Everything was ready but my all-important outfit. After I poured a cup of coffee, I wandered into my walk-in closet. Actually, it was a climb-in closet. It was piled almost to the ceiling with “stuff,” things I’d been promising myself I’d put away as soon as I had time. I moved aside the Scrabble game and old Rolling Stone magazines and took out my good suit. It had seen me through a lot of tough times, but I wore it the other day for my interview. Would the other staff members recognize it? Would it matter if they did? Didn’t I have anything better to obsess about?
I wore the suit.
I said good-bye to Clancy and left home feeling a bit ambivalent. On one hand, I had optimism and hope in my heart for my newly organized future. On the other hand, I was saddened about Burns’ demise. It was difficult sorting out the emotions.
Because of all my paraphernalia I decided to drive to work again. The trip was a short one, and I arrived around eight, a full hour before I was required to be there. I describe myself as an on-time employee. My family would call it compulsive behavior.
Schnitzer hadn’t given me a key yet, but I had a feeling Gwen Schneider would be there early and would let me in.
The first part was correct anyway. She was at her desk. I peered through the glass door, like a little kid waiting for the toy store to open. I rapped gently at first, but finally ended up pounding with both fists when I got no response to my polite approach. Somehow I knew she heard me. Even through the glass, I could sense her nasty attitude toward me. I couldn’t figure out why she disliked me already. When I came for my interview and was a visitor, she treated me like royalty. And yesterday, after Burns’ murder, she even allowed me to comfort her. Normally people had to work with me a few days before they didn’t like me.
Could she be jealous of me? Nah, it must be something else. Maybe she was embarrassed that I saw her at her worst in Burns’ office. She was the first person I could accurately describe as a blithering idiot. Not a professional description, but accurate all the same. I was going to find out what was going on with her. In the meantime, I would dazzle her with kindness—and maybe bullshit. She wouldn’t be able to stand it.
She finally deigned to acknowledge my existence. As she walked slowly and deliberately toward the door, her hips swayed as if she meant business, but her hair didn’t move at all. She’d cornered the market on hair spray. When she opened the door, she flashed her pearly whites and said, “Good morning. Were you waiting long?”
“Yeah, I was.” I thought lying was a waste of time, and besides I wasn’t very good at it. “Why wouldn’t you let me in?”
“I didn’t hear you.” She apparently thought that she was good at lying. Her eyes betrayed her. “Would you like some coffee?” Her smile didn’t falter, but the rest of her body language gave a little bit, and her eyes were glistening as if she’d been crying. She turned to the coffeepot behind her desk. My vibes must have been taking a break, because I didn’t get any strong emotions emanating from her other than sadness. Why wouldn’t she let me in if she was just sad?
I decided to be noble and forgiving. She had a hard time making eye contact, but I didn’t. I walked around her desk and touched her on the shoulder. “Gwen, I know that Dr. Burns’ death was hard on you. I also know you probably spent most of the night at the police station getting grilled. Whatever is going on with you, I am not your enemy. I know you didn’t kill him and I’m willing to help you.”
She nodded and started sobbing. She ran toward the bathroom. I started to follow her, but figured I’d done enough damage already.
I picked up the coffee that Gwen had poured for me and I meandered to my office. Meander is the correct word because I took a few wrong turns. The scenic route. Instead of turning left from the waiting area, I accidentally went right and then left and I walked past a conference room and several smaller offices. When I reached the back of the mansion, I continued left, making a circle through the building. This route took me past Dr. Burns’ office.
I fought the urge to look around the crime scene.
After Burns’ office came the kitchen, then my office. My very own office. I didn’t share it with anyone. That was so cool.
I put down my briefcase and purse, went back out to my car two more times for the boxes of books, and finally did a very important, symbolic act. I rummaged through my briefcase full of stuff and poured the coffee from the clinic mug into my own mug. My sibs gave the mug to me on the occasion of my employment by DCFS. It said, “Just take it one, gigantic, earth-shattering crisis at a time.” The cup appeals to my smartass side and survived fifteen years with the Department. It remained my talisman.
