Best Place to Die (30 page)

He pressed the only pre-programmed number in his disposable cell, and wedged the Bluetooth earpiece in place. He raised the shotgun as the phone rang, once, twice.

‘Hello?' Jim's voice, although he sounded like he had a cold.

‘Hell of a day, Jimbo. We need to talk.'

‘Where are you?'

Dennis smiled as he stared down the barrel. ‘Look out your back window.'

‘You shouldn't be here.'

‘I know. No one saw me. We have to talk.'

There was movement in the family room and then a curtain pulled back and the shadow of a head. ‘Works for me,' Dennis muttered. And with steady aim, he squeezed off a single shot.

The window shattered, and as Dennis turned to flee, a blinding spot hit him in the face, and two others from either side. And Hank Morgan's voice: ‘Put down the gun, Dennis. Do it now! Get on the ground! Now! Do it now!'

Dennis blinked, his agile mind processing the information, his pulse barely quickened as he saw and heard more than a dozen law-enforcement agents advance towards him. He thought through the options, including running for it, or even hurling himself off the side of Grassy Mountain. That last possibility brought a faint smile –
probably sprain an ankle.
What finally won out, as he lowered the shotgun to the ground, was curiosity. He looked up, blinded by the light. ‘Hank?'

‘Yes, Dennis.'

‘How did you know?'

There was a pause, and Hank Morgan's words came slow; he sounded exhausted. ‘I've known you a long time, Dennis. The moment you thought Jim had something to do with your dad's death, I knew you'd come after him. Couldn't stop yourself if you'd tried. Now turn around slowly, put your hands up where I can see them.'

He was about to comply, but squinting into the light. ‘So did I get the bastard?'

‘He's not even here. But if it makes you feel better, he's in a federal prison right now facing a few hundred charges of criminal fraud, and that's just the tip. You're not the only one who thinks Mr Warren set that fire.'

Dennis nodded, a thoughtful expression on his face. ‘They're going to want my cooperation with that . . . I've got a lot to tell.'

‘Good to know, Dennis . . . now turn around.'

T
his isn't happening,
Lil thought, as dark-suited federal agents, including the pair she'd met at the scene of Wally Doyle's suicide, carted out Bradley's records. She stood in the living room watching them like a stream of ants going out with a box or two, coming back empty, going out with another. In her hand were a subpoena and a search warrant.

Ada was by her side, having told Aaron to stay with Rose in her condo. She whispered. ‘This can't be legal.'

Lil was struggling with what the agent who'd presented the warrant had said. ‘They think Bradley had something to do with Nillewaug.'

‘But he was their medical director for only a very brief time ten years ago,' she replied.

‘They must know that.' Lil felt frightened, and it wasn't just this intrusion.

‘Is that all of them, Mrs Campbell?' the square-jawed one whose ID said Fitzhugh asked.

She walked into the bedroom, and Ada followed. Where the boxes had been was now bare carpet, a lighter shade of tan than the surround. ‘They've been there since we moved in. That's all of them. But why?' she asked, struggling to make sense of this. ‘Why now?'

Fitzhugh looked at Lil, and then at Ada. ‘We received information that your husband was aware of fraudulent billing activities at Nillewaug.'

‘But . . .' Trying to make sense of this intrusion. ‘He wouldn't have any Nillewaug patient records here.'

‘Probably true,' Fitzhugh answered. ‘What we're banking on is his having had prior relationships with Nillewaug residents before they were . . . Nillewaug residents. We believe his records will help to establish a pattern.'

Lil nodded, following his logic to a degree. But the piece that was turning like a knife in her belly – ‘
We received information.
' First the pieces on that damn website, then someone pointing a finger at Bradley. And then it came to her: ‘Lesbians in their Midst.'

‘Excuse me?' Fitzhugh asked.

She looked at Ada. ‘Whoever posted those pieces about us had to have read my column before it appeared. It had to have been someone at the paper.'

‘Not necessarily,' Ada said. ‘Just someone who saw it before it ran. And who at the paper would be that interested in us? I mean, really. I think it's closer than that Lil. And you're right, whether intentional or not, they were influenced by your article. It was on your office computer, and then your flash drive and then the computer in the dining room. Usually you print one out for me to read, but you were in a hurry. I didn't see it until it came out, so someone had to have gotten on to either computer, or taken your flash drive.'

