He gave Vicky a brief kiss on the cheek and took off. Vicky stood up and took a step after him. “Willis—”
She stopped, got a look of irritation on her face, and then shrugged.
“I’ll run you home,” Carl said.
“I can walk. I like to walk. I do a lot of it.”
Hidden meaning in Vicky’s words? Stop it, Ellen told herself. Overworked imagination. If Vicky knew anything, she’d come right out and spill it to the cops. Except, she might protect Willis. He wouldn’t have killed Dorothy. Of all of them, he was the most devastated.
Ellen felt suddenly boneless-tired. Her world had turned upside down. One member in this family of loved ones was trying to frame her for murder. She knew it, and she didn’t want it to be. Not Willis. Not Carl. Not Marlitta. Ellen glanced at Marlitta. She looked lost and bewildered. Maybe that’s how I look too. We’re all lost and bewildered without Dorothy here to tell us what to do.
“We might as well go home,” Carl said. “The gathering of the family is now over.”
Marlitta got to her feet and plodded to the door like an old woman. Brent finished his drink and followed. Carl offered again to give Vicky a ride. She hesitated. Vicky afraid of Carl? No. Nobody could be afraid of Carl. Then she smiled prettily and accepted.
After everybody left, Ellen put the liquor away in the cabinet and stashed the cart in the closet. She was gathering up dirty glasses to bring to the kitchen when she heard the back door close.
Dashing to the window, she was just in time to see Taylor drive off. Where was he going? Why hadn’t he told her he was leaving? Don’t be stupid. No reason he had to tell her anything. And even though it felt like midnight, it was only nine o’clock.
Overly neurotic. Take a nice long shower and get yourself to bed. She stashed glasses in the dishwasher, trudged up to her bedroom, sat on the window seat, looked out at the garden, and listened to the locusts. Hey, could be worse, right? At least it’s stopped raining. Was Vicky trying to say something tonight? Bloody hell. I don’t know. I don’t know anything.
She got in the shower and stood under hot water hoping the steam would boil up a useful thought.
The phone rang. She started to jump out, then decided to ignore it. It rang and rang and rang. Grumbling, she turned off the water, grabbed a towel, and blotted at her legs as she hurried to answer. Whoever it was would probably hang up before she got there. The nearest phone was Dorothy’s office.
She snatched the receiver, slightly breathless, slightly irritated, “Hello.”
“It’s Vicky.”
Loud music in the background. Ellen couldn’t hear.
“Can you come over?”
“Now? I was just getting ready for bed.” A click and the dial tone. Ellen grimaced and started to call back. Whatever it was could wait until tomorrow. She stood there a tick, dripping water on Dorothy’s Persian carpet. Something odd about the phone call, but she couldn’t figure what.
She tugged on a clean pair of jeans and a blue tank top and peered around for her beige sandals. One was at the foot of the bed, the other beneath the rocker. She slid her feet into them and ran the brush through her wet hair. From her purse, she dug out car keys.
Six blocks away, she pulled into the driveway, then realized the garage door was open and one of the cars was gone. Willis wasn’t home yet. She backed out, so he could get in the garage when he got here, and parked in front. Crickets sang in the shrubbery, the air was warm and velvet-soft against her bare arms, billions of stars glittered in a black sky.
She trotted up the steps and rapped on the door. Music blared at high volume inside. She rapped harder.
How could anybody hear anything? She slapped down the steps and around to the rear. Vicky had called. The least she could do was answer a knock. Light from the kitchen window spilled a large rectangle on the lawn.
She pounded on the door, waited a few seconds, and tried the knob. It turned under her hand. She pushed it open and stepped in. “Vicky?” She squinted in the light.
Jesus, why did she have the music so loud?
“Vicky? Where are you?”
She went through the dining room and peered into the dim living room. Vicky was slumped on the couch. She wasn’t moving. She didn’t look so good.
