“Probably the receptionist, Rhea, who let you in. She’s taking the late shift this week. I saw some patients, too. The nurses, definitely, and I had a practice meeting at eight-thirty with the other two doctors who work here. Oh, and my daughter called too. We spoke on the phone.”
“What time was that?”
“Around seven, I think. No, a little earlier. Six forty-five perhaps? I’m not sure how to check a call on my office phone but you’re welcome to. Is that enough to establish an alibi?” Dr. Patterson asked.
“Yes, that’s enough,” agreed Garrett. “When was the last time you saw Fiona?”
“Around a week ago. She and her husband, Jerry, came over for dinner at my house. My wife saw her only yesterday, not long before she was killed. It’s terrible, isn’t it? I feel awful that I’m so relieved my wife came home instead of going to Fiona’s house like she sometimes does. I don’t know whether to feel responsible for saving my wife’s life or terrible for leaving Fiona all on her own.”
“Was there a reason for the change of plans?” I asked.
Dr. Patterson nodded. “I called my wife and asked her if she’d seen my keys to the clinic. I was supposed to be the last one in the office that night so I had to lock up and I couldn’t find them anywhere. I called her after her tennis lesson and asked her to go home and see if I left them there. She and Fiona must have said goodbye at the club.”
“Did your wife and Fiona often go to Fiona’s house after a lesson?”
“Occasionally, or Fiona would come to ours.”
“Is that common knowledge?”
“I don’t know. It’s certainly no secret.”
“Who else could have known?”
“Aside from me? Jerry. Maybe their kids. Maybe a few friends at the club or someone who worked there. Like I said, it wasn’t a big secret that Margaret and Fiona were close friends.”
“So anyone close to Fiona could have reasonably thought she would have company that afternoon?” Garrett glanced at me and I gave him a thoughtful nod. If someone close to Fiona knew she would be having company, it was possible they wouldn’t pick that night to attack. Overpowering one woman, especially one as active and fit as Fiona, would have been difficult. Overpowering two, significantly harder. Someone targeting Fiona, who knew her routine would wait for another time. That left the theory of a home invasion open again and I knew Garrett couldn’t be happy about that.
“Yes.”
“You mentioned your daughter called?” I asked.
“That’s right.”
“What did you speak about?”
“Not much. She called to say hi and that she picked up dinner and was talking a walk in the park. I asked her how her day went and she said it was fine. She mentioned looking at apartments.”
“Did the conversation last long?”
“A couple of minutes. Why?”
“Do you often speak to your daughter on the phone?”
“No, not very often. Debby’s like me. Not much for modern technology. No, actually she’s even worse than me.” Dr. Patterson laughed at that. “I can Skype if someone sets it up for me.”
“Is she a doctor too?” asked Garrett, even though we both knew she wasn’t.
“No, she didn’t have the interest or the grades.” Dr. Patterson shrugged. “She does a little teaching now.”
“Nearby?”
“No, she’s been teaching English abroad. She only returned home recently. Oh, you knew that, didn’t you? I thought you looked familiar. You dropped by when Debby was making a statement down at the police station last week.”
Garrett suddenly snapped his fingers, making me jump. “That’s right,” he said smoothly. “I thought I remembered your name from somewhere. Debby Patterson went missing a few years ago. She’s your daughter?”
Dr. Patterson shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “It was all a big misunderstanding. Someone reported her missing when she actually went traveling and forgot to cancel the lease on her apartment. Nothing more to it than that.”
“I heard she only just got back after being away for ten years. That’s a long time to go without seeing your daughter.”
“We’re busy people and Debby was off the beaten track, finding herself. Some Eat, Pray, Love kinda thing. I don’t know what gets into the heads of today’s young people.”
“You must be happy she’s back,” I said.
Dr. Patterson turned his gaze on me. “Very happy. The nose job was a surprise though.”
“Nose job?”
“Debby had the cutest, little kink in her nose after she broke it when she was six,” he said. He picked up a framed photo from his desk and passed it to me. I turned it over, looking at a studio shot of Dr. and Mrs. Patterson side by side, and a little girl in the middle. I could just make out a slight bump on Debby’s nose. “I didn’t realize she was so self-conscious about it. She said she had it done a few years ago,” he explained. “Now that I think about it, Fiona mentioned it too but I asked her not to say anything to Debby. I didn’t want her to feel embarrassed. There’s nothing wrong with plastic surgery.”
“Didn’t Debby tell you about the surgery at the time?” asked Garrett.
“Too busy with her travels, she said. She didn’t want to dwell on it.” Dr. Patterson paused. “I don’t know why her case wasn’t closed years ago. Debby was never actually missing. She was just a bit lax about staying in contact. It was typical Debby though. Nothing more to it.”
“Did you visit her while she was abroad?” Garrett asked.
“No, I’m not much of a flier. I get airsickness easily and my wife didn’t want to go alone. Besides, Debby moved around a lot. It was hard to keep track of her, especially when we’ve got so much going on here.” Dr. Patterson pointed to the bookshelf behind him. I’d already noted the numerous photos and newspaper cut-outs of awards and gala dinners. The Pattersons looked like very busy people. “I know the whole thing with Debby got blown out of proportion but we don’t like to re-hash it. My wife and I are just thrilled to have our daughter home.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” said Garrett. “Back to the case at hand, can you think of anyone who might have wanted to harm Fiona? Perhaps she mentioned something at your dinner?”
