Hanging Time

71

This better be good.”

On her second visit to the precinct in one day, Assistant District Attorney Penelope Dunham looked less fresh and more than a little irritated. She took a seat beside Mike and dragged her glasses out of her purse. When she got them on, she nodded at April and Sergeant Joyce.

“You wanted to see your prime suspect,” Joyce said. “Well, here she is. Camille Honiger-Stanton. That’s Jason Frank with her. You know who he is?”

“Yes, the shrink from the Chapman case. I had some research done on him.”

Penelope peered through the one-way glass at the scene in the questioning room. Jason Frank was an attractive man in a well-tailored gray suit, white shirt, navy tie with tiny white dots on it. Everything about the psychiatrist was conservative—his short brown hair, white shirt, clean-shaven face. He didn’t look as if he’d been out much that summer. There was hardly any color in his face.

He sat at the table, writing occasionally in the notebook on his lap. His body was relaxed and his features did not register the bizarre behavior of the redheaded woman sitting across from him. At the moment she was making mewing noises; her hands picked at the air. Her left shoulder jerked up, up, up, three times before the right shoulder took over. Her huge mane of red hair was like a hay field, in and out of which her face bobbed and ducked. Across her lap lay a very small orange-colored poodle, its little butt in the air and its muzzle dangling toward the floor. In contrast to the movements of its owner, it was motionless.

“Is that alive?”

At the question, the dog’s head flopped over. It looked drugged. On the floor a small plastic box thumped with the movement above.

Penelope pointed at it. “What’s that?”

“A leash,” Sergeant Joyce said sarcastically.

April glanced at Mike. He winked.

“It’s like a reel. The dog has freedom to run around, but you can press a button and stop it from going any farther,” he offered.

Penelope Dunham squinted at the leash intently. “Is that the murder weapon?”

Sergeant Joyce glared at her detectives. Neither said anything.

Jason Frank finished writing and looked up. He spoke in a precise, neutral voice. “Camille, do you have any idea why you’re in so much trouble?”

After a moment the mewing stopped, and the woman parted her curtain of hair. Her hands clutched the poodle. “People … think I did a bad thing.”

“What kind of bad thing?”

“They think I did a murder.”

“Did you do a murder?”

She shook her hair back in front of her face. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“What about when you get really upset and have one of your fits? Do you hurt other people?”

“Only myself.”

“Why do you hurt yourself?”

Camille looked straight into the mirror on her side of the wall, through which the people in the viewing room could see her, but she couldn’t see them. She seemed to study herself for quite a while. “I’m bad,” she said at last.

“Camille, do any associations come to your mind about what’s happening now with these crimes?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know what. You have to tell me.”

“Like when I was a kid,” she said hesitantly.

He nodded.

“When people thought I did things and punished me and it was really Milicia?”

“Yes. Why didn’t you tell anybody, Camille?”

Suddenly Camille’s body became very still. “I thought … if she wanted me to be punished that much, she must have a good reason.”

In the viewing room, Penny Dunham leaned forward.

“What was the reason?” Jason asked Camille.

Camille twisted a clump of hair around her fist. It was all tangled, looked like it hadn’t been combed in some time.

“Do you know the reason?”

Camille pulled a clump of hair out by way of an answer.

“Don’t do that,” Jason said sharply, then more gently, “You pulled your hair out. Is there something you’re worried about telling me?”

She looked at the clump of hair for a moment, then dropped it. It drifted to the floor. “Yes …”

“Something about Milicia?”

“Yes.”

“Did you do whatever Milicia told you to?”

“Yes.”

“You were accused of bad things and you took any punishment without telling the truth?”

Very small voice. “Yes.”

“Can you tell me the secret?”

Camille’s body became absolutely still. Her eyes filled with tears. “No.”

Jason was silent for some time. “I need to know the secret, Camille. Two young woman are dead.”

“I couldn’t kill anybody!” she cried. The puppy in her lap stirred.

“Maybe someone wants to make it seem like you did. Why would someone want to do that? Does it have something to do with the secret between you and Milicia?”

“I don’t know! I can’t tell you what I don’t know!”

“The victims were small women, almost like little girls. They were strangled, hung from chandeliers, dressed in party dresses way too big for them with makeup on their faces. What story does that tell, Camille?”

Camille let out a long, shuddering scream. “It’s me. She made me dress up like a woman and gave me lessons to show me what it’s like. Health lessons.” The words came out an anguished wail. “With a Coke bottle and a hairbrush and—”

Camille put her head down on the table and sobbed. Her puppy didn’t try to get away.

Ten minutes later, when it was clear Camille wouldn’t be saying anything else for a long time, Penny Dunham blinked a few times and got up from her chair.

“Nice family,” she remarked sourly. “You said the other sister is here. Where?”

“She’s up in the squad room.” Sergeant Joyce’s forehead was dotted with perspiration. “Every time you think you’ve seen it all …”

Officer Paleo stood at the door to the questioning room. For a moment the A.D.A. made no move to open it. She seemed to be gathering her thoughts. Then she asked Sergeant Joyce, “What’s her story?”

“Her story is she went to the shrink to get help for her sister. On the basis of what she told him, the shrink convinced her to turn her sister in to the police. And now the police are questioning her. She thinks it outrageous. She’s demanding a lawyer.”

“Did she call a lawyer?”

“No. Do you want to see her?”

“Not at this time.” Penelope took off her glasses.

“Well, what do you make of it?” April asked.

“What do you think I’d make of it? You still don’t have either the witnesses or the physical evidence to make a case here.”

She rubbed the bridge of her nose where her glasses pinched. “Even if this wacko here is telling the truth and her sister dressed her up, sexually abused her, repeatedly set her up to take the fall for antisocial acts … Even if all that happened, there’s no way to prove it or link it to these murders.” She put the glasses back on.

“More important, everything that happened in the past is inadmissible anyway. It has no bearing on the case. Right now what we’d have to prove in court is that Milicia Honiger-Stanton, an attractive, successful architect, murdered two young women so she could lay the blame on her mentally ill sister. Why?”

No one answered.

“In addition, you’ll have to show she had access to her sister’s house, took her dog, wore her clothes, and brought back souvenirs of the first homicide to hide in her sister’s basement—give me a break, officers.”

“She has her own dog,” Mike broke in.

“What?”

“I went by her building after our meeting this morning. The doorman told me she has a similar dog,” April explained.

“Maybe it’s the same dog. Maybe she walks her sister’s dog sometimes.” Penelope rubbed the bridge of her nose again.

April shook her head. “Then it would have to be a pretty magical dog. The doorman says it’s up there now.”

“What’s your recommendation?” Sergeant Joyce asked.

The A.D.A. looked impatient. “Get more.”

“So what do you want me to do with the suspects in the meantime?”

“Question them as long as you want. If you don’t get a confession, let them go.”

“Let them go?” Sergeant Joyce glowered.

“On what grounds can you keep them?” Penelope glowered back.

Nice to have someone helpful on their side. Sergeant Joyce turned to Mike and April. What was she going to tell the Captain? He wanted the thing tied up today.

“Why don’t you let them go and see what they do,” Penelope suggested. She lifted her arm and consulted the large black Swatch on her wrist. “I’m due in court in twenty minutes.”

“One of them killed two people,” Joyce pointed out.

“So don’t leave them alone.”

She strode off toward the lobby without another word. Officer Paleo, who was guarding the questioning room, turned away, pretending to be deaf and dumb. Jason Frank came out of the room and announced he was finished for the moment. The calm demeanor that had been so impressive a few minutes before was gone. Now he looked like he’d been torn apart by harpies.