Interior Motives (24 page)

I glanced at Dutch. “Maybe this is it, the connection we were looking for.”

“Yeah, but who would it be?”

None of us had even an idea to offer, so Ron got back to his search.

About fifteen minutes later, he said, “Aha!” Dutch and I pressed closer, but then Ron’s “no go” deflated our hope. He went on.

After another twenty-five minutes, though, Ron let out a long, shrill whistle. “You are
not
going to believe this. Here. Get a load of this.”

He turned the nearest computer monitor so Dutch and I could better see what it showed. I dug my fingers into the hand curved around my waist. We leaned forward.

“No.”

“Can’t be.”

“Read ’em and weep,” Ron said. “I can’t make it more clear.”

The cursor on the screen blinked beside a familiar name.

I took a deep breath and read, “Jacob Weikert.”

15

I turned the key in the ignition. “Either someone stole his name, or he’s won the Oscars for the next five thousand years.”

Dutch slanted me a look. “Do you think that’s it? Identity theft? An Alzheimer’s patient is an excellent target for that kind of fraud.”

My memory kicked in. “Do you remember my close encounter with Larry’s moo goo gai pan?”

“You really think I could forget?”

“Well, forget the moo shu pork.
Before
I fell from the tree, Larry was staring at the computers with concentration like Ron’s. He seemed . . . I don’t know, surprised maybe, or frustrated, by two columns that popped up on one of his screens. He has the expertise to pull off that holding companies scam.”

“And he’d have easy access to his father’s records.”

I flicked my left turn signal and waited for the light. “That’s what I think.”

“Where are you going? The PD’s in the other direction.”

“The hospital. If the doctor lets us in, I have some questions for Cissy. She might have seen something that could prove whether or not Larry is the one.”

“You’re not going to harass an old lady who’s had a heart attack, are you?”

“Tommy and Larry are the creeps. Not me.”

Out the corner of my eye, I saw him shake his head. So what? I knew Cissy would want to help.

Our patient had been moved to the cardiac care center, a step down from the CICU. I breathed a silent thanks to the Lord. Because of Cissy’s upgraded condition, Dutch and I could both visit.

“I wish I’d bought her a balloon or something to celebrate the move,” I said.

“You can come back tomorrow, you know.”

I grinned. “Okay, Builder Boy. I’ll do that. And now we should get this gig going.”

After upbeat greetings Dutch and I sat in the available visitor chairs. Before we could say a word, Cissy beat us to the draw.

“What’s new?” she asked. “And I don’t mean in world markets.”

“Go ahead,” Dutch murmured.

I took a deep breath. “We’ve learned the weirdest thing. After enough digging to build us a trench there and back, we learned that the studio where I ordered the handmade Guatemalan chairs is owned by—you won’t believe this— Jacob Weikert. And he bought it six months ago.”

“That’s someone else’s Jacob Weikert. Ours can’t find his way to his bedroom, much less to a Guatemalan furniture store.”

“I know. But do you think Larry could use his computer skills to pull some kind of scam? He could find his way to Guatemala, Tijuana, or even Timbuktu if he wanted.”

“Those two . . .” She set her jaw, compressed her lips, shook her head. “Larry and Tommy are capable of anything. What made you check out the company?”

We told her about the tear in the leather backrest, about the vial, about the tests Lila had run, and then she beat us to the results.

“So that’s how the arsenic came,” she said. “But did it come here to Wilmont, or did it wind up in Tijuana, where the serums would have been inserted or switched?”

“You used the serum,” I countered, “and you’re still here. Does arsenic cause heart attacks in people with heart conditions?”

Deep elevens etched in over her brows. “I suppose it could, but I don’t think arsenic had anything to do with mine. I’ve been sick for years, long before I started to take the HGH.”

“And Darlene’s only taken the serum for about six months.”

She nodded and I went on. “You did tell me Jacob didn’t take the serum.” Another nod. “It makes sense that he wouldn’t if he knew it was tainted. But then again, you weren’t poisoned, and you took it. So is it possible that Larry could have helped himself to the clean meds you and Darlene bought directly from Dr. Dope—er, Dr. Díaz—and tainted them? With the contraband in the chairs, that is. Did you use the same vial for you and Darlene?”

