“NICE PLACE,” Melissa says as we pull into the drive of the Walker home.
Jonathan Walker is in the front yard stooped over a bed of carpet roses dead-heading old growth. He wears yellow Crocs. On his head is a broad-rim straw hat keeping the sun from his face. His spindly legs protrude from his knee-length Khaki shorts like a set of broomsticks. It’s another warm day, but the sky is clear, and the humidity lifted. I wear shirt-sleeves and a necktie loose at the collar. Melissa wears snug-fit Khaki slacks and a sleeveless print blouse. A bridge of freckles across her small nose blazes in the sunshine giving her a look of youthful vitality, an impression reinforced by her brisk stride. Or maybe she’s just trying to keep up.
We approach Mr. Walker and flash our ID.
“How could I forget you,” he says by way of greeting. “My wife isn’t here.” Should I take this to mean he wants us to leave and return later, or that the Mr. cannot speak without the Mrs. being present?
“Our questions are follow-up, Mr. Walker, mostly routine.” Playing the guilt card, I say, “Regardless of your differences with Miranda, sir, surely she deserves a half hour of your time?”
He resists. “Stella can add more to the conversation than I can.”
As a daughter to someone, Melissa says, “Are you saying you and Miranda weren’t close?”
Walker’s eyes glaze. “Miranda and I were close.” Pause. “At one time, very close.”
Not thinking sexually—yet—I ask Walker, “Can we not do this in the front yard, sir?”
Minutes later we sit in padded deck chairs sipping unsweetened iced-tea from tall glasses on a shaded flagstone patio in a rear-yard overlooking an in-ground swimming pool surrounded by a well-manicured lawn and beds of blossoming summer flowers. Walker has removed his straw hat. Looking worn, he sits cross-leg opposite Melissa and I rubbing his head, thin hair frazzled and fluttering in the light breeze. He seems older than when last we met.
Melissa holds an iPad in one hand, index finger of the other hand poised over the screen to take notes.
“Mr. Walker, you say Miranda and you were close,” I begin. “Did you communicate with her after the divorce, after she lost custody of your grandchildren, after she relocated to New York?”
“All of the above.”
With difficulty, I try not to scold. “And you didn’t see fit to tell us this on our previous visit? According to you and your wife, you haven’t seen or communicated with Miranda in years.” Walker lowers his eyes as if shamed. “Does Mrs. Walker know you were in contact with your daughter?”
Looking guilty, he lifts his eyes. “If she did, she didn’t say.”
“It’s the most natural of things, isn’t it? For a parent to want to stay in touch with a child? No matter what? To reconnect with that child if she’s estranged? Why wouldn’t Miranda’s mother approve?”
“The relationship was irreparable.”
“Miranda, or your wife?”
“Both, equally.”
“Disregarding what this might mean to your relationship with your wife, Mr. Walker, I need an honest answer. When was the last time you spoke with, or communicated with Miranda? You need to be honest, because if I find out otherwise...” I let the words dangle like a threat.
Walker looks sheepish. “A week before she died. Miranda was not in a good place. If you’d told me she died by suicide, I might have considered it relevant. But she didn’t. So I don’t see how her state of mind has anything to do with why she was murdered by some lunatic.”
I resist uttering the timeworn cliché: In a murder investigation, everything is relevant. Beside me, Melissa taps like a savant.
“Setting aside Miranda’s state of mind in the week before her death, let’s talk about her relative state of mind.” I recall the words of Denieca Brown that Miranda had been trying to turn her life around. “Friends claim that in the months before her death, Miranda was trying to turn things around for herself, quit drinking, quit drugs. If you’ve stayed in touch, as you claim, you should know this.”
“I know she’d returned to AA.”
A vague memory of Bobby Danilenko mentioning AA comes to me and as quickly goes. Damn The Uke’s Hungarian vodka.
Leaning over to Mel, I whisper for her make a note to follow up: AA chapters in the vicinity of Miranda’s apartment, her sponsor, meeting locations, dates and times, et cetera. I tell her to heads-up Gabby and Giardano as well.
“It was first steps,” Walker continues. “We’d been down that road before, and I didn’t want to get my hopes up. But I think Miranda was committed to reconnecting with the children. Marcus has not remarried, but I know it wasn’t about reconciling with him. That was never going to happen. But after all these years, the children still have no one to call mother.”
“From what we understand, Dr. Livingstone has a significant other.”
Walker smiles, which on a man like him could be mistaken for a frown. “Ashley is not the mothering type. Even if she were, Stella wouldn’t allow it.”
“Stella fills the void left by your daughter?” says Melissa.
“Mostly. She’s with the children now.”
“And Dr. Livingstone is okay with this?” I say.
A shadow crosses over Walker’s face. A shadow, the only way to describe it, like they do in books. “He and Stella only want what’s best for the children.”
“You’ve remained close, obviously.”
“Yes.” A touch of sarcasm and resentment in Walker’s demeanor and in his words?
“And the doctor’s own family?”
Walker seems confused by the question.
I rephrase. “What do Marcus Livingstone’s parents want for their grandchildren?”
“I wouldn’t know, I’ve never met them. They died when Marcus was young. He was brought up in foster care.”
“And you? What do you want for the children?”
“Well, that would have been for Joshua and Madeleine to be back home with their mother.” Walker lowers his head knowing this now will never happen.
