The Dollmaker by Morgan Shamy
THE MURDER OF MADISON GARCIA
MARCY MCCREARY
ISLID underneath the bubbles. My knees poked out above the surface. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. When I came up for air I heard “Radiate”—my phone’s ringtone. I lifted my body, turning toward the sound, and my boobs collided with the edge of the tub. Damn, that hurt. I inched my fingers across the floor but the phone was unreachable, resting on the far edge of the bathmat. I gave up and submerged my body back into the warmish water. If it’s important they’ll leave a voice mail.
With the tips of my fingers sufficiently wrinkled, I reached for the towel that lay crumpled on the toilet lid. With the towel secured around my midsection, I picked up my phone. A missed call from my daughter Natalie. I hit “Recents” to call her back and noticed an incoming call from the night before. A red phone number, indicating a person who was not in my contact list. Boston, Massachusetts, was displayed below the number. Probably one of those spam calls—a request for my social security number or a plea from a political fundraiser. There seemed to be a lot of that lately with the presidential campaign heating up. The American people had taken sides—lefties, centrists, right-wingers—and it wasn’t pretty. It never used to be this way. Or maybe it was, but social media and cable news were exaggerating and exacerbating the divisiveness. Made me think of that Stealers Wheel lyric: “Clowns to the left of me / Jokers to the right / Here I am stuck in the middle with you.”
After applying a fair amount of goop to tame and defrizz my curls, I slipped into my black yoga pants and gray drawstring hoodie. I settled on my bed, opened my laptop, and googled “reverse lookup.” Curiosity is a strong motivator to get to the bottom of things—and as a detective, it was hard to pass up the chance to solve this little mystery. I entered the phone number into the rectangular box at the top of the screen. The results page displayed the name Madison García, a resident of Brooklyn, New York, not Boston, Massachusetts. I opened my Facebook page and typed “Madison Garcia” in the search box. There was one Madison García living in Brooklyn. But the page was private. And her profile picture was a black cat. When I clicked on the name, I was greeted with a handful of pictures she must have designated shareable and therefore accessible to the public. There were people—mostly millennials—in the photographs, but no one I recognized. All personal info was hidden.
“Susan, you up there?”
“Yeah!” I shouted, closing the lid. “I’ll be right down!” I plucked a tissue from the box on the bedside table and blew my nose, then headed downstairs with the laptop tucked under my armpit and the box of tissues in my grip.
“Feeling any better?” Ray asked.
“Fucking summer cold. Just popped a DayQuil.” I shook the tissue box. “And I got these bad boys.”
“You look like shit.” A beat later he added, “And I mean that in the nicest way.”
“Good save,” I said before I blew my nose with more force than necessary. “What’s your plan today?”
“I’m heading into the station soon. Chief assigned me to work on those bungalow robberies. Seems we have a serial cat burglar in the area.” Ray put on his serious face and wagged his finger. “You are to stay put. I’ll pick up dinner tonight.”
“Yes sir,” I said, military salute included.
My phone rang and we both glanced at it. I thought it might be the Boston/Brooklyn caller. I swiped to answer. “Chief?” I bobbed my head a few times as Ray shot me dirty looks. “Got it. On my way.”
“Susan, is this your idea of staying put?”
“Eldridge tells me we got a dead body over at Sackett Lake.” I blew my nose again in my semi-used tissue. “Besides—it’s just a little summer cold.” I coughed up some phlegm and headed back upstairs to change into real clothes.
A POLICE vehicle and an ambulance were parked along Fireman’s Camp Road. I spotted Officer Sally McIver and her partner, Ron Wallace, at the edge of the parking area. Two paramedics stood beside a black Lexus, the only car in the small Fireman’s Camp parking lot.
Sally waved as I got out of my car. Ron held up a roll of police tape and shook it like a tambourine. I looked out toward the lake and took in the scene. From this distance, the dead woman in the car simply looked like she was daydreaming, staring out at the placid water without a care in the world. I retrieved my packet of protective outerwear from the trunk, then joined them.
