by Jane Heller
The next morning, just after I had completed my walk through the House of Refuge and gift shop to make sure the buildings were intact (a twice-daily routine that was part of my job as keeper), Detective Gillby and friends showed up with a search warrant. They rummaged through my belongings, hunting for the murder weapon, but all they found was a can of mace. “What are you doing with this?” Gillby asked suspiciously. I reminded him that I had just moved to town from New York City, where I used to jog occasionally in Central Park. I explained that if you jog in Central Park you equip yourself with either a can of mace or a pit bull and that I had opted for the mace.
When the cops didn’t find the gun they were looking for, they moved on to my mother’s house. I was worried that the stress of their visit might give her chest pains, that she would clutch her heart and fall to the ground and it would be my fault, mine and Sharon’s, but she was quite cheerful as she reported the incident to me. “I told the officers they had no business accusing my girls of any wrongdoing,” she said. “And then I offered them coffee and cholesterol-free bagels.”
Sharon was less than thrilled when her McMansion in Boca was searched. She called Barry Shiller in a snit the minute the cops darkened her door, and without hesitation he left his office and rushed right over to supervise the police’s activities. “He’s utterly committed to my defense,” she said. “He has made himself available to me day or night.” Unable to resist, I asked her if she had made herself available to him day or night. She hung up on me.
Melinda phoned soon after the cops left the cottage.
“Has the Historical Society made a decision?” I asked.
“Yes. You may stay on as keeper,” she said. “After a rather fractious meeting, the board members conceded that one is innocent until proven guilty.”
“Good for them,” I said. “Now, when would you like to fly up to New York for the taping of the show?”
“As soon as possible!” she said, her previous crispness morphing into giddy enthusiasm.
“I’ll call my friend Helen to arrange it,” I promised.
I showered, dressed, and, since the police had impounded my Pontiac, called a taxi. As I was leaving the cottage, I ran into Fred Zimsky, the octogenarian volunteer. I expected him to shun me, given the situation, but he shuffled over and hugged me.
“If someone as sweet as you killed that doctor, Debbie, he must have had it coming,” he said, patting me.
“Thanks, Fred, but I didn’t kill anyone,” I said, sensing that he meant well. “Dr. Hirshon was already dead when my sister and I got to his house.”
“I still say he must have had it coming,” Fred repeated.
“Why?”
“People talk. I’ve heard whispers.”
The taxi had arrived. I was in a hurry now. “Do you know something about Dr. Hirshon, Fred?” I asked. “Something that’s germane to the case?”
He nodded.
“Are you going to tell me?” I said, eager to move the conversation along.
“All right,” he replied. “But it’s a terrible thing. The worst thing you could say about a man, maybe.”
“Yes?”
He leaned closer to me. “The doctor hardly ever visited his mother.”
“That is terrible,” I agreed. Although not the kind of “terrible” I was hoping for. “Actually, I didn’t know Dr. Hirshon had a mother in town.”
“Minnie Hirshon was his mother,” said Fred. “Before she passed away, she lived at the same nursing home as my wife.”
“So you met Dr. Hirshon there? At the nursing home?”
“No. That’s the point. I never saw him at the nursing home, because he hardly ever came. If you ask me, a son who doesn’t visit his poor, sick mother isn’t worth a damn.”
What’s more, the image of Jeffrey as an uncaring, neglectful son doesn’t jibe with the image most people seem to have of him, I thought—the image of the sensitive healer, the generous philanthropist, the all-around good guy.
Of course, I knew, from his treatment of Sharon and me, that Jeffrey Hirshon wasn’t so sensitive; that, judging by the way he had pitted us against each other, he was careless with people’s feelings. The question was: how careless and with whose feelings?
I had not called ahead to the hospital to determine if Vicky was on duty. I was afraid of scaring her off, afraid that she’d refuse to talk to me. So I took my chances, had the taxi drop me off at Martin Memorial, and found my way to the MICU/CC unit on the hospital’s first floor.
