Family Practice (11 page)

“—and he said the troop was at Broken Arrow Park on Saturday.”

“And?”

“Well, that's the park right near the Barrington clinic. Where the receptionist told us Dorothy sometimes ate lunch. It occurred to me she might have gone there yesterday, and I had Hank ask Jimmy about it. Hank just called to say Jimmy said she was.”

“And Haskel's Electric?”

Osey smiled his slow smile. “Bob Haskel's the troop leader.”

“Where is this place?” She made a note of the address. “Open on Sunday?”

“Should be.”

“I'll check it out. You keep hitting the neighbors. See if you can find anybody who saw her come or go yesterday around noon. Try to pin down times. That goes for the husband too.”

“I'll do it.” Osey ambled on his way, the most amiable individual she'd ever known.

Haskel's Electric was on Fourteenth Street between a beauty-supply shop and a record store. The sign on the door read, “Wiring, Air Conditioning, Heating Repairs. Twenty-four-hour Service. No Job Too Small.”

A bell jangled when she pushed open the door. It was dim inside, a long, narrow place, floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked with supplies and equipment. A large young man, brown hair, no neck, and massive shoulders bulging beneath a blue T-shirt with the snarling Emerson wildcat, came into the shop from a back room.

“Hi.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and propped a haunch against the counter.

“Bob Haskel?”

“That's me.”

“Chief Wren.” She held out her ID. “I'd like to ask you some questions.”

“Me? How come?”

“It's about Dorothy Barrington. Did you know her?”

“Sure. Nadine works for Ellen. Anybody who works for Ellen hears about Dorothy.” He grinned and then, apparently remembering the circumstances, wiped off the grin.

“Nadine?”

“My wife.”

“Did you take a group of Boy Scouts to a park yesterday?”

“Oh. No. You want my dad.” He turned his head and bellowed, “Dad! Somebody here for you.”

She was relieved everything wasn't shaken off the shelves.

An older, slightly smaller version—gray hair, weathered face, work pants, deliberate tread to his walk—came from the rear carrying a coil of wire. He set the wire on the counter. “What can I do for you?”

“It's about the Boy Scouts,” Bob Jr. said, and looked at his watch. “I gotta go. Catch you later.” With a jangle of the bell, he was gone.

“That one.” Bob Sr. shook his head. “Always in a hurry.”

Not so much hurry as implacable force. “I understand you took a troop of Boy Scouts to Broken Arrow Park,” she said.

“Right. Adopt-a-park program. You know about that? Well, acourse you do.”

She nodded. All kinds of community groups would choose a site and several times a year pick up trash, take care of needed maintenance, and generally keep the place spruced up. “Did you notice Dorothy Barrington when you were there?”

“Well, I did. Now, wasn't that an awful thing. Nice place like this, something like that happens.” He shook his head again. “I just don't know.”

“Did you speak to her?”

“No more than to say hello like. Being neighborly. I was keeping an eye on the boys. Good boys, all of them. Need a little directing now and then. My own boy— well, you met Bob—little past the Boy Scout age. Found out I missed it. Had to do something.”

“Yes. Did Dorothy say anything?”

“Don't recall she did. Spoke, of course. Pleasant. Real pleasant lady.”

“Yes. Did anyone else talk to her? Did she meet anyone?”

“No. No. I don't believe—”

“What did she do?”

He thought a moment. “Just came into the park. Said hello to me and the boys around, what a good job we were doing. Then she just sat on the bench by the duck pond. It's real nice there. Shady, like. Still pretty hot, though. Unusual to be so hot this early. And looking to build up to rain.”

“Yes. Dorothy just sat on the bench awhile?”

“She did. Had a sandwich with her and a newspaper. Read the paper, you know, while she ate.”

Dorothy went to the park and ate lunch. Getting even that much information had been hard slogging.

She had opened her mouth to thank him and leave, when he said, “Seems like something upset her somehow.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just sort of going through the paper like you do. Then all of a sudden she jerked up real straight, looked at something real hard on the page. Then folded up that sucker and left in a hurry.”

