Dying For Revenge (The Lady Doc Murders Book 1)

by Barbara Golder

  I paused, took a breath and went on. “The day after the trial ended, one of my ex-partners, who was on the Board of one of those companies, ran my husband over in the parking lot of the hospital. I’ll always give a damn about what happens to him, as long as he’s alive and John isn’t.”

  I was aware how hard and set my face was, but there it was.

  Connor regarded me with a curious combination of dawning recognition and amusement on his face.

  “And then you testified in the partner’s murder trial and then you sued the rest of them out of existence in record time,” he said quietly. “You’re that Jane Wallace. All the news reports called you Dr. Simpson. I never made the connection.”

  “That Jane Wallace?”

  For a while I had been accustomed to people recognizing me, but only in my former hometown, one reason I had left. About half the town wanted to console me, the other half to lynch me. I wanted neither, and so I had escaped to Telluride, and I had traded in my professional name for John’s.

  “My next book. You’re my next book. I’ve quite a raft of research on your case in my study, just waiting for me to take after it. You’re quite a story.” Connor suddenly looked uncomfortable and leaned back in his chair, bracing for the outburst he expected. Maximizing the distance between us, he made a quick look toward the door.

  It took a few seconds for the import of this to sink in. Eoin Connor wanted to write a book about my husband’s murder — one of his gritty, true-crime morality tales that invariably made the bestseller list, and from there to a made-for-TV movie or, sometimes, a Hollywood blockbuster. I’d fought so hard to maintain my privacy, to seal off that part of my life. And here I was, for the first time in years, having dinner with a moderately attractive man, who had for whatever reason, asked me out. And whose next goal in life would turn my life even more upside down than it already was.

  Oh, hell, who cared anymore? How much more uprooted could I possibly be? The irony of the situation struck me, and in spite of myself, I started to laugh. Slowly, at first, then uncontrollably, finally in tears again as I gasped for breath and tried to control myself. People were beginning to stare, not the least of whom was Eoin Connor. Eventually, my laughter was spent, except for a few momentary giggles, and I wiped my eyes for the last time.

  “I’m glad you find the thought of my next book so amusing,” he said, dignity obviously affronted, face thunderous.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, wiping my eyes with my napkin and suppressing a final chuckle. “It’s just...funny. After everything that’s happened lately, it’s just too much. And, by the way,” I settled the napkin back in my lap and took a sip of wine. “When hell freezes over and you present me with a pair of ice skates engraved with Satan’s first name, we’ll discuss your interviewing me for your book. Cheers.”

  I lifted the glass and cocked my head, a challenge on my face.

  So did he, and we spent the rest of the dinner in comfortable conversation about travels, books, favorite towns, family stories, food and wine, anything but murders, the ones he investigated or the ones I did. By the time we were walking back to the 4Runner, the soft light of twilight alpenglow was settling in and the moon was already full in the evening sky, washing the streets in purple light almost as bright as day. We took our time. He opened the car door for me. My hand had stopped throbbing, I was pleasantly full, and the wine and painkillers had left me in a mellow mood.

  We turned onto Aspen Street. I saw a few hikers heading up towards Coronet Falls, clearly outlined against the road. I watched the hikers, who had stopped to look at something near my driveway, turn and start up the trail again, walking briskly, heads nodding in conversation. Connor swung the 4Runner into the gravel drive with practiced ease, then slammed on the brakes, just short of a crumpled figure, left arm outstretched, at the edge of the drive.

  “Stay here,” Connor ordered as he opened the door, but he might as well have saved his breath. I was out of the car in an instant, standing beside him as he felt the neck of the prone figure. I was looking down at a rough brown tunic with a spreading dark stain. The figure was so still, his eyes so wide open and unseeing, that I knew in an instant that Captain Bedsheet was past help.

  I have always wondered what I would do if I came upon a fresh murder scene. I’ve attended too many over the years, but always escorted, always prepared, always firmly in command of my role as advocate and spokesman for the dead. I always wondered what I would do if I happened on one suddenly. Now I knew. As Eoin Connor stood up, I buried my face for the second time that day in his soft, plaid shirt.

