Trick or Deadly Treat (15 page)

“You're lucky, old man,” he muttered.

“Don't posture, Jack,” Meredith said. “It's unbecoming.”
She looked at Baxter again. “You're wrong about me being cold-blooded, Hank. Very wrong. I'd like nothing more than to claw your eyes out right now. But out of respect for poor Susan, I'm not going to. Instead I'm going to give you ten seconds to accept my offer, or else I'll call the police and have you arrested for disturbing the peace.” She paused. “And I'm sure the district attorney will do his best to find some way to make sure the jury at your trial knows about that.”

“All right. Fine,” Baxter snapped. “But don't expect me to thank you.”

“I don't expect you to do anything except go to prison for the rest of your life.”

Meredith turned and walked back up the aisle toward the front of the church with her husband following her. One of the funeral home men put a hand on Baxter's arm and gently urged him toward a door at the side of the vestibule. Baxter shrugged off the man's hand, but he didn't put up any argument as he was ushered into the side room.

Sam went back to the pew where Phyllis was sitting and slid in beside her.

“I knew it would cause trouble if Dr. Baxter came to the funeral,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “D'Angelo probably tried to talk him out of it, but Baxter's the stubborn sort. And if he's innocent, you can't blame him for wantin' to say good-bye to his wife.”

“No, of course not.”

It was a few minutes past the time the funeral was supposed to start, but the canned music continued to play. Several people were huddled around the front pew. Sam figured they
were trying to comfort Meredith Carlyle after her brother-in-law's presence had disturbed her so much. After several minutes, everyone sat down, and the funeral got under way.

It lasted less than an hour, but it seemed a lot longer than that to Sam.

I
t took watching a couple of John Waynes and a Randolph Scott that evening to lift the mood of black depression that Susan Baxter's funeral had caused to settle down over Sam like a cloak. Having Buck lying on the floor next to the recliner in Sam's room, so that Sam could reach down and scratch behind his ears from time to time, helped a lot, too. By the time the Western marathon was over, it was late and Sam was tired but more clearheaded.

He had carried Buck up the stairs rather than make the dog climb them with the cast on his healing leg. Now he picked up Buck to take him back down to the utility room, but instead he looked at the bed and muttered, “What the heck.”

He lowered Buck onto the mattress, atop the bedspread. Buck squirmed around and quickly made himself comfortable. Sam chuckled at the sight of the Dalmatian curled up on the spread.

“We may both get our tails whipped in the mornin',” he told Buck. “But at least we'll get a good night's sleep out of it first.”

Phyllis never said a word about it, though. She was an early riser and was up before Sam and Buck. She would have looked in the utility room and in the yard for the dog, and not finding him, it wouldn't have taken much deductive ability to figure out that Buck was in Sam's room. Phyllis had that much deductive ability and a whole heap more.

When Sam came into the kitchen with Buck and let the dog out into the yard, Phyllis poured a cup of coffee and set it on the table at Sam's usual place. A mixture of delicious aromas filled the room.

“Some sort of muffin bakin'?” Sam asked.

“Oatmeal berry streusel muffins,” Phyllis replied. “They'll be ready in a little while.”

Sam sat down and took a grateful sip of the coffee.

Phyllis went on. “How did you sleep? I know that scene at Susan Baxter's funeral bothered you. You were very quiet at supper last night.”

“I'm fine,” Sam told her. “Did a lot of thinkin'. I'm more convinced than ever now that Hank Baxter didn't kill his wife.”

“Because he came to her funeral?”

“Because he gave in and agreed to what Meredith Carlyle offered him: a chance to say good-bye. He wasn't there to put on any kind of show. He wasn't thinkin' about how it would look for his trial. He was just hurtin'.”

“Or maybe he was acting,” Phyllis suggested.

“Nobody's that good an actor.”

“You might be wrong about that. Some people are capable of showing remorse when there's nothing real inside them.”

“Maybe, but I don't believe Hank Baxter's like that. Animals respond to him. You've seen that with your own eyes. And nobody can see through a phony faster'n a dog.”

Phyllis smiled and said, “I don't think Buck's wagging tail would be admissible as evidence.”

“No, but there's got to be something else out there that would be, something that'll prove Hank Baxter's innocent.”

Carolyn and Eve came into the kitchen a short time later, and the four friends enjoyed a pleasant breakfast. By the time they were finished, Buck was whining at the back door. November was settling in now, and most mornings were rather chilly.

