Shadow of Doubt (13 page)

S
tan Shepherd was still weak and felt as though he'd been dragged a hundred miles behind a pickup truck…then backed over. He felt so tired. So incredibly tired, but they all seemed to be so glad to see him awake that he hated to give in to the fatigue and close his eyes again.

But all the questions…they were asking so many, probably to evaluate whether he had brain damage. He tried to answer them, but the question he had for them seemed more pressing. Where was Celia? What had happened to him? Had they been in an accident? Was Celia hurt…or worse? Is that why no one wanted to tell him where she was?

“Celia,” he whispered again, and his mother, standing on one side of the bed, offered him that cup of water with the straw that probed at his lips like some kind of medical instrument. He sipped obediently.

“Honey, don't try to talk.”

“Stan, can you tell me your birth date? Your name and address? Your mother's maiden name?”

“Thought she said not to talk.”

The doctor who stood over him wasn't amused. He was serious, so Stan tried to give him what he wanted. “April 22. Stan Shepherd. I live at 313 Burgundy Drive, Newpointe, Louisiana. Want the zip?”

The doctor smiled. “No, that won't be necessary. Detective, could you tell me the last thing you remember?”

That was a tough one. He closed his eyes and tried to think. Celia. He remembered Celia crying over him, calling 911…

“I was sick.”

“Yes. Do you remember when you began to feel sick?”

“I don't know.” He began to get concerned and looked around the room again, taking grim inventory of the people watching him. Two doctors, a nurse, his father, his mother…

“Where's Celia, Mom? Is she all right?”

“She's…not able to be here today. Just relax, darling.”

He didn't like the sound of that. He turned back to the doctor. “How long have I been here?”

“Two days. You came in Tuesday night. It's Thursday now.”

“Thursday? What happened to—” He tried to sit up, but realized he was too weak.

“You've been in a coma, Detective. You were poisoned.”

“Poisoned?
You've got to be kidding.”

“No, I'm afraid not. It was arsenic poisoning.”

Arsenic? He closed his eyes, trying to think. Arsenic. Like Nathan, Celia's first husband. Poisoned. He'd been in a coma…Had almost died.

His skin felt cold, damp, and he brought a trembling hand up to wipe his temples. “Where's my wife?”

Silence again.

His eyes filled. “Is she dead?”

“No, of course not,” Hannah said quickly. “No, darling, nothing like that.”

“Then what?” he asked, growing agitated. “Why won't anybody tell me where she is? I want to see her. She must be worried sick.”

His father pushed between Hannah and a nurse, and set his hand on the railing of the bed. “Son, we don't know how to tell you this.”

“Just spit it out,” he snapped. “I want my wife.”

“Celia's…not allowed to see you. There's a court order…”

“A court order? What kind of court would order a thing like that?”

“Son, did you know that Celia's first husband had died of arsenic poisoning, and that she was charged with that murder?”

Oh, so that was it. He closed his eyes again, racking his brain for some logical sequence of thoughts. That grogginess still hung on. Was it the arsenic, or the coma, or the damage that had been done to him? He forced his mind back to the question. Had he known about Celia's first husband?

“Yes,” he said. “She told me before I married her. She told me everything. But she didn't do it, Dad.”

“Son, I wish I could believe in her, but you were poisoned the same way. And there's evidence…”

“What evidence? I want to talk to Jim Shoemaker. I want to talk to Sid.” He struggled to sit up again, and this time half made it. “Do they think she did this to me? Have they arrested her?”

“Yes,” his mother said. The word, uttered with such regret, shot to his heart like an arrow, knocking him back down.

“No,” he said. “How could they be so stupid? Celia couldn't—wouldn't—do this!” His breath was coming harder. “Where is she? In jail? Get her out, Dad! I don't care what it costs or what you have to do. Get her out!”

“She's out,” he said. “She was released on bond.”

“I want to see her!” he managed to shout. “Now!”

“That's impossible, son. Judge DeLacy ordered her to stay away from you. There's a grand jury investigation going on, and she—”

“She didn't do it, Dad! She didn't!”

“Then who did?”

He fell back and laid his hand over his eyes, trying to think. “I don't know. But I know she didn't. Give me the phone.”

Bart and Hannah looked at each other, but neither made a move. “Why?” Bart asked.

