Her Dr. Wright

by Meredith Webber

  ‘Nick will do—I just need someone to check the car.’

  ‘Surely someone’s done that!’ Rowena protested, but as Sarah obviously wasn’t going to be stopped, she pulled her own coat on as well. Fortunately the rain had eased, though the wind persisted, flinging damp scuds across the street every few minutes.

  Nick was at the police station, entering notes into a computer.

  ‘Yes, I checked the car, removed the keys and locked it so no one could get in.’

  ‘Was the engine running—no, of course, it wouldn’t have been, I’d have noticed.’ Sarah answered her own question before Nick had a chance. ‘Was the key in the “on” position? Or turned part-way so the auxiliary functions had power?’

  Nick frowned at her.

  ‘I had to turn it to take it out, so I guess it was on. Why? Are you worried you left the engine running?’

  Of course she isn’t, Rowena wanted to say as Sarah’s line of questioning suddenly made sense. But saying something might remind Nick that, while Sarah had a legitimate right to the information, she didn’t, and he might ask her to leave.

  She tried to look as uninterested as possible, while Nick, who either loved camera work, or had no reliance on his memory, went through the photos he’d taken of the car’s interior.

  ‘You’d need a magnifying glass to see it clearly, but I’ve a good shot of the key in the ignition.’

  ‘Good work,’ Sarah said.

  ‘The photos were for back-up and evidence.’

  He looked up at Sarah as if he’d only just begun to wonder where the questions were leading.

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  She studied him for a moment.

  ‘If the heater was on in the car, it will have made a difference to both the body cooling and the rigor. If external heat affected the body temperature for a couple of hours, it would keep the body warmer, but would act as an accelerant to the rigor, though it wouldn’t have any effect on the lividity.’

  ‘It would also explain why his clothes were dry,’ Nick muttered, ‘even though he’d had to come through some degree of rain to get there. I’ve a photo of the dashboard.’ Nick sorted excitedly through his snaps once again.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be easier to go across to the car and have a look?’ Rowena couldn’t keep out of things any longer. ‘See where the temperature control is set rather than looking at photos.’

  ‘We could do that,’ Nick told her, ‘but I don’t see what the temperature control will prove. Day like yesterday, David would have had the heater on.’

  ‘Actually, I was the last one who drove it, and I didn’t have the heater on because the air coming out of it smelt musty to me,’ Sarah told him. ‘But if it was on, do you think if you knew how much fuel was in the tank you’d be able to work out how long the engine would have run before it stopped? Or would the battery have gone flat? I’m not much on car engines and their workings. It was certainly cold when Barry and I opened it this morning.’

  ‘I suppose there’s a way to work out something like that!’ Nick said, his tone dubious, ‘but the lab people would do it more accurately.’

  Sarah was now sorting through the photos.

  ‘I thought you took more photos of the trunk and the body when we were in the autopsy room,’ Sarah said, spreading the photos on the desk with the tip of one finger.

  Nick peered at her display.

  ‘I took over from Rowena with the other camera—before the lady knocked it to the floor, exposing the film.’

  ‘Yes, but these Polaroids are all taken in the shed—before the trunk was moved. You took more in the hospital room and left them to dry on the bench, remember?’

  Nick looked upset.

  ‘You’re right—then I ran out of film. I must have left them there,’ he said. ‘I’d better go over and get them.’

  ‘You could check on the fuel gauge of the car at the same time,’ Sarah suggested, but before they could go anywhere the door opened and Mary-Ellen burst into the room.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘PAUL PAGE is missing!’ Mary-Ellen fired the words at Nick, then scowled at Sarah and Rowena.

  ‘D-didn’t B-Barry see you?’ Nick stammered. ‘He was going to call on you, but his baby was arriving and then—Have you been in? Been at the motel?’

  ‘I’m not staying at the motel. Paul was there, and I’ve been at the guest-house next door. I can’t bear motels, they’re so soulless. And where else would I have been but inside, in this filthy weather?’ Mary-Ellen added. ‘It reminds me of just how miserable our family holidays were! Why anyone would live in such a God-forsaken spot is beyond me. Unless, of course, he or she were hiding from something!’

