Family Practice (32 page)

Parkhurst loosened his tie, unbuttoned his top shirt button, and rolled up his sleeves. The light brought his face into sharp relief: lines and planes that were hard and uncompromising, full mouth, creases at the corners of his eyes that worked such a transformation when he smiled. She took a slug of beer. He picked up a slice of pizza, gathered up the strings of cheese, and chomped off the end.

She rubbed her forehead. “We're not making a very good showing here.”

“All part of the job.”

“Oh, shut up.” She picked off a piece of salami and popped it in her mouth.

“Whoever this shit is has got to run out of luck sometime. We'll nail him.”

“Yeah. Right. Any of these Barringtons could have done it, from what we've got.” Although she wasn't so sure about Willis. He seemed destroyed, sick with grief, his mind not functioning. Didn't seem to have the mental capacity to brush his teeth. Unless he was a whole lot better actor than she thought. “Willis hasn't been to the clinic since Vicky was killed. Home. With nobody to monitor his comings and goings.”

“Not an impulsive man.”

“True.” Impulsive was maybe not the right word here. Desperate was more like it. Grabbing the opportunity no matter the danger. Ha. So far he hadn't been in any danger from them. “Marlitta doesn't seem to be thinking at top capacity, but as far as times go, she could have done it. Left the clinic, driven to Ellen's place, stabbed Taylor.”

“The big question: Did she, or whoever, go out there to kill him, or was he killed because he was there?”

Susan chewed on pizza crust, thinking her own mind wasn't working any too well either. She laid the crust on her plate and looked at Parkhurst.

“Flash of insight?”

“Our killer went there for a reason.”

“I'll buy that. What reason?”

“I don't know yet.”

“Uh-huh. And Taylor?”

“He was driving back from the Dietzes'. Saw the car, recognized it, recognized the driver. Knew Ellen wasn't there. Went to see what was going on.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Anything wrong with that?”

Parkhurst took a thoughtful swallow of beer. “On the surface, holes big enough to drive a combine through.”

“Brent left the clinic and went swimming. He could have driven out there after swimming and before he went home.”

“Beautiful Brent thinks he's smarter than everybody else, he'd be certain he could get away with it.”

Susan picked off a lump of cheese. “Carl's the smart one. If it was Carl, we'll probably never get him for it. He
is
smarter than we are.”

She thought about that a moment. Being so intelligent, would he have considered the risks in blasting away at Dorothy in broad daylight? It hadn't been broad, it had been dark and stormy. A memory floated up from the murk in her mind: Dr. Adam Sheffield saying he only killed people with knives, and there was Taylor Talmidge with a bloody big knife in his chest.

“That brings us to Ellen,” Parkhurst said. “A perfectly good suspect. Caught redhanded, you might say. Evidence and everything.”

Susan sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Not hard evidence.”

“How hard do you need? Although the mayor wouldn't be happy if Ellen was arrested. She might be the least of them, but she is a Barrington.”

“Yeah.” She stood up, closed the empty pizza box and moved it to the counter, picked up her plate and put it in the sink.

“Susan—” The word took all the oxygen out of the air.

He was standing next to her, holding a plate and the empty bottles. She gazed at their reflection in the window. He looked tired, eyes in dark shadows, a muscle ticking at the corner of his jaw. Her face had the panicked expression of a Gothic heroine. A full moon hung in the black sky beyond their images. How corny could you get?

She turned to face him. The tension in his jaw made her own jaw ache. His eyes were guarded, but not enough. Sadness was there too, as it briefly was on those scarce occasions when he was tired and not careful enough.

He set the plate on the counter, fumbled the bottles, and dropped one. They both knelt to reach for it. She looked at him.

For an instant, she thought he would kiss her, but he debated it too long and the moment grew cold. She didn't know if she was relieved or disappointed.

She stood up.

He snatched the bottle and planted it with a firm clink on the tiled counter. “We will nail this scumbag. And then we can celebrate. Dinner maybe.”

