by Joan Hess
“I can’t do that. Doctor-patient confidentiality and all that bullshit. Would you like a drink? I think I have another bottle of this very fine brandy in my apartment. We can put on a CD and enjoy some music, get to know each other better. You’re not a bad-looking woman, although you could use some work around your eyes. As the muscles age, they lose their elasticity. Maybe a couple of inches off your waist. Your boobs are nice and plump, though. I’ll bet they’re real firm.”
I waited until I could trust myself, then said, “Give me the key.”
“Oh, all right, if you insist.” He battled with the top drawer and finally managed to open it. He tossed a key ring onto the desk and watched as it slid across the surface and over the edge. “Oops,” he said with a giggle.
I picked up the key ring and left before he offered further assessment of my body. The reception desk was manned by a different orderly, one I hadn’t spoken to. I veered behind him and unlocked the door to the office. I was worried that he might rush off to find Brenda, but if he was perturbed, he was doing a fine job of hiding it. I tried several keys until I found the one that opened the drawer marked “Records: Confidential.” The printing was precise; I had no doubt Brenda had wielded the pen. I pulled out all four of the patients’ files. Rather than risk having her catch me, I took them down the hall to Alexandra’s suite and quietly closed the door behind me. I put the files on the coffee table and found Dawn’s.
Ruby Bee’s recollections were fairly accurate. Dawn (née Janine Louise Dartsmercher) was born in Stubbutt, Arkansas, had become a child star in a popular sitcom, and later descended to Hollywood’s B-list (or C-list, if there was one). The records that had been sent by her L.A. physician made no reference to any kind of potential health problems beyond dependency on alcohol and recreational drugs. I had no idea why Ruby Bee had come up with heart disease.
I read through the rest of the file. Dawn’s sister Sunny had been diagnosed with depression and schizophrenia ten years ago, and died in a hospital. Randall saw this as a significant factor in Dawn’s alcoholism, along with her hatred of her mother and fantasies of sexual abuse. One very screwed-up kid, I thought.
Somewhere in the hall a door opened. I held my breath as footsteps passed in front of Alexandra’s suite, paused, and then continued. My reaction was ludicrous, since I had every right to be in the building until the murder was solved—but if it had been midnight and I’d been reading by flickering candlelight, I would have screeched like an owl.
Once I’d come to my senses, I read through the other three files. Randall was concerned about Toby’s temperamental outbursts and was contemplating additional medications. Walter was worried that Toby was going to take a swing at him. Stonebridge had convinced Dr. Dibbins to sign consent forms for various surgeries that would suck, tuck, and tighten his torso as his weight dropped. Later, Stonebridge would get to work on the face. Unfortunately, none of the procedures would diminish his ego. Alexandra Swayze had been cooperative and seemingly willing to go along with her treatment. She’d signed a form for a face-lift and a chin job. Randall was still trying to persuade her to acknowledge her addiction to prescription pills. All of them were subjected to a myriad of medications, as well as Brenda’s vitamins, supplements, and mysterious elixirs. Dibbins and Dawn were on restricted diets, while Alexandra and Toby were swilling protein shakes in addition to their meals.
I set aside the files and leaned back on the comfy cushions. The information about Dawn Dartmouth’s roots was interesting, but not relevant. Stubbutt was at the bottom of the state, at least a seven-hour drive from Maggody. Arkansas’s population was less than three million, and more often than not, the fabled six degrees of separation could be whittled down to three, sometimes two. Her lawyer had recommended the Stonebridge Foundation, perhaps pocketing a fee, so her return to Arkansas was liable to be a coincidence.
Another coincidence came to mind. I took the files back to the office and replaced them in the proper drawer. The orderly was hunched over a paperback book, the epitome of see no evil, hear no evil, tattle no evil. It would have been futile to ask him about Brenda’s whereabouts, so I went down the hall to her office.
The door was not locked. As I entered, she looked up from her precious clipboard, which was meticulously centered on her desktop, and said, “You’re back, I see. I don’t suppose you found…?”
