by Harry Kraus
Ami stayed quiet.
“Ami?”
“I’m thinking about moving back to the city. But I think my mom wants me close since my stepfather died. She needs me.”
“I want you to come to see me. Can you come on Friday?”
“I have a date.”
“Come in the morning.”
“I’ll be spending the day with John.”
“Ami, are you talking about John Cerelli?”
“You know.”
“Listen to me, Ami. John is married. You are not his girl.”
“You don’t know.”
“Can I come and see you? You sound upset.”
“Sure I’m upset,” she huffed, “because you are lying to me.”
“Ami, remember what we talked about in our last session? You can’t keep — ” She heard a click. “Ami? Ami?” Her breath escaped in frustration.
She scribbled a note in Ami’s folder. “Noncompliant. Delusional. Refusing to make up missed appointments.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Randy Jensen paged through Sol Diaz’s job application and looked up at Sally Weathersby. “Did you guys check his references?”
“Talk to Martin down in personnel. He does the record checking on all new employees.”
“I’ve talked to Martin. He did a criminal background check. Sol had no record.” Randy began to pace the small office. “The trouble is, the real Sol Diaz seems to be alive and well, gainfully employed in Denver, Colorado. So everything seemed to check out.” He slapped the application in his hand. “It says right here that he even called Dr. McCall, who vouched for his mowing ability.”
“That’s ironic. Get a recommendation from the same woman who helped put you in prison. How’d he ever pull it off?”
Randy opened his briefcase and pulled a picture from a file. “This is Tyler Crutchfield,” he said, pointing at the photograph. He held it up next to the picture paper clipped to the corner of Sol Diaz’s application.
Sally nodded. “Shave the dark, curly hair. Grow a beard. Dye it white. How’d he change his skin?”
“We found instant-tan products in his bathroom. He only used it on his face and arms.”
“He was stupid for staying in town.”
“Or brilliant. We never thought he was dumb enough to get a job right here.”
“Why would he want to stay?”
“I think he wanted to get back at Claire McCall. He was just waiting for the right time.”
“Another irony.”
“What do you mean?”
“Looks like Claire McCall got back at him.”
The news that the body found in Claire’s VW was Tyler Crutchfield spread like an approaching thundercloud on Apple Valley with darkness, foreboding, and a sense of heaviness in the air that whispered of a storm. John Cerelli hung up the phone and poured himself a third cup of coffee.
He walked through the rented house in Stoney Creek that they had chosen to be their first together. Everything around him spoke of her and the things she loved. She’d spent hours matting and framing old photographs for the cubby off the kitchen she’d claimed as her home office. Grandma Newby sitting in a wheelchair, the woman responsible for Claire’s first thoughts of a career in medicine. Next to her, a picture of a young Wally in a navy uniform. Her parents together, Grandma Elizabeth. Uncle Leon standing in front of McCall Shoes’ first factory. Along a thin slice of wall next to an old bookshelf, Claire had suspended eight birthday photographs, each one attached by a wire to the one above, so that they could be viewed in order from top to bottom. In each, Claire and Clay stood smiling behind a cake. Twins with different fathers, bound in the same womb but destined for separate paths of pain.
The desk had been fashioned by Clay and revealed his eye for detail and his love for woodworking.
The bookshelves groaned with the weight of heavy medical texts, thick with knowledge of surgery and procedures, and medical journals, both medical and surgical, all reflecting Claire’s commitment to excellence in her field.
Every day seemed to bring a new revelation, a new misery, or confusion. And nothing made any sense. From the little he could get from the police and local news, it was apparent that Tyler Crutchfield had been killed by a knife wound to the back. Beyond that, they were silent or unknowing.
Whoever killed Tyler Crutchfield must have known his real identity and must have known his past history with Claire, otherwise they couldn’t have planted his corpse in the back of her car. But Claire didn’t have a clue who Sol Diaz was.
John sipped his coffee. Or did she?
And if anyone knew who Sol Diaz really was, why call attention to Claire by putting the body in her car? Was someone trying to frame Claire?
John thought about Tyler Crutchfield working in and around Pleasant View Home for the past few months, masquerading as Sol Diaz and plotting his revenge. Could he be the one who killed Wally? Certainly he had the right access, he knew the nursing routines, and he watched Claire come and go as she visited.
Nothing made sense. Crutchfield had nothing to gain by killing Wally. Unless he knew Claire would be blamed.
John had spent the days since the wedding in a whirl of phone calls, playing detective, trying to get information from the nursing home, the police, Claire’s coworkers at the office, even the medical examiner’s office in Roanoke. Nothing made sense. Yet the police seemed so sure. And that frustrated him even more. They were holding out information that had bolstered their confidence in their case.
A knock at the door lifted him from his musing. Probably another reporter. They sure haven’t helped Claire’s public image with their speculative suspicion.
He peered from behind a curtain in the front room and groaned. It wasn’t the media. It was Ami Grandle.
Reluctantly, he opened the door. She looked up with eyes of a brown puppy. “Truce?”
“Truce? That’s what you say to a guy you accuse to the police of assaulting you?”
