A Few Drops of Bitters

by G. A. McKevett

  “Assault and battery.”

  “On whom?”

  “Interestingly enough, a former neighbor. Other than Erling.”

  Savannah mulled that over and gave Dirk a thumbs-up. “A guy who’s battered a neighbor moves next to a dude like Erling, a narcissistic conflict junkie. Gee, what could go wrong with that?”

  * * *

  Savannah and Dirk were only half a mile from Carolyn Erling’s veterinary clinic when Savannah’s phone chimed.

  She looked at the screen and grimaced. “I don’t like this,” she said.

  “Who is it?” he asked, glancing down at her screen as he turned the Buick off Main Street and onto Sundown Avenue. They were heading into a less picturesque part of town where San Carmelita’s signature, quaint, hand-carved, wooden signs with gilded lettering gave way to graffiti scrawled on long-ago painted stucco walls.

  “It’s Ms. Pomeroy.”

  “Brody’s teacher?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Shit.”

  “Sh-h-h. Hello, Ms. Pomeroy,” she said, as cheerfully as she could manage with her heart pounding in her throat.

  “Hello, Mrs. Coulter.”

  Savannah didn’t have the patience to explain to the woman, for a third time, that she had kept her maiden name when she’d married, so she let it slide.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, knowing it wasn’t the most sophisticated response, but not caring.

  Somehow she didn’t think a schoolteacher would call in the middle of the day if a child had just won the National Spelling Bee or had been nominated for a Junior Nobel Peace Prize.

  “Is Brody okay?” she heard herself saying, her voice quivering with fear. “Has he been hurt or—”

  “No, Mrs. Coulter. Nothing like that,” the teacher replied, as calm as Savannah was rattled. “There’s nothing to worry about. I’m sorry if I alarmed you by calling you like this.”

  Savannah turned to Dirk and whispered, “He’s okay.” Then she told the teacher, “No. Don’t apologize. You can call me anytime for anything. You’ll have to forgive me. I’m new to this parenting stuff, and I’m still trying to figure out when to panic and when not to.”

  “Well, you don’t need to panic, but I would like very much to see you, if you could drop by the school.”

  “Yes, of course. When?”

  “Today, after school. Around two forty-five, if that’s convenient.”

  Today? Right after school? she thought, as her anxiety meter instantly soared to new heights.

  She might be a novice at all this parent stuff, but she knew that a same-day request for a parent-teacher meeting had to be something important. Something had to be badly amiss.

  “It might be better,” the teacher was saying, “if you come without Brody. Assuming you can arrange for someone else to care for him, of course.”

  Savannah thought of Tammy, Waycross, Granny, Ryan and John, Alma and Ethan, and she instantly felt grateful that she had such a great backup team for all things Brody. Few of the parents she knew were fortunate to have such a long list of supporters.

  “Yes, I can come alone,” she said. “Where?”

  “In my classroom, if you like.”

  “Sure. That’s fine.”

  “Good. Thank you, Mrs. Coulter.”

  Savannah weighed her next words, thinking that if she hung up before getting at least a hint about what the problem might be, she would go completely crazy. Possibly within minutes.

  She hated to do that to Dirk. She was all too aware that a “crazy as a sprayed-roach” Savannah wasn’t a pretty sight.

  “Ms. Pomeroy,” she said, “please don’t think I’m being overly dramatic when I tell you—if you don’t let me know at least a little bit more about why you’re calling me in today, chances are I won’t be able to make that appointment, because I will most likely suffer an anxiety-induced heart attack long before I can get there.”

  She heard a lengthy silence on the other end. It lasted long enough for her to figure out that she should have chosen her words more carefully or taken another tack.

  “Ms. Pomeroy?” she asked, thinking they might have lost their connection. “Are you there?”

