River's Edge

by Terri Blackstock

  Sheila gave her a faint smile. “It’s just that it makes the rest of us look bad. I don’t need any help with that.” She turned from the mirror and sat down on the bed. “I’m easily replaced, you know.”

  Sadie’s heart broke at the words. “How can you say that? You haven’t been replaced.”

  Sheila’s eyes rimmed with tears. “I’ve always been a problem to the people around me. Even when I was a little kid, and my mama was going through her string of men, I was always in the way. They farmed me out to everybody they knew. Aunts and uncles and neighbors and foster homes. Nothing—nobody—was ever really mine.”

  Sadie sat down next to her. “I’m yours, Mom. I always will be. And so will Caleb.”

  “But can you see why I don’t want to be here? I’m in the way again, in a place that’s not mine, trying to fit back into my own family. The people here only know me as an ex-con, a drug addict, a terrible mother. How can they see me as anything else, when that’s what I am?”

  “Mom, Morgan and Jonathan think everyone is worthwhile. Take Gus Hampton, for instance. He’s been in prison most of his adult life for everything from armed robbery to drug trafficking. They took him in here and helped him change his life. Now he has a good job, and next Saturday he’s marrying Karen. You met her downstairs. The one with the baby. Karen has been in and out of prison, too. She came here pregnant, fearing for her baby’s life if she stayed with her violent boyfriend. But Morgan and Jonathan gave them both that new start, showed them what a real home and family are supposed to look like. They’ve loved them like family. And Felitia, she was in prison too, before she came here. Same story. Drug addictions. She’s clean now and doing really well. If you let them, Morgan and Jonathan will help you start a new life. Think of it, Mom. They helped me start over when things were really bad.”

  Sheila brought her tear-filled eyes to Sadie’s face. “You’re different, baby. More confident. More mature. You sure didn’t get that from me.” She pulled Sadie into a hug.

  Finally, she let her go, and her gaze strayed back to the window. “Go for a walk with me, Sadie. Show me this island paradise you’ve been writing me about.”

  Sadie couldn’t think of anything she wanted to do more.

  CHAPTER 53

  Ben Jackson’s mistress is a business owner somewhere on this island.” Clara Montgomery wiped her oiled cloth over the antique dresser she had gotten at the Methodist church bazaar, and looked up at Blair. “You mark my word, she’s someone we all know.”

  Blair had come by to pick Clara’s brain about the mystery woman, since Clara was the biggest gossip in town. It seemed that everyone in town had heard the rumors, but no one had a name. “Come on, Clara. You know everything that goes on in this town. Don’t you even have some idea?”

  “It’s a well-kept secret, that’s all I know. I gleaned as much as I could from the hints I’ve gotten from people all over the island.” She got finished wiping the wood and turned to an iron headboard propped against the wall. “Did you see this, Blair? It’s lovely, isn’t it? It would look so pretty in your bedroom. Especially if you were to get married. That brass one you have right now is a little too feminine for a macho man like Cade, don’t you think?”

  Blair gasped. She didn’t know whether to deny the rumor about a wedding with Cade or ask how the woman knew about her bedroom furnishings. “Clara, Cade and I are not engaged!”

  “Just a matter of time, dear. Just a matter of time.”

  Blair decided to get out of there before Clara “gleaned” anything more. She said a hurried goodbye and rushed out to her car.

  For a moment, she sat behind the wheel, letting Clara’s words sink in. Was this confirmation that Carson’s prediction was real? Could Blair really count on a wedding?

  If so, why weren’t things moving faster? Why wasn’t there a commitment? Why hadn’t Cade ever uttered a word about love or marriage?

  Was she simply being an idiot to put any stock at all in Carson’s or Clara’s assumptions?

  As she pulled out of the parking lot of the Trash to Treasures Antique Shop, she glanced across the street to Carson Graham’s house, with its huge, faded Palm Reading sign. The dirt parking lot seemed full of cars. She wondered if his visitors were media or people lined up waiting for readings.

