A Deadly Inside Scoop

by Abby Collette

  “What was your relationship with Mr. Bayard, Dr. Crewse?” I guess Detective Beverly thought asking the same question differently might trick my father into answering.

  “I told you, I didn’t know the man. I didn’t have any kind of relationship with him.”

  “What was it that you did know of him?”

  “He was a con man.”

  “That he was,” the detective said.

  “He turned our family upside down,” my mother, who wasn’t supposed to be answering questions, offered. “He tried to steal our family store from us.”

  Oh . . . that Stephen Bayard.

  Now I knew who he was. Puppy Guy.

  Wait! I drew in a hasty breath. That’s who I tripped over? Puppy Guy?

  Dead Guy was Puppy Guy?

  Crap!

  “In the course of your work, Dr. Crewse, do you use succinylcholine?” the detective asked.

  What is that? I thought.

  “No, I don’t,” my father said.

  “Are you sure?” Detective Beverly asked, his voice sounding stronger.

  “Of course I’m sure,” my father said. His voice didn’t sound like he was backing down. The detective’s bravado wasn’t bothering him.

  “I’ll ask again—” the detective started, but my father cut him off.

  “You don’t have to ask again. It seems you don’t understand how the drug is used. I don’t use it. Not as the surgeon,” my father said. “An anesthesiologist would, however. I can give you the name of a good one if you need it.”

  “Maybe I will get that name from you, but right now I want to understand what you’re saying.”

  “What don’t you understand?” My father’s voice flowed with irritation.

  “So,” the detective said, “it’s in the operating room with you, right? You have the drug succinylcholine in there during that time?”

  “I suppose,” my father said. “I don’t concern myself with another doctor’s work unless it affects my patient. I need the anesthesiologist to put my patient to sleep. I don’t concern myself with him doing it.”

  “But you would have access to the drug, is that not correct?” he asked.

  “Access?” my father said.

  “Why?” my mother wanted to know.

  “Because, Mrs. Crewse, succinylcholine was the murder weapon used to kill Mr. Bayard.”

  Murder weapon?

  Then I realized what was going on. That detective was questioning my dad as a suspect in the murder of Stephen Bayard. He had to be. My mother had just told me that my father would kill him if he saw him.

  Did the detective think that, too?

  I rested my hand on my heart, closed my eyes and hoped she hadn’t been right.

  chapter

  EIGHTEEN

  I stumbled out of the house, trying to be as quiet as I could, but it seemed I couldn’t find my balance. I fell into the wall, stumbled into the kitchen island and tripped over the doorjamb going through the door outside of the mudroom. Usually those kind of noises would have brought my mother running. Raising us four, especially three boys, any off sound set her on high alert.

  I was sad to admit that Maisie was right. There had been a murder. And the police thought my father had something to do with it.

  I stood still, the cold whipping up my nose and sending another shiver down my body, but it wasn’t as formidable as the one caused by what I’d just heard.

  My parents were pillars of our community. My mother an elementary school teacher in the district for more than thirty years. My father a respected doctor. I turned and looked back at the house and then across the street at the black Dodge Charger I hadn’t even noticed earlier.

  Was the detective going to walk my father out in handcuffs? Was his late-night ambush meant to catch him off guard? Was he going to throw him in jail? Was my father now going to be one of those people whose—per O, or Professor Kaye—criminal records could be found online?

  Oh my God . . .

  I felt faint and sick to my stomach.

  I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t think I could make it the rest of the way up the hill to my house. I didn’t have the sturdiness or strength to do it. And I couldn’t just stand there, I couldn’t take it if I saw that detective march my father out, or hear my mother fussing about listening at things I shouldn’t.

  And where was PopPop? I could go to him for help if he’d been around. Maybe he could straighten out this mess. Explain that there was no way his son could have done anything like what that detective was accusing him of.

  I watched my breath evaporate and swirl up around as it came out of my mouth. I closed my eyes to ward off the dizziness that was trying to grip me and saw my father. There he was, I remembered, dressed in sweats and Timberland boots. I cringed as I replayed watching him walk up to that crime scene and lie to me about where he’d been.

  * * *

  - - - - -

  I wasn’t going to be able to sleep. I knew that. It was going to make the second night in a row. This time it was because I was completely drenched with dread.

  I ended up walking back down the hill to the shop. Figured I’d get the car and drive home. Even though it was the same distance to my house as it was to the shop, getting to the shop was downhill and the only direction I didn’t need my own momentum to go. I initially thought I’d make ice cream—that had always been therapeutic—but there was no way I could do that. I was sure I wouldn’t be able to concentrate.

  Instead of going to my car, I walked around to Bell Street and stared down the side of the hill where just the night before I’d stumbled on that man.

  Stephen Bayard.

  The Crewse family nemesis.

  Like last night, it was quiet out. The hum of a few passing cars, the glow from car lights and dim streetlights making the streets look dreary. Getting colder, it seemed, by the minute. The snow had been pushed back—sidewalks and streets free of snow now had ice starting to form over them.

