Dying For Revenge (The Lady Doc Murders Book 1)

by Barbara Golder

  They were already talking, together, in that peculiar, high-pitched tone that teenaged girls get when excited, the one that penetrates to the very back of an adult's skull. Jeff relieved the one girl of the gun, handling it carefully by the side of the barrel and motioning to Lucy to come and fetch it. A model of efficiency, Lucy already had her gloves on and trotted up to take it. It looked like a .22. There was a neat depression at the base of the stock, so clear and sharp it looked as though it might have once been inlaid. It was a peculiar design, sweeping curves drawn into little points. Into the stock. Flames? Lightning? How odd. It was an older gun, well used and businesslike; it was not the sort to have some sort of ornament either carved or embedded into it.

  When we finally got the girls calmed down, Jeff was able to sort out their story. They had been coming back from Coronet Falls when they found the old woman who was getting herself up from a muddy patch in trees on the edge of the trail just below the trailhead. The rifle was lying on the ground beside her.

  “She said she’d been walking along when some man just ran out of the woods, right across the rail. He knocked her down and dropped the gun, then ran off, heading towards Judd Weibe,” the taller, heavier of the two girls concluded, naming the long trail that ran for several miles, a popular hiking spot in the summer.

  Jeff turned to the woman, inquired if the girl’s report was accurate. She nodded, running her hand across her face. Her shirt was torn and her khaki pants were stained with red soil where she had fallen on her right side. Her hands shook.

  “He was not so tall, nice size, like you,” she said. I saw Jeff wince. His height was a sore subject to him.

  “Hair? Eyes?” Jeff asked.

  The woman furrowed her brow. “Brown hair, long, dirty.” More reflection, then, “Bah. His eyes, I don’t know.”

  She had an accent, unplaceable. Not German, not French. Eastern European of some kind, I thought. I knew her from somewhere but couldn’t quite place her.

  Jeff paused for a moment, and I knew he was trying to decide how much further to pursue this. The chances of hunting someone down on Judd Weibe were slim at best, and a man of medium height with dirty brown hair was not exactly a rarity in Telluride. The woman began to cry quietly. The girl who had been talking put an arm around her. She invited that sort of familiarity; she looked like everyone’s favorite grandmother, tender and vulnerable. Only in possession of a .22 rifle that almost certainly killed Bedsheet and might have killed Cosette Anira and Sig Monson and Jim Webster. One that we could do a ballistics match on. Perhaps my luck was improving. I took a moment to intervene.

  “Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?”

  The thought of sudden impact on fragile hips worried me, but she looked intact, if a bit disheveled.

  She looked up at me, sharp eyes in a lined face tanned by too much sun, and though she had been crying, her eyes were barely moist.

  “Thank you. I am fine. I did not fall hard. At my age, you learn how to take care.”

  The voice caught again, but the eyes were still sharp and focused. I took her hands in mine and dusted them off. The knuckles were arthritic, the palms calloused, but they were strong and intact. No real scrapes, just dust and grime, a bit of adherent gravel. The fall could not have been too hard. The skin on the back of her hands was tissue paper thin, with several resolving bruises, the curse of older women. My mother-in-law called them the Devil’s pinches, because she could never remember the injuries that produced them, so slight were they.

  “Jeff, let me take her and the girls to the house. They can have a cup of tea, sit in there where it’s quiet and out of the way. We’ve got to get to this scene. Besides,” I added, “It will keep them out of Wilson’s way.”

  Even without hearing the conversation, he would have a pretty good idea of what was going on just by watching, and I knew his eyes were on us.

  Jeff nodded, and I motioned for the girls to come with me. I found Eoin Connor sitting on the porch lower steps, legs extended, reclining, his back resting on the edge of the deck watching intently but without the concern that had earlier marked his face. This was now entertainment for him and he had a front row seat. I had almost forgotten he was here, but gladly pressed him back into service. He stood up as I approached.

