Family Practice (12 page)

“Conflicts.”

“You'll have to ask Carl. I don't know the ins and outs. Only that she said one thing, and he said another. They were that way all the time.”

It was obvious he wasn't going to give her anything without direct questions. Okay. She'd let him get away with it until she had prompting material.

“May I see the painting?”

“Sure.” He led her to an alcove in the rear.

Only one framed picture hung there. Meer nodded at it and crossed his arms. She took a step closer. Something about it made her catch her breath. It was large, maybe thirty inches by forty, the figure of an old man alone in a black room. On one foot was a boot shaped like a rabbit; the other foot was bare. His face had a stricken expression; his hands were gesturing as though asking for help. In one hand dangled a broken bootlace. A rabbit was escaping toward a tiny point of light with a dazzle of rainbows.

The surface impression was humorous, but the second, more powerful, was of pain.

“Effective, isn't it?” Meer said.

“That it is. Is all his work like this?”

“Yes. Everything he did was extremely personal and at the same time universal. All his work had this essentially warmhearted quality, yet it's devastating. He could show anxiety, despair, isolation, fear in this simple style, and the emotion reaches out and grabs you by the throat.”

She could agree with that. After a last look, she turned her back on the painting—it would be disturbing to live with, she thought—and walked toward the front of the gallery. “This one valuable?”

“Very.”

“How valuable?”

“Any work of art is worth only what the buyer is willing to pay.”

“That doesn't tell me a whole lot.”

“Somewhere around a hundred thousand.”

“All his paintings that valuable?”

“Some are worth more than others. Size, when in his career he did it, that sort of thing.”

“What makes them so valuable?”

“How much time do you have?” Another smile, actual glimpse of teeth. “I could talk for several hours and still not explain it. Simple but strong lines. Exaggerated but quintessential shapes. Simple yet sophisticated compositions. Have I explained it yet?”

“Right.” Meer was being cute, and she was beginning to get irritated.

“All his work was about life. His own, really. But it touches everybody's. People respond to it. You familiar with Marc Chagall?”

She decided to ignore the note of condescension and nodded.

“Barrington's paintings have that same quality of childlike wonder. They have the rhythmic contours of van Gogh. The emotional power of Edvard Munch.”

“I see,” she said before he got even more carried away. “What else did Dorothy say when she was here?”

“‘Is the painting still here?' was about it. She was highly exercised about something. She asked if I knew anything about a Barrington being sold.”

“Did you?”

“Not a thing.”

“I assume Dorothy had other paintings. How many?”

“Uh—” Meer let out a long breath. “Quite a lot, but I can't give you a number. She won't let anybody really look at them.”

“She didn't want to sell them? Why not?”

“I could hazard a guess.”

“Hazard away.”

“A lot of it is this family-control thing and keeping the valuables under her thumb to keep the family under her thumb. But also, I think, she wouldn't sell them because of the content. The Barringtons have always pretended to the world that everything was rosy. These paintings are intensely personal and reveal a lot of intimate stuff. They show it like it was.”

The bell over the door tinkled softly, and two women came in. Susan thanked him and left.

In the pickup, she lifted the radio mike and checked in with Hazel. “Anything going on?”

“Negative.”

“Has the preliminary autopsy report came through yet?”

“Not yet.”

Susan thought a moment. “I'm on the way to Debra Cole's place. Tell George I need to see him when I get in.” George Halpern, her resident expert on the locals, had been with the department for over forty years, had lived in Hampstead all his life, and knew its history front and back.

The first fat drops of rain splotched on the windshield as she started the pickup. The Riverside Trailer Park, on the edge of town, actually was at the river's side, or at least the marshy area nearby. Near enough to guarantee hordes of mosquitos and other voracious insects like gnats and flies. And with the humidity high in general, this low-lying area had it in spades.

The Cole trailer turned out to be one of the smaller, older models that looked in need of maintenance. Uncut grass flourished, encroaching on the walkway.

