Unnatural Causes

by Dawn Eastman

  Katie shrugged. “I wasn’t thinking about him so much as the murder. I felt like I had to look at everything. You don’t avoid checking for cancer just because you really like the patient and don’t want to give them bad news.”

  “I guess that’s true.” Gabrielle drummed her fingers on the table. “You didn’t really think he could be the killer did you?”

  “No, not really. But it’s not like I know him that well . . .”

  “This is ridiculous,” Gabrielle said. “You need to figure this thing out so you can go back to your life without suspecting everyone you meet.”

  “You’re right.” Katie sipped her coffee.

  “What do you know so far?”

  Katie rubbed her forehead and tried to put everything in reasonable order in her mind. “Ellen took, or was given, some diazepam—but not enough to kill her. She was injected with a high dose of Demerol, which was enough to kill her. On the night in question, Christopher may or may not have been seen at the house. Someone was there, but he was seen from a distance and was wearing a sweat shirt with the hood pulled up. Ellen had some clients who may have shared secrets, and she was in possession of a notebook that had been used for blackmail. Also, there were rumors she was having an affair with Nick, which puts the wife on the list of suspects. Because even if it wasn’t true, if Cecily thought it was true, that’s all that matters.”

  “This is complicated,” Gabrielle said.

  “And I haven’t even mentioned the secondary suspects—the ones that I don’t really suspect, but I have them on the list just to be thorough.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to start pushing for some answers. I’ll start by bullying a little old lady.”

  * * *

  After lunch, Katie drove to Ellen’s house and inspected the homes on either side. Mrs. Peabody had said Miss Simms’s house was on the far side of the Rileys’ driveway. A light-blue bungalow was nestled among trees, bushes, and an exuberant display of mums in every color on that side of the Riley’s place. There were two white wicker chairs on the small porch and white lace curtains hanging in the front windows.

  Katie figured this was the place. She parked in the street and walked up the paved pathway to the front porch.

  She knocked on the door and waited. She glanced across the street and saw the curtain twitch in Patsy Travers’s window.

  Shuffling and bumping noises floated out from inside the house.

  “Who is it?”

  Katie recognized Mrs. Peabody’s crisp voice from the other side of the door. It seemed she would have to deal with both of them.

  “It’s Dr. LeClair,” Katie said. “May I come in?”

  The door swung open, and both ladies stood there looking delighted.

  “Dr. LeClair, I’m so glad you stopped by. We were just about to have some tea and cake,” Miss Simms said. She took Katie by the hand and pulled her through the house to the kitchen.

  “Betty, let Dr. LeClair tell us why she’s here,” Mrs. Peabody said.

  “Of course,” Miss Simms said. “Just let me get her a cup.”

  Mrs. Peabody shook her head at Katie. Katie took it to mean that she would have to go along with the tea party to get a word in.

  Katie sat and thanked Miss Simms for the tea.

  Miss Simms bustled about, put a plate with a slice of carrot cake on it in front of Katie, and poured tea from a beautiful silver teapot.

  Miss Simms sat after Mrs. Peabody assured her that everyone had everything they needed.

  “Now what brings you here, Doctor?” Miss Simms sipped her tea.

  Katie had been rapidly reworking her strategy. She berated herself for not planning that Mrs. Peabody would be there as well. The best way forward might be to just tell them the truth.

  “I’m glad you’re here as well, Mrs. Peabody. I wanted to talk to you both about our last visit at the clinic.”

  “Are Betty’s labs back? Is it bad news?” Mrs. Peabody set her cup down gently and seemed to steel herself for a physical attack.

  “No, I didn’t take any labs. This isn’t about your health. You’re both as healthy as ever.”

  Miss Simms and Mrs. Peabody sighed, and Mrs. Peabody patted Miss Simms’s hand.

  Katie looked at them and held each woman’s gaze.

  “You each told me something last time I saw you, and I want to be sure it’s okay to discuss it with both of you. You may remember we discussed Ellen Riley?”

