by Joan Hess
Kevin’s hand was shaking so fierce he could barely hold the bottle. There was something so peculiar about him passing a bottle with Jim Bob that he couldn’t begin to sort it out. “I sure as hell ain’t no sissy,” he said as he took a sip. He had to clamp his lips together so’s not to spit it out. “Might fine whiskey, Jim Bob.”
“Damn straight, considering it cost more than two dollars.” Jim Bob slapped him on the back. “Kevin, I was thinkin’ you might want to play a little poker with Roy, Larry Joe, and me tomorrow night. Go on, boy, have some more—unless you’re scared of your own wife.”
“Me?” Kevin hooted, then took a swallow. Tears came to his eyes, but he blinked them away. Not once he could remember when Jim Bob had ever talked to him, unless it was to cuss him out for being stupid or lazy. He was so bewildered that he took another swallow. “You got a point, Jim Bob,” he said as he wiped his chin with his wrist. “Once a man lets hisself be pussy-whipped, he’s a goner.”
“How’s your pa doin’ these days?”
“Been drunk as a skunk for a week now,” Kevin said proudly. “He hasn’t changed his underwear once, and he stinks to high heaven. The whole house smells like an auction barn in August.”
Jim Bob belched. “On account of his wife running off. I’d never have thought Earl would stand for that kind of shit.” He took the bottle from Kevin and allowed himself a sip before passing it back. “Women got no business running off whenever it suits their fancy. Us men are the ones who bring home the bacon.”
Kevin was beginning to develop a taste for the whiskey. “Amen to that. Ain’t a woman alive that could put meat on the table. All they’re good for is cookin’, cleanin’, and having babies.”
Jim Bob whacked Kevin on the back, then stood up. “I knew I could count on you, boy. After all, you got Buchanon blood running through your veins.”
“Damn right,” Kevin managed to say before he threw up on his shoes.
“Well?” Jack said as he handed me a glass of wine. “Do we have an issue?”
I leaned my head on his chest. “I don’t have any issues. No, I take that back. I have a stack of issues of Better Homes & Gardens dating back to my birth. Ruby Bee’s a real optimist.”
“You’ve been distracted from the moment you arrived. While I was cooking the steaks, you paced around like an inmate in a prison exercise yard.”
“Did I really?”
“You really did,” he said, stroking my cheek. “I may not be the most perceptive guy on the planet, but I know when something’s wrong. Are you sorry you came?”
“I can’t think of any place I’d rather be than right here with you. It’s just that I left a real mess back in Maggody. I can’t forget about poor Molly Foss. She might have been an angel, or she might have been an unscrupulous bitch, but now she’s just a body in the morgue.”
Jack had heard a brief synopsis of the case earlier, but had not pressed me for details. “Is there something you think you should be doing right now?”
“No,” I admitted grumpily. “The doctors are as slippery as greased piglets, and the patients aren’t any better. The senator wouldn’t have bothered to glance down if she tripped over my body. I’ve already offended two of the others by not recognizing them, or at least their names. The fourth one is a pro athlete. All I know about athletes is that they get paid enormous salaries for playing a game a few months every year.”
“You don’t know the patients’ names?”
I frowned as I tried to think. “One of the doctors told me their names, but the only one I recognized was the senator. Have you heard of a writer named Dibbins?”
“He’s at this clinic? No wonder he needs anonymity. He writes best-selling diet books that recommend pasta drenched in olive oil and served with garlic bread. One of the reviewers called Dibbins’s first book ‘Dr. Death’s Diet of Doom.’ What’s he in for?”
“Can you keep a secret?”
“Anything that happens on this sofa will stay strictly between the two of us,” he murmured, then proceeded to engage me in some private maneuvers that I certainly wouldn’t share with a reporter. Or my mother, who’d rather eat live lizards than admit she even knew folks did things like that.
After half an hour of convincing me of his sincerity, he sat up and took a drink of wine. “I’ll assume Dibbins did too much research on the recipes in his books. What do you know about the athlete?”