Dr. Patterson shook his head firmly. “All I remember from her is pleasant small talk.”
“No one had cross words with her?”
“No. There were only a few of us there. I would have heard if there had been any kind of disturbance.”
“Was she pleased to see Debby too?”
“Yes, of course she was. She did tell us she thought Debby had stayed away too long and I remember her wondering why she returned now.”
“Did Debby tell you why?”
“She said she was homesick.”
“I see. Can you think of anyone at all who might have wanted to hurt Fiona? A disgruntled colleague? Someone she might have bothered in her personal life? Perhaps someone who was jealous of her?”
“Fiona was one of the the nicest people I knew. She was kind and generous. I can’t think of a single person who might have hurt her. The sad truth is, someone broke into her house and murdered her. Given all the burglaries they’ve had in that area, I guess all the other victims are lucky they didn’t walk into it like Fiona did. The sooner you catch that thief, the safer we’ll all feel.”
Chapter Eight
“I have a job for you.” I stepped back and tried not to laugh as Lucas jumped in his chair and spun around.
“You scared the shit outta me!” he gasped. Running a hand over his tangled, blonde, surfer hair, he sucked in a breath. “Where did you come from? And why the hell did you sneak up on me?”
Holding back a smile at his obvious distress, I answered honestly, “To see if I could.”
“I will so get you back for this!”
“Can you exact your revenge after you’ve done the job I need you to do?”
“Need? Or want?”
“Need,” I ple
aded. “You’re the best, Lucas. No one else can do this job except you.”
He perked up. “Really? Lay it on me.”
“I need you to hack some emails.”
His face fell. “Anyone can do that.”
“Yeah? Not me.”
“Give me the information and I’ll get you what you need. Does it require cracking multiple layers of encryption?”
“I doubt it. It’s for someone purporting to be technologically backward so it’ll probably be easy.” I wrote Debby’s full name on a slip of paper along with the email address I gleaned from Garrett’s file and passed it to Lucas.
“What are you looking for?”
“No idea yet.”
“I will call you when I have something.”
“You’re truly the best.”
“Say it again.”
“You’re the best.”
“I know. I love hearing it.”
“Where’s the boss?”
Lucas gulped, pale terror passing across his face. “You don’t know?”
“No. Do you?” My heart thumped. What hadn’t Solomon told me?
“Nope,” said Lucas, his eyes widening with guilt. He spun around. I gripped the back of his chair and spun him back. “Yes, you do,” I told him. “What’s going on?”
“Gotcha! He was in his office last I saw.” Lucas laughed at my panic-stricken expression and stuck out his tongue. Apparently, I didn’t have to wait long for him to exact his revenge.
“Very funny!” I cuffed him gently on the back of his head as I left his desk and took the stairs down, walking into my own shared office space. Solomon, just as Lucas said, was in his office but he wasn’t alone. I managed to glimpse another figure so I guessed he might have been meeting a client.
Sitting down at my desk, I reached for the stack of paperwork I left to peruse another time, that time being now.
Debby’s old bank records weren’t very interesting to read. Ten years ago, she lived a fairly frugal lifestyle, spending her money primarily on her rent, utilities, and food. There was the occasional charge at a book shop, a weekly yoga studio fee and a smattering of small checks for restaurants and bars. I expected to see a student loan payment but there wasn’t one, which made me wonder if her parents were covering her college fees.
One thing that puzzled me was the lack of any transfers to a savings account. As I scrolled through the pages, there were none at all. Surely Debby had to have some kind of savings to allow her to pursue her travels until she could work? If she did, I couldn’t find it in her bank records. Nor could I find any significant cash withdrawals that suggested she made cash deposits into another account. I turned the pages, looking for a savings account that she had ceased depositing anything into while hoping to find some withdrawals directly from it.
I struck lucky with the last few pages. There was a savings account totaling four thousand dollars and some change but she had stopped paying into it by the time she left college. Judging by the sporadic amounts, which were concentrated around vacation periods, I figured it had to be money from seasonal work. It made sense that once she was in the “real world,” she was more focused on paying her bills than on padding her savings. But that didn’t explain why she couldn’t build up a more significant nest egg before disappearing. A worldwide adventure takes more planning. I scanned to the end of the savings account records, noting the account had remained dormant since the last deposit, eleven years before. It didn’t explain why she never used that money either.
Pulling my stapler from the drawer, I attached the bank accounts together before slipping them into the manila file I created for every client.
Next, I turned to the most recent records. In the past month, Debby hadn’t opened a new bank account. My search didn’t uncover any lay-away purchases or car payments although she was making a payment to a car rental firm, something I already guessed due to the sticker on the back of the car she currently drove. One phone call later confirmed it was a cash payment. There were no investment plans but I didn’t expect to see any. I also couldn’t see any income. Debby didn’t appear to have any income at all, yet she must have been paying for the hotel somehow. I wondered if the money came from her English teaching jobs. What did she plan to do to earn money? How did she intend to support herself after returning to her former life in Montgomery?
