Chapter 10
Eric’s lead took us to a suburb just outside of Cleveland. Along the way, he shared what he’d learned from his former counterpart at the Detroit Police Department.
“It took some digging, but this woman actually tagged herself in one of the photos where she showed up at a station fundraiser,” he said.
“And it sounds like this woman made her way through almost all the on-air talent at WDTN over a period of five years. First, this guy, Bill Bryant. That’s who she was fixated on when she showed up at this fundraiser.
I was up all night looking through WDTN’s Facebook photos over the last decade.
Made my eyes bleed. Then she moved on to Tom.
She moved on to the guy who replaced Loomis after he moved to Delphi for a while. But then she pivoted back to Tom.”
“Maisy Carmichael,” I read Eric’s notes.
“Sugar Bear herself,” Eric said.
“Did the cops ever get the sense she was dangerous?”
Eric put his blinker on as we neared our exit. His GPS indicated we’d arrive at “Sister Bear’s” house in five minutes. Her name was Daphne. Maisy was her older sister.
“Not really. Just persistent. She showed up at most of the station’s events. Telethons. A Toys for Tots fundraiser. Always dressed in a costume.”
I turned the page of the report. It was a grainy, poor-quality photocopy of Sugar Bear/Maisy dressed up like Wonder Woman and posing with Gloria Blaine and Bill Bryant.
“The part that prompted the station to take it more seriously happened not long after Tom left. His replacement was a guy named Asher Davis.”
There was a photo of him too in the file. A publicity shot of a devilishly handsome African American man in a blue sport coat with the station logo. He spun a basketball on his index finger, perfectly balanced.
“Asher’s mother died a few months after he started at the station. Maisy showed up at the funeral home. Asher was mentioned in the obituary, which of course listed the time and place of the services.”
“How awful,” I said. “That would freak me out too. Did they arrest her?”
“No. There were a few off-duty cops, friends of another of Asher’s family members, in attendance. They escorted her out and managed to scare her away. Then, after the station formalized things, field ops paid her a visit at her home. She went pretty quiet after that.”
I closed the file.
“Until she started emailing Tom again a year ago.”
Eric turned down a tree-lined street in a neighborhood with a familiar character.
Clearly built just after World War II, the homes were similar.
Sturdy, brick, and boxy. I could pretty much guarantee everyone had a standard tri-level floor plan with three bedrooms on the top level, a kitchen and living room on the ground level, and a basement.
My maternal grandparents lived in one. My father always complained that you had to either go up or downstairs to get to a bathroom.
Eric pulled into the driveway of the third house on the left. A dark-haired woman stood in the driveway holding some kind of Schnauzer mix. She waved as Eric cut the engine.
“Sister Bear, I presume,” I said.
We stepped out. Daphne Carmichael gave us a pleasant smile and invited us into her home. The layout was exactly as I had imagined. It looked like Daphne had freshened up the kitchen, but kept the original tile floor and orange Formica countertops.
“I really appreciate your willingness to talk to us,” I said after we made our introductions and Daphne offered us something to drink. We both declined.
“It’s no problem,” she said. “I’m just afraid you made such a long drive for very little. As I told Detective Wray on the phone, I haven’t seen my sister in a good long while.”
“Call me Eric, please. I’m retired.”
Daphne smiled. “You know, I’d have made you for a cop on sight. You’ve got that look about you. My brother was a state trooper.”
“The look?” Eric asked. But I knew exactly what Daphne meant. Eric always seemed at attention whenever we went out. Always completely situationally aware. Vigilant.
“When was the last time you had any contact with Maisy?” I asked.
Daphne kissed her dog on the head and set it down. The dog yipped once, then dashed under the nearest end table and observed the proceedings.
“Give it a rest, Toto,” she said. A fitting name.
That’s exactly who the dog reminded me of.
“Maisy? Oh, it’s been almost two years. She got evicted from her apartment.
She was still living back in Michigan, in Highland Park.
I let her stay with me for a few weeks until she figured out a different living situation. ”
“Why was she evicted?” Eric asked.
“She said her landlord was going to convert the property into a storage unit. Which might have been true. I don’t know.
But Maisy pretty much got evicted from every place she’s ever lived.
She’ll fall behind on rent. Or she’ll cause some sort of scene and when her lease comes up, she doesn’t get renewed. ”
“Scene?” I asked.
“Look,” Daphne said. “My sister’s always been kind of a fruitcake.
If I’m being kind, I’ll call her eccentric.
But Maisy doesn’t have a firm grip on reality.
She hasn’t for a really long time. Even when we were kids.
She’d make up these stories. Once she tried to convince us she was having a sexting relationship with Brad Pitt.
Another time, she said she’d been scouted by this big deal movie producer who wanted to make a movie of her life story.
Or she’d written part of a book that Oprah Winfrey got a hold of and was going to make her a bestseller.
And those were the mild ones. She’d claim to be reincarnated.
She was Catherine of Aragon or Joan of Arc.
Bette Davis one time. She went through a Wonder Woman phase and went around in cosplay.
That was actually the most normal and healthy phase she went through. ”
“That must have been rough growing up,” I said.
