Cheated By Death (30 page)

I shook my head. “Holly’s a Golden
Retriever—she’s practically a lap dog. She’s never bitten
anyone.”

“Let’s go over it again,” Segovia said, and
we turned away from the glass.

“So far he’s stuck to his story,” Detective
Wilder said. “How is the dog?”

“She’ll live.”

“Do you want to press charges? We can get him
on cruelty to animals and trespassing. Otherwise he’s going to
walk.”

I looked at Richard, who’d been silent, his
expression grim.

He met Bonnie Wilder’s solemn gaze. “Nail the
sonuvabitch.”

We watched as Segovia took Holtzinger through
it again, and again, but Pony-tail never changed his story. Bonnie
Wilder took us back to her office, and Richard filled out the
complaint form.

Afterwards, Richard sat behind the wheel of
his car, his gaze fixed on the dashboard. The silence between us
dragged.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

He looked at me. “No, dammit. I’m sick and
tired of being taken advantage of. Of being hounded. If Holtzinger
isn’t the one who’s been harassing Brenda and didn’t shoot Jean
Newcomb, and if Willie or Reverend Linden didn’t do it, then who
the hell did?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t know.

I rubbed my eyes. “God, I’m tired. I’m
working on about three hours sleep.”

“I didn’t get much more,” Richard
groused.

The silence lengthened. His hands kept
clenching the steering wheel.

“What is it?” I finally asked. “You’ve been a
bastard since yesterday.”

“Don’t you think I’ve got the right?”

“Yeah, but there’s more to it. Why don’t you
just say what’s on your mind?”

Richard’s knuckles were white. He turned,
glared at me. “Have you got feelings for my wife?”

His icy tone rattled me.

“Of course I do. I love her.”

Then I realized just what I’d said—and what
he’d meant. He hadn’t forgotten the sight me and Brenda in his bed
the day before.

“Wait a minute. No. Nothing like that.”

“Because if you do . . . . ” His voice broke
and he looked away.

“Rich, you know I’m with Maggie. I care about
Brenda as my friend. I care about her because you love her. I care
because some dick-ass is making her life hell and she doesn’t
deserve it. You guys are my
family
,” I said. God, this was
hard. “I’ve been thinking about that word a lot lately. Brenda
means more to me than Patty ever can. I never wanted or needed
family until you guys took me in, until you . . . .”

I was blathering. Didn’t that just sound like
classic denial?

As quickly as it had surfaced, his anger
faded. He patted my shoulder. “Thanks, kid. I'm sorry, but I had to
ask.”

I took a shaky breath. “Now I’ve got a
question for you. Why did you call Patty last night?”

His face colored.

“Why?” I demanded.

“Because . . . I had too much to drink. I
wasn’t thinking straight. I didn’t understand what was happening
with you and Brenda. I needed someone to talk to. A sympathetic
ear.”

“You couldn’t just ask me?”

His voice was hard. “You don’t make it
easy.”

Ouch. But I wasn’t going to let him off the
hook. “Then why didn’t you talk to Maggie--or even the damn dog?
Why in God’s name did you call Patty?”

“I don’t know.” He was quiet for a moment.
“What did she tell you last night?”

“Not much. Her friend Ray’s been asking a lot
of questions about you—and me. He read about the Sumner murder in
the paper.” I thought about it for a moment. “She said Ray just
came back to Buffalo after being away for a long time. If that’s
true, how did he know about our involvement in the case? That was
eight months ago.”

He shrugged. “Did she say anything else?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t understand it. Something
about a Dr. Concillio.”

Richard’s back stiffened, his eyes going
wide. “What?”

“She said to ask you about Dr.
Concillio.”

He took a ragged breath. “I told you a
colleague of mine was killed recently.”

“The guy downstate.”

He nodded. “Marty Concillio.”

“What’s he got to do with Patty?”

Richard’s eyes darkened with worry. “I don’t
know.”

“Who was he?”

“A friend. At least before our malpractice
suit.”

I blinked, disbelieving. “Malpractice.
You?”

He nodded. “I was an intern. Marty was in his
last year of residency. We were the only doctors on duty in the ER
during a blizzard. A pregnant woman in her late forties came in and
she was in trouble. We were short staffed. The OB on call was in
surgery. We were on our own.”