  “Will you do me a favor?” I asked. It was mere preliminary; I knew he would, and I didn’t wait for an answer. “Take these ladies into the house, let them get cleaned up. Jeff — the deputy — is going to need to talk to them more, but right now, we've got to get this,” I waved a hand, the bandaged one, in the general direction of the body, “taken care of.”

  Connor nodded and took the old woman by her hand.

  “There’s tea in the canister on the center island. And don’t let anyone in, least of all Wilson,” I called after him.

  He paused as he opened the door, patient and understanding. “And do you take me for a fool, woman?"

  Even though he was right, I bridled at his statement and my temper returned.

  “That’s Dr. Wallace to you. Call Father Matt, too, would you, please? He can help find her husband.”

  I remembered where I had seen the woman before. I had sat next to this woman and her tall — not nice size — and taciturn husband week after week in the balcony of Saint Pat’s, but I didn’t know her name or anything about her. Father Matt would, though.

  “Happy to, Jane.”

  Connor’s grin broadened, and I refused to rise to his bait a second time in one conversation. We would discuss proper forms of address at some later and more appropriate time.

  I was just starting back towards the car and the body, which Jeff and Lucy were photographing, when Isa, Pilar, Lupe and the kids came up the street, in the company of Ben. I hurried to the side of the deputy who was guarding the scene.

  “It’s all right,” I told him. “They live here.”

  He looked a bit askance at me, but let me usher them past and into the house, with instructions to help make everyone comfortable and to the deputy to let Father Matt through.

  “Looks pretty simple,” Jeff told me when I returned. “Two shots, mid-back, left side. Lucy didn’t see an exit wound. Probably that rifle those girls brought down. Looks like he was in the middle of the road when he was shot, maybe looking over the creek there, who knows? That would put the shooter up in the woods above the road, likely as not.”

  I knew there was a small clearing there off the trail to the right, surrounded by a thicket, but with a clear view of the road and not far from where the girls said they had found the old woman and the gun. Lucy and I would come back in the morning to check it out, but I was certain that was where our shooter had lurked. Few people bothered to glance up away from the road, and there was enough cover that he could have remained almost hidden until the critical moment. Our shooter was clever and patient. Here, a clearing, a copse of trees in Ophir, a hill in Town Park, perfectly situated. Same M.O., different locales. Only the site where the killer had hidden when he shot Cosette Anira remained a puzzle. It was somewhere up Spruce Street. A balcony? A roof? I still wasn’t sure.

  More puzzling was how the shooter picked his victims. Then again, how did the shooter know when and where to find them? I stopped. Was Bedsheet a trusty? I had no idea. If not, it was back to the drawing board. There were still too many questions and too few answers.

  I helped Lucy and Jeff get Bedsheet into the body bag, onto the gurney and into the hearse. He was wearing the same tunic and robe. As Lucy zipped the bag, I noticed the big silver pin that held the tunic together. I didn’t recall its being there when Bedsheet had been in my office; I wasn’t certain, but its presence bothered me. It looked like a variation of the endless knot, but an odd shape, neither round nor oval, all swirls and connections, a surprisingly expensive thing to see on Bedsheet’s brown vestment.

  By the time Lucy closed the back door on the hearse to go back to the scene and take a second and last set of photos, my hand was throbbing again and my head ached. T
ime for another of those blue capsules, I thought. I left her to finish the processing with Jeff and retreated inside. When I glanced over to the perimeter of the scene as I mounted the porch steps and pushed open the front door, Pete Wilson was still there, leaning up against the tree where the yellow tape was secured. I had to give it to him, the man was patient.

  My living room looked like a disaster shelter, and in a way it was, stuffed with people making themselves at home in unfortunate circumstances. Jeff’s partner had commandeered my kitchen to take statements and was talking to one of the girls over a cup of coffee. Apparently Lupe had brewed a pot. Pablo was playing on the floor with the cats. Ben was showing pictures from a book — I hoped it wasn’t one of my medical ones — to Mariela and Ignacio. Isa and Pilar were refilling cups and passing slices of cake, to which Connor was helping himself from the recesses of my easy chair. Father Matt was leaning over the old woman, deep in conversation. He looked up at me when I came through the door. His glance lacked its usual warmth and he looked uncomfortable. In spite of myself, I wondered whether he had been with Marla Kincaid when he got the call from Eoin.

