Getting dark, too. Dina and her obsession with the light bill penny-pincher.
McGuire holstered his weapon. The guns leaving Jack's hands made his knees rubbery. "Dog. Got get 'im vet."
One leg buckled. McGuire grabbed for him. Pain screamed in Jack's head. The world went black.
23
Dina skewered a hole in a large cube of cheddar cheese. Into it, she inserted a tiny white pill, then a capsule. A spoonful of sugar wouldn't make the medicine go down. Not in this house, no matter whose name was on the prescription bottle.
Phil sniffed at the cheese. He looked up at her, his blue eye torpid, the lid adroop, fixed in a permanent, blind wink. The brown one told Dina he didn't fool that easily, but cheese was a vast improvement over yesterday's peanut butter Mickey Finns.
The crown of his head was shaved like a reverse mohawk with a crescent of blue-filament sutures in the middle. The exposed skin was a healthy pink, the gash mending nicely. Fur would regrow and hide the scar, but Dina would never forget that golf club whistling downward, the sound of the blade bashing his skull.
Phil gulped his pain-pill-antibiotic treat, licked his chops, then begged for a plain cheese chaser. She kissed his snoot. "Sorry, mooch. Not for another four hours. Now go take a nap, while I finish my rounds."
A saucepan of decaf tea poured into a plastic pitcher of ice was set on a tray. Seedless grapes, cantaloupe slices, plums and a bowl of rice cake chips more or less camouflaged four prescription bottles.
"Di-na," Harriet called from the living room. "When you get a minute, would you bring me a pair of socks? The blue ones, if they're clean. Same shade as my feet, seeing as how it's cold as kraut in here."
Breathe in, breathe out, Dina thought. Count your blessings.
Count their blessings. She hefted the tray and set off for the living room.
Harriet's rickety, throne-side trays had been righted. Restored or replaced necessities and clutter heaped each of them, placed just so, exactly as before, except somehow a clearing had been made large enough for a vase with a dozen red roses.
The ottoman, she complained bitterly, was lopsided and no longer rocked in tandem with the glider. Her scepter, the TV remote, was crisscrossed in adhesive tape and rubber bands. The Select and Info buttons had popped off. Up and Down had reversed polarity, but she wouldn't part with it for a truckful of roses. Not after she'd held it, like a grenade, to hurl at Carleton deHaven when he dispensed with Jack and came after them. Instead, as the patrolman escorted the prisoner past Harriet, she'd clocked deHaven upside the jaw with it.
Lt. Andy McGuire sat inches away from the ottoman, hunched over on a dining room chair, his elbows braced on his splayed knees. How he held a legal pad with one hand and wrote with the other was beyond Dina.
He'd apologized over and over for not responding faster to the cell-phoned distress call. Apparently, he just had again.
"If deHaven wasn't so in love with his scenario, we'd have had one of those so-called unfortunate outcomes." Jack rapped the arm winged in a cast with a metal bar holding it aloft. The fiberglass body cast extended diagonally across his chest and down to his waist. "My prize for keeping him talking is lurching around in a half-zombie suit for the next couple of months."
McGuire said, "The E.R. doc told me that uppercut to deHaven's belly is what blew out your shoulder. Generous of him to let his face meet your knee halfway."
"Generous of me not to finish him off."
Dina set down the tray on a rolling table at the foot of Jack's hospital bed. Even the narrowest one the medical supply house had available was a tight squeeze between the couch and Harriet's headquarters.
"With a pretty lady waiting on you hand and foot?" McGuire shook his head at the iced tea Dina offered. "I hope one of those pills is an attitude adjuster, Ms. Wexler. His sure could use improving."
"Since Friday night?" she teased. "Or is that a general observation?"
Harriet piped up, "Don't you go ganging up on McPhee." She plucked a tablet from Dina's hand and the tea to wash it down with. "If he hadn't pitched in to help, I'd have had to take my cane to that fancy-pantsed killer. I'd still like a crack at him for coshing Phil the way he did."
"You tell 'em, Rocky," Jack said.
The nickname had debuted with the flowers he'd sent before he was dismissed from the hospital. Harriet had spent Friday night there for observation, a floor below Jack, and assumed the bouquet had been delivered to the wrong room.
She'd laughed, then cried when she read the card's inscription: "Every Rockford needs a Rocky. Thanks for being mine. Love, McPhee."
Now he accepted his meds and the cold drink. His swollen eyes squinted at the fruit. The rice cakes were rejected entirely. "How's a guy supposed to get his strength back with this foo-foo crap?"
"You want something else," Dina said, "feel free to poke around in the fridge."
Jack appealed to McGuire. "As you can see, the pretty lady waiting on me hand and foot also has a vicious sense of humor."
"You should have heard what she said when you were deaf as a brick from that .357 going off." McGuire grinned. "What she was gonna do to you, if you up and died on her? Whooee. I still get goose bumps, just thinking about it."
"Oh, yeah?" Jack looked at her. "If I eat the fruit, will you give me a replay later? You know, for future reference."
When he'd stumbled from the dining room battered and bloody, Dina hadn't realized the close-range gunfire had deafened him or that much of the blood was deHaven's. When McGuire caught Jack as he fell and he screamed in pain, she thought he'd been shot in the head.