“I want to talk to my wife.” His voice was a barely whispered rasp now, but he wouldn't give up. “She must be scared to death. She must be humiliated. Give me the phone, Dad.”

“I can't do that, Son. I have to protect you.”

“I don't
need
protecting from her! At least let me call the judge. He can't make that court order hold if I ask him to let me see her. I'm a grown man.”

“You're a sick man,” his father said. “You're still very, very sick. You're not out of the woods yet. You have to rest, and we can't take the chance of having her finish off the job…”

“Give me a break!”
The words came with such passion that they almost took what was left of his voice. He couldn't believe they would do this to his wife. His body begged him to give in to sleep, to rest, to recovery, but his mind fought. He had to get up and get to her, wrap her in his arms and tell her it would be all right. Then he realized that it couldn't be all right, not while the killer was still out there. What if he poisoned her, too? What if she was an open target? “Call Jim and Sid. I have to talk to them,” he said. “I have to make sure that someone protects her.”

“When you're rested and feeling better,” his mother said. “We'll call them then.”

“No, not then,” he said through his teeth. “Now. Mom, so help me, if you don't, you're gonna have to tie me down to keep me in this bed.”

She shot his father a distressed look. “All right,” Bart said finally. “We'll call them.”

“Now. Call them now.”

“Okay.”

He closed his eyes as Bart picked up the phone. He didn't relax until he'd heard him ask them to come. Then, finally, he surrendered to the sleep pulling at him.

S
id had managed to get a few hours' sleep, but it wasn't enough. He rubbed his eyes and tried to concentrate on the rap sheet he'd gotten on Lee Barnett. When the phone on his desk buzzed, he picked it up, preoccupied. “Yeah? Ford, here.”

“Sid, this is Bart Shepherd. Stan's father.”

“Yes, Mr. Shepherd,” he said, coming to attention. “How are you?”

“I'm fine. More importantly, Stan is fine. Or, he's better. He's awake.”

“All
right!
” With the exclamation, he leapt out of his chair, knocking it over. Everyone in the room turned to look at him. He picked the chair up and sat back down. “Does that mean he's out of the woods? What do the doctors say?”

“They think he's on his way to recovery, though we can't be sure yet how much damage the arsenic did. He's still very weak. But Sid, he wants to talk to you. You and Jim Shoemaker. You know how stubborn he can be and, well…” He dropped his voice. “He's a little upset. Do you think you can come?”

“Of course. Does he remember anything? Where he got the arsenic? Who may have given it to him?”

“No, but he's adamantly insisting that Celia isn't the one.”

“I wish I could be that sure,” Sid said, and Bart didn't reply. “Mr. Shepherd, I'll be there as soon as I can catch up with Jim, all right? Tell him we're glad he's awake, and that it's about time.”

“I will.”

He hung up the phone and punched the air, then got to his feet, doing a little dance. “Stan's awake! He's awake!”

The room erupted into cheers as Sid sashayed into the chief's office. Jim was on the telephone. He looked up at Sid, rubbed his eyes, then looked again. He put his hand over the phone. “What's going on?”

“Stan's awake, man! He wants to see us!”

Jim's mouth fell open, then into the phone, he said, “I'll call you back.” He hung up the phone and got slowly to his feet. “Awake? Really?” He laughed out loud and high-fived Sid. “I don't believe it.”

“That's right,” Sid said, still strutting. “This ain't a homicide.”

“Thank God.”

“We gotta go, man. He wants to see us both, if you can break away from your chiefly duties long enough.”

“You bet I can. Why does he want to see us? Does he remember anything pertinent?”

“I don't know,” Sid said. “His daddy called and told me he was upset about Celia. Insistin' she didn't have nothin' to do with it.”

Jim hesitated, and his grin faded. “Then this isn't a social visit. He wants to see what we've got on her.”

Sid stopped dancing and stared at Jim as the unpleasant task before them sank in. “Guess you're right.”

Jim got his keys off of the hook on his wall. “Sometimes we've got to play the bad guys,” he said.

 

S
tan heard the voices at the door, and he struggled to open his eyes. He saw the IV bag hanging next to his bed, felt the tube under his nose supplying oxygen, heard the beep of one of the monitors next to the bed.

His gaze drifted beyond the machinery to the door where his parents were talking quietly to someone. He squinted to make them out, and saw Sid and Jim standing just outside the door.

“Sid.” The word was so weak that he could barely hear it himself. He tried to raise up. “Sid.”

