Mortal Remains (31 page)

“He was. He chose to be a country doctor, and was the best at it.”

“Well, yes…”

“Dr. Braden, why did you invite me here?”

“Who do you think killed my daughter-in-law?” he answered without missing a beat.

Mark didn’t reply, beginning to feel all the digressions in their conversation were deliberate, meant to throw him off.

Charles looked him right in the eye. “Your asking around after the memorial service, did it give you any idea who the mystery man was?”

“No.”

“You looking for him?”

“I’m looking at all the possibilities of who her killer might have been.”

“Including my son?”

“To be frank, yes.”

“Who else?”

“That’s not something I’d discuss-”

“The mother?”

“As I said-”

“Any other leads?”

Mark sighed. “No.”

“No? My sources at the hospital tell me you’ve recruited a former classmate of Kelly’s to snoop around for you. Earl Garnet. I looked up his record. Pretty smart. But he seems to be asking the same stale questions you are.”

“As I said, all possibilities-”

“I’m disappointed, Mark. Going after my son is an old idea already pursued to a dead end by the police. And having had Samantha thoroughly investigated by private detectives without results, even I have to admit that going after her is an old idea, too.”

So much for putting Braden on the defensive about Chaz, Mark thought, irritated he hadn’t managed his host the way he’d planned. He could either walk out, or stand here and defend himself. “It’s fresh ideas about old suspects that I’m after,” he finally said, and started for the door.

“What if I told you
I
had a fresh lead?” Braden called after him.

“Yeah, yeah.”

An insinuating silence worked on Mark’s back until, halfway to the exit, he turned and asked. “Okay, what is it?”

“I might be able to give you a new suspect, somebody who no one else has thought of.”

“Who?”

“I can’t tell you right now. But I’m working on a promising idea. Just give me a few days to verify what I’ve found. All I’m asking in the meantime is that you hold off on any move against Chaz.”

Mark slowed. He finally had the opening he needed to put Braden on the defensive. Wheeling around, he jabbed his forefinger at him. “So your privileged, fifty-something brat can take another shot at me? There’s a fresh idea for you!”

Braden frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh yeah? Monday night someone fired a bullet through the window of my Jeep, remember? Dan Evans questioned you about it.”

“Why, yes. I knew that. It was a terrible incident. But you can’t be suggesting Chaz had anything to do with it.”

Mark said nothing.

The pleasantness on Braden’s face withered a shade. “Of course you know the penalty for libel, defamation of character, and unprofessional conduct.”

“Are you threatening me, Charles? You did tell me to call you Charles, didn’t you? Well, Charles, some people might construe that kind of language as an attempt to intimidate me while I’m doing my duty as coroner.”

The older man’s eyes seemed sad. “What I’m doing is trying to tell a young hothead whose father used to be a guest here, at Kelly’s insistence, by the way, that if he picks too much at a scab, he’s liable to find unexpected pus.”

“And what the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means sometimes we’re forced to face unpleasant truths, aren’t we?”

“Oh?”

“Did you ever wonder why, when your family visited here your mother looked so unhappy? Of course, maybe you were too young to notice that sort of thing. But she used to hang around in the background, scowling, all while your father laughed and enjoyed Kelly’s company.”

Mark felt as if a snake that had long lay sleeping deep in his subconscious suddenly stirred. “If you must know, she despised how you and your friends treated my father.” His throat tightened on his words as he spoke.

“But that’s the reason she’d give, isn’t it?”

A terrible coldness formed in his chest. “What are you getting at?”

“Just remarking on how lonely your father must have been during the years after your mother died. He and Kelly spent a lot of time alone during that period, didn’t they?”

“Son of a bitch!” Mark started for the old man.

“Are you menacing
me
now, Mark?” Charles said. His voice rose only a shade louder, but it reverberated with authority.

Mark checked himself, his fists clenched.

“Innuendo can be so damaging, almost as much as the lies that have been told against my son.”

“Is there a point to this, Charles?”

“Only that this case could get a lot messier than you ever imagined unless you slow down. What’ll happen to your credibility once the press gets even a whiff of the possibility you could be covering up an indiscretion on the part of your father with the victim?”

“What!”