20
“VICKY? WHAT’S WRONG? Why are you sitting in the dark?” Beethoven blared in her ears. Bad smell. She groped along the wall for the switch that turned on the recessed ceiling lights.
“Vicky, for heaven’s sake, what’s so important it couldn’t wait till morning?”
She hit the switch and got more light. “Oh, my God.” Her heart crashed around in her throat. The light lit up Vicky’s face. It was blue. Blue isn’t a good color for a face. Clashed horribly with her blue dress. She’d vomited. On the floor. On the couch. All down her dress.
Ellen gagged and clapped a hand to her mouth. Do something. She couldn’t make her legs work, couldn’t take her eyes from that ugly blue face, eyes half-open, staring. Vicky was beautiful. She couldn’t look like this.
Beethoven swelled. Music to die by. A high, keening wail forced its way through her throat. She clamped her teeth and backed away. Abruptly, she turned, moved numbly to the stereo, and snapped it off. The silence was heavy, thick. Then little sounds came creeping in: the hum of the refrigerator, the ponderous tick of the mantel clock, a car driving by. Her ears made tick-tick-tick sounds like cooling metal.
I have to call— Ambulance. Police. Carl. I’ll call Carl. He’ll know what to do. Phone. In the kitchen. If she concentrated very hard, she could make her feet move. Yes, she could. Oh, God, Vicky. Poor Vicky.
Hauling in quick gulps of air, she made it to the kitchen and reached for the phone. She couldn’t dredge up Carl’s number. Fingers icy cold, she punched 911.
“Vicky— She’s—”
“Can you tell me what the problem is?”
“I’m afraid she’s— She doesn’t seem to be breathing.”
Despite the calm voice telling her to stay on the line, she hung up and called Carl. This time his number came out with no difficulty.
“Carl, Vicky’s dead. On the couch. I just came over—and found her—all slumped—and her face—” She slid to the floor, back against the cabinet, and clasped her hands around her legs.
* * *
At eleven-thirty at night, the streets were bare of traffic, the houses dark. A soft wind trailed gauzy wisps of clouds across an almost full moon and plucked at Susan’s hair through the open window of the pickup. She made a quick left onto Longhorn Drive and pulled up beside a squad car, overheads still flashing. An ambulance was parked next to it, empty and waiting. A handful of neighbors, in pajamas and robes, stood watching from front yards and open doorways.
Susan slid from the pickup, tucked her gray blouse more tightly into her gray pants, and nodded to Officer Yancy, standing at the door. In the entryway, two paramedics lounged against the wall waiting to be summoned. She went through into the living room and paused to take in a sense of the scene.
Dr. Fisher stood by the body while Osey took photographs. They both looked up at her and then went on with their business. Vicky’s immaculate living room seemed defiled by the presence of the body and the pools of vomit on the Oriental rug and the pearl-gray couch.
Vicky had slumped over onto her left shoulder, left side of her face resting on the couch, left arm beneath her, right arm dangling to the floor, fingers loosely curled. She wore a simple blue cotton dress with a flared skirt and high-heeled sandals. Her perfect oval face was a cyanotic blue. Her shiny chestnut hair picked up highlights from the recessed ceiling fixtures. A mug of what looked like hot chocolate sat on the glass-topped table by the couch.
Susan stood out of the way and make a crude sketch of the room. Parkhurst, face impassive, came to stand next to her.
“Anything outside?” she asked.
He shoved his hands into the back pockets of his black denim pants. As good a way as any to keep from t
ouching anything until Osey had done all he could in the way of collecting evidence.
“Not yet. I’ve got Demarco and White canvassing.”
Dr. Fisher straightened and stripped latex gloves from his hands, delicate, long-fingered hands that didn’t fit with the rest of him. A stocky, barrel-chested man in brown pants and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, he had a thick neck, a shock of white hair, and heavy, dark eyebrows. He looked like a truck-driver with the hands of a pianist.
“Well?” she said.
“Overdose of something. Cyanosis, pinpoint pupils. Bite marks in the mouth from convulsive activity.”
