Susan picked off a lump of cheese. “Carl’s the smart one. If it was Carl, we’ll probably never get him for it. He is smarter than we are.”
She thought about that a moment. Being so intelligent, would he have considered the risks in blasting away at Dorothy in broad daylight? It hadn’t been broad, it had been dark and stormy. A memory floated up from the murk in her mind: Dr. Adam Sheffield saying he only killed people with knives, and there was Taylor Talmidge with a bloody big knife in his chest.
“That brings us to Ellen,” Parkhurst said. “A perfectly good suspect. Caught redhanded, you might say. Evidence and everything.”
Susan sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Not hard evidence.”
“How hard do you need? Although the mayor wouldn’t be happy if Ellen was arrested. She might be the least of them, but she is a Barrington.”
“Yeah.” She stood up, closed the empty pizza box and moved it to the counter, picked up her plate and put it in the sink.
“Susan—” The word took all the oxygen out of the air.
He was standing next to her, holding a plate and the empty bottles. She gazed at their reflection in the window. He looked tired, eyes in dark shadows, a muscle ticking at the corner of his jaw. Her face had the panicked expression of a Gothic heroine. A full moon hung in the black sky beyond their images. How corny could you get?
She turned to face him. The tension in his jaw made her own jaw ache. His eyes were guarded, but not enough. Sadness was there too, as it briefly was on those scarce occasions when he was tired and not careful enough.
He set the plate on the counter, fumbled the bottles, and dropped one. They both knelt to reach for it. She looked at him.
For an instant, she thought he would kiss her, but he debated it too long and the moment grew cold. She didn’t know if she was relieved or disappointed.
She stood up.
He snatched the bottle and planted it with a firm clink on the tiled counter. “We will nail this scumbag. And then we can celebrate. Dinner maybe.”
27
MORNING SUN, HIGH and strong, slanted gold light through the bedroom; a shadow of leaves danced back and forth across the glass on Daniel’s picture, sitting on the chest. Susan closed her eyes against the grief and loss that threatened to overwhelm her. She cursed silently at the sly trickiness of grief. It would back off and wait, crouched and hidden, motionless except for a twitch of the tail tip. It would wait for that moment when you were off guard, completely off guard, when you opened your eyes one sunny spring morning and saw his picture. Then it would pounce, shake you, and whisper, “There is no Daniel. He’s gone.”
He’s gone, and nothing matters anymore.
Doing this job that was his, one thing at a time, a job filled with people who knew him, was some great appointed task which would expiate guilt. That the guilt was irrational didn’t matter.
The kitten zoomed up from the foot of the bed, leaped on Susan’s hair, tried grooming it, gave that up as an impossible job, and snuggled up to her neck, kissing, purring, slapping, and nipping, her usual morning get-your-ass-in-gear routine. When Susan didn’t stir, Perissa attacked her feet: rip, snarl. Still ignored, Perissa dived off the bed, skittered around the door frame, and galloped down the stairs.
Susan picked up the phone from the bedside table and punched in her parents’ number in San Francisco. Nine o’clock here. Two hours earlier there. Too early? Her father answered, sounding fully awake. She felt a stab of homesickness.
“Morning, baby. How’s home on the range?”
“Very quiet. Haven’t had a shootout on Main Street for near a week. We’re all just hanging out on the porch in torn T-shirts drinking moonshine.”
“Watch that stuff. It’ll make you blind. Easter’s coming up pretty soon.”
“That it is.”
“It would be nice to see a little of you.”
Ah, that’s what he was working up to. Come home for Easter. Get a reminder of how great it is in San Francisco. Maybe get socked with an irresistible urge to move back. As a kid, she’d thought his every action was calculated, planned right down to the last step, like a choreographed dance. Now, as an adult, she still wondered how aware of his machinations he was. Only in the last few years had she come to the realization that he operated on an instinctive level he was only partially aware of. “Why don’t you come and see me?”