“It’s not me you have to worry about. I already told you, I may have the evidence to hand you Kelly’s murderer in a matter of days and end this nastiness for all of us while protecting the reputations of the innocent, your dad’s included. So in the meantime, back off, young man.”

Mark stood still, his insides tightening as he contained his fury. He’d been outflanked and trapped.

He pivoted on his heel and strode down the corridor back into the salon, unsure how long he could keep from throttling the manipulative bastard.

Lucy was still surrounded by her newfound admirers. He walked up to where she held court. “Sorry to interrupt,” he announced, “but Dr. O’Connor and I have to leave. We’ve got a patient in the oven that needs basting.”

She looked startled, but said lightly, “He just means my turkey.”

“By the way,” Mark continued, “I hope you boys are more careful with your rifles than the asshole who took a shot at me two nights ago. It happened on a country road not twenty miles from here.”

The men fell quiet.

“What are you saying, Dr. Roper?” Braden asked, having rushed in a dozen seconds behind Mark.

“Oh, I think you know. Just some of my ‘fresh thinking’ again. Since you already told Sheriff Evans that Chaz was sick and headed back to his New York apartment that night, I thought I’d ask a few of his friends what happened. Maybe they know something about it.”

Braden stiffened. “I’ll have you know that my guests are all excellent marksmen.” His normally genial tone had turned to ice. “Harrison here is even a regular participant in the Marlborough hunt. Besides, these men didn’t arrive until Tuesday. So if you’re suggesting any of them could be part of that unfortunate incident, you’re not only unforgivably rude, but sorely mistaken.”

“Really? I’m merely advising everybody with a gun to be careful. Very careful.”

Before anyone could say a word he took Lucy’s arm and walked out of the room.

“You sure do know how to start a war, Mark Roper,” she said once they were out on the highway. Her tone sounded more amused than critical.

He could barely speak, still shaken by the slimy insinuations Braden had made. Of course they weren’t true, he kept telling himself. But the press would have a field day with that kind of salacious garbage. And he’d better improvise something to explain himself to Lucy. She was looking at him expectantly, obviously awaiting an explanation for their abrupt departure. “Sorry for losing it back there. I just wanted to shake their above-it-all, smug-assed attitudes. And that house, it stirred up a lot of memories, from when Mom and Dad were alive.”

She didn’t reply, but he could feel her studying him as he drove. His knuckles hurt, he gripped the steering wheel so hard, and his clenched teeth made his jaw ache. “So what did you learn from the boy’s club?” he asked, her silence getting to him.

“You mean besides the fact they’re sexist, racist, xenophobes?”

“That deep, are they?”

“Creeps are the same the world over – desperate to find like-minded creeps. They throw out their filth like feelers. And once Braden went off with you, they became outright talkative. I’d say that your investigation of Kelly’s murder doesn’t faze any of them. It’s amazing what men will tell a woman if she shows the least interest in their work or hobbies and comes across just the tiniest bit slutty.”

“You acted slutty?”

She cut the darkness with a grin. “Just a little. Purely to get information.”

“Such as?”

“Three of them gave me their private cell numbers.”

“I’m not surprised. Those young bucks couldn’t take their eyes off you.”

“I’m talking about their fathers.”

He forced a chuckle. “You learn anything more useful?”

“Not much. Like they said, they’re here to hunt, though they seemed more interested in talking about their financial empires. One thing’s clear. They’re all pretty enthralled by their host. Especially how he greases the chute for them when it comes to medical matters.”

“Greases the chute?”

“They kept bragging how, thanks to Charles, they had access to the best specialists in New York. That’s something I notice a lot in Manhattan – people boast about their doctors with the same passion they show for cars, houses, or favorite baseball teams. Trouble is, they can’t all be right.”

He chuckled easier this time. “Did any of them let slip they’d been up here before Tuesday?”

“They were too busy asking if men minded when I checked their prostate. Told them I had guys lining up for a second opinion.”

He laughed and felt the coiled spring in his chest unwind a turn or two. “Did anyone say anything about Chaz being there?”

“I was roundabout in asking, so as not to put them on guard. Told them I knew him through my residency, which is true, and that I wanted to say hello. To a man they said he was in New York, down with the flu.”

“Did you believe them?”

“I think
they
believed it.”

