by Brenda Novak
And now she was facing a divorce. “I thought you didn’t want children,” he said.
“Vince didn’t want children. He didn’t want anything to slow us down.” She made a noise of irritation. “God forbid we should have to miss a trip to Cancun every once in a while.”
Preston motioned toward her stomach. “He changed his mind, I see.”
She clasped her swollen hands together on the table. Preston noticed that she was no longer wearing her wedding ring—any rings. With all the swelling, she probably couldn’t. “Actually, he didn’t. This was my choice. I decided I wasn’t willing to give up being a mother just because he didn’t want to be a father, so I went off birth control. But—”
The waitress brought Joanie a glass of ice water and handed her a menu.
“You were saying…” Preston prompted as the waitress walked away.
“He nearly had me talked into an abortion. I was willing to do it to save my marriage. Until I caught him in the back room with his new receptionist. Then I decided I was tired of sacrificing my desires for his.”
“I take it the interaction between the two of them wasn’t exactly business-related.”
“You got it.”
“So you left him because he was cheating on you?”
“No. Cheating was a pretty common occurrence for Vince.”
Wanting a refill on his coffee, Preston pushed his cup to the edge of the table. “As far as I know, he didn’t run around on you when we were friends.”
She looked at the sheet of daily specials attached to the front of the menu. “That’s because you were there, setting the right example.”
Preston leaned forward. “You’re giving me credit for his fidelity?”
“You were completely committed to Christy. Since he admired you, he followed suit. I should’ve thanked you.” She set the menu aside and rearranged the salt-and-pepper shakers, Sweet’n Low packets and creamers. “But I wasn’t too happy with you later on,” she added. “How’s Christy?”
“Better since she remarried.”
“Remarried?”
Preston hooked an arm over the back of the booth. “You didn’t know we broke up?”
“Vince and I haven’t kept in contact with anyone.”
“Why is that?”
“Vince didn’t want to look back, didn’t want to deal with all the negativity.”
“This was when you were living in Nevada?”
“How’d you know where we were living?”
“I’ve been looking for a long time.” He’d nearly caught Vince there, in Fallon, when Gordon said his name had turned up on a credit application. But there’d been no “Dr.” attached, and by the time Preston had exhausted all other leads and realized he had the right Vince Wendell, Vince and Joanie had already moved on. Without a trace. “But Vince never set up his practice.”
“He was rattled, nervous. He wasn’t ready yet.”
“You didn’t mind that he wasn’t working?”
She shrugged. “Not really. I could understand. It’d be hard to have your best friend accuse you of such a thing.”
The waitress refreshed his cup, and he slid his coffee back in front of him. “It’s even harder to have your best friend do what Vince did,” he said levelly, and was astonished when she didn’t fly into a defensive rage, as she would have two years ago.
“What happened between you and Christy?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Can’t you guess?”
“You let Dallas’s death tear you apart, right? I was so angry with you, I wanted that to happen. I had everything in Half Moon Bay. My husband had sworn off other women and was treating me right for the first time in our marriage. He seemed to be enjoying his practice. We had a big house, plenty of friends. And then…” She sighed.
“And then Vince ruined it for all of us,” Preston finished.
The waitress had put the coffeepot away and returned to take their order, but Preston couldn’t eat. He handed back his menu. “Nothing for me.”
“Me, neither,” Joanie said.
The waitress offered her coffee instead, but she snapped, “Don’t you know that caffeine causes birth defects?”
“I—I didn’t realize you were—” the waitress began helplessly, but Preston interrupted. “Bring her some orange juice, please.”
He watched the waitress scurry off. “God, you’re edgy,” he told Joanie.
“Yeah, well, I don’t have much patience these days with people who can still fit in their shoes.” She met his eyes. “And I’m not sure what I’m hoping to accomplish by meeting you.”
The conversation had already highlighted the dramatic changes in all their lives. It hardly seemed possible that one man had caused everything. The loss of a child. The loss of friendship. Two divorces. Would it end there? “I think you came because, deep down, you believe me.”
