Family Practice (10 page)

“How do you know it's gone?”

“Because I went out to my place this morning before six o'clock and I searched from top to bottom. It's gone! Will you drink some coffee and wake up?”

He took a sip.

“Do you think Dorothy's death was an accident?”

“Accident? Ellie, get a grip. She was shot through the heart. And it wasn't self-inflicted.”

Ellen brushed hair back from her forehead. “I know that. I mean, do you think it was somebody who broke in, like Willis said, and she just happened to be there?”

“Let's just say I think that's the line we should stick to.”

“But do you believe it?”

“Oh, Ellie—”

“Do you?”

He took a breath. “No.”

“Neither do I.” She got up, rummaged through the cabinet for the sugar bowl, and brought it back to the table. She stirred a spoonful in her mug. “That means one of us did it. With Daddy's gun.”

“It doesn't mean any such thing. Anybody could have killed her. And there's more than one gun in this world. I've got one. Listen to me, Ellie, it's not a good idea to say stuff like that. Even here.”

She lowered the spoon into the mug, let it fill with coffee, and raised it to her mouth. “They didn't like us very much, did they?”

“Who?”

“Our parents.”

“Daddy might have, but he never got a chance to find out. Mother always kept us away from him. Like she was afraid what he had might be catching.”

Especially afraid I might catch it.

“We got in her way,” Carl said. “She resented us for taking up too much of her time. She did have the call, you know. The great Dr. Barrington, battler of diseases; beat them back, stamp them out, make the world safe for health.”

“Was she a great doctor?”

He lifted his mug and stared into it. “I think maybe she was,” he said slowly. “She had healing in her fingers, our mother.” He smiled and took a swig. “Which is a great deal more than I can say for the rest of us.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, little Ellie, don't tell me you believe the myth about the eminent Doctors Barrington. It's a crock. Except for Dorothy, maybe. She's the only one who comes close. That's why Mother liked her, I guess.” He plunked down the mug and tipped his head to one side. “Don't look so shocked. We're not any of us quacks. We're all well trained and competent, but we're not great. Some of us don't even know it.”

“Carl—”

“Oh, I know it. And Marlitta knows. Willis doesn't. He thinks he is great. At any rate, he tells himself he is, so he doesn't have to think. Darlin', our mother told him he was great. Would our mother lie?”

His long face got longer, and his tired eyes got tireder. “Yes, little Ellie, one of us killed Dorothy. The only odd thing is that it hadn't happened years ago.”

“Stop calling me that. I'm twenty-three years old.”

“Sorry. I've got a bit of a hangover, if you must know, and I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't yell.”

“The cops are going to find out that Dorothy had all the money.”

“That they are, little—sorry—Ellie. And they're going to look at us very closely. And they aren't stupid.”

No, Ellen thought. The idea of that lieutenant, Parkhurst, looking at them closely made her hair stand on end. Even Chief Wren with her soft voice. She could have walked right out of an ad for some classy couture place: dark hair, high cheekbones, blue eyes. One look at those eyes and you knew the soft voice was a sham. “What will happen about the money?”

“Unless Dorothy did something tricky, and I don't see how she could have, we'll all get our share.”

“And Daddy's paintings?”

“Now, there I don't know. We'll have to talk to old what's his name. The attorney. Hawkins. Maybe we divide them, maybe they all have to be sold and then we divide the proceeds.”

“Who needs money that bad?”

“All of us, every damn one. And I think you should drop this whole thing.”

“Don't you want to know who killed her?”

He thought. “Depends.”

“On what?”

“Who did it. And whether he—or she—will get caught.”

Caught. Oh, my God. A trial. Maybe a conviction. Did Kansas have the death penalty? She didn't even know. She didn't think so. She hadn't thought beyond
who,
never considered that was only the beginning.

“If it has to be one of us,” Carl said, “I vote for Taylor.”

Ellen gave that some thought and decided she'd vote that way too. “Why?”