Fitzhugh was following their discussion. ‘What are you two talking about?'

She looked at the agent. ‘You said someone gave you information about my husband's records. Who?'

‘It came through the tip line,' he said. ‘Why?'

‘And that's how you found out about Nillewaug in the first place. Someone called in anonymously.'

‘Yes.'

‘OK,' Lil said. ‘Now in everything I've learned about health-care fraud, if you whistle blow, and there's evidence that fraud was committed, aren't you entitled to a reward?'

‘Also true,' he said.

‘How big?' Ada asked.

‘In the case of Nillewaug,' he said, ‘big. Possibly a million-dollar payout, or more.'

‘But if it's anonymous . . .' Lil felt something crucial just out of reach. ‘If they don't take credit for it, they can't get a reward, then money's not the motive. This is personal, everything that's been happening is personal . . . I need to check something, excuse me.' With Ada and Agent Fitzhugh trailing behind she headed back to the dining-room table and the computer she used for the Internet. Clicking on to her web browser she checked the history. She'd set up her system so that the history and cache files got dumped every two days. As she scrolled down, she hit a block of sites she didn't recognize, and one that ran on for several lines – Grenville4Grenvillians.com. Behind her, she felt Fitzhugh and Ada watching. Lil looked back at Fitzhugh. ‘What do those suffixes mean?' she asked, hovering the cursor over several lines on the history that all started with Grenville4Grenvillians.

‘They're attachments,' he said. ‘And that letter there lets you know they were from a peripheral like a camera, cell phone, maybe a flash drive. Someone uploaded files from this computer to that website. And if you move across . . . may I?'

She relinquished the chair and Fitzhugh switched screen views and came up with an expanded history that included a time log. Someone had been on Lil's computer in the early a.m. of Monday and then later that same afternoon.

‘Lil.' Ada sounded scared. ‘If this wasn't you and I know it wasn't me, that leaves Aaron and my mother, and I know it wasn't either one of them. My mom can barely turn on a computer let alone do something like this. And Aaron would never. Although Kyle was here . . . but he was long gone when this got posted.'

‘We're forgetting someone,' Lil said, and little bits of data came to mind – like the way Alice could barely string a sentence together, but had little difficulty dressing or bathing. Sure, she made a show of not knowing how to use her cutlery, but by the time her own mother was forgetting names, she'd also forgotten how to clean herself after going to the bathroom . . . but not . . . ‘It was Alice . . . Oh my God. How did we miss this? The whole thing was an act.' As the words left her mouth, they sounded too implausible, and completely correct. ‘She's not demented, Ada, not in the least.'

‘And her first name's not Alice,' Ada said.

‘What?'

‘When we were cleaning out her place, all her papers have Mary A. Sullivan. Kyle said she didn't like the name Mary.'

‘Show me.' She was jogging toward the front door.

Outside, Fitzhugh's partner, Connor, was waiting for him, the other two agents having already left. ‘What's going on?' he asked.

‘Not certain, but interesting,' Fitzhugh said, as he trailed behind Lil into Ada's condo. Where they found Aaron, who'd obviously been trying to listen through the adjoining wall. He started to ask questions. ‘What's . . .'

Lil shook her head no and made a beeline for the room where Alice had been staying. Along one wall were opened black garbage bags, and she was barraged by incongruous bits of information. The woman had a hell of a lot of lingerie, but that's not what drew her interest. It was a framed photo of Alice with Kelly and Kyle on her lap when they couldn't have been more than two. A pair of chubby-cheeked toddlers, he in a sailor's outfit, his brown eyes looking back, and Kelly, who could easily have been a child model with her reddish-gold ringlets and luminous china-blue eyes, her mouth a perfect cupid's bow as though blowing a kiss to the camera . . . and right then Lil knew the truth. She'd seen those eyes before . . . her mother's eyes. She did the math, Kyle and Kelly had to be in their early thirties – were they the product of rape? Kelly's red hair – like Dennis Trask's. ‘Oh my God!' Her knees felt week; she was trembling.

