Treating Murder: Book One of the Veronica Lane, M.D. series (medical thriller)

by Gabrielle Black

  “No, just a human being. With compassion, Mr. Adams. You may not be familiar.”

  This time it sounded like a small chuckle escaped him. “You’ve got brass ma’am. I’ll say that. Okay. I’ll do whatever it takes to get the rest of this story. Where do I find this girl?”

  “Well.” I answered more slowly, now that he had conceded a little. “I don’t know. Wherever these girls go. I was hoping that you might know.”

  “I’ll take that as a comment on my investigational habits, and not my, um, peccadillos, then.”

  I smiled a little at the phone. “Right.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do, but I want an exclusive interview. Talk to me and no one else.”

  “Deal.” I hung up feeling much better. Then wondered what Jamie would say. Well, it was my life, right?

  Late the next afternoon the phone rang. I was painting the walls of the spare room. I put down the paint brush on the top rung of the ladder, and brushed my hair out of my eyes. I dropped to the floor with a grunt of relief, and picked up the phone.

  “John Adams again. How are you?”

  “Tired,” I said with the virtuous sigh of one who has labored well. “What are you calling for?”

  “I think that I’ve found your girl. I had to offer her quite a bit of money to wait with me, and she may leave at any minute.”

  “Where are you? I’ll be right there.”

  “Downtown. Hughes and Fifth in the convenience store on the corner.”

  “I’m on my way.” I drove through town down Fifth Street far past the area I was familiar with, and entered a section of old, brick buildings with boarded up doors and flaking murals. The street was pocked with cars without wheels or windshields, and sometimes without doors. I prayed that I wouldn’t have to stop at a traffic light because the people staring from the sidewalks might become more interested, and I had never learned any form of self-defense.

  At the corner of Hughes, I saw a shattered sign that had once said Spur, and turned into the gas station. I parked by the door and hunched my shoulders as I hurried inside. The cashier looked at me as though he would throw me out for being out of bounds. I looked around at the other people in the store and saw no familiar faces. Then I looked back outside and saw Adams in a blue windbreaker standing alone by a pole at the road. He spotted me, and walked over. When he came near my little hatchback, I came back out and stood by the driver’s side door.

  “She’s gone,” he said.

  “No! Where did she go?”

  “She said that she couldn’t stand around with me all day. She had to be working. I couldn’t hold her.”

  “Which way?” I asked.

  “Why are you so interested in that little bit?” Adams asked.

  I looked at his untidy brown hair and realized that he must’ve been walking the streets in the wind for hours. “She’s in trouble.”

  “So are you, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  “Just show me where to find her.” I appreciated his efforts, really, I did, but the girl was still gone.

  “Look, I’ve spent the entire day out here on this wild goose chase,” said Adams.

  “Bye, then. I’ll find her myself.” I began to fold myself back into my little car.

  “By yourself? Here? You’ll get yourself killed or worse.” He ran his hand through his already wind-whipped hair making it stand on end.

  “Then so be it.” I said. My jaw was set. The area we were in only made me more determined to find the girl.

  “What about my story?” John demanded.

  “I don’t care about your story. And I’m not really fond of reporters right now.” I put the car into gear.

  He put his hands on both sides of the driver’s side window. “Are you kidding? I had her here. You missed her.”

  “You don’t have her now. How long ago did she leave?”

  “Ten minutes, and I’m coming with you. I’m not writing a story about a dead woman.” He walked in front of the car so I couldn’t drive away and squeezed into the passenger seat. I glared at him.

  “Look, I’ve seen every word about you in the papers. No one has heard your side. Why wouldn’t you want a story run from your side?”

  I stared straight ahead, driving in the direction opposite that which my instincts demanded. I thought about his question for a full minute before turning to look at him. He had a pleasant face, the kind that made me want to trust him. Of course that likely had a lot to do with how he got so many stories from people. Now he wanted mine. “I don’t know why not. I don’t know if my side makes any sense.”

