No Such Thing as a Free Lunch (No Such Thing As...: A Brandy Alexander Mystery) (30 page)

“Are you volunteering for the job?”
Oh crap. I hadn’t meant to say that out loud. I forgot Nick doesn’t have a problem calling my bluff.

“I’d be happy to take the night shift, Angel. In fact, I could start right now, but somehow I don’t think Mama Alexander would appreciate that.”

“No, I guess not,” I said, far too reluctantly.

Some time during the course of our conversation, I drifted off to sleep. I woke up in the morning with the cell phone cradled against my ear. Wow. I’d logged six full hours and not a single scary dream. A minor miracle by my standards.

I jumped out of bed and plugged the phone into the charger. Then I grabbed some fresh jeans and a powder blue crewneck sweater and headed for the bathroom. Good thing I’d had a decent night’s sleep. I needed all the strength I could muster to confront the hideous creature that lurked in the bathroom mirror.

My mom had left some eye liner and lip stick on the counter. I picked up the eye liner, debating whether to risk making a bad situation worse. I don’t usually wear make up, mostly because it itches. Plus, I never wanted anyone waking up beside me in the morning, going, “Oh my God, is that what you really look like? I’ve made a horrible mistake!” I figure it’s better to let guys know what they’re getting up front. I took another look in the mirror and forced myself to make an exception.

When I got out of the bathroom, there was a message from Peter Applebaum on my cell. I gave him a quick call and asked if I could come by and speak to him. I was intentionally vague. Informing Peter that there was a good chance his wife’s “accidental” death was no accident was something best discussed in person.

Rocky was waiting for me at the foot of the stairs. She was wearing pajamas. They were red and white striped with holes cut out for her tail and other significant body parts. Adrian lounged on the couch in front of the tv in what could only be described as a smoking jacket. He looked like a mini, mutant Hugh Hefner.

My dad walked in from the kitchen balancing two cups of coffee and a bagel. Adrian scooted over and my dad sat down next to him on the couch. One of the cups was filled mostly with milk. He set that one down in front of the dog. “Heather came by,” he told me. “She said thanks for the other day and she dropped off these outfits.”

Adrian began lapping up the coffee-milk. “Your mother thinks they’re adorable,” my dad mused. “Personally, I think they look silly. I mean, why would you want to treat a dog like a human? It’s a dog. Hey, watch this.” He flipped Adrian a piece of the bagel. Adrian caught it in his mouth and dunked it in his coffee. “I taught him that.”

“I’m impressed. I can’t even get him to roll over.”

My dad looked at me for a beat. “Are you shooting a segment on clowns today?”

“No, why?”

“Oh. I just thought… you look very… colorful,” he settled on.

“Too much?” I asked. I guess I’d gone a little overboard on the blush. But that was just to make up for my deathly pallor.

My dad shrugged. “What do I know, hon? You always look beautiful to me.”

“Thanks, Dad.” I leaned over and kissed him, leaving a big SWAK mark on his cheek.

“So, your mother says you’re not sleeping,” he added, clearly uncomfortable. My dad isn’t good with personal conversations. Guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. “Is there, uh, something you want to talk about?”

Well, let’s see… Someone tried to kill me, I slept with Bobby, cracked up Paul’s car, I’m in love with an outlaw and I almost killed a man… but “almost” doesn’t count…

“Nah. I’m good. Hey, are there any more bagels left?”

I arrived at Peter Applebaum’s at 11:00 a.m. He greeted me with a smile tinged with curiosity. Of all the tough spots I’d found myself in over the course of the week, this was one of the hardest. I was about to tell a man whose world had collapsed the day his wife died that someone had done it on purpose. Only what if it turned out not to be true? Was it fair to subject him to horrifically painful memories before I was one hundred percent sure of my facts?

I followed Peter’s wheel chair into the living room and took a seat on the couch. “Thanks for agreeing to meet with me again,” I told him. “I’ll try not to take up too much of your time.”

“It’s not a problem,” he said. “Although I am wondering what I can do for you. I wasn’t terribly helpful the last time you were here.”

“Actually, you were more helpful than you thought.”

“Really? How so?”

