“I know.”
“Jesus, you’ve got so many ifs you need to draw lines to connect them.” He reached the door, turned, and paced back.
“Sit down. You’re making me nuts.”
He dropped into the wooden armchair and slid low on his spine. “His father had this whatever-it-is—”
“Porphyria. He told us when we questioned him after his very dramatic class at Emerson his father had been chronically ill. I thought at the time he meant alcoholism. He didn’t. His father had porphyria.”
“—and he inherited it. How come he doesn’t show any symptoms?”
“Dr. Fisher said that happens sometimes.”
“Uh-huh. You’re speculating he had an affair with the Ackerbaugh woman and fathered a child—”
“He is the unfaithful type.”
“… a child who is sick, and even the physician doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. Dorothy begins to suspect this child has the disease.”
“She left bookmarks in medical texts, scribbled notes for lab tests.” Susan paged through her notebook until she found what she was looking for. “Protoporphyrin. Erythrocytes. Plasma. Feces.”
Parkhurst tapped his fingertips together across his chest. “Your theory is she realized what was wrong with the kid and immediately knew he was the father because the disease is so rare.”
“That would tell her he’d had an affair with a patient.”
“Uh-huh. She’d have been pissed and given him the boot.”
“Right. Told him he would no longer be a part of the Barrington clinic.”
“So he shot her.”
Susan tossed her pen on the desk and leaned back in the chair. “Anything wrong with that?”
“Oh, not a thing.” He drew in his legs and got up. “I’ve run with some pretty thin evidence at times, but this is so thin it’s nonexistent.”
“Right. Feel like talking to Brent the Beautiful?”
“Damn right.”
* * *
“You want to tell us about it?” Susan pulled up a brown plastic chair and sat down across the long wooden table from Dr. Brent Wakeley.
He leaned back and smiled at her. “There are a raft of things that I might want to discuss with you, but I can’t believe any of them are the reason you’ve dragged me in here to listen to.” With a casual hand, he brushed through the lock of dark hair that fell appealingly across his forehead.
He looked less dramatic in an ordinary light-gray suit—he must use the black for his dynamic-professor outfit—but she still felt the power of his presence. Beautiful, she had to admit. Arrogant, and reeking with a powerful magnetism.
The interview room had no windows, but the ceiling light picked up small flecks of gray at his temples and the tiny lines around his eyes.
Parkhurst took two steps, planted palms flat on the table with a sharp slap, and leaned over until he was three inches from Brent’s sculptured nose. “We know you killed Dr. Dorothy Barrington.”
Brent drew back with condescending amusement. “I’m afraid your knowledge is sadly faulty, Lieutenant.”
“Faulty?” Parkhurst rolled the word around in his mouth as he pulled back and propped a shoulder against the wall. “Maybe you’d like to set me straight.”
“Dorothy Barrington was a very principled woman,” Susan said. “Ethical.”
“I guess you could say that. You could add moral, upright, and virtuous if you like.”
Susan nodded. “All of those characteristics would have made her disapproving of adulterous affairs.” It’s catching, she thought. I’m beginning to sound just as profoundly erudite as he does.
The amusement in his eyes dried up. “And where is all this leading?”
“‘Affair’ is the operative word here,” Parkhurst said.
“Without making any admission, I hardly think my affairs are your business.”
“Wrong, Doctor. Homicide is our business. And when your affairs end in murder, it’s definitely our business.”
Brent looked at Susan. “I think you’d better get out your whip and chair and put him back in his cage.”
“You had an affair with Mrs. Ackerbaugh. Linette Ackerbaugh,” Susan said.
For one instant his eyes went blank, like the fast click of a camera shutter, then he shook his head with a condescending smile. “Even if that were true, which I’m not admitting for a moment, what makes you think Dorothy would know about it?”
“She didn’t, not at the time. Or she would have confronted you then.”
“Long afterward, she suddenly stumbles upon this? Come, come.”
Susan looked at him. He held her gaze, but a tiny muscle under his eye twitched.
