Let There Be Suspects (28 page)

“He found a notation in Mrs. Grable’s chart from her Cincinnati physician, just a scribble at the bottom of a page. He’d missed it the first time because the records had come in so late and he’d had to read through them quickly. It was a referral to this other pain specialist in Dayton, somebody Dr. Schaefer knew from conferences. During the call the doctor confirmed that Mrs. Grable was still his patient, currently on medication he was prescribing.”

“In other words she was trying to get more than she could possibly use herself.”

“She was on a very large dose. Or I should say she was getting a lot of medication. That’s all I know.”

I wondered how many doctors were prescribing for Ginger Grable. If she wasn’t asking an insurance company to pay for the prescriptions, then who would know she was doubling up, or worse?

“That’s all I know,” Wilda said. “And more than I should have told you, I guess.”

“No, this was the right thing to do. But did Ginger come in later in the afternoon?”

“His last appointment was at 5:20. See, he was going away for the holidays, so he wanted to see everybody who needed him on Christmas Eve, so he could head out of town with a clear conscience. He asked me to make her appointment for 5:45. But I left before she got here, so I don’t know if she came in. I’ve been out of town at my sister’s. Today was our first day back at work. I wish we hadn’t come in at all.”

“Is there any way you could find out?”

“I could check her chart.”

“Would you? Please?”

Wilda got up, tossed her tissue in the trash beside her desk, and went to an extensive filing system. After a minute, she pulled a chart and leafed through it. Then she put it back. I stood by her desk and waited.

“She was here.”

Ginger had been in this office right before she died.

“You know she died right after that appointment,” I said.

Wilda looked surprised. “No. On Christmas Eve? I’ve been away. I didn’t know. I mean, I knew she was killed, but I didn’t know when or really, how.”

And Peter Schaefer had been away. Maybe he had discovered the time of Ginger’s death and talked to the police when he returned—or maybe he hadn’t. It was possible Roussos didn’t know that Ginger had been here at all. Probable, I thought.

I wondered if Bix had been here for that second appointment, too. Clearly some sort of infatuation had developed between Ginger and Bix, but how long had it lasted? And had it ended in a lover’s quarrel that turned to murder? Had Ginger confided her plan for procuring drugs? Had Bix, disappointed when they didn’t materialize, become violent?

And where was Bix now? Running as far and fast as possible in a Hertz rental car, before his involvement was discovered?

Another thought occurred to me. I didn’t want to make Wilda’s burden heavier, but I had one more question.

“I know Dr. Schaefer’s been catching a lot of flack. Has he been getting threats? Has it reached that point?”

“We turn off our voice mail at night now. Every morning when I came in there were dozens of angry calls, like somebody had gotten a lot of people organized to make them. We had to give our patients a special private number to leave messages. During office hours I still get a few, but it was the nighttime calls that were shameful.”

I wondered if Ida Bere had organized this particular phone campaign, Ida Bere, who I had seen just a block away on my walk to the office. So many suspicious people, so little time to investigate.

“You don’t think somebody did this to him?” Wilda asked.

I didn’t. But it would be one more thing to tell Roussos.

 
I stopped by the church first to tell Ed what had happened. As I’d hoped I caught him between the prayer breakfast and hunger luncheon. I wish
my
job came with hot meals.

I gave a quick wave, then sailed past Norma without giving her a chance to engage me in conversation. I shut Ed’s office door, just in case she followed, and used my body to bar entrance.

Ed was on the telephone, which Norma would have explained had I given her the opportunity. I waited until he was off, then told him why I had barged in and taken him prisoner.

He listened, frowning. “The poor guy. What an awful thing.” He pulled me away from the door and hugged me. “And what if Jack hadn’t warned you?”

“I hope I would have figured it out myself before I did something stupid. But it wasn’t like poor Peter was hanging on to a power line. The voltage was a lot lower. And lucky for him the fishnet slipped out of his hand. Metal, water, electricity . . .” I shuddered.