  I was still pondering this when Jeff escorted a tall, white-haired man, with a back as straight as a ramrod, into the room. The man wore creased jeans and a pressed shirt, and took off his straw cowboy hat as soon as he entered the hall. He came straight at Father Matt, bowing just a bit as he thanked us for taking care of his wife. He walked her out of my house, a protective arm around her and the sight of it pierced my heart.

  As the old woman had been the glue that held the crowd together, people drifted away. Isa and Pilar took the children upstairs. Ben collected dishes and disappeared into the kitchen. The two young women finished their statements and left, subdued and shaken, one of them calling a friend — presumably male — to come escort them home. I wondered what the streets of Telluride were like now.

  Eoin Connor loitered by the door, silent and observant. I wondered if this was how he collected ideas for his books. If this case turned out to be the one that proved a serial killer at work, he’d have another best-seller without ever leaving town.

  “I’ll be by tomorrow,” Jeff said to me as he raised a hand in acknowledgment. “When do you think you’ll do the post?”

  “First thing.”

  I always did my cases as soon as I could, finding no reason to wait and in spite of my doctor’s order, it would be my hand that held the knife. I was always amazed when a high-profile death led some pathologist to say that the results of the autopsy wouldn’t be available for weeks. Ridiculous. I’d know everything I needed to know tomorrow by noon, toxicology and ballistics notwithstanding.

  “Good enough. See you after lunch, then.”

  Jeff touched the rim of his hat and was gone, leaving me alone in the hall with Eoin Connor. He made to go himself, and I put out a restraining hand, the bandaged one. “May I offer you a drink? I owe you at least that, you know.”

  And I wanted to know more about him. He’d been there for me all day, solid and reliable. Taking me to the clinic. Holding me when we found Bedsheet. Subduing that drunken bum. Stepping in to take care of all the stray dogs that had happened on the scene. Without a complaint and without a question. I'd sold him short, I’d snapped at him when he was trying to inject a bit of levity into an impossible situation, and I regretted it. Time to make amends.

  “You owe me nothing, Jane Wallace, but I'll have a whiskey, if you are offering.”

  His voice told me he meant it, that I was not in his debt. I knew better. I suspected he did, too, that he was being kind himself.

  “I am.”

  “Well, then be generous.”

  He put out his hand to accept the drink, three fingers neat, then sat down in the same place he had on the night we met.

  “Sláinte.”

  “Cheers.”

  “Quite a good break, finding that rifle.”

  I had the feeling he was prodding me for information. I remembered the newspaper article and Ben’s admission.

  “Better than not, that’s for sure,” I said as non-committally as I could. “I wish I could place that woman.”

  “Ivanka Kovacs. She and her husband have a big sheep ranch down valley. Near some place called Aldasaro. They run a shop in town. You ought to know her. She goes to church at St. Patrick’s. Sits in the balcony, just like you. I’ve seen her.”

  I remembered. At one time, there had been competing ranches, but little by little, all the other ranchers had sold out, trading sheep herding for real estate development. The Kovacs’ ranch was the last of the holdouts, the smallest of the lot, but still substantial in an area where real estate sold for the same price per square foot as a well-provenanced Old Master. They were still running sheep on the remaining pastures outside of town. They'd managed to keep the ranch a viable concern by becoming a sheep-to-sweater operation, using the wool from their flock to create hand knits that had captured the eyes of the Hollywood glitterati that frequented Telluride. They had a shop at the end of Colorado and another in Ouray and a third on Rodeo Drive that sold incredibly high-end, extremely delicate sweaters, shawls, afghans, hats, and gloves. And he was right. She did sit in the balcony, three seats down from me, with her tall husband.

  “One mystery solved at least,” I said.

  “Are you all right, Jane Wallace? It’s been quite a day for you.”

