Authors: Michele Martinez
“Of course. I want to help. Whatever I can tell you without breaching doctor-patient confidentiality rules,” Welch said.
“We’re not interested in Suzanne’s beauty treatments. We’re here to talk about you, and your relationship with her,” Melanie said.
“Anything I can do. I adored Suzanne, and from what I’ve read in the papers, this was a terrible crime.”
“Yes, it was. We’re following up with anybody who might have had a motive to harm her. Were you aware that Suzanne Shepard was researching a story on you, Dr. Welch?” Melanie asked.
“No, but I can’t say I’m surprised. As the person who took care of her looks, I was very important in her life. Favorable publicity is something I’m fond of, and Suzanne knew that. She was probably planning a story as a way to thank me. Patients give me gifts all the time.”
“And you accept them?”
“If the gift is valuable, I declare it on my tax return. All the formalities are observed, so no room to play gotcha there.” His smile was about as genuine as a three-dollar bill.
“In this case, the gift would not have been valuable. The story was negative. Scandalous, in fact.”
Melanie watched his face closely for a reaction. Lorraine Shepard hadn’t a clue what was in the stolen file folder, or what the terrible secret was that Suzanne had discovered about Benedict Welch. Melanie was fishing, hoping for a little information here, but unfortunately Welch wasn’t biting.
“If you’re looking for people who wanted to hurt Suzanne, you’ve come to the wrong place,” he said. “Suzanne was one of my favorite patients, and the affection was mutual. She would never say anything negative about me.”
“Suzanne’s apartment was broken into two weeks ago, Doctor, and a file containing information about you was stolen. Why would somebody take a file that only said nice things?”
“I don’t have the slightest idea. I never knew such a file existed, and I didn’t know anybody took it. Maybe it was a mistake. I’m sure the taxpayers can count on you to find out.”
He met Melanie’s gaze evenly, as if he didn’t have a thing to hide.
“You know a Miles Ortiz?” Pauline Estrada asked suddenly.
Welch’s head snapped around. “No.”
“No?” Pauline asked, surprised.
“I gave the answer. The answer is no. I don’t know anybody by that name.”
Pauline drew from her bag the file on the Shepard burglary that Melanie had looked through yesterday at the precinct. She pulled some papers out and handed them across the desk to him. Melanie could see the cover page of a telephone bill.
“This is your office telephone number, correct?” Pauline asked.
“Yes.”
“A cell phone subscribed to by Mr. Ortiz called that number seventeen separate times in the past month,” Pauline said.
“People call. That doesn’t mean I speak to them. For all I know, he’s Gigi’s latest boyfriend. She goes through several a week, it seems.”
Pauline took the telephone bill back.
“Do you live alone?” she asked.
“No. I’m married. I live with my wife, Gloria. She’s a former patient of mine. See?” He turned a gilded frame that sat on his desk around to face them. The woman in the photograph could have been any one of the Botoxed socialites from the waiting room. She looked rich and skeletally thin, and a lot older than Welch himself did—which set Melanie to thinking.
“This is your home telephone number?” Pauline asked, showing him another phone bill.
“Yes, it is.”
“Mr. Ortiz called your home number eleven times in the past month. Is he your wife’s boyfriend, too?”
“You know, I’ve been very patient with you people. But the tone of these questions is beginning to get objectionable, and I’d really like you to leave now.”
“I apologize, Dr. Welch,” Melanie interjected. “You’ve been very accommodating. One more question, sir, and I promise, we’ll get out of your hair. Where were you on Wednesday night at around eight forty?”
Melanie was half expecting Welch to blow up and order them from the room, but instead he leaned back in his chair, fighting to suppress a smile that played around the corners of his lips.
“That’s easy enough,” he said. “I was at a dinner meeting with several fellow board members of All the Pretty Children. It’s a charitable organization that provides free plastic surgery to third-world kids with harelips and other congenital deformities. I do a lot of work for them. At eight forty, we were at Café Boulud talking about writing grants for next year’s budget. I’m happy to give you the names of my companions. They’re all most reputable people.”
O
oh, I wanted to punch him in the mouth so bad. Wipe that nasty smile right off his face,” Pauline Estrada said as they hit the pavement on Park Avenue.