  “I am, Mrs. Coulter. I’m sorry if I’ve upset you. Brody is a bright and wonderful child. He hasn’t been physically harmed or hurt anyone else. But we’ve had a bit of a problem here today, and he drew a picture that, well, I think you should just come here and see it for yourself.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Savannah felt her entire body go weak as she settled into the knowledge that she was simply going to have to wait a few hours before finding out the particulars. This tidbit had made her feel worse, rather than better. “I’ll be there at two forty-five, and either his great-grandmother or Aunt Tammy or Uncle Waycross will pick him up at two-thirty, as usual.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Coulter. I’ll see you then.”

  As soon as she ended the call, Dirk wanted to know every word that had passed. He looked as worried as she felt when she related the conversation back to him.

  “He drew a picture, and we need to go talk to the teacher about it?” he said.

  “I don’t think you have to go,” Savannah began. “She just asked if I—”

  “Of course I’m going. He’s my son!” Dirk hesitated a moment then added, “You know what I mean. Foster, but close enough.”

  “I know exactly what you mean. But you have a homicide on your hands.”

  “Stephen Erling can wait long enough for me to go with my wife to see what’s wrong with our kid.”

  She smiled at him, reached over, and placed her hand on his knee. “Thank you.”

  “You don’t need to thank me. It comes with the territory.”

  He drove the Buick into the clinic’s lot and pulled into a parking space. Then he added, “I’m not gonna take Carolyn to the station house. I don’t have time. I’ll just ask her some questions here and, depending on what she says, I might take her in later.”

  “Gotcha.” She squeezed his knee. “I’m glad you’re coming along.”

  “It’s not like I’d get anything done if you were there without me and me someplace else, wondering what was goin’ on.”

  “I need to call Tammy back and ask her if she can pick up Brody herself or get Granny or Waycross to do it. Go on inside, if you want.”

  “I’ll wait. Make your call. We’re a team.”

  As Savannah phoned Tammy, she thought about what he’d said. They had been a team for many years, back in their “coppering” days. But their connection had deepened, as she expected, when they’d married.

  What she hadn’t anticipated and was happy to discover, was the exceptionally strong bonding effect that parenting together had created. Brody was a new and wonderful kind of glue that strengthened their marriage.

  She didn’t want any of that to change.

  She wondered about the “bit of a problem” that Ms. Pomeroy had mentioned, and the picture Brody had drawn.

  Whatever the issue might be, she was glad not to be alone in dealing with it.

  Sometimes, it’s a comfort to be part of a “team,” she thought. Even if the team consisted of only “he” and “me.”

  Chapter 20

  Savannah’s first impression, when she and Dirk entered the clinic and saw Carolyn behind the counter, talking to someone on the phone, was that the vet wasn’t the least bit happy to see them.

  The convivial smile slipped off her face the moment she turned and saw them standing there, waiting for her to finish her call.

  “Yes, that’s right, Mr. McKee,” she was saying. “Four drops, three times a day until it clears up. If you don’t see an improvement in a couple of days, give us a ring. You’re most welcome.”

  Having ended her call, she set the phone on the desk behind the reception counter and walked over to them. “Hello, Savannah, Detective Coulter. What a nice surprise.”

  It occurred to Savannah that their visit was neither a surprise nor nice, but she
painted an equally false smile on her face to match the vet’s and replied, “Good to see you again, too.”

  Dirk merely grunted.

  Carolyn glanced around, looking embarrassed and uneasy.

  Savannah noticed that the clients in the waiting room and the office workers behind the counter were watching, listening, while pretending to do neither.

  “Can we talk? Privately?” Savannah said it in a near-whisper, but she had no doubt that everyone heard every word.

  Carolyn gave them a curt nod and beckoned them to follow her down the hallway and to the room at the end.

  Savannah knew it was the doctor’s office, as she had sat in there many times before to discuss her pets’ health care over the years. Lately, since Brody had drawn them closer, and Carolyn had become as much a friend as the family vet, they had even traded recipes in that office. Chocolate-based, of course.

  Savannah sincerely doubted this visit would be as pleasant.

  The three of them entered the small, cozy room, and Carolyn closed the door behind them. She sat behind her desk and gave a wave of her hand, indicating they could sit on the two side chairs.