“Well, you steered me to Dr. Levi and ironically, it was the information she
couldn’t
provide that helped me put it all together. Peter, what I’m about to tell you may be difficult to accept, and to be honest I’m not even sure I’m on the right track. But—”

“Listen,” Peter interrupted, “I did a little investigating of my own after you came to see me last week. From what I’ve read, your track record is pretty impressive, so why don’t you just tell me what this is all about?”

I took a deep breath and began. I started with the night his wife’s office had been burglarized and worked my way through to the day of my car accident and how it appeared that someone had tampered with my brakes. He sat rigid in his chair, absorbing the information, stopping me from time to time for clarification.

“So you believe Girard had my wife killed because he was afraid his sister had told her about the molestation.”

I nodded. “Girard was an up and coming doctor. This kind of information would have ruined his career before he even got started and quite possibly landed him in prison. When Harmon went on trial, Laura’s past was bound to come out. So I figure he arranged to have the files stolen and then got rid of anyone Laura may have confided in. Four years later Tamra begins a new investigation, so he gets rid of her too.”

When I was finished Peter sat there with the tortured look of someone who had been though hell and hadn’t quite made it back to the other side. He was shaking, tears rolling down his cheeks. “All this time I’ve blamed myself for Traci’s death,” he said.

“Peter, I’m so sorry. I knew this would be hard for you.”

I waited a minute (it was probably more like thirty seconds, I have no self control) and then I continued. “Listen, I’ve made a lot of headway in connecting Girard to this crime, but I need something concrete to show that he had a motive for killing Tamra and your wife. If I can prove he’d been molesting his sister that should be enough to convince the cops to look into him.”

“I’m sorry. I still don’t see how I can help you.”

“The last time I was here you told me you haven’t been up to Traci’s office since she died. Has anyone cleaned out that space for you?”

Peter shook his head. “Except for Dr. Levi taking the files, it’s just the way Traci left it. I know it’s silly,” he shrugged. “I’ve just never been able to bring myself to do it.”

“I’d like to check out the office. The people who broke in may have taken Laura’s file, but there’s a chance that they overlooked something. Possibly Traci took notes that hadn’t made their way into the file yet. Do you mind if I have a look around?”

Peter wheeled himself over to the other side of the living room and opened up a cabinet. He took out a key and handed it to me. “I want you to nail this bastard.”

Except for the layer of dust coating every surface and the dead plants perched on the window sill, Dr. Applebaum’s office appeared perfectly preserved. A big mahogany desk dominated the room, the top of which was cluttered with framed photos of Peter and Traci and a beautiful Labrador Retriever, an I heart Philadelphia mug and various other knick knacks. A mahogany file cabinet stood against the wall, tucked in behind the desk.

Alongside the opposite wall sat a beige corduroy couch and a matching comfy chair. It made for a cozy, comfortable place to spill one’s deepest darkest secrets. I just prayed the ghosts of some of those secrets were still hanging around.

I started with the file cabinet. Predictably, it was empty. Dr. Levi must have taken the rest of the contents. I began opening up desk drawers, perusing every scrap of paper, but I couldn’t find a single connection to Laura. In the bottom right hand desk drawer I found a four year old Hershey bar and a small notepad. I opened the Hershey bar. I mean it’s not like anyone was going to miss it.

The notepad was filled with hurriedly scribbled, random thoughts regarding various patients. I read the first one. “A.K. appeared more withdrawn than usual today. Re-evaluate meds.” I quickly flipped through the rest of the book. Dr. Levi said Dr. Applebaum only had five patients, not counting Laura. If there was something in the notepad pertaining to her it wouldn’t be hard to find.

Towards the back of the pad I found an entry dated May 2
^nd
. “L. still not talking, but journaling very effective. A real breakthrough today.”

When I was a kid, one of my favorite books was
Harriet the Spy.
It was about this girl who went around spying on people in the neighborhood and taking notes that she kept in a journal. Her parents thought she was crazy so they took her journal away and sent her to a psychiatrist. The first thing the shrink did was give her a new journal.

My heart flipped in my chest as a wave of hope coursed through it.
Dr. Applebaum had Laura keep a journal.
She must have used it to confide all the feelings that she couldn’t bring herself to verbalize. But if a journal did exist, what happened to it?

