All That Lies Broken (Ashmore's Folly Book 2) (65 page)

Richard got up abruptly, and for a second she thought that he had had enough, that he might leave. But no, he was doing what he so often did, burying emotion in action. She must have touched a hidden nerve – that daughter lost without his knowledge. He walked over to the window and stared out at the courtyard into the dusk.

“Didn’t happen,” he said eventually. “Laura knows me better than that. I would never take a child away from the only family she’d ever known.”

“I know that. You know that,” Lucy said. “But I wonder, in a panic, faced with Francie threatening to take Meg away, would Laura have known that?”

She waited. He did not respond.

“But all this is a moot point. We’re only speculating this because, according to Laura, she was the only other person at Ash Marine besides Di. And Di
wasn’t
there, so Laura is the only suspect. It’s the classic locked-room mystery.”

She paused. Surely he would say it now….

But he didn’t. He was going to make her spell it all out.

“Except that Laura and Francie were not the only people there that day.”

He leaned against the wall and folded his arms. “How do you know?”

Lucy recognized the body language; he was not only pulling up the drawbridge, he was daring her to try to pull it down again. Clever, clever Richard. She must never underestimate him. He had caught on to the game; he was turning adversarial on her.

But she had the trump card. She had documentation.

She picked up her folder, pulled out Exhibit A, and held it up. “This is a police report filed on August 6, 1991. I found it this morning. Do you want to know what it says?”

He gave a bare nod of assent.

She squinted to read in the dim light. “At 1624 hours – I’m taking that as 4:24 p.m. – a call was logged from Dr. Philip Ashmore, owner of Ash Marine Inlet. Dr. Ashmore had located an unconscious adult female in serious condition on leeward beach. Female appeared to have fallen down into a cove area, as evidenced by concussion and severe bruising on arms and upper torso, including a mark on the back of her neck. Female was suffering from severe sunburn. Dr. Ashmore estimated that she had been lying there for approximately three hours.”

She straightened her shoulders.

“According to Dr. Ashmore, female also appeared to be convulsing—” Lucy paused— “and vaginal bleeding indicated an incipient miscarriage.” She heard a quick intake of breath. “Dr. Ashmore estimated that the female was approximately three months pregnant. He indicated that he had administered preliminary aid but requested immediate medical assistance, including air ambulance.”

In the twilight, she saw that he had gone completely pale.

“Response: air ambulance sent to assist Dr. Ashmore. Police escort included,” Lucy broke off, “Lieutenant Schmidt and Sergeant Polish name I’m not even going to attempt to mangle. Upon arrival, medical personnel secured female patient and airlifted her to St. Ciprian’s ER, Newport News. When asked if he recognized the female, Dr. Ashmore said that he could not positively identify her.”

She wasn’t looking at him, but she sensed a startled movement of his head, instantly stilled.

“A search of the two residences on the inlet turned up a handbag containing ID and credit cards for one Laura Rose St. Bride, age 20, of Plano, Texas. A rental automobile was found parked next to the outlying guest cottage. Papers inside the automobile indicated that Laura St. Bride had rented the vehicle and charged it to a credit card on which Cameron D. St. Bride was the primary cardholder. A next of kin card in the female’s handbag listed the same Cameron D. St. Bride of Plano, Texas, as emergency contact. Upon notification, Mr. St. Bride said that he was the female’s husband and he would fly to Virginia immediately to be with his wife. He indicated,” said Lucy, “that his wife was supposed to be at a spa retreat in Florida with her sister.”

Richard’s face was still, but, she noticed, his left hand was biting into his right arm.

Lucy went back to the table and opened her folder. “I went to Oak Bend this morning. Here are Dad’s takeoff and landing cards for that day. He leaves at 3:30, so that gives him 54 minutes to get to Ash Marine, find Laura, assess her condition, and call the police.”

She laid the cards down flat on the table.

“He does not return until that night, so I am guessing he flies to Newport News, parks the plane somewhere, and spends the evening monitoring Laura’s condition at the hospital. He returns to Oak Bend just before eleven. Then a few minutes later—”

She laid the next card down.

“—Cam St. Bride flies in, and my bet is that Dad meets him there and they return to the hospital together. Dad’s landing and his are just too close together for them not to meet. For the next three days, conveniently, Cam parks his plane in Dad’s hangar.”

Another card.

“The next day, Dad and a passenger fly to the island, and Dad returns alone. It’s not a quick turnaround trip. I am speculating here, but I think Dad takes Cam out there, and they do something that takes an hour, and then Cam drives the car off.”

She walked back to him. He stood there, motionless, gone deep inside himself. She couldn’t help the tide of regret. She was about to drag his secrets out of him, secrets that she suspected he had wanted to keep hidden forever, and he might well never forgive her for it.

“I called St. Ciprian’s this afternoon,” Lucy said. “They quite properly told me to mind my own business. I won’t be able to find the medical records on my own; they’re covered by privacy laws. So I went to the storage area where we put Dad’s office records when we closed down his practice. It took a while, but,” she shrugged, “at least it was air-conditioned.”

“I find it difficult to believe,” his voice had turned arctic, “that Dad actually created a record on Laura.”

“No,” said Lucy. “But I found his appointment calendar for the days in question.” She pulled out the photocopies. More exhibits – she wished now she had marked them. “At 2:15 on August 6, he canceled his remaining afternoon patients, citing a family emergency. The next morning, he canceled the rest of his patients for the week. I looked up the date, Richard. August 6, 1991, was a Tuesday. He lost three and a half days of appointments.”

He left the window then and came over to the table. For a long time, he stared down at the flight cards and the photocopies. She had surprised him. He hadn’t known this until now.

