at Marcus incredulously, but to her surprise, that question broke through Carol’s fog. She blinked at Marcus and asked in a toneless voice, “How should I be feeling?”
“However, you need to feel,” Marcus replied.
Carol nodded. “Well. Then I feel angry.”
Kate and Marcus both nodded. They could both understand that.
“Were you and your sister close?” Marcus asked.
Carol scoffed. “I wouldn’t say that. I was just the only person she had left in her life.”
“What makes you say that?”
She scoffed again. “Well, because it’s the truth. Donna was a very difficult woman. It wouldn’t be correct to say she had a mean streak. More like a very thin nice streak that revealed itself only on the rarest of occasions.”
“I see. I’m sorry to hear that.”
Carol shrugged. “Everyone has their thing, I suppose. My family in general isn’t composed of the kindest individuals. Heaven knows I’m not always the most pleasant person.”
Marcus smiled again to show her that of course she was pleasant, and it was an honor to be in her presence. “Did you and Donna have any recent difficulties?”
Carol laughed. There was little force to it. “Are you asking me if I killed my sister?”
“No, ma’am,” Marcus said. “You’re not a suspect.”
Strictly speaking, they hadn’t ruled her out, but now wasn’t the time to be hard-nosed with her, and besides, if Carol was their killer, then Kate’s people-reading skills were completely broken.
She couldn’t imagine this fragile woman murdering anyone in cold blood, let alone having the strength or steadiness to carve a cipher upside down under a kitchen table immediately after.
“Then why are my difficulties with my sister relevant?”
Kate could see a hint of that difficulty coming out now. Not an orneriness, per se, but self-confidence and a complete lack of fear. If Donna possessed that quality in even greater measure, then it was perfectly believable that she could have angered the wrong person to the point of violence.
“We need to understand why someone would have wanted to kill your sister,” Marcus said.
“While your specific difficulties might not be relevant, understanding them can help us paint a picture of your sister’s final days and maybe give us an idea where to look for her killer.
I know it seems a little out there, but trust me, every question I ask has a purpose. ”
It was a very roundabout way to avoid saying, Well, actually, Carol, you might be the killer, and we need to be sure.
Carol didn’t look entirely convinced, but she looked absolutely taken by Marcus. Kate wasn’t surprised. Everyone loved Marcus.
After a moment, Carol sighed and said, “I’m having difficulties in my marriage. My sister has never been one to hide her feelings on a subject. She offered her feelings on my marriage, and I didn’t take kindly to them.”
“I can imagine not,” Marcus said. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Carol shrugged. “You show up for family. Donna burned every other bridge she had, but I kept a rope to throw to the other side from time to time.” Her face softened.
“She meant well, I think. As I said, our family was not full of pleasant people. We were never taught how to be properly affectionate. If anything, we were taught affection was a weakness.”
“Did you visit her this morning to address the conflict between you two?”
That was a bit of a leading question, but now that the ice was broken, they needed to get the interview on track.
Carol nodded. “You show up for family. I hadn’t seen her in over a month, not since the fight, but I still texted her every day. She would always respond. She always did that. She showed up for family.”
Kate wondered how many times Carol had told herself that over the years, how much pain and anguish she’d endured because she had to show up for family. If not for the connection to the ninth commandment, Kate could see Carol snapping in a moment of weakness.
But not sewing a mouth shut and carving a cipher. That wasn’t a moment of weakness. That was premeditated.
“When did she stop responding?” Marcus asked.
“Just last night,” Carol replied. “But she always texted back.”
“Why did you visit so early?” Kate asked, breaking her silence.
“I had work today. Have work today. Oh, shit. I need to call my boss.”
“Don’t worry about that right now,” Marcus said, keeping his voice soothing. “They’ll understand when they learn what happened.”
Carol chuckled bitterly. “I’m sure they will.
Then I’ll get to hear from everyone over the next several weeks how strong I am.
They’ll want stories about her, and…” She took a deep breath.
“God. It’s hard losing someone, even if you didn’t like them that much.
They linger. It’s like an odor that you can’t get rid of no matter how many times you clean. ”
Kate inhaled more Pine-Sol-over-vomit scent and decided Carol was exactly right.
