Family Practice (20 page)

“And what might it be that the police would like to question me about?” He removed the glasses and tucked them away.

“It might be about a painting.”

“I see.”

Osey thought he saw a twinkle in the small gray eyes and wondered if Jennings might not be having a little fun here. He explained what he was after.

“Ah, yes, the Barrington. I believe I did read about the death of his daughter.” Jennings made a
tsk tsk
sound and shook his head. “Such a tragedy. I didn't know the lady myself. A family that has had more than its share of tragedy.” He tipped back his head and peered up at Osey. “You think the death has something to do with the painting? I find it hard to believe that is a possibility.”

“You did have the painting? You sold it?”

Jennings nodded slowly. “It has been many years since I've handled a Barrington. I must say, it was a pleasure just to hold one in my hands again.”

“Where did it come from?”

“Young man, that is not a very specific question. Are you asking me how it came about that I had one to sell?”

Osey grinned. “Well, you can tap dance some better than me, but that's about it, yeah.”

The wrinkles rearranged themselves into a smile. “I used to know him. August. Many, many years ago. Before his death.”

“I figured.”

The wrinkles slid around again. “I sold many of his paintings. Most. Perhaps even all. You may have noticed, young man, that I'm getting along in years. I thought I'd never have one pass through my hands again.”

“How'd you get this one?”

“It didn't take long to sell, I can tell you that.”

“Where'd it come from?”

“Why, the family, of course.”

“The Barrington family.”

“That is correct. It was quite an honor and a pleasure that they chose me after all these years.”

“Which member of the family are we talking about?”

“The youngest one. Ellen Barrington.”

16

“Y
OU WERE RIGHT
about Ed Cole. He's a piece of shit.” Parkhurst stood with his back toward the window. Rain was falling like a warning to Noah. He took three paces to the armchair in front of her desk, nudged it with his toe, and sat, resting low on his spine.

Susan shoved aside the stack of urgent messages she was working through, twisted sideways in the chair, and crossed her legs.

“I've been doing some digging,” Parkhurst said. “Little chats with the neighbors, visit to the emergency room. They know Debra well there. Her story is she's clumsy. Accident prone.” He paged through his notebook. “Hell of a klutz. Broken wrist, cracked ribs, battered face. Those are just the highlights.”

“We ever get a domestic disturbance on them?”

“So far they've kept all their disturbing to themselves. But—” He leaned forward, opened his suit coat to tuck the notebook in the inside pocket, and leaned back again. “And you might find this interesting. The check on license plates turned up Ed's car in the area at the time of the shooting.”

“Did it indeed.” Battering husbands spread their violence around on anybody who tried to help their wives. Friends, family; the wives weren't safe anywhere. “If Dorothy was telling Debra to leave, get herself and baby into a shelter— Dorothy gave her a job. That got her away from him for some of the time. He wouldn't be thrilled by that, and—”

Her phone rang, and she picked up the receiver. “Yes, Hazel.”

“Mayor on the line again. You want to talk to him?”

No, she did not. The last thing she wanted to do was talk to Mayor Bakeover. Or listen to him talk. “Put him through.” She aimed a thumb at the door. Parkhurst nodded and left.

“Miz Wren,” the mayor's voice boomed in her ear. “I have left several messages.”

She spread out the pile of urgent messages on her desk, and there they were, four slips with the times noted.

“Are you on the point of making an arrest?”

“We are making progress,” she said.

He cleared his throat in a dismissing sound. “That sort of nonsense is what you hand out to the paper. I want to know what's going on.”

She looked at the stack of reports on her desk: suspects questioned, area canvassed, preliminary autopsy report. “We're in the process of gathering information,” she said. “Checking alibis, tracking down leads.”

“You cannot let this drag on. Dorothy Barrington was a valuable member of this community. Her assailant has to be found immediately. It's not good for the town to have an unsolved murder. It makes us look bad, and it makes people nervous.”

One day, she thought with her teeth clamped, I'm going to say screw it, I've had it, I don't work here anymore.

