“I understand, sir. I’m not hotdogging. This is all about my sister, and where she’s gone. It’s not an official investigation. I’d appreciate it if you’d let me deal with it for now. I don’t see any need to call in the cavalry.”
He grunted. Finally, after I knew he’d chewed his unlit cigar nearly through, he said, “You will keep in touch with me, you understand?”
“Yes, sir. I understand.”
I was so thankful I fell asleep, the oxygen still up my nose and the IV still dripping into my arm.
I woke up to see another man I didn’t know staring down at me. His expression was thoughtful, and his long fingers stroked over his clean-shaven jaw. He had light hair, a narrow nose, and an obstinate look. He was dapper, no other way to say it, from his French-cuffed white shirt to his highly polished Italian loafers. I put him at about forty, on the lean side, probably a runner, with smart, dark eyes that had seen more than their share of the world. He didn’t look at all like a doctor.
When he saw that I was back among the living, he said quietly, in a lazy drawl that shrieked Alabama, “I’m Detective Minton Castanga from the Salem Police Department. I understand that your name is Ford MacDougal and you’re an FBI agent here to find your now-missing sister.”
“That’s it exactly.”
“Well, not all of it. You’re flat on your back because someone laced your coffee with phenobarbital.”
“Laura Scott,” I said. “Did you find her?”
“Oh, yes, I was at her condo within ten minutes of Dr. Coates’s phone call. However, she didn’t tell us a thing.”
“She’s very smart. I doubted you would find her.”
“You don’t understand, Agent MacDougal. Laura Scott was lying unconscious on the floor of her living room, a huge cat curled up on her back and a mynah bird squawking on the seat of a chair just a foot from her head.
I couldn’t take it in. “No,” I said, struggling up to my elbows. “She’s not dead. She isn’t dead, is she?”
He cocked his head to the side, and I could nearly see his mental wheels turning. “No, no, she’s not dead. She’s at Salem General Community Hospital. They’re still working on her, lavaging her stomach, the whole bit you went through with the nasogastric tube, the oxygen up the nose, and the rest. They said she’s going to make it.
“So, Agent MacDougal, she gave you coffee, you drank it, and she drank it as well, in front of you?”
“Yes.” I thought back. “She had only about a half a cup, at least while I was there. I got more of the phenobarbital than she did. I drank two cups.”
“Was anyone else there in the condo? Or was it just the two of you?”
“No, no one else that I saw. Just me, the bird, the cat, and Laura.”
“One of two possibilities, then,” he said, smiling down at me. It was a smile filled with irony and a good deal of understanding. “Someone wanted both of you dead, which doesn’t ring true unless that person knew you were going to visit her.”
“I didn’t tell anyone I was going to visit her.”
“All right then. It appears that you were an accident and it was Ms. Scott they were after.”
“But who would want to kill Laura?” Saying the words made me crazy with worry, and guilt. Because I’d blamed her.
“Not a clue yet. We have to wait to talk to her. You don’t think she did try to kill you and then gave herself just a bit of the drug to fool us?”
“No,” I said. “Absolutely not. Now that I’ve got my brain back in gear, I realize there was no reason for her to try to kill me. As far as I know she isn’t guilty of a thing. Don’t get me wrong, Detective, there’s lots of stuff going on here, stuff I haven’t figured out yet. My sister, primarily. Why she went off a cliff and now has vanished. I know she believed that Laura betrayed her. She didn’t want to see her. Perhaps she was even afraid of Laura. Or was that a lie? No matter how I slice it though, there’s no reason why Laura would try to kill me.”
“Maybe you were getting too close—to something, Agent MacDougal.” I heard the tinny ring of a cell phone. He excused himself and walked over to the windows. He pulled a small cell phone out of his jacket pocket and spoke quietly.
I couldn’t just lie there like a piece of meat, just like I had back in Bethesda for more than two weeks. Slowly, I slid my legs over the side of the bed. They’d left me stark naked. I looked around for anything to put around me.