“In Kansas? Tornadoes are destroying the state. What’s wrong, baby?”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“I can hear it in your voice.”
His instincts seldom steered him astray. He knew how to charm her, be the adoring father she loved, let the coming home hang untouched, and swing back to it later from another direction. “I have a homicide that won’t get itself cleared. Well-respected physician.”
“Disgruntled patient?”
“Could be.” She thought of Ackerbaugh and all his anger that the baby wasn’t getting well. “Money’s involved, and a bunch of other physicians, all related. Victim was the titular head of the family and the medical practice.”
“Moral, upright man?”
“Woman actually, but moral and upright. And controlling.”
“I suppose you’ve looked into the possibility of error in the treatment of a patient. If one of your physicians did something grossly wrong, your moral, upright lady might have been on the verge of punitive action.”
Leave it to her father to spot a motive in a case he didn’t even know anything about. She chatted with her mother for a few minutes, then listened to her father drop pebbles about how overworked he was and how the firm could use another brilliant attorney. An attorney she was. At least she’d gone through law school and passed the bar, although she’d never practiced law. His idea, law school, preparation for joining his firm.
After she hung up, she stripped off Daniel’s T-shirt and stepped into the shower, then put on blue cotton pants, a white blouse, and a light-blue blazer that the temperature made already too hot to wear.
She fed the cat, made a mug of instant coffee, and sipped it while she scanned the latest storm damage in the Herald.
Driving in to the department, she let her mind play over what she knew, waiting for an idea to swim to the surface like a goldfish in a pond, waiting for unconnected facts to arrange themselves into a pattern.
“The mayor’s on the phone,” Hazel said when she walked in.
* * *
Ellen pushed back the curtains on the bedroom window. Daylight. Even sunshine. She knelt on the ledge, rested her elbows on the sill, and looked out at the starlings and sparrows giving the lawn a good going-over. On top the gazebo, a goldfinch was singing his heart out. All that fine talk yesterday about living in my own house, and here I am back in the Barrington mausoleum.
All alone.
Hey, I’m still alive. She’d been stupid to insist on staying here, despite Carl and Marlitta telling her she couldn’t. She was stupid and stubborn and had spent the entire night an inch off the bed scared out of her mind, leaping into horror fantasy with every creak of wind and rustle of leaves and movement of shadows.
So she’d survived the dark, sleepless, terrified, and reduced to a quivering pulp. Now she was sticky with nervous sweat. She did have a fully functioning shower, there was that. But if she turned it on, how could she hear someone creeping in with a knife?
This was really stupid. She should have gone home with Carl or Marlitta. Well, at least with Carl. He’d never hurt her. Come on, neither would Marlitta. Ellen rubbed her face. Well, somebody was working on it. One of her family—her loved ones, her nearest and dearest—had set her up. Daddy’s gun. The phone call getting her to Vicky’s. Taylor with a knife in his chest. She felt sick.
Don’t think about him.
You have to do something. This big, old, creepy house. All alone.
Take a shower. Put on clean clothes. She’d slept in her clothes last night, feeling a skimpy nightgown made her more vulnerable.
&nb
sp; I need a dog. A big, fierce dog with big, fierce teeth.
It was beautiful outside. All the rain made everything shiny-green in the sunshine. Quiet too.
All of a sudden it was so quiet she could hear her own breathing. Nothing else. Just breathing. She took in a noisy whoosh of air and blew it out hard, then got up, stomped across to the chest, and snapped on the radio.
“… more rain forecast for this afternoon. A heavy storm is moving…”
She snapped it off, tugged her T-shirt straight around her hips, and started down the stairs. Breakfast. Halfway down, she heard a car and scooted into the living room. Standing in the gloom well back from the window, she tried to see through closed curtains. Couldn’t see a damn thing.
The knock made her jump.
“Ellie? Come on, let me in.”
Relief unlocked her knees. Carl. Then she stiffened again.
“Ellie? You awake? Come on.”