Stapling the recent financial searches together, I rocked back in my chair, staring at the rows of numbers. It struck me that Debby didn’t seem to be the type who planned anything. She left without a strategy and apparently, returned without one. I wasn’t sure how that matched up with my notes of Debby as a diligent college student, a committed employee — despite the two incidents mentioned by the Litts — and a person with an apartment lease! It did, however, match her parents’ assertions that Debby took off without warning sometimes, which was why they hadn’t worried initially.
Debby was like two different people, two personalities in one body, each of them fighting with and contradicting the other. Was one side of Debby wild and free while the other side sought stability and security? Perhaps she grew tired of her own clashing expectations of herself while simultaneously disappointing her parents over her academic and career choices. I flipped the page on my pad and made two lists, one for each side of Debby, adding all the personality quirks I could recall.
Dropping my pen, I looked at the pad, frowning. I could see why Garrett was so puzzled. I glanced over toward Solomon’s office and saw he was still deep in conversation, so I picked up my phone and called Garrett.
“I’m stumped,” I told him.
“Mom and Dad always told you to eat more vegetables when you were a kid.”
“Not that kind of stumped. On this case. It’s like there are two Debbies.”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you!”
“No, I mean, it’s like she has two sides to her personality. She vanished even though she signed a lease on her apartment. She took off on an adventure but never touched her money. She turned up, even though she was living abroad. I don’t get it. Is there a history of mental illness?”
“No, none.”
“Oh. Well, scratch that theory.”
“We looked into the idea of her having a mental breakdown when she first disappeared but there was no history of depression or psychosis. We subpoenaed the medical and insurance records. She wasn’t receiving any kind of treatment and there was no history of mental health issues in the family.”
“I don’t remember seeing that in the file.”
“It’s in there somewhere. Or maybe it’s in the box I pulled from storage.”
“I’ll let you know if I don’t find it. Where are you with Fiona Queller’s case?”
Garrett sighed. “Going nowhere fast. None of the neighbors saw a thing. Nothing unusual in the neighborhood that day or any other day. No suspicious cars hanging around or people. No one heard any threats or saw anyone harassing Fiona. Her husband corroborates that.”
“What about the other break-ins in the area?”
“Jord is digging into that but he doesn’t recall responding to anything on that street in the last few months.”
“What about violent burglaries?” I asked.
“In the area?”
“Anywhere in Montgomery?”
“I heard about a guy getting stabbed to death in Frederickstown but he had a meth lab. There was a fight with a homeowner in West Montgomery but that turned out to be a sleepwalker in the wrong house. I remember one case about a woman whose house was broken into by a maniac who tried to shoot her…”
“Yeah, that was me,” I said, cutting him off. And one night I preferred not to remember.
“A lot of violent crime in Mongomery is linked to you. Anyway, if you’re asking if anyone else was killed in a burglary-gone-wrong, the answer is no and there haven’t been any other violent burglaries in the past six months and only a few months before that.”
“Maybe someone’s lying low?”
“If I remember correctly, that perp was caught and is now doing seven years upstate.”
“An accomplice?”
“Not getting that feeling.”
“So we’re back to the idea someone murdered her.”
“A hit?”
“In Montgomery?” I thought of all the weird things that had happened in town and wondered why he was asking that question.
“Forget I asked,” Garrett continued. “She was a homemaker, not a public figure. I’m not sensing any violent acts of passion either. Her husband had to be sedated. I’ve never seen a guy like that.”
“Could he be covering up?”
“It’s possible, but I don’t think so. I’ve been looking into their background and they seemed to have a damn good marriage. House nearly paid off, two kids in college, nice cars, and vacation twice a year. Fiona didn’t have to work. Her husband was a tax attorney. Country club membership. Regular date night every Wednesday. Neighbors only had nice things to say about them. The kids said their parents loved each other.”
“Could they be too perfect?” I wondered.
“I’m not getting that vibe.”
I sighed. “It sounds like they had a good thing going.”
“Yeah, well, someone didn’t like Fiona. I’ve got a lot of interviews to do while we wait on the forensic reports from the house.”
“Any sign of the gun?”
“Nope. I’ve got no motive, no gun, and nothing to tie anyone to the murder. I don’t suppose you called with any good news?”
“Let’s see… no.”
“Any chance you can babysit soon?” Garrett asked, changing the subject. “I want to take Traci out.”
“I think I can.”
“Cool. Chloe wants to talk about weddings with you. She’s very excited.”
“I’ll bring all my bridal magazines.”
“And be prepared to watch Say Yes to the Dress.”
“I am prepared.”
“Are you also prepared to discuss every single dress?”
After thinking about it, I decided I could use some help. “I might bring Lily too.”
“Great, between a new baby cousin and wedding dress overload, Chloe is going to burst! If she mentions boys, you shut that conversation down. Got it?”
Ready, Aim, Under Fire (Lexi Graves Mysteries, 10) Page 9