“Because he's an ass. He married her for the money. Didn't find out until too late it's all tied up. At least I hope it is. Wouldn't that be a pisser? Somebody killed her for the money, and it turned out Taylor got everything.” He laughed, a short, bitter sound. “No, little Ellie, I believe it might be better all around if we never know.”

“You act like you're glad she's dead.”

Carl shook his head. “No, I'm not. Then again, I am. We all are.” He drained his mug and got up to refill it. “However, I doubt it's going to be all we expect. It was easy to blame Dorothy for everything. There she was, standing in the way of important goals, self-fulfillment, ultimate happiness, all that crap.” He laughed again, the same short, bitter sound. “Somewhere along the way we're going to figure out she wasn't the cause of everything wrong in our lives.”

Ellen shifted in her chair. He was right. Even she blamed Dorothy for everything. Absolutely, she did. Not having enough money, not getting help when she started the gourd business. Even what happened with Adam. And probably lots of other things she didn't want to think about right now.

“We're all going to have to take responsibility for our own lives. That's going to be a shock. And we're going to turn out just as miserable. That's going to be a severe shock.” Tilting the chair back on two legs, he gazed at the ceiling. “Maybe I'll cash it all in and buy a farm.”

Ellen looked at him in surprise. “Farm?”

“Lifelong dream,” he said wryly. “Don't look so startled. That's what you're doing.”

“No. Not like that. Banks are built on the bones of farmers who couldn't make it.”

“Maybe it's in the genes. Daddy's family were farmers. None of us wanted to go into medicine, you know. Except maybe Willis. He had this desire to please Mother. Never could, of course, but he didn't know that. She never cared what we did, as long as we did what we were told. Dorothy wanted to be a pianist.”

Dorothy? Wanted to play the piano? Ellen couldn't grasp the idea that Dorothy ever wanted to do anything except just what she did.

“That's why we've all been jealous of you, little Ellie.”

She felt her mouth hanging open and closed it with a snap. “Nobody's ever paid any attention to me. Half the time, I think you forget I exist.”

“You were the only one, the only one, who dug in her little heels and refused to fall in line.”

More credit than she was due. She'd wanted somebody to look at her, tell her she
was
just as smart, she
would
go to medical school. By then Daddy was dead and Mother was dead. And maybe Dorothy was tired of making siblings do what they were told.

“What about the gun? Should I tell the cops?”

Carl rubbed his bloodshot eyes. “Now, there's a hard one. You can be sure Vicky will tell. She'll have a few drinks and blab whatever's in her tiny mind.”

He looked at her with an expression she couldn't read. “And I do mean everything. It's going to get real sticky. She'll pass on the juicy bit about your argument, threatening Dorothy about Daddy's painting.

“It was mine.”

“Just prepare yourself for a lot of nastiness. And stop this sitting around wondering who did it. That can be dangerous.”

The tears she'd been holding back ever since Dorothy's death suddenly overflowed and spilled down her cheeks. Everything just felt so sad.

9

M
AKING MORNING ROUNDS
, Adam Sheffield steeled himself for what he might find in ICU. Sawed-open and stitched-up organic matter that used to be a little girl? He hesitated at the nurses' station.

“Doctor?” A nurse looked at him as though expecting him to ask for something. Being a doctor was great: people standing by to scurry around at the snap of a finger. The downside was the tendency to play God. Especially in ER.

Death was the enemy, and it seldom happened in ER. A DOA was different. The enemy got there first. But if there was even a spark of life, the team went into battle with frenzied determination. Most often they won the skirmish, fanned the spark, and kept it burning long enough to get the patient into surgery. Surgery was where the patient died, or later in ICU.

Miracles were performed in ER. A death made it hard for the team to continue belief in miracles. The doctors, nurses, and technicians weren't used to defeat, and they didn't accept it philosophically. Depending on individual character, they got mad or snappish, or grew very quiet, or took themselves off somewhere to sulk. Nobody, least of all the team physician, ever gave less then a heroic performance. Life was what they were fighting for. They couldn't pause over musings about a life that was no life.