“I used to be embarrassed. Kids are mean. But I got used to it. It got easier when Maisy moved out of our parents’ house.
She could never hold jobs for very long.
Yet somehow she always managed to land on her feet.
She’d hook up with some guy who’d take care of her for a while.
Then, she actually won the lottery. Half a million bucks.
Can you believe that? But she blew through it in less than two years. ”
Eric took out a photo of Tom Loomis and handed it to Daphne. “You understand why we’re here. You’ve read about this man’s murder.”
Daphne looked at the photo and handed it back.
“Sure,” she said. “These were Maisy’s milder obsessions.
She was starstruck by anybody on television.
Like I told you on the phone. I don’t remember this man specifically.
Over the years, I tended to ignore Maisy’s latest rabbit hole, you know? It was exhausting.”
“When she lived with you,” I said. “She never mentioned Tom Loomis?”
“She might have. I’m sorry. But this is what I mean. I let that stuff go in one ear and out the other. Do you really think she could have something to do with this man’s death?”
“Do you?” Eric asked.
Daphne looked wistfully out of her front window.
“I don’t know. That would be hard for me to believe.
Maisy’s whackadoo. But she’s harmless. She would cross boundaries.
I’m not saying she didn’t. When she went to that newsman’s mother’s funeral, that was horrifying.
But she didn’t hurt anybody. In her own, weird way, she thought she was being kind. ”
“At one point, the station tried to pursue a protection order.”
“I’m not surprised. I’m only surprised there aren’t more of them.”
“No one but us has ever come to talk to you about Maisy’s behavior?” I asked. “In connection with any criminal case anyway.”
“No. Sure, when we were kids, my parents were always called into meetings with her teachers and stuff. My parents were infuriating though. Never took her to a doctor. Got her medication. They were kind of hokey. They only believed in holistic treatments. I didn’t get vaccinated until I was seventeen and got emancipated.
My dad died of colon cancer at forty-two because he ignored symptoms and refused medical care.
My mom died at sixty from complications of diabetes and she refused to get treated.
That’s what I’ve been dealing with my whole life. ”
“You’re a strong woman,” Eric said.
“I guess. And I really am sorry. I don’t know where Maisy is.
It’s possible she could have escalated after she left my house the last time.
She usually reaches out to me when she’s in trouble.
And she has asked for help. Professional help.
She knows when she’s starting to spiral.
But she never sticks to anything. My mom and dad’s influence has extended beyond the grave, unfortunately. ”
“Is it out of her normal pattern to have tried to reconnect with someone like Tom Loomis after she’d moved on to someone else?
We know that she emailed Tom as recently as a year ago.
There was a several-year gap from her last contact with him.
And we know she became obsessed with Asher Davis in between. ”
“Yes,” Daphne said. “That I can say. It wouldn’t be Maisy’s typical pattern to go back to a previous obsession.
Whatever the reason, when she fell out of love, if that’s what you call it, with one public figure, she’d actually go to the opposite extreme.
Like when she got over Brad Pitt and moved on to Keanu Reeves, I think it was …
she’d throw a fit if a Brad Pitt movie came on.
That sort of thing. I really am sorry. That is all I can tell you.
I don’t know where she was when this man was murdered. ”
“It’s okay,” I said as Eric and I rose to leave. We’d bothered this woman enough. “But I’d like you to keep my card. If you hear from Maisy or can think of anything else, please give me a call.”
She took the card but shrugged. I expected her to toss it into a pile and promptly forget about it after we left. We thanked her again and said our goodbyes.
As Eric climbed behind the wheel, he had a scowl on his face.
“What is it?” I asked. “What’s bothering you?”
He didn’t answer at first. This wasn’t uncommon when he turned something around in his thoughts. He pulled out and headed back toward the highway. We would grab lunch somewhere along the route back.
“I don’t know if you can use any of that,” Eric finally said. “The prosecutor would try to block her entire testimony as irrelevant if you tried to put her on the stand. Not unless we can find evidence of more recent contact between Tom and Maisy. Or something overtly threatening.”
He was right. But there was something else on my mind. “Eric,” I said. “Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe the most important thing Daphne said is what didn’t happen, not what did.”
“What do you mean?” he asked as he accelerated on the on-ramp.
“Maisy’s emails to Tom were in his personnel files at both stations. More so in Detroit, but it raised enough red flags for Tom that he reported it once she contacted him more recently.”
“Okay. But, like I said, you’ll still have a fight to get that stuff in.”
“Maybe it doesn’t matter what Maisy did or Tom did in response to it.
What really matters is that you and I were the first people to go pound on Daphne Carmichael’s door.
Sharon DePaul should have done that. Don’t you think?
If this were your case, you’d have at least ruled this lead out, wouldn’t you? ”
He scratched his chin. “I don’t know. Maybe. You’ve still got an eyewitness who saw Katy standing over Tom with a knife.”
He was right of course. But that didn’t change my frustration with DePaul. I felt like I was doing her job for her. And I knew that might resonate with a jury. I could absolutely use it on cross-examination with Sharon DePaul.
“I get that,” I said. “But I need you to do what Sharon didn’t. I need you to keep trying to find Maisy Carmichael. Because we are running out of time.”