“I’ll go over to the hospital and tell them I’m Peter’s minister. I’ll see how he’s doing.”

“His receptionist told me everything I wanted to know about Ginger.” I gave Ed the synopsis.

“And now you’re going straight to Roussos, right?”

“I’m on my way.”

He looked relieved. I took advantage. “Would you mind if I crawled out your window?”

“It will look just a tad too odd, Ag.”

I took a deep breath. “Then you’ll stall you-know-who so I can get out?”

“You ask a lot, don’t you?”

Ed left first, and I heard him ask Norma how she was coming on typing his board report. I gave another fast, friendly wave and made it outside without incident.

My minivan was parked in the driveway, and I went inside to tell Sid I would need it for awhile. I found her in the kitchen making tea. The girls were nowhere in sight.

“It’s quiet in here,” I said.

“Deena’s upstairs designing the poster, in between fawning phone calls from her friends. Maddie’s with her.”

Apparently Deena had made at least one choice. “Are Teddy and Hillary casing the neighborhood with Junie?”

“Just this street. For all the good it will do.”

“They might find something.”

Sid poured hot water in a mug and held up the kettle in invitation. I shook my head. “Well, I found out something of my own,” she said. “But not about Moonpie. About Bix.”

I wondered if I should tell her what I had learned. I decided to hear her revelation first, in case I could be spared having to report Ginger’s final crime against my sister.

Sid jiggled her tea bag. “I called the club and talked to Tanya, you know, my assistant who’s taking over for me on the party tonight?”

“Right.”

“I told her about Bix and the rental car. Actually I told her the whole sordid story. And do you know what she said?”

I was in my nothing-could-surprise-me mode. I shook my head.

“She said Bix is nothing more than an Ivy League gigolo, and she thinks he’s been using me to get into functions at the club and find a rich woman to take care of him. He tried her, first, but somebody warned her. I guess a lot of people are on to him. She didn’t know he’d latched onto me until Bix and I had been together for awhile. Then she was afraid to tell me. She said she was afraid I would think she was jealous, and it would affect her job.”

“Oh, Sid.” I grimaced. “Ouch.”

“Why am I so stupid about men?”

I held up my hands in a “don’t shoot me” pose. “The men you choose are like that collection of toothpick holders over your head. Pretty enough to look at, valuable just because some book or register says they are, and completely useless.”

“I didn’t really want an answer.”

I dropped my hands. “Did she have any thoughts on where old Bix might be these days?”

“She gave me a couple of names. Women he was seen with before me. I guess I’ll start calling.”

I decided not to hit her any harder. But at some point I had to examine the probability that Bix had seen Ginger as a better catch than my sister. Most probably after Ginger’s glowing report of her own success at our dinner table.

“I’m going to talk to Detective Roussos,” I said.

“Oh?”

I filled her in on the events of the morning, minus the part about Bix at the doctor’s office. Her eyes widened. “And some people say Atlanta’s a dangerous place to live.”

“I promise this is unusual.”

She didn’t look convinced, and for that matter, neither was I.

The trip to the police station was a quick one. Unfortunately, the municipal parking lot was a sea of melting slush. This is the only lot in town where we are forced to feed meters day and night, as if to point out that the city’s work is never done. Adding insult to wet feet, I chose a meter that swallowed my quarters and gave nothing in return. I had to scribble a note to put on my windshield with the time and facts, and hope that whoever checked these things believed me.

Our police station is in flux. By early summer a brand-new station and jail will open at the service center on the edge of town, something fairly state of the art. In the meantime the cops make do in a dilapidated relic covered with gray asbestos shingles. Indoors the duct tape repairing the carpet is itself repaired by duct tape. Since the last time I was here, someone had scraped off the peeling paint, but nothing had been done to cover the bare spots.

The man in uniform sitting at a beat-up metal desk behind a grilled window told me to have a seat and he’d see if Roussos wanted to talk to me. If wanting to talk to me was key, I was sorry I hadn’t brought
War and Peace
for company.