Throughout the morning people kept poking their heads into my office and welcoming me. As expected, the big topic of conversation was the murder. Everyone had a favorite villain. It made for pretty interesting conversation, and I didn’t have anything better to do. I probably would have a few days of light duty before I got some patients assigned to me.
Besides trying to catch all the available gossip, I used this time to study policies and procedures. I really wanted to learn the important things about the company—like how many vacation days I got per year, how much sick time, personal days, all of the vital stuff.
I wondered when B.H. would be back to question the rest of the staff. Marian Dougherty came by my office and asked me to join everyone in the kitchen, which doubled as the staff lounge. She introduced me to others I hadn’t met. In this office, most staff members were counselors, social workers, and psychologists. There were also a few nursing personnel. Most of my co-workers seemed friendly enough, and since I took charge yesterday, they all continued to ask me questions. I pretended I knew a lot more than I did.
I used all my knowledge garnered from
Bipolar Passion
and
Schizoid Revenge
, my latest forays into reading psychological thrillers. Although my favorite books dealt primarily with the mental illness angle of murders, they also had incredible details about crime scenes and police procedures. Everyone seemed impressed with my knowledge, and I hoped that changed their minds about my bossy demeanor yesterday.
When Gwen Schneider entered the room, a chill entered with her. Earlier Marian told me Gwen worked for Dr. Burns for almost the entire time he was in practice. I knew there was more to her than met the eye, but vowed to let it drop. Or at least I vowed to try to let it drop. Being nosy is a genetic disorder I inherited from my mother. There is no cure.
I tried to observe my surroundings instead of staring at Gwen. This kitchen was huge. Most of the appliances were ultra modern but were in muted tones that blended in well with the Victorian surroundings. We all sat around a butcher-block table that was large enough to seat my whole family. I wondered idly how they moved it to clean. Three of the walls were covered in a yellow washed paper. The fourth wall was natural red brick. Homey and inviting.
No matter how I tried not to look, my glance kept moving to Gwen when I thought no one would notice. She was antsy, unable to sit still, but I didn’t feel the same amount of animosity as earlier. Her energy was really disorganized. Almost chaotic. Even though I noticed things like this, I didn’t know what to make of it. My gut told me that Gwen Schneider was in major hot water. Or maybe not. Maybe she was mentally ill. There I went again. I decided to go with my feelings that she was in big trouble. Of course, anybody who knew she spent last night being questioned by the cops would know she was in trouble.
Nothing like going for the obvious, Sam.
FIVE
O
kay, perhaps I’m not
the most tactful individual, and grace is not my strong suit, but you’d think I’d be able to ask people questions without them thinking I’m trying to dig up some dirt. Apparently not.
So, armed with good intentions and gut instinct, I began my quest for the villain. I decided to hang out in the kitchen because sooner or later everyone passed through there. Also it was close to the scene of the crime, and I knew that curiosity would get the better of everyone eventually. They would all feel the need to get close to where it happened. Burns’ office itself was taped off with the yellow pre-printed crime scene tape. For some reason, that surprised me. I almost expected generic masking tape, on which someone might have written, “Do not enter. Crime scene.” I guess the QPD had more professionalism than I thought.
Even so, murders were rare, and part of the reason I moved home. The last murder I recalled happened when I was a teenager. “Old Lady” Tippins beat the hell out of “Old Man” Tippins one too many times and he died. Immediately upon being notified of his death, she also died. Which just goes to show you that love comes in a lot of varieties, and there is no age limit to the
Romeo and Juliet
theme.
I sat in the kitchen waiting for the unsuspecting staff members to wander in. The first one was Marian Dougherty. She gave me a sideways glance as if she knew I was going to fire some questions at her. Discretion would be my watchword.
“How’s it going, Marian?”
“Uh, okay.” She fiddled with the faux pearls around her neck, eyes darting everywhere but in my direction. She seemed like a nice enough person, and had sincerely welcomed my arrival. I’d heard Marian was a decent therapist and a genuinely caring individual. She was about my age, a bit overweight, with reddish sun streaks in her almost black hair.
