It's Her Fault

CHAPTER 1It all began when Marlon Morrison refused to abandon his meatball marinara sandwich. “Hey Frank,” he called across his desk. “Do me a favor and take this call for me?” Even as he plunged the meatball hero into his gaping mouth with his left hand, he held out a pink phone slip with his right. It was not surprising to Frank Vandegraf that his colleague, Detective Morrison, wanted to pass off still another chore on someone else. There was a running joke in the Personal Crimes Unit, that Morrison, when thanked for some favor or other, was fond of saying, “It was the very least I could do,” and that was absolutely what he always did, the very least he could. Frank, who had been trying to walk past Marlon’s desk without calling attention to himself, sighed resignedly and reached out for the slip. What the hell, he figured. He was, if not free, at least relatively unencumbered at the moment, as much as anybody in the unit ever was. Why not. “Some professor says his wife is trying to kill him,” Morrison said with a mouth full of meatball and Parmesan cheese. Frank gave the phone slip a quick scan. “Somewhere up in the hills,” Morrison added before taking another bite. The marinara sauce was dripping off the sandwich onto the paper wrapper underneath. It smelled good. Frank made a note to grab a bite while he was out. “I owe you one, Frank,” Marlon called to his back as he departed. Marlon owed a lot of guys one. He owed most of them more than one. Frank wasn’t going to hold his breath waiting to get reimbursed. * * * * The hills that rose along the eastern side of the city were a twenty minute drive from the station, which no doubt partly accounted for Marlon’s reluctance to take the call, but it was also a nice jaunt through some of the better neighborhoods. Frank judged that he could use a little cheering up, so he was actually whistling as he grabbed his car keys from his desk and headed out the door. Developers had taken full advantage of the views afforded from the hillside to the harbor and coast off to the west. Further to the north, as the hills got higher, were expensive one-family hillside homes, but Frank’s destination was the condominium district, where a line of identical, trendily-designed buildings rose into the sky. The district had been officially named Scenic Hills by the developers but the name had never stuck and most still simply referred to the area as the Hills. Professor Maurice Hesterberg lived near the top floor of such a building. “Thank you for coming, Detective Vandegraf,” Hesterberg was saying as he sat next to him on his balcony. It was a glorious sunny day, a good breeze making the air crystal clear, and they could see the ocean in the distance right to the horizon. He rattled the ice cubes in his glass of iced tea. “You’re sure I can’t get you something?” “Thanks, no,” Frank replied. He had pulled a beat-up notebook out of his pocket and opened it to the next available page. “Now tell me, Mr. Hesterberg...” “Doctor,” Hesterberg interrupted. “Excuse me?” “That’s Doctor Hesterberg.” “Doctor Hesterberg. All right…” “I know, it seems pretentious, doesn’t it?” He spoke in a clipped but precise manner, more than a little fussy and self-conscious. Frank could see it was going to get annoying soon enough. “Not a problem, Doctor...now...” “But, you see, I worked very, very hard to earn that title. While I was working on my Master’s and PhD, I also worked full time as an electrician.” “Do tell.” “Crawled around under houses, in between walls. Got shocked more than a few times. Fell out of a few houses. Not an easy way to get through school.” It did not sound, Frank reflected silently, that the Doctor was very good at being an electrician. It was probably a good thing that he had gone into academia. “So you see, I kind of feel I deserve that title of respect. Sometimes people tell me they think only medical doctors deserve to be called Doctor. I tell them, respectfully, that’s rubbish.” Respectfully indeed, Frank reflected. “Whatever you say, Doctor Hesterberg. I have no trouble with calling you that. Now you reported that you think someone is trying to kill you?” “My wife, that’s correct. My estranged wife, to be precise.” Which explained, Frank mused, why so far there seemed to be no sign of a female presence in this condo. Of course he couldn’t have unerringly made that judgment without having yet seen the bedroom and the bathroom, but a detective of a certain number of years just picked up on some things intuitively. “Your wife does not live here then, sir?” “No, we have been separated for some time now. She lives in an apartment on the other side of town.” “Your wife’s name is...?” “Margo. Margo Hesterberg. We are still officially married.” Hesterberg sighed deeply, looking out at the view. “Hopefully not for too much longer.” “So tell me, why do you think Margo is trying to kill you, uh, Doctor?” “Well, for one thing, she poisoned my dog. For another thing, she’s threatened me. And she’s tried to break into my condominium.” “Poisoned your dog?” “Yes. I found my Schnauzer, Thomas Mann, dead one evening when I returned home. Lying there by his food dish, by the kitchen window over there, under those Venetian blinds.” He pointed through the open balcony door into the apartment. “Thomas Mann.” “That’s his name, yes. After the German novelist.” “I’ve heard of him, thank you. Wrote ‘Death in Venice’ I believe?” Frank resisted the urge to pursue the apparent irony any further. “I am suitably impressed, Detective. You’re a reader then.” Frank waved a hand. “He was poisoned, you’re sure? The dog, I mean, not the writer.” “My veterinarian did an autopsy and confirmed it. I also brought the food dish to him and he found traces of rat poison in it.” “So someone had come into your home and left poison for Thomas—I mean, your dog.” “Yes.” Hesterberg