Family Practice (22 page)

“Any reason I should?”

“Any reason you shouldn't?”

Cole backed up onto the bottom step, either to gain distance or allow himself to look down at them. “This is Tuesday; that was three days ago.”

“Anywhere near the Barrington clinic?”

“You asking me about the murder, man? Hey, I had nothing to do with that.”

Parkhurst gave him a look of top-grade disbelief. “Your wife works there.”

“So?”

“You were there when the doctor was shot.”

Cole didn't respond. He knew the sound of a trap being set.

Students slipped by in clumps or pairs, clutching books or toting backpacks, chattering. Out on the grass, a young man stood by a tree with a peanut in his palm trying to coax a squirrel to come down and take it. The squirrel skittered around to the other side of the trunk.

“Okay, so I was there.”

“Why?”

“I thought I'd surprise Deb. Take her out to lunch.”

“She'd already been to lunch.”

The kid with the peanut scooted around the tree and held up his palm hopefully. The squirrel flicked his tail and, upside down, inched toward the offering.

“Well, I didn't know that. I mean, I probably got there later than I meant to.”

“Did you go inside?”

“No. There was all that commotion going on, and I—I just didn't,” Cole added.

“Have you ever been inside the office?”

A blue jay zoomed in out of nowhere and snatched the peanut in a fast hit-and-fly. Both the kid and the squirrel looked nonplussed.

“Maybe once or twice. If I needed to see Deb.”

“Ever been inside when they were closed?”

Cole's jaw tightened. Susan got one of those instant “by God” flashes.

“No. Why would I?”

“Checking up on your wife.” Parkhurst said. “Late getting home. Trying to find out where she was.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

Yes indeed, you do, Susan thought.

“Ever get a little steamed at her? Show her what's what?”

“I don't know what your problem is, man, but I got a class I'm already late for.” Cole swept up irritation and indignation, and edged around Parkhurst as he stepped down off the step. After a skinny second, he moved off.

“You look like you have a thought,” Parkhurst said.

“No. Just a hunch.”

“Want to share it with me?”

“Cole was the intruder the janitor mentioned. He had to know where his wife was; maybe she'd gone somewhere without his permission. He had to find out whether she was there, probably knock her around when he caught her.”

“What do you want to do about it?”

“I don't know.” Which was exactly the problem with hunches.

“His type ferrets out the helpless. Dorothy wasn't helpless.”

“He'd be mad, though, if Dorothy convinced Debra to leave him.”

“So where does that leave us?” he asked.

“Moving right along. Not only did we not eliminate a suspect, but we've added another one.” She told him about Ackerbaugh boiling up in anger because Dorothy hadn't helped his child despite a lot of medical tests.

18

O
NE END
S
USAN
could tie up was at the Dietzes'. Marlitta Barrington had said Dorothy meant to see Holly Dietz on Friday. Outside of town, the landscape ambled along in dips and rises. The endless sky constantly changed in a roiling mass of gray and white clouds. Some low-lying fields held standing water; in higher areas white, yellow, and pink wildflowers covered the hills. White-tailed deer, half-hidden by trees, raised their heads and watched warily as she drove past.

She found the place without too much trouble. As a working farm, it had all the earmarks of imminent decline: weeds in the gravel drive, fence with the top rail listing to the ground, barn door propped against the side instead of in its rightful place.

The house was a pleasant Queen Anne style but the white paint looked too old to keep the rain out. She went to the rear, having learned that was the polite custom in the country. The door stood open, and she knocked on a screen with jagged holes. Dogs weaved around inside—a collie, a Lab, and a small black mutt, all hair—and greeted her with barks and whipping tails.

“Come in,” a voice called.

Hesitantly, she opened the screen, but the dogs only pranced and sniffed and licked. “Mrs. Dietz?”

“Would you mind coming in here? I'm kind of in the middle of it.”