  Then she saw the front door open, and Carson stepped out with Vince Barr. What was he doing there? Digging up more dirt for his new television career? Manufacturing more lies?

  She decided to ask him herself, so she pulled across the street. Carson went back in, and Vince crossed the parking lot to his car. Blair pulled in front of him and rolled her window down.

  “Anything going on I should know about, Vince?”

  He grinned. “Don’t you wish?”

  “Hey, I’m just trying to learn from the professionals. Don’t tell me you were just getting your palm read.”

  He leaned into her window. “Carson’s the man of the day. Everybody wants a piece of him. You’ll have to stand in line.”

  “Oh, I’m not that interested in Carson. I’m more interested in Ben Jackson’s alleged mistress.”

  “Have you got a name?” His question suggested he didn’t.

  She decided to play that game. “Maybe.”

  He grinned. “Did Sam Sullivan finally spill it?”

  Blair shifted her car into park. Sam Sullivan? How did he figure into this? “I don’t reveal my sources. You know that.”

  Vince straightened up and peered down at her. “I should have listened to him when he came to me three weeks ago, wanting me to do a story on the affair to blow Ben out of the campaign.”

  Blair almost caught her breath. So Sam Sullivan was behind the rumors. No wonder no one knew the woman’s name. There probably wasn’t a woman. He’d probably made the whole thing up just to ruin Ben’s chances in the campaign.

  “I told him I wasn’t interested in local politics,” Vince went on. “The Observer is a national publication. It didn’t pique my interest until Lisa turned up missing. Come on, Blair. You got a name, tell me who it is.”

  “I don’t have a name, Vince. I don’t even know if I believe there was an affair. Her name would have come out by now if there really was someone.”

  “Then why are you wasting my time?”

  She had expected as much. She watched him get into his car, and she turned hers around before he could pull out.

  Cade needed to hear about this. If Sam Sullivan had anything to do with these rumors, then maybe he wrote the letters—and if Sam wrote the letters, maybe he’d been involved in the murder.

  She found Cade in a briefing session with McCormick and some of his men. He looked happy to see her when she came in, and he took her into his office.

  “I found out some things that might be of interest to you,” she said, taking the chair across from his desk. “It’s about the alleged mistress. I’ve been digging around town, trying to find out who she is. No one knows, Cade. No one. Wouldn’t you think someone would know something if Ben were having an affair?”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “I’m thinking that maybe it really is all a hoax. But who’s behind it? Cade, do you know whose name kept coming up as I was questioning people about this rumor?”

  “Who?”

  “Sam Sullivan. He told Vince Barr about the affair even before Lisa went missing, hoping to derail Ben’s chances in the campaign. Maybe he also sent the letters.”

  Cade sat back hard and stared at her for a moment. “So what I need to do is get a sample of Sam’s handwriting and compare it to the letters.”

  “Just what I was thinking. Do you think he just did this to make Ben look bad during the election? Or could he have had something to do with the murder?”

  Cade leaned his head back on his chair and stared up at the ceiling.

  “Just what you need, huh? Another suspect.”

  He ran his hands through his hair. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  �
�Anything I can do?”

  He leaned on his desk, rubbing his face until it was red. Looking at her over his fingertips, he said, “There might be.”

  “What?”

  “Tell me about Jonathan and Morgan. Have they been seeing Dr. Sims?”

  The shift in subject surprised her. “Yes, as a matter of fact.”

  “And what has he told them?”

  Disappointed that he wasn’t going to enlist more of her help in the investigation of Sam and the letters, she sighed. “Well, he’s told Morgan that she has a problem producing eggs. They’re considering their options.”

  “Has he suggested any big procedures?”

  Blair didn’t really know if she should be sharing this. “He suggested in vitro. I think Morgan’s considering it.”

  “I thought so.” Cade got up, went around his desk, and closed the door. He bent over her chair, inches from her face. “Blair, I think Sims is a fraud. I need Morgan and Jonathan to help me prove it.”