  Adams gave no reply, but calmly directed me to an alley where several girls, dressed in halter tops and vinyl skirts, leaned against the walls and smoked. Missy was not one of them. We turned up another road at the end of the alley toward a neon sign that flashed even in the daytime advertising its hourly rates.

  “Pull in here,” he said.

  “How do we find her here? Room to room?”

  Adams rolled his eyes and laughed. “Grease the clerk’s palm with a twenty. He’ll know if she’s been by.”

  I walked slowly toward the door, and stopped to look around, then ventured further into the lobby. The chairs were bolted to the ground but much of the upholstery had been torn away. The place smelled of cigarettes and vomit. I went to the check-in counter and looked around. A few minutes later a big man with sagging tan pants and a formerly white t-shirt walked around the corner behind me. He looked me over without saying a word.

  “Excuse me,” I began cautiously, again highly aware of the sensation of being out of place. “Do you work here?”

  “Maybe,” he mumbled around a full beard.

  “Have you seen any of the people coming in here today?”

  “Maybe. Who wants to know?” His eyes were distant, and suspicious. He leaned forward slightly in an aggressive posture.

  I handed him the money first and he looked at it like he was holding a piece of dried excrement. “I’m a friend of Missy. I need to find her.”

  He shook his head as he scanned over my body again. “Lady, no friend of yours ever came in here.”

  I raised my chin, establishing my ‘street cred’. “We were in jail together last weekend.”

  At this the dour expression lifted and he actually laughed out loud. Guffawed was more like it. Recovering himself, he said, “Right. You a social worker or something?”

  “No. I was locked up, really.” My voice sounded false even to my own ears. I felt like a prize idiot.

  The suspicious look descended back across his face. “I don’t know her.”

  I handed him another twenty. “Look, I know that she comes around here. If you see her, just tell her that Veronica Lane was looking for her. She knows where I am.”

  “The doc in the papers! Why didn’t you say so?” He grinned and opened his arms expansively. “Hey, you’re famous!”

  I turned back to him slowly. “You know me from the papers?”

  “Sure, everybody’s talking about you.” He showed me a stained grin again.

  I blew out a long sigh lifting the bangs on my forehead. Deflated, I said, “I guess I just didn’t know how much I’ve been in the papers.”

  He continued, “But, I don’t want her hurt. I like her pretty good. She don’t ask for credit and she don’t tear up the rooms. You don’t look like much, but they say you murdered that other chick.”

  Everyone thought I was some sort of predator. I stuttered. He wasn’t going to tell me where she was. “I-I don’t mean her any harm. I think she could use some help.”

  It was his turn to raise an eyebrow. “Don’t sound like you’re able to help anyhow.”

  I gave him a wry look. “Not too much right now I guess, but I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m going to get this sorted out.” I tried to look confident in my words.

  I must have failed at that. He grunted and put the forty dollars back in my hand. “Here, you might need this.”
Then he nodded reflectively. “Alright, if I see her, I’ll tell her you were here,” he said.

  “You can’t tell me where she is?”

  “I don’t know if she wants to see you. I don’t know if she should. And I don’t know what happened to the other girl.”

  I took a deep breath. “If that’s how you feel, then why tell her at all?”

  “I ain’t her mother. She can make up her own mind about who she wants to see.”

  “Thanks.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  I walked back to the car, where Mr. Adams was waiting. “I think that I’m ready to go home now.” I said throwing myself down in the seat.

  “You ready to talk to me?” asked Adams.

  I looked at his face again. There was a hungry gleam in his eye. I shrank away reflexively. “Mr. Adams.” I paused. “Are you the one that ran the picture of me from my arrest?”

  He turned back to stare straight ahead. The muscle in his jaw flexed. “How did you know?”

  “I saw you at the jail.”

  He looked down at the floorboard, then back at me. “Does it make a difference?”