“No. I used one for me and one for Darlene.”

“Where did you keep all this serum?”

“It has to be refrigerated, so we kept it in the kitchen fridge.” Then her anger turned to confusion. “Wait! The serum comes in glass ampoules. You have to break off the top at the neck to access the medication.”

My excitement fizzled out. “You would have known by a cracked or broken top if someone had messed with the serum.”

Nobody spoke for a while. Then Dutch shifted in his seat. I glanced his way and noticed his intense concentration. “What are you thinking?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “Since the serum came in tamperproof all-glass vials, then she must have taken the tainted serum another way.”

Cissy
hmphed
. “Darlene wouldn’t have injected herself with arsenic. And the serum was the only thing she took by injection.”

“Okay,” Dutch said. “How about this? What if she took the serum thinking it was something else?”

“You mean like in water or food?”

“Maybe with another medication.”

“It was the only injection she took—”

“I got it!” I grabbed my chair’s steel arms. I felt dizzy from the many different pictures that clicked through my mind. “Maybe he injected a pill. What else did she take, and where did you keep it?”

“I kept their medications in a steel cabinet in the upstairs linen closet. Darlene took a dozen prescriptions each day, from cancer treatment drugs to sleeping pills at night. But you can’t inject the serum into a capsule or a tablet. It would melt.”

“That’s it! That’s really, really it! The sleeping pills. That’s how he did it.”

“But I just said you couldn’t add serum to the pills—”

“No, no. I got that. He shot her up
after
she took her sleep meds, once she was so zonked she wouldn’t notice the needle stick. That’s how he got it in her. And he used the serum from the different vials, the ones he snuck in on his own. No one would think twice of a needle puncture in Darlene. She must have been a medicine pincushion if you were giving her regular HGH shots.”

Even though it was somewhat of a stretch given how little actual evidence we had, I was sure I’d figured it out. When I scared up the guts to look at Dutch, I saw acceptance dawn on his face. Cissy’s eyes had opened wider, and a slow smile curved her lips.

“So?” I asked.

Dutch stood and held out a hand. “We might not have all the dots connected yet, but I think this is the right track. I want to get back to Ron’s. We need to track the chairs. You know, where they’re shipped, who buys them, do they always go to Tijuana, or do they come straight here? And which import stores buy them on a regular basis.”

I took his hand. “I ordered the ones for Tedd’s office right from the artisan studio in Guatemala, but I also spoke with the agent in Tijuana. They were the ones who would ship them here. The delay in our shipment is supposed to have happened in Guatemala, not in Tijuana. I had to make a bunch of frustrating calls down there to shake them loose.” We headed for the door. “I’ll go check with Tedd while you and Ron do your thing. We have to find out where Tedd learned about the chairs. And she needs to know what we found out about Larry.”

“We’re not sure it was Larry who set up the fake companies,” Cissy, the voice of reason, said. “Someone else who steals identities could have done it.”

“True,” I said. “But I think we’re onto something here. And it’s the serum that clinches it. Larry has the knowledge and the computer equipment to pull it off, plus he had the access to Darlene and her medication.” I leaned over Cissy to give her a careful hug. “Keep up the good work, Mrs. Star Patient. Hurry up and get well. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Dutch and I hurried to the car. “Don’t you think you should let your alter ego in on the scoop?” he asked.

“I guess you mean Lila.”

“Who else?”

So I did like a good girl and called the detective diva. In less than five minutes, I’d brought her up to speed on what Ron had learned and what Cissy had told us. Aside from a couple of “I sees” and two or three “reallys?” Lila kept her peace until I finished.

“I won’t even ask how you got into credit records, financial statements, sales transactions—whatever you tapped into. But I will admit you were thorough. And now it’s time for you to back off. We’ll continue to follow the avenues we’ve been following, and you will go back to your redesign.”

“But—”

“Want to be my guest again?”

I shuddered. “Fine. I’m on my way to Tedd’s anyway. I owe her an apology.”

“Not so fast, Haley. Don’t discuss this with her—with anyone. And whatever you do, don’t do anything stupid. I really don’t want to lock you up again.”

I blew a curl off my forehead. “A word to the wise and all that, Lila. I get your point. Just make sure you get the guy.”