27

M
ORNING SUN, HIGH
and strong, slanted gold light through the bedroom; a shadow of leaves danced back and forth across the glass on Daniel's picture, sitting on the chest. Susan closed her eyes against the grief and loss that threatened to overwhelm her. She cursed silently at the sly trickiness of grief. It would back off and wait, crouched and hidden, motionless except for a twitch of the tail tip. It would wait for that moment when you were off guard, completely off guard, when you opened your eyes one sunny spring morning and saw his picture. Then it would pounce, shake you, and whisper, “There is no Daniel. He's gone.”

He's gone, and nothing matters anymore.

Doing this job that was his, one thing at a time, a job filled with people who knew him, was some great appointed task which would expiate guilt. That the guilt was irrational didn't matter.

The kitten zoomed up from the foot of the bed, leaped on Susan's hair, tried grooming it, gave that up as an impossible job, and snuggled up to her neck, kissing, purring, slapping, and nipping, her usual morning get-your-ass-in-gear routine. When Susan didn't stir, Perissa attacked her feet: rip, snarl. Still ignored, Perissa dived off the bed, skittered around the door frame, and galloped down the stairs.

Susan picked up the phone from the bedside table and punched in her parents' number in San Francisco. Nine o'clock here. Two hours earlier there. Too early? Her father answered, sounding fully awake. She felt a stab of homesickness.

“Morning, baby. How's home on the range?”

“Very quiet. Haven't had a shootout on Main Street for near a week. We're all just hanging out on the porch in torn T-shirts drinking moonshine.”

“Watch that stuff. It'll make you blind. Easter's coming up pretty soon.”

“That it is.”

“It would be nice to see a little of you.”

Ah, that's what he was working up to. Come home for Easter. Get a reminder of how great it is in San Francisco. Maybe get socked with an irresistible urge to move back. As a kid, she'd thought his every action was calculated, planned right down to the last step, like a choreographed dance. Now, as an adult, she still wondered how aware of his machinations he was. Only in the last few years had she come to the realization that he operated on an instinctive level he was only partially aware of. “Why don't you come and see me?”

“In Kansas? Tornadoes are destroying the state. What's wrong, baby?”

“Nothing's wrong.”

“I can hear it in your voice.”

His instincts seldom steered him astray. He knew how to charm her, be the adoring father she loved, let the coming home hang untouched, and swing back to it later from another direction. “I have a homicide that won't get itself cleared. Well-respected physician.”

“Disgruntled patient?”

“Could be.” She thought of Ackerbaugh and all his anger that the baby wasn't getting well. “Money's involved, and a bunch of other physicians, all related. Victim was the titular head of the family and the medical practice.”

“Moral, upright man?”

“Woman actually, but moral and upright. And controlling.”

“I suppose you've looked into the possibility of error in the treatment of a patient. If one of your physicians did something grossly wrong, your moral, upright lady might have been on the verge of punitive action.”

Leave it to her father to spot a motive in a case he didn't even know anything about. She chatted with her mother for a few minutes, then listened to her father drop pebbles about how overworked he was and how the firm could use another brilliant attorney. An attorney she was. At least she'd gone through law school and passed the bar, although she'd never practiced law. His idea, law school, preparation for joining his firm.

After she hung up, she stripped off Daniel's T-shirt and stepped into the shower, then put on blue cotton pants, a white blouse, and a light-blue blazer that the temperature made already too hot to wear.

She fed the cat, made a mug of instant coffee, and sipped it while she scanned the latest storm damage in the
Herald.

Driving in to the department, she let her mind play over what she knew, waiting for an idea to swim to the surface like a goldfish in a pond, waiting for unconnected facts to arrange themselves into a pattern.

“The mayor's on the phone,” Hazel said when she walked in.

*   *   *

Ellen pushed back the curtains on the bedroom window. Daylight. Even sunshine. She knelt on the ledge, rested her elbows on the sill, and looked out at the starlings and sparrows giving the lawn a good going-over. On top the gazebo, a goldfinch was singing his heart out. All that fine talk yesterday about living in my own house, and here I am back in the Barrington mausoleum.