Grabbing her raincoat, she draped it over her arm and walked up the path. She heard a radio blaring a country-and-western song, a man wailed his puzzlement over why love has to hurt so much.

When she knocked, Debra opened the door, dressed in yellow cotton pants and a long-sleeved yellow shirt.

“Oh,” she said. The one word, the body language, and the manner all said she wasn't pleased to see Susan. Not a rare occurrence. Cops investigating a homicide weren't high on everybody's list.

“Hello, Debra. I need to ask you some more questions. May I come in?”

“But I've already told you everything.”

“It won't take long.”

Reluctantly, Debra opened the door wider and stepped aside. She quickly glanced around as though checking the condition of her home in the wake of an unexpected visitor.

“I was just fixing to have some lemonade. Would you like some?”

“That would be nice.”

Debra darted off to the kitchen. Susan dropped her coat on the maroon couch and sat beside it. The plush fabric clung to her linen skirt. The music suddenly died, and in the ensuing quiet, Susan was aware of the hum of the window unit as it struggled mightily to throw out cool air.

The living room area, just large enough to accommodate an easy chair and a lamp table, couch, coffee table, and bookcases of the brick-and-board variety, had a window that let in grayish light and looked out on a neighboring trailer. Hot-pink curtains were the only cheery note to dispel the general air of despondency. Everything was very clean and neat; the tables were shining with polish, the threadbare carpet had recently been vacuumed, even the books were dusted.

Debra returned with two tall glasses beaded with moisture. “Eighty-two on the thermometer by the back door. Would you believe? It never gets this hot this early.”

When she stretched an arm across the coffee table to offer the lemonade, her sleeve slid back. Her exposed wrist had a large purple bruise, just the right size for a hand to have squeezed. She sat in the easy chair and rubbed a thumb through condensation on the glass before taking a sip from it. Her face looked drawn, and she had dark circles under her soft brown eyes.

“Do you know yet who—” she took another sip. “Dr. Dorothy, who killed her?”

“I'm going to need your help.”

“Mine?” Debra's face tightened. “I don't know anything.”

“You worked for her about three years? I'd think she wouldn't have been an easy person to work for.”

“She was,” Debra said quickly. “She was always so busy, and sometimes she could get a little short, but she would always listen if you had something important. I guess she could get impatient, you know, but she—” She broke off, shot Susan a glance, and looked down at her glass, twisting it back and forth in her hands.

She was nervous, frightened. Understandable in a timid young woman whose boss had been killed almost before her eyes, but experienced cops developed sensors as receptive as seismographs, and Susan's were hitting jagged peaks.

“Did anything unusual occur lately at the medical office?”

“I don't know what you mean by unusual. In a doctor's office, there's always something,” Debra said. “But nothing I can think of like you mean.”

“How did they all get along? Willis and Marlitta and Carl? Arguments with Dorothy? Differences of opinion?”

“Well, you know, sometimes, but— I mean, nobody gets along all the time, do they?”

Right, Susan thought. Debra was a type who had to be asked specific questions. A general tell-me-all-about-it only caused perplexity; it tied in with her desire to please. You can't please if you don't know what's wanted. “Did you like Dorothy?”

“Of course.”

“You'd like to see her killer caught?”

Debra nodded with slight apprehension, as though wary of being led where she didn't want to go.

“My job is to find the killer,” Susan said. “And to do that I need to find out what was happening in Dorothy's life.”

Debra plucked at a cuff, pulling it lower over her wrist. “Willis got along with her the best. They seemed closest, you know? And he mostly agreed with her on things.” She looked up.

Susan nodded encouragingly. “Marlitta and Carl had conflicts with Dorothy?”

Debra hesitated. “Well, Dr. Carl sometimes. He just argued about things. Like he wanted to take the opposite side. Just because it was opposite, you know? He kind of like threatened her one time.”

“What did he say?”

“I think he wants to quit. Not be a doctor anymore? And Dr. Dorothy wouldn't let him.”