  I tried to understand Stephen Bayard.

  Why had he come back to Chagrin Falls? Why had he been roaming the streets at five thirty in the morning? Why had he told me all those lies? Had he really known who I was and done it to taunt me? Or my family? And what had he been doing coming down by the falls, in a snowstorm, getting himself killed?

  Stuffing my hands down into my jacket pockets and my face into the collar, I found that staring down in the darkness gave me no answers. And answers were what I needed.

  Maisie and Professor Kaye seemed to have the answer to finding out information—oh heck, I’ll just call it what it was: snooping. But that didn’t seem right to me.

  I decided that I should go to the source. The only person I knew who had any answers. Detective Liam Beverly.

  I blew out a breath, squared my shoulders and tugged on my bottom lip with my teeth. Yes. I was going to talk to him. To that inquisitive, misinformed detective.

  I looked down at my watch. Eleven thirty p.m. Maybe he’d be back at the police station by now. That is, if he was finished harassing my parents.

  I hopped in my car and buckled up. Putting the car in gear, I drove to the police station—a whole block and a half down the street and around a corner.

  The Chagrin Falls Village Hall was located at 21 West Washington Street. The administrative office was in a redbrick, two-story building with white columns, white-framed windows and a white door. It looked more like a house than a government facility. On the side were a yard and a sidewalk that led to the attached one-story police station. A white post-and-rail fence separated the parking lot.

  It, of course, was open, but I wasn’t sure if the wily detective was inside. So after sitting for thirty or so minutes getting the lay of the land (or more likely the nerve to go inside), I perused the parking lot. Driving down the rows of cars, I noticed they
all looked alike. If they weren’t black-and-white patrol cars, they were black Chargers. Just like the one that had been parked at my parents’ home. I parked and went inside. A pudgy, too-tight-uniform-wearing desk clerk police officer informed me that Detective Beverly wasn’t due in until eight a.m. the following morning.

  What was I going to do until then?

  That was when I found out I couldn’t sleep. I went home, changed into my pajamas, got into the bed and tossed and turned for what seemed like hours. I thought about what I was going to say to Detective Beverly. How I was going to tell him that he had the wrong man if he thought my father did it.

  I even thought of a myriad of stories to tell about my father. How he took care of underprivileged and underinsured children and seniors at the clinic he’d helped my brother Bobby start. How he’d been rated one of the hundred best in orthopedic surgery and given a Choice Award every year for the last fifteen years, and how he worked at the Lakeside Memorial Clinic. Everyone the world round knew how good the doctors were there. I was going to tell him how when we were kids, my father had bandaged up half the neighborhood and every one of them still called him first when they weren’t feeling good.

  “Tell me, Mr. Detective,” I imagined myself saying. “How could a man like that commit such a crime?”

  I knew it wasn’t possible that my father had done such a thing. And I was going to convince that detective of it, too.

  Ugh! I sat up, pulled the covers off, and got out of bed. Hair sticking straight up, shoulders slumped, I padded down the hallway to the bathroom. Coming back into the room, I glanced at my alarm clock. That was when I discovered I’d been in bed for only two hours. It was 1:52 a.m.

  What was I going to do for almost six more hours?

  I wasn’t going to be able to make it through the night. Not at this rate. I smoothed my hair down with a hand, stood in the middle of the floor and tried to figure out how I was going to pass the time.

  Then I realized there was only one thing I could do.

  I got dressed, grabbed a book and got back into my little Toyota. I drove down to the police station, again, and parked in front of it. I was just going to wait there for Detective Beverly. Keep an eagle eye out for his arrival and flood his sensibilities, if he indeed had any, with the knowledge of the unequivocal innocence of my father.

  I cracked open my book, flipped through the pages and thought I might just finish it before daybreak. But that was the last thing I remembered. I didn’t know when he got there, and he certainly saw me before I saw him. I only thought I couldn’t fall asleep. Being so close to the place where I knew I’d be able to clear my father’s name must have lulled me into some sense of comfort, because it was Detective Beverly tapping on my car window that made me realize I’d dozed off. I rolled down the window.

  “Some people inside that building”—he pointed to the police station—“might consider you loitering.”

  “Good thing none of those people came out to arrest me,” I said.

  His shoulders were hunched to ward off the early-morning chill in the air, and there were red blotches on his face and the tips of his ears. I had the heater and radio on and had been, evidently, feeling quite comfy.

  “Did you come to see me?” he asked. “Thought of something else from the other night?”

  “I did come to see you,” I said. “But not because I thought of anything other than what I’ve already told you.”

  “Well, it’s cold out here. Can we take this discussion inside?”

  I rolled up the window, turned off the car and got out. He waited for me at the door, holding it open. Once inside, I waited for him to lead me to his desk.

  Once past the lobby of the police station, the bulletproof counter and the chairs scattered about, we went through one door and then another. The room had two desks, a chair behind each and one on the side.

  He gestured to one of the chairs alongside a desk, telling me to sit.