I took a bite out of the Hershey bar. It was two years past the expiration date so it tasted a little funky, but chocolate is chocolate so I ate it anyway.

“Okay,” I told myself. “Think logically.”
Laura had no close friends and she kept people at a distance. Deeply troubled and with no one to confide in, she decides to go for help. She begins seeing Dr. Applebaum, but she clams up when she’s in the office.

Dr. Applebaum encourages her to write down her feelings.
Seemed plausible so far.

Now, I assume most patients would take their journals home and use it in between therapy sessions in order to monitor their own emotions, like if they start to feel anxious or they have a revelation. However, Dr. Applebaum couldn’t get Laura to talk to her, so… maybe she was using the journal as a form of communication between them… in which case she would be reading the entries… which meant she would have left the journal in the office!

I jumped up so fast I nearly choked on a hunk of chocolate. Frantically, I began ransacking the place, pulling books off the shelves, rifling through drawers.

The left hand desk drawer was locked. I rattled on it for a while and then tried to pry it open with a butter knife I found that had been doing double duty as a letter opener.

Finally I gave up and began searching for the key. I scanned the room for possible hiding places and then I moved over to the window sill and began lifting the potted plants. Under a dead cactus in the corner sat a small silver key.

I stuck the key in the lock and turned it. The drawer opened easily, exposing the contents inside. I reached in and extracted a leather bound spiral notebook. I was hoping for a sign on the front of it that said, “Laura’s journal. All will be revealed!” but life is rarely that accommodating.

I turned the page and found the first entry, dated six weeks before Laura died. The handwriting was small, neat and feminine and the sentiment expressed was short and to the point.
“Sex is power.”

The next entry was dated a few days later. It was longer, but the handwriting was miniscule, as if the person who wrote it was trying to limit its power by shrinking its size. The tone was by turns angry, scared, defiant. I found one passage particularly heartbreaking in its almost childlike narration.

“Nobody knows the real me. I’ve tried to tell Daddy about Ethan, but he just sees what he wants to see. Laura is invisible. Sometimes even I don’t think she exists.”

I looked for the page marked May 2
^nd
. Dr. Applebaum thought there had been a breakthrough that day. There were some pages torn out. I suspected Laura had removed them herself. Maybe they were so private she couldn’t bring herself to keep a written record, no matter how safe the environment.

Finally, I found what I’d been looking for. It was the last journal entry, disjointed and chilling, written in large, angry strokes.

“Ethan said he’s coming over. Well, he’s in for a surprise. I’m not his kitten anymore. The years of self loathing… it was not my fault. IT WAS NOT MY FAULT. I will no longer allow him to ruin my life. I trusted him. My brother. My protector. My lover… God how I hate him. How could he do this to me? I was just a little girl. I’m telling him tonight. It’s over.”

Ethan went to see Laura on May 2nd? That was the same day she was murdered.

Nowhere in the transcripts was there mention that Ethan had visited her on the 2nd. Was he there right before Harmon came over or… Holy cow!

A
wave of nausea hit me with such intensity I bolted towards the window and shoved it open, gulping in the brisk winter air.
It was Ethan! He killed his own sister! Jesus Christ, why didn’t I see it sooner? Because the thought was so repulsive it was beyond comprehension.
And yet I knew it like I knew my own name.

Laura was going to tell him she wouldn’t be with him anymore. Maybe she threatened to tell people what he’d been doing to her all these years. Or maybe he didn’t like being rejected. Possibly, she went crazy on him. According to Danny, it wouldn’t have been the first time. Whatever the motivation, Ethan had to be the one.

He must have seen Harmon entering her apartment on the evening of May 2nd, so he sat in his car for a while waiting for him to leave, and then he came back after Harmon left, killed her and then messed up the apartment to make it look like there had been a struggle between Laura and Harmon.

But then Ethan had to make sure that Harmon would be convicted. Enter Anthony Mitchell. Mitchell was employed at the car wash across the street from where Meyers worked. Mitchell and Harmon hung around the same circles. I’d figured that someone had paid Mitchell to say that Harmon confessed to him about killing Laura. Even though Mitchell wasn’t the most credible witness, his testimony was icing on the cake.