More Braden alibis,
he thought, sinking back into the driver’s seat. They passed the floodlit grounds of Nucleus Laboratories. The sodium lamps cast the swirling snow in a giant web of yellow light, at the center of which sprawled the darkened building.

He’d phone Victor Feldt in the morning, although he wasn’t optimistic about finding any leads there. But the prospect of calling up the list of doctors Victor had provided him with seemed a tad more interesting now. They were an
A
-list, the kind of physicians, apparently, that Charles Braden referred his friends to.

Victor heard the car drive up.

He switched off his computer screen and peeked out the window.

Four men in bright ski outfits got out of a red sedan.

Lost tourists? He opened the front door before they came all the way up the walk. “Evening. Can I help you-”

That’s when he saw the black stubby cylinders two of the men carried at their sides, muzzles pointed to the ground.

V
ictor slammed the door shut, snapped the lock, and ran for the phone. He’d barely dialed nine when the line went dead. He raced for the rear of the house. In seconds he was through the kitchen and out the back entrance. A fifty-yard sprint through a half foot of snow and he’d be into the forest. Moonlight glinted off the snow, revealing the black line of trees. The shouts of the intruders indicated they were still at the front of the house.

“Unlock the door.”

“We’ll go easy on you.”

“Liquor and money’s all we want.”

Yeah, sure.

The terrain sloped upward, and the leather soles of his shoes kept slipping. After a dozen paces he already gasped for air. He tried to accelerate, only to send his feet flying out from under him, catapulting to his hands and knees. The icy surface of the snow abraded his wrists. Sliding in every direction, he finally managed to get up and look over his shoulder, expecting to see that the four men had realized he made a break for it and were coming after him.

Not yet.

He started off again, still struggling to get some traction and gulping for air. By two dozen paces, he sobbed every time he exhaled, his chest burning as it heaved in and out. He continued on, choking, gasping, weak with fear, but halfway to cover. Once in the trees, he’d at least have a chance to dodge a bullet.

His feet slipped again. He pitched face first to the ground. Bits of slush filled his mouth, stuffed his nose, and dripped off his glasses. He spit and wiped his lenses so he could see. Panting fast and loud, he rose, then stumbled ahead. The shouts from behind grew louder.

“Stop!”

“We just want to talk with you.”

“Come here.”

He turned his head, straining to see where they were, but could only make out watery shadows.

He moved faster now, taking longer strides, the extra effort exacting its toll. Fatigue seared the front of his thighs until he could barely lift them. The incline steepened, doubling his workload.

He never once wondered why his pursuers were after him. Gay-bashers were a constant threat anywhere. Someone in town probably told these clowns about “the queer” living on Route 9, and this was some sick fuck’s idea of how to end the hunting season. But how far would they take it? That was the life-or-death question. That they had guns didn’t look good.

The shouts grew closer.

A tightness ripped through his chest.

“Oh, God, no,” he whimpered.

By the time he reached the forest’s edge he felt squeezed in a vise from the neck down and was staggering, his torso heaving, his heart hammering the inside of his ribs. He ducked behind the first tree he fell against and doubled over to get his breath, at the same time trying to make out the men.

A collective smudge jogged toward him through the gloom, at thirty yards and closing. He took extra big lungfuls of the cold, but couldn’t relieve the smothering sensation. Waves of nausea lapped at the back of his throat, and cold sweat soaked his shirt.

Something zinged by his ear and embedded itself in the bark above his head with a loud
thwack
.

No question now, this pack was out for slaughter.

He pushed off from the trunk he’d been leaning against and lurched deeper into the woods.

Angry cries ordered him to halt.

Panic drove him. He repeatedly churned up muddy snow, getting nowhere; the clamp that had locked around his chest grew tighter. Yet he fought to move forward, crawling and pulling himself along, grasping at any root or bush to get a handhold.

“Give it up, asshole!” More bullets hit the snow around him.

He knew he was doomed, but his instinct to survive wouldn’t let him yield. Even as they encircled him, stood over him, taunted and goaded him, he writhed to gain a few inches, to breathe a few more breaths.

“Hey, he don’t look so good.”

“Maybe he’s having a heart attack.”

The pain grew as if his heart were ballooning out of his chest, ready to burst, and the agony became unbearable. Yet he could still see their boots at his head, hear their voices.