“Any idea what?” She looked at the mug with a half-inch of thick brown liquid.
“Codeine, I’d say.”
She looked at him sharply. He never said anything definite until after he’d sliced, diced, and examined.
With a glint of amusement, he pointed at a small vial that lay partly under the couch. “It’s got a label, but that’s all I can see of it until Osey gets done printing. You might want to get a sample of whatever’s in that mug.”
She did not make any snide remark having to do with sucking eggs. “Suicide?”
“That’s more your job.”
“No sign of a note,” Parkhurst said.
That didn’t mean a lot. Some suicides left a note, some didn’t. A suicide strongly implied guilt in Dorothy’s murder. Was that going to be it? The mayor would jump on it. Get this whole mess cleaned up. “How long has she been dead?”
Fisher put one arm across his chest, propped an elbow on it, and pinched his chin between thumb and forefinger. “Mucous membranes dry. Body temp down two degrees. Lividity just starting. No beginning of rigor yet. I’d hazard a shot at two hours tops, but if you won’t hold me to it I’d say an hour is more what you’re looking at.”
She turned to Parkhurst. “Have you reached her husband?”
“No. He didn’t answer a page at the hospital, and he hasn’t responded to his beeper.”
So where was he?
Off the kitchen and two steps down was a room where Carl Barrington and Ellen waited on a white leather couch with Yancy keeping herd on them. The room was just as spotless and lifeless as the rest of the house: television set, wet bar, sliding glass doors onto a patio.
“Yancy,” Susan said, “would you go with Dr. Barrington into the dining room, please?”
Carl shot her a hard look but made no protest as he got up, ruffled Ellen’s curls, and let Yancy shepherd him out.
Susan sat in a chair at a right angle to the couch, a deep leather chair that she sank into. Scooting forward a little, she leaned toward Ellen. “Ms. Barrington, are you up to answering a few questions?”
“She called me.”
“What time?”
Ellen drew in a breath and closed her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said as she exhaled. “Nine-thirty, maybe.”
“You came immediately?”
Ellen’s face went greenish-white. “Would it have— If I’d been here sooner—” Wide-eyed horror.
“No,” Susan said calmly. “There was nothing you could have done.” Whether this was true or not, she wasn’t certain, but she didn’t want Ellen prey to the swampy menace of imagination. “How long after she called did you get here?”
Ellen rubbed a hand across her mouth. “I didn’t hurry. I was in the shower. I just— I got dressed. Not too long. I could have been faster.”
“You came directly here? Did you see anybody?”
Ellen shook her head.
“A car?”
Another head shake.
“What did Vicky say?”
“I couldn’t hear very well. She wanted me to come.”
“Why couldn’t you hear?”
“The music was so loud.” Ellen rubbed her face hard with the heels of her palms. “Something was odd, but I don’t— I can’t think—”
“Odd about the phone call?”
Ellen nodded uncertainly. “Was she calling for help?”
Pop an overdose, start drifting, then have regrets, make a desperate attempt to get help. Why call Ellen? With all the physicians in the family, why not one of them? “Did Vicky say your name?”
She could see Ellen try to remember and not get back through the grim mental picture of the body.
“I don’t remember.”
“Were you close friends?”
“We didn’t really have much in common. We never really talked. She was—she was—so beautiful, so—” Despite a hard effort at control, tears welled up in her eyes.
From her bag, Susan got a tissue and offered it. Ellen blotted her face and blew her nose.
“What else did Vicky say on the phone?”
“Just to come. She was kind of whispery. And the music was so loud. When I got here, the music was—” Ellen got a startled look on her face. “Beethoven,” she said with dawning awareness.
“The music? That’s what was playing?”
“How could that be? I don’t understand. It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“What doesn’t make sense?”
“She wouldn’t listen to Beethoven. Only if Willis was home. She hated classical music. She never listened to it. She liked country-and-western. Why would she have on Beethoven?”