  Hell yeah, it makes a difference! I wanted to shout. You brought this media plague down on me. Instead I answered, “No wonder you’ve seen every word written about me. I suspect you wrote most of them yourself.”

  He nodded.

  “They were despicable. How can you write such slander?”

  “I’ve been asking for interviews since day one. I’ve tried to get your side. If your side isn’t out there, it is no one’s fault but your own. And it isn’t slander. There isn’t one fact in there that isn’t true.” Adams retorted.

  “That’s because there are no facts! It’s all a bunch of opinions and hearsay.”

  “Then give me the facts. That’s all I’m asking for,” he said.

  “What am I going to say? I’m accused of murder. I didn’t do it. There’s not much else to it.”

  “Who do you think did commit the murder?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve given my theories to the police, and they are investigating the matter more fully.” I couldn’t share my theories with him. Publication would ruin any chance of flushing out the conspirators at Kinder and Ness.

  He tapped the tablet on his lap with his stylus. “You sound like you’ve been rehearsing. Give me something I can use.”

  “There’s nothing else to it.” I shrugged and glanced over at him.

  “Did you know that Ms. Summers was being poisoned?”

  “Of course not.” I hit the brakes a little harder than I meant to as pulled up next to his car under the vandalized sign, and he was thrown forward, his knees hitting the dash.

  Adams sat back in the seat again rubbing his right knee. He gave me an irritated look, but said easily enough. “So you feel strongly about that I gather.” I nodded. “Would you change anything you did if you had it all to do over again?”

  “We’re here,” I said in a tone of finality, and focused hard on the passenger door handle.

  Adams just sat there, waiting.

  “I did everything I could, what would I change?”

  “What about your other patients?” he asked.

  I gripped the steering wheel and sighed, “When this is over and the real killer is caught, I will reopen my office as soon as possible, and take care of those people who still trust me to do so. Good afternoon, Mr. Adams.”

  He stepped out nonchalantly. “We’ll talk again.”

  I shook my head and resisted the urge to screech out of the parking slot and race away home. I drove slowly through the midday traffic. The sun had reappeared and the air heated up. I felt like gravity had been turned up a few notches and was bearing down on me intent on crushing me into a pile of atoms.

  Chapter 15

  The next morning I dared to look at the morning news online. Lo and behold, there was my picture standing outside the Spur station. I hadn’t even seen him take that. The crawl read, ‘Accused Doctor Seeks Redemption.’ Reading the description of my search for my cell-mate, I regretted the day. I was afraid too that Jamie would call any minute, hopping mad that I had spoken to a reporter, and he was probably right. Another day on the news was not something that I needed. I had to stop thinking about it or go crazy.

  I planned to spend the day pulling weeds in the backyard. I gulped a cup of black coffee and put on a pair of Steve’s garden gloves which were about three sizes too big. I willed myself not to think about him, or about anything else involved with the case. I was only going to think about weeds; otherwise I was going to lose my mind. This was not the time for a nervous breakdown. The household work had kept my mind occupied for the past several days, but there were no more projects left in there for my restless hands. So I turned to the garden where I had seldom worked, and hoped I had a green thumb.

  I settled by the pansy bed with a rusted hand trowel to clear it out. The clod of dirt that came up with each weed’s root ball fragmented easily when I knocked on it with the trowel in the way that Steve had once shown me. The pansies were faded and drooped slightly. I vaguely remembered that as summer approached they had not much longer to live.

  Then I set out to water the lawn. The spigot was behind a large holly bush. I crawled behind it, and then re-emerged following the snaking path of the hose toward its end. So deep was I in my own thoughts that I almost stepped on a pair of red, plastic platform shoes. My eyes traveled upward the rest of the way past the gangly legs and the scalloped, black mini skirt, to the giant tiger slinking up her side toward the cropped, black stretch top, and on to the heavily lined blue eyes.

