Authors: Sharyn McCrumb
A few minutes later, Rountree addressed the small group assembled in the library. “This is going to be a purely preliminary investigation,” he announced. “We don’t know the cause of death yet, but I can tell you that there will be an inquest, so I’m going to need a few facts from y’all: information about that little girl’s state of mind; when she was last seen; that kind of thing. Clay, do you have everybody’s name, and so forth?”
Taylor handed him the list of persons present, and Rountree glanced over it. “Mrs. Chandler?” he inquired, looking around the room.
“My daughter is upstairs,” said Captain Grandfather with a trace of disapproval. “Her husband is attending her.”
Rountree nodded and went back to the list. “Miss MacPherson? That must be you. Only lady present.” He smiled reassuringly at Elizabeth, and then returned to the names. His finger stopped at the next name. “Dr. Carlsen Shepherd. Doctor? There’s another doctor here! Why didn’t somebody—”
Carlsen Shepherd half rose from his seat. “I am a psychiatrist, Sheriff, and if you were referring to an examination of the body just now, I assure you that you did the wisest thing by consulting your state pathology department. It’s been a long time since I did anatomy.”
“Not too long, from the look of you,” Rountree grumbled. “Psychiatrist, huh? Was the deceased, by any chance, your patient?”
“Well, yes, she was, but—”
“Now we’re getting somewhere!”
“But, Sheriff—”
“In a minute, doctor. Excuse me, could I just get everybody to clear out of here for a little bit and let me talk to this fellow? I’ll call you back if I need to talk to you. Go on now, please.” He shooed them with reassuring noises and comments about the routine nature of the proceedings, but with the oak doors firmly shut behind the last of them, the genial county lawman was transformed into an unsmiling, efficient investigator.
“Now, Doctor, you were about to tell me about your patient.”
“Well … it depends,” said Shepherd, shifting uneasily in his chair. “I’ve never had to discuss a patient with the police before. What do you want to know?”
“Pertinent facts, Doctor, that’s all,” said Rountree. Catching Shepherd’s look of surprise, he grinned. “Were you surprised at that five-dollar word? Don’t be. My accent may slip a little now that we’re alone. When I was in the air force, I discovered that folks just naturally relax around a country accent. They seem to think a fellow can’t know much if he talks so funny, and that little discovery proved to be such an asset to my chosen profession that I have done my durndest ever since to see that I keep one.”
“That’s an interesting psychological phenomenon, Sheriff. I wonder if it has ever been studied.”
“Oh, I don’t know if you fellas are on to it, but politicians have known it for years. Now, to get back to what we were talking about before, I just want to have a little unofficial talk. And don’t be afraid of using any of your big words on me. I expect I’ll tag right along.”
“He has a degree from Georgia Tech,” Clay murmured.
“Dr. Shepherd, this is my deputy, Clay Taylor. Clay,
will you take notes during this session, please? Doctor, would you like to lie down on the couch while you talk?”
“People always think we do that,” sighed Shepherd. “Mostly, people just sit in chairs, you know.”
“I understand,” said Rountree, with a trace of a smile. “Now—about Eileen Chandler …”
“Well, I’m connected with the university clinic, and when Eileen enrolled at the university this fall, she came to the clinic. She had been referred by her previous physician, Dr. Nancy Kimble.”
“Why was that?”
“Oh, for several reasons, I think. Eileen had just been released from Cherry Hill, and Dr. Kimble was going on sabbatical to Europe this year, so she would have been unable to follow up on Eileen personally.”
“Uh-huh. And what were you treating her for?”
“Well, she was recovering from schizophrenia, but I dealt mostly with her adjustment problems. Dr. Kimble had already worked through everything major. I mean, Eileen was well enough to attend school and to lead a normal life. Seeing me was more of a safeguard than anything else. So she wouldn’t feel completely alone in her new surroundings.”
“Were you treating her for depression?”
“No. I wouldn’t call her adjustment problems depression …”
“Well, would you say she was depressed? Capable of suicide?”
Shepherd hesitated. “It is possible, of course. But I can’t say that I foresaw it. Not depression.”
“All right then, Doctor, why are you here?” asked Rountree gently.
“I was invited to the wedding. I’m not here professionally.”
“And who invited you?”