Marcus nodded. He shifted his position and fixed Carol with a different expression, still gentle but lacking the smile. It was a sign that the interview had become serious. “Did Donna ever mention a gentleman by the name of Gerald Mace?”
Carol stared blankly at him. “Who?”
“Gerald Mace. The name doesn’t ring a bell?”
“No, I’m sorry. Do you believe that Gerald Mace killed Donna?”
“No,” Marcus said. “We’re just following up on a lead we had.”
Carol got the memo. “Was this Gerald murdered as well? With his mouth sewn shut?”
“We can’t release details of an ongoing investigation,” Kate said. Which was the only way she could say yes.
“Oh God,” Carol said. “Oh…” She shook her head. “No, I’m sorry. I’ve never heard of a Gerald Mace and certainly never met one.”
“Did you or anyone in your family ever live in the Philadelphia area?” Marcus asked.
“Well… Wilmington is close to Philadelphia, but we never lived any closer.”
“Did Donna attend court there?” Marcus pressed. “Or did she ever serve jury duty in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas?”
“No. We’ve lived in Wilmington all our lives. Well, my parents live in Florida now, and my brother and younger sister have moved to Idaho, but no one’s ever been to Philadelphia.” She blinked. “I actually think I’ve never been to Philadelphia.”
Kate and Marcus shared a look. “Your sister never mentioned a court clerk? Maybe a boyfriend who was in law enforcement or a court employee?”
Carol laughed, a full-bodied sound too loud and abrupt to be forced. Several nurses looked disapprovingly toward the room and Kate and Marcus shared another look.
“I’m sorry,” Carol apologized, getting herself under control.
“No. Donna never had a boyfriend. Not once. I’m not sure she was ever interested in romance.
As for the court employee, the answer is also no.
I’m sorry. I can see you’re disappointed, but Donna never went to Philadelphia, never met a court clerk, and never knew a Gerald Mace. ”
Marcus leaned back and processed that. Kate didn’t find it that hard to process. Their killer had murdered two people who had no connection to each other. So, they must have had a connection to their victim, just at separate times and in separate roles.
“What about Daniel Avery?” Kate asked.
She watched Carol’s face closely when she said the name. Once again, Carol showed no sign of recognition. She gave Kate an apologetic smile and said, “I’m sorry, no. That doesn’t ring a bell either.”
“He was convicted of murder in 1991. Almost certainly, that conviction was wrongful. He died in prison before they could make it right.”
“How horrible,” Carol said. “That poor man.”
Her sympathy seemed genuine but vague. Exactly the kind of sympathy you’d feel reading about at thirty-five-year-old murder trial and the thirty-year-old discovery that the wrong man was sent to prison.
“We think someone killed your sister because of something related to Daniel Avery’s conviction,” Marcus said bluntly.
“Well, I can’t think what that connection might be,” Carol said. “We’ve never met a Daniel Avery.”
“Maybe your sister met him independently?”
Carol shook her head. “My sister never left her house aside from traveling to work. She was a teacher for many years before retiring. I believe she even had her groceries delivered. I’ve met the other teachers at her school, and none of them were named Daniel Avery.
Could it be a case of mistaken identity?
Maybe the killer thought she was someone else? ”
Kate fought to conceal her disappointment. With no connection between the victims and none between Donna and the Daniel Avery murder, it was very possible that they were going to leave Wilmington with less than they arrived with.
“Would you say your sister was a liar?” Marcus asked.
Carol chuckled. “My dear agent, if my sister had a fault, it was that she didn’t know when to stop telling the truth.” Her upper lip curled bitterly. “She didn’t need to make anything up to hurt you. She could find the darkest part of your soul and lay it bare. Truth was her weapon, not deception.”
And that was that. A dead end. Not one thing to help them understand why their killer had murdered Donna Frick.
They didn’t waste their time further. Marcus got to his feet and handed Carol a business card. “If you think of anything else, please give me a call.”
Carol took the card. Her expression was already sliding back to the shell shocked neutral she wore earlier. She offered no farewell as Kate and Marcus left the room. She just sat there, staring vacantly at the wall, trying to come to terms with the changes in her life.
Meanwhile, Kate and Marcus were back to square zero.