  As Savannah had every time she’d entered this office, she glanced over the doctor’s shoulder to the beautiful black-and-white photos that lined the wall behind the desk. While most of the pictures were of dogs and cats, other species were represented in the lineup as well. Parrots and budgies, ducks and chickens, turtles and fish, hamsters and guinea pigs, rabbits and geckos. There was even a raccoon and a skunk.

  Most of the pictures were signed with paw-print “signatures” and bore messages thanking Dr. Carolyn for her loving care.

  Many times before, Savannah had considered that wall a testimony to the happiness Carolyn had provided for others in her practice. Not only had she saved the lives and health of those animals, but she had given a beloved animal back to a worried family and prolonged those all-too-short years for them to enjoy together.

  She had thought that Dr. Carolyn Erling must be a happy woman, knowing how valuable her care was to so many. Anyone that important must feel a strong sense of self-satisfaction.

  But today, as Carolyn nervously rearranged pens, papers, clips, and files around on her desktop, avoiding Savannah’s and Dirk’s eyes while doing so, Savannah wondered how happy, how self-satisfied, Dr. Carolyn was today.

  Not very, Savannah told herself. She looks plumb miserable and not in a grief-stricken, my-precious-husband-just-died sorta way either.

  Savannah waited for one of them to speak, but Carolyn was pressing her lips together so tightly that they were white, and Dirk seemed content to watch her, intently studying every movement she made, every expression that crossed her face.

  Most of the cops Savannah had known in her life, herself included, had a way of scrutinizing a suspect that was quite predatory. But Dirk had perfected the “all-penetrating stare.”

  For a guy who had no idea where his sunglasses might be and who wasn’t sure where ice cubes were kept in his own house, he was a master at being observant when on the job.

  Finally, he spoke, and Savannah was glad to hear him using his “soft” voice when he told Carolyn, “I’m very sorry to have to say this, Dr. Erling, but the medical examiner has ruled your husband’s death a homicide.”

  Carolyn didn’t look surprised, Savannah decided, watching her with her own investigator raptor eyes. Upset. Uneasy. Yes. But not shocked.

  “I was afraid you’d say that,” she replied. “I had a feeling. . . .”

  “Why?” Dirk asked. “Why did you think it might be murder?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Everything, I guess. Because Stephen was so healthy and young. Fifty is young, right?”

  “Very young,” Savannah was quick to admit. “Getting younger all the time.”

  “Why else?” Dirk asked. “What other reasons did you have for thinking he might have been murdered?”

  Carolyn hesitated for what seemed like a long time, then seemed to come to a decision and said, as though confessing to something terrible and shameful, “Stephen wasn’t liked.”

  “Why didn’t people like him?” Dirk asked.

  “People hated my husband because, to be honest, Stephen wasn’t a good man. Far from it, in fact.”

  “Did you hate him, Doctor?” Dirk asked, staring into her eyes, her soul.

  “Sometimes” was the honest reply.

  Dirk held the direct gaze for several long seconds then said, “Did you kill him?”

  “No.”

  Savannah waited, holding her breath, to see if Carolyn was going to add something to her curt, one-word denial. But she didn’t elaborate.

  “Do you know who did?” Dirk asked. From the suspicious gleam in his eyes, Savannah was quite sure that he didn’t fully believe her.

  Carolyn looked down at her desk and began to fiddle with the pens and straighten the paper stacks again. “No.”

  Lie.

  Savannah had a built-in polygraph, and its bells and whistles had just gone off, shrieking loudly in her head.

  One glance at Dirk told her that his personal lie detector was sounding alarms, too.

  “Would you tell me if you knew?” Dirk asked.

  Carolyn seemed to be considering her answer carefully, then she said, “I’m not sure, Detective. I guess it would depend.”

  “On what?”

  “Who they were. Why they did it.”

  Dirk sat up straighter in his chair, then leaned toward her. Savannah noticed that Carolyn crossed her arms over her chest and pulled back as far as she could.

  “Are you telling me,” Dirk began, “that if you knew, for sure, that somebody had murdered your husband in cold blood, you wouldn’t tell me?”