  “A fraud? What do you mean?”

  “I mean that I want her to get a second opinion. Have those tests done again.”

  “Why?”

  He sat on the edge of his desk. “Blair, this is off the record. You can’t repeat it to anyone, and you sure can’t write about it.”

  Off the record. Again. She considered objecting, but figured silence was a small price to pay if this involved Morgan. “Okay, I won’t. Cade, what is it?”

  “Lisa’s autopsy showed that she had what’s called a bicornuate uterus. It’s a condition she had since birth, and it kept her from being able to carry a child. Yet Sims never told her what her real problem was, and the IVF procedures wouldn’t have helped. He lied to her for years, when surgery might have helped her, and he milked a lot of money out of them in the process.”

  Blair caught her breath and slowly got to her feet. “Do you think he’s been lying to Morgan?”

  “The procedures are expensive, Blair. He deals with desperate people who are willing to do whatever it takes to have a baby.”

  She felt her scars burning, tears stinging her eyes. Had he given Morgan false hope? Had he preyed on her greatest fears?

  “So…what? Do you think he’s the killer?”

  Cade drew in a deep breath. “I’ve got a medical fraud milking desperate people out of their money; I’ve got a mayoral candidate who may be stirring up scandals behind the scenes; and I’ve got a supposed psychic with inside information. Three con artists, and a husband with a weak alibi and a pair of dirty shoes. One of them could be the killer. But I don’t know which one.”

  CHAPTER 54

  As Cade waited to hear back from the DA’s office, he studied the phone records for the Jacksons’ telephone number for the days prior to and since Lisa’s disappearance. He’d hoped to see a pattern of calls to Ben’s mystery mistress, but there didn’t seem to be any. But there was one call the morning of her disappearance that caught his attention.

  She’d gotten a call from a Dr. Ralph Anderson.

  He looked up the practice on his database and saw that it was from another fertility clinic in Savannah. Had Lisa sought another opinion? If so, did Ben know about it? And if she had gone to another doctor, why was she keeping her appointments with Sims each day?

  Cade went into the jail at the back of the small building and found Ben lying on his cot. He had been subdued ever since he’d locked him up, with no outbursts of rage and no desperate pleas for freedom. Now and then Cade had come back here to check on him and had heard his deep, wet weeping. He told himself that the man’s grief didn’t necessarily proclaim his innocence. Guilty people could grieve, too.

  But Ben wasn’t crying now. He lay perfectly still, as if he slept with open eyes. He made no move at Cade’s approach.

  “How ya doing, Ben?” Cade asked him.

  “How do you think?”

  “Ben, I need to ask you something about Lisa.”

  That got his attention. Ben sat up and looked at him. “What?”

  “It’s about her infertility treatments. I need to know if Lisa ever sought a second opinion from another doctor.”

  Ben slumped over, set his elbows on his knees, and rubbed his stubbled jaw. “As it happens, she had decided to get a second opinion. She went the week before her disappearance to a doctor named Anderson in Savannah. He just gave her the runaround.”

  Dr. Anderson. The one the phone call had come from that morning. Cade pulled a chair close to the cell bars and sat down. “Could you tell me what prompted that?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “We were going to the Resolve support group—a support group for infertile couples—and there was a woman in the group who convinced her to do it. She claimed she’d gotten a second opinion and that doctor had found what was wrong with her husband, something that Dr. Sims hadn’t found. It was something minor that could be fixed in surgery, and now the woman was pregnant. Lisa thought it was worth a try, though she wasn’t entirely sure she needed to give up on Dr. Sims. That’s why we didn’t cancel any of our appointments, and we were going ahead with the protocol.”

  “And how did he give her the runaround?”

  “Well, he gave her a hysterogram and some other tests, but then she couldn’t seem to get the results. Sims always gave them to her on the spot. But it was like an act of congress with Anderson. She’d just about given up on him.”

  “Are you aware that Dr. Anderson called your house the morning of Lisa’s death?”