  The poison in the tip of the sentence made Rowena squirm, but Nick didn’t seem to notice it. He was probably too busy wondering whether to tell the woman her detective was dead or leave the breaking of that bit of news to Barry.

  ‘When did you last see him?’ Nick asked, and Rowena silently congratulated him, although if Mary-Ellen knew he was dead she must also have guessed he’d have been found by now.

  Rowena pictured her sitting in her room at the guest-house, the tension building and building as she waited for someone to bring her the bad news. Finally, it had all got too much and she’d decided to force the issue.

  ‘About nine or nine-thirty. We had dinner together at the motel, and talked for a while, then, although it was raining, I walked back to the guest-house because the motel dining room was overheated—they lit a fire when the power went out and the room was like an oven. I needed to cool down.’

  ‘And this was about nine or nine-thirty?’ Nick repeated the times she’d given, but made them into a question.

  ‘About then,’ Mary-Ellen told him coolly. ‘Lorelle likes to lock up at ten and I was in well before that. He was going to collect me at nine-thirty this morning, after we’d both had breakfast.’

  Nick glanced at his watch, though Rowena could have told him it was close to one.

  ‘Weren’t you worried earlier—when he didn’t turn up?’ the young policeman asked.

  ‘Of course not. I thought he’d had an idea and gone out to investigate it. That’s what I’m paying him to do. I just assumed he’d come back eventually.’

  ‘So you last saw him at nine-thirty last night,’ Nick persisted, and a sudden flash of wariness in Mary-Ellen’s eyes told Rowena he’d pushed too far.

  ‘Why are you asking?’ Mary-Ellen demanded. ‘What’s wrong? What’s happened?’

  She looked at Sarah and her eyes narrowed.

  ‘And what’s she doing here?’

  The menace in the woman’s voice made Rowena shiver.

  Nick looked uncomfortable, as well he might. Neither the procedures manual nor his mystery reading had prepared him for the actuality of telling a woman her friend was dead—murdered.

  ‘Mr Page’s body was discovered at the hospital this morning.’

  ‘He died at the hospital? Was he sick? What happened? Did he have a heart attack?’

  Again she turned to Sarah, addressing the final questions to her.

  ‘I can’t talk about it, but I’d suggest you wait until Barry’s available and get whatever information you need from him.’ Sarah spoke gently.

  ‘Wait? What do you mean—wait?’ Mary-Ellen demanded, rage staining her cheeks a vivid ugly scarlet. ‘How long am I supposed to wait to find out? Why wasn’t I informed immediately?’

  ‘As Mr Page was a mainlander, the homicide squad was informed of all particulars and it’s up to them to inform the next of kin,’ Nick said, with more composure than Rowena would have given him credit for. ‘Naturally, Barry will want to talk to you about it. About why Mr Page was here as well.’

  Angry colour flared again in Mary-Ellen’s cheeks.

  ‘To find out who killed my sister, that’s why he was here. Thanks to the incompetence of the local constabulary, her murder went undiscovered for four years. Do you think I’d have any confidence i
n you and that country clodpole of a sergeant solving the mystery?’

  Nick didn’t flinch from the insult. Instead, he asked the question Rowena had wanted to ask.

  ‘But your sister’s body hadn’t been discovered. There was nothing to find out, no proof she had been killed, when you brought him over.’

  ‘I knew she’d been killed!’ Mary-Ellen spat the words at Nick. ‘Knew it all along!’

  Then she turned away and after a final scowl at Sarah almost flung herself out the door.

  ‘But she shouldn’t have known the body would be found,’ Sarah said. ‘And why am I the target of her anger? Did either of you notice? See how she glared at me?’

  ‘Couldn’t miss it,’ Nick said, while a vague shadow of an idea flitted across the edges of Rowena’s mind—not tangible enough to grasp but of sufficient strength to make her shiver at its unknown implications.

