“I was hurt that I was a suspect, and I wanted the satisfaction of proving my innocence to you and the sheriff.” Fletcher laughed. “So I went down to see Joel Greene. I learned he’d set the password up for you. I gave him the IP address and asked if he had a way to trace it. He wanted to know if I’d mentioned this to you or the sheriff, and like a dummy, I said no. He reached in his desk drawer and pulled out a pistol. He forced me out to his car. He said he just wanted to have a little chat. As I started to get in the passenger seat, he knocked me unconscious with what must have been the butt of the gun. I woke up in the trunk of the car a few minutes before the wreck.”
Fletcher had been out cold for almost ten hours. Greene must have injected him with something.
Fletcher shuddered. “I wonder why he didn’t kill me.”
“Too risky to fire a shot at the hospital. He’d wait till he’d devised a way to dispose of our bodies. Who knows? He might have planned to make it look like you and I killed each other at my cabin.” The thought had come spontaneously, but as I said it, I also shuddered.
The wail of a siren echoed off the ridge. A second, higher pitch joined in. Wakefield and an EMT crew were only minutes away.
“What now?” Fletcher asked.
“Tommy Lee’s tracking down Pamela Whittier. I want the medics to check you out, and you should be taken to the hospital. No telling what Greene put in your system.”
“Okay. Man, none of my friends’ internships can top this. I almost got to be the body.”
I sat up and couldn’t help but laugh. I liked Fletcher. Sitting beside him, I couldn’t believe I’d thought he’d been on the other end of Greene’s cell phone. “I’m sorry you wound up being a suspect. We just couldn’t get enough information to rule you out. Your college wouldn’t release anything.”
Fletcher stretched his arms and legs, still trying to work out the stiffness. “That was my doing. I was afraid I’d be treated differently.”
“Treated differently?”
“My mother’s maiden name was Sealey.”
“Sealey? Like in the Sealey Corporation?”
“Yes.”
The Sealey Corporation was the largest owner of funeral homes and related supplies in North America. They’d started in Canada and through smart acquisitions and product development had become the major player in the industry. What Sam Walton did for retail, Neville Sealey did for the funeral business. I’d flirted with an offer from the Hoffman chain the year before, but they were small change compared with the Sealey Corporation.
“Was Neville Sealey your uncle?” I asked.
“My grandfather. You know your uncle Wayne reminds me a lot of him. Plain spoken and down to earth. Grandpa died while I was in high school, but he’d always told me the funeral business was the ultimate people business. Only go into it if you understand that.”
“Is that why you’re here in Gainesboro?”
“Yes. My uncles and my mother don’t understand why I’d come to such a small town, but Grandpa would have approved. Now his company’s all lawyers, bankers, and accountants. I don’t think he’d be happy with his creation. He was a funeral director first and a businessman second. I wanted to get a feel for what Grandpa understood.”
Blue lights strobed through the treetops as a patrol car and ambulance crested the ridge behind us. “Keep an eye on the car.” I got to my feet and walked up to the bridge.
The ambulance trailed the patrol car. Wakefield pulled onto the bridge so that the EMTs could be closer. For the first time, I saw the skid marks where the Cadillac had left the road and plunged into the stream. Wakefield ran toward me, his eyes wide as he took in the scene. I stood in the ambulance’s headlights, sopping wet and shaking from the cold water.
“Good God, Barry. Sheriff told me what he knew. Are you and the kid okay?”
“Yeah.”
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” a voice said from behind me.
I turned around and recognized one of the EMTs from the shooting at the square dance. Hard to believe that was only a week ago.
“Anybody hurt,” the second EMT asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Fletcher Shaw has a head injury and possible shock.” I nodded to the Cadillac. “Greene’s dead. I had to shoot him.”
“Let’s see what we’ve got,” Wakefield said, and headed for the stream.
The EMTs started working on Fletcher just as Greene’s phone rang in my pocket. The caller ID showed Tommy Lee’s number.
“Did you get Whittier?” I asked.