  “No.” Ben got up and came to the bars. “How do you know?”

  “Phone records.”

  Ben stared at him for a moment as he processed the information. “He must have called after I left. Maybe he gave her the results of her tests.”

  Cade wondered if he had finally told her about the problem with her uterus. Had his phone call prompted Lisa to confront Dr. Sims?

  “Can you go see him, Cade? Find out what he told her? Maybe it had something to do with what happened to her.”

  Again, Cade’s gut told him he had locked up the wrong man. He got up, put the chair back. “I will, Ben. That’s first on my agenda today.”

  CHAPTER 55

  Cade found Dr. Anderson’s office on the fourth floor of a building that housed dozens of medical practices. From the looks of the decor, every practice there was established and lucrative. He found the sign that said “Women’s Diagnostic Health Clinic” and saw Anderson’s name listed as one of three doctors in the practice.

  He pushed open the heavy mahogany door and stepped into the big waiting room. It was full of couples of various ages—from their mid-twenties to mid-forties—talking quietly and flipping through magazines that probably didn’t interest them.

  Some of them looked up at him, and he wondered if he should have worn his uniform. He went to the reception desk and waited for the receptionist to slide open the glass panel. “I’m Chief Cade with the Cape Refuge Police Department—” he showed her his badge—“I need to see Dr. Anderson as soon as possible.”

  The receptionist looked fascinated at his credentials, and a little frightened—the way one might look if Mike Wallace came into the office with the 60 Minutes crew. “Of course. Come this way.”

  He followed her back into Dr. Anderson’s office.

  “Have a seat, Chief Cade. He’s with a patient, but I’ll tell him you’re here. Unless it can’t wait. I could go get him right now…”

  “No, that’s all right. He can finish with the patient.”

  She looked relieved, as if that meant that he wasn’t in any kind of trouble. She closed the door, but Cade didn’t sit down. Instead, he perused the framed degrees on the wall behind the doctor’s desk, the pictures of his family. His wife looked about forty-five. They had two boys that looked college age. From the other framed snapshots around the room, he gleaned that they played baseball.

  The door opened, and a small man with a bald head and a lab coat that looked too big for him came scurrying in. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Chief
Cade.” He closed the door behind him, then reached out to shake Cade’s hand. “I’ve seen you on television.”

  Cade didn’t know what to say to that. He’d never wanted to be a celebrity. He sat down, and Anderson took the seat behind his desk. It looked a little too high for him. “Then you know that I’m investigating the murder of Lisa Jackson. I understand she was a patient of yours.”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. She just came to see me the week before her death. I was shocked when I saw that she’d been murdered.”

  “I was wondering if you could tell me why she got a call from your office the morning of her disappearance.”

  “Oh, yes.” Anderson reached into a stack on his desk and pulled out Lisa’s file. “I had called her that morning with the results of her tests. Spoke to her myself.”

  Cade sat up straighter. “Is that right?”

  “Yes. You see, she’d been through all these fertility treatments, very painful and difficult procedures, literally for years. But when I did her hysterogram I saw immediately why she’d never had a child.”

  “A bicornuate uterus,” Cade said. “It showed up in the autopsy.”

  “That’s right. I should have told her the day I did the test, but I decided to wait until I had all of her results. I was reluctant to accuse Alan Sims of lying to her. I tried to fathom how he could have made a mistake like that. But it was impossible. He had done the same tests on her, so he knew what I knew.”

  “And you told her that morning?”

  “Yes. It was a difficult thing to tell her. She could have had surgery years ago. The surgery has a high rate of success. But now, at her age, she had other factors against her. I told her we could still try, that there was much more hope with the surgery than there was with IVF.”

  “Doctor, if there was fraud involved, is it possible that he could have pulled it off without help from his nurses and technicians?”

  “I suppose it’s possible. I understand Sims does all his own lab work, instead of using outside labs like I do. If he falsified her results, it may be that no one knew.”