“Interesting how she found out,” Parkhurst said, and waited until Brent looked at him. “The baby.”
“What baby?”
Parkhurst smiled: soft, dangerous. “The Ackerbaugh baby. The one you fathered.”
Susan heard Beautiful Brent inhale.
“You are getting dangerously close to a lawsuit.” He gave up all pretense of charm.
“Passed along what you’re carrying in your genes.”
“You have absolutely no proof of this.”
“Well, Doctor, a smart, educated type like you probably knows there are tests for this sort of thing.”
“Well, Lieutenant, even an uneducated type like you probably knows you need permission to run those tests. From me, from the parents. You have that permission?”
A crack of lightning followed by a loud clap of thunder made him jump.
“I’ve listened to this nonsense long enough,” Brent said. “Are you prepared to arrest me? And I must warn you if you do, I will immediately file suit for false arrest. Much more of this and I’ll add harassment charges.”
* * *
By the time Susan left the department, it was after five, and rain hammered down with force. The windshield wipers barely kept ahead of it, giving her only brief glimpses of the street between ripples of water. The headlights poked through streams of silver coming down at a hard slant.
She eased into a parking space behind Erle’s Market to pick up cat food. That was the trouble with dependents; you always had to stop and pick up something. Sliding from the pickup, she flipped up the collar of her raincoat and, head down, sloshed toward the store. Neon lights bled red and yellow onto the wet pavement. A car driving out fountained water in wide arcs.
Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed a dark figure slogging toward her from the right. In the gray light through the curtain of rain, she saw a long, belted robe with the hood pulled forward and no visible face; near the shoulder was a small skull.
Hair stirred on the back of her neck. She heard Jen’s words: a monk in a long robe with a rope belt, no face, small skull on the shoulder.
The figure swerved and set course for the store.
“Excuse me,” Susan called, trotting to catch up.
The individual in the monk’s robe halted under the overhang jutting out above the doors and threw back the hood to reveal a round face with a thick braid coiled on top of her head. “Oh, Chief Wren, I didn’t see you. Just trying to get out of the rain.”
Nadine, Susan thought. Ellen’s friend, Nadine something. Haskel. Nadine Haskel.
“Did you want to see me?” Nadine asked.
“I was noticing your raincoat. It’s very unusual.”
Nadine looked down at her blue coat, tugged tighter on the braided belt, and smiled. “It was Ellen’s idea.” Her fingertips touched the appliqué below her left shoulder. “Our logo. Advertising, you know.”
Up close and with light overhead and spilling through the glass doors, Susan could see it wasn’t a skull but an oddly shaped vegetable thing—no doubt a gourd—with a wide, round skull-like top and a narrowing-in, jaw-like, below. Dark splotches gave the illusion of eyeholes. “How many of these raincoats are there?”
“Only two, mine and Ellen’s just like it. Except hers is black.”
29
“THIS IS THE cleanest the place has been since I moved in.” Ellen fished two cans of soda from the refrigerator and popped the tabs. She handed one to Nadine and dropped into a chair across the table from her. They’d spent all day cleaning and polishing and straightening, removing all residue of murder, cops, searches, trying to scrub away the awful sense of violence.
Nadine took a gulp, looked at the barely visible traces of blood that had soaked into the scarred linoleum, and grimaced. “Well, the best we can do, anyhow.”
Yeah. Ellen had always hated that linoleum: worn splotches of brown and green and yellow with dull silver bits like confetti. She rubbed her face in the crook of her elbow. She wanted her own place back, the feeling that this was all hers, home and safe, being here and loving it.
Wind slammed against the old stone house and, solid as it was, Ellen felt it shudder.
“Storm coming up,” Nadine said. “You ready to go? I need to collect Bobby. Bob’s mother is probably worn to threads by now.”
“You go ahead. I want to get some clean clothes. Boy, am I looking forward to a shower.”
Nadine stood up, drained the can, and set it on the table. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Right. And Nadine, thanks for—you know, everything.”