“Still looking. She was seen two hours ago, skulking across a pasture. How did all of you miss her increasing paranoia? She must have been terrified about this impending diabolical chip implant.”
“She’s a politician,” Brenda retorted hotly, “so you can’t blame us. They have coaches who teach them how to lie. If it was in her party’s best interest, she’d look you straight in the eye and swear that Canadians are poised to invade this country. She’d claim that the Challenger was shot down by Chinese missiles and that earthquakes in California are caused by secular humanists opening vineyards in Napa Valley. Politicians have neither consciences nor souls, Chief Hanks. Most of them are borderline sociopaths.”
I willed myself not to mention certain transgressions in her past. “Let me ask you something else. Did Randall bring those undersized bottles of gin with him from Little Rock? They’re not exactly cost-efficient or convenient. On airplanes they’re four or five dollars a pop. You can buy a fifth for the price of a handful of them.”
“Randall told me that he rarely drank anything but wine. He was so tense once the patients arrived that I suggested he have a cocktail in the evening. He’d developed a taste for gin and grapefruit juice in his student days, he admitted after some prompting. I assured him that the additional vitamin C would cancel out the deleterious effects of the alcohol.”
“So you gave him the gin?”
Brenda’s face flushed. “Yes, it so happens that I did give him half a dozen bottles. He must have decided the gin and grapefruit juice would cover the bitter taste of whichever pills he chose to end his life. I should have sensed how stressed and despondent he was. I do not take responsibility for his suicide, however. He was a weak man who never once stood up to his wife and her family.” She produced a tissue from a drawer and dabbed her eyes. “Vincent has his weaknesses, too. He could have made a fortune in L.A. if he’d practiced his craft more prudently, but he ran patients through his surgery as if they were body parts on an assembly line. The richer the patient, the higher his fee. It was no wonder he couldn’t follow up on them.” She stopped long enough to blow her nose. “Do you want to know the real reason why he lost his license to practice in California?”
“Sure,” I said. She was sounding as though she’d dipped into one of the patient’s paper pill cups. I sat down across from her and waited.
She licked her lips. “This has to stay between the two of us. Vincent did a few procedures on the trophy wife of one of the state board members—professional courtesy, as it’s called. Well, not only did he enhance her lips and shoot her up with Botox, he also became sexually involved with her. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen often, but in this case, Vincent underestimated his colleague’s outrage and his appetite for revenge.”
“How do you know all that?” I asked.
“I heard the gossip when I attended a seminar where Vincent spoke about psychological problems that could arise after cosmetic surgery. Not that he cared, of course, but he received a speaker’s fee and the seminar was held in Las Vegas. Later I stopped him in the hall to ask a question about a topic in his lecture, and he ended up offering me this job. He met Molly in Las Vegas, too, at an AMA convention. I wonder how long it took for the two of them to end up in his penthouse. An hour?”
“They were sleeping together before the Stonebridge Foundation opened?”
Her laugh was harsh. “They celebrated the opening on the eve of the patients’ arrival. I could hear them in his office, groaning like animals.”
“He didn’t seem very upset about her death,” I said.
“Why would he? She was a plaything, a d
oll with all the anatomically correct equipment. Curly blond hair and big blue eyes, an innocent country girl who could keep him amused out here in the boonies. I’d be surprised if Vince has ever had any kind of relationship with a mature woman with original ideas. Molly Foss could barely offer her opinion about the weather. Oh, I’m sure she was an enthusiastic partner in bed, but what were they going to talk about afterward—bowling?”
“I couldn’t say. You said you gave half a dozen bottles of gin to Randall. Why did you have them?”
Brenda’s flush deepened into mottled red patches. “It was unprofessional of me, but I didn’t think it would cause any problems. As each patient arrived, a maid came to the suite to unpack. I was there to supervise, and confiscate the contraband. I disposed of the drugs in the sink in the storage room of the surgical suite. Dr. Dibbins was craftier than the others, but no more successful. One of his suitcases had a false bottom where he’d hidden all manner of high-calorie foodstuffs. He’d also brought more than twenty small bottles of gin. Rather than waste my time emptying each of them, I set some aside for Randall and put the rest of Dibbins’s treasure trove in a box. That evening, I set the box out with the garbage behind the kitchen.”