“Yes? May I help you?” asked the head nurse when she spotted me.
“Hi. I was wondering if Vicky is here this afternoon,” I said, wishing I could remember Vicky’s last name, in case there were two Vickys working the unit. “She took care of my mother recently and I wanted to say a quick hello and thank her.”
Fortunately, the head nurse was so busy that she not only didn’t recognize me, she didn’t grill me about who my mother was, how she was feeling, and why my sister and I were at Dr. Hirshon’s house the night he bought the farm. She simply said, “Vicky’s over there,” and pointed to one of the rooms. “She’s with a patient who’s just been cathed.”
“Great. I’ll wait outside the room,” I said, tiptoeing down the corridor.
Before long, Vicky emerged, her eyes widening at the sight of me. As she started to back away, I whispered, “Wait. Please. I didn’t kill Jeffrey. Honest.”
“What are you doing here?” she asked, apparently unconvinced by my declaration of innocence.
“I was wondering if you had a couple of minutes to talk,” I said. “I know you knew Jeffrey and—”
“Of course I knew Dr. Hirshon!” she said defensively. “We were colleagues.”
“You knew Jeffrey,” I said, making my meaning clearer. “My sister and I saw you two at the Prawnbroker one night, having quite an argument. Since I have more than a passing interest in the events leading up to his death, I’d like to ask you about your relationship. Or would you prefer that someone from the sheriff’s office asked you?”
Vicky grew pale. She was a reasonably attractive woman, I noticed on closer inspection. Thirties, strawberry blond hair, green eyes, a little on the chubby side but nevertheless well proportioned. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine her the object of Jeffrey’s—or any other man’s—libido.
“Look. I’m about due for my break,” she said finally. “I’ll meet you in the visitors’ lounge in five minutes.”
“I was hoping you’d see things my way,” I said, sounding like the sort of tough-as-nails gun moll I was going around town trying to prove I wasn’t.
According to Vicky, whose last name turned out to be Walters, she and Jeffrey had what she described as a brief affair.
“How brief?” I asked.
“Three months,” she said.
“Did people at the hospital know?”
“Probably, in spite of our efforts to keep it to ourselves.”
“Why keep it to yourselves?”
She shrugged. “The secrecy was Jeffrey’s idea. I tried to persuade him that we were both adults, both single; that there was nothing improper about our relationship. But he felt that it wouldn’t be right for us to be seen together in public, because we both worked at the hospital. He said, ‘Let’s give ourselves time to find out if this thing is serious. If it is, then we’ll shout it from the rooftops.’ ”
“Speaking of shouting, if Jeffrey was so intent on keeping the relationship a secret, what were you two doing at the Prawnbroker, shouting at each other in full view of practically everyone in town?”
Vicky’s eyes pricked with tears. “It was my birthday. I asked Jeffrey if we could go out for dinner—just that once. I was tired of sneaking around the way we always did. You can understand that, can’t you?”
“Sure.”
“So he said okay, he’d take me somewhere, but he wasn’t happy about it. We ended up at the Prawnbroker, since it was near his house. During dinner, he barely spoke to me. When I
suggested we have an after-dinner glass of champagne at the bar, he agreed, but he wasn’t happy about that either. He made a nasty remark and then I made one back, and before I could stop myself, I was yelling at him. I said, ‘Here it is my birthday and you act like I’m invisible.’ I asked him if he was ashamed to be seen with me, after the society women he was used to dating.”
“Society women?”
“Well, Stuart’s version of society women. He dated a lot of them once he was divorced.”
I made a mental note: investigate Jeffrey and society women.
“You’re a registered nurse, Vicky,” I said. “You work at a very reputable hospital. You’re a lovely, intelligent woman. Why would anyone be ashamed to be seen with you?”
“I don’t know, but that’s the way Jeffrey made me feel. All he wanted to do was screw. You’d think I was his whore, when what I dreamed of being was his wife.”
