Copper Lake Confidential (23 page)

He saw Macy first, and his serious gaze settled on her. She couldn’t tell by looking at him that anything earthshaking had happened last night, and for just one instant she wondered if the night had been out of character for her but far more the norm for him. Then he smiled, not even a full smile, but one with such—such
possession
in it—that her legs got wobbly and she had no choice but to sit with them at the table if she didn’t want to fall flat on her face.

“Hey, Mama. Look, I’m drinking milk from a coffee cup. And we had pumpkin pie for breakfast. For
breakfast.
Dr. Stephen didn’t have any cereal or eggs or sausage, and he says oatmeal is for aliens. Even Scooter won’t eat it. And I told him, me, neither.”

Her daughter’s rambling settled over her like a familiar old blanket. This was exactly what she needed before she faced the house again.

Stephen brought her a mug of coffee, sweetened and creamed, and a saucer with a piece of pumpkin pie. Before she could speak, he did. “It’s got eggs in it, and a vegetable, and the crust is kind of like bread. And it’s all I had in the freezer that appealed to Clary.”

“I love pumpkin pie for breakfast.”

He smiled again, brushing her shoulder as he pulled away, as if he needed a touch, no matter how small. After refreshing his coffee, he said, “Clary, want to watch TV with Scooter?”

She slurped the last of her milk, swiped her face with a paper towel doubling as napkin and grinned. “You bet.”

As they trotted off, Stephen called after her, “Watch out, though. Animal Planet is his favorite channel.”

The TV came on a moment later. It always amazed Macy how the use of remote control devices seemed to be part of a kid’s genetic code these days.

Stephen sat down to her right, and she automatically turned her chair in that direction. “I’ve got some things to do this morning, but first I need to ask you some questions, okay?”

Discomfort took the shiny edge off the morning, but she nodded. They’d avoided discussing who among the people close to her would have a motive strong enough to want her recommitted to the psychiatric hospital. She’d seen the guilt and trouble in his eyes while he considered whether it was her brother or her sister-in-law, but he hadn’t pushed her and she had chosen instead to push something else.

Now, thin-lipped, fingers gripping the coffee mug too tightly, she nodded.

His voice automatically lowered to make certain Clary couldn’t hear him. “Does Brent have any financial problems?”

“No. His business is very successful.”

“Do he and Anne spend a lot of money?”

“No.”

“But they both love Clary.”

She nodded emphatically.

“How long have you known Anne?”

“About a year.”

“And Brent’s known her a few months longer?” He waited for her nod. “Where did they meet?”

Even thinking Brent or Anne could be the one haunting her made Macy’s stomach roil. Talking about them, sharing personal things, made her face sweat. “At the hospital. Anne’s sister was also a patient there. They’d bump into each other in the lobby, the restaurant, share their woes, and they fell in love.” Yes, the hospital had had a full-service restaurant rather than a cafeteria.

“Do you know her maiden name?”

“Jones. Anne Jones.”

For an instant, his eyes almost rolled. Macy knew what he was thinking: such a common name. Easy to hide behind, easy to remember if it wasn’t really yours, far too hard to easily follow up on.

Then he schooled his expression, giving no hint what he thought of that. “What hospital?”

“Claremont House. It’s in Columbia. The five-star resort of mental institutions.”

“So Anne comes from money, too.”

Feeling the hated fluttering in her chest, Macy took her cup and stood up to pace the small room. It was a nervous behavior that made other people look at her suspiciously, but activity helped her with control. “I don’t know. Either that or really good insurance.”

“How is her sister? When did she get out?”

“I—” Macy swallowed. “I don’t know. Anne never talks about her to me.” In fact, she’d never heard Anne mention family at all. It was as if once she’d married Brent, his family became hers and hers no longer existed. “I need to take my medication.”

Silently Stephen rose and got the bottle off the top of the refrigerator, well out of Clary’s and Scooter’s reach, handing it to her.

She swallowed one pill with coffee, then shoved the bottle into her shorts pocket. “You can’t really suspect...Anne’s like a sister to me, a mother to Clary. She would never do anything to hurt me. And Brent—it’s just not in his character. He could no more terrorize me than you could.”