“During the time Miranda was trying to get things together, did she ever mention anyone who she relied on for help? Friends to who she confided? With who she attended meetings? A Sponsor, maybe?”
“She didn’t say, but if she were attending AA, she would need a Sponsor. Friends? I have no idea about who she was close to in New York.”
“Did she declare her intention to seek visitation to your wife or Dr. Livingstone?”
“Only to me as far as I know.”
“Did you tell your wife or son-in-law of Miranda’s plans?”
“I may have. It was months ago so, really, I can’t recall. We didn’t discuss it openly if that’s what you mean.”
“And to your knowledge, neither Stella nor Dr. Livingstone was contacted by Miranda during this time?”
“No. Why do you keep asking about Stella and Marcus?”
“How would your son-in-law react if Miranda was to return to the picture?”
Walker considers this. He scratches at the stubble on his chin like a man with hives. “Marcus wouldn’t be pleased. After Miranda lost visitation for the final time, we didn’t discuss her, as if we were trying to erase her from our collective memory.”
“Well, you did tell her children their mother was dead,” Melissa says, with bite.
The comment hangs among us like an accusation. I change tack. “Was the relationship between Marcus and your daughter violent?”
“Tumultuous, more like, I would say.”
“Did he hit Miranda?”
Walker smiles sadly. “The other way around. Miranda never caused any real damage. Marcus is a strong man. But Miranda was spirited. She could be volatile.”
“Did she ever hit the children?”
“Good God no, never, never. And believe me, if there had been even a hint of that, I would have called the police myself. But no, despite her failings, Miranda loved the children.”
We’ve drained the last of our iced-tea, and I’m running out of questions to justify a refill.
Like a schoolboy fidgeting in his chair, Walker says, “You don’t think Marcus is responsible for this, do you?”
“Do you?”
Walker sucks at the ice cubes in his glass. “Given sufficient motivation, we’re all capable of unspeakable things, Detective. You, better than anyone, should know this.”
Standing, I thank Mr. Walker for his time and the iced tea. Again, I remind him to telephone me directly if he should recall anything useful, saying we’ll check back later to speak with his wife.
Walker escorts us to our vehicle. As I back into the street, a dark blue late-model Jaguar cuts in front of me and rolls into the drive of the Walker home. Stella Walker exits the vehicle, engine still running. Leaving the driver-side door open, she bolts across the lawn like a guided missile aimed in the direction of her husband. She presses one bony finger to his chest and wags another accusatorially at Mel and I as we sit idling in the road.
Mrs. Walker begins to hector her husband mercilessly. From where we sit, windows down, I can make out only snatches of one-sided, garbled, run-on conversation: Why are they here what did they ask what did you say what did you do?
From her tone, I know Mrs. Walker is none too pleased with our visit. “Guess we know where Miranda inherited her temper.”
“Do we speak with her now?” Melissa says.
“What do you think we should, Detective Johns?”
“No,” Melissa decides after a moment. “I say we wait, let the pot boil over.”
At which I laugh.
✽ ✽ ✽
We’re scheduled to meet with Marcus Livingstone in his office at two. We have forty-five minutes in the meantime so we stop for lunch at a McDonald’s along the way. Mel orders a salad, I a Big Mac Meal. I pay.
Seated, unwrapping our meal, she says, “What have we learned?”
Eyeing her speculatively, I say, “What do you think we’ve learned?”
Melissa grins. “I don’t see how Miranda wanting to reconcile with her children has anything to do with The Chatterbox. That she’s his victim seems, to me, coincidental.”
Taking a bite from my burger, I wash it down with Diet Coke. (The location does not serve Dr. Pepper: E-gads!)
“It’s because you’re looking only at the bigger picture, Mel. As a motive for murder, I say it puts the ex-husband square in the frame.”
Melissa blushes red, but is game. “Sorry, I don’t see it.”
“No worries. I made the same mistake this morning. Gabby called-me-out. We only want to know who had reason to kill Miranda. The ex, most certainly. Maybe Mrs. Walker, too, because I’m pretty sure Mr. Walker is keeping something pretty big from us.”
“Like what?”
“No idea, yet.”
Big Mac devoured, I work on my fries. Melissa rearranges lettuce in her bowl. It’s the one best thing I like about Gabby: A hearty appetite and not shy about putting it to good use.
Mel struggles with the notion of Mrs. Walker, a murderess, though resists the temptation to contradict me. Deciding to take her eyes from the big picture, she says, “You think Stella and Dr. Livingstone are in a relationship?”
“Sex?”
“Of course.” Melissa nods enthusiastically.
“The thought has occurred to me, Mel. Mrs. Walker looks twenty years younger than her age. Probably thinks she is. She’s stepped-up as a surrogate to raise the children. It’s not unreasonable.”
“Mr. Walker isn’t exactly a picture of vitality.”
“In Marcus, Stella gets a twofer. A younger man and a young family. A do-over to make up for failing Miranda.”
“That’s dark, Detective Fortune, very Machiavellian.”
I grin. “It’s Dex. And how ‘bout when we see Livingstone, you ask him?”
“Me?”
“Why not, you? Who better to rattle his cage with such an impertinent question?”
“And you?”
“Me? I’ll go in for the kill, tell him we know Miranda was back on the scene seeking custody, see how he reacts to that.”
“We don’t know this for sure.”
“But Dr. Livingstone doesn’t know what we do know or don’t know for sure.”