“No. Hospital Security said she left an hour ago. Told the officer she’d come in because of the bomb threat. She took a call on her cell and left before the all-clear.”
“She’s running.”
“That’s the way I read it,” Tommy Lee said. “I don’t think she had the stomach for what Greene wanted her to do.”
“Or she couldn’t do it because Susan was there. Did you put out a BOLO?”
“I got nobody to do the looking out. State highway patrol and neighboring counties are lending assistance.”
“What about her home?” I asked. “She may need to pack.”
“Next on my list.”
“Where is it?”
“Indian Moon Estates.”
I knew the exclusive development. “That’s only five miles from here.”
“What’s your status?”
“Wrapped up. Greene’s dead.”
For a few seconds all I heard was Tommy Lee’s breathing as he thought about what must have happened.
“You can fill me in later,” he said. “I’ll send Wakefield to Whittier’s.”
“No. Pamela Whittier’s mine.”
Tommy Lee’s voice rose in my ear. “Don’t be an idiot. I just want Whittier tailed till I can free up reinforcements.”
“My case. You gave it to me. I can tail her as well as Wakefield.”
I waited for his answer, glad that Tommy Lee hadn’t rejected my request out of hand.
He sighed. “Okay. But use your head. And for God’s sake, report in.”
“How’s my dad?”
“He’s hanging in there. They changed the antibiotic bag as a precaution. Susan’s still monitoring his condition.”
That’s when it really hit me. For Susan to be personally checking on my dad at four-thirty in the morning meant his condition had to have deteriorated even further. Part of me wanted to go to the hospital right then, but another part urged me to finish the job. “I’ll have to take Wakefield’s car. He’ll have to ride back with the ambulance.”
I told Wakefield the plan and he gave me his keys. I pushed the patrol car as fast as I dared. Fortunately no one was on the road at that time of night. The dispatcher gave me directions to Pamela Whittier’s home. She’d had enough of a head start that she could already have run.
As I sped along the two-lane blacktop, I thought about the unfolding events. Lindsay Boyce’s scenario had been right on the mark. Doug Larson’s forged prescriptions were only a small piece of the scheme. Greene and Whittier controlled so much more—an entire hospital. The potential take from Medicare fraud was astronomical. And that could still only be the tip of the iceberg. There was no way of telling how many other people in the area might be involved.
Doug Larson had been blackmailed into cooperating. What was Pamela Whittier’s motive? From what Susan said, she was a highly intelligent and respected administrator. Was she also being blackmailed, or had the temptation for big money been too great? Were she and Greene equally involved?
I had no doubt that Greene had been responsible for the deaths of Crystal Hodges and Artie Lincoln. I had come too close to being his next victim to doubt Greene was a cold-blooded killer. But Pamela Whittier? Had she come to my father’s room tonight as Greene’s accomplice? Greene had never missed his five-minute phone calls until it was too late. I had no proof of what Whittier would have done otherwise. At this point, I didn’t care.
Because of Whittier,
good people like Crystal Hodges and Doug Larson were dead, and my own father could have easily been added to that list. Greene had paid a price for his crimes, the ultimate price. Pamela Whittier would have to go through me before she’d escape justice.
Ten minutes later, I turned onto her street. All of the houses were dark except hers. A side window glowed. A silver Lexus SUV sat in front of a two-car garage, blocking both doors. Pamela Whittier had parked ready to leave.
If I were going to tail her, I should have withdrawn to a spot where I couldn’t be seen and picked up the Lexus as she left through the gate.
Thoughts about my father kept gnawing at me. Pamela Whittier stood between me and my dad’s bedside. Did I really want to waste time following her to the Charlotte or Atlanta airport if she literally took flight?
I parked the patrol car three houses down in a dark spot between two street lamps. I pulled a set of handcuffs from the glove box and found a pair of bolt cutters in the trunk. Then I unsnapped the safety strap of my soggy holster.
