So no way Martha Matthias would’ve allowed a stranger into her home. But a daughter who’d bought into the process?
Welcome to the futon in the corner, honey.
I pictured two troubled women sharing hermetic escape. Then something—an errant word or glance, a shift in vocal tone, or most likely an argument about yet another handout of dope money—turns an asylum into a charnel house.
Rats in crowded cages end up eating each other alive. Convicts murder their cellmates.
No reason the same thing couldn’t happen in a self-imposed prison.
—
By the time I got home, Robin was sleeping but when I slipped in beside her she made a soft, purring noise, reached out a hand, and laid it on mine. Her skin was warm, her pulse slow and steady.
We lay there that way for a while.
My world expanded. I slept well.
Chapter
17
Friday, I had custody consults from ten a.m. to two p.m. When the door closed on my final patient, I checked messages. Mostly junk and one call-me-back from Milo at noon.
I reached him at his cell.
He said, “Busy day?”
“Just finished. What’s up?”
“Coupla things happened today that dovetailed in a weird way. This morning I get a call from Michael Heck. Seems he’s been thinking about who might want to frame him and came up with a guy Sophie dated before him. Who she met at the gym. Which he named—Steam Iron—meaning Moses and I can stop canvassing sweatboxes. Interestingly, that one was next on our list.”
“Jealous ex?”
“He thinks so.”
“Thinks?”
“He and Sophie never talked about it but the guy threw him dirty looks when they happened to cross paths. I know I asked Heck to let me know if he had any ideas but now I’m wondering you-know-what.”
“Is he being conveniently helpful to cast suspicion away from himself?”
He said, “And if that’s the case, why? He’s been cleared and will probably make a bundle in the civil suit.”
“So maybe he’s not innocent,” I said. “Hired someone to do Sophie and it’s making him nervous.”
“Exactly.”
“I’m assuming Bel Geddes doesn’t know he called you.”
“You’re assuming right,” he said. “He made a point of letting me know that.”
“Trying to ingratiate himself?”
“Almost to the point of kissing up, Alex. Lieutenant this, Lieutenant that. Or maybe I’m just too damn cynical and the guy’s sterile-clean and being a solid citizen.”
“Who’d he direct you to?”
“Fellow named Frank Winchell. Moses ducked into the gym. The woman at the desk must’ve admired his muscles ’cause she gave up that Winchell was Black and a dentist. We rooted around and found a Francis Allan Winchell, male Black, forty-three, no priors, not even a parking ticket. Lives in Brentwood near his job as a dental hygienist at a practice on Twenty-Sixth Street. Where he is currently scraping and flossing for the next hour. I figured to catch him when he leaves. You up for some highly paid consultant work?”