“Is your work going well?”
Her reticence vanished. It was as if she was ready to talk and I was the lucky person who happened to be there at the time the dam burst.
She sighed and said that it was hard doing therapy when her mind was elsewhere. She asked if I thought we could legitimately cancel appointments because of Dr. Burns’ death.
“Who’s in charge of the therapists?”
“No one now. Dr. Burns supervised all of us directly and there’s not a middle manager on the behavioral health side.”
She and I both came to the same conclusion. We would suggest to the rest of the therapists that they evaluate all of their patients and cancel the appointments they thought were appropriate. There might be a few people with problems so acute that it would not be in the patients’ best interests to cancel. We figured that whoever was in charge of the clinic would surely close the whole office for Dr. Burns’ funeral and appointments could be shuffled if necessary for that occasion. Today was Thursday and the funeral would probably be Saturday or Monday, depending on the wishes of the family. We’d probably find out more about that tomorrow.
So, now that she was trusting, I got to the meat of the discussion. As she innocently poured a cup of coffee, I pounced.
“So, this was really a surprise, huh?”
“You think people get murdered in Quincy every day or something? Of course it was a surprise. Dr. Burns was a dear man.” Marian added teaspoon after teaspoon of sugar to her coffee. “Well, maybe not a dear man, but a good man. Well…”
I got the picture. And filed it away in my brain for later retrieval.
She continued. “Anyway, my paycheck never bounced. He sure knew how to run a business. I’m going to miss him. At least I’ll miss him sometimes.” She stirred her coffee without looking at it, unaware that the hot liquid sloshed over the sides of the mug. “Well, to be honest, he could be a real dick, but no one should have killed him. Nobody deserves that. I always thought there was more to Gwen than met the eye, but I didn’t think she would kill him.”
Whoa, the verdict was in, even before Gwen had been arraigned. She hadn’t even been arrested. In fact, she was still sitting in the reception area, trying to muddle through.
The joys of small town living. Probably everyone in town was by now debating her innocence or guilt. Since people love a good scandal, the majority was probably convinced of her guilt.
I decided to probe a little more.
“What makes you think Gwen killed him? Had there been trouble before or something?”
She hesitated and looked around before answering. “You know they were having an affair. And I’m not one to gossip, but Gwen never married and she worked late a lot and Dr. Burns worked late a lot and Gwen always has expensive jewelry and her mother stopped talking to her and she never goes to the Christmas party because Mrs. Burns will be there, and…” At this point she stopped to take a breath and I was glad. I had begun worrying that she would keel over, her face was so red. I started talking before she could go again.
“That’s very interesting,”
and juicy,
“but if they were having an affair, why would Gwen kill him? That’s kind of like biting the hand that feeds you.” I was quick with the clichés.
“I don’t know why she would kill him, but I heard she confessed right in your office.”
Damn those heating grates.
“She did not confess. Please tell everyone that. And I don’t think she killed him. I can’t reveal my source right now, but I trust the truth will become evident to everyone very soon. In fact, a trusted investigator is on the case even as we speak.” It wasn’t my fault that Marian probably assumed that the trusted investigator was Michael O’Dear instead of me.
Thinking of his name reminded me that I was eager to see him again. Maybe I could weasel some information out of him, but I had to have a plan. For now I had a witness to milk for information. Maybe I mixed my metaphors a little, but I was getting excited. And that feeling was one I hadn’t experienced in quite a while.
I continued, “I only knew him a few minutes before he died, so I didn’t form an opinion of him.”
Marian raised her eyebrows in disbelief.
“Okay, so maybe I have an opinion, but I want to hear more of yours. What did you mean, ‘he could be a real dick sometimes’?”
Marian hesitated. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but he wasn’t a very good psychiatrist. Great businessman, poor therapist. Over the years I’ve taken several of his former patients—after all there’s not another clinic for them to go to—and they’re almost pathetically grateful that I listen to them. Apparently, Dr. Burns was pretty directive. I’ve even heard him described as manipulative.”