A torn rotator cuff, bruised ribs, a rebroken nose, facial lacerations, contusions and a concussion weren't minor injuries, but as Jack was fond of saying, nobody died.
"Here's a compromise," she said. "Eat the fruit and avoid armed, homicidal maniacs in the future."
"I'll think about it." Jack popped a grape in his mouth. To McGuire, he said, "Which reminds me, where'd deHaven's 9 mm come from? I thought you told me the house was clean for weapons and ammo when you searched it."
"It was. The Glock was registered to a Dallas resident. He reported it stolen from his vehicle about a year ago."
"A MentalWealth seminar groupie, by any chance?"
"We're checking. More likely, it migrated northeast into Missouri and deHaven bought it on the street." McGuire shook his head. "Not that he remembers anything about it, or calling Mrs. Wexler's pharmacy, or rigging your Ford with a GPS tracker."
"Doesn't remember," Harriet scoffed. "That's the best story he can come up with?"
Dina hooked a heel on the bed frame and boosted herself onto a corner of the mattress. Lt. McGuire hadn't invited either Wexler to audit his follow-up interview with Jack, but if Harriet had a bleacher seat, Dina might as well have the front row.
"He's sticking with it, ma'am. He'll plead not guilty by reason of temporary insanity to everything from home invasion to felony assault. Says the loss of his wife and unborn child caused him to snap and seek revenge on their killer."
"That would be me," Jack said. "Nice of him to keep my name in the publicity loop. All that free bad advertising for the agency."
"His child?" Dina said. "I thought deHaven had a vasectomy before he and Belle were married."
"He did. DeHaven now contends he and his wife discussed artificial insemination and it was fine with him, whenever she was ready. He was surprised to learn she was pregnant, because he doesn't remember her telling him she'd begun the procedure."
Harriet asked, before Dina could, "A woman can do that, without her husband knowing diddly-squat about it?"
McGuire exhaled a disgruntled sigh. "Few particulars have been made available to us yet, but it's my understanding that Mrs. deHaven may have visited a clinic in a different state."
In less carefully chosen words, deHaven's attorney was stalling, or frantically attempting to confirm that allegation.
"According to the news," Jack said, "deHaven doesn't
recall busting in here with a five iron to whack Phil with, either. His lawyer's using selective amnesia as evidence deHaven wasn't legally sane Friday night. Like you must be nuts to grab a golf club, when you're already carrying a loaded Glock."
Dina said, "He must have sneaked around the house to look in and seen Phil peeking out the drapes. And Phil either saw or sensed him. That's why he growled."
"No doubt. A .357 is a helluva lot louder, but a 9 mm in an enclosed space ain't quiet. One shot to take out the guard dog we didn't know we had, then a time lapse before the three or more shots to kill us would contradict his double-homicidesuicide scenario."
"Yes," Dina said, "but no matter how many shots were fired, I don't understand how he thought he could get away without anybody seeing him."
"He's a resourceful bastard," Jack said. "Black tux and a hot-wired stolen car he left running on the side street. A witness was more likely to get a good look at the vehicle than at him."
"We can't even prove he stole it," McGuire said. "The owner who reported it missing lives on the other side of townnowhere near the community opera house."
McGuire's expression led Dina to ask, "You think there's a chance the jury will believe deHaven's insanity plea, don't you?"
"Ma'am, I gave up on guessing what any jury will do a long time ago."
"With you, me, McPhee and Dina testifying against him?" Harriet said. "Why, I'll go to my grave remembering every word that devil's spawn told us. And the pure evil in his eyes when he said 'em."
Dina would, too, but everyone present knew Carleton deHaven was a professional con artist. He'd convinced hundreds of people that they could think themselves rich. All he had to do was sway twelve of them that grief had driven him to exact biblical justice on Jack McPhee.
"Wait a sec," she said. "Am I missing something here? I mean, he planned to kill us, but he absolutely did murder his wife. Why hasn't he been charged with homicide, too?"
"We're working on it."
She combed her fingers through her hair, more confused than before, along with astonished and angry. "Jack already did the work. He told you Friday morning at your office. Now it's Sunday afternoon and deHaven's out on bail, free as a bird."
"Yeah, what'sup with that?" Jack said, a hint of a slur melting the edges off several consonants. A miserable night had ended his boycott against pain meds stronger than ibuprofen. His revised dosage schedule was every eight hours, instead of the prescribed six, but he wasn't grinding his molars and doing Lamaze breathing anymore.
"C'mon, McPhee. Even you admitted there are some big holes in your theory. You marked the trail, but I have to follow it and fill those gaps before the case moves to the prosecutor's office."
"If it ever does."
McGuire rapped his pen on the tablet. "I'll do my damnedest. I shouldn't have to promise you that."
Dina looked at Jack. "If? What if?"
"There's more than one of them, kid. Everything I gave McGuire is circumstantial at best."
"A lot of circumstantial," she said. "You told me, forty pieces of circumstantial evidence equals one piece of conclusive evidence."