She unclamped her teeth enough to say, “Yes, Mr. Mayor, I understand.”

“Do you have enough people on it?”

“We're covering all angles.”

“I hope so. Don't limit yourself by concentrating on the family. Look outward.”

“Yes, sir.” Ah. Did this mean one or more of the Barringtons was grousing to the mayor?

“Keep me informed.”

There was a click. She took the receiver from her ear and grimaced at it. Barringtons were all valuable members of the community. The mayor didn't like to upset anybody valuable.

She replaced the receiver and retrieved her raincoat from the coat tree in the corner. To keep the mayor from having apoplexy, she'd go and harass some non-valuable members of the community. Starting with the shelter for battered women. Now, there were people about as non-valuable as you could get. She didn't ask Parkhurst to accompany her. Generally speaking, these people didn't care for males.

*   *   *

Susan picked up a cheeseburger at one of the fast-food places—she'd been doing that a lot lately and could feel Hazel's disapproval just over her shoulder—and ate it on the way to Victory House. She slurped the last of the cola just as she pulled up in front, stuffed the wrappings and paper napkins inside the empty cup, and dropped it in the passenger seat.

The battered women's shelter had started life as some family's proud home and gone through several incarnations—apartment building, corner grocery, paint store—before getting to its present state: faded white paint, blistered and peeling, over a clapboard structure, wooden steps that made sagging creaks as she trotted up on the porch, weedy grass beaten down by rain. She poked the doorbell.

Several seconds elapsed before a female voice called from inside, “Who is it?”

“Chief Wren.”

“What is it you want?”

“I need to talk with Joyce Norvell.”

“Just a minute.”

Susan waited. Standard procedure; nobody opened that door without permission from a staff member, usually Joyce herself. Sure enough, moments later Joyce Norvell unlocked, unbolted, and opened the door.

“Is this really necessary?” Joyce said in a tart voice so in contrast to her grandmotherly appearance: sweet, round face, prim smile, short white hair, and plump figure. In contrast, that is, until you looked at her sharp, penetrating eyes. “It upsets the women to have police hammering on the door.”

“Better me than someone of the male persuasion.”

“
Humph.
That were the case, this door wouldn't have opened.” She stepped back. “Come on in, if you must.”

Susan heard women chatting in another room and children's voices as she followed Joyce into the kitchen. The floor had faded, mud-colored, cracked linoleum and a long wooden table stacked with what looked like breakfast dishes. A coffee maker sat on a counter along with a collection of mugs.

Without asking, Joyce filled two of the mugs, placed them on the table, and, before she sat down, transferred stacks of dirty dishes to the sink.

“I need to talk to you about Dorothy Barrington,” Susan said.

“I assumed as much.” Joyce added sugar and powdered cream to her coffee.

“Debra Cole, Dorothy's receptionist. Has she ever stayed here?”

“What has that got to do with anything?”

“Maybe nothing.” Maybe something, if Dorothy was trying to convince Debra to get some help and her husband didn't like it.

“I wouldn't tell you if she had,” Joyce said.

“Why not? Aren't we on the same side?”

“I don't have sides. I do everything in my power to help these women, and that does not include passing out their names to everyone who asks. They have enough to contend with. They've already been horribly victimized, and they don't need any more.”

“Tell me about Dorothy's work for you.”

“It was good of her to do it. She donated her time, and her skill. Money is always a problem.” Joyce looked around the shabby kitchen. “There's never enough.”

“How was it that Dorothy came to do this?”

Joyce grinned. “I asked her to. I got my way with a little coercion, a little sprinkling of guilt. I can work wonders when I really get going.”

Susan believed it.

A toddler staggered to the door, tried to hold on, then flopped onto his padded bottom. He wailed with frustration. A thin woman with stringy blond hair picked him up and cuddled him as she took him away.

Joyce suddenly looked tired. “Now I guess I'll have to start knocking on doors. Find somebody else. Start polishing up on the guilt.” She sighed.