  Miss Simms looked away from Katie toward her kitchen window. Mrs. Peabody studied her cake.

  “Can I discuss it with both of you?”

  Miss Simms turned back to Katie and nodded. “I shouldn’t have kept it from Mrs. Peabody anyway.”

  Mrs. Peabody looked at her friend in surprise. “Kept what from me?”

  “Is it okay with you as well, Mrs. Peabody?”

  She looked back at Katie and flapped her hand. “Yes, yes, okay.”

  Katie took a deep breath.

  She turned to Miss Simms. “You mentioned that the Rileys had been fighting in the last few weeks and that it was unusual for them.”

  Miss Simms nodded and stole a glance at Mrs. Peabody.

  Katie looked at Mrs. Peabody. “You mentioned that you saw someone enter the house that evening wearing a hoodie and sweat pants.”

  Miss Simms put her hand to her mouth.

  “Can you see how the two of you have some very important information that you should share with the police?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Miss Simms gasped at Mrs. Peabody.

  “I had no idea you were hiding this!” Mrs. Peabody snapped back.

  Both women fell silent, not looking at each other. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, Miss Simms turned to Katie.

  “Would you like more tea, dear?”

  Katie took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, ladies, but I don’t have time for hurt feelings here. I need to know what you saw or heard in the past few weeks. My partner is in trouble, and I don’t think he had anything to do with Ellen’s death.”

  “Emmett? He wouldn’t hurt anyone,” Mrs. Peabody said. “Not ever.” She crossed her arms, and her look dared Katie to contradict her.

  “Not Emmett. Nick,” Katie said.

  The two friends exchanged a glance.

  “Oh, well, Nick Hawkins . . .” Miss Simms drifted off. She sipped her tea and looked out the window again.

  “What does that mean?” When Katie couldn’t get Miss Simms to look at her, she appealed to Mrs. Peabody.

  “She just means that Emmett’s boy hasn’t been the same since his motorcycle accident. He used to be such a delightful person, and now he’s moody and sometimes downright unfriendly.”

  Katie had only known Nick after his accident, and she had a hard time imagining him as “delightful.”

  “But you can’t think that he had anything to do with Ellen Riley’s death?”

  Miss Simms set her teacup gently in the saucer. “We’ve both seen him going in to the house at odd times of day.” She looked to Mrs. Peabody, who nodded. “We know there are rumors that they were having an affair, which I find very hard to believe. We thought Ellen and Christopher were very happy. I don’t know about Nick and Cecily. They used to be happy, but Cecily has withdrawn from most of her activities in the last year or so. It’s difficult to say what might be happening. And we don’t like to gossip.”

  Katie swallowed the snort of laughter at that last comment and made herself cough.

  Mrs. Peabody stood and whacked her on the back several times, which only made things worse. Katie held up a hand.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Just had a sudden tickle in my throat.”

  Mrs. Peabody sat down.

  “On another subject,” Katie said. “I was wondering what you might remember about Christopher’s parents, Jack and Sylvia.”

  Miss Simms shook her head. “I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, Dr. LeClair.”

  M
rs. Peabody leaned forward. “I don’t mind. She was awful!”

  “What?” Mrs. Peabody reacted to the shocked look her friend gave her. “She was nosy, and pushy, and was horrible to Jack the whole time they were married.”

  “Really?” Katie asked. She hadn’t heard this part from Patsy.

  Miss Simms reluctantly nodded. “She used to find out things and then use them to get people to do what she wanted.”

  “Blackmail?” Katie knew the answer but didn’t want to stop the ladies from sharing anything they knew.

  “I don’t think she ever asked for money.” Miss Simms moved the cake crumbs around her plate. “It was more that she would try to influence things.”

  Mrs. Peabody took over the story. “If she was running for school board president, she might look into any gossip she could find on her opponent and convince them to drop out.”

  Miss Simms said. “I think Christopher got into some typical teenage trouble—drinking and reckless driving—and she was always able to get him out of it. The chief of police at the time must have had a few skeletons in his closet.”