  **********

  Sweet Mother of God, her hair smelled good. Fresh, like a meadow after the rain, some sort of flowery scent. And she fit into his arms like a key in a lock. It had been a long time since he held a woman like that. He tightened his embrace and cradled the back of her head in one hand, felt her shudder with the realization of the dead man lying in front them.

  And it had been a long time since he’d seen death so fresh and so personal. He’d made his living for thirty years or so writing about death in all its cruelty and vengeance, but always as one removed. It was different when you were there. Pictures and reports and interviews, they were clinical, sterile, something he could manipulate and craft to tell the story inside. This was dimensional, uncontrolled, totally present. It even smelled of death, loosed bowels and sticky blood.

  He remembered the last time he’d seen it, in the doorway to a poor council flat in Belfast, when a bullet had come whizzing in to lay waste to Tam Murphy, his cousin’s friend. The Peelers had been tipped to raid the flat of Seamus Devlin, one of the local IRA heroes and no relation to Bernadette, though he’d let you think he was. They mistook Connor for Devlin in the dark hall of the council building where Devlin lived. Connor bolted for his freedom, dodging down corridors and down a stairwell toward his cousin’s flat. His cousin intercepted him and pushed him into the vacant flat across the hall, retreating behind his own door just as the constables rounded the corner.

  Connor heard them pounding on the door of his cousin’s flat, yelling for Devlin to come out. Then came the splintering of wood as they kicked it in and spilled into the flat, weapons at the ready. They’d caught sight of Tam, of a size with Connor and with the same dirty blond hair as Devlin, but just a boy, slow of pace and slow of mind, overgrown for his age, not even shaving yet, as he stepped into the living room from the tiny kitchen, a glass of water in his hand. They fired without warning. Connor had just eased open the door to surrender himself to spare his family when the bullet hit. He saw it from across the hall, over the shoulder of the pig who pulled the trigger.

  Tam’s youthful blue eyes widened with surprise, and the blood flowered on his shirt, and he was gone, and all hell broke loose as the RUC realized they’d shot an innocent boy. He never really knew what happened, why he died. Neither, really, did anyone else, except Connor, who took advantage of the chaos to slip down the back stairs, noticed by a dozen pairs of suspicious eyes as he made his way into the August sunlight.

  Devlin had taken a shine to Connor’s little sister, Molly, and neither heaven nor earth could dissuade him. Connor had called on Devlin that morning, to try to convince him to leave his sister alone, and found him gone, decamped to the states to raise money for the cause, leaving the flat just in time for the Peelers to mistake first Connor, then Tam for the prey they sought, the man they wanted to kill. Connor had paid for that bullet and that death, first with grief, then with dishonor as rumor began to circulate that it was his rash action that tipped the Peelers, that it was his fault young Tam died. Rumor from the mouth of Seamus Devlin, rumor even his own sister began to believe. Rumor that gave his wife the excuse to bolt. He paid the price for that single shot with his reputation, his peace, his marriage, even his chance at any other.

  And so had Tam’s parents paid the cost, over and over, every day for the rest of their lives. Tam’s blood had stained the worn rug they could never afford to repl
ace and never would. That stain, the one his mother cleaned and brushed in hopes of ridding herself of her pain, then left because she wanted the world to remember, would be there until it was hidden by their own coffins, stoking the fire of their anger at the soldiers, the English, God, and all of creation. That bullet killed more than just poor Tam, and it was, in the end, a mistake.

  That was the trouble with guns, they made killing so impersonal, so efficient. It was the same with the poor sod on the gravel of the drive. He never knew what hit him. At least with a knife or a club or naked fists there was a chance to see your attacker face to face, to argue, to plead, to fight back, at least to understand. With a bullet, it was so swift and so silent and so complete, there was no time to do all those things that in the last second of life you were supposed to do. Poor sod, he thought again, and repeated it. Poor sod.

  Jane needed to find another line of work, at least until she got over Dead John. She never got to see death in its intended form, slow, contemplative, giving a person time to inventory a life, make amends, savor the last, prepare for the journey. All she saw was the horror and violence that had destroyed her own life over and over again. And she was just as powerless to stop it for others as she had been for herself. If she didn’t get past the grief and the hurt and the guilt soon, he feared she’d be lost forever in the dismal mire of brutality and sorrow that was her daily ration at work.