“I don’t. Or I would’ve come forward a long time ago.”
“Really? What about that big house and those good friends you were talking about? What about the life you didn’t want to give up? Are you sure you were looking at the situation objectively?”
She scowled and moved her water around in agitation, smearing the condensation that had rolled down the glass onto the varnished wood. “It doesn’t matter how objectively I look at it. It’s crazy to think the man I married could be capable of doing…what you said.”
“Sometimes the people we love can surprise us.”
She didn’t respond.
“Don’t you at least wonder if I could be right?” he asked.
“No.”
It was a lie. She obviously had doubts, or she wouldn’t have come today. “I don’t believe you.”
She turned her hands palms up. “Okay, so there’s been a time or two when he’s acted…a little odd, and maybe it raised a few questions in my mind. But most people act strange now and then. It doesn’t make them murderers.”
“That depends.”
She pursed her lips, and he knew she was wondering whether to continue this conversation.
“Are you still in love with him, Joanie?”
“No. I’m…well, look at me. I’m hurt, disappointed. Half the time, I don’t even know what I’m feeling, and I’m about to have a baby. I can’t cope with this, too.” She grabbed her purse and started to get up, but he caught her arm.
“How well will you cope if he does it again?”
That got her. Misery entered her eyes, and her shoulders slumped. Finally, she settled back and dropped her purse. “What do you want to know?”
“Why don’t you tell me what he did that was odd?”
“He came to me once. Told me he thought there was something wrong with him, that he wasn’t normal.”
“Did he explain?”
“He said he was tempted to do some strange things.”
A shiver of excitement shot down Preston’s spine. This sounded hopeful. Maybe, at long last…“Like…”
She rubbed her eyes, and he felt a twinge of sympathy as he realized how tired she was. “I didn’t want to hear any more. He was scaring me, and our marriage was already in trouble. I was trying to hold everything together, you know?”
“So what did you say?”
“I told him he was as normal as anyone I’d ever met, and he never approached me with it again.”
Preston’s heart sank. She’d almost had him. Vince had wanted to talk, and she’d told him she didn’t want to hear it. Shit! The frustration and helplessness nearly killed him. “You’ve never asked him about it since?” he asked.
She eyed him speculatively. “You look good, you know that? You’re a little thinner, a little rougher around the edges. But you were always handsome. I used to enjoy going out with you and Christy, just so I could watch you.” She chuckled. “Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t, you know, interested. I loved Vince. But…you’re certainly well above average.”
Preston didn’t give a damn about the way he looked. Especially right now
. “Did you ever ask him about it?” he repeated.
“Of course.” She moved back so the waitress could deliver her juice. “Toward the end, when we were fighting a lot, I threw it up to him all the time. He always denied it.”
“That doesn’t make him innocent.”
“It doesn’t make him guilty, either.”
Preston stroked his chin. There had to be some way to get to the truth. “Could there be any physical proof?”
“I told you he didn’t do it.”
“What about Billy?”
“What about him? Every doctor loses a patient occasionally.”
Preston had heard the same words before. “And Melanie?”
“She lived, remember?”
“You don’t find it uncanny that Vince knew to hospitalize Melanie when almost every other doctor would’ve diagnosed her as having the flu?”
“He said he knew she had something worse.”
“How?”
“I don’t know!”
“I was thinking there might be some office records,” he said. “Some notes on Dallas’s medical chart, or Melanie’s or Billy’s for that matter, to indicate what might have happened.”
“No. Anyway, we got rid of practically everything when we moved from California. The few records Vince kept are stored in his garage. But if he did what you think, I can’t imagine he’d keep proof of it.”
“Damn it!” Preston dropped his head in his hands. At this point, he didn’t care if she got up and left. They had nothing.
But she didn’t leave. A few seconds later, he felt her hand on his arm. “Preston?”
“What?”
“I know how much Dallas meant to you.”