Detective Castanga said from behind me, “Ms. Scott is waking up. Oh, yes, I had my forensics folk check over her condo. They found a bottle of phenobarbital in the medicine cabinet of the second bathroom. It didn’t have many pills left in it. It was prescribed to a George Grafton, and expired at least a year ago.”
George Grafton had been her uncle George who’d left her the condo in his will. But how did it get in the coffee?
I said it aloud. “Laura isn’t stupid. The more I think about it, the more certain I am that someone else did it. And whoever did it meant for Laura to die, just like you said.”
I stood slowly as I spoke, bringing the sheet and thin hospital blanket with me and wrapping them around my waist.
“Was Ms. Scott expecting anyone else to come see her?”
“Not that I know of.”
“I’m going to speak to Laura Scott, Agent MacDougal, but first I want you to fill me in on everything so I don’t have to start all over.”
I told him everything I’d heard, everything I’d verified and realized that there was precious little. For an attempted murder investigation, the tangible, solid facts in my pocket were pitifully few. “Bottom line, the first crime I can point to for certain is what just happened.”
Detective Castanga jotted some notes and asked a few questions, but mainly he just listened to me. I could feel the weight of his attention. He was good. He was just putting his notebook into his pocket when I heard a sharp indrawn breath from the doorway.
I looked up to see Maggie Sheffield in her sheriff’s uniform. She wasn’t looking at me. She was staring at Detective Minton Castanga.
“Hello, Margaret,” Detective Castanga said, taking a step toward her. He stopped cold at the look of mean dislike on her face, obvious even to me. “I wondered if I’d see you here.”
“Of course I’m here,” Maggie said. “I’m the damned sheriff. Where else would I be? The question is, what are you doing here?”
“We found Laura Scott on the floor of her living room, doped with phenobarbital, just like Agent MacDougal here. You’re looking well, Margaret.”
“Yes. So are you, Mint.”
Mint? Margaret? What was this all about? “You two know each other?”
Maggie Sheffield turned to face me as I stood beside my bed, a sheet and a single blanket knotted around my waist. “Hi, Mac. You’ve still got some impressive battle scars. You steady on your feet now?”
“I don’t know about how steady my feet are, but at least they’re holding me up.”
Detective Minton Castanga finally answered my question, as he gave Maggie a long, cool look. “Margaret was my wife at one time, Agent MacDougal.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Laura was in room 511 at Salem General Hospital. I stood quietly by her bed looking down at her. She was breathing smoothly and slowly. They still had the oxygen tubes in her nose and the saline IV in her arm. She was alive and would recover, just as I had. I was surprised that I’d never felt so thankful in my life as I was at that moment, except when Jilly woke up. Someone had smoothed down her hair and pushed it back from her face. All that beautiful hair was strewn over the hard hospital pillow. Unlike me, they’d put her in a hospital gown and pulled the light covers up to her shoulders.
I leaned down, lightly touched my palm to her cheek, and said, “Laura, I’ll tell you what they said over and over to me when I was lying helpless flat on my back. It’s time for you to wake up now. You’ve been sleeping long enough. Come on, come back to me.”
Her lips moved slightly, forming my na
me.
I leaned closer, without conscious plan, and lightly kissed her pale mouth. “That’s it. Yes, it’s Mac. I like the way you say my name. Say it again. Come on, Laura. Come back to me.”
“We were just coming in to wake her up again, but it sounds like you’re doing a fine job.” I turned to see a tall woman in a white coat. She smiled. “Just keep encouraging her to open her eyes. Are you her husband?”
“No,” I said, for the first time in my life thinking maybe that didn’t sound so bad. I’d known Laura two days. Funny how that didn’t seem to matter. “She’s a friend,” I said, smiling now. “I’m a friend.”
“I’m her doctor, Elsa Kiren. Do you want me or one of the nurses to spell you?”
I shook my head. “No, I’ll stay. I came out from under the same drug just a while ago. I know what’s going on in her head.”
“If you need any help, just call out,” Dr. Kiren said. “I’ll be close by.”
I turned back to Laura. I wondered if I’d been as pale as she was now before I’d come out of it. “Laura, listen to me now. I’ve been thinking about things and here’s the bottom line. Somebody drugged you. I was an innocent bystander. Now it’s time to wake up so we can figure this mess out. Come on.” I lightly slapped her cheek. “Someone tried to kill you, Laura, wake up.”