"Sure, but " An eye roll, a blink, then Jack leveraged his hand on the mattress to push himself up straighter. The pain meds' narcotic effect is why he'd tried to avoid them.
"Whew. Okay. We know the Simpson brothers, Carl Haven, Carleton deHaven connection isn't a fluke, but nothing proves it yet. McGuire says no security tapes or witnesses ID deHaven as Robert, or P. David Simpson in Park City around Belle's estimated time of death."
"And like it or not," the detective went on, "deHaven doesn't fit the mold." He gestured, Let me finish. "Homicide is usually cut and dried. Anybody's gig. The premeditation here includes breaking and entering Jack's car to take his .38, then a second B and E to stash it in his apartment to complete the frame job."
"So what?"
"The more complicated and complex the scenario," Jack explained, "the tougher it'll be to prove a handsome white-collar financial evangelist had the skills and ability to pull it off. And the luck, for that matter."
Jack had told her the motive for killing Belle was expedience. From deHaven's viewpoint, murder was faster and less messy than another divorce. He'd be afforded sympathy for his loss, not criticism for another marital mistake. Yet the real lure was plotting and perpetrating the ultimate thrill-kill: a homicide that completely exonerated him as a suspect, and implicated Jack. Two birds, one bullet.
"Ma'am, I'll do my level best to build a solid case against deHaven," McGuire said. "But you have to understand, the prosecutor doesn't go to court with cases he's doubtful about winning. Especially murder."
"Because of double jeopardy, Dina Jeanne. A person can't be tried for the same crime twice."
"I know what double jeopardy is, Mom"
"But there's no statute of limitations on murder. Andy can take his time and still hang Fancy-pants out to dry."
Andy? Dina bit back a grin. A Park City PD veteran and homicide unit detective had nothing on Rocky Wexler. Age was a rank in itself and she had a few decades on McGuire.
"Fifty bucks says Carl Haven's background will fit the common, ordinary perp mold. Seventy-five that Haven has a record, or was a felony suspect before he reinvented himself as Carleton deHaven."
"Huh?" McGuire's brow furrowed. "You want me to bet against building a case against him?"
Jack pondered a moment, then mumbled about brain fuzz. "Hell's bells. There's gotta be a way for me to hit you in the wallet on this."
"Call me when you find one." McGuire stood and slipped his pen in his shirt pocket. His expression sobered. "Or if you're inclined to straighten the kinks in your alibi."
Jack reached across his chest for an upside-down handshake. "I'll be drug free by the end of the week. Stop by for a brewski." He nodded at Dina. "I'll be sipping Scotch, if the pretty lady will fill that prescription for me."
"Don't go thirsty on my account. The property-crimes unit's closed case is a new homicide on the board for me."
Saying he'd let himself out, McGuire thanked Dina and Harriet for their hospitality and strode out the door.
"Well. Since I never got those socks I wanted," Harriet groused, "I guess I'll crawl under the covers till my feet warm up."
The thermostat had been dialed back a whole six degrees, so Jack wouldn't sweat through his cast. Not his or Dina's idea. Harriet's. Deferring to his comfort and griping about turning into a human Popsicle was her kind of a twofer.
"I'm sorry, Mom. You should have reminded me."
She harrumphed and shuffled toward the hallway. The protracted thumps of her cane measured her weariness. Afternoon naps were the purview of the young and the old; neither would admit to needing them.
Phil pulled himself up off the floor and followed her. He'd appointed himself Harriet's guardian whenever she left what had become the primary-care ward. Or perhaps to keep her company, since Jack had Dina to hover over him.
She leaned over to take away the fruit Jack had mostly ignored and returned it to the tray. "You're about to zonk out on me, too."
"Nope. The only time I get the remote is when the queen's in her chambers. I'm thinking there has to be a preseason football game playing somewhere."
Uh-huh, Dina thought. And you'll doze off between the hike and the quarterback sneak, too.
"But I can catch it in the second half," he said. The sheet tented as Jack bent up his knees. He patted the space beside him. "Since we have a little privacy for once, why don't you turn around and scootch up on my good side?"
Her mouth quirked at a corner. Men. Break 'em, bruise 'em, knock 'em senseless, and still they have only one thing on their minds.
"No, Dina. I'm not quite in shape for what you think I'm thinking." He scratched the three-day-old whiskers on his neck, destined to become a beard. Shaving left-handed was as untenable as Dina's doing the honors. "Not that I'm not thinking what you think I'm thinking. It'd kill me, but I'd damn sure die happy."
"Tempting," she said, "but I'd hate to miss out on you being at my mercy a while longer."
Rather than jiggle the bed, she hopped down, rounded the end, climbed over the arm of the couch and used the cushion to boost her butt up on the mattress again.
He'd joked about rolling over in his sleep some night and smashing her on the couch. Fortunately for them both, the spica cast provided about ten pounds of ballast.
Dina took his hand in both of hers. The skin was nicked and scraped from the fight with deHaven. Two precise cuts marked where IVs had been shunted into his veins. Tears rimmed her eyes, unbidden, but recurrent, when she allowed thoughts about him hurting, instead of concentrating on healing.
Let Sleeping Dogs Lie Page 27