“Fine, thanks. How are you?”
“Sorry. But do you,Jeanne? I'm at her house right now. It's an incredible mess. You wouldn't believe how it went down.”
Jeanne paused. “I'm not on that case anymore.”
“Would I get a different answer in person?”
“You might.”
“Then give me a break. Please, Jeanne. I need your help. I don't have time to run around.”
Her voice finally softened. “What happened out there? You sound really upset.”
“I am upset. Everything blew up. I was right in the middle of interviewing her when LAPD burst in like a damn clown car at the circus. It was ridiculous, Jeanne, and unnecessary. Fielding knows something, and he won't say what.”
“I'll save you a step,” Jeanne said. “She's the one. She did those murders, Alex.”
“How do you know? How does LAPD know? What is going on?” “You remember the hair that was found at the movie theater when Patrice Bennett was killed? Well, they pulled one off Mary Wagner's sweater from her locker at the hotel. The results just came through. It's the same hair. Fielding ran with it.”
My mind raced, placing this new bit of information alongside everything else. “I see you're doing a good job staying off the case,” I finally said.
“Can't help what I overhear.”
“So did you overhear where they took her?”
Jeanne hesitated, but only for a couple of seconds. “Try the Van Nuys station on Sylmar Avenue. You better hurry. She won't be there long.”
“I'm on my way”
Mary, Mary
Chapter 94
I GOT RIGHT OVER to the Van Nuys station, but I was stonewalled: I was told to my face that Mary Wagner wasn't being held there.
There was nothing I could do to budge LAPD: They had this woman, their suspect, and they weren't sharing her. Even Ron Burns couldn't, or wouldn't, help me out.
I wasn't able to see Mary until the next morning. By that time, LAPD had transferred her to a temporary holding facility downtown, where they kept her completely tied up in interrogation - without any real progress, as I had predicted.
One sympathetic detective described her to me as somewhere between despondent and catatonic, but I still needed to see Mary Wagner for myself.
When I arrived at the downtown facility, the assembled press corps mob was twice the size of anything we'd seen so far. Easily. For weeks, the Hollywood Stalker case had made national headlines, not just local ones. Mary Wagner's mug shot was everywhere now, a blank-eyed, disheveled woman looking very much the part of a killer.
The last thing I heard before I switched off my car radio was ridiculous morning-talk- show banter and psychobabble about why she had committed murders against rich and famous women in Hollywood.
“How about Kathy Bates? She could play Mary. She's a great actress,” one “concerned”
caller asked the talk show host, who was all too glad to play along.
“Too old. Besides, she already did Misery. I say you get Nicky Kidman, get her to slap on another fake nose, wig, thirty pounds, and you're good to go,“ replied the DJ. ”Or maybe Meryl Streep. Emma Thompson? Kate Winslet would be strong.”
My check-in at the station house took almost forty-five minutes. I had to speak with four different personnel and show my ID half a dozen times just to reach the small interrogation room where they were going to bring Mary Wagner to me. Eventually - in their own sweet time.
When I finally saw her, my first reaction, surprisingly, was pity.
Mary looked as though she hadn't slept, with bruise colored half-moons under her eyes and a drooping, shuffling walk. The pink hotel uniform was gone. She now wore shapeless gray sweatpants and an old UCLA sweatshirt flecked with pale yellow paint the same color as her kitchen.
Vague recognition flickered in her eyes when she saw me. I was reminded of some of the Alzheimer's patients I regularly visited at St. Anthony's in D.C.
I told the guard to remove her cuffs and wait outside.
“I'll be okay with her. We're friends.”
“Friends,” Mary repeated as she stared deeply into my eyes.
Mary, Mary
Chapter 95
“MARY DO YOU REMEMBER ME from yesterday?” I asked as soon as the guard was back out in the hallway I had pulled up a chair and sat across from het The plain four-by-eight table between us was bolted to the floor. It was chilly in the small room, with a draft from somewhere.
“You're Mister Cross,” she said dully "FBI Agent Cross.
Excuse me, I'm sorry"
“Good memory Do you know why you're here?”
She tensed, though it was barely discernible from her other- 'wise flat affect. "They think I'm that woman. They're accusing me of murder.“ Her gaze fell to the floor. ”Murders.
More than one. All those Hollywood people. They think I did it."
I was actually glad she said “they” It meant I could still be a potential ally in her mind. Maybe she'd tell me some of her secrets after all, and maybe not.
“We don't have to talk about that if you don't want to,” I said. She blinked once, and seemed to focus a little. She squinted her eyes at me, then looked down at the floor.
“Would you like anything? Are you thirsty?” I asked. I wanted her to feel as comfortable as possible with me, but I was also feeling an urge to help this woman. She looked and sounded so terrible, possibly impaired.
Now she looked up, her eyes searching mine. “Could I have a cup of coffee? Would it be too much trouble?”
The coffee arrived, and Mary held the paper cup with her fingertips and sipped at it with an unexpected kind of delicacy. The coffee seemed to revive her a little, too.
She kept sneaking glances at me, and she absently smoothed her hair against her head.
“Thanks.” Her eyes were a little brighter, and I saw a shade of the friendly woman from the day before.
“Mary do you have any questions about what's going on? I'm sure you must.”
Immediately, a pall came over her. Her emotions were palpably fragile. Suddenly, tears welled up in her eyes, and she nodded without speaking.
“What is it, Mary?”
She looked up to the corner of the ceiling, where a camera was watching us. I knew that at least a half-dozen law enforcement personnel and psychiatric specialists were tucked away less than ten feet from where we sat.
Mary seemed to guess as much. When she did speak, it was in a whisper.
“They won't tell me anything about my children.” Her face contorted as she fought back more tears.
Mary, Mary
Chapter 96
“YOUR CHILDREN?” I asked, somewhat confused, but going along with what she'd said.
“Do you know where they are?” Her voice was wavery but her energy had increased quite a bit already “No, I don't,” I answered truthfully “I can look into it. I'll need some more information from you.”
“Go ahead. I'll tell you what you need to know They're too young to be on their own.”
“How many children do you have?” I asked her.
She seemed dumbfounded by the question. “Three. Don't you already know?”
I took out my pad. “How old are they, Mary?”
“Brendan's eight, Ashley's five, and Adam's eleven months.” She spoke haltingly while I wrote it all down.
Eleven months?
It was certainly possible she had given birth a year ago, but somehow, 1 doubted it very much.
I checked the ages to be sure about what she'd said. “Eight, five, eleven months?”
Mary nodded. “Thats right.”
“And how old are you, Mary?”
For the first time, I saw anger show on her face. She balled her hands into hard fists, closed her eyes, and struggled to compose herself. What was this all about?