The Blue Journal Page 29

  Walker nodded. “That’s how we figure it.”

  “At the very least, when she told me Stanley was her husband, that’s when I should’ve let it go.”

  “That’s not the issue right now,” Walker replied in a flat tone. He paused. “The issue is why you have kept silent, why you didn’t come forward on your own.”

  Colello shrugged. “Pretty obvious, don’t you think? I never saw anyone else at the house. I just saw Elizabeth lying there and then I made tracks. I honestly don’t know anything that can help.”

  “Maybe so, but we’re going to need to go back over all this in more detail. You never know what you might have seen that you may not realize.”

  “Okay.” Colello took out a cigarette. He was so unsteady that Kovacevic looked to Walker, who nodded. The hell with the rules. Kovacevic reached out and lit it for him. “Look,” Colello said, “I know I’m not about to win any good citizenship awards, but I want you to believe I’m telling you the truth here, all right?”

  “It’s not important what I believe. I just put the facts together and let the state’s attorney make the decision.” Walker looked up at Chief Gill, then turned back to Colello. “Okay,” he said, “let’s take it from the top. Step by step.”

  CHAPTER 48

  Stanley Knoebel was sitting in the den. His vacant gaze fell on Elizabeth’s computer. It had been returned to him by Officer Kovacevic.

  He stared at the machine, wondering at what his life had become. He could see nothing. He could hear nothing. He was spiritually blind. Emotionally deaf.

  No man is a success if he attains all of his goals. Such a man is without purpose, hollow and spent. Yes, Stanley Knoebel thought, that was precisely how he felt. He was bereft of purpose. His only dreams came at night, unwelcome and unforgiving, thrust upon him, spoken without invitation, leaving him with unbearable sorrow.

  My God, Knoebel thought. Is there nothing remaining of me?

  Memories are the only things we truly own, the only things that can never be traded or stolen or given away. We create our memories, shape them, edit them, hold them for as long as we need or want them. Memories are not always real, but they are ours. Memories can be counted on, even when the people we are remembering have long since disappeared or disappointed, even after our own emotions have let us down.

  Emotions are not faithful in the way memories are. Emotions live their own lives, beyond our control.

  Happiness leads an evanescent existence, easily destroyed and impossible to resuscitate at will. Examine happiness too carefully and it evaporates, like a bubble that floats on the breeze until you try and take hold of it for a closer look.

  Sadness is made of sturdier stuff, standing up to scrutiny and reason, usually surviving intervening thoughts and events that would easily crush delight. If you observe happiness too closely, some or all of it will fade. Explore sadness and you will only grow sadder. We are under its spell, like it or not.

  Love can be more powerful, and far less predictable. We can often identify the source of our happiness or sorrow, even if we have no ability to govern those feelings. But love is mysterious. It controls us, and we willingly give ourselves up to its control. We covet its magic like nothing else in creation.

  Stanley Knoebel wished he had never fallen prey to its fascination, but it was beyond his control, he had truly loved her. He had loved Elizabeth as much as he would ever love anyone.

  Yet hate, as he came to see, exists in the underbelly of love’s power. Hate has its own great force, with an appetite unmatched by all other feelings combined. It eats away at everything we are and, in the end, unless we can struggle free from its grasp, it leaves us with nothing.

  Nothing, that is, but our memories, however we choose to see them and hold them and keep them for ourselves.

  He had loved Elizabeth, but he came to understand that she did not love him. She might have, in the beginning, he allowed himself that much, but ultimately their marriage became her prison. She was locked inside the wealth and comfort he provided and, coupled with her own fears, she found it was a confinement she could not escape. Instead she became determined to punish him for her own disappointment.

  How could she have failed to see who he was, to gauge his limitations? He wanted to provide what she needed, but she would not forgive his imperfections, his remoteness, his inability to be what she wanted him to be. She continually tore him down, ripped their marriage apart, and destroyed their lives in the process.

  He drew a deep breath, then let it out in a rush as he stood up, crowbar in hand. He raised it high above his head and paused. What would his lawyer say? What would the police claim? That he had destroyed legal evidence? That it proved he was her murderer?

  To hell with them. His lawyer, the police. To hell with all of them.

  He brought the heavy metal bar crashing down. Then again. And again, as the metal and plastic yielded to his forceful blows. Sparks were sent flying and crunching sounds resonated through his head as he destroyed Elizabeth’s computer.

  CHAPTER 49

  That evening, Fran Colello waited for her husband to tell her the truth. About his discussion with Detective Walker. About Elizabeth Knoebel. About everything.

  She waited, but so far he had not told her anything.

  “What happened?” she finally asked. “What did the police want?”

  Colello said the police had brought him in for routine questioning because he was acquainted with Stanley Knoebel through group therapy.

  “Routine questioning? The police came to our door without warning, for all of our neighbors to see. No phone call, no request for you to stop by and meet with them. What sort of routine questioning is that?”

  Colello shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe that’s how they do things in a murder case,” he told her. “They don’t care who they upset.”

  “What did they ask you about Doctor Knoebel?”

  “You know, the usual stuff. What do I think of him, did he ever say anything strange, did I think he was the kind of a guy who would murder his wife, that sort of thing.”