  Now that I was inside, I didn’t know if I could be still. I was nervous and anxious and I could feel a tinge of anger bubbling down somewhere inside of me that I hoped wouldn’t come rising up and out.

  “What can I help you with?” he said, and pushed aside a couple of folders, then collected a stack of papers and piled them on top.

  “I’m here to help you,” I said.

  His eyebrows went up and his forehead creased. “How is that?”

  “To tell you that if you think my father killed anyone, you’re wrong. I have complete faith in my father and his actions.”

  “Is that a fact?” he said. It wasn’t sarcasm I heard slipping into his voice, but, I thought, an air of advantage. Like I didn’t know what he did, and couldn’t possibly make a determination like that.

  “A fact that you don’t seem to be aware of,” I said.

  “My job is to follow the facts.”

  “What facts were you following when you questioned my father last night?”

  “I don’t know if I’m able to share that with you,” he said.

  “And why is that?” I asked.

  “Because I’m investigating a murder.”

  “A murder, if I have my facts straight, that was committed almost under my nose. Surely not fifty feet from where I sat.”

  “That’s true,” he said. “A murder, though, that you have continually told me you don’t know anything about.”

  “I know one thing about it,” I said.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “That my father didn’t do it.”

  “I can’t be too sure of that,” Detective Beverly said.

  “I can.” I leaned in to him. “Don’t you think I would have seen my father if he had been there that night? I saw the boy. Jasper Vale. I saw his mother. There was no one else. And if my father had been lurking around the corner ready to pounce on Mr. Bayard and kill him that night, I would have seen that, too.”

  “I don’t know that you would have seen your father. What I would like to know, however, is would you tell me if you had?”

  I sat back in my seat. He’d gotten me there, because I most definitely would not have.

  “I can tell you this, Bronwyn,” he said, with a familiarity that made me uncomfortable. “Stephen Bayard was killed in a very unusual manner.”

  “I’ve heard,” I said.

  “Have you, now?” He stopped and looked at me questioningly. I raised an eyebrow, letting him know it was all I was going to say. “Okay,” he started back, “not a lot of people have access to what was used to commit his murder.”

  “I don’t know, Detective Beverly,” I said. “The Lakeside Memorial Clinic has more than fifty thousand employees. And more than seven and a half million visitors every year. I would say that’s a lot of people.”

  “Not all of them would have access to what was used.”

  “How many people do have access to what was used?” I asked. I was sure he didn’t know.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  I gave him a smirk. “Yet,” I countered, “you zero in on my father as the person who did it.”

  “We haven’t—”

  “Who is ‘we’?” I asked. “How many people are accusing my father of this?”

  He closed his eyes momentarily and swayed forward. “I,” he said, opening his eyes, “I haven’t zeroed in on him. I just had questions for him.”

  “You and your questions,” I said.

  “Just looking for answers.”

  “Here’s a question for you. Maybe you can look for the answer to this. What was that woman doing down by the falls?”

  “Woman?” he said, and tilted his head, letting his eyes drift upward. “Oh.” He tapped two fingers on his desk. “Glynis Vale?”

  “Yes,” I said. “And her son, Jasper. Have you questioned them?”

  “So let
me get this straight, Bronwyn.” He sat back in his chair and cocked his head. “Are you proposing that the ten-year-old boy did it?”

  I tried not to roll my eyes. I wasn’t sure if such a gesture directed at a police detective in a police station was illegal. But it was hard not to do.

  “To me, Detective Beverly,” I said, “that sounds just as absurd as you thinking my father did it.”

  “Let me tell you something about murder, Ms. Crewse.” He sat up straight and turned on his official demeanor. “The killer is more than likely known by his victim, he has easy access to the murder weapon and likes returning to the scene of the crime. All those things fit in with your father being at least a person of interest if not a full-fledged suspect.”

  “Returning to the scene of the crime?”

  “Yes,” he said, and nodded. “In this case, the crime was committed in the exact place your father felt he’d been wronged. The ice cream shop.”

  “My father didn’t know that man. Stephen Bayard.” I thought I’d sound less empathetic about the man’s death by using his name. “And Mr. Bayard had never wronged my father.”

  “He wronged his mother,” he said. “And the method used—poison—makes it even more egregious. Because that means he thought about it. Planned for it. And waited for the opportunity to do it.”

  “My father is not that kind of man,” I said.

  “To find the truth of that proposition, we’d need proof. Because right now, all the proof I have points to showing me he is that kind of man.”

  chapter

  NINETEEN

  Maisie’s community garden had grown by leaps and bounds since the last time I’d visited.

  The cobblestone walkway that wound throughout the garden still had remnants of snow that stuck in the crevices of the pebbles. Some plants were cut back, some covered with tan-colored burlap bags, but the greenery inside the greenhouse was in plain sight.

  I’d stomped out of the police station so mad that I could have spread my arms and spun around in circles so fast it would have created a windstorm. Instead, I’d gotten into my car and beat on the steering wheel with my hands and head until I started crying. Partially from the pain, but mostly because I hated that detective.