His mother turned around and saw that he was awake, and her tired face came alive. “There he is,” she said, rushing to his side. “See, I told you he was awake. Stan, Sid and Jim are here like you asked.”

“Help me sit up,” he said.

She pressed the button that raised the bed up, and Stan reached out to shake his friends' hands. “Thanks for comin',” he said.

“Man, it's about time you woke up, givin' us the scare of our lives,” Sid said. “I don't
ever
want to have to come find you on the floor again. What do you
mean
almost dyin' on us like that?”

“Sorry, man. Call me inconsiderate.”

Jim was more staid as he stepped closer to the bed.

“Chief, how's it goin'?”

“Better, now that we don't have to upgrade this to a homicide.”

“You've got the wrong person,” Stan said. “Celia didn't do it.”

Jim looked at Sid, and Sid shrugged. “We knew you'd think that, Stan. Nobody wants to think their wife did somethin' like this.”

“You know Celia. How could you think that about her?”

“Too much evidence,” Sid said. “There's nothin' else we can think.”

He felt his pulse speeding up, felt his breath coming harder. It seemed to have a hair trigger. “You can't call yourself my friend…and try to set my wife up for something like this. There's a killer out there.”

Sid sighed and pulled up a chair, turned it backward, and straddled it. “Look, man,” he said, resting his chin on his fists. “If you want to know what we've got on her, we'll tell you. But it ain't pretty, Stan. It's gon' hurt you.”

“What hurts me is that my wife can't come to see me. That she's probably worried sick. That she's being set up for the second time.”

“Do you want to hear what we've got, or not?” Sid asked.

Stan looked his friend in the eye and realized how tired the man looked. He wondered if Sid had gotten any sleep at all since Stan collapsed. Had he spent all this time looking for the killer, or simply trying to build a case against Celia? “Yes, I want to hear,” he said. “What do you think you have?”

“First, and most obvious, the fact that her first husband died the same way.”

“He was murdered.”

“Of course he was. And she was charged with that crime.”

“And those charges were dismissed.”

“Only due to a technicality. You know as well as I do that guilty people get off on technicalities all the time.”

He was having trouble getting a breath, and his hands were shaking. He tried to calm down. “Look, my wife is as innocent as I am. She didn't kill her first husband, and she didn't try to kill me.”

“There's more, Stan,” Jim said. “Have you ever heard the name Lee Barnett?”

He shook his head. “No, I don't think so. Why?”

“Because he's one of Celia's old flames. Before she was married the first time, she was involved with him. He wound up in prison for manslaughter, barroom brawl sort of thing, and he got out two weeks ago.”

“So have you checked him out? Maybe he poisoned me somehow.”

“Maybe. Turns out that he came to Newpointe where he had an apartment waiting. He claims that Celia sent him a letter by way of a priest—”

“Celia?”
he cut in. “He says she wrote to him? What priest?”

“We don't know. But he says she sent him a letter saying that she had an apartment here for him, and that he could get the key in a locker at the bus station, along with a check for $200.”

“He's lying,” Stan said without doubt.

“Marabeth Simmons said the deal was made by phone. The check that was sent in was one of your and Celia's checks. We saw it ourselves, Stan. It wasn't counterfeit.”

“Lee Barnett is a liar. I don't know where he got the checks, but I can guarantee you that Celia did not write it.”

“There's more,” Sid said. “We searched your house again last night, looking for the checkbook, since Celia claims she doesn't have it. Do you know where it is, by the way?”

“No,” he said. “If I had it, it would have been over the visor in my car.”

“We searched your car, top to bottom. Not there.”

“I don't know where it is,” he said. “Maybe Lee Barnett has it. Stole it and forged her name.”

“It looked like her signature, Stan.”

His chest tightened, and a bead of perspiration rolled into his eye. “You said there was more.”

“The arsenic. We found it in your attic, Stan. A brand new box. Hadn't even collected dust. It was rat poison, sitting behind a beam in your attic.”

He tried to rise up. His face grew hot with the strain. “She didn't put it there,” he said. “Celia's afraid to go in the attic. It gives her the creeps. I don't think she's ever been up there. She wouldn't have done it.”

“Not even to cover up a murder?”

“Why wouldn't she have just flushed it down the toilet, burnt the box? Why would she bother to go hide the box in a place she would never have gone before?”