Surprisingly the detective arrived quickly.

“You want coffee?” he asked in greeting.

“Not if it’s made on the premises.”

“Let’s go over to McDonald’s.”

I wasn’t sorry to leave. On the way out I showed him my van and my note. He scrawled his name at the bottom. I love having friends in high places.

McDonald’s was on the next block. I try to avoid fast-food restaurants because the smell of hamburgers cooking, lots and lots of hamburgers, pretty well reduces my scruples to useless abstractions. After crisply fried bacon, the thing I pine for most is a Big Mac.

I settled for a cup of coffee and slid across a plastic bench in the corner while Roussos served us. Just me and Roussos on a fast-food date. As excitement goes in my life, it was downright titillating.

“So, what’s up?” he asked after he’d set it in front of me and seated himself. “You solved the crime yet?”

“You know, Roussos, you can be so condescending.”

“I’m just an Emerald Springs cop, remember? I don’t do four-syllable words.”

“You know how important it is to get this investigation right.”

“And for some reason you insist I’m trying to get it wrong.”

I took the top off mine and added packets of cream. He watched, as if this was a behavior he had never seen in person.

“You heard about Peter Schaefer?” I asked.

“Uh huh. And I heard Little Mary Minister’s Wife was the first one to find him.”

“You know, if you hadn’t shot a man on my account a few months ago, I’d think you were something of a jerk. As it is, I know you’ve made it your personal mission to keep me out of trouble. So I discount the sarcasm.”

“This coffee’s not going to last very long.”

I smiled at him. He nearly smiled back. I was just as glad it was almost. Roussos has a lethal smile, and even married hormones jiggle in response.

I started at the beginning and told him everything I knew so far. And no, the coffee did not last that long. By the end he was frowning.

“You do get around.” He crumpled his cup in his fist.

“This is my sister.”

“We are not partners in this.”

“I got that message.”

“So this Minard character stayed in town and was at the doctor’s with Ginger on Christmas Eve?”

“For her morning appointment. I don’t know about the evening.” I realized something. “You don’t seem surprised about Ginger being a patient of Peter Schaefer’s.”

He didn’t answer.

“You suspected she might be, didn’t you?”

Again, no answer.

“And did you suspect she was killed after she came out of his office? Maybe for drugs?”

Strike three.

“I’m doing all the talking,” I pointed out.

He seemed to consider. “I’ll tell you two things. But on one condition.”

“Uh oh.”

“You stop snooping. And don’t let me see that dimple of yours. I mean it. You’ve done a lot more than you should have already. Now stay out of this.”

I chewed the inside of my cheek to keep the dimple in check. I really wanted to know what he had to tell me, and what would I do next anyway? I was fresh out of places to go.

I had to bargain a little. He expected it. “If I get an idea, will you listen so I don’t have to check it out myself?”

“Listen, yeah. Follow orders, no.”

That seemed fair. “Okay.”

“Okay? As in okay, I will let the police department do the job they’re paid to do?”

“Uh huh. Unless it looks like you’re trying to pin this on my sister. Then all bets are off.”

“We aren’t trying to pin it on her. In fact we aren’t going to.”

I sat forward. “Can she go home?”

“Unless something comes up between now and late afternoon. I’ll call her myself.”

“What changed your mind?”

“One of the two things I mentioned. We think Mrs. Grable was killed near the doctor’s office. And there was no way your sister could have gotten her body over to the Catholic church. Someone bigger and stronger did. Miss Kane couldn’t even have gotten her in and out of a car by herself.”

“Plus she didn’t have a car. Her boyfriend took off with their rental.”

“We know that, too. I didn’t know he was still here on Christmas Eve.”

I was delighted Sid was as good as off the hook. But I was also curious. “And number two?”

“We have a team over at Schaefer’s looking at the setup in his back yard.”

This time I sat back. Changing positions is the only way to make a body-language statement in a McDonald’s booth.

“You don’t think this was an accident?” I asked.