Melanie glanced at Pauline, who laughed. “Just kidding. Figure of speech.”
“Right.” Melanie had heard enough cops say things like that to have some serious doubts about how they behaved when she wasn’t around. Even cops like Pauline, who wore lipstick and had kids at home.
Melanie was planning to grab a cab back to her office, but she started walking south toward the precinct, falling into step beside the detective. It was late afternoon and gorgeous out. Flowers in front of the fancy buildings danced in the sunlight, their scent obscuring the exhaust fumes from passing cars, and the warm air felt like velvet on her skin. A group of construction workers heading north as they headed south pulled one-eighties to stare at them.
“You ladies free?” one of them called.
“No, we’re very expensive,” Pauline retorted, eliciting a friendly series of whoops and hollers.
“C’mon. Welch was lying. He’s a total asshole,” Pauline said to Melanie as they continued walking.
“Of course he is. Believe me, he creeps me out big-time. Did you see how he touched me?”
“I did see, the perv.”
“Remember those complaints to the medical board?” Melanie said. “Now that I’ve met Welch, I’m positive he groped those patients. I’m just surprised he waited until they were unconscious. Think about the fact that Suzanne Shepard was raped, and then think about the man we just met. I know it sounds far-fetched to accuse a prominent doctor of murdering one of his patients. But I get such a strong vibe from Welch that he’s capable of rape.”
“For me, it’s all about the phone records,” Pauline said. “When I got them this morning, and I saw we could connect Welch to Miles Ortiz, I said, that’s it, that’s the answer. The two of ’em had something going on together, something involving drugs. Suzanne found out. She was gonna blow it sky-high, so they whacked her. And Welch got his rocks off by raping her first.”
“Could be,” Melanie said, thinking out loud. “Welch certainly got agitated once you started asking about Miles.”
“Yeah, that’s when he asked us to leave,” Pauline said.
“And did you see his eyes? He’s on something, I just know it.”
“I thought so, too.”
“He’s hiding something important. The only thing that gives me pause is that he claims he has an alibi. Why would he tell us he went out to dinner if he knows it won’t check out?” Melanie asked.
“Maybe he got our boy Miles to do the dirty work,” Pauline said. “They were in it together, but Miles was the one who pulled off the murder. And the burglary, too, which is why we found Miles’s fingerprints in Suzanne’s apartment instead of Welch’s.”
“We need to learn more about Welch, Pauline. Let me ask you something. How old did he look to you?”
“Welch? I don’t know. Thirty-five. Forty, maybe.”
“How old did you tell me he was, based on that profile you worked up?”
“Oh.”
Pauline’s brows drew together, and she stopped in mid-stride, pulling her folder from her bag and plopping it down on top of a metal box holding fliers for the Learning Annex. She rifled through frantically until she found what she was looking for, and looked up at Melanie in shock. “Oh my God! Sixty-four.”
“Where did you get that information?”
“From the Medical Licensing Board.”
“That man was not sixty-four,” Melanie insisted.
“He’s a plastic surgeon, though. Do you think—?”
“Did you see those women in the waiting room? His patients?”
“Yes.”
“They get the full benefit of his skills. How old did they look?”
Pauline nodded. “Old.”
“Welch may be a plastic surgeon, but he’s not Dorian Gray. He can’t reverse the effects of nature. I think the age you have for him is wrong.”
“It can’t be. I got it from a bunch of different sources. Medical school and licensing records, driver’s license, his Web site. Everything matches up.”
“Welch has his own Web site?”
“Yeah, for making appointments, but mostly for flaunting himself. He’s got mad pictures posted on it of himself with all the beautiful people. In one of ’em, he’s standing on a beach wearing white pants and a blazer, barefoot, holding a martini. I almost barfed. But the point is, every single item of paperwork puts the guy as sixty-four.”
“Paper doesn’t always tell the whole story,” Melanie said. “Something’s not right. Did you tell me yesterday Welch was from Oklahoma?”
“Yeah, Tulsa.”
“That’s where he went to medical school and was licensed to practice medicine?” Melanie asked.
“Yes.”
“Ever been there?”