“I find it strange,” said Lucy, “that Dad canceled his patients at 2:15 that day, when he didn’t leave for the island until 3:30. Look at his flight card. There’s an hour and fifteen minute gap in there, and I’d be very curious to know what he was doing during that time.”

Richard said nothing, but she saw a muscle move around his mouth.

“Another thing,” she said. “Dad administered preliminary aid to Laura. It’s as if he went out there expecting to find someone in trouble. In fact, the whole timing of his flight is strange. Dad was such a conscientious doctor. It must have taken something truly terrible for him to cancel his patients so abruptly.”

He turned his head, and she met him stare for stare.

“What’s also strange,” said Lucy, “nowhere does this police report mention one Francie Abbott. So you have to wonder where she was. By the time the police got there, she was nowhere around, and she apparently didn’t drive off, since the car was still there.”

She waited for him to say something, and felt sick to her stomach. But Peggy and Philip hadn’t raised her to run away from trouble.

“But you know, don’t you, Richard? You know exactly where Francie was.”

There it was, the gamble taken, the dice rolled.
Never ask a question
… but she did know the answer. She had known since the moment she had seen his landing card.

He stood so still and silent that she felt suddenly, terribly afraid. Afraid that he might not answer. Afraid that she had pushed him so hard that he would never answer her again. She felt grief welling up for the loss of all they had been to each other.

But she had to ask. “How did Francie leave Ash Marine, Richard?”

A long moment. He stared beyond her shoulder and said without inflection, “She left with me.”

Lucy made her voice gentle. “And did you drop her from the sky into the ocean?”

“Of course not.” Still no inflection in his voice. “She landed at Oak Bend with me.” He gave her a short hard look. “Still breathing.”

The words fell into the well of silence between them. Lucy looked down at the table.

His voice was cool. “As you know very well. If you have Dad’s flight card, then I assume you have mine from the same day.”

“Yes.” Lucy kept the same mild tone. She had never seen the point of treating a witness harshly, even as she stripped away flesh. “I have it right here. You left for the island at 11:20, before noon. You had no passengers. Almost three hours later, you returned, and this time,” she took out a photocopy of his card out and laid it down on top of the folder, “you did have a passenger. A passenger who knew how to fly, apparently, because you whited out the first signature for the landing and signed it yourself – if you can call that chicken scratching a signature.”

He picked up the photocopy and studied it. Then he put it down again. “Where is the original?”

Lucy’s heartbeat picked up. She opened her folder and pulled it out. “Here.”

They both looked at the original card. During the afternoon, she had used a solvent to wipe away part of his signature and the white-out beneath. Smeared by the solvent, but still legible, was part of the original signature:
Franc
.

After a while, Lucy resumed. “Francie flew your plane back from Ash Marine and landed at 2:05.
You
were the passenger. She filled out the landing card and signed it, because for some reason you could not pilot the plane or sign the card. Later, you came back, and you asked for the card – I admit I’m reaching here, but help me out – and you whited out her signature and substituted your own. Except—”

She pointed to the chicken scratching.

“Something was wrong with your right arm. You signed with your left, and that’s why there’s that dragging of the ink across the top. You see it all the time with people who aren’t used to writing with their left hands. They drag their hand across what they’ve just written.”

Richard only looked at her. He was indeed going to stonewall her. Her heart sank.

“In all the years I’ve known you, Richard, you’ve never let anyone take the controls of your plane, not even Dad. But here you let Francie fly, over water, no less, and around restricted airspace, and you let her land.” She held up her left hand and ticked off points with her right. “Within ten minutes after you land, Dad suddenly cancels all his appointments and leaves his office. But – and this is huge – it is over an hour before he takes off for Ash Marine himself, so Laura lies there undiscovered in the cove for all that time, sunburning and convulsing and miscarrying. So I have to believe – tell me if I’m wrong – you went out to the island, and you became incapacitated, and Francie got you back to the mainland, and one of you called Dad for help, and he dropped everything to come to the rescue.”

Richard turned on his heel and walked to the other side of the table. She must be hitting close to home now. He was resisting her with all his will.

“I thought about this a lot this afternoon,” Lucy said. “I couldn’t imagine what on earth prevented you from taking the controls, so I concluded it was something pretty bad. You didn’t have a headache. Something was wrong with your right arm, and of course, that’s the arm you use for the stick when you fly, and that’s your writing hand.”

He said shortly, “I wrenched it.”

“Then,” she tapped the police report, “I read the auxiliary notes. They’re not typed up, and Sergeant Whosis had terrible handwriting, so it took me a little while. Because, you see, something about the setup that day aroused this guy’s suspicions.”

She sat down. He leaned against the opposite wall, shielding his face in the shadows. He did not want her to read him.

“The sergeant thought something didn’t hang right about Dad going out there and happening to find a woman lying in the cove,” Lucy said softly. “He thought – as I did, the second I read this – that Dad expected to find someone in trouble. So, after the air ambulance left, Dad took off, and the sergeant watched him. This is what he wrote.”

She read from the report, “Witnessed Cessna take off and bank south-southwest. During sharp bank, pilot appeared to have trouble with side window. Wings wobbled for approximately thirty seconds. Concerned plane was experiencing mechanical trouble. Pilot righted plane and flew off. Appeared pilot threw something from window into bay.”

She swallowed. “So the sergeant got suspicious, and he went looking to see what he could find. He started with Dominic’s cottage because they had found Laura’s ID and handbag there. He found a small overnight case with some clothes and a bottle of prenatal vitamins. It appeared that Laura had at least spent the night there – he found a couple of washed tea cups sitting on a side board in the kitchen. The bed was unmade. And it appeared,” she paused delicately, “that she had not been alone.”

When he spoke, she could tell he was making an effort – probably not to throw her right out of his office. “Of course she wasn’t alone. Francie was there with her.”