JACK ARRIVED IN BALTIMORE IN THE EARLY AFTERNOON AND followed his GPS’s directions to the house in Lutherville, Maryland, stopping on a residential street in front of a well-maintained split-level. His phone rang before he got out of the car.
“Hey, sorry for not getting back to you sooner,” Jeremy said by way of greeting. “I didn’t have my phone in the lab. Everything okay?”
“Yeah, I just . . . I’m feeling a little uneasy about leaving Taylor. It’s probably nothing but these stories in the news have me nervous, and I’m in Maryland and won’t be back till tomorrow. Maybe you could go over tonight, spend some time with her?”
“No problem. I’ll invite myself over for dinner and then stay the night.”
“Great. Thanks, man.”
His mind somewhat settled, Jack ended the call and opened the car door. The humidity enveloped him as soon as he was outside, and he was surprised at the difference in temperature just a couple hundred miles south of New York. The front door to the house opened as Jack approached, and a man in his early forties came out. He looked as though he hadn’t slept for days, and a five o’clock shadow covered his jawline.
“You must be Jack Logan,” he said with no change in expression as he moved aside to let him in.
“Thank you for seeing me, Dr. Russell.” Jack knew that Kent Russell had had his own dental practice for the past eleven years. He followed him into the kitchen, noticing the pile of dirty dishes in the sink and the carton of milk sitting forgotten on the counter.
He held out a hand to Jack. “Have a seat.”
Jack sat across from him at the square table. “Do you mind if I record the interview?”
Russell shook his head. “It’s fine.”
Jack pulled out his cell phone and put it on the table, then hit record. “First, let me offer my condolences. I’m very sorry for your loss.”
Russell nodded, a faraway expression in his eyes. “I don’t even know what to feel. This is a nightmare. I keep expecting to wake up and discover it’s all just a bad dream.” He looked back at Jack. “It doesn’t make any sense. She actually killed him . . . Maggie’s a nurse, a caretaker—not a killer. I don’t understand.” He began to cry softly, and Jack waited for him to compose himself. Eventually, Russell cleared his throat and sat up straighter.
“Had she been acting any differently recently?” Jack asked.
Dr. Russell thought for a moment. “Not at all. That weekend was a typical one. I would have been at the game, too, that day but I had an emergency at the office.” He looked up, muttering to himself, “If only I’d been there, maybe I could have stopped her.”
Guilt was a natural reaction, Jack knew. He also knew there was nothing he could say to this man that would make him feel better about not being at that game. He cleared his throat and continued, “According to several witnesses, it happened very suddenly. Was there any prior animosity between the coach and your wife?”
Russel gave Jack a look of incredulity. “You don’t understand. She had no animosity toward anyone. There wasn’t a mean bone in my wife’s body. Everyone loved her. Just ask around the neighborhood and you’ll see. It’s like she was possessed or something. It doesn’t add up.”
Jack exhaled. “There have been several similar occurrences up and down the East Coast, people committing acts that are completely out of character. I’m wondering if there’s something linking them all.”
Russell looked slightly bewildered. “Like what?”
“Could be anything. Exposure to some sort of chemical. A medicine that’s been tampered with.”
Russell was adamant when he said, “Maggie didn’t take anything. Maybe an aspirin now and then, but that’s it.”
Jack knew there would be a lot more than sixteen cases if someone had tainted a medicine supply, but he couldn’t rule out anything yet. “Had she traveled out of the country recently or gone anywhere unusual?”
“No. The most exotic trip she’d taken lately was a weekend in Ocean City.”
“Any complaint of headaches or feeling dizzy?” Jack prodded. “Any head trauma? Recent illnesses?”
Russell shook his head. “She was in perfect health. She got her physical every year. In fact, we’d both just been to our internist. She took good care of herself. She was a nurse. I can’t think of anything that would have caused her to . . .” He choked up.
Jack knew he had to tread carefully. Maggie’s suicide meant there would be an autopsy, so he gently asked, “Dr. Russell, do you know when they’ll be releasing your wife’s autopsy report? It might shed some light on why this happened.”
He replied, “I don’t. I hope they can find a reason—I still haven’t figured out what to tell my son.” He broke down again, putting his head in his hands.
Jack had one more question to ask, but he wasn’t sure how it would be received, so he waited a moment before speaking again. “Forgive me for asking . . . any history of drug or alcohol abuse?”
Russell’s mouth set into a hard line. “Absolutely not! My wife and I are devout Baptists. She never touched a drop of alcohol, and she would never take drugs.”