The light still burned in Whittier’s window. She could be packing clothes or destroying evidence. Probably both. I ran wide of her yard to avoid any spotlight wired to a motion detector. Clinging to the shadows, I hurried to the Lexus. There was enough moonlight that I could see the valve on the nearest tire. I wedged the bolt cutters under the expensive wheel cover and snipped the stem. Air whooshed out and the heavy vehicle sagged down on one corner. In less than two minutes, the Lexus sat level on four flats. My tailing job had just gotten a lot easier.
A short hedge of rhododendrons marked the boundary with Whittier’s neighbor. I looped around the other side and sat down in the cool grass to wait. I should have reported in like Tommy Lee requested, but the radio was in the patrol car and I wanted to keep Greene’s phone free in case Whittier tried to call him. Every connection between their two phones might prove to be evidence.
The light went out. I’d feel pretty damn stupid if she’d gone to bed. Maybe Greene had just thrown out a name to try and get me to help him. I began calculating how much four high-performance tires on a Lexus would cost me.
A back door slammed. No spotlights came on. Unusual unless someone didn’t want to be seen leaving. I heard footsteps on the concrete drive. Then the headlights blinked as Whittier used her remote entry. The footsteps ceased a few yards from the driver’s door. She must have seen the tires.
I stood up from behind the rhododendrons. I could barely make out her shape in front of the Lexus. She had what looked like a suitcase in her left hand and her keys in the right. A purse hung from her left shoulder. Beneath the hand with the keys, an attaché case sat on the driveway.
“Pamela Whittier, this is Deputy Barry Clayton.”
Whittier jumped like she’d been shot. I felt a rush of adrenaline knowing that justice was about to prevail. I started walking around the rhododendrons, never taking my eyes off her hands.
“You’re under arrest for conspiracy to commit fraud, extortion, and murder. You have the right to remain silent—”
“Barry, what are you talking about? You scared me half to death. Come out where I can see you.”
“Anything you say may be—”
“Barry, you’re making a terrible mistake. I’m leaving on vacation. I was supposed to have gone this evening, but I couldn’t get away, and then we had a bomb scare at the hospital. I’m trying to make a six o’clock flight in Asheville.”
I stopped on the driveway. Had Joel Greene duped me? Was Pamela Whittier innocent? But Greene thought he was going to drown. “Where are you going on vacation?”
“The Bahamas. I’m meeting friends. A reunion from nursing school. The ticket’s in my purse.”
The Bahamas. I tried to remember countries without extradition treaties. Surely the U.S. had such a treaty with the Bahamas. But there were other things in the Bahamas besides sun and surf. Banks.
“What’s in the attaché case, Pamela?”
“Paperwork. I might be on vacation but the work for the hospital has to go on.”
I slid along the side of the Lexus without turning my back to her. I yanked open the driver’s door and the interior light spilled out in a pool reaching far enough to engulf us.
“Then open it.”
Her face hardened. “Do you have a warrant?”
“I just placed you under arrest. We can go down to the Sheriff’s Department and sort this out there. Of course, you’ll miss your flight. Or you can open the case now, show me your ticket, and if everything’s as you say, I’ll personally take you to the airport.”
Her lips tightened and her eyes seemed to cut into me. “Have you ever been abandoned, Barry?”
I had no idea what she was talking about.
“I have,” she continued. “Alone, abandoned, and deceived. Did you know I put myself through nursing school?”
“I know people are dead because of you.”
She kept talking as if she hadn’t heard me. “Then I worked double shifts to put my husband through medical school. Guess what happened as soon as he got his degree and his residency behind him?”
I wasn’t in the mood for hard luck stories. “He dumped you for a blond bimbo and a Mercedes.”
She gave an icy laugh. “It was a Porsche, but the bimbo came with it.” Her nostrils flared as her anger boiled over. “I vowed I would never be at the mercy of a man again. And I started over, this time preparing myself to run the game, not be a pawn.”
I began to see the irony of her situation. “But you did become a pawn. You were seduced again, this time not by a man but by easy money. Why? Because life had once given you a raw deal? Because you felt you were owed something?”
The glint of tears trailed down her cheeks. She quickly wiped them away.
“Could you have killed my father?”
