Mary, Mary

obvious how alone Mary Constantine had been in this place.
    Then, suddenly, a rash of names cropped up on the log. Here was the flurry of interest that Dr. Shapiro mentioned. It lasted over the course of about a month and a half.
    I slowed down and perused the visitors’ names. Most were unfamiliar to me.
    One of them, I recognized.

Chapter 115
    MY CELL PHONE and Vermont seemed to hate each other. Apparently, this was the Land of No Signal.
    I found a pay phone instead, called Agent Page in Los Angeles, and had him patch in LAPD. A minute later we had Maddux Fielding’s office on the line, but no Fielding. What a surprise.
    “You know what?” I said to the nameless lieutenant on the line. “Screw it. Transfer us over to Detective Jeanne Galletta.”
    “What’s going on?” Page asked me again, while we were on hold with LAPD.
    Then I heard another voice on the line. “Jeanne Galletta. Is this Alex?”
    “Jeanne, it’s Alex all right. Karl Page from the L.A. Bureau office is on the line, too. I’m in Vermont. I think I have important news on the Mary Smith case.”
    “I think I may have another connection for you—a murder in Vancouver,” Jeanne said. “What are you doing all the way up in Vermont?”
    “Hold that thought about Vancouver. Please find Fielding. Or do whatever you have to do, but someone needs to pick up Michael Bell for questioning. Michael Bell.
Marti Lowenstein-Bell’s husband
.”
    “What?” Jeanne sounded incredulous. Then Page swore, obviously muffling the receiver.
    I gave them a very quick rundown of my last two days up here, then finally the names on the visitor log at the state hospital.
    “He knows Mary Constantine. He’s visited her here in Vermont before. Several times, actually.”
    “And what? He’s been setting her up? How would he even know she was in L.A.?”
    “I don’t know everything yet. Maybe she looked him up when she got there; maybe they corresponded. If he wanted her story, it would have been worth something. I think he
did
want it, just not for a movie.”
    “You think it was a cover, maybe to kill his own wife? That’s a big-ass coverup, Alex.”
    “Sure is. It’s an incredible story, too. Page, are you getting this?”
    “Got it. And I like it. Finally, something makes some sense to me.”
    “Good. Then do a direct cross-reference—Michael Bell and anyone else connected to this case. I wonder if he had a bigger agenda than just his wife. Find out anything you can, surfer boy. All we need for now is enough to justify holding him once LAPD gets him into custody.
    “Jeanne, listen, please. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. I say figure it out later and get a cruiser over to Michael Bell’s house. Now. And, Jeanne.”
    “What?”
    “Don’t go over there by yourself. I’m pretty sure that Bell is our killer.”

Chapter 116
    SUDDENLY THE WHOLE CASE was on fire again.
    About ten miles from the hospital, I pulled over at the first gas station I saw, an ancient Texaco with a flying
A
over the roof. A Ford F-150 pulled in after me, but the only other building in sight was a darkened sugarhouse in a field directly across the road. I could see a couple of Holsteins grazing in the field.
    I called Karl Page again from another pay phone. I needed to hear what he’d found out about Michael Bell.
    At this late hour, catching a flight out of Burlington seemed unlikely; I wanted to stay updated all the same, and was concerned for Page and Jeanne Galletta. Who knew what Bell was up to in L.A.
    “What have you got so far?” I asked him.
    “Amazing what you find when you look in the right place,” he said. “Before she died, Marti Lowenstein-Bell had just sold her own show to HBO. She was hotter than a fifty-dollar pistol. On the other hand, Michael Bell’s last three solo projects went nowhere. His only big successes had been with her, and it looked like she was checking out. She was divorcing him, Alex. They hadn’t yet filed, but a friend of hers knew it was coming.”
    “What did you say to me once? Cha-ching?”
    “Yeah, and the hits keep coming. LAPD checked Bell’s alibis all right, but they all revolved around his being seen at work, or occasionally at home. Alex, the alibis aren’t going to hold up. And listen to this, Arnold Griner seriously trashed more than one of Bell’s movies when he wrote for
Variety
. Griner actually called him ‘Michael Bomb’ in one column, that kind of thing. Of course, in Griner’s case it might be