  “Missy! How did you get here?” I exclaimed. I had really believed that the girl just didn’t want to see me; surely Adams had told her I was coming to see her yesterday.

  There was a new purple bruise sprouting at Missy’s belly button, just above her belly ring. “Did you mean what you said about needing a place to stay?”

  “Of course I did. What happened?” I pointed to her abdomen.

  “I hitched a ride with the last john out to the suburbs. Then I walked. See.”

  She held up her foot to demonstrate where a large red blister had formed on the heel as she hopped on the other to balance herself.

  “Why did you come here?” I could think of no reason to prompt her to show up after disappearing the other day.

  “Max said that if I wanted to hang out with murderers then he didn’t want me around no more.”

  “Max?”

  “He looked out for me.” Missy tugged absently at the hem of her shirt trying to get it to cover the mark.

  I studied the stream of water still flowing from the hose I held, feeling ridiculous. “Your, er, pimp?” I struggled to make myself say the words to her face.

  Missy jutted her jaw out. “Yeah. My pimp.”

  I groaned. “I’m sorry. So does he know that you’re gone?”

  “Yeah. He saw me hanging at the Spur with that guy, and not getting any business, you know? He came after me, and I tried to explain about you. That’s when he got mad, you know, and did this.” She touched the bluish skin on her abdomen delicately, but raised her chin. “He let me go, but I think it’s because he expects me to fall on my face and come running back crying, but I’m a woman. I can take care of myself.”

  I looked at the defiant fifteen year old face, still rounded with baby fat, and shook my head. “Never mind that. C’mon inside. We’ll get you cleaned up.”

  Chapter 16

  Detective Chapman had called in Dylan Jones, the witness from the original burglary and arranged a deposition for both the prosecuting attorney and Jamie. They had all reviewed the original statement which Dylan had provided at the time. All three, plus the judge, were present when the greasy haired Dylan arrived with his skateboard. His eyes were red-rimmed and his gait was slow and shuffled, although he denied the use of any illegal drugs when Chapman asked.

  Jamie ran a slow, appraising eye over the clearly stoned ninetee
n year old, and thought rather irreverently, that maybe the kid didn’t realize that marijuana was illegal.

  The prosecutor, Phil Dormand, began the questioning. “Mr. Jones, did you see a burglary on October 9?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How did you know that it was a burglary?”

  “Someone walked up to the house and went in the back. When they came back out they were carrying a heavy bag.”

  “Did you recognize the thief?” asked Dormand.

  “No. He was all in black.”

  Jamie interjected. “So it was a male?”

  “I guess.” said Dylan.

  “Wait a minute. You don’t know?” asked Jamie. “What exactly did you see?”

  “I told you. Somebody went up to the back of the house.”

  “What was this person wearing?” asked Dormand.

  “Um, I think a dark hoodie. Black pants.”

  “And you couldn’t tell whether it was a woman?” asked Chapman.

  “I was looking from the street. It’s pretty far.”

  Chapman demanded, “Why didn’t you check?”

  “Hey man, that wasn’t any of my business. I didn’t know it was a burglary until I heard the neighbors talking about it,” said Dylan.

  Jamie pursed his lips and shook his head slightly, but said nothing.

  “Did you see what she was driving?” the prosecutor resumed.

  “She was walking.”

  “Hold up.” Jamie held up his hands. “That’s leading the witness. He has stated that he could not identify the gender. Please just reference this person as the suspect.”

  The judge nodded. It was not a hearing, but he was present for just such disputes.

  Dormand cleared his throat. “The suspect couldn’t have walked far. Was there a car anywhere around where you were skating?”

  “I was boarding, G. I don’t remember any car.”

  “Did you look?” asked Dormand with annoyance.

  “No.”

  “Can you give us any more useful information?”

  “I don’t know. That was a long time ago.”

  “Right. Thank-you for your time, Mr. Jones,” said the prosecutor in dismissal.

  “I can go?” Dylan brightened.