“What can you tell me?” I asked Sally.
“You sound like shit,” she replied.
“Top of the morning to you too.”
“That guy over there tapped on the driver’s-side window,” she said, pointing to a gray-haired gentleman with a German shepherd by his side. “Thought she might be sleeping or something. When she didn’t respond, he opened the door. Saw the blood. Then he called 9-1-1. Ron and I got here about five minutes ago.”
One of the paramedics approached us. “Multiple stab wounds to her torso. I noticed a bathing suit in the backseat. Perhaps here for a swim and was robbed?” He shrugged, then sighed, clearly not thrilled with how his day was starting out. “All yours.” He turned and headed back to his partner.
There wasn’t much we could do until Gloria and Mark showed up. Gloria Weinberg was our forensic photographer. Back in the Borscht Belt days, when the Catskills resort hotels were in full swing, she took pictures of the guests, who would then purchase their portraits encased in mini keychain viewers. Now she photographed crime scenes . . . and the occasional wedding. And once, the crime scene around a murder victim whose wedding she had photographed. Mark Sheffield was our crime-scene death investigator. He had joined the Sullivan County ME’s office last fall—wanted to get away from the grim murder scenes of the city. Wait until he got a load of this blood-soaked tableau.
I turned to Ron. “Let’s get a perimeter going. From this area here all the way around to the water,” I said, sweeping my arm across the landscape to indicate the area I wanted cordoned off. I wiped my nose on my sleeve. “Sally, run the plates. I’m going to have a little chat with the man who found her.”
I approached the gray-haired man and introduced myself.
“Benjamin Worsky,” he said in response.
“Okay, Mr. Worsky. Just a few standard questions, and you can be on your way.”
“It’s no trouble. None at all. In all my years, never thought I’d come across a . . . a dead body. Poor woman.”
“When did you happen upon the car?”
“I left my house at seven o’clock on the dot. I’m a man of habit. Seven on the dot every morning to walk Elsa.” He petted the top of Elsa’s head. “It takes me ten minutes to walk from my house to this spot, so I would say I spotted the car around seven ten. But I didn’t think anything of it and continued my walk past the car. But when I came back this way—and I’m thinking that would be around seven-thirty because I walked another ten minutes and then turned around—the car was still here.”
“Why did you approach the car?”
“I’m not really sure. Perhaps a sense that something was wrong.” He looked down at Elsa, who looked up at him. “Elsa was a bit agitated. Maybe it was that. So I peered in and the driver didn’t look well.” He frowned and raised his hand to his heart. “I tapped on the window just to ask her if she was okay and when she didn’t answer, I opened the car door. That’s when I saw the blood and called 9-1-1.”
“Did you touch anything?”
“Just the car door handle.”
“Did you see anyone else around, either when you came through or off further on your walk?”
“No. But you might want to visit with a woman who lives up the road a bit. She walks along the lake every morning at six o’clock. She might be able to tell you if the car was here at that time.”
“Yeah, that would be great. Her name?”
“Eleanor Campbell.”
“I know her. The woman with the birds, right?” I chuckled softly, recalling Eleanor Campbell’s birds driving Dad crazy when we were working the Trudy Solomon cold case last year. She was a character you didn’t easily forget.
“Yeah, budgies, I believe,” Mr. Worsky replied.
“Okay, great. If you can just give your address to that officer over there,” I said, pointing at Sally, “then you’re free to go.”
“I don’t mean to step out of line here, but you sound awful.” Mr. Worsky tugged at his whiskers. “You should really be in bed.”
A BLUE Honda Accord pulled into the parking lot. The blaring rock music ended abruptly when the ignition cut out. Mark’s lanky legs emerged first. When he fully stood, he maxed out at six feet, six inches. His nickname was Pencil, and he seemed to have no qualms about that. He had a penchant for wearing khaki pants and tan shirts and his hair was the color of graphite. He was such a good sport about his nickname that at last year’s Halloween party he wore a tan T-shirt with “No. 2” emblazoned on the front. He opened the trunk of his car, pulled out a pair of overalls, and suited up.