“Nothing,” I admitted as I buttoned my shirt. “I was told his name, but it didn’t mean anything to me. I caught a glimpse of him in the pool. Young, blond hair, muscular, tight butt, maybe six-foot-four. I couldn’t see his face.”
Jack smiled. “Doesn’t sound like you tried too hard.”
I ignored his remark. “I can’t imagine the diet guru or the senator being sent to rehab by a judge. That leaves this guy and the whiny actress.”
“I can think of one athlete who might qualify. Could this guy’s name be Toby Mann?”
“That’s it,” I said. “You’ve heard of him, I gather. What did he do?”
“He’s accused of raping a woman in his hotel room. The trial was postponed at the request of his lawyers. ‘The Man,’ as he’s called, is one of the highest-paid football players in the league. He drives expensive cars and dates models. He comes across as a jerk in interviews, but he’s a fantastic quarterback.”
“Did he rape her?” I asked.
Jack shrugged. “Nobody else was in the hotel room, so maybe, maybe not. ‘The Man’s Fans’ don’t care as long as he keeps throwing touchdown passes.”
“From what I was told, Molly Foss was more than attractive. Toby must have been getting pretty bored at the clinic…”
“So bored that he raped her, and then drowned her to keep her quiet?”
“The coroner didn’t find any evidence that she was sexually assaulted. Damn, it would have been nice to tidy this up with a phone call. On Monday, I could have been questioning this jock in a cell at the county jail. I’m really not excited about going back to the Stonebridge Foundation to face Brenda Skiller. We didn’t exactly hit it off.”
“What’s she going to do—fire you?”
“Good point,” I said. “I suppose she could stir up some trouble for me at the sheriff’s office, but Harve’s not going to do anything more than nod and then hustle her out the door. And if the Maggody city council decides to get rid of me, so be it. I never planned to stay there forever.”
Jack started to say something, then stopped and swirled the wine in the bottom of his glass. “So tell me about the actress.”
“Her first name is Dawn. In her early twenties, looks like a cast member of The Night of the Living Dead. She said she’d been in a TV series a long time ago.”
“Dawn Dartmouth,” Jack said promptly. “She was in some sitcom when she was a kid. She had a twin sister who was also on the show, since there are stringent rules about how long a kid can be on camera on any day. Were you too busy drinking moonshine and tipping cows to watch TV?”
“We weren’t what you’d call prosperous when I was growing up. Ruby Bee had a little black-and-white TV that someone gave her. The reception was so bad that watching it gave me headaches. Before you get too carried away imagining me barefoot and dressed in rags, let me assure you we had all the necessities and enough for a few extras. We weren’t any better or worse off than most of the folks in town. I may have tipped a cow or two, but I spent most of my free time sitting on the banks of Boone Creek, drinking beer and plotting my escape.”
“What about your father?”
I took a few minutes to consider my reply. “I don’t have any memories of him. He took off when I was a baby and never looked back. I used to speculate about him. Had he gone to Europe to regain his lawful standing as the heir apparent? Was he running a hospital in some remote African outpost and working on a cure for malaria? Was he a Hollywood star living in a sprawling mansion with his new family? I finally acknowledged that he’d probably lost his footing while
hopping a freight train and was buried in a pauper’s grave in some obscure Midwest town.” I held out my glass. “But as Ruby Bee used to say, it’s no use cryin’ over spilled chianti.”
Jack filled my glass. “She said that?”
“Not in those exact words.”
“Speaking of exact words,” he said, “it’s time for the preliminary round of the International Supreme Scrabble Player of the Millennium. This round will be played with a board, tiles, a dictionary, and a score pad, and be viewed via satellite by word aficionados on every continent, including Antarctica. It will be played according to Hoyle.”
“Meaning what?” I asked.
“You have to keep your clothes on.”
“I don’t know about the Hoyle business. What does the winner get?”
“Breakfast in bed. Maybe lunch, too.”
I could never pass up a challenge.
