Auntie Grandma. It fit. Pilar placed a plate in front of me, then the children, then herself; fragrant eggs and warm flour tortillas. We held hands and Pilar graced the food. Life was good. Very, very good.
**********
I took my time walking to the office. The morning was cool, and rain clouds were gathering over the peaks, a welcome difference from the hot, muggy South. I dropped into Baked to pick up some muffins for the staff, and ran into Tom Patterson filling his oversized coffee mug.
“I was just on my way to see you,” he said.
“Hang on, and I’ll walk with you.”
I paid the young woman behind the counter and took my bag. Thanks to Pilar, I wasn’t tempted to sample the contents. I’d be lucky to be hungry again by dinnertime. That woman really knew how to cook.
Tom held the door for me as we left. The tables on the porch were filled with people. Most of them were reading the paper, talking excitedly about some news or other. I caught a few words from a burly man in a shirt sporting the logo of a local construction company.
“They got him. Her. The killer.”
I turned to Tom. “You made an arrest?”
His face was stern. “I’m asking the questions here. Just where the hell have you been?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, Sheriff, but I went to Florida. I wasn’t aware that I was grounded.”
Patterson sighed. “Not grounded. But gagged. Apparently it should have been bound and gagged, you and that Irishman both. Just what did you think you were doing, giving that interview to the paper? Setting it up. Wilson said it was your idea, not his.”
We’d reached the door of the center, and he pushed the expanse of glass again, permitting me to enter first. Tom Patterson might be chewing me out, but he was still a gentleman.
I dropped the muffins with Tina, forgetting too late that I’d bought her favorite lemon poppy seed, which would thwart my plans for random drug testing for a while. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why she liked them so much. On the other hand, she was pleasant most of the time and competent enough. Maybe it was time I learned that I don’t have a dog in every fight.
“I’m taking the stairs,” I said, ducking Patterson’s question. “Let’s finish this in the office.”
Tom dogged my footsteps up the three flights to my office, opening that door for me, too. He stood belligerently in front of my desk, demanding an answer with his mere presence. He was too mad to ask again.
I picked up a stack of messages, stacked in neat order next to an enormous package. Who’d left me a gift? Medical Examiners weren't usually the recipients of largesse, unless it was booby-trapped. Patterson grunted, unwilling to be put off anymore, and I abandoned my train of thought.
“You weren’t listening to me. You also weren’t getting anywhere. I figured the only way you were going to get anything at all was if someone delivered it to you on a silver platter. Like me. So I decided to rattle the cage. I gather something showed up?”
“You could say that. Janos Kovacs showed up in my office yesterday morning with the mate to that rifle, saying he read the story in the paper. He had some cock-and-bull story that that little wife of his has been killing people. Problem is, turns out he was right. Ballistics matched the rifle to the slug they pulled out of you. We arrested her as soon as we got the results. The only prints on it are hers. Open and shut.”
“All of them? Even the fire up on Silver Pick? Was that hers, too?” I didn’t much care, but I knew Ben would pester me until he found out.
“That one, too.”
“How? Ben was sure you couldn’t set off a tank that way.”
“You can’t. She shot through the window of the cabin at Cooper, hit his kerosene lamp. That started a fire pretty quick. I guess it caught the curtains. Anyway, Cooper ran out the front porch towards the woods, and she plugged him there. She said she was almost back to the main road when she heard the explosion.”
“Ben was right then. It exploded from the fire.”
“Lucky for her. Damn near hid the murder,” Patterson continued. “Anyway, it was her.”
Ivanka. I’d been right. I knew who, I knew when, I knew how, I just didn’t know why.
“What made her do it?”
“Damnedest thing. She had a granddaughter, apple of her eye. She was set to take over the family business when she was killed. Run off the road by a drunk, three years ago, June 30.”
I felt a chill run up my spine. June 30th. Around the time John had died. She had been working out her own grief at the same time I had. In the same terrible way. She’d just been a little more obvious about it.
