Brenda Novak - Dear Maggie

Mntnbiker: You’ll see—I hope. I’m making this up as I go along.

Maggie typed LOL, the symbol for “laughing out loud,” then, teasing, told him she insisted on going Dutch. After that, she signed off.

MAGGIE HAD PLANNED to have her seventy-one-year-old neighbor, who normally watched Zach, come and sit with him while she visited the Atkinsons. But a denture crisis sent Mrs. Gruber off to the dentist, and Maggie decided that taking her son along might actually work to her advantage. She certainly couldn’t look too threatening with an endearing three-year-old in tow, not when he was carrying a box of donuts and she was toting a tray of coffee and hot chocolate. Besides, she liked having him with her.

She parked beneath one of the big, leafy trees that lined most of 36th Avenue, turned down the cop radio in her car and surveyed Lowell Atkinson’s house. She’d always admired it. It wasn’t large by modern standards but it definitely had class. Small, detached garage, well-tended shrubs, lots of flowers, big shady trees, and a new coat of paint on everything, including the fence. Maggie thought she might like to live in this neighborhood, if she could ever afford it. It was the kind of place where people bought and stayed. They mowed their own lawns, drove family cars and remembered to wave at the neighbors.

“Can I have another one?” Zach asked, lifting the lid and eyeing the donuts as she cut the engine. His face and hands were already covered with chocolate icing. Maggie considered his almost-clean shirt and decided not to tempt fate a second time.

“I think we’ve done enough damage already, buddy.” She retrieved a napkin from the glove box and did her best to spit-polish him, the way her grandmother used to do with her. When his patience ran out half a second later and he started squirming too much to make further improvements, she said, “Let’s go.”

Tall and willowy, Mary Ann Atkinson answered the door in her robe, but she looked as though she was in the process of getting ready, not getting up. Her dark hair was brushed back off her face and she’d already applied mascara and violet shadow to her brown eyes. “Hi, Maggie. Lowell said you’d be over today.”

“He did?”

“Yeah. Would you like to come in?”

Maggie didn’t answer right away. She was too busy wondering how Lowell might have known to expect her. She was a reporter, and he’d been dodging her questions. He could have made a simple assumption, but it was a little surprising that he’d been so specific about the day.

“How did Lowell know I was coming?” she asked.

Mary Ann smiled. “You didn’t call him?”

“No. Is he here?”

“I’m afraid not, but that’s no reason to let those donuts go to waste.” She stepped back. “Are you coming in?”

“Sure. Zach would love to see Katie. It’s been almost a year since we had that picnic.”

Katie, Mary Ann’s five-year-old, peered shyly through the railing of the balcony above as Mary Ann showed them inside. Mary Ann waved her daughter down and led them through a comfortable-looking brown-and-green living room, where her six-month-old son was sleeping in a battery-powered swing, to a large screened-in porch. They sat at an iron table on chintz-upholstered seats while Katie hung back, regarding Zach with wariness. Her reserve vanished, however, the moment he caught sight of her tricycle and appropriated it for his own use.

Mary Ann put a halt to her daughter’s indignant cries and found a smaller riding toy for Zach. Then she and Maggie watched their children play on the flagstone patio.

“The weather’s been great, hasn’t it?” Mary Ann asked. “I love this time of year.”

“It’s going to be a hot summer,” Maggie replied.

“Every summer is hot in Sacramento.”

“I’m finding that out.”

“Did you get air conditioning? I remember you spent last summer without it.”

“I decided to save two thousand bucks and bought a fan instead.”

Mary Ann laughed. “You should have saved the twenty bucks you spent on the fan because it won’t be nearly enough in another two weeks.”

“Even after I get an air conditioner I’m hoping to open my windows at night and use the fan to keep my electric bills down, at least on the nights I’m home.”

“Then you’re a braver woman than I am. After that Ritter murder, I’m keeping my doors and windows locked.”

Maggie set the cups of hot chocolate aside to cool for the kids and selected a tall Starbucks cup from her cardboard tray for Mary Ann. Then she opened the donuts. “Don’t let that scare you. Most murders are committed by a friend or relative, so unless someone close to you is unstable, you’re pretty safe.” She selected a chocolate cake donut and sat back to eat it. “In Sarah Ritter’s case, I’m guessing it was her husband. She was probably going to sue for divorce or something, so he freaked out and stabbed her with a kitchen knife.”

Mary Ann helped herself to a maple bar. “Except that she wasn’t killed with a kitchen knife. The murder weapon was sharper than that, the grooves different, more like a hunting knife.”

Maggie nearly choked on her first bite of donut. “What?” she said, coughing.

Mary Ann sent a furtive glance at her daughter and took a sip of coffee. “Lowell sometimes brings his work home with him, just like anybody else.”

“So the autopsy’s finished?”

“Of course. It was finished the same day they found the body. Lowell didn’t get home until almost midnight.”

“And? Did he find anything unusual?”

Mary Ann hesitated. “My husband left so he wouldn’t have to talk to you. He told me to play dumb.”

“I still don’t understand how he knew I was going to show up here.”

“Someone called. I thought it was you.”

“Who else could it have been?”

“Someone from the force, maybe?”

Her appetite gone, Maggie pushed her donut aside. No one on the force knew her plans for this morning. How could they have alerted Lowell? Had they been following her and guessed where she was heading? Why would they waste the manpower? Mendez must have realized his gaffe the other night and had let the others know. “What’s going on, Mary Ann?” she asked. “Lowell’s never felt he had to dodge me before.”

“He says the police are really worried about this case. They don’t want him to say anything to the press.”

“It was a brutal murder that needs to be solved as soon as possible, but why all the secrecy?”

“I don’t know. To tell you the truth, I think it’s wrong. I think people should know. The women of Sacramento should be warned to lock their doors and windows at night and to set an alarm, if they have one.”

Maggie studied Mary Ann’s agitated face. “Is it that bad?”

She nodded.

“Are you going to tell me why?”

With a sigh, Mary Ann lowered her voice so the children couldn’t hear. “That poor woman had her tongue cut out,” she said, her gaze pinning Maggie to her seat as effectively as her words. “Lowell said he’s never seen anything like it. He said whoever did it knew how to use a knife.”

Maggie cringed. “A hunter or a surgeon, maybe?”

“A serial killer, a wacko,” Mary Ann replied. “And the most frightening thing of all is that this guy has already struck six times. The first victim was a woman in Boston.”

So Maggie’s hunch had been right. She hadn’t found what she was looking for online last night, but she hadn’t searched very long, and she hadn’t known what she needed to track down—a monster who removed his victims’ tongues. That was certainly enough to earmark a murderer. “When?” she asked.

“Ten months ago, and he still hasn’t been caught.”