When he said nothing, she sighed. “Vince came home crying the night Billy died.”
Preston studied her, wondering where she was going with this. “He felt bad for Billy’s family?”
“No, he was scared.”
Preston caught his breath. “What?”
“He was afraid someone would blame him. That’s all he talked about. ‘What if they think I did it, Joanie? Every doctor loses a patient once in a while, right? Children die of meningitis all the time. They’re not going to come knocking on my door, are they?’”
Preston remembered his conversation with Vince on the golf course. How’d he die?…It was nothing I did. But Preston hadn’t intimated that it was. “If he didn’t do anything wrong, why the guilty conscience?”
She raised both shoulders in another shrug. “I don’t know. I dismissed it. I guess I was in denial. Maybe that’s why I got so angry when you came over that day and accused him of causing Dallas’s death. Because I was afraid it was true. I’d seen how Vince had acted with Melanie and Billy, knew the attention he required. And I knew how much he admired you, how much he wanted you to think the world of him.”
“I did think the world of him,” Preston muttered. That was part of what made him so angry. He’d let the wolf in at the door.
She shook her head sadly. “Vince needs constant reinforcement.”
The coffee soured in Preston’s stomach. One man’s vanity had cost him so much. “How did he behave the day Dallas died?”
“Not scared, like before. Disturbed. Anxious. After you accused him, he locked himself in his study and drank for hours. He wouldn’t talk about Dallas or you after that. I think he wanted to shove the whole incident behind him, like he’d already done with Billy. Only this time the tragedy involved our best friends and wasn’t so easy to forget.”
“So you moved.”
“Moving was my idea. I thought it might help him recover from what had happened. Leaving Pennsylvania had certainly been a good thing. But our lives haven’t been the same since California.”
“Why?”
“Vince was always selfish, but he got worse. His ego needed constant support, and not just from me. From everyone.”
Preston suddenly understood why his comment that Vince might do it again had struck home with her. She knew he lived for the limelight; suspected—feared—how far he might go to get it.
“Do you have any idea how he might’ve gone about making these kids sick?” Preston asked. He needed details, something besides doubt and conjecture, something that might make the police finally listen.
“No, but it wouldn’t be hard. He’s said so himself. Not long after we were married, he came home from being on-call at the hospital and told me he couldn’t believe how easy it’d be for a doctor to murder someone.”
Joanie’s words were chilling. Especially because Vince had made a similar remark to him once. I could commit murder and get away with it. That’s how much trust a doctor holds.
“Can you find out some specifics?” he asked. “Help me establish a chain of events? Anything?”
“I told you, there’re no records left.”
“Then you’ll have to talk to Vince.”
“And say what? He barely speaks to me anymore.”
“Tell him you’ve been thinking about what happened to Dallas, that you’re beginning to wonder if I might be right. You could even mention that you’re thinking about going to the police, just to get a reaction.”
She shook her head. “No way. I’ll get a reaction, all right. He’ll completely lose it.”
“That’s why you won’t do it in person. We’ll do it over the phone.”
“We?” she repeated.
Preston stood up and tossed a ten-dollar bill on the table for his coffee and Joanie’s juice. “I’ll be listening in.”
MANUEL WATCHED the stores of downtown Cedar Rapids drift slowly past his window as he drove his rented Town Car down J Avenue North. He was tired and rumpled from the flight into O’Hare, and eager to get a motel room. But at least the drive from Chicago had only taken three hours.
Hector had traveled with him and was riding in the passenger seat. “We’re definitely gonna stand out here, man.”
“Why’s that?” Manuel asked.
“This place is filled with white people.”
“You’re white.”
“Not this white.”
“Welcome to the midwest.”
“I don’t like it here.”
“We won’t be staying long.”
Hector made a disgusting sound as he gathered mucous and spat out the open window. “Are you sure Vanessa’s in this Podunk place?”