“How did that work? Did Dorothy come here to see the women?”

“Sometimes. It depended on the injuries. We have children here too. If it was minor, she would come here and take care of it. If it was more serious, she'd tend to it in her office. Sometimes after hours, so nobody would see them. Or if it was really serious, at the hospital.”

“Did anybody ever threaten her? One of the husbands?”

“The husbands always threaten. Anybody who works here is in danger. They're not cops, they don't carry guns, they're just ordinary people. The husbands are all violent. That's why the women are here in the first place. Because they got the crap beaten out of them.”

Susan had heard Joyce use such language before, but it always surprised her, coming from this sweet-looking lady.

“The bastards have to control everything their wives do,” Joyce said. “And they get enraged when the wives slip out of their reach. I don't know of anybody who threatened Dorothy, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.”

“I'd like to talk with the women staying here.”

“No. You'd need a lot more than a vague possibility before I'd let that happen. They have enough trauma. I won't have you adding to it. I'd have to see something legally forcing me before I'd let you talk to anybody here, and even then I might not allow it.”

Susan didn't push it. “How was Dorothy at taking care of these women? Sympathetic? Did they like her?”

Joyce lifted the mug to her mouth and sipped thoughtfully. “Dorothy was an odd mixture of helpful and unsympathetic.”

Susan raised an eyebrow.

“Since she was such a strong woman herself, I don't think she fully understood the dynamics of these situations. I don't mean she was unaware. Intellectually, I'm sure she was. But there was always that slight hint of impatience. As though deep down, she couldn't accept that the wives wouldn't leave the bastards. And no, the women didn't really like her.”

“When did you last see her?”

“Friday night. One of the children fell and cut his head. She brought us a few things, first-aid things. Hydrogen peroxide, Q-Tips, Band-Aids, Ace bandages. A few things like that. That may not sound like much to you, but all these things cost money.” Joyce looked down at her mug, then up at Susan. “I'm going to miss her. She was always available when we needed her. No matter what time of day. The women were uncomfortable around her. She wasn't—warm-hearted, there was always this hint of disapproval. But she certainly couldn't be faulted for her medical skill. And that's what she was here for.”

“Is there anything at all you can tell me?”

Joyce took a breath. “Oh, Susan, I really wish I could help. I want you to catch the bastard, but there's really nothing.” With the edge of one hand, Joyce scraped together a little pile of crumbs. “Friday night, she did seem—preoccupied. I commented that she looked tired. She shook her head and said she knew something she didn't want to know.”

“And what was that?”

“That's all she would say.”

Susan left Joyce washing breakfast dishes and made a mental note to see whether there wasn't some way to get them a dishwasher. Joyce had done a guilt trip on her, and she wasn't even aware of it. Locks and bolts clicked shut behind her.

Rain sluiced down the windshield as she pulled away from Victory House. Joyce was too wily a lady to give any impression of whether or not Debra had ever been in residence.
Dorothy knew something she didn't want to know.
That had a fine sinister ring to it. Might even be helpful, if Susan knew what the hell it was about.

She glanced at her watch: five minutes to noon. Making a right, she took the cross street to the Barrington clinic hoping to catch Debra before she took off for lunch.

The waiting room was empty. Debra, behind the reception counter, looked up as Susan walked in and froze like a deer at approaching headlights.

“Just a question or two.”

“I don't know anything. I already told you.”

“Just filling in, trying to get everything clear. How did you get to work on Saturday? Did you drive?”

“Not on Saturday. Sometimes I do. But mostly Ed drives me. He did on Saturday.”

“Where was he in the afternoon?”

“Ed? He was— I don't know exactly—”

The door opened, and a stocky man with red hair came in. Beefy shoulders strained the seams of a blue work shirt, “Winslow” stitched on the pocket, “Ackerbaugh Plumbing” on a patch on the sleeve. He snapped a piece of paper onto the counter. “Where's Dr. Marlitta?”