  ‘Let’s have lunch,’ she said to Sarah. ‘You can tell me about your Tony, and about James. Get our minds off murder for a while.’

  Sarah looked so dubious Rowena smiled.

  ‘We can try,’ she told this woman she barely knew, but had already come to like—and, more importantly, to trust.

  They’d reached the café when Sarah must have remembered what they’d been discussing before Mary-Ellen’s arrival.

  ‘No!’ she said, grabbing Rowena’s arm. ‘You go ahead and order. Caffè latte and a toasted ham and tomato sandwich for me. I want to see the car and get those photos. The photos are less important, but the car thing is bugging me. I need to know if the engine was left running for any length of time.’

  ‘Why’s it worrying you?’

  Sarah gave a half-smile.

  ‘I guess because Mary-Ellen was so definite about giving herself an alibi for after ten. My initial estimate, using body temperature, would put Paul Page’s death later.’

  ‘So she could have left the heater running deliberately.’

  ‘Or turned it on after she’d killed him. He might have questioned her turning on the engine, even to auxiliary, while they were carrying out an illegal search of someone else’s car.’

  ‘Fingerprints?’ Rowena asked.

  ‘In this weather no one would query someone wearing gloves.’

  Rowena sighed.

  ‘OK, go back and check the car, but I still don’t see how we can incriminate her. And would a layperson know about the body-temperature thing? I’m a nurse and maybe if I’d thought about it I’d have figured it out, but I wouldn’t have known enough to set it up.’

  ‘Change your reading matter,’ Sarah suggested. ‘Anyone who’s read any mystery fiction knows something about body temperature and could figure out a warm car would slow the cooling process of a body.’

  As Sarah returned blithely to the police station, Rowena found herself shivering. It seemed unbelievable that anyone could plot and plan so deviously.

  And why?

  The motivation still nagged at her.

  Satisfied the cool-room was cooling itself efficiently, David wiped his oily hands on a rag and turned to the policeman.

  ‘OK if I grab some gear and pack Sarah and Rowena’s things to take into town for them?’

  ‘Of course it’s OK,’ Barry said gruffly. ‘I’ve been here over two years now, and reckon I know you, mate. If you did in that wife of yours, or that fellow, I’d be very surprised, but I can muck things up for you as well if I don’t do it all by the book.’

  David understood what he was saying, and felt a flicker of gratitude towards the man.

  They were walking back to the house, where Barry had left the police vehicle.

  ‘So, what do you think of having a daughter?’ David asked, thinking a neutral topic might ease the tension.

  ‘You know,’ Barry began, ‘I was that delighted. Really over-the-top kind of excited, and relieved, because of poor Margo having to go through so much pain, but then I started thinking about all the things that can go wrong. What if she fell off the bed one day or, later, off a swing. And then there’re car accidents and rapists and—’

  David rested his hand on his companion’s shoulder.

  ‘Hold it right there! That’s lack of sleep talking—and over-excitement. You can’t go through life thinking of all the bad things—no one can. We’d all go mental. Think instead of the good things. When will she smile? Will it be at you? Or the practical things. How are you at changing nappies? You can only do the best you can for the people you love. After that, it’s out of your hands.’

  He was thinking of Rowena as he said it, thinking of the pain he must have caused her when she’d already suffered so much pain herself. He missed Barry’s reply but guessed it was positive because the man’s step became lighter and swifter, and David had to hurry to catch up.

  Inside the house, however, Barry returned to policeman-mode.

  ‘You tell me what you want, I’ll pack it,’ he said, as David led him towards the bedrooms.

  It took longer that way, but eventually they were done.

  ‘Have you keys for this place? I know locking it isn’t a guarantee of security, but if we locked it—and the big shed—it would save me having those two fishermen out here. Save the tax-payers some money as well.’

  David produced keys and handed them to Barry.

  ‘I guess the shed keys are still over there. I’ve always kept it locked because I’ve worried about kids getting in there and possibly hurting themselves.’

  They drove over to the shed, where Barry dismissed his deputies and locked the big doors.

