by Jane Heller
“You mean he just picked up the phone and called you? Like some ambulance chaser? How can you trust this guy? You’re a perfect stranger to him.”
“No, I’m not. That’s the best part,” she enthused. “He’s the brother of a woman who hired me to coordinate her daughter’s wedding a few years ago. He was at the wedding. I remember meeting him. He’s gorgeous, by the way. And single.”
I didn’t even start. Who had the energy?
“Does this person have a name?” I asked.
“Barry Shiller. He’s been divorced twice, according to his sister, but only because he’s so driven, so into his work. Some women don’t know how to deal with a man like that, you know?”
Barry Shiller appeared at the sheriff’s office at ten o’clock, just in time to escort Sharon into the interrogation room. He was a slick piece of work—Armani suit, deep tan, lots of mousse on the shoe-polish brown hair, lots of rings on the manicured fingers—and he was wearing enough cologne to marinate a leg of lamb. Sharon’s idea of “gorgeous,” maybe, but not mine, thank God. The last thing we needed was another man to fight over.
When he and Sharon emerged from the interrogation room, he asked me if I wanted him to represent me too, now that he was “up to speed” on the specifics of the case. I told him I appreciated the offer but that I was fine on my own.
“Your call,” he said with a smarmy smile. “I’ll be hanging around in case you change your mind.” He turned to Sharon. “While they interview your sister, why don’t you and I have lunch? They must have at least a couple of decent restaurants in Stuart, huh?” He laughed, because he was from Boca and people from Boca think people from Stuart are hayseeds who wouldn’t know a decent restaurant from a pig’s trough.
“Take him downtown to the Jolly Sailor,” I suggested to Sharon. “They’re open for lunch, and they have indoor plumbing in case he has to drain the lizard.”
She scowled at me. “Want us to bring you back anything, Deborah? You know how cranky you get when you’re hungry.”
Cranky. My sister invented the word. “No, thanks. You two have a nice lunch.”
And off they went.
My interrogation by Detective Gillby was basically a rehash of what we’d already discussed. No, I wasn’t having an affair with Jeffrey Hirshon. No, I didn’t have a grudge against him. No, I didn’t kill him. Blah blah blah.
Afterwards, I was given a sort of lie detector test, only this one was called a CVSA, which stands for computer voice stress analyzer. Basically, they ask you questions and test the stress level in your responses. I tried to stay calm throughout the procedure, but it was like trying not to blink; the more you think about it, the harder it gets.
Eventually, I was told I could go home.
“You know very well that my sister and I didn’t kill Dr. Hirshon,” I said to Detective Gillby, while we waited for Sharon and her new lawyer to return from lunch.
“Maybe you did. Maybe you didn’t,” he said. “What’s not debatable is that somebody did—with a twenty-two caliber bullet.”
“Jeffrey was killed by a single bullet?”
“Looks like. Why?”
“Then whoever did it must be a pretty good shot, which rules Sharon and me out. Neither of us even owns a gun.”
“So you’ve claimed. But we’ll be searching your place, your sister’s place, and your mother’s place.”
“My mother’s place?”
“Sure. You could have stashed the gun there. We’ll be talking to your sister’s kid too.”
“Norman?”
“Right. She said he goes to military school. He must know something about guns.”
“Yes, but the school is in South Carolina. He was nowhere near Stuart when Jeffrey was murdered.”
“Then he’s got nothing to worry about. It’s all part of our investigation, Ms. Peltz. We’ve questioned you and your sister, and now we’re going to interview your mother, your nephew, Dr. Hirshon’s neighbors, his business associates, his friends, everybody.”
“I’d be happy to lend a hand,” I said earnestly. “With Jeffrey’s neighbors, business associates, and friends, I mean. I don’t have a very demanding job. I could snoop around.”
He laughed, as if I were nutty. A nutty killer. “Tell you what: you think of anything that could shed some light on the case, you call me,” he said. And then he laughed again.