“Ivanka never got over it,” Patterson continued, “and when the anniversary rolled around again, she snapped. Decided to take out her revenge on anyone with any money she could find. Clever, too. You were right. She was responsible for that string of accidents on the highway into town. She’d lie in wait on the rise there, wait for an expensive local car to come by and shoot at it. Sometimes she’d get the tire, sometimes the windshield; she probably even hit the driver once or twice. Anyway, it was enough to send them over. She’s a helluva shot." He pondered a moment, then added, “Of course, it was a little easier because the cars were coming straight at her because of the road. All she had to do was keep steady, and she was bound to hit something.”
Oh yeah? I thought. Ivanka was a marksman, a good one. The cars might have been easy, but tagging Webster and me had not been. Kessler, closer, was an easier shot. Still, I doubted Tom Patterson would do as well.
“What did she have against me?”
“She knew you were investigating the deaths. Wilson let that slip in the article on Kessler.”
Fair enough. But how had she known to lie in wait for me to come out onto the roof garden of the center?
As if reading my mind, Patterson continued. “She overheard you talking to that priest of yours the night of the killing. You mentioned that you take your lunch on the roof on sunny days. All she had to do was wait. She had all the time in the world.”
Patterson took a swig of coffee. “I’ll give her this, that Kovacs woman is cunning. Crazy as a road lizard, but cunning. When we came to get her, she went off like a bottle rocket. It’s a good thing you were gone. She’d spent the whole day before up on Telluride Trail, waiting for you to show again.”
“Then why are you giving me a ration of grief for leaving town? Sounds to me like I saved your sorry bacon. And kept myself out of the hospital, too.”
Patterson allowed himself a brief smile.
“Maybe so. Don’t let it go to your head. And next time I tell you to do something and you don’t, I’ll skin you alive.”
“I’ll report you to PETA,” I retorted.
It was over. I realized it was finished. No more murders. I went white and weak at the knees, and sat down suddenly and hard in my chair.
“You okay?” Patterson’s voice was concerned. When he saw I was not swooning, just seated, he hurried on. “Listen, you did a great job, really. We can’t afford to lose you. Just please leave the police work to me. I’m not as incompetent as you think.”
So that was it. Wounded pride, not hidden guilt, and then that fueled by my spectacular indifference to the people around me on full display.
“Never said you were, Tom.” At least, not out loud and never again. “Don’t think you are. And if dabbling in police work nets me a trip to the hospital, I am more than happy to leave it to you.”
“Fair enough.” He acknowledged my words with the hat he had so carefully removed when we entered the building. His momma had really raised him right. “Take care of yourself.”
I closed my eyes for a long moment. “I intend to.” Another moment to gather my thoughts and I spoke again. “She didn’t kill Houston, though.” I pushed a file across the desk at him. He looked at the papers in it and whistled long and low, then smiled. He saluted me with his hat, a smile on his face, the first real one I had seen in weeks.
> I started to rise, but he motioned me down. “I know the way out, and it looks like I have business to attend to. Nice job, Lady Doc.”
“Lady Doc?”
“That’s what they’re calling you in the paper. I like it, mostly because I know it’s going to drive you crazy. Wilson’s getting a bit of payback because you kept him out of the Kessler scene.”
He waved again as he closed my office door.
Lady Doc, huh? Not such a bad name. And if towns were like families, a nickname meant I’d been accepted. In spite of myself, I was part of this eccentric little community. And I would make sure that the lady part fit. I had some fences to mend in town.
After Tom left, I turned my attention to the box that occupied most of my desk top. It was one of those stage-style boxes, wrapped in paisley and bound with pink grosgrain ribbon, top and bottom separate so that I could open it without tearing it apart. It was beautiful if a bit jarring in my wood and leather office. Zoe would love it, would find a place to use it for special letters, clippings from papers, pressed flowers, and all the other sorts of tactile memories she so carefully hoarded, just like her father. So much John’s daughter.