When she heard the rattletrap station wagon jouncing down the driveway, she noticed the thermos on the cabinet. Oh, oh. Nadine forgot Bob’s thermos.
Ellen turned on the radio for company and carried it into the bedroom with her. The local station was playing oldies. I Left My Heart in San Francisco. I left my heart here, and I want it to belong here, and I want it to be happy. Like it was before—
Just get on with it.
From a chest, she took out her last two pairs of clean underwear. Time to do laundry. She shoved the drawer shut and pulled out the one beneath. Jeans, shorts. She dumped everything into a plastic bag.
The wind picked up, fitful and teasing. Infrequent gusts sniffled around the window.
Tony Bennett faded, and the announcer’s cheery voice came on: “Those weather-chasers say we might be in for a good one, folks. So get your emergency kits ready. Stock up on batteries, get your blankets, and start filling up water containers. This just might be the real thing. And while you’re packing up your gear, a little ‘Rocky Mountain High’ by John Denver.”
She opened the closet door in search of blouses and blinked.
Her raincoat.
Hanging right there. Clear as day. Couldn’t be. It wasn’t there. It wasn’t. I looked. I looked. I went all through everything. She pressed the heels of her hands against her temples. I’m losing my mind.
She also realized this day wasn’t clear; it was as dark as it could get without being night. She switched on the ceiling light. Outside, the sky boiled with clouds, black, purple, green, gray, and white. Livid streaks of lightning charged from one cloud to another, thunder exploded. Rain splattered against the window.
She got two blouses, stuffed them in the bag, and was reaching for the raincoat when she heard a rap rap rap.
It came again, louder. Nadine at the door, come back for the thermos. She went into the living room.
“Ellen?” The word was almost lost in a clap of thunder.
When she opened the door, the wind tore it from her hand and banged it back against the wall.
“What took you so long?” Marlitta, raincoat dripping, short hair pasted to her head, swept past her.
“Marlitta?” Ellen had to lean into the door to get it shut. The wind wailed around the edges, as though incensed at being kept out.
Marlitta plodded into the kitchen, leaving a trail of watery footprints. “This has got to stop.”
“What?”
Marlitta whipped around to face her.
Jesus, she looked terrible, wet, bedraggled, face all gray and tight. “Marlitta, are you all right? Maybe you better sit down.”
Marlitta looked around at the jumble of gourds in hanging baskets, ivy trailing down the side of the cabinet, the large hollowed gourd with apples in the center of the table. “How can you live out here?”
Irritation clogged up Ellen’s throat. “I like it here,” she said when she could untangle the words. “What are you doing here? There’s a storm coming. You shouldn’t be—”
Marlitta’s face seemed to melt with grief, or sadness, or—Oh, Jesus, what was the matter with her?
“You’re the youngest.” Marlitta’s voice was low and creepy, with edges of—something.
“Sit down,” Ellen said. “Let me get you a Coke. Or some coffee.”
Marlitta stared at the linoleum where Taylor’s blood had spilled.
Ellen was getting scared. Something was sure bad wrong with Marlitta.
“I can’t let Brent be blamed.” Marlitta raised her eyes and looked at Ellen. “The police have him.”
Brent? Arrested for the murders? Relief fizzed over Ellen like carbonated water, then she was ashamed of herself. No wonder Marlitta was so zonked. She loved the jerk.
“Please sit down,” Ellen said. “I’ll get you some coffee.” She lifted Nadine’s thermos and shook it, hoping there was some left. It sloshed reassuringly, and she managed to squeeze out two cups.
Outside the kitchen window, lightning flickered and zigzagged across the sky, then came the boom and rumbling roll of thunder.
* * *
Thunder echoed away to nothing, lost in the wail of the wind. A crosswind pushed the side of the Bronco, and Parkhurst, sitting erect and gripping the wheel at ten and two o’clock, had to make quick, small compensating twists. Rain hit the road in front of them and rebounded a foot. The air smelled like ozone and gun-metal.