Sharon picked me up at the sheriff’s office after what she termed a very “successful” lunch with Barry Shiller.
“He really knows the justice system,” she said as she drove me back to the cottage. “I’m so grateful that he agreed to take my case.”
“You didn’t exactly have to beg him, Sharon. He contacted you. Don’t you find that a little strange, a little sleazy?”
“No. I find it reassuring. Now I have someone to lean on for a change. Did you hear that the police intend to question my Norman? The boy was in school last night, for God’s sake. He doesn’t come home for vacation—or do they call it a furlough?—for several weeks.”
“I’m sure it’s just a formality,” I said. “You don’t need Barry Shiller to defend Norman. He can take care of himself.”
“Even so, I’m glad Barry’s on our side. Did I tell you that he lives in the Sanctuary, one of Boca’s ultra high-end communities, and that we’re having dinner tomorrow night?”
“When’s the wedding?” I said sarcastically.
“For your information, I’m interested in Barry for his legal expertise. Of course, he is quite a catch. A woman could do worse.”
I wasn’t so sure, but I kept my mouth shut.
The minute I got back to the cottage, I called Melinda. Not surprisingly, she was extremely troubled by the publicity surrounding my involvement in the murder of one of Stuart’s most prominent citizens. “Nettled” was the word she used.
“I’m fond of you, Deborah,” she said. “I’m fond of your mother too. But, under the circumstances, I don’t see how I can keep you on the Historical Society’s payroll.”
“Whatever happened to ‘innocent until proven guilty’?” I asked. “I had nothing to do with Jeffrey Hirshon’s death. Neither did my sister.”
“Still, the sordidness of it all. The unseemliness. The indecorousness.”
“How about the tawdriness?” I added.
“Yes, yes. You understand my predicament then.”
“I do, but here’s the deal, Melinda. I just moved into the cottage. I like it here. I’m staying.”
“Not if I instruct you to vacate the premises.”
“You won’t.”
“Oh? And why is that, pray tell?”
“Remember when we met that first time? When you interviewed me for the job?”
“Of course.”
“Remember when I told you I wrote for From This Day Forward and you gushed that you’ve been watching the show since you were twenty and never miss a single episode?”
“Gushed? I’m not certain that I—all right. Yes. I remember.”
“Well, if you let me keep my job at the House of Refuge, I’ll arrange for you to spend a day on the set, be right there while the show is taped, meet the cast members.”
Melinda was silent, but her breathing was labored. “I feel as though I’m being blackmailed,” she said finally.
“Nonetheless, I could make one phone call and get you behind the scenes of your favorite soap opera.”
“You’re saying that I would be mingling with Holden Halsey, for instance? Or, rather, that British actor who plays Holden Halsey?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
She sighed. “What if it’s the board members of the Historical Society who balk at keeping you on?”
“You’re the boss, Melinda. I have faith in your powers of persuasion.”
My next order of business was to call my mother, to see how she was handling the fact that her name had been sullied in the press.
“Are your neighbors picketing outside your house?” I as
ked, half-jokingly.
“No, dear. My friends have been very supportive.”
“That’s a relief. Are you feeling okay? Any chest pains?”
“None. To tell you the truth, this whole situation has perked me up. I’m upset about what happened to Dr. Hirshon, obviously, and I’m furious that the police are accusing my girls of a crime. But in a strange way, the murder has forced me to forget about my own problems, to stop dwelling on every little ache and pain.”
“That’s great, Mom. Maybe you’ll be able to go back to work as a mediator soon.”
“I won’t have time,” said my mother.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because I’ll be helping you help the police solve the murder,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’ve lived in this town a long time, and I know plenty of people with loose lips. In the past, I never paid much attention to all their gossiping, but maybe it’s time I started.”
Loose lips. Gossiping. I thought of Helen, suddenly. Where was she when I needed a real busybody?
“I want to protect you, Mom. I think you should stay out of this mess.”