Sam let Buck in and gave him his breakfast in the utility room, then went upstairs to get dressed for the day. When he came back down, he found Phyllis dressed to go out, too.

“What's the next move in our investigation?” he asked her.

“Don't you mean your investigation?”

“Nope,” Sam said. “Jimmy D'Angelo wanted you in on this and you agreed to the deal, so you're in charge again.” Sam blew out a breath in an obviously mock sigh of relief and went on. “Which is mighty fine with me. All that thinkin' just wears out my brain.”

“Don't sell yourself short,” Phyllis told him. “You've found out quite a bit about Kyle Woods.”

“Yeah, but nothin' that really points the finger of guilt at him.” Sam paused and frowned in thought. “Now, if we could put him on the scene after Hank Baxter left his wife's office . . .”

“You see,” Phyllis said. “There's our next move. We need to go back out there and ask some more questions . . .”

*   *   *

It was likely the police had already questioned everyone in the doctors' offices in the same complex where Susan Baxter had had her office. If nothing else, Warren Latimer was a competent detective. But he hadn't known everything that Phyllis and Sam did, so before they left the house, Phyllis printed a copy of one of the pictures from Kyle Woods's website so they could take it with them and ask if anyone remembered seeing Woods around Susan's office on the day of her murder.

Enough time had passed since then that the odds would be against them, Phyllis knew. People led busy lives and were concerned mostly with their own affairs. They couldn't be expected to remember everything they had seen several days earlier.

On the other hand, the news must have spread rapidly that something terrible had happened at Susan Baxter's office. That might make potential witnesses more likely to recall the details of that day, including whether or not they had noticed Kyle Woods.

This sort of legwork was tiring and frustrating. Phyllis and Sam went into the other offices in the complex and started out by asking each of the receptionists if they had seen the man in the picture around there recently. Then Sam would show them the printout of Kyle Woods's photo. Most of the time the receptionists would allow them to show the picture to billing clerks, bookkeepers, sometimes a nurse or two, anyone who was handy to the office at the moment.

But one after another, they all shook their heads and claimed not to know a thing. Phyllis saw the way they looked at Woods's picture with blank stares and was inclined to believe them.

The doctors were all busy with patients, of course, so Phyllis and Sam weren't able to ask them about Woods. As the lack of results built up, Phyllis began to get discouraged.

When she said as much to Sam, he pointed at the row of medical offices across the street and said, “We haven't asked any of those folks over there yet. Maybe one of them saw something. We don't want to give up yet.”

“No, I wasn't suggesting that,” Phyllis said. “It's starting to look like it's possible Kyle Woods wasn't anywhere around here that day, though.”

Sam shook his head. Phyllis could see that he didn't want to believe that. He had set his sights on the dog breeder as the most likely suspect to replace Hank Baxter as Susan's murderer, and he didn't want to give up on that theory. Phyllis understood that sort of dogged determination. She had exhibited it herself on other cases in the past.

They had come over to this part of town in Sam's pickup. They got back into it now and crossed the street, which was a bigger challenge than it sounded like because Santa Fe Drive, especially this area around the hospital, had gotten so much busier in recent years, like the rest of Weatherford. Traffic was so heavy that unless you crossed at a light, you might have to wait for several minutes before a gap big enough to cross safely came along.

Sam negotiated the crossing without much difficulty, however, and pulled into a parking lot that served several different large brick buildings housing a number of medical offices.
They parked and started at one end, and even though Phyllis no longer held out much hope that they would accomplish their goal, she tried not to show that. She believed the situation was turning out as she had expected, though: People were too busy these days to remember details.

Or else they were on the wrong track entirely and Kyle Woods hadn't been anywhere around here on the day of Susan Baxter's murder, a possibility that was equally frustrating.

At first it looked like nothing was going to change, as they drew blank looks and head shakes from the first several people they showed Woods's picture. They went into the offices of a group ophthalmology practice and began asking questions of the receptionist, who surprised them by giving a little start of recognition when Sam placed Woods's picture in front of her. The woman said, “Oh, yes. I know this man.”

“You do?” Sam said.

“Yes, of course. He's one of our—” The woman stopped short and looked worried. She lowered her voice and said, “Please, forget that I said anything. I shouldn't have. You know, with all the patient privacy laws.”

Phyllis said, “You realize you just told us that he's a patient here, don't you?”

The receptionist put a hand to her mouth and said past it, “Oh, shoot.” She was young, no more than about twenty-two, and Phyllis had a feeling she wasn't destined for a long career in the medical profession.