‘What is it?' Ada asked.

Lil couldn't take her eyes off the picture. The two beautiful children, twins, but not identical. ‘I know who phoned in your tip. And I know why.' With all eyes on her, she shared the story of Victoria Binghamton's rape. ‘Mary A. Sullivan was her mother. Alice is Victoria's mother. She raised her children, adopted them, and thirty-four years after the fact she's come back to Grenville.'

‘Interesting coincidence . . .' Fitzhugh took the picture from her. ‘That's Kyle Sullivan . . . the nurse at Nillewaug.'

‘Yes,' Lil said, ‘and that's his sister, Kelly . . . who came and took her away this afternoon.'

‘Where to?' Fitzhugh asked.

‘New York . . . Manhattan. Kyle said Kelly has a loft in Soho.'

Lil stared at the photo, and thought of dotty Alice –
all an act
. And the two beautiful toddlers now fully grown.
Why did you wait so long to return to Grenville,
she wondered. They say revenge is best eaten cold, but thirty-plus years . . .

As though reading her thoughts Ada gave the answer: ‘It had to have been Victoria's death. It was six years ago, and a year later she comes to Nillewaug.'

‘Yes.' And Lil looked back at Agent Fitzhugh, now on his cell tracking down an address for Kelly Sullivan. She had so many questions, but something else, too. A horrible knot of emotion that was impossible to untangle. Everything from dread at having them find something wrong in Bradley's records, to a twisted admiration for Alice, to a sadness for what had happened to Vicky Binghamton.

Fitzhugh got off the phone and said something to his partner.

‘You're going after them?' Lil asked.

He smiled. ‘You ladies do good work. This was very productive.' And they headed out the door.

‘S
o, are you finally going to tell me?' Kelly asked, the wind whipping her coppery locks as she sped down I-684 toward Manhattan, top down on her gleaming Mercedes, but windows up, so she and Grandma Alice could finally have ‘the talk'.

‘Are you certain, dear?' Alice asked, relishing the cool open air and the warmth of the heated seats. ‘You know enough, any more and you're an accomplice . . . probably already are.' A worried expression on her face . . . ‘You know I would never harm you or Kyle?'

‘Please,' Kelly said, glancing at Alice from behind dark glasses. ‘You . . . and my brother, are the only people in this world I can count on. But I have to know.'

‘Of course,' Alice said, taking stock of Kelly. It was always a shock to see those blue eyes – like Vicky's – but her personality . . . wild and fiercely self-centered.
A narcissist
, Alice mused, wondering if that personality trait could be inherited, and if so, it came from her father – Dennis Trask – and his father. ‘When they question you,' she said, ‘you know nothing. Your grandma, who loves you more than life itself, has Alzheimer's. How could she possibly have done these things?'

‘Of course, but they'll make the connection, between you and . . . so Norman Trask was my grandfather?'

‘Yes, and many years ago was my boss. Nowadays, I could have sued him for what he did. But then, I needed the job, and he was the only one who'd hire me. I was a single mother . . . and an idiot. I wanted your mother to have a good school system and Grenville had the best in the state. The best of a lot of things. I didn't want to sleep with him. I liked his wife, and for the eight years I was his receptionist, I was convinced she knew . . . how could she not? And you know I wasn't the only one he was screwing. Twice a year – at least – he'd go to orthopedics conventions in either Vegas or Hawaii. The way he described them they were nothing more than medically sanctioned ruses for a week's debauchery. He was obsessed with sex . . . and clocks. Every time his wife came to his office, so polite, so sweet. Always asking how Vicky was doing. But something not right about that woman. She had this little girl voice, very breathy. I thought she was a fool, but always nice to me. He treated her like shit and she never knew it, or more likely, refused to see it . . . I hate to say it, but your brother's a bit like her. And it was clear from the beginning. If I wanted that job . . . which to me was far more than a paycheck . . . it was either put out or get out. It's not like I was a virgin, and it's not like screwing him made my job easier. Norman was a bastard through and through, his only mistake was never being able to see beyond the end of his nose. The world stopped and started with him and his precious Dennis. It made all of this so much easier.'