“Someday you’ll figure it out. I don’t need you to do my job.”

I didn’t dignify that comment with a response. We drove to Tedd’s, where Dutch got into his trashed truck and headed back to Ron’s house.

In the office, Willa told me Tedd had gone to a lunch meeting, so I decided to come back later, closer to when she’d finish her last appointment. I still had the Rockies, the Andes, and the Alps living on my desk.

The wait—for Dutch to call with a Ron update and for Lila to tell me the chairs’ trail had led straight to Larry’s now braceleted wrists—kept me in an altered state. Well, altered in that I was twitchier than a toddler and jumpier than a pogo stick.

I know I’m impatient, but I think I exhibited a superlative abundance of patience. I did wait until late afternoon.

But as soon as my office clock read 5:45, I was gone. I raced to Tedd’s and arrived within a couple of minutes.

Willa had told me earlier that Tedd’s last appointment ended at a quarter to five, and I know from experience that even though Willa leaves for class as soon as the last client walks out, Tedd stays until six or seven.

I should have paid more attention to the unlocked back door. But I blame my distraction on my impatience. At least I didn’t barrel in like I normally would have; I was uncertain of Tedd’s welcome after all I’d said.

My hesitation let me catch the murmur of words. I heard a man and a woman talking in the waiting room, and while I couldn’t catch their actual words, I got the general gist of their argument. The male voice broadcast his anger, demand, and persistence and cut off Tedd every time she spoke.

Her voice remained even and soothing. But the little hairs on the back of my neck prickled up to attention. Something wasn’t copacetic here. I knew that professional voice; it’s the one she uses to keep her clients calm.

Tedd was in danger. And because of the way my mind works, with every passing second I grew more certain of one thing: this was about Darlene Weikert.

Should I turn around and get us help? That would leave Tedd alone with . . . Larry?

Should I instead make my way closer to the waiting room, get a grip on the situation, and then help Tedd before Larry could hurt her? Could I do it alone?

I thought of my cell phone. Under cover of a somewhat louder outburst, I hit the speed dial. When Dutch answered I stepped closer to Tedd and Larry. I prayed Dutch would hear the disagreement; Larry’s voice grew louder by the minute.

When Dutch stopped barking his greeting but didn’t hang up, I figured he’d heard. I moved a tiny ways forward; set the phone down on the hall floor; prayed for strength, courage, and wisdom; and pushed myself tight against the wall. Inch by inch I drew closer to the waiting room, where Larry got madder by the second.

When I finally took a peek into the room, what I saw shook me to the core. The impossible, incomprehensible, inconceivable unfolded before my eyes.

It wasn’t Larry with Tedd in the waiting room.

A very angry but very lucid Jacob Weikert held a gun to Tedd’s head. “Sign!” he yelled. “You can’t change what’s happened or what’s about to happen, so do what you know you have to do.”

“Why did you pretend an illness like Alzheimer’s?” Tedd asked, her patience and serenity admirable even though her hands wore tight grey-duct-tape bracelets.

He answered with a nasty laugh. “Because nobody expects anything of you, so you can finally do whatever you want. You’re just the dummy in the corner. And now that you know, sign!”

“Why are you going to the trouble to make it look like I killed myself? Wouldn’t it be easier if it just looks as though someone broke in? A robbery or something?”

“That doesn’t take care of Darlene. Enough with your questions. That’s all you ever do, ask, ask, ask! Sign the suicide letter so we can be done with this.”

Tedd blanched, but she didn’t falter. “I’m curious about another thing,” she said. “Why did you hurt—kill—Darlene? She loved you.”

“Don’t you ever stop with the questions? Will you sign if I answer this last one?” Once Tedd nodded, he said, “I got tired of Darlene holding the purse strings, so I figured out a way to make my own cash. Artsy junk from Central America sells great, and the HGH does even better. There’s a world of money to be made off sickos. Besides, it suits me to wind up a widower with a horrible disease. No one’s ever going to know what I did.”

I’d heard enough. A long step brought me to within fifteen feet of the man. “I don’t think so, Jacob. I know, Tedd knows, and the PD now knows too.”

I hoped.

He spun toward me and gave me the break I needed. I raised my hands into position, spun two preparatory turns, and with my left foot smashed his gun hand.