It’s about Raymond Fletcher,” Ilka said, after entering the police station. “I’m here to make a witness statement.”
She chose to call it a family tragedy, not a murder, when she asked to talk to Stan Thomas. He’d been the first one to enter Fletcher’s office after the dramatic shooting. Mary Ann had immediately confessed to killing her father, adding that no one else had been in the room. Leslie had sat motionless and stared straight ahead, while Ilka had stood in the doorway. Twenty minutes earlier Ilka had seen Mary Ann calmly remove the rifle from her daughter’s hands.
Officer Thomas told her to take a seat.
“It’s not true that Mary Ann was alone when she shot Raymond Fletcher,” she began. “Leslie and I were both there when it happened. Of course, I should have given a statement right then, but I assumed Mary Ann would tell you what happened before the shooting. And I’ve been out of town for several days. Maybe you’ve heard about my father?”
He nodded without commenting on the undertaker’s surprising return.
“That’s why I just found out that Mary Ann didn’t tell you that her father threatened Leslie.”
Thomas leaned back in his seat and listened.
“Fletcher was crazy mad. He’d just returned from the police station after his release, and he accused Leslie of riling her mother up and getting her to report him for fraud and false accusations. He claimed that Leslie had made everything up, that she was out for revenge after discovering the truth about her real father. Fletcher threatened to kill all three of us! And you know he wasn’t the type who made empty threats. He kept a gun in his desk drawer—but surely you found it.”
Ilka had noticed the gun when she opened the drawer and took out the envelope containing twenty thousand dollars. From the look on Thomas’s face, she could see they hadn’t searched the office. Mary Ann’s confession had been enough for them.
“Mary Ann shot her father in self-defense. She saved our lives, all three of us.”
Thomas scooted his chair in to his desk, and for a moment they sat in silence. Then he looked her straight in the eye. “And Leslie will confirm this?”
“Yes, of course. She was there.”
The officer leaned forward and typed something in on his computer, Ilka couldn’t see what.
“I’m absolutely sure Mary Ann is trying to protect her daughter, so all this private family stuff doesn’t come out. That’s why she didn’t tell you about her father threatening Leslie.”
Even though she didn’t particularly like her father’s wife, the image of her in jail kept coming back to Ilka. And she couldn’t imagine how humiliating it must be for Mary Ann to have her personal hygiene become a problem. Ilka felt that Mary Ann had already been punished enough by having to live most of her life under the thumb of her father.
Thomas rubbed his nose and turned back to Ilka. “What you’re saying is, we should reopen this case?”
“What I’m saying is, Mary Ann shouldn’t be in jail. She acted in self-defense, and she saved two lives, besides her own.”
Ilka nearly added that Mary Ann had been moved to the jail’s infirmary, and it was vital that she be released as soon as possible, but she held back. She didn’t want to make Thomas suspicious. She did say, however, that if Mary Ann didn’t have a lawyer, she would contact one immediately.
Thomas checked on his computer and shook his head. “No, no lawyer. The case is being treated as a voluntary confession. But from what you tell me, we need to bring her back in for questioning.”
Ilka couldn’t stop herself. “How soon could she be released?”
“That depends on how soon you can get her a lawyer. And then it’s up to the lawyer to find out if she really wants to change her statement. If she doesn’t want to tell us what really happened, we can’t make her do it.”
“Leslie will confirm it,” Ilka said. “And I’m sure she can convince her mother to tell the truth, even though there’s so much private family stuff involved.”
Ilka could see how annoyed Thomas was that all this hadn’t come out when they arrested Mary Ann, but she also caught a glimpse of understanding and goodwill on his face.
She thought it was possible Thomas had been at the police station when Raymond Fletcher was brought in, after Mary Ann had reported him for fraud, corruption, and making false accusations against one of his employees. But they’d only been able to hold him for less than an hour. Ilka imagined it had been hard for Thomas to see Fletcher wriggle out of the charges made against him—and who knew what threats Fletcher had made to get the police to release him.
In addition to being a powerful man, Raymond Fletcher had been generous to the town of Racine, in a manner that many would describe as blatant graft: an indoor swimming center, new mosaics in a church, a marina. He’d been a man who expected—and demanded—something in return, so the police looked the other way when he and his men were involved in certain corrupt activities. And now that he was dead, it wouldn’t be difficult to find people willing to turn against him. Mary Ann hadn’t been the only one living under his thumb.
Fletcher had been over eighty when he died. The lives of so many people would have been different had someone killed him much earlier, Ilka thought. She had absolutely no scruples about lying to get her father’s wife out of prison. She stood up when Thomas called in an officer to take her statement and enter it into their records. She already knew which lawyer to contact: the one who had defended her father’s friend, Frank Conaway, against Fletcher’s false accusations.
“So, let’s see if we can’t help her,” Thomas said.
It only took an hour. By signing her witness statement, Ilka officially swore she was telling the truth. The officer made a copy. Outside in the police station parking lot, she called the lawyer and told him exactly the same thing she’d said to Stan Thomas. It was self-defense. Mary Ann had saved their lives.
Ilka also told him that Leslie was still in shock. She’s very fragile right now, she said. But it didn’t sound as if the lawyer believed it would be necessary to bring up Leslie’s family history in the case, and it definitely wouldn’t be part of the public record. He promised to contact the jail immediately and set up a meeting with his new client.
Before hanging up, Ilka told him that Mary Ann would probably cling to her version of events to protect her daughter. “She thinks Leslie has already gone through too much.”
The lawyer understood. He knew about Leslie’s situation; he’d worked for her biological father’s family, so they would all be on the same page in this case.