Of course, Zoe wouldn’t be crashing into it as soon as she found it like I was. She had this habit of setting her packages aside, savoring them, drawing out the enjoyment for as long as she could. I was just as much a scientist with my presents as I was with my autopsies. For me, it was important to know, completely and as soon as possible.
The contents were obscured by several layers of pink tissue paper covered with tiny silver stars. On them lay a square, cream-colored card, which I opened. Meet me at the Peaks for lunch, Woman. I’ll be there at one, and we have work to do on my next book. E.
I smiled in spite of myself and started pulling back the layers of pink. There, in the box was a beaten up pair of men’s figure skates, the laces knotted together and laid carefully on top. The black leather was scuffed and wrinkled, but the blades were bright and sharp. I took them out of the box and turned them over in my hands. What in the world was Eoin Connor doing, giving me a set of ice skates — men’s no less — in the middle of summer? It made no sense.
Until something on the side of the blades caught my eye, something engraved in florid, curling script. Lucifer. Satan’s first name. Or one of them. Hell had frozen over, and I had the Adversary’s own ice skates.
I laughed out loud, so loud that Lucy, on her way to get coffee from the break room, stuck her head in. Clearly, my laughter was an unfamiliar sound. Seeing that I was fine, she smiled, gave me a little wave, and went on her way. I started to put the skates back, then thought the better of it. There was an empty nail on the wall by the door, and I hung them there. I liked how out of place they looked.
I glanced at my watch. Just over an hour until I was to meet Eoin at the Peaks for lunch. I called out to Tina as she passed my office. She stuck her head in the door, wiping poppy seed crumbs from the corner of her mouth.
“You need me?”
“No, just wanted to let you know I’m leaving for the day. I have a couple of errands, then I’m meeting...” I fumbled, not sure what to call Eoin, and settled on weasel words. “…a friend for lunch. I won’t be back in. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Tina looked puzzled for a moment, then smiled.
“Okay, works for me,” and she was gone.
My eyes lingered on the doorway for a long moment, then caught sight of the skates hanging on the wall. I shook my head, smiling, as I dialed Father Matt.
He answered on the first ring, bellowing in the phone so loudly I had to hold the receiver away from my ear.
“Turn the volume down, Father! You’re going to make me deaf!”
The faint “sorry” from the earpiece told me it was safe to try again. I cradled the receiver against my shoulder as I picked up the green folder from my desk. “Are you free? I have some interesting news for you.” I flipped through the five or six pages in the folder.
“News?”
“About the murders. Something that might be very, very interesting to a former prime suspect.”
I didn’t tell him I had another item on the agenda. I figured I’d deal with that when I saw him face to face. He deserved at least that.
“Sure, I guess. Can you give me about twenty minutes? I'm just leaving down valley.”
“Meet me at the church, Father. Thanks.”
I cleared the line and dialed the number on the first page of the file. Pete Wilson wasn’t as prompt as Father Matt had been. He answered on the fifth ring with a brusque, “Yeah?”
“Hello to you, too. I need to come by and talk with you. Matter of some importance, a big, big story. Do you have a minute?”
I put the file down and held the receiver in my hand. I was surprised at how tightly I gripped it. I had rehearsed this moment in my mind all morning. I was surprised that the repetition had not drained any of the power out of the moment.
I could almost hear Pete Wilson sit up straighter.
“I’m just about to head out to Norwood...” the newshound’s desire for a scoop was almost audible; he said the words without conviction.
“Believe me when I tell you whatever it is can wait. I’ll be there in five.”
I didn’t give him time to protest and cradled the receiver. Then I took a deep breath, ran my hand over the face of the file one more time, picked it up and left the office.
Tyler Lee, the editor, was leaning against Wilson’s desk engaged in earnest conversation when I arrived. Other than those two, the office was empty. Early lunch for the Fourth Estate.
Tyler extended a thin, manicured hand. “Good to see you, Dr. Wallace.”