  He felt her stiffen, felt the steeling of the resolve in her body as she prepared her mind to deal with it all again, with senseless death and bloodshed. He savored the feel of her against him, knowing it was just a matter of time before she pushed him away again.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  JUNE 13, EVENING

  It took me a minute or two and several deep breaths to collect myself again and turn away from Connor’s arms to the work that now lay before me in my own driveway. My gaze automatically went from the body backwards toward the road where I could see the start of a trail of blood that ended more or less at Bedsheet’s sandaled feet. I knelt for a moment. The blood had congealed, and the body offered no resistance when I lifted the hand to get a sense of how warm it was. Not cold, but not 98.6 either. He had been here a little while. There was no crowd and no 911 response. I could only surmise that there hadn’t been anyone on the street when he was shot. That didn’t explain why those who passed hadn’t checked him out, but no one had; I’d seen it with my own eyes. I’ll never understand the detachment of some people.

  I retrieved my cell, holding it in my bandaged right hand so that I could dial it with my uninjured left. The Center is on speed-dial, and Quick answered on the first ring. From the sound of it, he was downstairs in the office lounge rather than in his quiet apartment on the fourth floor.

  “I need you to call the sheriff and send Lucy up to my house. There's been another murder.”

  Quick’s voice was concerned. “Not any of yours?”

  I was grateful for that. “No, it’s not, Quick. One of the local new age preachers, the fellow that runs around in a tunic and cloak. The one that was in with Houston’s lawyer.”

  “Damn,” he said, then, “He was a nice enough guy. Goofy but nice. Who’d want to do that?”

  Not expecting an answer, Quick was just thinking out loud, something those who work in the morgue get used to doing, as there’s really no one to hear us and just the sound of a voice, even one’s own, is comforting.

  “I’m on it,” he continued.

  I could hear him calling to Lucy Cho as the phone clicked off.

  I heard footsteps as yet another group of moonlight hikers headed up Spruce. Five of them, raucous, two of them unsteady on their feet, loud, joking, physical in their camaraderie, with playful shoves and hugs, oblivious of the rest of the world. Sizing them up as trouble, I turned to Connor.

  “Help me,” I directed and motioned him to follow me without giving him a chance to answer. I confronted the hikers, three women and two men as they reached the corner below my house. “Turn around, go back. The trails are closed. There's been an accident--you can’t go up there.”

  The women stopped chattering, hesitant, stepping back and ready to comply with my order, but I knew that wasn’t going to be the end of it. The shorter, scrappier of the two men cocked his head and thrust his chin out, taking a step in my direction so that we were almost toe-to-toe. He’d been drinking. A lot.

  “Who says?”

  His sour breath washed over me and I winced. He moved even closer, invading my personal space. I hate that. I straightened my spine and squared my shoulders. I reached in my back pocket for the badge that is with me every waking hour of every day, my identity, my life, such as it was. I flipped back the leather cover and pushed it under his nose.

  “I do. I’m the medical examiner; this is a crime scene and I am in charge. Now turn around and leave. Immediately.”

  “No way.”

  He pushed my hand aside and I dropped the badge. He kicked it like a soccer ball and it skittered away to land at Connor’s feet. I saw him bend over to retrieve it. His expression was cautious, but he was watching both of us intently. He took a protective step closer to me.

  I’m pretty good at verbal intimidation and I present an imposing presence, but physical confrontation is neither my style nor my strength. Usually one of my uniformed brethren backs me up when I clear a scene; few people are willing to risk a night in the hoosegow in exchange for crime scene interloper status. Without that support, the drunken little lout wasn’t impressed. He pushed past me, which I expected. He was stronger than he looked and more aggressive, which I didn’t expect. I lost my footing and sat down hard on the gravel, landing square on my bandaged hand. I yelped in spite of myself.