“Don't worry,” Phyllis told her. “You didn't do anything wrong. We don't care where he's a patient. Our interest in him doesn't have anything to do with his medical situation. We're investigating a crime.”

“You are?” the receptionist said. She gave them a dubious look, and Phyllis knew why. She and Sam didn't look like police detectives or even private investigators. They looked exactly like what they were: a couple of elderly, retired schoolteachers.

“We're workin' with an attorney,” Sam said. “And all we really need to know is whether you've seen this fella around here in the past few days.”

“You mean here in the office?” the young woman asked.

“We were thinking more of just in the area,” Phyllis said. “Maybe across the street . . .”

“This has something to do with Dr. Baxter's murder, doesn't it?” The receptionist looked and sounded avidly interested now.

Phyllis said, “We're not really at liberty to go into details—”

“But you want me to,” the young woman interrupted her. “That doesn't seem fair.”

She had a point, Phyllis thought, but if Hank Baxter ever went to trial for the murder and this young woman needed to testify, they couldn't risk an accusation that they had influenced her testimony. District Attorney Sullivan would have that thrown out in a hurry.

“If you could just tell us what you saw—” Phyllis began.

“Jessica.” Another woman had come up behind the reception counter, this one wearing a doctor's white coat. She went on. “What's this about?”

The receptionist looked back at her and said, “These people were asking me some questions, Dr. Hampton. They're investigating the murder that happened across the street.”

“Really?” The doctor gave Phyllis and Sam an amused,
superior glance that rubbed Phyllis the wrong way. She went on. “I've got a few minutes before my next appointment. Come on back and ask me your questions.”

Phyllis and Sam glanced at each other. This was the first chance they'd had to talk to one of the doctors in the area. They shouldn't waste it, Phyllis thought, no matter how condescending the woman in the white coat might be.

They followed the doctor to her private office, and as she led them in, she said, “I'm Kathleen Hampton, by the way.”

“Phyllis Newsom,” Phyllis introduced herself when they had all sat down, Dr. Hampton behind the desk and she and Sam in front of it. “And this is Sam Fletcher.”

“And you're . . . detectives? With the police?”

Dr. Hampton had that smirk on her face again. Phyllis controlled her temper and said, “We're investigating Susan Baxter's murder. We're working with an attorney on the case.”

“The attorney for Susan's husband?”

Sam said, “You know Hank Baxter?”

“We've met,” Dr. Hampton replied with a slight shrug. “I can't say I know the man well at all. Susan and I were friends, though.”

“Then I'm sure you want to see her killer brought to justice,” Phyllis said.

“The police have already made an arrest, haven't they? Susan's husband killed her. I can't say as I'm surprised.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I know they'd been having trouble in their marriage,” Dr. Hampton said. “Susan and I weren't as close as sisters or anything. She didn't confide her deepest, darkest secrets to me. But she said some things now and then, and it didn't take
much to read between the lines. That marriage was definitely headed for divorce court.” She paused. “Now I suppose a different kind of court will have the final say.”

“Dr. Baxter never told you that her husband had harmed her or even threatened her in any way, though, did she?”

“Well . . . no. I don't think their problems ever descended to that level. Just a lot of shouting matches and hurt feelings. But those things can get out of hand.”

Sam put the picture of Kyle Woods on the desk in front of Dr. Hampton and asked, “Have you seen this fella around here?”

“I can't answer that. You're asking me to violate doctor/patient confidentiality. That can get a person in a lot of trouble these days.”

“Not hardly,” Sam said. “We're not askin' you to tell us his name or even whether you know him. All we're really interested in is whether or not you saw him across the street, around Dr. Baxter's office, the day she was killed.”

Dr. Hampton pushed the picture back toward Sam. “In that case I can tell you, the answer is no,” she said. “A flat no. I haven't seen this man—who I'm
not
identifying as a patient of mine—for more than a month.”

“Then who did you see going in and out of Dr. Baxter's office that day?” Phyllis asked.

“I didn't see anyone. Do you think I don't have anything better to do than look through my office door and watch who goes in and out of the building across the street?” Dr. Hampton made a scornful sound. “I have patients of my own to see, you know. In fact, one of them is due anytime now, so if that's all . . .”

Dr. Hampton put her hands on her desk. Phyllis knew she was about to stand up and usher them out of the office. The woman probably wouldn't agree to talk to them again, so this might be the only chance they would have to get any information out of her.