Lisa Miscione - Twice

“She give you anything?” asked Jeff.

“Claims she didn’t see or hear anything until Julian started screaming.”

“What did she tell you about their marriage?” asked Lydia.

“Said they were happy. She’d been with them three weeks and said they didn’t have so much as a tiff that she saw.”

“Where’s she visiting from?”

“She lives in Boca now part of the year, part of the year here with her daughter. Said she would have been with them through the holidays and then back down to the condo after the New Year.”

“So what was it like? The scene, I mean,” asked Jeffrey.

“You know, you asked me the same question ten years ago. My answer is the same. It was a fucking mess. Not the same struggle as last time, but Richard Stratton was taken to pieces, just the same as Tad Jenson. I brought you copies of the crime scene photos and my preliminary findings and notes,” he said, sliding the envelope over to them. “You guys are taking the case, right?”

“I haven’t called Eleanor Ross yet, but I think so. I want another shot at this and I know you do, too.”

“You’re damn right.”

“You think there was someone else there this time?”

“I don’t know… doesn’t look like it. On the other hand, it doesn’t look like she could have done it alone. There was blood on the ceiling… a twelve-foot ceiling, for Christ’s sake. The doorman said no one came or left from the front door. But we got no murder weapon. From the preliminary findings of the ME, he said it was a serrated knife, just like the last time. One other thing… don’t tell anyone about this. We’re keeping it from the press. Richard Stratton’s ring finger, and his wedding ring with it, are missing. Unless she swallowed the knife, the ring, and the finger or hid them very, very well, someone else took them from the scene. When I got to her, she was in no condition for a lucid action like hiding evidence.”

“Or so she’d have you believe,” said Jeffrey.

Ford shrugged, gave a quick nod. “Yeah. Tell you what. She’s faking it? Then she’s one hell of an actress.”

“Tad was missing his ring and ring finger, too,” Jeffrey explained to Lydia.

“Nice,” said Lydia with a shake of her head.

Lydia turned it over in her mind, what a thing like that might mean. Was it a symbol? Was she freeing herself from the bonds of marriage? Or was someone else freeing her from it?

“You said she wasn’t lucid when you found her?” asked Lydia.

“She was losing it. She wouldn’t leave the room where her husband had been killed. When the paramedics took her away, she was ranting. She said, among other things, ‘He’s come for me.’ ”

Lydia and Jeffrey exchanged a look.

“What?”

“We just came from her gallery. A couple of days ago she turned in a painting to Orlando DiMarco, her rep there. She’d titled it He Has Come for Me .”

Lydia described the painting to Ford. He took notes as she spoke, she could see him taking the information in, plugging it into the equation that was growing in his mind.

“I’ll head over there and check it out,” said Ford. “I remember Orlando DiMarco from the investigation ten years ago. He was a big cokehead then. Rumor was that they were lovers, on-again off-again… nothing serious. But I was never able to place him at the scene. Anyway I had him pegged for a lover… not a murderer. Bet he wouldn’t want to mess up all those pretty clothes.”

“It looked to me like there were some hurt feelings there. I would have put money on him being in love with her,” said Lydia.

He nodded and looked at her without seeing her. It was a look she recognized from Jeffrey and even herself. He was moving pieces of information around in his head trying to see what fit where.

“So, what’s the game plan, kids?” he said after a moment in thought and coming back to the present. “I think I’ll pay a visit to Mr. DiMarco. Take a look at that painting.”

“I think we’ll pay Julian Ross a visit,” answered Lydia.

“Good luck. She’s gone, baby, gone. You’re going to need a decoder ring to get anywhere with that one right now.”

“It’s worth a shot,” Lydia said as the waitress approached. She looked ridiculous and unhappy in a pink-and-white-checked uniform with matching cap, someone’s idea of what a fifties diner waitress would wear. Her name tag read BUFFY. She was clearly over fifty years old, and her enormous breasts hung down to the top of her apron. Buffy looked at her customers beneath layers of blue eye makeup and mascara.

“What can I getcha?” she said.

“I’ll have a bacon double cheeseburger with fries and a large chocolate milkshake,” said Ford as the waitress scribbled in her pad.

Lydia looked at him with worry, hoping that he wasn’t going to have a heart attack right there at the table.

“I’ll have the same,” she said.

Urine, Lysol, and misery were the odors that assailed Lydia and Jeffrey as a strapping orderly buzzed them through a heavy metal door. They stepped into a gray, dimly lit hallway with speckled Formica floors, brightly clean and polished, with a flat wooden railing running the length of each of the walls. Lydia could hear the sounds of someone sobbing and someone laughing.

“Is this your first visit to a psychiatric facility?” asked Dr. Linda Barnes, a bright, pretty young woman whose deep, sultry voice seemed incongruous to her petite frame. Lydia and Jeffrey had met the doctor down on the street in front of the clinic. It was clear from her clipped attitude that the doctor was not pleased with the visit Eleanor Ross had insisted upon. She had the drawn look of someone acting against her better judgment, offered nothing but a quick polite greeting and then an escort up to Julian Ross. She walked quickly and quietly, her rubber-soled shoes not making a sound on the floor. Lydia and Jeffrey had to pick up their pace to keep up with her.

“No,” answered Lydia, “We’ve both seen our share of places like this.”

“I ask because the first time can be pretty rough on the uninitiated,” she said.

“We are fairly well acquainted with insanity,” said Jeffrey.

The doctor shot him a look. “We prefer ‘mental illness’ in my profession.”

“Call it what you will, Doctor,” said Jeffrey.

A large man with a larger brow and a badly shaved head shuffled past them. His lids were purple and heavy, his eyes stared off into the distance intently as he clenched and unclenched his fists. He muttered something unintelligible as he moved past.

“Normally, we wouldn’t allow Ms. Ross any visitors at all,” she said. “It is not advisable to her recovery at this point. But since there are special circumstances and her mother insists, I’ll allow it. But I am going to ask you to keep this visit as brief as possible.”

“I understand,” said Lydia. “How is she?”

“She’s had a psychotic break. It’s a state that occurs, usually, when the mind has sustained a shock that it is not equipped to handle. Julian has more or less shut down. She is incoherent… sometimes ranting, sometimes nearly catatonic. This is more than likely a temporary condition… but I couldn’t hazard a guess as to how long it will last.”

“Could she be faking it?” asked Jeffrey.

“If she is, she’s a very convincing actress,” said Dr. Barnes. “Generally, Mr. Mark, people don’t try to fake their way into a place like this.”

“It’s better than prison.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” answered Lydia.

An elderly woman in a pink smock holding on to a walker with one hand pounded on a door at the end of the hall. “Let me in!” she yelled, frantically looking around her with eyes wild and red-rimmed at her invisible pursuers. “Let me in!” An attendant in green scrubs ran over to her and gently ushered her down the hall, whispering to her. A crowd of patients, all wearing the same pink smocks, crowded around a window where a nurse was handing out tiny paper cups filled with pills.