“How could she stop him?”

“It wasn't like that. It was more like he wanted to do something else, and he needed money to do it. And Dr. Dorothy just kept saying things like ‘stupid' and ‘immature.'”

“What did he say to that?”

“It wasn't what he said exactly. More like the way he said it. That she wasn't always going to be around.”

“I see. And Marlitta? She have any disagreements with Dorothy?”

“Not that I know of.” Debra took a thoughtful sip of lemonade. “But she has been kind of different lately. Sort of quiet. And seems like she's unhappy or worried about something.”

“What might that be?”

“I don't know. Maybe nothing. Maybe just work and everything.” Debra gave her a little smile. “Ed always says I just imagine things.”

“Your husband?”

“Yes.” Debra glanced around as though he might have slipped in when she wasn't looking.

Susan's instincts snapped to attention. She kept her voice low. “What does he do?”

“Oh, well, he's a student. You know, at Emerson.”

That explained the bricks and boards and the general air of not enough money. Students the world over lived in housing of this ilk. “Did he know Dorothy?”

“Not really. Just who she was. My boss and all.”

“How did he feel about your working there?”

Debra shifted uneasily. She didn't say, what the hell business it is of yours? “Oh, fine.”

“He didn't want you to stop working?”

Debra shook her head, quickly.

Bingo, Susan thought. Nervousness centered around husband Ed. He didn't like her working. Was Debra afraid he had killed Dorothy?

“We need the money,” Debra said.

A little girl toddled from the bedroom, clutched Debra's knee, popped a thumb in her mouth, and stared sleepy-eyed at Susan.

“Who takes care of her when you're working?” Susan asked.

“Ed's mother.” Debra put an arm around the child and hugged her close.

The little girl began patting Debra's leg and babbled words Susan didn't understand.

“She wants apple juice,” Debra explained.

Susan left them to it and drove through drizzle to the hospital.

In the intensive care unit, she looked at Jen, still and small in the railed bed. Her face was no longer gray but a rosy red. She looked much more alive. Susan's heart lifted. A nurse, by the bed, was flushing Jen's IV line; then she ran a knowing eye over the tangle of lines and tubes, equipment and monitors. Watching a monitor tracing, she fiddled with an EKG lead, studied the respirator dials, and aspirated water from the tubes. She snapped wrinkles from sheets, looked up at Susan, and smiled.

Round face, short blond hair, she looked entirely too young to know what she was doing, but her movements had been sure and competent. “Just making certain she's comfortable.” She peered critically at Susan. “You look tired. Are you getting enough sleep?”

No. Whenever she thought of Jen, motionless in that bed, she wanted to yell and scream and kick somebody. Or collapse on the floor and sob. “Why is her face so red?”

“We thought at first it might be an allergic reaction to the antibiotics. I probably shouldn't be telling you this—”

“What?”

“She has measles.”

Susan's heart plummeted; instead of a good sign, the rosy face meant Jen was more at risk.

“Try not to worry,” the nurse said.

Sure. Easy. No problem.

“She's in good hands.” The nurse gave Susan a motherly pat on the shoulder and scurried out.

Susan curled Jen's limp fingers in her own hand. “You have measles,” she murmured. “But everything's okay. You came though the surgery like a champ. You're going to get well and go home. Soon as the doctor says all right, we're getting tickets for a ballet. That's a promise.”

Jen's chest rose and fell with the hiss of the respirator.

“See you later, kiddo,” Susan whispered.

11

“W
ET ENOUGH FOR
you?” George Halpern said when Susan came dragging into his office. His gray suit coat hung over the back of his chair; his white shirt sleeves were rolled up. In his early sixties, he had gray hair with a bald spot in back. He was a compassionate man who still believed in the innate goodness of mankind despite over forty years in law enforcement, maybe because his professional life had been spent dealing with small-town crime.

“That asinine remark is one I'm tired of hearing.” She nudged the chair a little closer to his desk and collapsed into it.