Ed McBain - Driving Lessons

Which is exactly what Newell’s lawyers would love to prove, and that’s why I want to get my hands on that diary, if it exists, before they do, Your Honor.

Wherefore, I respectfully request that the court issue a search warrant in the form annexed hereto, authorizing a search of the premises at 1220 Hanover Road, Apartment 4C, for a diary belonging to the deceased.

They tossed the apartment high and low and could not find a locked diary in Mary Beth’s top dresser drawer or anyplace else. They did, however, find an appointment calendar.

In plain view, as they would later tell Alyce Hart.

Which meant they were within their rights to seize the calendar as evidence without violating the court order.

The calendar revealed that starting on the twenty-first day of August, Mary Beth Newell had scheduled appointments at two fifteen every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon, with someone she’d listed only as ‘McD’. These meetings continued through to the day of the accident.

‘Well, even beyond that,’ Katie said. ‘Take a look. She had another one scheduled for tomorrow, and another two next week. Now unless she was going to McDonald’s for hamburgers, I think we can safely assume the ‘McD’ stands for McDowell. In which case...’

‘Let’s revisit the man,’ Carl said.

Father McDowell was alone in a small chapel off the side portal, deep in silent prayer when they entered the church through the center doors at three that afternoon. A blazing afternoon sun illuminated the high arched stained-glass windows, washing the aisles with color. They spotted the priest at once, and waited respectfully until he made the sign of the cross and got to his feet. He stood staring at the crucifix over the altar for a moment, as though not quite finished with his Lord and Savior, adding a postscript to his prayers, so to speak, and then made the sign of the cross again, and started backing away into the main church. He turned, saw them at once, scowled with the memory of their earlier visit, and seemed ready to make a dash for the safety of the church proper — but they were upon him too swiftly; he was trapped in the tiny chapel.

‘Few questions, Father,’ Katie said at once.

‘I have business to attend to,’ he said.’

‘So do we,’ Carl said.

‘We have Mary Beth Newell’s appointment calendar,’ Katie said. ‘It shows she’d been coming to see you twice a week since the third week in August.’

Father McDowell said nothing.

‘That sounds pretty serious to us,’ Carl said. ‘A woman walking all the way over here, twice a week.’

‘What was troubling her, Father?’

‘We need to know.’

‘Why? ’he asked.

‘Did Andrew Newell know she was coming here?’

From the organ loft, quite abruptly, there came the sound of thick sonorous notes, flooding the church. The glorious music, the sunlight streaming through the stained glass, the scent of incense burning somewhere, the flickering of votive candles in small red containers on the altar behind McDowell, all blended to lend the small church the sudden air of a medieval cathedral, where knights in armor came to say their last confessions before riding off to battle.

‘Why was she coming to see you?’ Katie asked.

‘Why not her own parish?’ Carl asked.

‘Help us, Father,’ Katie said.

‘Why?’ he asked again.

‘Because if her husband knew she was coming here, if he knew his wife was troubled about something...’

‘Then his attorney might try to show she was distracted at the time of the accident...’

‘... walked into that car because her mind was on something else.’

‘Worse yet, walked into it deliberately .’

‘She was not suicidal, if that’s what you’re suggesting,’ McDowell said.

‘Then tell us what she was.’

‘Help us,’ Katie said again.

The priest sighed heavily.

‘Please,’ she said.

He nodded, almost to himself, nodded again and then walked into the church proper, up the center aisle to a pew some six rows back from the main altar. The detectives sat one on either side of him. As he spoke, McDowell kept his eyes on the crucifix hanging above the altar, as if begging forgiveness for breaking faith with someone who had come to him in confidence. From the organ loft, the music swelled magnificently. McDowell spoke in a whisper that cut through the laden air like a whetted knife.

‘She came to see me because she suspected her husband was having an affair,’ he said. ‘She was too embarrassed to go to her parish priest.’

But twice a week? Katie thought. For eight weeks? Ever since the twenty-first of August?

As McDowell tells it, at first she is uncertain, blaming herself for being a suspicious wife, wondering if her doubts have more to do with her inability to become pregnant than with what she perceives as her husband’s wandering. He doesn’t want a baby, she knows that; he has made that abundantly clear to her. As the weeks go by and she becomes more and more convinced that he is cheating on her, she wonders aloud and tearfully if perhaps her incessant campaign, her relentless attempts to conceive, her strict insistence on observing the demands of the calendar and the thermometer chart, haven’t transmogrified what should have been a pleasurable act into an onerous experience, something dutiful and distasteful, something rigid and structured that has forced him to seek satisfaction elsewhere.

‘By the end of the summer, she was positive there was another woman,’ McDowell said.

‘Did she say who?’

‘No. But she was becoming very frightened.’

‘Why?’

‘Because someone was following her.’

‘She saw someone following her?’

‘No, she didn’t actually see anyone. But she felt a presence behind her. Watching her every move.’

‘A presence?’ Carl asked, raising his eyebrows skeptically.

‘Yes,’ McDowell said. ‘Someone behind her. Following her.’

‘Good!’ Alyce said on the telephone that evening. ‘This only makes him more despicable!’

‘You think he was the one following her?’ Katie asked.

‘Either him or his bimbo, who cares? Here’s a woman trying to get pregnant and her darling husband’s fooling around. Just let the defense try to show her as a troubled woman — I dare them. The trouble was her husband. Gets into a car stoned out of his mind and causes the death of an innocent wife who’s faithfully attempting to create a family while he’s running around with another woman. Seven years? The jury will want to hang him!’

Katie hoped she was right.

‘Let’s nail it down,’ Alyce said. ‘I want a minute by minute timetable, Katie. I want to know who saw the training car leaving the school parking lot at exactly what time. Who served Andrew Newell that Coke at exactly what time. Who saw Mary Beth Newell step out of that church and start walking toward her rendezvous with death at exactly what time...’

Sounding like she was already presenting her closing argument to the jury...

‘... who saw the car approaching the crossing of Third and Grove at exactly what time. Who saw the car striking that poor woman at exactly what time. It takes fifteen to thirty minutes for Seconal to start working. OK, let’s prove to a jury that he had to’ve swallowed the drug on the way to Grove and Third and was incapable of preventing his own wife’s death! Lets prove the cheating bastard killed her!’

Amen, Katie thought.

The accident had taken place on Wednesday at approximately three twenty in the afternoon. This was now eleven a.m. on Saturday morning, the nineteenth day of October, and the drive-in at this hour was virtually deserted, the breakfast crowd having already departed, the lunch crowd not yet here.