“This is better than any accidental fire.”

“He won’t have a mark on him.”

“I better go back and reconnect his phone line. The snow will cover the tracks. Nobody will even know we’ve been here, let alone look for bullets.”

Why didn’t they kill him? Have done with it. He found himself begging that they end it. But as he tried to speak, his lips, embedded in snow, barely moved, and he had to lick them free.

“Hey, he’s trying to say something.”

One of the men bent down, removing a ski mask and placing his ear near Victor’s mouth. “Wants us to finish him off,” he announced after listening to his whispers.

“Give him your cock to suck. That ought to do it,” one of them added.

More cackling came from above as the kneeling man slowly got back on his feet. “I’ll give you a gun barrel to suck on, you make another crack like that,” he said, obviously not amused.

Victor hadn’t the breath to cry or the strength to budge. Sinking into a delirium of pain and asphyxia, his mind still flickered with life, firing out fragments of thought, the last dispatches of a dying brain.

They weren’t gay-bashers. Hadn’t once called him a fag.

He’d spent a lifetime dealing with that kind of insane fury. These men were more callous and calculating.

So why were they here to kill him?

Because he’d discovered the secret?

But how could they know? He hadn’t told anyone yet. Only left a message on Mark’s answering machine, saying to call him, that he had the answer.

His mind downshifted again, losing the function of logic forever. Only memories swept through his neurons now, unlocked from one cell after another as they winked out.

The aroma of turkey greeted them when Mark opened the front door.

Lucy busied herself with the bird while he stoked the woodstove and opened a bottle of white wine he’d put in the refrigerator before they left.

“It’ll be another twenty minutes,” she announced, holding out a pair of beautifully tapered glasses she’d gotten out of the china cupboard.

He filled them, then raised his in a toast. “Here’s to the first Thanksgiving dinner I’ve had at home in years,” he said, determined not to let his state of mind ruin her efforts at providing a nice evening.

She smiled and curled up in the captain’s chair at the head of the table. She seemed to like that spot. After a few sips of her drink, she said, “Was it your plan to stir up a hornet’s nest tonight, or did those people really get under your skin?”

He didn’t want to talk about it. “Bit of both, I guess. Mostly I’m frustrated at how Braden has outfinessed every official attempt to get at Chaz since ‘seventy-four, mine included. And all that politeness as he pulls it off, I just couldn’t take it – wanted to throw it back in his face. At least now I’ve made the smooth-talking son of a bitch take his fight with me out in the open.”

“You did that all right.”

Not to mention he’d also assured any attempt by that same son of a bitch to drag Cam Roper’s name through the mud would now look like payback. “For what good it will get me,” he muttered.

“What do you mean?”

“We’re no further ahead in what we know.”

She watched him across the top of her glass. “But there’s more than that bugging you.”

Dammit,
didn’t she realize he really didn’t want to have this conversation. “Look, Lucy, like I said, the place revived a lot of personal issues for me. Let’s just leave it at that, okay?” He’d sounded far testier than he intended. At least she’d get the point and back off.

To his surprise she laughed, reached across the table, and patted his hand. “Looks to me like it’s you who can’t just leave it at that, judging by the way the Braden bunch gets to you.”

She managed to make them sound like a cross between a popular TV family and a gang of outlaws. It was his turn to laugh. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to take your head off.”

“Purely understandable.” She took another sip of her wine. “My brothers say I’m like a tank when it comes to butting into their private business. Though I am a good listener, and you could do worse than talking to me about that kind of stuff. Believe me, I’m an expert on how the past can come out of nowhere and bite you on the bum.”

She didn’t offer to elaborate, and he didn’t ask, welcoming the light mood she’d created. To his surprise she sustained it throughout the meal and the rest of the evening, engaging him in a relaxed easy exchange of anecdotes about medical school, residencies, and the slapstick side of life and death as it’s sometime seen from inside a white coat.

They moved into his combination living-waiting room, and he lit a fire. For a while they sat quietly side by side on the floor, watching the flames. He felt comfortable with the silence. So comfortable, he decided, it was time to clear up at least one of the many unknowns that worried at him. “Lucy, what were you on the verge of telling me last night, before you left to buy a dress?”

