Before He Lapses

When they arrived at his apartment, Clark Manners was habitually cleaning what already looked to be a sparkling clean apartment. It was clear that he had not slept well recently; his eyes were glazed over and he walked as if some unseen force was having to push him along. Still, he seemed enthusiastic when he invited them into his apartment, eagerly wanting to get to the bottom of what had happened.

“Look, I’m not stupid,” he said as they sat down in his immaculately cleaned living room. “Whoever killed her…they were going to rape her, right? That’s why her shirt was off, right?”

Mackenzie had wondered this herself, but the crime scene photos told a different story. When Christine had fallen to the floor, she’d landed on the shirt. That seemed to indicate it had come off rather easily and had been discarded on the floor. If Mackenzie had to wager a bet, she’d bet that Christine had taken it off herself, likely for whomever she had invited in—whoever had ended up killing her. Plus…Mackenzie wasn’t so sure the murderer had intended to rape Christine. If he’d wanted to, he could have. No…Mackenzie thought he had come by to kill her and that was all.

But this poor guy didn’t need to know that.

“It’s just too early to tell,” Mackenzie said. “There are several different ways it could have gone down. And we were hoping you could maybe provide some insights to help us figure it all out.”

“Sure, sure,” Clark said, clearly in need of a long nap and less coffee. “Anything I can do, I’ll do.”

“Can you describe the nature of your relationship with Christine?” Ellington asked.

“We’d been dating for about seven months. She was the first real relationship I’ve ever had—first one that lasted more than two or three months. I loved her…I knew that after about a month.”

“Had it reached a physical level yet?” Mackenzie asked.

With a faraway look in his eyes, Clark nodded. “Yeah. It got there pretty quickly.”

“And on the night she was killed,” Mackenzie said, “I understand that she had just come from here, from this apartment. Did she stay over often?”

“Yeah, once or twice a week. I’d stay over there sometimes, too. She gave me a key to just come and crash whenever a few weeks ago. That’s how I was able to get into her place…that’s how I found her…”

“Why did she not stay here that night?” Ellington asked. “It was late when she left. Was there an argument between the two of you?”

“No. God, we rarely argued about anything. No…we’d all been drinking and I had far too much. I kissed her goodnight while she was still out here with some of my friends. I went to bed and passed out, feeling a little sick. I was sure she’d eventually join me but when I woke up the next morning, she was gone.”

“Do you think any of your friends might have given her a ride?” Mackenzie asked.

“I asked all of them and they said no. Even if they’d offered, Christine would have said no. I mean, it’s only like three blocks and she likes the cold weather…likes to walk around in it. She’s from California, so the snow is this cool magical thing, you know? I even remember…that night she was excited because there was snow in the forecast. She was joking about taking a walk out in it.”

“How many friends were here with you that night?”

“Including Christine, there were six of us in all. From what I gather, they all left not too long after she did.”

“Can we get their names and contact information?” Ellington asked.

“Sure,” he said, pulling out his phone and starting to locate the information.

“Is it common for you to have that many people over on a weekday night?” Mackenzie asked.

“No. We were just sort of getting together for one last hoorah before winter break came to an end. Classes start next week, you know? And with work schedules and visiting family, it was the only time we could all get together.”

“Did Christine have any friends outside of your group?”

“A few. She was sort of an introvert. There was me and then two of my friends that she hung out with, but that’s about it. She was really close with her mother, too. I think her mom was planning to come out here before the end of the semester—like to move out here for good.”

“Have you spoken with her mother at all since this all happened?”

“I did,” he said. “And it was weird because it was the first time I ever spoke to the woman. I was helping her out with…”

He paused here, his tired eyes showing signs of tears for the first time.

“…with funeral arrangements. She’s having her cremated here in town, I think. She flew in last night and she’s staying at a hotel somewhere out here.”

“Any family with her?” Mackenzie asked.

“I don’t know.” He hunched over and looked at the floor. He was both exhausted and sad, a mixture that looked to have finally devastated him.

“We’ll leave you alone for now,” Mackenzie said. “If you don’t mind, do you have Mrs. Lynch’s hotel information?”

“Yeah,” he said, slowly pulling his phone back out. “Hold on.”

As he pulled up the information, Mackenzie looked over to Ellington. As always, he was being hyperaware, looking around the place to make sure they weren’t missing anything obvious. She also noticed, though, that he was tinkering with his wedding ring as he studied the place, turning it slowly around and around on his finger.

She then looked back at Clark Manners. She was pretty sure they may end up questioning him again—and probably soon. The fact that he was obsessively cleaning his house after his girlfriend’s death made sense from a psychological standpoint but it could also be seen as an attempt to get rid of any evidence.

But she had seen people broken over grief before and she felt deep down in her gut that Clark was likely innocent. No one could fake this sort of grief and inability to get a good night’s sleep. They may need to speak with some of his friends at some point, though.

As Clark found the information, he handed over his phone so Mackenzie could take it down. She also took down the names and numbers that Clark had pulled up for all of the friends that had been at his apartment on the night Christine was killed. As she took the information down, she realized that she had also been fidgeting with her wedding ring. Ellington had noticed her doing it, managing a quick smile at her in spite of the situation. She stopped rotating the ring when she took the phone from Clark.

***

Margaret Lynch was just about the exact opposite of Clark Manners. She was cool and collected, greeting Mackenzie and Ellington with a smile when they met with her in the lobby of the Radisson she was staying in. She led them to a couch near the back of the lobby, though, showing her first sign of weakness.

“If I end up crying, I’d rather not do it in front of everyone,” she remarked, pressing herself into the couch as if she was fairly certain this would indeed happen.

“I’d like to start with asking how well you know Clark Manners,” Mackenzie said.

“Well, I spoke to him for the first time two days ago, after all this had happened. But Christine had mentioned him a few times on the phone. She was quite taken with him, I think.”

“Is there any suspicion on your part?”

“No. Of course, I don’t know the boy but based on what Christine told me about him, I don’t see him being the one who did this.”

Mackenzie noted that Mrs. Lynch was doing everything she could to avoid words like killed or murdered. She figured the woman was able to keep her head because she was doing a good job of distancing herself from it. It was probably made easier by the fact that the two of them had been living on separate ends of the country for a while.

“What can you tell me about Christine’s life here in Baltimore?” Mackenzie asked.

“Well, she started college in San Francisco. She wanted to be a lawyer, but the school and the course load…it wasn’t a good fit. We had a long talk about her applying to Queen Nash University. A long talk. Her father passed away when she was eleven and really, it’s just been Christine and I since then. No uncles, no aunts. It’s always been a small family. She has one surviving grandmother, but she has dementia and is in a home out near Sacramento. I don’t know if you know yet or not, but I’m having her cremated here, in Baltimore. No sense in going through the process of getting her back to California just to have the same thing done. We have no ties to the area, really. And I know she enjoyed it here, so…”

This poor woman is going to be all alone, Mackenzie thought. She was always aware of these sorts of things when interviewing and interrogating people, but this thought seemed to slam into her like a boulder.

“Anyway, she got in and within a single semester, she knew she loved it here. She was always very apologetic, worried that I was this lonely old woman living alone without her. She kept in touch, calling about twice a week. She’d tell me about how classes were going and, like I said, she ended up telling me about Clark.”

“What did she say about him?” Ellington asked.

“Just that he was cute and very funny. She did mention from time to time that he wasn’t very exciting and that he had a tendency to drink too much whenever they were in social situations.”