Susan followed the dogs into a living room, where too much furniture sat on a patterned rug long since faded to a mottled brown. The Oriental rug, silk curtains drawn back with tasseled ties, and Tiffany lamps suggested money somewhere in the past, but arms worn through on the chintz chairs and holes in the couch cushions indicated leaner times now.

Photos and snapshots covered every flat surface—tables, couch, chairs—and there was an uneven pile on the floor by the chair where Holly was sitting. Her feet bare, she wore a tent-like shift with red poppies and held a stack in her lap. In her late thirties, she had brown hair down to her shoulders with loose curls around a thin face.

She looked at Susan, said, “Oh,” and transferred the photos from her lap to the floor.

“Don't get up,” Susan said quickly, but Holly was already on her feet. “I'm Chief Wren. I'd like to ask you a few questions.”

“I'm sorry the place is such a mess.” Holly scooped up an armful of pictures from one end of the couch and added it, precariously, to the heap on the opposite end. “Can I get you something to drink? Iced tea? Coffee?”

“No thank you.” Susan sat in the cleared spot. “I can see you're busy.”

“Bitten off more than I can chew, is what it is.” Holly settled back in the chair, brought her knees up sideways, and tucked the shift around her bare feet. “Everybody's been so generous. I had no idea.”

“You're putting together a book?”

“Just pictures. Early Hampstead. Look at all this.” She waved her hand around.

It looked, indeed, a formidable task. “Dorothy Barrington brought you some pictures?”

“Yes.”

“When was that?”

“Friday. It's just awful what happened.”

“Dorothy came here? What time?”

Holly tucked a strand of hair behind one ear. “It was about twelve-thirty, I guess. I told her I could sure come and pick them up, she didn't have to drive all the way out here, but she said she wanted to, it was nice to get away, even for just a little while. She couldn't stay. Didn't have time for a cup of coffee or a bite to eat, or even a minute to chat. She had to get right back.”

“What did she say when she was here?”

“Not anything, really. We mentioned the rain. Seems like everybody's talking about that.”

Susan looked around at the piles of photos and thought she might as well get back to whatever was piling up on her desk. “May I see the pictures Dorothy brought?”

“Uh.” Holly looked with some dismay at the litter. “Sure.”

It took her a while to find the right ones, but she gathered a stack and handed them to Susan.

Old buildings on Main Street, old cars, people wearing the styles of bygone times. The Barrington house when it was a hospital: an old-time surgery room, a nursery with a row of four babies, graduating nurses with pointed caps and long capes, an old-fashioned doctor's office.

“That was her mother's office,” Holly said.

“This is her mother?” Susan looked closer. A thin woman with deep-set eyes, an angular face, and light hair, wearing a long, dark dress. Dorothy had resembled her mother a great deal.

“This is her too.” Holly tapped a finger on a snapshot.

A hospital room, a man in the bed. Dorothy's mother stood by his side. The man looked familiar. “Who's the patient? Do you know?”

Holly bent nearer and nodded. “That's Brent Wakeley's father. He had some serious illness.”

The next picture showed a teenage Dorothy in a party dress with a young man in a tuxedo; both were grinning at the camera, standing in front of a brick school building.

“Do you know who he is?”

“I sure do,” Holly said with a tight smile. “That's Harlen.”

“Your husband?”

“They went together in high school. He figured they'd get married. She wouldn't have him.” There was a bitter note of triumph in Holly's voice.

“He married you instead.”

“Sure did. Took over the farm when my father died. This land belonged to my family, you know. Since my great, great, great grandfather.” It was said with pride. “That's the old high school they're standing in front of. It was torn down right after.”

Harlen Dietz harboring resentment? She done him wrong. Right. After all these years, he picks up a gun and does her in.

If that's the best she could come up with, she might as well get back to the office.

*   *   *

Rain fell relentlessly, rippling down the office window, while she read, initialed, and moved paper across her desk. At five-thirty, just as she was thinking she'd had enough and should get out of here, Osey ambled in. He sketched a salute, crossed his arms, and propped his lanky body against the door frame. “I found out something maybe a mite interesting.”