He blocked her way, took the coffee, then put his arms around her. “I’m just trying to figure this out. Last night, when I opened the door and found you standing there, so scared and shaken... It’s got to stop, Mace. Whoever’s doing this has to stop.”

She wondered which would be worse: being scared all the time, or finding out it was Brent or Anne manipulating her fear. She’d had her heart broken twice before. She didn’t want to go through it again. She just wanted to be like everyone else in the world.

“You and Clary are welcome to stay here as long as you want, but I’ve got to get going.”

He offered her the house key on his key ring, but she numbly shook her head. “We’ll go home. Brent and Anne will worry—” She broke off, and her mouth tightened. “We’ll go home,” she repeated.

* * *

Stephen kissed them both goodbye on the porch, watched Macy load Clary and Scooter into the van, then walked to his car parked next to the house. After following them to their house, he drove out of the neighborhood and headed for the interstate that would take him to Augusta, then Columbia.

He’d spent most of the night on the internet and found countless sites that covered Mark Howard’s death, his public life and his not-so-public activities, plenty of mentions of Macy, a fair number of Brent and virtually nothing about Anne. Of course, not knowing her maiden name hadn’t made the search easier—wouldn’t have made it easier now that he knew. The most he’d located about her was a blog belonging to a friend of Brent’s who’d held a party to celebrate his and Anne’s marriage.
His lovely new wife from Columbia
was the extent of her mention.

He wasn’t proud of it, but he’d also checked Macy’s cell phone. She’d left it lying on the night table when they went to bed. He hadn’t looked at her phone book or call records. He’d simply scrolled through the pictures, hundreds of them, and forwarded two good shots of Brent and Anne to his own cell. With no more of a name to go on than Anne, he would need the photographs.

Once he merged onto Interstate 20, he kicked up the speed to ten above the limit and set the cruise control. Should he have told Macy why her anxiety meds weren’t working? That he was going to the hospital to see if he could learn anything about Anne? He wasn’t hopeful. If hospitals were prickly about patient confidentiality, psychiatric hospitals must be doubly so. But he wasn’t looking for information on a patient. Just a woman who’d spent a lot of time there.

He decided for the dozenth time that not telling Macy was right. One more dose of blood pressure medicine wouldn’t hurt her. Besides, she had to be at the house with Brent and Anne while he was gone, and there was no way she could hide his suspicions—her guilt—that long, if at all. She would surely say something to someone, and whichever one was responsible for switching the pills—maybe both of them—might take more direct action. It was best that she remain in the dark awhile longer.

And if he didn’t learn anything on this trip?

Then it was time to call the police. Ellie Maricci’s husband, Tommy, was chief of detectives now that A. J. Decker had been promoted to fill the retiring chief of police’s spot. Tommy was a good cop and had subtlety down to an art. Marnie had worked with all of the detectives at one time or another, and she respected Tommy a lot.

The drive to Columbia and to Claremont House took nearly three hours. The place was gorgeous. Built of stone and surrounded by terraced gardens, it looked like an Italian villa lifted from Tuscany and placed on this spot of wooded land. The roof was rust-colored tiles, huge windows lined four floors and marble steps led up from a rose garden and down to the pool, up to patios and down to lush expanses of grass.

Access to the main portion of the building was easy: he simply walked in the door. A receptionist sat at a desk centered on a large patterned rug in the middle of a vast marble floor. A bouquet of pink roses stood at each end of the desk, their shade a perfect match to the pinks in the contemporary paintings on the walls.

A broad corridor bisected the lobby running north-south, and two smaller ones ran east-west from each end of the lobby. Discreet signs indicated gift shop, restaurant and snack bar down one hall, administrative offices down another. A grand staircase led to the second floor, guarded by a suit full of muscles at the bottom.

Stephen wondered how luxurious the patient rooms were—not that it mattered. It was still a hospital room, its occupant still in a place she or he didn’t want to be. Macy must have hated every moment in her gilded prison.

A very expensive prison. She’d commented that Anne’s family either had money or very good insurance, but from what Stephen understood, insurance rarely paid as well for psychiatric treatment as for medical care, and this place must have cost a fortune. Was Anne’s sister still here? Was that another reason, in addition to Clary, Anne wanted Macy out of the way? Because with Brent’s renewed access to the Howard fortunes, she could pay for her sister’s care?