“I guess the patients didn’t appreciate your thoroughness,” I said.
“They could hardly protest, could they? Each of them knew precisely why he or she was coming here. There was one thing that did not reflect well on me. A maid found a bottle of some kind of whiskey in Toby’s bathroom. I was quite sure I hadn’t missed so much as a pill or tablet.”
“Molly Foss must have smuggled it in for him. She seemed to have been doing little favors for all the patients, as long as they had the means to reward her.”
“That slut,” Brenda growled. “I didn’t trust her the moment I first found her in the reception room, simpering about how thrilled she was to have the job. Vincent must have given her some idea of what we were intending to do here. For all I know, he told her who the patients would be. The conniving bitch may have been dull-witted, but she could see the potential for making a small fortune by taking advantage of these pathetic addicts—all of whom are very rich.”
“Are you sure you didn’t see Molly after you left the reception room Thursday evening?” I asked delicately. “Perhaps she came here to talk to you before she went to the garden, or something like that?”
“She wouldn’t have dared come crying to me with her problems,” said Brenda, her voice dripping with venom. “It’s a lot more likely she found a way to sneak into Vincent’s bedroom. As I said, it wouldn’t have been the first time.”
“But he wouldn’t have killed her, if she was just a plaything.”
“Maybe the sex got too rough. Vincent wouldn’t have intentionally suffocated her, but if he got too carried away…. Once he realized what he’d done, he took her body out to the garden and left it there.”
I considered her scenario. “What about the orderly who was sweeping around the pool and cleaning the furniture? He would have noticed.”
Brenda curled her mouth into a smile that was downright sinister. “All Vince had to do was wait until the orderly went inside for a minute. The garden’s only twenty feet from his door. It wouldn’t have taken him ten seconds to carry her across the grass and onto a path.” Her smile disappeared as she realized what she’d said. “Not that I believe it for a second. Vince likes to think he’s a roguish Don Juan with the ladies, but he’s a realist. His profits are more important to him than his penis. All of his financial assets are tied up in this venture; if it fails, he may end up doing discount face-lifts in a grimy clinic in Tijuana. No, Chief Hanks, I’m quite sure Vincent had nothing to do with this recent unpleasantness. It would be best if you determine that one of the employees is guilty and have him deported. Let the authorities down there deal with him.”
It would have made for a tidy resolution if it were true, I thought as I went outside. But if I couldn’t buy it, I sure as hell couldn’t sell it to Harve or the county prosecutor.
Kevin took his break out on the loading platform. It was peaceful, with nuthin’ but sparrows hopping around the Dumpster. His head ached something awful, partly on account of the whiskey Jim Bob had forced on him, but mostly from the tongue-lashing Dahlia had given him when he got home and she smelled his breath. What was even more humiliating was the way she’d grabbed the broom and chased him all the way down the road past Raz’s shack. His luck being so bad, Raz and Marjorie had been sitting on the glider on the porch. He could still hear Raz’s cackles ringin’ in his ears—unless it was from getting whacked upside the head with the broom.
He’d slept on the porch, and there’d been no hope of getting any breakfast, so he’d made do with a Twinkie and a soda pop when he got to the supermarket. Lunch had been a greasy tamale from the deli. Now his insides was bubbling away like a kettle of lye soap. On top of everything else, Jim Bob had hunted him down a while back to remind him about the poker game that evening. If he told Dahlia, he figured he might as well move his clothes and toothbrush down to his pa’s barn for the rest of the summer.
He started sniffling as he thought about his ma. There she was gallivanting around Wyoming, of all places. He couldn’t imagine what she could be doing. He knew that his pa, Dahlia, and hisself was responsible for her running away like she did, and when she came back, he’d see to it that all three of them got down on their knees and said they was sorry. But they couldn’t till she came home, and he weren’t all that sure she ever would.
He looked up as a car parked at the bottom of the steps. Mrs. Jim Bob lowered the window and said, “Where’s Jim Bob?”