11
Breakfast in bed was not to be, alas. Jack and I were debating the merits of muffins versus bagels when the telephone rang. He picked up the receiver, mumbled something, and handed it to me. Resisting the urge to dive under the covers, I accepted it and said, “Yeah?”
Harve Dorfer was not in his good ol’ boy mode. “Listen up,” he said in a most unfriendly fashion, “I ain’t gonna say anything about you taking off in the middle of a murder investigation—at least not right now. How long will it take you to get your ass back to the Stonebridge Foundation?”
“Why? Is the paperwork getting out of hand?”
“It’s too damn early for any of your smart-mouthed questions. Can you make it in two hours?”
I sat up and looked at the clock. “You’re absolutely right, Harve. It’s seven-thirty, and that’s too damn early for much of anything. Call me back later, and we’ll have a long chat about how you set me up to play the receptionist.”
“We got us another body out there.”
“Oh, shit.” I covered the mouthpiece of the receiver and asked Jack to start a pot of coffee. After he left the room, I said, “Who? What happened?”
“One of the doctors, fellow by the name of Zumi. All I know is that a maid found him in his office a few minutes ago and told Dr. Stonebridge, who called me. I’m heading out there now, and McBeen should be along shortly. What about you?”
“I’ll be there by ten.” I hung up and headed for the shower, trying to process what he’d told me. The previous evening Jack had opened a second bottle of wine, which had seemed like an excellent idea at the time. Now I had a dull ache in the back of my head, and my tongue felt as fuzzy as a dandelion pod. There was a bottle of aspirin in the medicine cabinet, but after the few hours I’d spent at the foundation, the idea of taking any drug made me uneasy.
I told Jack what little I knew while we had coffee. Neither of us had any brilliant insights. We agreed to try for another weekend, preferably one without complications, and then I tossed my bag into the car and drove toward Maggody. I speculated about Randall Zumi’s untimely demise for a few miles, but after I’d replayed our conversation several times, I’d bored myself silly and moved on to more entertaining thoughts (or fantasies, if you prefer).
When I arrived at the rehab facility, the gate was open. I continued around to the back and parked between Harve’s official vehicle and McBeen’s death-mobile. Along with some civilian cars, there were two other cars with the Stump County Sheriff’s Department logo and telltale blue bubble lights. At least, I thought optimistically, this time I wouldn’t be cast adrift on my own.
There were no voices from the garden, or indications of activity. All the doors to the addition that housed the doctors were closed, as were the ones across from it. No one was visible though the French doors that led to the main part of the facility. A pair of ill-tempered blue jays strutted under a wrought-iron table in search of bread crumbs; if I’d been fluent in avian, I would have sent them across the road to a particular persimmon tree. A deputy with a conspicuous case of acne stood next to the pool. I joined him and said, “I’m Chief of Police Arly Hanks. Where’s Sheriff Dorfer?”
The question seemed to perplex him, as if I’d demanded that he explain a quadratic equation or summarize the causes of the Boer War. He was scratching his chin (not a pleasant sight) when McBeen came out of Randall’s office, followed by two assistants in green scrubs wheeling a gurney.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Ya know something?” McBeen said, wheezing like an old coon-hound. “Before you took over as chief of police, the only homicides out this way were either spouses going after each other with kitchen knives or damn fool hunters claiming they’d accidentally shot an in-law. The cause of death was plain as day. I’d tag ’em, bag ’em, and pack ’em off to the morgue for a quick look-see.” He paused to catch his breath and shake his finger at me. “Then you showed up, and all of a sudden, it ain’t safe to set foot in Maggody. Got any theories, missy?”
“Must be all those classified ads I put in newspapers inviting folks to come here to murder each other,” I said, glaring at him. “I mentioned that the coroner was such a buffoon that they had a good chance of getting away with it. Are you planning to tell me what happened anytime soon?”
“Appears to be a suicide.”
“Is that the extent of your preliminary report?”