“We don't know why she did what she did, Stan. None of it's logical.”

“Think like a cop,” Stan said through his teeth. “If someone were going to set her up, he'd leave it where he knew you'd find it. Maybe it's this Lee Barnett. Go with the most obvious first, man.”

“Celia's the most obvious,” Sid said.

“Not to me! Not to anyone who knows her!”

His mother came to the bed and tried to push his shoulders back down. “Stan, you've got to calm down,” she said.

“No!” he said, intent on making his point. “Sid, Jim, you've got to listen to me!”

Sid got up and leaned on Stan's bed rail. “Stan, Lee Barnett says she set him up so he'd take the fall when she poisoned you.”

“I told you, I don't know who this guy is, but Lee Barnett is a liar.”

“Maybe. He could have done all of this. But if that's the case, Celia may have put him up to it.”

“No way!” He sat all the way up of his own volition and waved a shaky hand at Jim. “Jim, you get him off of her. You
tell
him that he's on the wrong track!”

His mother fought to lay him back down. “Stan, please—”

“Tell him he's wasting police hours going after the wrong person! My wife is a victim!”

Jim looked miserable. “Stan, we're exploring every avenue. We're not leaving any stones unturned.”

“I don't want clichés, Jim! I want my wife. She's out there like a sitting duck, just waiting for this maniac to strike. I want her protected.”

“Protected?” Jim asked. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I want someone watching her. Twenty-four hours a day. I don't want anyone to go near her that isn't seen.”

“Stan, we don't have the manpower for that. With you out—”

Stan grabbed Jim's collar and jerked his face close to his. “I've put years on this police force…” He stopped to catch his breath “…and I've never once complained about having to work around the clock to solve crimes. I've been a good detective for you, Jim, and I've put my life on the line over and over. Now I need a favor. I want my wife protected. You owe that to me.”

Jim took a step back, red faced, looking at him as if he was crazy. Stan supposed that arsenic poisoning gave him more license than usual. Instead of firing him on the spot, Jim only glared at him.

Stan blinked back the mist in his eyes. “What do you want, Jim? You want me to get down on my knees?”

Sid seemed startled by Stan's passion, and finally, he turned his long, dark face to the chief. “Jim, I could watch her.”

“No,” Jim said. “We don't have a detective. You're the most qualified evidence technician we've got. I need you on the case.”

“We could take turns. Everybody could watch for a couple of hours each day. Get twelve of us to do that, and you got the whole day and night covered. We could do it, Jim. Then, if she is guilty, we'll see who she talks to and where she goes. It could work in our favor.”

Stan ground his teeth together and shook his head. “I don't believe you guys.”

Jim rubbed his stomach, a habit he'd developed shortly after becoming police chief. “Stan, I'll see what I can do.”

“Do better than that, Jim,” Stan said, “or you'll have to find yourself another detective.”

“You wouldn't quit,” Hannah cut in, laughing nervously. “Stan, you love your job.”

“Watch me.” His tone brooked no debate. “Promise me you'll put someone on her right away.”

“I said I'd do what I can,” Jim said, but both Stan and Sid stared at him, waiting for more than that. “Okay,” he said finally. “I promise.”

Stan relaxed back into his pillow, feeling suddenly tireder than he had felt since he came out of the coma. “Thank you.” He tried to slow his breathing. “One other thing. I want to see her. This stupid court order…Tell the judge to let her come. Tell him he can send a police escort, an armed guard, whatever. I just want to see her. I have to see her.” His last words faded out on a whisper.

Sid and Jim stood looking at him as he tried to fight the heaviness in his eyelids.

Sid reached over and touched his limp hand. “I'm glad you're okay, man. Really glad. Even if you do hate my guts.”

“I don't hate your guts,” Stan whispered. “I hate what you're doing to my wife.”

“And I hate what she did to you, if she did it.”

Stan grabbed his hand and opened his eyes again. “Sid, you promise me that…you'll work as hard…to prove her innocent…as you're working to prove her guilty.”

“Sure, man,” Sid said. “Believe it or not, I don't want Celia to be guilty.”

He wanted to say more, but that heaviness was too overwhelming, and his eyes wanted so desperately to close. He told himself that they would keep their promises…they had to. They would watch Celia, even if they thought she was guilty. She would be protected.

Knowing that, he let go and drifted back into the vortex of sleep.