Manuel wrinkled his nose in distaste. He hated Hector’s personal habits, was tempted to roll up the window so he couldn’t spit again. But the cool seventy-degree air was beginning to revive him, and men like Hector served a purpose. “I’m sure,” he said. “We’re only a day behind her. From what I could tell on the phone, Preston has business in this town. I think he and Vanessa are planning to stay a while.”
Tapping his fingers on the armrest, Hector rocked in his seat—another habit Manuel found annoying. But at least it was one Hector couldn’t help. The twitching came from the drugs. “What kind of business is it?”
Manuel’s eyes constantly scanned the street, in case he got a glimpse of Vanessa. “I have no idea. And I don’t care because he’ll never get the chance to do it.”
Hector pulled out the bag of cocaine he carried with him. Setting a hand mirror on the armrest between them, he poured the white powder onto the mirror and used a razor to cut himself a line.
“Watch it,” Manuel growled. “We just passed the police station.”
“So who’s gonna arrest me in this town? Barney Fife?” Hector laughed, then snorted the white powder and leaned back.
Manuel knew he was experiencing that first, thrilling rush. He also knew Hector would snort another line in a minute. Hector lived for dope, had built up a significant resistance. Which made his habit very expensive. Expensive enough that he’d do just about anything for his next fix. In that way, Manuel supposed Hector’s dependence was a good thing; it made him very cooperative.
Manuel, on the other hand, wasn’t stupid enough to let himself get addicted to the pro
duct that was making him rich. He liked a little cocaine occasionally, when he was in Mexico and had a houseful of beautiful women willing to entertain his most sordid fantasies. Other than that, he preferred a clear head.
“We’ll start by searching all the motels, like we did in Ely,” he said.
Hector blinked at him, his eyes glassy, his pupils fully dilated. “For Preston’s name? Or the name Vanessa used in Ely?” He looked baffled for a moment. “What was the name she used?”
“That stuff’s eating your brain,” Manuel said. “Emma Wright. We’ll check for both. This town isn’t that big. It shouldn’t take long.”
Hector cackled, an overloud sound inspired by the high he was experiencing. “Man, this Preston fellow isn’t gonna know what hit him.”
“Don’t touch Vanessa or Dominick,” Manuel said. “I’ll take care of them myself.”
“But Preston’s mine, right? You want me to do him like you did Juanita.” He formed his fingers into the shape of a gun and pointed it out the window at some old lady walking down the street. “Bang!” he yelled, and she just about fell off her wobbly high heels.
Hector laughed uproariously, but Manuel didn’t even smile. He didn’t like being reminded of Juanita. When he wasn’t living his “other life” with Vanessa and Dominick, he dealt in a nasty, dark world. But until Juanita, he’d never killed anyone. He saved the dirty work for addicts like Hector.
“Only if I don’t get to him first,” he said. Maybe killing Juanita hadn’t appeased his anger, but it’d be different with Preston. All he had to do was imagine Preston in Vanessa’s bed and the blood thirst became so great he could hardly contain it. He wanted to slit his throat in front of her.
“How are you gonna kill him?”
“As slow and painfully as possible.”
Hector snorted another line, waited for the rush, then gave him a spacey grin. “You should cut the bastard’s dick off.”
WHILE SHE DROVE, Emma glanced at the inside of the 1986 Monte Carlo she’d just bought. The seats were torn, the dash was cracked, and the outside wasn’t in great shape. Rust had corroded the metal along the bottom. There was a large dent on the left-rear panel. The sun had bleached the maroon paint, especially on the hood. But it had cost only $3100, and it ran. The man who’d sold it to her had originally bought it for his son and daughter-in-law, so they’d have a second car. They’d owned it for nearly twelve years before upgrading and, judging by the service records, had taken excellent care of the engine. She’d gotten a bargain, really. Someday soon, she’d pawn her earrings and the ring Manuel had given her for Christmas and use the money to pay Preston back. But she knew he wasn’t in any hurry to be reimbursed or he wouldn’t have left the money as carelessly as he did. She should concentrate instead on finding work before worrying about the debt. Work, then a house.