“I understand. I had to ask.” Jack stood up, pulled out a card, and handed it to him. “Thank you so much for your time. I won’t take up any more of it, but I’m not leaving town until tomorrow. If you think of anything, please call me.”
Jack’s next stop was St. Katherine’s High School, where Sister Francis was now headmistress. She used to take care of the orphans at St. Mary’s Church, which had closed years ago. When Jack and Taylor had scoured online message boards for adoptees to see if they could find anyone who’d worked there, Sister Francis had answered more than one post, and from there, Jack had struck up an online conversation with her. He pulled up the steep driveway and around the circular drive in front of the reception building, as she’d instructed him. After parking in a visitor spot, he pressed the bell at the front door, announced his name, and was buzzed in by a young woman who led him to a large wooden door. When he opened it, he found an older woman dressed simply in a plain navy dress behind a desk. Her hair was white, and her blue eyes lively. She smiled at Jack and rose, extending her hand.
“Hello, Mr. Logan. Please, have a seat.”
He shook her hand and smiled as he sat down. “Thank you so much for making time to see me while I’m in town.”
“Of course, of course. I’m happy to help in any way I can.”
Jack hadn’t disclosed the reason for his interest in the child who’d been adopted by Crosse; he had instead told Sister Francis he’d just discovered that his deceased father had been adopted as a child, and Jack was trying to find any living relatives. Lying to a nun didn’t make him feel good, but he told himself that the ends justified the means. “You lived at St. Mary’s in the early sixties, correct?”
She nodded.
He continued. “I contacted Associated Catholic Charities, but unfortunately all the records from that particular orphanage were destroyed in a fire. I was hoping you might remember a child that was adopted by a couple from New York. A Mr. and Mrs. Jonas Hayes?”
She looked up at the ceiling for a moment, then shook her head. “I’m afraid that doesn’t ring a bell.” She spread her hands, palms up. “There were quite a lot of children coming through there.”
“This couple had lost a baby in childbirth. The woman couldn’t have any more children. And they were open to an older child, not a baby.”
“Hold on . . . yes . . . I remember now. He was a big bear of a man and she was wisp of a thing. Very sad story. They adopted a quiet little boy. Martin we called him. I remember he used to keep to himself a lot. Smart as a whip but didn’t quite fit in with the other children.”
That was something, Jack thought. “Do you remember who brought him to you?”
“He was left on our doorstep, so I’m pretty sure it was someone local. Possibly a young girl who didn’t want to tell her parents she’d gotten into some trouble.”
“There was no note, nothing?” Jack felt his earlier optimism fade. This whole process had been like searching for a needle in a haystack.
She said, “No, nothing like that. But . . .” Her eyes went to the ceiling again. “Actually, there was something left with him. I remember because it looked expensive and made me wonder if his mother was from a wealthy family. It was a gold chain with a St. Nicholas medal, also in gold.”
“The patron saint of children,” Jack said.
She looked pleased that he knew this. “Yes. When he was adopted, we gave it to his new parents.”
Jack sighed. That was interesting, but not helpful in figuring out who this particular orphan was. He pushed his chair back. “Well, thank you.”
“There is one more thing.”
Jack stopped and waited for her to continue.
“It was a numbered medal. A limited lot, I think. The company who made them moved out of state, but I think they are still in business. You might be able to track down who bought it.”
“How many of them were made?”
“I don’t remember, I’m afraid. It’s been too long.”
“That’s okay. This is really helpful. Do you remember the company’s name?”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t.”
“Thank you, Sister, you’ve been a great help.”
Jack left and drove ten minutes to the Sheraton in Towson. Tracking down every store that had sold that sort of medal would take time that he didn’t have, and it still might not provide them with any useful information. Their Institute research would have to go on the back burner for now. He needed to continue with his research on his current story before heading to his next interview tomorrow morning with Agatha Moroni, the woman whose knife ended up becoming a murder weapon.
When he got to his room, he stretched out on the bed and closed his eyes, thinking about Maggie’s husband again. How could you be living your very normal life one day and then, all of a sudden, lose your wife in a murder-suicide? Nothing that the dentist had told Jack set off any alarm bells. What would make someone suddenly go crazy like that? Sighing, he sat up and opened his laptop. He typed What makes people go suddenly crazy? into the search bar and clicked on an article about sudden personality changes. The usual suspects came up: mental illness, drug abuse, head trauma, stroke, tumor. None of them seemed to be the case with Maggie Russell. He could only hope that the autopsy would reveal something helpful.