She glanced around. John looked past her to see an occupied white car on the curb, one he’d seen before and identified as belonging to a reporter for the Daily News Record. She winced. “Can I come in?”
John nodded, swiftly closed the door behind her, and peeked through the blinds at the man in the white car.
“Expecting company?”
“He’s a reporter. They think I must know something about Claire and all the craziness going on in this town.” He shook his head. “All I need is for them to start reporting on the young guests I entertain while my wife is in jail.”
“I can go.”
“You’re here now. But when you leave, I want you to go out the back. You can cross the alley and go around the block. Maybe my friend out there wasn’t paying attention.” He didn’t sit. Ami did, selecting the middle of the sofa in the front room. She crossed her legs before she began.
“I came to apologize.”
John let the statement hang. After a moment, he prompted, “Well?”
She took a deep breath and plunged forward. “I’ve never hidden the way I feel about you.” She dropped her eyes to the small coffee table in front of her. “That day in the office, when you told me I should look for work elsewhere, I — I just freaked.” She lifted her eyes to meet his. “John, I applied for that job just to get close to you.”
“Ami, we didn’t even know each other before — ”
“I’ve known who you were for a long time. I used to see you when you came to the medical school library to visit Claire. I was a nursing student then.”
John rubbed the back of his head and turned to pace the room. He had no idea that she’d been so obsessed with him for so long.
“I watched you. I saw how kind you were to Claire.” She shrugged. “My father wasn’t like that.”
“Ami, you don’t need to say these things.”
“I want to. I decided that if I ever had the chance to get close to you, I would. So that day when you suggested that I leave, well, I lost control.
Everything in me wanted you to take me in your arms. I wanted your lips to touch mine. I wanted — ”
John backed up a step and raised his hands. “Ami, I’m a married man now.”
“I just want you to understand what happened,” she sulked. “I’m trying to say ‘I’m sorry.’ ”
“You’d better say it and go.”
“These months since my stepfather died have been horrible. I’ve been under so much stress. That day, I just snapped. I wanted you to want me. But after I pulled you into an embrace, I knew you didn’t feel what I felt.” She looked down again, uncrossing her legs and tugging at her short skirt. “I needed to save face, so I slapped you. And one thing led to another. Carol insisted I call the police. I felt so bad. I couldn’t admit to myself that you didn’t want me.” She began to cry.
John picked up a box of tissues from an end table and set it next to her on the couch before retreating to his corner again. “Am I supposed to be flattered?” His voice rose in pitch. “And what of this nonsense of reporting Claire to the board for euthanizing your stepfather? What was that about?”
“John, I meant no harm, honest I didn’t. But I thought someone ought to know I had suspicions. It wouldn’t be right to let a physician get away with that.” She blew her nose loudly into a Kleenex. “I’m sorry it had to be Claire. If it helps, I hesitated before writing to them to report her because I knew how much she meant to you.”
“Still means to me — ”
She nodded and stood. “John, I should warn you. She may not be all she seems on the surface. Of course they couldn’t prove anything. Dr. McCall wrote the morphine prescription for the proper amount. But it was clear how much to give to make him die.”
John couldn’t believe it. “You should go.”
“I am sorry, John. I hope we can make a fresh start.”
He peeked through the front curtain again. The white car remained. “Where’s your car?”
“Oh, I walked. I live just down the street. After leaving my job in Brighton, I moved back here to be closer to my mother.”
John ushered her toward the back door. She stopped at Claire’s little study and looked at the pictures. “Where’s your picture, John? She’s got photographs of everyone else she loves.”
“We were going to put our wedding photograph there,” he said, pointing to an empty space above the desk.
She didn’t move along and John felt each second. “My mother always talked about Claire when I was growing up. Claire, the honor student at Brighton. Claire, the first girl from Stoney Creek to become a doctor. Claire at Lafayette for surgery training. Claire, the outstanding example of everything I wasn’t.”
“Ami, I’m sorry.”
“I wouldn’t blame her for killing her father, John. It must have been horrible looking at him and knowing that’s what life had in store for her.”
John opened the backdoor and pointed to a gate at the corner of the lot. “It opens to a gravel lane. Take it across to the next street. You can avoid the reporter that way.”
“Why don’t you just give me a cup of sugar? I’ll carry it right past him like I just came over to borrow from the neighbor.” She smiled. “I’m just two doors down, on the corner.” She started down the back steps. “Come by if you’re lonely.”
William Fauls had consulted with Dr. Joseph Fortenberry for as long as he’d been a medical examiner in Virginia. If the dead talked to anyone, it was Joseph. He was impeccable in his work and cool on the witness stand. If anyone could figure out exactly how and why Tyler Crutchfield had died, it was him.
His intercom buzzed. “I’ve got Dr. Fortenberry on line two.”
William Fauls picked up the phone. “Joseph, it’s been a long time.”
“Fortunately for you, I don’t see many cases from your area.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You’re calling about Tyler Crutchfield.”
“What can you tell me?”
“Several things. He died sometime between nine a.m. and nine p.m. Saturday from a puncture to his left pulmonary artery.”
“Any signs of a struggle? Is this a clear homicide?”