  Katie had surmised all this from reading the notebook Beth had given her. She was more interested in what they could share about the photo Ellen had or the family tree she had drawn.

  “What do you know about the Rileys and the Talbots?”

  The ladies looked at each other, and Miss Simms nodded at Mrs. Peabody.

  “They were very close friends, all of them.” Mrs. Peabody studied her cup and saucer. “I hate to drag up old rumors.”

  “Please, Mrs. Peabody,” Katie said. “I think it could be very important.”

  Mrs. Peabody sighed. “There was some tittle-tattle that Jack Riley and Lily Talbot were closer than they should have been. Jack always took a special interest in Lily’s girl, Marilyn. If you’d seen her and Christopher when they were children, you would have sworn they were related.”

  “Do you mean Marilyn Swanson?” Katie leaned forward.

  “Yes, dear,” Miss Simms said. “She was a lovely girl. And so bright. It’s a shame, really, that she never finished nursing school.”

  Katie sat back in her chair. This was what she’d suspected from all the genetics research that Ellen had been doing. But she hadn’t made the connection to Marilyn. Gossip and notes on genotypes didn’t prove anything, but it gave Katie a few ideas.

  The mention of Marilyn reminded Katie of her initial reason for stopping by.

  “Do either of you remember anything about Noah Swanson?”

  “My goodness, Dr. LeClair,” Miss Simms said. “You are bringing up all the old stories.”

  Miss Simms hesitated and a look passed between the two older ladies.

  “Noah was always trouble. From the time he was in kindergarten, we knew he had a temper,” said Miss Simms.

  “I know people tried to talk Marilyn out of marrying him, but she was determined. I felt terrible when stories of ER visits and injuries made the rounds,” Mrs. Peabody said.

  “And then he just up and left,” Miss Simms said. “Marilyn had to raise both of those boys on her own.”

  “I don’t know the other Swanson son,” Katie said.

  Mrs. Peabody shook her head and smiled. “Noah was so awful that the younger son took Marilyn’s maiden name. Todd Talbot is her youngest.”

  “Oh,” Katie said. Marilyn had been married to an abusive man. Eric Swanson was her son and so was Todd Talbot. This was one of those moments when Katie most felt her outsider status. Probably everyone in town knew that Marilyn had two sons and that one of them had changed his name to Talbot. This explained Marilyn’s world-weary manner; she’d been through a lot in her life. But what did it have to do with Ellen?

  She turned to Miss Simms. “Let’s get back to Ellen and Christopher. You’re sure they were arguing more in the past few weeks?”

  She nodded. “Definitely. I had never heard either one of them raise a voice to the other before.”

  “And you couldn’t tell what they were arguing about?”

  Miss Simms shook her head and crossed her arms.

  Katie waited.

  Miss Simms sighed and put her hands in her lap. “Only once, when they were in their backyard, I heard Ellen tell him that it was the right thing to do. Christopher said he would think about it, but it was ancient history, and he didn’t want to dredge up the past and disrupt everyone’s lives.”

  “Do you know what they were talking about?”

  Both women shook their heads.

  “Thank you both for telling me all of this,” Katie said.

  “We’re happy to help you, dear,” Miss Simms said, “but I do hope you’ll be careful with the information. People don’t always like to talk about the past.”

  27

  Fifteen minutes later, Katie sat on the bench in the garden by the hospital. She’d asked Beth to meet her. Beth had beat here there and looked worried.

  “What did you find out?” Beth asked.

  “I don’t have any proof, but I’m starting to think maybe Christopher did have something to do with your mom’s death.”

  Beth shook her head. “I don’t know, Dr. LeClair. I think he was really in love with her. They were very happy together.”

  “A friend said something interesting to me the other day,” Katie said. “He told me to follow the money. At first I thought it meant to figure out who benefits, and that still may be the case. But what if this whole thing revolves around money?”

  Beth nodded. “Okay.”

  “One person in this situation with a lot of money is Christopher. What if your mom found out something that threatened his business?”

  “Like what?”