  I debated for a moment. “All right? No, not really.” I paused, wondering just how honest to be and settled for a half portion. “I’m just frustrated that we can’t seem to make any headway in these killings.” And frustrated that the men in my life seem to be tied up in this knot, one way or another, I added silently.

  Then we settled back into the living room and talked for nearly an hour over a glass of Jameson’s about nothing in particular. I nursed mine as long as I could. After the day’s events, I didn’t want to be alone, and it felt both strangely familiar and naggingly uncomfortable to be sharing thoughts with a man and a Waterford glass. I suppressed the discomfort and let myself get lost, just for a few minutes, in the sound of Eoin Connor’s voice. I didn’t think John would mind.

  **********

  As he walked home, Father Matt remembered the first time he met Jane Wallace.

  He’d just been assigned to the parish, the first time the diocese had enough money to put a resident priest full time in this little town, home to a few Catholics, many tourists, a growing crop of itinerant Hispanic laborers and their children, and those locals who didn’t care much one way or another whether there even was a church in town, let alone a priest.

  “The parish is endowed,” the bishop told him. Endowing a parish was almost unheard of, but he suspected that in this day and age, secure income couldn't be turned down. “And the donor asked only that we find someone energetic and unconventional to be assigned.”

  The smile on the bishop’s face wasn’t entirely comfortable. There was a limit to how unconventional a priest ought to be and he knew the bishop wasn’t sure that the man who stood before him was close enough to the center of the pack to be trusted on his own, in a distant parish.

  But the bishop had shaken his hand, given him a folder full of background information, and sent him off to spend two weeks with the deacon in residence, who was about to depart for yet another ski town. The priest two towns away would be glad to lose this particular parish from his 300-mile weekend circuit of the faithful scattered about Western Colorado, especially when winter came.

  It was on the fourteenth day that she had walked into the church in the late afternoon, dipping her fingers in the font and making the sign of the cross before walking rapidly toward the stairs to the loft. The deacon had called quietly to her and she raised her head, startled.

  “Jane, meet Father Matt Gregory. He’s the new priest for the parish.”

  Interesting, he had thought. One usually introduced the parishioner to the priest, not the other way around. It was his first clue that something was different
about this woman. She extended a hand, smiled again, but it was a smile without meaning. Not forced, and not insincere, just not complete, lacking something essential.

  “Jane Wallace,” she said. “Pleased to meet you.”

  She showed no need to fill the following silence, just let it lay between them. He’d learn later that it was one of her tricks, one of her techniques to keep the rest of the world at bay, and he would learn to cultivate a similar reticence with her. This time, he leapt in to speak.

  “Matt Gregory. I hear you are the founder of my position — thank you. I am excited to be here in Telluride. Thank you.” He cringed inwardly. Too many thanks. He stopped, blushing in spite of himself and hoping the beard hid it. She didn’t respond immediately, but turned her quick eyes to the deacon. He backed up a step as if afraid and held up his hands, palms out.

  “Talk to the bishop. He’s the one who told him, not me.”

  He wondered only briefly why the deacon was so deferent until she looked back at him.

  It was those eyes, so black he couldn’t tell pupil from iris. She barely blinked, and they never wavered. There was a glint of anger in them even though she held her smile and her voice was warm. He would have to learn to read those eyes if he wanted to survive here, he thought.

  And he had, slowly but surely. She had mastered her voice, her face, her body, all of them subjugated to her lawyer’s tricks, but always her eyes gave her away. He’d learned that about a month after he’d officially arrived. She had been there dutifully for Sunday Mass and often during the week, and dropped in at odd hours to sit in the pew she’d been heading for when he first met her. She sat there, silent in her participation, under the watchful eye of St. Anthony, whose statue guarded the choir loft. But she never came forward to receive Communion. It puzzled him, and no one had given him the first clue why, so he had asked when he’d managed to catch her alone late one afternoon, as she was rising to leave the loft. He sprinted up the stairs, two at a time, meeting her at the top landing.