Pauline made a face. “With the wind rushing down the plains? No thanks, not my style,
chica
.”
“You’re very skilled at digging up information, Pauline, but this task may require the personal touch. If you’re game, I can find money in the budget for a plane ticket.”
“You know me, I’m game for anything. What the hell, I’ll check my closet. I got an old pair of red cowboy boots hiding in there somewhere that might look good when I’m riding a horse,” Pauline said with a twinkle in her eye.
B
ack at her desk,
Melanie was feeling the pressure. It was close of business on Friday afternoon, and she had too many leads. In a case like this, where the victim had a lot of enemies, a shotgun approach was often necessary at the beginning. You followed up every last tip just far enough to rule it out. The problem was, this wasn’t the beginning anymore. The weekend was about to hit, meaning offices and labs would close and the PD would cut staffing to save on overtime. Melanie’s job was about to get harder at a moment when she’d made little discernible progress in narrowing her focus. She was checking her voice mail and e-mail simultaneously to save time when the caption of an e-mail gave her a nasty shock. Her pen pal partysover2007 had written to her again.
The e-mail read,
I’m still out here
. The phone fell from its place at Melanie’s shoulder into her lap as her eyes moved over his words.
Hey, Melanie Vargas
[the creep had written],
you forget about me? I didn’t forget you. If you keep ignoring my messages, I’m gonna be really ticked off when we meet in person and it won’t be fun and games for you. I saw you again today and you didn’t even know it. I saw your legs behind David Harris coming out of court in that picture in the
Daily News
. Your legs look just right. Firm, not too skinny. I’m gonna like them under me.
“Jesus,” she said under her breath. She looked over her shoulder, half expecting to see a guy in a leather face mask standing behind her with a bloody knife. It was late on a Friday, but thankfully there were other prosecutors in the hallway. She heard somebody laughing. Everything was okay. Nobody could get to her here. But still, she’d better stop shrugging this off and do something, before the creep decided to make himself known. Whether he was actually the Butcher or just some average Joe with a penchant for weird pranks, Melanie had no desire to meet him in person.
She plucked the receiver from where it had fallen in her lap. Her voice mails had been playing on while she read the latest installment from her Web stalker, and she heard the reassuring sound of Dan’s recorded voice in midmessage. He’d called while she was out interviewing Welch to tell her that Suzanne Shepard’s telephone records had come in.
“…looking for a call around six o’clock Wednesday that could’ve lured Suzanne out for a meet in Central Park,” Dan’s recorded voice was saying. “I think I found it. Five forty-eight
P.M.
, originating from a pay phone in Flushing. If that sounds right, throw me a beep, and I’ll send somebody to do lifts off the pay phone. Unlikely we’ll get anything, but you never know.”
Wait a second. Flushing. What else had Melanie heard about Flushing today? Wasn’t that where the threatening package had been mailed from? She flipped through her notebook hastily looking for the notes from her interview with Tony Mancuso, glad for the distraction from that disgusting e-mail. Yes, there it was in black-and-white. The package had been sent from a post office on Roosevelt Avenue in Flushing. Melanie dialed Dan’s cell to tell him that, but all she got was his voice mail.
“Hey, it’s me,” she said. “I got your message about that call in
Suzanne’s phone records. It sounds right. You should definitely take lifts off the pay phone, because something else important happened in Flushing.” She gave him the details on the threatening package. “I need your advice on a couple of weird e-mails I’ve gotten. I was hoping you could take a look at them and tell me if they’re worth investigating. So call me, or just come over. Bye.”
Melanie hung up and stared at the wall for a long moment to avoid looking at her computer screen. But then she got impatient with herself. There was too much going on to let this jerk slow her down. She minimized the e-mail into a tiny blip.
Melanie resumed listening to her voice mails. A call had come in not ten minutes earlier from Susan Charlton, Bernadette’s deputy chief and one of Melanie’s favorite colleagues, and it was troubling enough in its own right to take her mind off the cyberstalker.
“Mel, it’s Susan. Witchie-poo left for the day and she won’t be back in the office until after her honeymoon. A problem came up on your murder investigation. I’m acting chief, so that puts me in charge of discussing it with you. Stop by as soon as you get this message.”