Susan looked at his hands as the car shuddered on a curve. He was holding it just on the edge of control. Trees along the side of the road and in the fields whipped back and forth, bent almost double, then snapped upright. She heard a rending crack, muffled by the wind and rain; a limb fell onto the road, bounced and rolled, was pushed fast across in front of them, and tumbled into a ditch. So much force filled her with a wild, high surprise.
She knew that some people were sensitive to weather: bright sunny days brought out happy, festive feelings of good cheer; winter snows caused an oppressive, pushed-down sense of hush; rain made them weepy. A low barometer touched off primitive warning instincts, memories that created nervousness and tension; it was time to seek out shelter. She’d never been affected by the moods of weather.
Now she felt a stir of irrational fear—we’re traveling as fast as we can into the jagged teeth of disaster—so strong she wanted to tell Parkhurst, “Turn this buggy around; get us to a cave.” She took a long breath to force herself to relax and looked at him. The Bronco bucked so violently he eased back on the accelerator.
“You’re awfully quiet,” she said.
“I’m thinking. You know how hard that is for me. You ready to let go of Brent the Beautiful?”
“Whoever clipped Dorothy wore that raincoat. It couldn’t have been Brent. He’s too big, too tall, too broad-shouldered.”
“That brings us right back to Ellen. Motive—needs money. Means—we got anything for means?”
“Don’t be snide. Why the hell haven’t we found that murder weapon?”
“Ellen got rid of it someplace we didn’t think to look,” he said, then went back to laying out the evidence against her. “She was at hand to find Vicky’s body with a thin story about a phone call. She found Taylor in her own kitchen, decorated with her own knife.”
“Why didn’t she use the gun?”
“Didn’t think she’d need it again, disposed of it, had to improvise.”
“Why didn’t she get rid of the raincoat?”
“We don’t know that she didn’t. Isn’t that what we’re going out there to ask her about?” He leaned forward even more as wind edged the Bronco over the center of the road. When he got control, he eased back slightly. “Just before we read her her rights.”
There
is one other person, Susan thought, with just as much to lose.
Two cloud masses collided, and lightning streaked to the ground, bright, close. She braced herself for the crash of thunder.
* * *
The rumble seemed to go on and on. Ellen clasped the mug in both hands and sipped at the coffee. Marlitta hadn’t touched hers. She sat across the table like a lumpy sack of old clothes. The ceiling light flickered, went out, then came back on.
“Marlitta,” Ellen tried again. “Please drink some coffee. It has sugar in it. You look like you’re in shock.”
Marlitta seemed to stir herself like an old dog just coming awake. She blinked, looked at Ellen, rubbed a hand down her face, looked around the kitchen, and mumbled something.
Ellen leaned over the table to hear above the rain peppering the roof “What?”
“Where’s the knife?” Marlitta flicked a glance at the block of wood with one empty slot.
“The cops have it.”
“Oh, yes, of course.”
Fear prickled along Ellen’s scalp.
Marlitta, elbows on the table, started to push herself up, then fell heavily back. “My purse.” She looked around. “What have I done with my purse?”
“It’s right there by the chair.”
“Oh, yes.” Marlitta reached down and lifted the brown leather bag to her lap, cradled it in her arms, then clicked it open and stuck her hand inside.
“Marlitta—”
“I have to stop this.” Marlitta drew out her hand, black pistol in her fist.
“Marlitta, what—”
“The police have to have someone, so they’ll stop.”
“Where did you get the gun?”
“It’s yours.”
“It isn’t mine.”
“I’ll tell them you just had it. I have no idea where you got it. They have been so stupid.”
Ellen stared witless at her sister. Marlitta with a gun in her hand. Ellen felt numb. Her own sister was going to shoot her. Her mind looked on in horrified detachment.
“You killed Dorothy,” she heard herself say.
“I’ll tell them you called me and asked me to come out here.”
Family Practice Page 26