The anger in her eyes turned into despair. “No. That’s why I left. After that first call from Joel, I wasn’t even in the hospital. I wanted out.” She looked at the attaché case and reached for her purse. “The key’s in here.” Her eyes focused somewhere in the night sky. “I just want a way out.”
Unlike at the drugstore, this time I heard the anguish and knew what was happening. I lunged forward, grabbing both of her wrists, and wrestled the purse from her hand. A small black automatic pistol fell to the concrete.
She stared blankly at me.
“Enough people have died. I’m not going to let you. For what it’s worth, I believe you.”
Then Pamela Whittier began to sob.
Headlights swung across the front of her house as a car pulled in behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Patsy Wadkins get out of her Taurus and cross in front of the headlights to the passenger side. A few seconds later Tommy Lee stepped into the beams, holding his wife’s arm. He wore a hideous hospital gown and skid-proof socks. A bandage was wrapped around his wrist where he’d ripped out his IV. He looked like hell. The way a friend would look who’d gone through hell for a friend.
“Tommy Lee was going to drive himself,” Patsy said. “Wouldn’t even take time to borrow some clothes.”
“Cuff her to the car,” Tommy Lee whispered. “Take the patrol car and get to the hospital now.”
My breath caught in my chest. Patsy could only nod in agreement.
“She was making a run,” I said. “She said the Bahamas. That’s probably true. She’s carrying a concealed weapon and that case which she refused to open.”
“Go. I don’t think there’s much time.”
The light in Dad’s room was dim. Through the window the first hints of dawn lightened the sky. Mom and Uncle Wayne sat on either side of the bed. Susan leaned against the wall. She looked exhausted.
I stood in the doorway listening to my father’s rapid, shallow breathing mixed with the soft beep of the monitor.
Susan crossed to me. “The infection’s stopped responding to the antibiotics. His kidneys have shut down and the fluid’s building. I’m so sorry, there’s nothing we can do.”<
br />
I kissed her cheek. “You did what you could.”
Uncle Wayne got up from his chair. “Sit down. You need to get off your feet.”
I didn’t argue. I wanted to be near my father.
His head lay on a single pillow. His pale lips were cracked, and spittle had dried in the corners of his mouth. I grabbed his hand and was shocked by how cold it felt.
“We have to let him go, Barry.” Mom whispered the words without looking at me.
“I know. But we can walk with him as far as we can.” I could think of nothing better than to step into the eternal surrounded by the love of those whose memories you shared. I prayed to God those memories still existed for him.
Mom began to hum “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree With Anyone Else But Me,” a favorite song from their youth, and I thought I saw a slight twitch in Dad’s lips, the trace of a smile. The old memories would be the strongest, the last to be extinguished.
Mom stopped and the silence seemed wrong. I started talking, softly at first, and then in a normal voice, telling the story of our first camping trip. I’d been six years old and I’d caught our tent on fire. I heard Susan laugh, and a stranger chuckle. I turned around and saw a nurse in the doorway, but that was fine. Our stories are to be shared. Our stories make us human. Our stories are all we have and what we leave behind.
Uncle Wayne picked up with a tale I’d never heard. He was speaking to Dad about the time the two of them had locked the keys in the hearse at a funeral and the only passenger was in no condition to open the door. The procession was delayed for two hours.
And we kept talking, filling the room with memories, the joys and sorrows acquired over a lifetime.
At seven o’clock, Reverend Pace came in. He said a prayer, one he spoke as if Dad were listening. And then Pace sang a song, the old standard “I Love To Tell The Story.” One of Dad’s favorites. Fletcher and an orderly were by the door, and we were singing along together, a group of family and friends and strangers in a dying man’s room.
The first rays of the sun broke over the eastern mountain ridges. The light fell upon my Dad and woke him like a gentle breeze nudging him out of his sleep. The last note of the hymn faded and we watched as he opened his eyes, sweeping the room with a single turn of his head. He paused to stare at my mother. “Connie,” he whispered.
Final Undertaking: A Buryin' Barry Mystery (Buryin' Barry Series) Page 24