Or did her sister even exist?

He approached the woman at the receptionist’s desk. She was about his mother’s age, with narrow glasses and a well-fitted suit, and she gave him a warm smile. “Can I help you?”

He pulled out his phone and located the photo of Anne. “I’m picking up my friend here. She was visiting her sister, and her car wouldn’t start. Her name is Anne Jones. Have you seen her?”

He watched the woman study the photo closely before shaking her head. Not so much as a faint hint of recognition. “I haven’t, but I only came on an hour ago.”

“I’m surprised you don’t recognize her. She practically lived here last time her sister was in.”

She shook her head again. “I can have her paged if you like.”

“Um, no, thanks. I’ll just wait around here like she told me to.” He smiled awkwardly, shoved his cell and his hands into his shorts pockets and walked off to look at a monster-sized painting on the far wall. After a furtive glance at the reception desk, he turned down the hall and went into the gift shop.

The woman working there was a clone of the first: older, well-dressed, friendly smile. He smiled back, then spent a moment or two wandering the aisles on his way to the checkout counter. She looked up and smiled again. “Can I help you find something?”

“Maybe someone.” He showed the photo again. “My friend Anne. She brought her sister by today, and I guess they’re running late since we were supposed to meet half an hour ago.”

“Oh, honey, you should know by now that the entire world’s running late. No one seems able to keep to a schedule.” She pulled a pair of narrow red glasses dotted with yellow flowers from a pocket and slid them on, then took the phone. “Ah,
that
Anne. I haven’t seen her...oh, in a good long while. You say she brought her sister today?”

Swallowing hard, Stephen willed his hand not to tremble. “Yeah, for a—a follow-up visit.”

“Oh, poor thing. And here I thought you meant we were getting another dedicated volunteer. I didn’t even know Anne had a sister, and certainly not one who needed...ah, Claremont care.” Her face pinked, and she gave over the cell and began backing away to a stack of boxes behind her. “I’d better get back to work. You tell Anne that Betty in the gift shop says hello.”

Stephen didn’t move, his brain trying to process the new information and all the questions he wanted to ask, but Betty was studiously ignoring him while she unpacked the top carton. The arrival of two customers made the decision to leave for him. He walked out, a dozen feet down the hall and into the snack bar.

It was small and offered mostly prepackaged items, a limited menu of hamburgers and hot dogs, plus fountain pop. A half dozen staff members sat at the tables, having a late breakfast or an early lunch, but the clerk, in her early twenties, was unoccupied, leaning against the counter and inspecting the bright pops of color that covered her fingernails.

“Hi,” he greeted her, inhaling deeply the scent of fatty meat and steamed buns. “Coke and a hot dog, please.” As she pulled on plastic gloves, he added, “Slow morning, huh?”

She gave him a look.
Good job of stating the obvious, Noble.

“Have you worked here long?”

Another look. Apparently small talk wasn’t part of the job. But after plopping a wiener on a moist bun, she said, “Couple years.”

“A, uh, friend of mine used to volunteer here. I—I was thinking about maybe doing the same if there are, uh, any positions open. Anne Jones. You know her?”

He wasn’t sure if she was thinking about it or simply ignoring him so he showed her the digital photo. She grunted. “Not really. Seen her around.” She set his hot dog and Coke on a small red tray, took his money, then glanced around the dining room. “If you’re interested in volunteering, you should talk to that guy. Duncan West. He’s in charge of volunteers.”

Stephen followed the line of her pointing finger out glass doors to a patio shared by both the snack shop and the restaurant next door. Duncan West sat alone at a table for four. He wore a white dress shirt with pale gray trousers and was reading on an iPad while he ate.

“Uh, thanks. I will.” He carried the tray to the condiment station and squirted mustard onto the hot dog. So Anne had volunteered at Claremont House instead of simply visiting her sister there, and she hadn’t talked about her sister with the people she worked with. Information, but nothing to justify accusing her of anything but having a giving spirit and guarding her sister’s privacy.