“Stop hitting me, you jerk.”
I grinned from ear to ear. “That’s right, it’s me, the jerk.” I slapped her lightly on her other cheek.
She growled deep in her throat, probably just like her cat. “After I leave you, I’ll go back to your condo and take care of Nolan and Grubster. You’ve got to tell me what to do for them. Wake up, Laura, think of your bird and your cat.”
Her eyes slowly opened. She looked at me without recognition, then I saw the light slowly rekindle in her eyes, saw memory return. I would swear that I could feel the exact moment that vivid intelligence of hers was under full sail again.
“Hi,” I said. “Keep dialing your mind back in, that’s it. It just takes time, but you’ll get there.”
“I don’t believe that you would drug me, Mac, but if you did, why?”
“Keep not believing it because I didn’t. Until a couple of hours ago, I was lying on my back, just like you are. Someone got both of us.”
That opened her eyes really wide. Any vagueness was now long gone. “My head hurts.”
“Yeah, I know. It lessens. Don’t worry about it, my headache’s nearly gone now. Who got us, Laura?”
“I don’t know. It had to be in the coffee. Both of us drank it, you more than me, if I remember correctly.”
I saw a shadowy movement off to my right and jerked around to see Detective Minton Castanga standing just inside the hospital room doorway.
I felt Laura tense, readying for battle, beneath my hand.
“He was here before but I was out of it. I don’t like him. Send him away, Mac.”
“I can’t. But don’t worry, Laura. This guy isn’t bad. He’s a cop, Detective Castanga, from the Salem PD. He’s here to find out who dropped us both in our tracks. Detective, this is Laura Scott.”
I straightened and turned to face him. “She just woke up again,” I said. “Come on over and she can talk to both of us at once.”
Detective Castanga stood on the other side of Laura’s bed. He studied her silently for a moment, then said in that soft, endless drawl, “It’s true I was here earlier. I stood right where I’m standing now, looking at you. I tried to imagine what you’d look like awake. I was off on all counts.” He smiled then. “I’m glad you made it, Ms. Scott. You really do need to talk to me this time.”
There was no expression whatsoever now on Laura’s face. She was still pale, but her eyes were bright, focused. I couldn’t begin to tell what she was thinking. She merely nodded her head very slightly and said finally, “All right, Detective.”
“Agent MacDougal told me he believed that both of you were alone at your condo, except for the bird and the cat. Is this correct?”
“That’s right. As far as I know, no one was lurking in a closet. If they were, they were certainly very quiet.”
“You’re right about the phenobarbital being in the coffee. It very probably came from an old prescription bottle in your medicine cabinet.”
“No, I don’t keep stuff like that. Oh, that’s right, you’re thinking about my uncle George.”
“That’s right. Why did you still have the pills?”
She shrugged. The covers slipped down just a bit. Without thinking, I pulled them back up and patted her cheek. She leaned her cheek against my hand.
“I don’t know,” she said. “They were just there. I’ve heard that phenobarbital is good if you really have a hard time going to sleep. I suppose I kept them just in case of insomnia. Not very bright of me, I suppose.”
Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, Detective Castanga’s Mr. Cool and Nice Guy was gone, and in his place was a hard-nosed son of a bitch whose voice and very stance were cold and sarcastic. “So, Ms. Scott, let me see if I get this right. Someone came into your house, rifled through your medicine cabinet, came up with the phenobarbital, stirred the stuff into your coffee, all without you ever seeing him or her?”
“I guess there’s no other conclusion, Detective.”
“Oh, yes there is. Seems just as likely to me that you’re the one doing the drugging and that you tried to cover yourself by drinking a bit yourself.”
I gave him a sharp look, but he was focused on Laura.
“From your tone I take it you want me to confess to feeding Mac the drug, then drugging myself. Or maybe you want us both to tell you it was a suicide pact between two lovers? Tell me, Detective, why would I want to kill Mac?”