“You’re not hearing me, Deborah,” she said. “This ‘mess’ has taken my mind off the heart attack. I don’t feel like a cardiac cripple anymore.”
After I hung up with my mother, I sat down and made my list of possible suspects in Jeffrey’s murder.
First, there was Vicky, the ICU nurse, who had argued with Jeffrey at the bar at the Prawnbroker. She had taken excellent care of my mother and had seemed like such a decent, reasonable person during the two days I’d observed her at the hospital that I hated to even imagine that she might be capable of murder. But she had thrown her cocktail napkin at Jeffrey, which indicated a certain lack of control, in my opinion. So I scribbled down her name, vowing to learn more about her relationship with the deceased.
Then, there was Joan, the nurse in Jeffrey’s office, the one who said that she’d worked for him for ten straight years, the one who claimed that he had an explosive temper. I had found the latter piece of information difficult to believe at the time, given how kind and gentle Jeffrey had always appeared. But what I had found even more puzzling was Joan’s response when I’d questioned her about it. His temper was bad “but this job has other compensations,” she’d said. Like what? I wondered now. Money? Was Jeffrey paying Joan more than the going rate for nurses in doctors’ offices? Was he paying her so much that she was willing to put up with his frequent and possibly violent fits of pique? Or had she been referring to another type of compensation? Compensation of a romantic or sexual nature? She wasn’t particularly attractive and hardly looked the part of the femme fatale, with her unstylish bun, matronly figure, and matching set of jowls. But who was I to say what turned men on? Maybe she and Jeffrey were lovers, either before, during, or after his marriage.
Speaking of marriage, I quickly added Francine Fink Hirshon to my list. According to Joan, Jeffrey’s ex-wife, the shoe-and-handbag addict, had supposedly “bankrupted” him with her free-spending ways and yet she continued to harass him for money. Did it gall Francine that Jeffrey was living the good life in Sewall’s Point while she was “roughing it” in some condo in Aspen, poor thing? Was she angry at him for refusing to fork over more dough? Was she angry enough to hop on a flight to Florida and shoot him? It was entirely possible that she had kept a key to the house, which would account for the lack of forced entry. But if she killed him, she’d never be able to wheedle money out of him. Unless, of course, she discovered that he had forgotten to change his will and that she was still his sole beneficiary.
I put my pen down for a moment and tried to come up with other suspects, encouraging myself to think creatively the way I used to when I’d sit at my computer, cranking out my weekly breakdowns. “What if they did this?” I’d ask myself of the characters on the show. “Or this? Or this?”
Think, Deborah, I pushed myself as I flashed back to the scene in Jeffrey’s den, to the sight of his leaky, lifeless body. Piece together who could have done this. Who?
Maybe it’s one of the other doctors in Jeffrey’s sixty-man practice, I mused, writing the notion down on my notepad. Maybe one of them had an ax to grind against him—a professional rivalry of some sort.
Or maybe the killer is a disgruntled patient, I thought. Someone whose acid reflux Jeffrey had misdiagnosed as severe angina.
No. If nothing else, Jeffrey was an excellent doctor. My mother was proof of that.
I pondered the matter further, trying to remember if I’d met anyone in town who was not a member of Jeffrey’s fan club, anyone who’d spoken negatively about him, even in passing.
And then it came to me: Ray Scalley, the head of the county building maintenance department, Mr. I’m-Not-a-Handyman.
Ray and I had been standing in the kitchen, talking about my mother’s heart attack, when he’d asked me who her doctor was. I’d told him she was being treated by Jeffrey Hirshon and he’d called Jeffrey a bastard, warned me to keep my mother away from him but never explained why.
Was Ray Scalley the murderer? I wondered. Did he despise Jeffrey enough to kill him? Did he show up at Jeffrey’s house on Wednesday night minutes before Sharon and I did, jimmy the front door open with one of his handyman tools, and fire a single bullet into the heart doctor’s heart?