  “What about Mrs. Knoebel? Did they ask you about her?”

  “Why would they? What do I have to do with Elizabeth Knoebel?”

  “Elizabeth?”

  “Sure. That was her name, right?” He fixed her with an angry stare. “What is this? I already got the third degree from the police.”

  “The third degree? I thought it was routine questioning.”

  “Sure, it was routine. But it’s a murder case. They break your chops, you know?”

  “I don’t know, I really don’t. Tell me.”

  “You’ll find out soon enough. They want to talk with you. I guess they want to talk with everybody who ever met these people.”

  “Should I bring a lawyer, Thomas?”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “You called Mark, and he went with you. Should I call him too?”

  “I don’t think I like your attitude. What’s with the attitude?”

  “It’s a simple question. I don’t understand why you needed a lawyer to answer routine questions about Stanley Knoebel. You hardly know the man, right?”

  She watched as his anger visibly rose again, then fell, the color having flooded his face, then quickly drained away. He stood up and stomped around the room, acting as if he were ready to explode, then backing off.

  He was not sure how to respond, and his uncertainty made everything plain to her.

  “Tell me, Thomas.”

  “Tell you what, for chrissake?” When she didn’t respond he said, “Let’s just drop it, okay?”

  “Tell me,” she said again. “It’s all right. Just tell me the truth. I’m entitled to know.”

  “Know what, for crying out loud. There’s nothing to tell. You’ll see for yourself. They’ll ask you a bunch of bullshit questions and that’ll be the end of it.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about. You know goddamned well what I’m ta
lking about. I have to know. I have to hear you tell me.”

  “Tell you what? What? This is a sick conversation. I don’t understand what you’re saying and I don’t understand what you’re asking. What do you want from me?”

  “The truth.”

  “I told you the truth.”

  “No, I mean the truth about Elizabeth Knoebel.”

  “Listen to me, Fran. There is nothing I can tell you about Elizabeth Knoebel. There is nothing else here that means anything. You’re looking for something that isn’t there. Okay? Please try and see that.”

  “You’re wrong. You don’t know how wrong you are. It doesn’t end here. You’ll see. It’s worse than you think.”

  “What? What the hell is worse than I think? Speak English, will you please?”

  “It’s worse than this, don’t you understand?”

  He looked at her and saw something in her eyes that was completely unnerving. He hesitated, then in a softer voice said, “Look, I know it’s upsetting. This woman gets killed, we have to talk to the police about it. I know it’s upsetting. But don’t make it into something it isn’t. Are you listening to me, Fran? Don’t make it into something it isn’t.”

  Fran Colello did not want to make it something it was not. She said, “With everything that’s happened, and everything that’s going to happen, all I ask is that you tell me the truth.”

  Colello felt like punching his hand through the wall, or something worse, but instead he stormed out of the room, out of the house, jumped in his car and headed for the Black Swan to get drunk. He went without telling her the truth.

  A short time later, when Detective Walker called Fran to set a meeting for her interview the next day, she knew it was too late.

  CHAPTER 50

  Back in his office the next morning, Walker was arguing on the telephone with a hospital administrator in New York.

  “What are you telling me?” he demanded. “Was Doctor Knoebel in the operating room that afternoon or wasn’t he?” He looked up at Kovacevic, his frown displaying part exasperation and part accusation, a signal to the junior officer that somehow this was his fault.

  Kovacevic remained standing while Walker had the woman on the other end of the call explain it to him one more time.

  “Okay,” the detective responded, “I think I got it. The answer is that there is no answer. You’re telling me there’s no way of verifying the times Doctor Knoebel came and went from the operating room that day, other than questioning every nurse and doctor in the entire hospital.” He nodded at her reply. “All right. Well thank you again,” he said, then slammed the phone down. “Damn.”

  “No good, huh?”

  “No good. She says Knoebel could have been anywhere. He might have gone up to the gallery to observe the surgery from above. He could have been in and out of the OR. He could have been in the john for all they know. There’s no way to check for sure, unless everyone who was in the hospital that day is willing to say he wasn’t there during those critical afternoon hours.”

  “Fat chance.”

  “Exactly. No one is going to sink him that way, especially since they’re not in the habit of looking at their watches while they’re in the middle of surgery. How the hell could anyone be sure, unless they saw him get in his car and leave?” Walker scrawled a note to himself in the file. “Run another check with the parking garages around the hospital. Find out where he normally parks, but if he really murdered her we’ve got to figure it was planned well in advance. He wouldn’t have used his regular garage.” He looked up. “All the same, if he’s going to rely on this alibi, it’s got some holes in it.”

  Kovacevic nodded.

  “Okay, what else do you have?”

  Kovacevic paused.

  “What is it?” Walker asked.

  “It’s Doctor Conway, sir.”

  “What about her?”

  “I keep thinking about those anonymous notes.”

  “What about them?”

  “Maybe they were supposed to work as some sort of reverse psychology or something. They help to rule her out as a suspect, don’t they?”

  Walker studied the young officer for a moment. “Sit down,” he told him.

