“No,” Margolis said. “A couple of interesting bits of information turned up and I wanted to get your take on them.”
“I thought you weren’t at liberty to talk about the investigation.”
“You’re right,” he said. “Which means I’ll have to limit some of what I tell you. Still, I wanted to talk to you because I need your help.”
“Why?”
“Because the more I look into this situation, the less it seems to add up. I’m hoping that you can help me put the pieces together.”
Welcome to my world, Maria thought.
Margolis went on. “Regarding the situation last night. I told you I was looking into possible weapons violations. But like everything else in this case, what seemed obvious isn’t. So let’s start with this: Lester does not have a gun permit. Nor has he legally purchased a weapon, which I thought was great news for you. However, it turns out that Avery Manning, the father, does have a permit for a handgun purchased about a year ago.”
“And?”
“The problem is that Lester and Avery, father and son, live at the same address. It’s not illegal to borrow someone’s gun if the weapon is properly permitted. So I can’t make a case on that, unless Avery Manning didn’t give permission. But there are even more complications.”
“Such as?”
“Avery Manning came to see me this morning.” He let those words hang before continuing. “That’s why I was late getting here, by the way. I figured it was better to meet with him before I talked to you. The story took yet another twist.”
“What?”
“The gun may not have been real.”
“Excuse me?”
Margolis picked up his spoon and stirred his coffee as he went on. “Let me start from the beginning, okay? We sit down and the first thing I think is that Dr. Manning looks like crap, which made sense as soon as he told me he’d just driven in from Tennessee. He was clearly upset. He must have mowed through an entire pack of gum while we were sitting there, chewing and spitting out one piece after another. Although he didn’t attempt to control the conversation, which surprised me based on the way you’d described him. But anyway, I ask him what I can do for him, and he immediately says that Lester has left Plainview, and that he was worried Lester might come to see you. He begged me to warn you and to tell you that if he showed up you should call the police. He went on to say that Lester was in an acute delusional phase, and that he’d been struggling with this disorder for years, yada yada yada… pretty much all the same things he’d told me before.”
“But yesterday, he wasn’t even sure if his son was in the hospital.”
Margolis took a sip of his coffee. “He said the hospital called him as soon as the staff realized that Lester was missing, as he’s the emergency contact. Apparently, when Lester didn’t show up for his appointment with the social worker, the staff spent a couple of hours searching the hospital before they realized he must have left the grounds. That’s when they called Dr. Manning.”
“How is that even possible? It’s a psychiatric hospital. Don’t they watch their patients?”
“According to Dr. Manning, Lester’s been there regularly enough to understand the routines and he’s familiar with the staff. The administrator also emphasized that there was no reason not to trust Lester. Lester had entered the hospital voluntarily and he’d never run off before. So free time comes along and they’re guessing that Lester just… slipped away. After that, he either has use of someone’s car, or someone picked him up, and he made his way to Wilmington. And he obviously had a gun stashed somewhere along the way.” Margolis shrugged. “What can I say, he’s paranoid.”
“If he wanted to warn me, why didn’t Dr. Manning call you as soon as he found out?”
“He did,” Margolis said, his expression letting her know he was just as surprised as she was. “He left me a voice mail last night, but unfortunately, I didn’t get around to listening to it until this morning, after I’d already met with him. Even then, I’m not sure how much good it would have done. The call came in after Lester had already been at your place.”
Maria nodded.
“Anyway, after we went over those things, I told Dr. Manning that Lester had not only shown up at your parents’ last night and confronted you, but that he had a gun. At that point, Dr. Manning became even more upset. Then, after he’d seemed to calm down, he insisted to me that Lester’s gun couldn’t have been real.”
“Of course he’d say that.”
“That’s what I thought, too. I asked him how he could be so sure. He said that he owned only two guns: an old shotgun he’s had since he was a kid that he said might not even work, and the handgun I told you about, which he keeps in a locked case in the trunk of his car. He added that there was no way he’d ever leave it at the house where Lester could get his hands on it.”
“I know what I saw!”
“I don’t doubt that, but let me finish,” Margolis said. “Dr. Manning told me that while Lester didn’t have a real gun, he owned a pellet gun. He said he bought it for Lester when he was a teenager, and he’d assumed that it was in one of the boxes in the attic with Lester’s other things. It’s possible, he said, that his son may have retrieved it at some point in the past. So my question to you is whether it’s possible that Lester may have been holding a pellet gun.”