That the Bryant girl had survived the night was a good sign. Still running a fever. Not so good.

He nodded at the uniformed officer by the cubicle; unless the cop knew by sight every member of the hospital personnel, his vigil was close to useless. Keep out unauthorized people, sure; but what if the guy with the six-shooter worked at the hospital? A physician, for instance.

Monitors blipped and flickered, respirator hissed and pumped. He looked at the little girl.

“She's been moving her arms a little,” the nurse said proudly, as though a child of her own had done something brilliant. “And once, just five minutes ago, she moved her right leg.”

Another good sign. It meant the girl might be regaining consciousness. He didn't like that spiked temp. He wrote orders for more blood work and a throat culture.

“Let me know immediately if there's any change,” he told the nurse, and on his way out nodded again at the police officer. He wondered what little Jenifer could tell them. If she was ever able to talk.

The news of Dorothy Barrington's murder had spread rapidly through the hospital, leading to unfunny jokes and wagers thrown around about who might have shot her.

Adam pushed through the door to the stairway and trotted down steps to the next floor. In the doctors' lounge, he pulled the stethoscope from around his neck, stuck it in the pocket of his lab coat, and hung the coat in a locker. He was checking for car keys when Dr. Bates breezed in. Mid-forties, round face, ever-present smile.

“Well, well,” Bates boomed, “if it isn't the miracle worker.”

Adam's smile felt a little strained. “We aim to please.” Bates was a pain in the butt, and besides that he was an ass.

Bates opened a locker, shrugged off his suit coat, and reached for a hanger. “Taking it on the lam while the going's good?”

“Even a poor schnook like me—translate dedicated physician—gets a day off now and then.”

“Sure.” Bates winked. “A talent like you wouldn't sneak out just before the cops nabbed you.”

“You know something I don't?”

Bates waved a pudgy hand. “Inside information, my boy, inside information. I happen to be in a position to know that our good Dr. Dorothy didn't approve of your working here. And when she didn't approve of what went on in this hospital, she got changes. Sounds like a motive to me.”

He slipped on a white coat. “But then you probably have to wait your turn. Ha, ha.”

Adam bared his teeth in a tight smile. “What is this, Bates? You suggesting I killed her? If you are, I might have to do something.” He loomed menacingly.

Bates banged the locker shut. “A brilliant doctor like you? Naw. You'd have found a better way.”

His smile made him look like a round happy-face drawing. Then the corners of his mouth turned down, somberness set oddly on his jovial face. “She might have had her flaws, but—” He shook his head. “It's probably the sister. The youngest one. Ellen. Always been strange. Probably did it for the money.”

Bates bounced out while Adam was still wondering whether to slam him against the wall and squeeze his fat neck.

Better do something, Adam thought, and wished he knew just what the hell to do.

*   *   *

In the basement of the hospital, Susan watched Dr. Owen Fisher's deft, long-fingered hands delicately slice up Dorothy Barrington's body. Death due to a severed aorta. Nothing unexpected about that.

Upstairs, Jen was holding her own. She didn't look any better, but each hour she lived made her odds better.

When he finished, he leaned against a stainless-steel cabinet and peeled off the latex gloves. “Everything else seems normal for a woman of her age. I'll have preliminary results ready probably by this afternoon.”

Susan thanked him, headed for the elevator, and left the hospital through the emergency entrance. Church bells rang in the distance. As she headed for the department, she saw Adam Sheffield take off in a battered Toyota with a determined set to his pugnacious jaw.

Detective Osey Pickett was ambling toward the door when she walked into the police department.

“Where you off to?” she asked.

“Thought I might mosey over to Haskel's Electric.”

“Why?”

“Well, I got this nephew. Jimmy?”

She nodded. Osey had four older brothers who owned and operated Pickett's Garage—they all looked alike—and a slew of nieces and nephews.

“Jimmy's in the Boy Scouts. Hank just called—”

Hank was one of the brothers, the eldest, she thought, but wasn't certain. After more than a year in Hampstead, she still couldn't tell them apart.