Susan asked if Dorothy had been on foot or whether she'd driven. He wasn't real certain but thought she must have walked.

Back at the department, Susan tracked down the newspaper that had been in Dorothy's office—the
Kansas City Star
—in the evidence room, cleared a space on her desk, and sat down to read about the latest political scandals, unrest in the Mideast, people starving in Africa, traffic fatalities on the interstate, sports events. There didn't have to be anything in it that upset Dorothy. She'd probably had a thought, realized she'd forgotten to unplug the coffeepot or something equally unrelated.

The second time through, Susan noticed the filler on page twenty-seven: “First in Thirteen Years.” A painting by August Barrington purchased for a hundred thousand dollars. No names mentioned, either buyer or seller.

August Barrington?

*   *   *

Hampstead's new library, on the corner of Sixth and Maple, was all brick and spacious in comparison to the old one, with wide windows that actually let in light and a community room bigger than the entire square footage of the old library. It also had added attractions like a juvenile section, magazine racks, and tables and chairs scattered about for leisurely reading. And bathrooms, something the old one didn't have.

The money had come from Fancy French, a longtime resident, who bequeathed several hundred thousand dollars for a new library. The move had taken place over a Saturday, Sunday, and Monday and was all done by volunteers who formed a human chain. The grand opening came complete with flag-raising ceremony and bugler.

The inside smelled of fresh paint and floor polish. Beth Nooley, middle-aged, with frizzy brown hair, looked up with a proud smile. “Isn't this just the greatest place?” She swiveled around to encompass it all. “Wouldn't Helen just love it? What do you hear from her?”

“A card a couple weeks ago.” Helen, Daniel's sister, had presided for years over the old library. After selling the family farm, she'd embarked on a round of travel, and sent the odd postcard every now and then. Even that much surprised Susan. Helen had been sorely displeased when she met the wife Daniel had brought home. The last card came from Mira Vista, California, north of San Francisco, and made Susan think longingly of fog and cool ocean breezes.

She told Beth she wanted to find out about August Barrington.

“Oh. Right. One of our own. Just think, a famous painter who lived right here in Hampstead. Have you ever seen any of his paintings?”

Susan admitted she hadn't, didn't admit she'd never heard of him.

“There isn't much. Just newspaper articles. Years back, somebody was around wanting to write a biography, but Dorothy wouldn't stand for it. A shame about her death.”

Beth scurried off and returned a few minutes later with microfilm. Susan took it, sat at one of the shiny, new wooden tables, and slipped it into the machine: “Longtime Local Artist Dead at Seventy-three.” The accompanying photo was a grainy head-and-shoulders shot that didn't show much: high forehead, deep-set eyes, thin, lined face.

August Willis Barrington had died in his home after a lengthy illness. He'd attended the University of Kansas, graduated with honors, married local resident Lydia Weissenburg.

Born in 1903 in Kyane, Kansas, a town with a population of one hundred, August was the son of Julius Barrington, a news photographer. August was in his thirties when he took up art. He had his first one-man show at the Hampstead public library and later went on to have exhibits all over Kansas and then in Arkansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma, and later still throughout the country, including New York City and Washington, D.C.

Services were to be held at 1 p.m. at the Emmanuel Lutheran Church. He was survived by his wife, Lydia, and their five children, Dorothy, Willis, Marlitta, Carl, and Ellen.

Articles about August appeared in what she assumed must be every newspaper in Kansas, plus a few other places. She was surprised at the amount of media attention and the gush of praise for his work. A critic for
New York
magazine called him a genius. Other people bandied about words like fascinating, mesmerizing, stunning, bewitching, and psychologically spellbinding.

She turned off the machine and leaned back. Fascinating and bewitching as all this was, she wondered what it had to do with Dorothy's murder. August had died thirteen years ago.

10

B
Y THE TIME
Susan left the library it was one o'clock. Instead of heading back to the department, she turned the pickup toward home. On the way, she stopped at Erle's Market. It was so blessedly cool inside she lingered over the heap of apples, finally picked out four, then added two bananas. Jen's favorite. She grabbed a block of cheddar cheese, paid for her purchases, and went out into the heat.