All alone.

Hey, I'm still alive. She'd been stupid to insist on staying here, despite Carl and Marlitta telling her she couldn't. She was stupid and stubborn and had spent the entire night an inch off the bed scared out of her mind, leaping into horror fantasy with every creak of wind and rustle of leaves and movement of shadows.

So she'd survived the dark, sleepless, terrified, and reduced to a quivering pulp. Now she was sticky with nervous sweat. She did have a fully functioning shower, there was that. But if she turned it on, how could she hear someone creeping in with a knife?

This was really stupid. She should have gone home with Carl or Marlitta. Well, at least with Carl. He'd never hurt her. Come on, neither would Marlitta. Ellen rubbed her face. Well, somebody was working on it. One of her family—her loved ones, her nearest and dearest—had set her up. Daddy's gun. The phone call getting her to Vicky's. Taylor with a knife in his chest. She felt sick.

Don't think about him.

You have to do something. This big, old, creepy house. All alone.

Take a shower. Put on clean clothes. She'd slept in her clothes last night, feeling a skimpy nightgown made her more vulnerable.

I need a dog. A big, fierce dog with big, fierce teeth.

It was beautiful outside. All the rain made everything shiny-green in the sunshine. Quiet too.

All of a sudden it was so quiet she could hear her own breathing. Nothing else. Just breathing. She took in a noisy whoosh of air and blew it out hard, then got up, stomped across to the chest, and snapped on the radio.

“… more rain forecast for this afternoon. A heavy storm is moving…”

She snapped it off, tugged her T-shirt straight around her hips, and started down the stairs. Breakfast. Halfway down, she heard a car and scooted into the living room. Standing in the gloom well back from the window, she tried to see through closed curtains. Couldn't see a damn thing.

The knock made her jump.

“Ellie? Come on, let me in.”

Relief unlocked her knees. Carl. Then she stiffened again.

“Ellie? You awake? Come on.”

On legs that felt like pegs, she moved to the door. If Carl was going to do her in, the world had gone mad, and she might as well leave it.

“Ellie?” He came in, crossed his arms, and looked at her with an expression that said, I understand, and life is really absurd anyway, so what if misery swamps you? “Had enough?” he asked quietly. He wore khaki pants and a short-sleeved white knit shirt, the usual working clothes that had so annoyed Dorothy. She had thought he should wear a suit and tie.

Ellen wondered if he hadn't refused just to needle Dorothy. She shoved her fingertips in her back pockets. Life was a lot simpler before she started having all these insights. “Enough of what?”

“Clinging stubbornly to a foolish position, just because you took it.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

He smiled. “Don't be obtuse. Get any sleep last night?”

“No,” she said, then grinned. “All night long, I heard people creeping up on me with hatchets. What are you doing here?”

“I came to make sure you were all right and take you out of here. Come on. Don't dilly-dally. I have to get to the clinic. With Willis out of it and Marlitta's mind unconnected, chaos reigns.”

“You don't look like you got a whole lot of sleep either.” His thin face looked as if the skin were too tight; his eyes were slightly bloodshoot, with dark shadows beneath.

“Not much. I was working.”

“You were on call last night?”

“That wasn't what kept me awake.”

Something about the way he said that made her ears perk up. “What then?”

“A lot of thinking and a lot of searching. Let's go. I don't have time for this.”

“I have to go out to my place.”

He sighed wearily. “Oh, little Ellie.”

“Don't call me that.”

“Can't you for once just come along without planting your feet and scowling with defiance? Come and stay at my house. At least then I'll know you're all right.”

Ellen had never wanted to do anything more than she wanted to go with him. She hated herself for not trusting him. “I'm fine here. Really. Honest. I just—” She couldn't think of anything safe to say.

He shook his head at her. “Now, why did I suspect that's what you might say?”

“Nadine's coming in a bit. She's going to take me out to get my car.” And be with me when I go inside.

He sighed, looked at his watch. “I have to get to work. I'll come back later.”