“Absolutely. A struggle? Yes. Scratch marks on the chest and back. There was evidence of recent sexual intercourse.” He paused. “We’ve got hair from his partner. Maybe a victim.”
“Paint me the picture.”
“Okay, with a bit of speculation, I’d say he played his hand the way he did in the past. He was raping his victim, but this one fought back. The wound is consistent with a knife plunged into his back by the hand of the victim beneath him.”
“Anything interesting from the trace evidence?”
“Just some orange rug fibers and some short brown hair on his back. I can’t be sure, but I’d guess his body was lying on top of an orange shag rug where a dog sleeps.”
“Fingerprints from the knife?”
“It was wiped clean. I’ve got nothing. Claire McCall’s prints are all over the car, as expected.”
Fauls nodded into the phone.
“Why do you need this stuff anyway?” Dr. Fortenberry asked.
“I’m representing the owner of the Volkswagen in another case. I’m just anticipating problems from the commonwealth attorney’s office over this. This guy tried to rape my client. Now he ends up dead in the back of her car. Someone knew who he was and who my client was and put two and two together.”
He listened as the doctor groaned.
“What is it, Joseph?”
He coughed. “Nothing. Maybe I’m coming down with something. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”
“Thanks, you’ve already helped. I just don’t know how yet.”
He hung up the phone only to have his secretary knock and open the door, shutting it behind her. “What is it?”
She kept her voice low and tilted her head to the left, pointing over her shoulder. “It’s Garland Strickler. He’s here for a face-to-face chat.”
“I didn’t invite him.”
“I know. I take it he doesn’t require invitations.”
“When am I due in court?”
“Not till one.”
He nodded. “Send him in. Offer him coffee.”
She opened the door. “Mr. Strickler, come on in. May I get you some coffee?”
He nodded. “Black. Thanks.” He looked past her to William’s desk. “Bill, I hope you don’t mind me dropping in like this.”
William Fauls pointed to the chair across from his desk, choosing to keep his desk between them rather than suggest the couch and chairs next to his bookshelves. He studied the man for a moment and tried not to think of Colonel Sanders or his secret recipe of herbs and spices. “What brings you to this territory? Looking for a job?”
“Funny.” He pulled a cigar from his pocket. “Do you mind?”
“Yes.”
Garland held the brown tobacco stick beneath his nose and twirled it against his moustache for a moment before slowly returning it to a small metal tube. “I’ll get right to the point. I’ve been thinking about your defense. At first I thought you should barge straight ahead and admit to a mercy killing. The guy’s life was horrible, you know? The jury would be lenient if you could produce some video of what a day was like for Wally.” He shrugged. “I get the win. Your client gets off easy.”
“Garland, what’s this about? I don’t remember asking for your help. And in case you haven’t remembered, my client isn’t on trial. Her case hasn’t even been certified to a grand jury hearing.”
“Not yet. But Judge Atwell is no fool. This case is a political hotcake. There’s no way he’ll dismiss.” He paused. “Ever think about running for office, Bill? This case could open or shut the door.”
“I’m an attorney, not a politician,” he huffed. “You still haven’t justified your visit.”
“I’m offering you friendly, off-the-record advice, that’s all. Try an insanity defense.”
“But you said — �
��
“Forget what I said a minute ago. That was what I thought at first.” He leaned back in the leather chair. “And I was glad to fight the case that way. Virginia is way too conservative to elect a commonwealth attorney who is pro-euthanasia.”
“Get to the point, Garland. I can’t make any decisions about this case. At the pace of their official reporting, I can’t get anything from the police, and I have no idea what information you have that makes you so glad to be prosecuting her.” He leaned forward, wondering if the odor he smelled actually was Kentucky Fried Chicken grease. “Why don’t you bare your cards a little? I’m going to find out eventually, right? It can’t hurt to tell me what you know before the preliminary hearing; that way if I happen to see something you haven’t, and the case turns out to be leaky, then I’ve spared you the public embarrassment during an election year.”
The mention of the voters seemed to make Garland twitch. It was subtle, but Fauls noted the corner of his mouth tic. Garland laughed it away. “You have no idea what you’re up against.”
The two quieted at the sound of the door. The secretary set a mug of coffee in front of Garland Strickler. Their conversation resumed as she disappeared.
“So why don’t you help me out here? It can only prevent you from looking bad.”
Garland stroked his white goatee. “We’ve got your client on tape, Bill.”
Fauls laughed back. “A security tape showing a woman in a wedding dress. I know all about that.”
“We’ve had her mother identify the dress as Claire’s.”
“It means nothing. Six identical dresses were sold in Virginia from the same dress shop.”
“You’ve been doing your homework.”
“I expect better from you. This is full of holes.”
“I’m talking about another tape.”
Fauls huffed. “I’m tired of the games.”
“Easy, boy,” Garland coached. “We’ve got an audio from a 911 tape. Looks like Wally had it on speed dial. Word is, he was paranoid and feared something like this might go down. All he had to do was hit one big button on his special phone to make the call.”
“What are you telling me? He asked for help? The guy could barely speak a clear sentence.”