Could be, I decided, as I added Ray’s name to my list of suspects—placed his name at the top of my list, actually. I was putting the finishing touches on the “y” in “Scalley” and wishing I could see Ray again, to feel him out about his relationship with Jeffrey, when I heard footsteps outside the cottage. I froze momentarily, afraid that my visitor was either a reporter sniffing out a story or a cop brandishing a search warrant. And then came a knock.
“Hey, Deborah. You in there?” a man called out.
“Who is it?” I yelled, not recognizing the voice.
“Ray Scalley. Stuart’s answer to Bob Vila.”
Be careful what you wish for, I thought, grabbing my notepad and sticking it in a kitchen drawer.
“Coming,” I said, and hurried to the door to let him in.
Chapter Twelve
“Ray. What a pleasant surprise,” I said, trying to sound casual. “I was just thinking about you.”
“Why? Is your toilet on the fritz again?” he said, stepping past me and escorting himself into the kitchen.
“No. My toilet’s fine,” I said. “I was thinking about you in an entirely different context.”
He looked perplexed. “What context was that?”
“Oh, just something to do with the House of Refuge,” I lied. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re here?”
“Fair enough, since I barged in without calling first. I came for two reasons, as a matter of fact. One: I heard about Hirshon’s death and remembered your saying you were a friend of his. I wanted to offer my condolences.”
“Your condolences,” I said skeptically.
“That’s right.”
“You met me once, Ray, and the encounter didn’t last more than twenty minutes. What’s more, you warned me to keep my mother away from Jeffrey, even called him a bastard. So let’s try your second reason, okay?”
He smiled. “Reason number two: the article in today’s paper said you and your sister were at Hirshon’s house when the cops found the body. They must have grilled you pretty hard down at the sheriff’s office last night. I thought I’d stop by to see how you were holding up.”
Now I was confused. Either Ray Scalley was a nice man who was genuinely attempting to be my friend, or he killed Jeffrey and came over to pump me for information about the case.
The only way to find out is to pump him for information, I decided.
“Why don’t we sit out on the porch and chat,” I said, “if you’re not too busy rescuing the county’s buildings from dry rot, that is.” There was a tacky but large lamp on the porch. I figured that if Ray was a murderer and suddenly became violent, I could hit him over the head with it.
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“I’m not too busy,” he said. “It’s five-thirty. I’m through for the day.”
Great, I thought. Plenty of time to squeeze a confession out of him. Who needed that sleazy Barry Shiller when I was about to get Sharon and me off the hook?
“Do you feel like talking about what happened at Hirshon’s house?” Ray asked once we were seated on the porch. “I realize it’s a touchy subject and we hardly know each other, but you’re new in town and I’m a good listener so you’re free to use me as a sounding board if you want to.”
“That’s very clever—I mean, kind—of you, Ray,” I said, thinking the sounding board bit was probably a ploy, to get me to fill him in on the status of the police investigation. “But to be honest, I’d rather talk about you. It would be a welcome distraction after the trauma I’ve suffered.” I placed the back of my hand on my forehead. For dramatic effect.
“Oh, hey. I can understand that. What would you like to know about this here country boy?”
“How about a little bio? The Cliff Notes version of the Ray Scalley Story.”
“Well, I live downtown, on Seminole Street, in a house that was built in 1925 and renovated top to bottom by yours truly.”
“I’m impressed. Were you born and raised in the area?”
“Yup. I’m a genuine local. There are a bunch of us still around, believe it or not. We’re mixed in with all the snowbirds now, but you can pick us out if you look closely enough.”
“Were your parents born here too?”
“In Florida, but not in Stuart. They came to town after they were married, when my father opened his first store just north of here in Port St. Lucie.”
“First store?”
“Yeah. He owned a chain of hardware stores in south Florida. Made a lot of money too. Fortunately, he was a smart investor and held on to the money, even after a national building and home supply retailer—you know the one—came in and put him and most of the other Mom-and-Pop stores out of business.”