“Good morning, ladies! What brings you out on this fine, fine day?” Mark winked. He looked over at the black Lexus. “Ah. Has the scene been photographed yet?”
“No. Still waiting on Gloria,” I said, checking my watch. “Thought she would’ve been here by now. She lives just a little ways up the road.” As if on cue, Gloria’s Chevy pickup rumbled up the road. “The gang’s all here.” I coughed into the crux of my elbow.
“You sound like shit,” Mark said. “Bad cold?”
“Yeah, I’m on the back end of it.” He nodded and lifted an eyebrow in that way people do when they don’t believe you. So I added, “No longer contagious.”
We watched as Gloria pulled off the tarp and lifted her gear from the rear bed.
“Sorry for the delay, guys. I was over at Horizon Meadows.” Gloria laid her camera bag on the ground and slipped into her protective wear. “My sister was in a bad state this morning. They’re moving her to Level Six care.” She knelt and removed two cameras. She hung one of the cameras around her neck and held the other. “There but for the Grace of God go I.”
We all nodded.
“I’ll start with a few global photos,” Gloria said, snapping the shutter to capture the entirety of the crime scene from a distance.
I donned my PPE, then trailed behind Mark and Gloria as they walked toward the victim. As we neared the body, she threw out a question over her shoulder, “Is this how you found everything?”
“Minor scene contamination,” I replied. “A passerby opened the driver’s-side door and the paramedics checked for life. But we haven’t touched a thing.”
“You sound like shit,” Gloria said.
“That seems to be the consensus today.”
The humidity was setting in, further irritating my sinuses and making it harder to breathe. My hands were also a sweaty mess. On days like this it was hard to tell whether my palmar hyperhidrosis was the cause of my sweaty palms or whether the clammy air was simply making my hands wet. I dragged my palms along the front of my pants to sop up the moisture. Then I slipped on my bright blue latex gloves.
We stood bunched together at the open driver’s-side door while Gloria laid her duffel bag on the pavement and unpacked her yellow number markers and photo scales.
“Do we have an ID on the woman?” Mark asked.
“Still working on that,” Sally replied, as she zipped up her white Tyvek coveralls.
Mark crouched down next to the body. “What a fucking bloodbath.”
“Looks like someone stabbed her and walked, drove”—I looked out at the lake—“or swam away.” I peered over his shoulder to get a closer look. “Mid-to-late twenties. Maybe early thirties?” I sniffled, trying to suction back the escaping mucus. “I suck at guessing ages.”
“I’m getting a late twenties vibe,” Mark said.
“No signs of a struggle. Perhaps she knew her attacker. A date gone sideways?” I inferred.
“I don’t see a purse,” Sally said, cupping her hand like a visor over her eyes and gazing into the passenger’s-side window. “There’s a duffel and a bathing suit on the backseat.”
“Try the door,” Mark said.
Sally opened the passenger door. “Not locked.”
“How about the rear door?” I asked.
Sally opened a rear door. “Not locked.”
Gloria moved around the rear of the car to take midrange and closeup photographs of the items on the backseat.
Sally’s phone pinged. She glanced at it, then said, “Car is registered to a Samantha Fields, a doctor who lives in New York City. Should be easy enough to find someone who can provide a positive identification.” She drummed her fingers on her cheek. “Unlocked doors. No handbag. No phone. I’m thinking robbery.”
“Or someone trying to make our job harder by making us think it’s a robbery,” I suggested.
Mark leaned over the body to get a closer look at the stab wounds. “Three wounds . . . here, here, and here,” he said pointing to each incision. “What’s this?” he muttered, mainly to himself. “Well, lookee here.” Mark reached down into the footwell and pulled out an iPhone. He held the phone up to the woman’s face and the device sprang to life. “Here you go,” he said handing me the phone.
I hit the green-and-white phone icon on the lower left corner of the phone. “Holy shit. This is not Dr. Samantha Fields.”