  “I’m starting to suspect that your mom thought Christopher had a sister. She had a copy of Jack Riley’s will scanned into her computer. I didn’t think much of it at first, but the wording was unusual. He didn’t leave his business to Christopher by name. He left it to ‘any surviving children or grandchildren.’”

  “Isn’t that pretty standard? You want to protect unborn children in case you don’t get around to making another will?”

  Katie nodded. “But this will was dated twenty years ago, when Christopher was in his thirties. I doubt Jack Riley thought he’d have any more children at that point.”

  “I suppose that’s a little strange, but is it worth killing my mother over?” Beth asked.

  “I think the research she was doing about the color-blindness was because she suspected that Jack Riley had had an affair, and there was another child of his out there.”

  Beth’s eyebrows rose. “That would cause some trouble.”

  “Yes, it would. I think that your mom confronted him, and he either didn’t believe her or had always known and had covered it up. But if anyone started demanding DNA tests, he could lose at least half of his business.”

  “But Sylvia Riley only died two years ago. There wasn’t any mention of another child in that will.”

  “Maybe she didn’t know.”

  Beth gave Katie a skeptical look. “More likely she knew and wanted the secret to die with her.”

  “Did you know her?”

  “I only met her once, and that was enough. She made me nervous, like she was judging every word and gesture.”

  “I’ve heard she could be . . . difficult.”

  “That’s probably not a secret she’d write in her book. Do you know who the other child is?”

  “I have an idea,” Katie said. “Apparently, Jack Riley was color-blind.”

  “Oh, like Todd,” Beth said.

  Katie nodded. “It’s an X-linked trait. The mother can pass it on to her children if she carries the gene. Even if she herself is not color-blind.” Katie waited for her to make the connection.

  “You think that Todd’s mother is really Jack Riley’s daughter?”

  “It’s a possibility.”

  “So that would mean Todd is his grandchild. And he should have inherited some of the business.” />
  “Yes, if it’s true.”

  “You think Christopher killed her to cover up the fact that Jack Riley may have had more heirs?”

  Katie leaned back against the bench and looked up at the trees. “This is all supposition. But your mother was researching color-blind genetics and had some articles on Christopher’s parents and the Talbots.”

  “Wow. If it’s true, not only will Christopher lose some of the business, but so will Dan. I’d be more inclined to think Dan did it.”

  “Maybe, but he wasn’t in town that evening as far as we know.”

  “Right. But Christopher was out of town too.”

  “That’s what he says . . .”

  “I don’t like any of this, Dr. LeClair,” Beth said. “I feel like everyone I know is a suspect. I’m not sure who to trust.”

  “I agree.”

  “I think we’re going to need more than a few old newspaper articles and web searches to convince Chief Carlson to look at Christopher. They’ve been friends since elementary school.”

  “You’re right,” Katie said. “Let me do some digging on my own. Maybe I can get us some proof that we can take to the chief. But in the meantime, you should turn this in to the police.” Katie handed the laptop to Beth.

  Beth hugged it to herself and shivered. “I don’t even want to think that Christopher did this.”

  28

  The next morning, Katie woke with the urgent need to follow up on every clue immediately or at least pick up where she’d left off the night before when she had passed out at her computer. She ate some toast, packed a thermos of coffee, and left a note for Caleb.

  She decided to walk to the clinic. The golden light of autumn on the changing leaves was too beautiful to rush past. The streets were deserted, as the residents were either sleeping in or at church. Postchurch activities like gardening, biking, walking, and entertaining children wouldn’t start for another several hours, so she saw no one for several blocks. Mist still hung in the air and shrouded everything in a smudged pastel watercolor fog. The cooler fall sunshine was just beginning to burn off some of the haze and made the air itself sparkle.

  Katie reached the back door of the clinic, fumbling with her coffee and her keys to unlock it. She quickly entered the security code on the panel, relocked the door, and went to her office. She put her jacket on the back of her chair and set the coffee mug on her desk. A twinge of paranoia had her deciding to make a quick run through the clinic to be certain she was alone.