At home, she rinsed an apple under the tap and cut it into quarters, tore the sturdy plastic from the cheese, and rummaged through a drawer for the slicer. Even with Daniel dead over a year, the house still seemed empty. Quiet. Jen had done a lot to change that. With an eleven-year-old girl around, whispers from the past stayed further in the past.

Stacking a cheese deck on a plate with the apple quarters, she sat down at the table to peruse the
Hampstead Herald.
The lead story was about the murder. They must have hustled to get that in, even had a picture of Dorothy's body being wheeled out. Her death shared front-page space with the weather. “Storm Careens Across County.” “Funnel Clouds Spotted.” Photo of a stalled car on Sixteenth Street getting pushed by a motorist. Heavy rain and marble-sized hail created driving hazards. Street flooding pushed mounds of hailstones onto the curb. “Rain-Delayed Corn Planting Causes Concern.” The forecast said, “If you think the rain is never going to stop, you're right.”

Perissa had silently materialized on the far end of the table. Susan frowned at her. “Cats are not allowed on tables.”

Perissa crouched demurely, simply making her presence known so if any tasty bits were left over, she'd be handy. Susan crumbled a slice of cheese into the cat bowl. Perissa looked at it dubiously, jabbed at a chunk. When it didn't fight back, she snatched it and played hockey until the chunk disappeared under the refrigerator. Crouching, she peered into the dusty depths, spoke a philosophical word, and trotted back to her bowl for a replacement.

“Right on the forecast,” Susan grumbled as she got in the pickup and tossed her raincoat on the passenger's seat. The sky was building up clouds.

The Meer Gallery, on Eighth Street a block east of Main, was essentially one room with partial walls along its length, creating alcoves.

Comach Meer, the owner, sat at a Victorian desk just inside the door. He rose and came toward her, a stocky man in his late thirties, wearing tan pants, tan shirt, and a dark-brown tie, with brown and brown, strong features, and a neatly trimmed mustache.

“I've been expecting you,” he said.

Really. Well, then. Gift horses were not to be sneezed at. “You know about Dorothy Barrington's death?”

He smiled, a slight rise of his upper lip. “Doesn't everybody?”

She agreed everybody did. Even before the article appeared in the newspaper, everybody knew. The speed of news-travel in a small town was astounding. “You were a friend?”

“Well, I knew her. You can't live in Hampstead without knowing the Barringtons, and she was first and foremost. I've known Carl for a long time. We're good friends. Had dinner last night, as a matter of fact. He's knocked out by all this.”

Damn. The reason Meer thought she'd turn up had, no doubt, been discussed with Carl. “You were expecting me. You want to tell me about that?”

“Dorothy was in here yesterday.”

“What time?”

“A little past noon. Twelve-thirty, around there.”

“Why was she here?”

He rubbed a forefinger lengthwise back and forth across his mustache. “I'm not real sure, actually. She had a hair up her ass about something. Marched in and demanded to know whether I'd sold the Barrington.”

“August Barrington? You have some of his paintings?”

“One. And it's not actually mine.”

“Whose is it?”

He smiled again, minute lift of his upper lip. “That's arguable, you might say. Carl claims it belongs to him. Dorothy didn't feel that way.”

“Had you sold it?”

“No. Dorothy didn't take my word for it. She trooped right back to see for herself.”

“What are you doing with it?”

“It's sort of on permanent loan.”

“Permanent loan?”

“There was a time, shortly after I opened, a very dicey period, when it looked like I was going under. Carl brought the painting to hang. For good luck, he said. Maybe it would bring people in.”

“Did it?”

“Oh, yes.” He paused a moment. “Carl's a good friend. Nice of him to do that. Of course, there was more to it.”

“What more?”

Meer shrugged. “Carl struggling against Dorothy's rule. She didn't want the painting out of her control. He prevailed.”

“You want to elaborate on that a little?” Susan said when he didn't seem inclined to add anything further.

He rubbed his mustache. “Well, they had their conflicts, Carl and Dorothy.”