“Eileen Chandler. She didn’t have too many friends, poor kid. She was extremely shy. And from what I heard about this whole setup, I thought it might be a nice thing to do.”
“I see. Well, anyway, you can tell me something about
her state of mind as you’ve observed it since you’ve been here.”
“Er—no. I really can’t. I saw Eileen for less than a minute.” He shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
Rountree leaned forward with quickened interest. “Now, why is that?”
Dr. Shepherd was silent for a moment, framing his answer. Finally he said, “Sheriff, it beats the hell outta me. I had been here less than an hour, and I was out in the hall talking to her Cousin Elizabeth, when Eileen walked in, screamed that she didn’t want me here, and went charging off upstairs.”
“And why did she do that?”
Shepherd shrugged. “I’m a psychiatrist, not a mind reader. All I know is, she fled when she saw me, then broke a mirror in the upstairs hall. Her family said it was just wedding nerves, and that may be as true as anything. She wasn’t a stable girl.”
“Should she have been getting married?”
Shepherd grinned. “That, Sheriff, is one form of insanity I don’t deal with. I told you: she was no longer a mental patient. We would have classified her as neurotic. And surely you know that neurotics get married all the time.”
Rountree grunted. “Did she have any reason to resent you being here?”
“I wouldn’t think so, Sheriff. Remember, she invited me herself. Handwritten invitation.”
Rountree sighed. “Well, I’ll have to look into it. You got all that down, Clay?”
The deputy, hunched over his notepad, nodded briefly, and went back to writing.
“So, we’ve established that she was upset, but we don’t know why. Of course, I reckon there’s the obvious. You want to tell me what you thought of the groom?”
“I didn’t know him. I mean, I’d met him, of course, but only once. He came by to pick her up one afternoon after our session, that’s all.”
“But she’d have talked about him, wouldn’t she? Must have been pretty important to her.”
Shepherd grimaced. “Did she talk about him? Constantly!
But you see, Sheriff, her viewpoint was hardly objective. According to Eileen, Michael Satisky was a knight in shining armor. She talked like a bride, in fact.”
“Which she was—or almost was. Well, if this turns out to be a suicide, we may have to check the shining armor for rust spots. Reckon I’ll have a talk with the young man. All right, Dr. Shepherd, that’s all I can think of. Is there anything else you want to tell us?”
“Well, let me remind you that I knew Eileen when she was away at school. Away from her family, I mean. That change of environment could make a big difference in her state of mind.”
“How’s that?” asked Rountree.
“Well, Eileen seemed anxious about coming home. As if she were dreading something.”
“You want to take a guess at what that was?”
“Well … offhand …” Shepherd glanced up at the ceiling. “Have you ever met her mother?”
“H
E WASN’T MUCH HELP
, was he?”
Clay shrugged. “Well, if she was suicidal, and he didn’t know it, it won’t look so good for him professionally.”
“Oh, hogwash!” sneered Rountree. “Her state of mind could have changed something awful since she got home. That’s what we got to figure out: what’s been going on around here—and could it have made her want to kill herself?”
Michael Satisky, who had been sent in by Shepherd, halted in the doorway. “Kill herself?” he echoed, forgetting his nervousness. “Is that what happened? Are you sure?”
“Will you sit down,” moaned Rountree. “And don’t jump to so dad-burned many conclusions. You probably know more than we do right now. So, what do you think? Did she kill herself?”
“How—how could I know?” Satisky stammered. The sheriff’s genial drawl did not make him feel at ease. It reminded him of the easy, philistine confidence of the
high school athletes who had made his life miserable as a teenager. He felt that he was being baited, and he became even more tense.
“Well, since you were going to marry her, we thought you’d be able to tell us a little something about her state of mind,” said Rountree with heavy sarcasm.
Satisky winced. “She was upset about something,” he admitted. “But I don’t know why. It wasn’t about our engagement, because she didn’t know—”
Rountree pounced. “Didn’t know what?”
“Oh … well … nothing important. I mean, she didn’t know, so it couldn’t very well be relevant, could it?”
“I think I’d better hear this,” said Rountree. “You’d be surprised at what people know. They got the darndest ways of finding out—listening at doors and I don’t know what-all.”
Satisky blushed, remembering his opening words of the interview.