Because somebody turned it on too loud and made the phone call. Somebody who didn’t want to be recognized. “It was still playing when you got here?”
“I turned it off,” Ellen said guiltily. “It was so loud.”
“Tell me what you were doing this evening before you got the call,” Susan said.
In a flat voice, Ellen told her everybody had been at the house, talking about the missing painting—the painting, not a painting, Susan noted. There was hesitant and reluctant mention of accusations and responses.
Susan took her through it twice. Ellen was saying more than she probably realized, and, with a talent for mimicry, she gave a clear picture of what had gone on.
“How did Vicky seem different?”
Ellen clutched the soggy tissue and dabbed at her nose. “I don’t know. She wasn’t drinking. Willis wasn’t either, but he was on call. And she— Usually she didn’t say anything, but this time—” Ellen was seized by hiccups. “It was like she—bic—got fed up all of a sudden—bic.”
Susan went to the kitchen and brought back a glass of water. Ellen took a gulp, hiccuped, took another gulp.
“Was Vicky frightened? Angry?”
“No. I don’t know. She just seemed—for just that moment—I guess angry, but—” Ellen shook her head, drew away, and huddled into herself against the arm of the couch.
Officer Ellis came through the kitchen, stepped down the two steps, and cleared his throat. Susan looked at him.
“They’re ready to take the”—he glanced at Ellen—”uh, her away now, if that’s all right with you.”
Susan stood by as the ambulance attendants bundled Vicky Barrington into a body bag, loaded her on a gurney, and wheeled her away. She told Ellis to accompany them to the hospital and take possession of the victim’s clothing.
She let Ellen go and had Carl brought in.
“Does Willis know?” he asked.
“Not yet. Please sit down, Dr. Barrington.” She gestured toward the couch. “We haven’t been able to reach him. Do you know where he is?”
“At the hospital.” Carl, in baggy khaki pants and a loose white shirt, resembled a starving peasant. His thin face had the inward, suffering look of a martyr. “Vicky poison herself?”
“Why do you think she was poisoned?”
“It doesn’t take a brilliant mind. Cyanosis. Vomiting. Why would she kill herself?”
“You know any reason?”
Carl looked at her with tired mockery. “Only the obvious. She killed Dorothy and was overcome with remorse.”
“You think that’s a possibility?”
“Thinking is something I try not to do too much of.”
Sh
e waited, but he was not a person who felt obliged to leap in and fill the silence. “Tell me what happened when you were all together this evening.”
He took a breath with a slight bub sound. “Clever of you to start with Ellie.” In a flat voice, he briefly stated who had said what, with no speculation, elaboration, or emotional overtones.
When he stopped, she let the silence lengthen, with no effect. “Taylor accused Vicky of killing Dorothy,” she said.
“No. He felt he was being accused and went on the defensive.”
“He pointed at Vicky. She responded by saying she knew something. What could she have known?”
Susan could sense Carl analyzing, weighing alternatives, computing, all the while not missing a word she was saying. “Vicky responded like a frightened kitten, with a hiss.”
“What exactly did she say?”
“Ellie must have told you.”
“I’d like you to tell me.”
“Vicky insisted she wasn’t so dumb that she didn’t know things.”
“Like?”
“Like: You wear a raincoat when it rains. If you meet somebody on a back road, there’s a reason.”
“What did she mean by that?”
Carl shook his head. “I have no idea.”
Susan doubted it. “What else?”
“Money buys things.”
“Taylor also accused Brent.”
“He tried. Brent said, in effect, ‘Back off or you’re in trouble.’”
“What did that mean?”
“I have no idea.”
Right, Susan thought. “Why did you drive Vicky home?”
“Willis got a call. She didn’t have a car.”
“How did she seem?”
Carl’s response was to close his eyes; when he opened them, she saw pain and worry.
“What did you talk about?” she asked.
“Six blocks. Hardly time for conversation. I drove her here, walked her to the door, drove myself home. I was there until Ellie called.”
Family Practice Page 19