  Kovacevic planted himself in the chair beside Walker’s desk.

  “So, you think Randi Conway should be a suspect?”

  “I don’t know, sir. What do you think?”

  Walker responded with a frown. “I’ve considered it, believe me.” He scratched his chin and stared straight ahead for a moment. Then he shook off the thought. “You know Kovie, I think this job is turning you into a cynic.”

  The junior officer smiled. “I suppose that’s a compliment, coming from you sir.”

  Walker laughed. “Whatever it is, don’t lose that edge. So tell me, where’s her motive?”

  “What if Mrs. Knoebel did something to Doctor Conway we don’t even know about?”

  “Possible. But what about our gallery of cheaters and disgruntled spouses? It takes a lot to drive someone to murder. ”

  Kovacevic nodded.

  “It’s possible Doctor Knoebel murdered a cheating wife. Then we have Elizabeth Knoebel’s lovers. Maybe one of them got an idea of what she was up to, diary or no diary.”

  “Like you said, it takes a lot to turn someone into a killer.”

  “What about the wives? It seems every one of those women hated her.”

  “They had good reason to, if they knew what she was doing.”

  “Yeah.” Walker rubbed his eyes. “It’s like I told Gill, we’ve got too many damned suspects. But let’s go back to those two anonymous notes for a moment. There’s something about them that bothers me too.” He thought it over. “It’s all too easy,” he said.

  “Sir?”

  “Everything points to one of Randi’s patients.”

  “Randi, sir?”

  “Doctor Conway,” he said with a grin. “But think about it, Kovie. She gets two notes. Her office is ransacked and her files scattered around. What do the notes mean? Nothing, far as I can tell. She doesn’t believe any of her records are missing from the break-in. Sure, someone might have read something, but so what? Or they might have been looking for the diary. But somehow it all feels manufactured. I mean, what if the murderer is not one of her patients? What if it’s someone who knew Elizabeth Knoebel, knew Randi Conway was her therapist, and has been doing everything possible to send us in the wrong direction?”

  “If you’re right, it’s working.”

  Walker nodded. “People have affairs every day. And they get caught every day. But they don’t resort to homicide. I’ll grant you that the Knoebel woman is an extreme case, and the stuff she was writing takes things to another level. But did any of our unhappy players know about the book? Except Nettie Sisson? I don’t think so, or at least we have no indication that they did. I don’t even think Randi Conway knew, based on her reaction when I showed it to her. But maybe our killer did.”

  Kovacevic nodded.

  “I’m asking you, do you really believe Colello went off and shot Elizabeth because his wife might find out about their affair?”

  “No, I really don’t.”

  Walker shook his head. “Neither do I. Can I see Fran Colello shooting her? Maybe. But there’s got to be someone with more at stake here. Or a combination of real danger and a warped mind.”

  “Which leads us where, sir?”

  Walker picked up the phone. “I have a message from Doctor Conway, says she wants to meet with me. Asked me to bring the photographs of the murder scene.” He punched in her phone number. “Time to make that date.”

  CHAPTER 51

  An hour later Anthony Walker arrived at Randi’s office. She was working her way through a cup of coffee.

  “Got any more of that?”

  “Help yourself.” Randi pointed to the machine on her credenza. “That’s a refrigerator underneath, if you need milk.”

  “Black is fine.”

  “Did you brin
g the photos?”

  Walker casually dropped an envelope on her desk, then went over and picked out a ceramic mug and had a look inside. “Anyone ever wash these things?” he asked.

  Randi smiled weakly. “Sometimes I do, sometimes the cleaning lady. Sometimes no one. Pretty grungy, huh?”

  “This one doesn’t seem to have anything moving in it. Should be all right.” He filled the cup and sat down in the chair across from her.

  She looked at him, a flush in her cheeks as she asked, “Will we be okay? You and me, I mean.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I think we will.”

  “I do too,” she said with a smile.

  He waited as she began to study the photos, then asked, “So what gives?”

  Some of the pictures were more gruesome than others. Each of them offered a stark portrayal of Elizabeth’s violent death. “The room. I told you, I believe more than one of my patients was in that room.”

  “I already told you, I know one of them was Thomas Colello.” She began to say something, but he showed her the palm of his hand. “It’s okay. He already told us he was there, at least once.”

  “He did?” Randi shook her head. “All right, I’m not even going to ask about that right now. I’m more interested in the other man. He was talking about this room in group the other night. I’m sure of it.” She returned to the photographic images. “It didn’t hit me at first. I’ve never been to the Knoebels’ home and I had only seen these pictures. But Thomas knew right away. Strange. I couldn’t figure out why he became so angry. I was looking for something deep-seated, you know? Some issue between him and the other man.” Now she looked up at Walker. “The weight of knowledge can really slow you down sometimes.”

  “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never had enough for it to get in my way.”

  “Save the ‘aw shucks’ routine, Anthony,” she said with a smile. “Use it on someone who hasn’t heard your theories on life and marriage.”

  Walker wrapped his hand around the mug, ignoring the handle, then slowly drank some of the hot coffee. All the while, he watched Randi. “So? You going to tell me who this was or should I start guessing?”