nodded vigorously, jaw set. “I duly reported it to the police but no action was ever taken.” Frank scribbled rapidly into his notebook. “You feel this was done by your wife and it was part of an ongoing threat directed at you.” “No question in my mind about it.” “And why do you feel it was your wife who broke into your home and killed your dog?” “Because she hated him. She said I loved Thomas Mann more than I did her.” “There were signs of her breaking in? Something to lead you to conclude it had to be her?” “I don’t know what it would look like if someone tampered with the lock. I surmise she had a key.” “To your knowledge did she have a key?” “No. I changed the locks when she left. But somehow she must have gotten one.” “Let’s come back to that in a moment, Doctor. Tell me some more about the perceived threats Margo made on your life.” “She would call me at all hours of the night, wake me up, and rave at me. Accuse me of all sorts of bizarre perfidy. More than once she said she was going to make sure I couldn’t cause her any more trouble.” “Trouble.” “Yes, that was the word she used: ‘trouble.’ Several times she said that.” “What kind of trouble did she think you were causing her?” Hesterberg shrugged and dramatically opened his eyes wide. He had thick dark wiry eyebrows and a beard to match. Combined with his self-conscious manner, the effect was heavy on the drama. “I never got that straight, Detective. She was increasingly irrational. All I know is that she made clear-cut threats to my well-being in her late-night telephone rants.” “Is there any record of these calls? Did you happen to tape any of these, for example?” “My God no,” Hesterberg replied. “Now I wish I had taken steps to do so.” “Did your wife specifically and expressly say she was going to try to kill you?” Hesterberg shook his head in frustration. “I can’t recall specifically, no, but her meaning was clear.” “She said, maybe, she was going to take you out? Remove you from the scene? Eliminate you? Something like that?” “Conceivably. I don’t remember exactly. The woman has been irrational.” “Did these calls start before or after you found your dog poisoned?” Hesterberg considered this. “It was around the same time; I believe she began disturbing me just before I found poor Thomas Mann’s body.” “Did you confront her with this, ask her if she had done it?” “One night I did, yes. She did not confirm it, but neither did she outright deny it. She rather laughed. The night conversations were unhinged, you have to understand, very disturbing. They were not the most coherent. I have to admit I found myself drawn into her madness and often responded emotionally. Not to mention she always woke me so I wasn’t at my best to begin with.” “When did you last speak with your wife, Doctor?” “It’s been a few days now. Two or three. She hasn’t called. There’s been no word or contact from her. That’s why I’m really worried now.” Frank paused in his writing and looked up. “Excuse me? You’re really worried now because...?” “It’s the calm before the storm, of course,” Hesterberg intoned dramatically. “She’s stopped calling me because she’s up to something. I can feel it. So I knew it was time to call the police.” The remainder of the interview was not much more helpful. Frank ascertained that Hesterberg had been a tenured English professor at the nearby State University for many years, and even headed the department for a while. At age 65 he was currently semi-retired, reluctant to totally give up his life’s work, teaching only two full time upper division courses and acting as advisor for a doctoral candidate. The rest of his time was devoted to a book he was writing on twentieth century German literary movements, and apparently to long walks and an occasional visit to a local bar for a few Cognacs with one or two fellow academics. He and Margo had been married for about a quarter of a century and had, in his words, grown increasingly apart from one another over the past few years. Hesterberg attributed much of their marital discord to what he termed Margo’s ongoing “descent into madness”—becoming ever more paranoid, suspicious, and withdrawn. She was, he said, jealous of any time or energy he spent with anyone else or anything else. She suspected his tavern companions, his long walks, even his dog. He did have to admit, she had never once committed a violent act or even shown any tendencies to violence, but she had grown increasingly emotional and irrational. Finally the confrontation erupted that resulted in her decision to leave him. She had rented an apartment near her sister, her last surviving relative. Hesterberg figured that once a divorce had been effected, they would sell the condo, which was still joint property, and divide the proceeds. Frank wondered why Margo had left rather than Hesterberg himself. It was explained that she had made that judgment herself; she wanted nothing more to do with the place where they had spent so much time together. The memories, she said, were not pleasant. “So let me make sure I’ve got the actual facts here straight,” Frank summed up as he prepared to leave, tucking his notebook into his inner sport coat pocket. “You suspect that your wife plans to kill you. She’s made no specific statement to that effect, to you or to anyone else in your knowledge. You believe she entered your condo illicitly and poisoned your dog, but you have no concrete proof of either of these things.” “My feelings are strong on this, Detective. I am totally convinced it is she and that is her plan, yes.” Hesterberg seemed to see no difficulty in this view. “So what are you going to do about it?” “I’m afraid my options are a bit limited legally here, sir. Frankly, your feelings by themselves are not much for me as a basis for action. I’m going to go have a talk with her for starters. Then I’ll see where that takes me.”