On legs that felt like pegs, she moved to the door. If Carl was going to do her in, the world had gone mad, and she might as well leave it.
“Ellie?” He came in, crossed his arms, and looked at her with an expression that said, I understand, and life is really absurd anyway, so what if misery swamps you? “Had enough?” he asked quietly. He wore khaki pants and a short-sleeved white knit shirt, the usual working clothes that had so annoyed Dorothy. She had thought he should wear a suit and tie.
Ellen wondered if he hadn’t refused just to needle Dorothy. She shoved her fingertips in her back pockets. Life was a lot simpler before she started having all these insights. “Enough of what?”
“Clinging stubbornly to a foolish position, just because you took it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He smiled. “Don’t be obtuse. Get any sleep last night?”
“No,” she said, then grinned. “All night long, I heard people creeping up on me with hatchets. What are you doing here?”
“I came to make sure you were all right and take you out of here. Come on. Don’t dilly-dally. I have to get to the clinic. With Willis out of it and Marlitta’s mind unconnected, chaos reigns.”
“You don’t look like you got a whole lot of sleep either.” His thin face looked as if the skin were too tight; his eyes were slightly bloodshoot, with dark shadows beneath.
“Not much. I was working.”
“You were on call last night?”
“That wasn’t what kept me awake.”
Something about the way he said that made her ears perk up. “What then?”
“A lot of thinking and a lot of searching. Let’s go. I don’t have time for this.”
“I have to go out to my place.”
He sighed wearily. “Oh, little Ellie.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Can’t you for once just come along without planting your feet and scowling with defiance? Come and stay at my house. At least then I’ll know you’re all right.”
Ellen had never wanted to do anything more than she wanted to go with him. She hated herself for not trusting him. “I’m fine here. Really. Honest. I just—” She couldn’t think of anything safe to say.
He shook his head at her. “Now, why did I suspect that’s what you might say?”
“Nadine’s coming in a bit. She’s going to take me out to get my car.” And be with me when I go inside.
He sighed, looked at his watch. “I have to get to work. I’ll come back later.”
When he left, she made sure the door was locked, went up to the bathroom, and locked that door too. Her shower was very brief. Pulling on her last pair of clean underwear, she thought she’d better remember to bring back some more. Some clean jeans wouldn’t be a bad idea either. As she buttoned up a blue blouse, she glanced out the window. Clouds already. What the hell had she done with her raincoat?
By the time she’d swallowed coffee and forced down a half slice of toast, Nadine was at the door.
“Where’s Bobby?” Ellen asked as she slid into the station wagon.
“With Bob’s mother. She’s thrilled.” Nadine tilted her head toward the backseat. “I also brought some extra rags and cleaning stuff. And a thermos of coffee. Don’t let me forget the thermos when we leave. It’s Bob’s, and I had to promise on my life nothing would happen to it.”
“Oh, Nadine, you don’t have to—”
“Of course I do. You think I’m going to let you be out there by yourself?”
Ellen couldn’t bear it if she was afraid to be in her very own house, if this—all this—changed her feelings about it. “Thanks,” she said.
* * *
With an eye on her watch, Susan listened to Mayor Bakover tell her how to do her job: stop harrassing important people, arrest someone, and do it now.
Yes, sir, Mr. Mayor, sir. I’ll just go right out and arrest Ellen Barrington, whether she’s guilty or not. Clean this right up.
When he finally ran down, she—with great restraint—hung up gently, grabbed her blazer from the back of the chair, took a look out the window, wondering if she could get by without a raincoat, decided she could, and dashed off.
If she hustled, she could stop in to see Jen before getting her presence down to the hospital basement and standing there while Dr. Owen Fisher did the autopsy on Taylor Talmidge.
Dr. Adam Sheffield, in scrub greens—did he ever wear anything else?—was at the nurses’ station when she got off the elevator. “How’s Jen doing?” she asked.
“Remarkably well.” He pulled off the scrub cap and ran a hand through his dark curls. “Amazing kid. I’m still trying to be cautious here, but I think she’s going to be good as new.”