“Narcotic mixed with booze most likely led to heart failure. Guy’s been dead for ten to twelve hours, give or take. Unofficially, somewhere around midnight.”
“What about the woman whose body was discovered early yesterday morning?”
“Within two hours of midnight, either side. Water in her lungs, consistent with her face being forced down. No alcohol in her blood. We ran tests for the drugs we usually encounter and didn’t come up with anything. The lab in Little Rock will test for a broader spectrum. Now why don’t you go badger the sheriff? He’s waiting for you inside.” McBeen caught up with the gurney and followed it out to the parking area.
My headache had receded, but I still wasn’t at my best and confronting Harve wasn’t going to help. I felt obscurely guilty, although I could hardly have identified the murderer the previous afternoon or stayed up all night with Randall, consoling him on the loss of his soul mate.
I went into Randall’s office. Harve was sitting on the sofa with Stonebridge; neither of them bothered to greet me. Voices and noises from the apartment indicated that it was being searched. The surface of the dark walnut desk had been dusted for fingerprints. Plastic bags, dutifully labeled, held a small liquor bottle, a drinking glass, and a piece of paper ripped out of a notepad.
“Suicide?” I said as I sat down behind the desk.
Stonebridge sighed. “Looks like it. Randall knew the danger of mixing barbiturates with alcohol. God, I don’t know what to do. First Molly, and now Randall. None of this should have happened. This was supposed to be a safe haven for the celebrities, not some kind of—of lethal madhouse. Randall and I invested more than two million dollars to ensure that it would be perfect. How could he do this to me?”
Harve kept a beady eye on me while he lit a cigar. “So what the hell happened yesterday that sent you hightailin’ it up the highway?”
“You’d know if you hadn’t gone fishing,” I said. “I was dumped out here on my own, with nothing to go on. Nobody confessed. I couldn’t interview the staff because of the language barrier. Supposedly yesterday afternoon a deputy came out and took fingerprints so we can run background checks. That takes a couple of days. I couldn’t see any reason to sit around here all weekend and wait.”
“Background checks?” Stonebridge stood up and went over to the bookshelf. After straightening a few volumes, he turned around and said, “Is that necessary? If you’d bothered to mention it to me, I would have gone through the personnel files and given you whatever information you needed.”
“Presuming everyone was candid and forthcoming,” I said. “Oddly enough, some people prefer to forget about prior convictions and outstanding warrants.”
�
��Impossible.” He looked at Harve with that man-to-man, condescending smile that infuriates women (or should, anyway). “Arly seems to have a volatile imagination, doesn’t she, Sheriff? Molly was murdered, yes, but it’s probable that security was breached. And as for poor Randall, well…I feel some sense of responsibility. He was in the middle of a nasty divorce, and the legal bills were suffocating him. He had to struggle to come up with his share of the investment. Initially he was eager to form our partnership, but as his financial problems worsened, he would call me at all hours of the night for reassurance. Had it been feasible, I would have bought him out. If only I’d known he was so depressed.”
“He was upset about Molly,” I said.
Stonebridge seemed bemused by my remark. “He’d only known her for a week or so. It’s more likely he was worried that the news of her death would be leaked to the press and destroy our reputation. We’d have to take a big loss just to get out.”
Harve cleared his throat. “So what’s going to happen with his death?”
“I’m not sure. We both took out life insurance policies and signed the standard documents for this contingency. I don’t think there’s a clause excluding payment in the case of suicide. As long as there isn’t, then I receive the benefit and will use it to buy out Mrs. Zumi’s interest.”
“So you’ll be the sole owner?” I asked.
“That doesn’t mean I’m pleased about the prospect. Randall was able to acquire our license because he was certified by the state and had some friendly contacts on the board. I have no idea what our legal status will be after his death is reported. Furthermore, it’s vital that we have an experienced psychiatrist on the staff if we’re to remain an acceptable option in court-mandated psych evaluations and treatment programs.” He sat down in the chair across from me and crossed his legs. “I don’t suppose I can convince you to go undercover as a shrink, can I?”