I’d only met the man once, when I first came to town but he impressed me as kind, competent, and overloaded, given that he had to share his time between Montrose and Telluride running two very different local papers.
“You too, Tyler.”
I glanced down at Pete Wilson, who didn’t bother to conceal his curiosity. My message had to be delivered in private; Tyler had to go. I turned back to him and smiled my best Southern Belle smile.
“Tyler, I hope you don’t mind. I have something I need to discuss with Pete and it’s of a personal and...delicate nature. I would prefer it if we could speak privately.”
As soon as I said it, I knew I had overplayed my hand. Tyler Lee is a Virginian. I missed the proper tone by a Richmond mile. Out of practice.
Still, he’s a Virginian and a gentleman who would never, ever contradict even a counterfeit lady. I wondered how he managed a newspaper with such sensibilities.
“Why don’t you two use my office? I’m going out to lunch.”
He smiled at me, but the look in his eyes told me he’d want answers later, if not from me, from Pete Wilson. Good. Maybe I hadn’t overplayed it after all.
Pete Wilson pushed his chair back.
“I’m off to Norwood to cover the rodeo. I probably won’t be back until this evening.”
“Check in when you have a break,” the editor said. “You've got my cell.”
He nodded his head vaguely in my direction and was off. I was right. His editorial nose smelled news. The local M.E. never, ever comes calling on the press.
Lee’s office was tidy and spare. His diplomas were hung neatly on one wall, and there was a shelf with a scattering of awards on it. His taste in art ran to modern, abstract and colorful. The reds in the canvas behind the desk — I recognized it as a Fonteyn — matched the red leather of the chair Pete Wilson sat in as if he owned it. He waved a hand at the barrel chair opposite him across the desk, also red.
“So, what’s this about?” He reclined slightly in the chair as though he were contemplating putting his feet up.
I hesitated for a moment. There is a fine line between reproof and revenge. I’d spent enough time on the far side of that line lately. I didn’t want to cross it again. Still, I felt my pulse starting to race and the familiar knot in my stomach I used to get in f
ront of a jury. I stood there, silent for a long enough time that Wilson began to get fidgety. He sat up in the chair again, leaned on the desk and motioned to the chair once more.
“Sit down. Please. What is it that you wanted to tell me that was so all-fired important?”
One deep breath, drawn in slowly so as not to make a sound. I steeled the muscles of my abdomen. Showtime.
“You smarmy son of a bitch. Next time you decide to frame a man, you had damn well better make sure he’s guilty.”
Pete Wilson blanched, then recovered. But he pushed the chair back from the desk, trying to gain distance. I still had not sat down.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The hell you don’t.”
I threw the folder on the desk, then felt in the pocket of my jeans. I pulled out one of the .22 rifle slugs I had bought at the hardware store in Norwood. “Catch.” I tossed it to Wilson. He bobbled it and had to retrieve it from his lap.
“What’s this?”
“A bullet from the same lot as the box you bought to frame Father Matt.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” This time he didn’t blanch, but he tossed the bullet onto the desk as though it were red hot. “I helped you break this case. I was wrong about Father Matt, but you have to admit the evidence was impressive.”
“There was no evidence.”
“Someone saw Father Matt coming down out of the bell tower on the day Cosette was shot.”
“Who?”
I’ll give Wilson credit. He didn’t even squirm. “A source who wants to remain protected. I don’t have to reveal him. Her. Them.” His struggle to reconcile political and grammatical correctness amused me and annoyed him. “Not even to you.”
I counted to ten in Irish. Connor taught me while I was recovering at his place.
“No, you don’t. But I can tell you. There isn’t one, at least not a direct one. Father Matt was in the belfry all right, but it was the day after the murder, not the day of. My guess-and it’s an informed one—is that you overheard him telling Ben when they had lunch together at Baked. Your favorite lunch spot, I believe.”
Dying For Revenge (The Lady Doc Murders Book 1) Page 37