“You wanted to be his wife?” I said, wondering if Vicky, like Sharon, was delusional when it came to collecting husbands—yet another serial marrier.
“I did want to,” she said sheepishly. “I was a fool. Jeffrey didn’t care about me. He was using me. For his own sexual gratification. He told me as much that night at the Prawnbroker. I was pretty upset about it, as you saw.”
“Nobody likes to get dumped,” I said, trying to display real empathy. “But Vicky, how upset were you? I mean, well, I might as well come right out and ask this: Did Jeffrey ever give you a key to his house?”
“Yes, but what does that have to—”
“Then I have to ask you another question,” I cut her off, my excitement building. “Where were you the night Jeffrey was murdered?”
She lowered her eyes.
“Vicky? Tell me.”
“I can’t.”
“Oh, Vicky. Yes, you can.”
She shook her head.
“You can do it, Vicky,” I said, urging her on. “Embrace your fears. You go, girlfriend.” I know. I was a little heavy on the Oprah. “If you confess, the police will take it easier on you. In fact, I bet they won’t even ask for the death penalty in the case.”
“The death penalty? What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the fact that you don’t have an alibi for the night Jeffrey was killed.”
“But I do,” she maintained.
“Fine. What is it?”
She inhaled deeply. “I was with Peter Elkin.”
“Who?”
“Dr. Elkin, one of the internists in Jeffrey’s practice. He and I were together all night, at his place. He and his wife split up recently.”
I nodded. So Vicky got around. “Why didn’t you just tell me this the first time I asked?”
“Because people still have this ridiculous, insulting notion that nurses are promiscuous,” said Vicky. “The last thing I want to do is play into that stereotype.”
Chapter Fourteen
As soon as the cab dropped me off at the cottage, I called Detective Gillby.
“I’ve got a lead for you in the Jeffrey Hirshon case,” I said.
“You mean, you’re gonna confess?” he said dryly.
“Of course not.”
“How about your sister?”
“Detective, you told me I could call you if I learned something. Do you want to hear it or not?”
“I’m all ears.”
“There’s a nurse named Vicky Walters, who works in the Intensive Care Unit at Martin Memorial,” I began. “She was having an affair with Dr. Hirshon during the three months prior to his death—a secret affair, I might add.” I passed along Vicky’s explanation of why they hadn’t gone public with their relationship; then I reported the argument at the Prawnbroker, my conversation with Vicky earlier in the day, the fact that she admitted having a key to Jeffrey’s house, and her supposed alibi. “She was dumped by the doctor. She was angry at him. She could be the killer.”
“You just said she was with another guy the night of the murder,” said Gillby. “A Dr. Peter Elkin.”
“Yes, that’s what she said, but how do I know if she was telling the truth? If I were you, I’d check it out, Detective. Give her one of your Voice Stress Analyzer tests. Talk to this Dr. Elkin to see if he corroborates her story. Maybe you’ll find out that he’s the one who committed the murder, with Vicky’s help. Maybe he and Hirshon had a professional and/or personal rivalry. Maybe he wanted his associate out of the way, permanently.”
“You have a vivid imagination, Ms. Peltz.”
“If I’m imagining this then why are you taking notes, Detective? You are jotting everything down, aren’t you?”
He mumbled that he was.
“Oh, I almost forgot. There’s another alibi you might want to confirm, although this one seems pretty ironclad to me.”
“From your vast experience, you mean.”
I ignored the sarcasm. “A man named Ray Scalley—he’s the head of the county building maintenance department here in town—had sort of a grudge against Dr. Hirshon. But he’s a nice guy, not a killer type. And he says he was with a woman named Willow Janson the night of the murder. Normally, I wouldn’t even mention the two of them to you, but just to dot the i‘s and cross the t‘s...”
“Ray Scalley isn’t a suspect.”
“I don’t think he is either, but how do you—”
“Because Willow Janson is my niece.”