“Because he knew something about you and he was going to take you down.” His voice was like nails now. He leaned down, right in her face. I would give him three more seconds of this bullshit.
“Sorry, Detective. I just don’t have any fatal secrets like that,” Laura said, and I could tell she was getting pissed. The three seconds were up. I was on the verge of interrupting this interrogation when she added in a voice as cold and sneering as Detective Castanga’s, “Get out of my face, Detective. My head hurts. I’m cold and I still feel groggy. My stomach feels like it’s caved in on itself, and you’re treating me like I’m a failed murderer who ended up really fouling things up. Go away. I have nothing more to say to you. Go do your job and stop squandering precious time.”
Detective Castanga slowly straightened. He was surprised, I could see it in the sudden twitch in his cheek, the slight hitch in his breathing.
“I think you tried to kill Mac, Ms. Scott. I’m going to prove it.”
“Yeah, right. Run along, Detective, and search out every dead end you can find. Waste the taxpayers’ money. You look like the type who would get off on that. That makes a lot more sense than finding out who drugged Mac and me. Cops like you make me want to spit.”
Detective Castanga, very suddenly, with no warning at all, turned from a bad-ass to a man trying not to laugh, and failing at it. He did laugh. He rubbed his hands together. “You’re very good, Ms. Scott. You’re a reference librarian? At the public library? Hard to believe. You just took me apart very cleanly and smoothly.” He was right. She’d sounded more hard-ass than he had.
Then Detective Castanga’s laughter dried up. “Okay, so you were the target, Ms. Scott. I’ll buy that now. Let’s get down to business. Mac, pull up a chair, you’re still looking pretty shaky. Hey, you were ready to belt me. Come on, she didn’t need you to ride in and save her from the nasty cop. Now, Ms. Scott, do you want a couple of aspirin?”
Laura got her aspirin, Dr. Kiren finished checking her again quickly, nodded, and left us. Detective Castanga sat down with an open notebook on his leg. As for myself, I was just trying to sit straight in the chair. “Talk,” he said to both of us. “You two seem joined at the hip. Tell me why someone wants Ms. Scott dead.”
Laura and I both remai
ned silent as a tomb. Finally, I shrugged. “I already told you why I came here to Edgerton in the first place, Detective. It was all about my sister, Jilly. I just met Ms. Scott a couple of days ago.”
Detective Castanga didn’t believe me. He turned to Laura, a dark eyebrow cocked up a good inch.
“No, there’s no reason I can think of. I’m a reference librarian, for heaven’s sake.”
In that instant, I knew she was lying. It was clean and fast, but it was a lie.
As for Detective Castanga, I don’t know what he thought. He looked at her thoughtfully for a long time.
“It seems to me the shit hit the fan with your arrival, Mac. Give me names of people you’ve met in Edgerton.”
Laura was relieved at that, I could tell. I hauled out the names of everyone I’d met in Edgerton. After I finished, he looked up and said, “All right, you’ve given me about twelve names. I’m going to read this list out loud. Add or subtract anyone you want to. Let’s start with your heavyweight, Alyssum Tarcher. This guy is big bucks. His financial assets are far-reaching. He’s got lots of power with a lot of folk here in our state government, and even in Washington, I’m told. You’ve got him on the list along with all his family members.”
“Well, there’s no way around it,” I said. “Wait, obviously something else has happened since I came to Edgerton. There was Charlie Duck’s murder just a couple of days ago. Maggie can’t find a reason either for the attack, or for why his house was ransacked.” I shrugged, and because I was good, I looked him straight in the eye as I added, “She thinks it was just a random killing, and she may be right, but who knows?”
Detective Castanga said, sitting back in his seat, “Yeah, it was a real shame. He had quite a reputation back in the bad old days. The old guy was a retired cop.”
“Yeah, Maggie told me.”
“He left the Chicago PD a long time ago. I’ll speak to Maggie about what she’s found out about it. She told me she’d sent the body to Portland to the medical examiner even though it was obvious old Charlie had been struck on the head. She was right. You never know what will turn up. She told me she was pushing to have his body back by Tuesday. That was the day his funeral had been set.”
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