“I dunno. He was here this morning, but his truck ain’t here now, so I reckon he’s not neither.”
“Do you think I’m blind?”
Kevin scratched his head. “No, ma’am, ’cause you shouldn’t be driving if you are. It’d be real dangerous. You might run into a tree and mess up your pretty car.”
Mrs. Jim Bob pinched her lips together for a few seconds. “Where is Jim Bob? I need to speak to him right away.”
“He must have gone somewhere,” Kevin said, always eager to be helpful to the boss’s wife.
“Did he say anything about where he was going?”
“Not to me, Mrs. Jim Bob. He jest thumped me on the back and told me not to be late to the poker game tonight. I was sittin’ here tryin’ to decide if I ought to—”
“He didn’t mention the Pot O’ Gold or maybe Farberville?”
“No, he jest thumped me on the back and—”
“Tell him to call home the minute he drags his sorry self back here.” Mrs. Jim Bob glared as the window rose, then backed up and drove away.
“You kin tell himself yourself at the poker game at the antiques shop,” Kevin called as her brake lights flashed. He got up and went back inside, still wondering what to tell Dahlia so’s not to set her off again.
Alexandra Swayze, who was crouched behind the Dumpster, resumed nibbling on a bruised apple. Many a poker game had been played in the Senate building late at night, but the participants were graduates of Ivy League schools. She’d seen enough of Maggody to suspect that only a fraction of the residents had made it through high school. That was the fundamental flaw of a democracy, allowing the uneducated and the ignorant to cast ballots beside those who were better equipped to make decisions about the complexities of the twentieth century. Or the twenty-first. It was so easy to lose track of time when one was heavily drugged. After the revolution, she would disenfranchise voters whom she deemed unworthy. If they objected, then off with their heads! Vive le révolution! Tout est juste dans l’amour et la guerre!
Alexandra had not gone to an Ivy League school, but she had done extremely well in a boarding school in Switzerland. Her accent was impeccable, or so she’d been told.
I decided to give Dr. Dibbins one more chance before I hog-tied him in his bed and tortured him with Barry Manilow songs. I could hear the pleas of a delirious diva long befor
e I reached his room. He was seated on his sofa, his head back and his lips slack, as though he could taste the music. He did not greet me warmly as I came into the suite.
“Ah, the avenging angel with the hayseed in her hair,” he muttered as he clicked the remote control to turn off the CD player. “Your encroachments on my privacy have begun to annoy me. Your only flair, my dear, is in your nostrils. Please go pester someone who is witless enough to enjoy your company. It may take a long while, but I’m sure you can do it long before hell is completely frozen over.”
I picked up a plastic CD case and read the title. “Cosi fan tutte, by some fellow named Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Is it any good? Fiddles and banjos and a washboard? There’s nothing I likes better than some good ol’-fashioned music. Lemme get it out of the case so’s we can play it.”
“Put that down, you infidel!” he thundered.
“Would you druther I borrowed it from you? I’ll take real good care of it, unless’n my blue tick hounds get ahold of it.”
Dr. Dibbins began to wheeze. “Just put down the CD and step away.”
I dangled it in front of him. “I will—as soon as we’ve had a little chat. Otherwise, you can kiss your tutti-frutti CD good-bye.” I hung on to it as I sat down on the easy chair. “So, do you speak Spanish?”
“Of course not. It is the language of dusty peons and petty dictators in ill-fitting uniforms adorned with medals stolen from corpses. I speak adequate French and exquisite Italian. Does that satisfy your curiosity? Would you like my shoe size or preference in toothpaste? No, wait, you want the name and address of my editor. All small minds aspire to write great novels. Luckily, very few of them can type. Are you a thwarted Anaïs Nin or Maya Angelou? Gertrude Stein? Or better yet, Mary Shelley?”
“Don’t push your luck,” I said. “I can make it all the way to my car before you can make it to your feet, Dr. Dibbins, and I’ll be taking this”—I flapped the CD at him—“when I go. Will you swear on Wolfgang here that you don’t speak Spanish?”