  Tears filled Carolyn’s eyes as she said, “I’m just trying to be honest with you, Detective. Your wife and I are friends. I adore the little boy in your care. You were kind enough to take me into your home and shelter me on a terrible night. I realize that you’re doing your duty, and I want to cooperate with you—or at the very least, be honest with you.”

  “I appreciate that, Doctor, but don’t you want justice for your husband?”

  The tears streamed down Carolyn’s cheeks as she said, “For all I know, Detective Coulter, what happened to Stephen was justice.”

  Savannah reached into her purse and pulled out a clean tissue. As she placed it in Carolyn’s hand, she gave her friend’s fingers what she hoped was a comforting squeeze.

  Savannah glanced over at Dirk and slightly raised her right eyebrow. It was their customary sign, suggesting that she would like to step in. He responded with an almost imperceptible nod.

  Turning back to Carolyn, she said, “Here in your clinic, do you use a drug called pentobarbital?”

  Carolyn answered immediately. “Of course. It’s commonly used in veterinary medicine.”

  “What is it used for?” Savannah asked, knowing, but curious to know what Carolyn would say.

  “Some use it as a surgical anesthetic. I don’t. I have other drugs I’m more comfortable with.”

  “But you do use it?” Dirk interjected.

  “Yes. I do, when I’m required to euthanize an animal. It’s reliably effective, and I believe quite humane. It provides a gentle passing.”

  Savannah couldn’t help wondering if Carolyn had somehow engineered a “gentle passing” for the husband who was tormenting her.

  “Where is your pentobarbital stored?” Dirk asked.

  “Right over there.” Carolyn pointed to a sturdy, metal cabinet on the wall to the left. Its door was secured with a large, shiny, combination padlock.

  “Who has the combination to that lock?” he asked.

  “No one but myself.”

  “No one? Not even your most trusted workers?”

  “No. That’s a new lock, and I’m the only one who can open it.”

  A new lock? Savannah thought. What happened to the old one?

  “Why did you have to get a ne
w lock?” she asked.

  Yes. There it was. A certain look on Carolyn’s face that told Savannah the questioning was about to pay off.

  “We had to buy a replacement,” Carolyn said, “because the old one was broken.”

  “Did it break by itself?” Dirk asked. “Or did it have help?”

  “Quite a bit of help,” Carolyn replied. “Judging from those marks on the front of the cabinet.”

  Savannah jumped up from her seat and hurried to the other side of the room, where she bent down and studied the stainless-steel surface near the lock. She saw several fresh, deep gouges. “A crowbar, I’d say,” she told them as she returned to her seat.

  “That’s what we thought,” Carolyn said. “They used it on the back door to get in. Damaged it so badly, we had to replace the doorknob and both locks.”

  “When?” Dirk wanted to know as he pulled a small notebook and pen from the inside pocket of his bomber jacket.

  Carolyn hesitated. “Um, sometime, maybe a week and a half or—”

  “No, not ‘sometime,’” Dirk said. “No ‘maybe’ either. I need to know exactly when.”

  Reaching for her phone, Carolyn said, “Okay. We found everything broken on the morning of the day that we lost a favorite patient here. Loki, a Great Dane that we’ve treated since he was a puppy. He had a lot of health problems, and it finally just got to be too much. His owner was devastated. It was awful.”

  As she scrolled down the screen, Savannah could see she was looking at her calendar.

  “Here it is. Thursday, the sixth, was when we discovered it.”

  Dirk scribbled away on his notebook. “Then Wednesday night was when you think they broke in?”

  “Yes. We closed late that night. About eight-thirty. We’d had an emergency surgery on an injured cat.”

  “What time did you open on Thursday morning?” Dirk asked.

  “About eight-thirty.”

  “Who opens in the morning?”

  Carolyn glanced away, reached down, and picked up a paper clip. Staring at it, she said, “Usually Patrice opens. She was, she’s my assistant.”

  “Did Patrice open that morning?” Savannah asked.