“To do what?”

“An emergency C-section.”

“Did you have any surgical training?”

“Not at the time. The ER was my first
tour.”

“What happened?”

He swallowed down remembered pain. “We had
two deaths that night.”

His words chilled me. “God.”

“That was the first time I questioned my
career choice.”

“What was the woman’s name?”

“Dorothy Pfister,” he answered without
hesitation—the memory was deep and as painful as a fresh wound.
“The lawyers said it was gross incompetence.”

“Was it?”

“Hell, no. She'd had no prenatal care and was
a diabetic with toxemia—no one could’ve saved her or her baby.”

“What happened?”

“The hospital settled out of court. I forget
the amount, but I remember thinking they’d settled cheap.
Especially since the husband was so vocal.”

“Did the woman have other kids?”

“I don’t remember. It was a long time
ago.”

“How would Patty know about Marty
Concillio?”

“Why don’t we ask her?”

“I tried calling her this morning. I got no
answer. She left a melodramatic message on my answering machine
last night. Said she needed to see us both. That it was a life and
death situation.”

I grabbed the cell phone, dialed her number.
It rang and rang. I hung up.

Richard turned the key and the engine purred.
“Let’s go to her house. It’s on the way.”

“I’ll call Maggie and let her know why we’re
delayed,” I said and started dialing as Richard pulled into
traffic.

We were halfway to Patty’s place when I spoke
again. “How come you never mentioned this lawsuit stuff to me?”

“It wasn’t the highlight of my career.
Besides, you were just a kid. I didn’t want to worry you.”

A plausible explanation—and another example
of his lack of candor? Still, we’d come a long way since those
days.

“Tell me more about Marty Concillio,” I said.
“What did he look like?”

“I hadn’t seen him in years.”

I took a good guess. “Is he tall, with olive
skin—kind of ethnic? Thin nose, thin lips, a heavy beard. Thick
hair?”

“Yeah, why?”

I let out a shaky breath. “That’s the man in
my recurring nightmare. You said he was killed in a hunting
accident. Was he gut shot?”

“Yes.”

My insides twisted. “Didn’t you say his son
died?”

“A hit and run motorcycle accident. His wife
was murdered earlier this year. The sicko mailed him a videotape.
Last I heard, the case was unsolved.”

I thought about that unreasonable anger Ray
Sampson had transmitted the day of Chet’s funeral, and realized it
hadn’t been directed at Patty or me, but at Richard. I told him
so.

“First Concillio’s son, then his wife. Now
he’s dead, too. Do you think that’s just coincidence?” I asked.

“What’re you thinking?”

“I think I’m jumping to conclusions with no
evidence.”

Richard stole a glance at me, his eyes
troubled.

We were only a couple of blocks from Patty’s
house.

The latest version of the dream flashed
through my mind. The three faces. The dead man, Jean Newcomb
and—

I hadn’t wanted to look at her face. If I
had, I would’ve seen it was—

“Oh my god, it was Patty, not Shelley.”

“What?” Richard asked.

“In my dream. I thought it was Shelley I saw
dead—they look so much alike—but it was Patty.”

We exchanged worried glances.

Richard pulled up the driveway. Patty’s
Mustang wasn’t parked there. “It looks like there’s a note on the
door,” he said.

I opened the car door, jogged up the steps,
snatched the note taped to the glass, and hurried back to the car.
“It says, ‘Richard and Jeff—meet me at Medsco.’”

“What’s Medsco?”

“Where she works, in Lockport.”

“Is that her handwriting?” Richard asked.

“I don’t know.”

He studied the note. “Did you get anything
from it?”

“Patty doesn’t leave a psychic signature I
can read.”

“We ought to call Bonnie Wilder,” Richard
said.

“We don’t have any proof. All we have is a
note. For all we know, she’s pulling some kind of scam.”

“Maybe,” he said thoughtfully. “In your
dream—are you sure Patty was dead?”

I nodded. “The top of her head was blown
off.”

“These dreams always come true, don’t
they?”

“So far.”

His hands tightened on the steering wheel.
“What’re the odds that I’ve been the target all along?”