“Your niece?”
“My sister’s daughter. Now, if you’re finished, Ms. Peltz, I have an announcement to make.”
“Please.”
“The results of the GSR tests you and your sister took came back an hour ago. They were negative.”
“See? I told you we were innocent.”
“Could be. But another possibility is that you washed your hands before we administered the tests. You can get rid of gun residue with soap and water.”
“Come on, Detective. You don’t really think one of us shot Dr. Hirshon and then wandered around the house looking for the powder room.”
“Okay. You might have been wearing gloves when you fired the gun.”
“Did you find any gloves with gun residue on them when you searched our houses? Did you find any gloves, period? I, for one, left mine back in New York.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
“Now, I have an important question for you, Detective. When can I have my old Pontiac back? The taxis around here charge a fortune.”
“Monday, probably.”
“So I have to go the whole weekend without a car?”
“You’ll survive. Pretend you’re a teenager and you have to borrow your mother’s car.”
“That’s not a bad thought,” I said, figuring I could always press the Delta 88 into service.
My mother was so excited about lending me her car, especially when I told her that I needed it to do a little sleuthing, that she insisted on driving me wherever I wanted to go.
“Wow, Mom. You must be feeling as good as new,” I said, remembering how she loved to be behind the wheel, perched atop that telephone book.
“Not quite, but I’m getting there.” She smiled.
On the way over to Jeffrey’s office, to see Joan, his nurse, I explained to my mother the purpose of the visit—to worm out of Joan what she had meant when she’d said that her job had “other compensations.”
“I think that woman’s hiding something,” I said.
“Like what, dear?”
“I don’t know. With any luck, we’ll find out.”
As expected, Joan was not thrilled by my appearance at the office. Neither were the cops who were busily searching Jeffrey’s files, interviewing his co-workers, proceeding with their investigation.
“You must be crazy, showing up here at a time like this,” Joan hissed as my mother and I accosted her at her desk. “The place is swarming with policemen.”
“I didn’t kill the doctor, Joan,” I said. “I’m perfectly free to roam the streets of Stuart.”
“Th
en roam another street,” she snapped.
“Please don’t speak to my daughter in that tone of voice,” my mother piped up. “Deborah only came to this office because I asked her to. I’m out of the vitamins that Dr. Hirshon prescribed for me and Deborah graciously consented to drive me here so I could buy some more.”
I looked at my mother with shimmering respect. She was a natural at this make-it-up-as-you-go-along stuff.
“Very well,” said Joan. She went to a nearby closet, fetched a bottle of Heartily Hirshon Vitamin E capsules, and handed it to my mother. “We take checks or cash for the vitamins. Which will it be, Mrs. Peltz?”
“I’ll write a check,” said my mother.
While they were transacting their business, I tossed around various scripts in my mind, all designed to regain Joan’s trust. Eventually, I decided to go the condolence route.
“I want to express how terribly sorry I am about the doctor,” I said. “How sorry both my mother and I are. We can only guess at your grief, since you worked for him for ten years.”
Joan’s lower lip quivered. “I wasn’t planning to come into the office,” she said. “But there’s so much paperwork. Dr. Hirshon had such a thriving practice.”
“And why not,” I said. “My mother’s living proof of what a skilled doctor he was.”
Joan regarded my mother and nodded. She was thawing slightly.
“You must have gone into shock when you heard he’d been murdered,” I said.
“‘Shock’ doesn’t begin to describe it,” said Joan. “When you’ve worked for someone day after day, year after year, and then—poof!—they’re gone, it’s like the rug has been pulled out from under you. I still can’t believe he’s dead.”
I patted her hand. “Just out of curiosity, did Dr. Hirshon have any enemies that you know of? Any disgruntled patients? Any overly aggressive medical malpractice lawyers?”
“No,” she said defensively. “Not Dr. Hirshon.”
“Even though he had a bad temper?” I said, reminding her of the comment she’d made.