A smile spread all over Susan’s face.
“She still has a ways to go. Don’t subject her to hard questions. Right now she’s asleep anyway. Don’t wake her up.”
Susan nodded and went into Jen’s cubicle. Jen’s face was still splotched red, but she did look better. She looked alive. Like a very sick little girl with measles, but not like death on a respirator. Susan only stood by the bed and looked at her, didn’t speak, didn’t touch.
In the basement, Dr. Fisher, also in scrub greens, shut off the tape recorder in the midst of his spiel: “Taylor Talmidge. Male. Caucasian.” He looked at her. “You’re late. I thought I was going to have to start without you.”
Taylor’s nude body was on the stainless-steel table. The harsh light glared down.
Dr. Fisher finished the particulars of weight, height, and age, and picked up a scalpel. He sliced, peered, cut, and diced in his careful, meticulous way, and when he was finished, his considered professional opinion was that Taylor had been stabbed with a sharp instrument.
He turned off the recorder, peeled off the latex gloves, dropped them in a hamper, and washed his hands at the deep sink in the corner.
“Owen—”
“I can’t tell you anything more than what I find.” He grabbed a towel, turned to face her, and dried his hands. “You heard it all. I’ll send you the preliminary as soon as I get it written up.”
“Yes, thank you. If a child were suspected of having porphyria, what kind of laboratory tests would be done?”
He rested against the sink, crossed his feet at the ankles, and thoughtfully dried each long, delicately tapered finger. “You’re not suggesting I run a bunch of tests on our friend here, are you? There’s no reason to suspect he had porphyria. It’s extremely rare. I’d venture to say most doctors have never even seen a case.”
“It’s rare. It’s inherited. It’s difficult to diagnose.”
“Correct.”
“What kind of tests are used for diagnosis?”
He rubbed a finger along one side of his nose. “Blood tests of various kinds. Urine. Fecal. Liver. Problem is, with the different types, some show abnormalities and some don’t. It’s complicated. What is this bee you’ve got about porphyria?”
“I’m not sure.”
Driving back to the department, she was vaguel
y aware the sunshine had lost out and black clouds were taking over. She was sure, very nearly sure—the adrenaline, the excitement, the tingling in her mind that happened when she was pulling the right threads—that she knew who had shot Dorothy and why. But there was not one sliver of evidence and not a chance in hell of getting any.
* * *
“You have to come through for me, George.” Susan stood in front of his desk and tapped her finger on the gray metal surface.
He leaned back and looked up at her. “At least sit down.”
“Because if one piece isn’t so, the whole thing falls apart.” She backed into a chair.
“Give me a minute. The man died thirty-some years ago.”
“He had a chronic illness. What was it?”
George took off his glasses and pinched the red spots on the bridge of his nose. “Well, Susan.” He put the glasses back on. “I may have to shoot you. You’ve asked a question I don’t know the answer to.”
She grinned. “Ha. One for my side. You know anybody at the county courthouse?”
“Sure. Minnie Oaks. Known her forever.”
“Would you call her and ask her to look up the death certificate?” Susan could do it herself, but George could get it faster. “Find out what it says and let me know.”
Ten minutes later, she was plowing through reports at her desk when he got back to her.
“Death due to liver disease,” he said, “due to porphyria.”
28
“AND SO,” SUSAN said. “Dorothy’s murder had nothing to do with August Barrington or his paintings.”
Parkhurst paced in front of the desk to the door, turned, and paced to the window. He rested his rear on the sill, a hand on either side of him. “You have to have a reason to look at medical records. You don’t have one.”
The sky outside had angry-looking banks of black clouds, with an occasional thin zigzag of lightning. No rain yet, but it ought to be pretty spectacular when it arrived. The fluorescent ceiling fixture had one burned-out bulb, and she turned on the desk lamp for more light.
He pushed himself from the sill and padded to the door. “No judge in the world is going to issue paper on what you’ve got.”
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