She tossed down her pen, leaned back, and gestured toward the armchair by the desk. He lowered himself in a series of uncoordinated jerks and related what he'd learned from Claude Jennings.

“He must be near a hundred,” Osey said. “Sharp as a tack, but I don't know about his eyesight. Doubt if he can see a blame thing.”

“You suggesting the painting was a fake?”

“The thought did cross my mind. Can he see well enough to tell forgery from the real thing? Spotless reputation. I got no smell of dishonesty. Not nervous talking to me. Matter of fact, he likes to talk. Even to a cop.”

Osey leaned back, bent a leg, and rested the ankle on his knee. “Mostly done by telephone. All the arrangements. Only at the last did she come in with the painting.”

Susan told him to take off and headed out herself. On the way, she poked her head into Parkhurst's office. He looked up from his desk.

“Why are you still here?” she asked.

“I love this place. Can't get enough of it.”

“In that case, care to come with me to talk with Ms. Ellen Barrington about a painting?”

He rose, rolled down his shirt sleeves, and grabbed his jacket.

*   *   *

Taylor Talmidge, still wearing a suit and tie as though he'd just come in from work, looked at them dripping on his doorstep. “Have you found out something about Dorothy's death?”

“We'd like to speak with Ellen,” Susan said. “Is she here?”

He relaxed slightly, betraying an inner tension that until then she hadn't noticed. “Come in. I'll see if I can find her. I just got in myself, but her car is here, so she must be around.” He collected their wet coats and left them standing in the entryway.

“I don't think Mr. Talmidge was thrilled to see us,” Parkhurst said, as they moved into the dim living room.

She went to the tall windows with rain rushing down the glass and looked out at the garden: grass under an inch of water and flowers tossed by the wind.

“You wanted to see me?” Ellen, in jeans and a white cotton shirt, was wound up tighter than guitar strings, voice clipped and breathless.

What have we here? Ellen was just this side of flying apart, hands clenched into fists, dark eyes fixed on Susan with the look of a rabbit seeing the dogs close in.

Play my cards right, and maybe we'll get some answers. “Do you mind if we sit down?”

“Sit down,” Ellen repeated as thought the words were foreign.

Susan sat on the couch. Ellen, elbows tucked tight against her sides, backed into a wing chair, ankles pressed together, shoes flat on the floor. Parkhurst remained standing, just enough behind her so she couldn't see him without turning her head, which she obviously didn't like.

“We want to ask about your father's painting,” Susan said.

“Daddy's paintings?” Ellen's set little face went slack with relief. Her fists slowly uncurled. “What about them?”

Lost her. What the hell? “Tell us about the one you sold.”

“I haven't sold any of Daddy's paintings.”

“Do you own any?”

Ellen ran a hand through her short, dark hair, making it stand on end. “I suppose I kinda do, in a weird sort of way. After he died, Mother said we could each choose one that would be our very own. She wouldn't let us have them, you understand. They just belonged to us, but they stayed right here.”

“After your mother died, you took the painting?”

“Are you kidding? I tried one time. Is that what you're talking about? If you know about that, then you must know about the fight I had with Dorothy. Carl said somebody would tell you. Was it Vicky? She must have said Dorothy won. I lost.”

“Your brother Carl took one.”

Ellen grinned. Whatever she was so uptight about, it had nothing to do with paintings. “Carl just took one. It was all over before Dorothy knew about it.”

“She let it go?”

“She didn't want to. But Carl has a lot more clout than I do. There was much discussion. Not shouting arguments. My family has never gone in much for loud. Carl just kept saying he would make trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“He never said specifically. Just hinted. Like the will.”

“He threatened to contest the will?”

“No. Just mentioned that he could. Or talk to reporters. Writers. There was one around about that time, wanting to write a biography of Daddy. Dorothy backed down. She agreed the painting could stay at the gallery, but it couldn't be sold.”

“Has Dorothy sold a painting lately?”

Ellen shook her head. “I don't think so. I suppose she could have.”