“How so?”

“What better way to get back at me than
through the people I care about.”

“Including Patty?”

He nodded.

“That’s a stretch, isn’t it?”

“Maybe. But say this guy thinks Marty and I
took something—someone—from him. What would you be willing to do in
his place?” His voice was calm, but I knew Richard too well. He was
scared shitless.

“This doesn’t make sense. Why wait decades to
come after the two of you?”

“Why does anyone kill?”

Another good question.

“What do you want to do?” I asked.

“Let’s go to Lockport.”

“We could be walking right into a trap.”

“This is all supposition anyway. With
everything that’s happened, we could just be paranoid. If it looks
like a set-up we’ll back off and call the cops.”

His plan sounded all right. Why didn’t it
feel all right?

CHAPTER

22

We crossed the Niagara County line and headed for
Medsco. Its vast parking lot was empty, save for Patty’s Mustang
sitting alone at a rear entrance. Being a Sunday, the entire
industrial park was deserted.

No potential witnesses.

The perfect place for a murder.

“I don’t like this,” I told Richard, as we
pulled alongside the vacant car.

He turned off the Lincoln’s engine and
pocketed the keys. “We’ll just have a look. If it doesn’t seem
safe, we’ll leave.”

“Are you on some kind of macho ego trip? This
guy wants to
kill
you.”

I glanced at the factory’s white-painted,
concrete exterior, devoid of windows, except for narrow panels of
safety glass in the double steel doors. I didn’t see anyone behind
them.

“Come on,” he said and opened his door.

My senses screamed “get the hell out of
here!” but I got out of the car and followed him anyway.

The Mustang looked innocent enough. Richard
circled it and looked through the passenger side window. A brown
stain marred the pristine gray carpet.

“Go on, touch it. See if you get anything,”
he said.

Suddenly sweating, I had to force myself to
reach for the driver’s door handle. An image of Patty flashed
through my mind from another’s point of view: she was tied, gagged,
and terrified. The door opened and a blast of pure rage assaulted
me, tearing the breath from me. Ray had driven the car—Patty was
curled on the passenger side floor, her cheek bruised, mouth
bleeding from where he’d kicked her.

I slammed the door, whirled, heading for
Richard’s car.

“What did you see?” he demanded.

“He’s got Patty! We've got to get out of here
and call for help.”

“Hold it right there!”

I whirled. Ray stood at the building’s open
doorway, the barrel of a rifle leveled at us. It was probably the
same rifle that had killed Jean Newcomb.

“You were supposed to be here last night!
Where the
hell
have you been?” Ray shouted.

We had two choices: stand there and both of
us die, or make a break and maybe only one of us would get killed.
But there was nowhere to go—Richard had the car keys.

Ray pushed clear of the doors. “Hands where I
can see ’em!”

He charged toward us. It was déjà vu—only
this time I was the victim—seeing what Marty Concillio had seen in
the last seconds of his life.

“You’ve inconvenienced me. Shortened my
playtime,” Ray said as he approached us.

“What’re you talking about?” Richard
bluffed.

Ray marched up to him, raised the rifle and
smashed the butt against his temple.

Richard went down.

I lunged for him, but Ray spun around,
shoving the barrel inches from my nose.

“Make a move,” he challenged.

I stared into his cold, gray eyes.

Richard groaned, faltered to his knees.

Ray backed up a step, planted a foot on
Richard’s shoulder, and shoved him down again.

“Stay there. You—” He reached into his
shirt’s breast pocket, tossed me a cable tie—a thin, heavy-duty
plastic strip, not unlike what cops use in lieu of handcuffs. “Bind
his hands behind his back.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off the gun—and
fumbled to obey.

“Stand back,” Ray ordered.

He tested my handiwork and decided it would
do.

“Now flat on your stomach, hands behind
you.”

I lay prostrate on the cold asphalt, closed
my eyes, and waited for a bullet to be fired into the back of my
skull. Instead, he knelt beside me and bound my hands tightly.

Fear coursed through me. What had he meant by
playtime?

Ray yanked on my arm. “On your feet.”

I struggled to stand, stared down at a groggy
Richard still on the ground.

“Get up,” Ray ordered, kicking him in the
ribs.