Rountree pretended not to notice that his shot had hit home. “Anyway, you never can tell what’s going to be important, so I think you’d better tell us what this is all about.”
“It’s nothing really,” Satisky insisted. “I was just … you know … getting nervous. About the wedding and all—uh, this is hard to discuss with police officers …”
Rountree snorted. “You think this is hard? You should have tried explaining to the bride that you’d changed your mind.”
“Well, I hadn’t actually made any decision …”
Too spineless to go through with it, Rountree’s look suggested; but he merely asked: “Are you sure Eileen Chandler couldn’t have figured this out?”
Satisky hesitated. “Well … I did mention something about it to her cousin last night.”
“Her cousin. Who would that be?”
“Elizabeth MacPherson.”
“Oh, that pretty little gal with the dark hair. I see!” Rountree beamed at him with understanding.
“No! I’m sure you don’t see at all. I merely mentioned to Elizabeth that I was somewhat apprehensive. I certainly
did
not
make any advances of the kind that you suggest!”
“Talks just like a book, don’t he?” Rountree beamed happily at Clay.
Clay nodded. He had seen Rountree’s clown act pay off too many times to question it, but he couldn’t join in on the spirit of it. He contented himself with playing straight man.
“So, we know you had a little confidential talk with ‘Cousin Elizabeth,’ right here in the house of your intended. Is that right?”
“Uh—yes,” said Satisky miserably.
“Now, are you sure you couldn’t have been overheard?”
“Oh, I don’t think so! I mean, no one has mentioned it!” Rountree and Taylor exchanged glances of exasperation. “Anyway,” Satisky continued shrilly, “I don’t think that had anything to do with it! And I don’t think she killed herself! I think she was murdered for money. Have you heard about the will? Well, find out about
that!
If you ask me, she was murdered!”
“Yes, I witnessed the will,” Elizabeth told them a few moments later. “She had her lawyer come out to talk to her about the inheritance, and she asked him to draw one up. But she had a handwritten one already done, and he told us it was legal—though he didn’t seem to like the idea much.”
“A will,” mused Rountree. “Did she have a lot to leave?” He wondered what the Chandlers would consider “a lot.”
Elizabeth explained the terms of Great-Aunt Augusta’s will, leaving her fortune to the first of the cousins to marry. “But I think Eileen left it all to Michael, anyway,” she concluded.
“Well,” drawled Rountree, “if I understand you right, she didn’t accomplish much there. She only got the trust fund when she was married—which she never was. So she had nothing to leave, did she?”
Elizabeth stared at him. “I never thought of that,” she said slowly.
“So there’s an inheritance up for grabs. This gets more interesting all the time. Is anybody else engaged? How about yourself?”
“Well, no, I’m not.”
“How about the others?”
“Not that I know of. My Cousin Alban was engaged once, about four years ago, but the girl broke it off, and he hasn’t seen her since. I haven’t heard of Charles or Geoffrey being interested in anybody, and my brother—oh, but he’s not even here! So—no, I don’t think any of us is considering getting married.”
“Bet you will now,” said Rountree.
When Elizabeth did not reply, Rountree tried another approach. “Now, Miss MacPherson, we need to get an idea about your cousin’s state of mind. I’d be obliged if you’d tell me when you saw her last.”
“Umm … last night after dinner. I went up to her room to see how she was.”
“Any reason why you might be worrying about her?”
Elizabeth recounted Eileen’s reaction to Dr. Shepherd’s arrival.
“Didn’t she want Dr. Shepherd here?”
“She didn’t seem to,” Elizabeth admitted. “But that doesn’t make sense. She invited him here herself.”
“Who told you that?” asked the sheriff.
“Well—he did. Dr. Shepherd.”
Rountree glanced over at Clay Taylor, who was still scribbling furiously.
“So you went up after dinner—to see if Miss Chandler was feeling better.”
“Yes. We talked for a little while, and she said she was nervous about the wedding—”
“Why do you suppose that was?”
Elizabeth sighed. “Probably because my Aunt Amanda is turning it into a three-ring circus. Poor Eileen was feeling like an exhibit. I’d have been nervous, too.”
“Could be. Anything else you can think of?”
“Well, I thought she might be overtiring herself trying to finish the oil painting she was working on.
She’d work on it for hours every day.”
“Why was she painting pictures at a time like this? What’s it of, anyway?”