  ‘Weather’s clearing, so we should have the homicide boys here on Monday. I’ll be glad to hand it over to them, too!’ he said, as they headed back to town.

  ‘What about my car? Will it have to stay where it is until they see it?’

  ‘Afraid so,’ Barry told him. ‘They’d have my skin if I moved it and destroyed evidence in the process.’

  ‘Well, with this place off-limits and a locum to do my work, I guess I won’t be needing it anyway.’

  ‘How’s the lady doctor getting around?’ Barry asked.

  ‘Hire car. Well, eventually, a hire car. I’ll pay for it, of course, but I needed mine and she needed something so I arranged with Bob to hire one. She hadn’t picked it up because she didn’t need one while I was working with her, and since then—well, you know how things have been.’

  ‘Grim to say the least,’ Barry murmured, but then he smiled and David knew he was thinking of his baby daughter.

  Birth and death—the entry and exit points in human life—both unpredictable—both, at times, with elements of violence, always with elements of pain.

  For someone.

  ‘Why did she bring him over here? What could a private detective do that a policeman couldn’t?’

  Barry glanced his way.

  ‘Been wondering the same thing myself. In the long run, a private fellow can spend more time and energy on one particular case. We coppers have other things we have to do. Your wife’s case—well, I doubt the file’s been opened for years either here or in the city. I certainly haven’t been through whatever we’ve got on it in our office, though I will as soon as things settle down.’

  ‘So he came over to discover what had happened to my wife and just by chance stumbled on her body?’ David scratched his head. ‘Seems darned coincidental to me!’

  ‘Me, too,’ Barry agreed, ‘but coincidences do happen.’

  ‘I suppose he was working for Mary-Ellen. Did you check him out?’

  Barry gave him an exasperated stare.

  ‘When’ve I had time to check anyone out?’ he demanded. ‘I phoned the mainland this morning with his details and left it to someone over there to contact his business and his next of kin. Haven’t been back to the office since, though I guess they’ll fax me if they learn anything.’

  Silence fell, but there was an uneasiness in it—explained when Barry asked, ‘What exactly happened when your wife disappeared? You weren’t here,
were you?’

  David closed his eyes as he mentally re-created those dreadful days.

  ‘The twins came over on the ferry with the horses, then Mary-Ellen took the horse trailer back on it,’ he explained. ‘I flew over, as arranged, on the Wednesday flight and Sue-Ellen wasn’t at the airport to meet me. I eventually phoned Ted Withers and got a lift out to the house. She wasn’t there either, and when she didn’t come home by seven, I phoned Mary-Ellen first to make sure she hadn’t gone back to the mainland with her, then the local policeman, your predecessor.’

  ‘And did he come out?’

  ‘Not that night. He called around, put out a message on local radio to look out for her, but the car we kept at the house was here so, well, no one knew what to think.’

  ‘Was she having an affair? Did you think she was off with some chap?’

  David glanced at the policeman, surprised by the acuteness of his guess.

  ‘I didn’t know she was having an affair but, yes, it had happened before and it is what I thought. But when neither Mary-Ellen nor I heard from her after twenty-four hours, I began to get really worried. Mary-Ellen did as well, and it was she who rallied people to come over and help the locals search.’

  ‘But if you weren’t here when she actually disappeared, why were you the main suspect?’

  David found himself smiling, although at the time there’d been no amusement in the situation.

  ‘The presumption was that she had been here when I arrived, though Ted had come in with me and knew I’d looked around the house and yards and called to her. But the theory was that she’d turned up at some time, and we’d had an argument, possibly over her not meeting me at the airport. The terminal staff testified that I’d been upset when she wasn’t there. You know what transport’s like on the island—so I was angry. Naturally, the logic went that during the argument I killed her then hid her body.’

  ‘Ted’s testimony must have helped you,’ Barry said, and David found himself shuddering.

  ‘It was the only thing on my side!’

  Nick was reading a fax, upside down, as it continued to spill from the machine, when Sarah walked back into the station.