He felt her stiffen. After a few seconds she said, “I haven’t been entirely honest about why I took my elective here.”

He didn’t reply, wanting to hear more, but not about to extract it piecemeal.

“You see, I’ve got ghosts here, too, just as you do,” she continued, “but I’m trying to find mine, not run from them. So what I’m about to say might be upsetting to you.”

The same feeling he’d had two days ago while they were talking in her car, that she was about to cut very close to a vital organ, crept through him, and once more he grew still.

“Where I’ve worked the last seven years, all that sudden death, families ripped apart, and the life-and-death struggles so many thousands went through to reunite with their blood kin, it awakened a similar hunger in me. When I came back, Mom and Dad were great and gave me all the papers they had.

“I’d been adopted from an orphanage in Albany. But after I got my original birth certificate unsealed, the father was listed as unknown, and all attempts to locate the woman registered as my birth mother came to a dead end. The people I hired to find her told me she didn’t exist, that a false name must have been used. They suggested I contact the place where I was born, that the birth records would be more extensive and might give an indication who my mother really was. That led me to Hampton Junction and Braden’s home for unwed mothers. But all my attempts to get the original records from Braden Senior failed.”

She paused and took a sip of wine, keeping her eyes on the flames. “First I went through legal channels. Apparently the records room burned just prior to the place shutting down. Then I went to Braden himself. He apologized, but said essentially the same thing. He even had affidavits attesting to the fire, as others had been looking for records before me. When I asked him to refer me to people who had worked in the place on the off chance they could help me, he said he’d have his secretaries try to find some of his old staff, but in the end told me they hadn’t been able to locate anybody who’d worked there the year I was born. Now maybe I’ve been working around war criminals for too long, but when record rooms catch on fire, or nobody can find the people who worked in a place, that’s when I begin to get a little suspicious.”

Another pause, another sip.

Mark didn’t budge.

“So I moved on to Plan B. Since I was going to do a residency in family medicine anyway, I chose the teaching hospital that offered rural electives up here, intending to find out what I could from the local residents.”

He felt incredulous. He’d been dreading something sinister, yet here was an innocent story that he could hardly believe. “How could that help you?” he asked.

“One thing I did know. My records at Albany were in a red file. The other dossiers were mostly green. The administrator there said she thought the red folders designated a mother from the Hampton Junction area, the color signaling the need for special precautions regarding confidentiality so no one living nearby would learn who in town had been a patient…”

He immediately thought of Nell’s friend. There couldn’t be too many local women who went there. Not that she necessarily might be Lucy’s mother, though that was a possibility. But she might know who else from the area had been in the place. What if Nell were to ask her – no, he mustn’t let his imagination run wild. It was too great a long shot.

“… Now don’t get me wrong. I would have chosen you as my first pick for a rural rotation anyway. The residency program rates a stint with Mark Roper as their top elective, and being here with you and your patients – I adore it. But I also hoped working with you would give me a quick way into the community. I thought that maybe I could find something that would lead me to my biological mother. When I heard about the discovery of Kelly’s body, and that you were investigating her murder, I changed my schedule, bumping my rotation ahead. I figured there’d be no surer way of finding out what I wanted than by getting myself into the middle of what would probably be a major gossipfest, everyone talking about the Bradens and that era, then take advantage of it by steering conversations toward the subject of the home. So here I am. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think my own quest would make any difference to my doing a good job working with you. And I couldn’t be sure you would accept me if I told you my story outright. I hoped after a week or so, once you were satisfied with my performance, I’d be able to confide the rest, and it wouldn’t make a difference to you. And if in the process of trying to find my mother, I helped you dig up something on the Bradens that would help you, so much the better.”

She fell silent and just kept staring at the fire.

His initial relief gave over to feeling a little uneasy at how calculating this all sounded. Strip it down, and she’d basically come here to use his patients and the investigation to pursue her personal agenda. But she was also a legitimate resident and damn good doctor who had provided first-rate care to the people he’d entrusted her with. So was there a problem here?

For one, he’d shown her evidence in a coroner’s case. Should any of those files ever add up to charges against Chaz, the fact they’d been in the hands of someone who had her own issues with Chaz’s father might give the Braden lawyers yet another conflict-of-interest gun to hold over his head. He couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of that.