  He laughed at that and turned to signal his friends to follow. When he turned back around, he walked right into Eoin Connor who grabbed his arm. From the look on the man’s face, it wasn’t a gentle grip. Connor’s expression was fierce.

  The man tried to pivot and took a wild swing at Connor. I watched as Connor blocked with his right arm, and with remarkable ease, caught the man’s hand and twisted him around so that his free arm looped over his head and pivoted him around. Then Connor brought his left arm up sharply against the man’s chin, pinning him against his chest. It was as smooth and sophisticated and complicated as a tango move, and it was totally incapacitating. And proof positive that Eoin Connor hadn’t always been a man of letters, I thought.

  “No, you don’t,” he said evenly.

  The man wriggled and shouted at Connor, who remained placid and completely in control. I was impressed, even as I sat on the gravel rocking in pain and cradling my injured right hand. I hoped I hadn’t torn any stitches. The other four stood rooted, eyes wide, jaws gaping. I heard the sound of the sheriff’s SUV and saw it spin around the corner, the Center hearse right behind. Jeff Atkins, one of the more seasoned deputies and a regular at Baked for its taco special, propelled himself from the Jeep and helped me to my feet. I was glad for his fondness for Mexican food; it was the reason he’d arrived so quickly. I was dusting my pants off as my pinioned assailant shrieked at Atkins.

  “This man’s assaulted me! You can see that! Let me loose! Arrest him!”

  The wriggling got more frenetic, Connor more placid, like a patient old dog enduring the aggravation of a new puppy, though a look of amusement was creeping onto his face. He shifted his weight just a little, and his prisoner found himself standing on tiptoe.

  “Jeff, please arrest this man for trespassing on a crime scene, and while you are at it, throw in assault. He pushed me down and took a swing at Mr. Connor, here, who was kind enough to help me out.” I turned to the bystanders, who still hadn't said a word. “Isn't that right?”

  I’d probably end up dropping the charges, but not until he’d cooled his heels and sobered up in jail. And not until he signed a release that would prevent his suing Connor — the least I could do for his Good Samaritan act was to keep this aggressive nitwit from trying to bilk
him out of his hard-earned money. An occupational hazard, I suspected, of the famous and wealthy. Not that Connor needed my protection. It seemed for the time being, I needed his.

  They nodded dumbly, and their faces reflected the hope that they weren’t about to join their drunken friend in the sweet embrace of San Miguel County’s finest. Jeff’s partner started taking names and statements, and I directed him to my porch, if nothing else to get them out of the way. Lucy had already pulled crime scene tape out of the hearse and strung it across the road, tying it off to a fence on one side and a tree on the other. The hearse and the SUV effectively blocked the cross street, so we had a modicum of control over the site, which was a good thing. The drunk’s commotion was beginning to draw a crowd.

  Jeff finished cuffing and Mirandizing the man, then shoved him into the back seat of the SUV, then strode to the stretched tape to address the onlookers.

  “You all need to leave. Now. Everything’s under control and there's no reason for you to be here. Out. Now.”

  A couple of hangers-on looked as though they were thinking about defying Jeff, then thought the better of it and sidled off. Only Pete Wilson was left.

  “Pete, you’d better stay where you are. Dr. Wallace has already brought charges against one person tonight. She won't have to prompt me if you cross that line.”

  He pointed at the yellow tape. There was no love lost between Pete Wilson and Jeff Atkins.

  “Wouldn’t think of it, Deputy,” he said. “But I’ll be here when you're done and I'll have questions.”

  Jeff bristled, and the verbal peeing match would have gone on had there not been a ruckus from the trailhead farther up the road. A slim teenaged girl in shorts and a cropped, faded sleeveless tee-shirt burst out of the woods, yelling. Jeff and I jogged up to intercept her before she got to the spot where Lucy was stringing the tape across the top of the road. Jeff reached her before I did and put a calming hand on her shaking shoulder. I’d no sooner reached them when two others — also girls — escorting a tiny, white-haired woman, appeared. One of them supported the woman by her elbow, the other carried a rifle gingerly in her left hand, as though she were afraid it would bite her. Jeff and I simultaneously and vigorously instructed the girl to stay put and ran to meet the others.