Malpractice in Maggody (26 page)

Which meant he didn’t have to put on a beret and go crawling across some muddy pasture. Once again, he fell to his knees, but this time he was praying that he’d seen the last of Senator Swayze.

Harve and I had exchanged seats so he could call his office and try to get a dog to track Alexandra Swayze. He was scowling when he hung up. “I got good news and bad news. What do you want first?”

“What do I want first?” I said. “First, I want to get in my car and drive to a certain campsite by a lake. I want to listen to the birds. I want to watch the sunset. And the next morning, I want to drive toward Canada and never look back.”

“By yourself?”

“That, Sheriff Dorfer, remains to be seen. So what’s the bad news?”

“The K-9 corps is out for the afternoon, down by Hangnell searching for a little kid that strayed from the backyard. The best we can hope for is tomorrow morning, and that’s assuming they find the kid today.”

“Okay, then let’s have the good news,” I said.

“The translator is on her way, and should be here in the next fifteen or twenty minutes. Name’s Norberta. You may have a problem with her. Her contract says she’s on call whenever we need her, but she’s supposed to be in a wedding tonight and she isn’t happy about having to come all the way out here.”

“I’m not exactly dancing on the desk, in case you haven’t noticed. Based on what you told me, I doubt the employees will have much to say. She ought to be able to get home fairly soon.”

Harve rocked back in my chair, but not so far as to hit the wall. “You’ve been acting real strange lately. Even Les noticed it. I know it’s none of my business, but if there’s something you need to tell me, I wish you’d spit it out.”

“I don’t allow spitting in my office,” I muttered. “I’m just feeling edgy, that’s all. Maybe I’ve been here too long. I was bitter when I got here, but I’m over the divorce and now I’m…I don’t know, restless. Part of me wants to redecorate my apartment, and the other half wants to get out of Dodge once and for all.” I stopped before I told him about my fainting spell in the surgical suite. He was in his avuncular mode, but he couldn’t be trusted not to use the admission against me the next time he got pissed off.

“Up to you,” he said tactfully, “but you might want to ease up on the second helpings. You’re starting to look more like a Maggody housewife than a former big city socialite.”

My eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, nothing at all. Whatever’s been going on at the Stonebridge Foundation will get cleared up before long. Hell, you may have a signed confession before that kid in Hangnell is found taking a nap under a bush.” He hurriedly got up and put on his hat, which made him look like a stereotypic dumb southern cop in a bad movie. “Give me a call later, you hear?”

“Sure, Harve.” I waited until he left, then took my rightful spot behind the desk and pulled out a legal pad to make notes about Vincent Stonebridge, the Connecticut drug pusher; Brenda Skiller (aka Alice Cutchens); and Walter Kaiser, wayward hippie in a time warp. This isn’t to say I wasn’t fuming inside.

“Yo, Earl,” called Jim Bob as he went into the house. The stench stopped him in his tracks. It was an unappetizing hodgepodge of spoiled meat, urine, and stale sweat. It was a helluva lot worse than the Dumpster out back of the supermarket. Battling his instinct to get out of there damn fast before he puked, he forced himself to go on into the kitchen.

Earl was seated at the table, wearing a dirty undershirt and trousers smudged with everything but blood. It was obvious he hadn’t taken a bath or shaved in a long while. Bread crumbs and half-eaten bananas and apples had been discarded on the floor. Flies hovered over the crusted remains of a casserole. What might have been a meatloaf was covered with blue fuzz. Gnats were feasting on an open can of chili with a fork stuck in it. It wasn’t hard to see that Earl had been drinking. The counters were cluttered with empty whiskey bottles, crumpled beer cans, and quart jars that had once contained moonshine.

“Whattaya want?” said Earl, staring at the jar in his hand.

Jim Bob stayed in the doorway. “I just came by to see how you was doing. It don’t look like Eileen’s come back.”

“Ain’t you a clever sumbitch.”

“Whatever you say, Earl. Some of the boys are getting together tonight to play poker. You interested?”

Earl’s head swiveled so he could glare at Jim Bob. “Do I look like I wanna play poker?”

Jim Bob tried not to stare at Earl’s mossy teeth and oily chin. “Hey, us men got to stick together. You want Eileen to show up and find you like this? She’ll figure you’re nothing but a big fat baby pining away for its mama. The next thing you know, you’ll be mopping the floor and asking her permission to take a crap. You got to shape up, Earl. Clean up this gawdawful mess, then take a shower and put on some decent clothes. I’ll tell Mrs. Jim Bob to fix us some thick sandwiches and apple pie. Then, tomorrow or whenever Eileen waltzes in, expecting you to be moping like a sickly hound, you’ll be sitting in front of the TV watching a ball game, drinking beer, and eating chips. Maybe you’ll notice she’s back, or maybe not. And if you’re gonna show her just who wears the pants in the family, you make damn sure the pants ain’t soiled. I’ll come by at seven and pick you up.”

Earl grunted. Jim Bob took this as agreement and hurried outside to gulp down some fresh air. He sat in his truck and did some calculating. He’d lined up a total of six players, but there was room for one or two more. He was reluctant to invite doddery ol’ Hirem, who’d fall asleep by eight o’clock, or Seldom Buchanon, who farted every time he got a decent hand. He finally decided to see if he could track down Big Dick McNamara over at the body shop in Emmet. Big Dick could even bring his boy, who was gettin’ old enough to act like a grown man.

Despite what he’d said to Earl, it might not be a real good idea to order Mrs. Jim Bob to fix food for the poker game. He took a swallow of whiskey from the pint bottle in his glove compartment, then drove toward the SuperSaver to tell the flabby sows at the deli to put together a fine spread. It’d be store-bought, but at least he wouldn’t have to get into it with Mrs. Jim Bob.

I
stuck a note on the PD door that said I’d be back shortly, then drove around town, looking for Alexandra Swayze. Nothing much seemed to be going on at the Pot O’ Gold trailer park, except for a pack of grubby children running wild. Eula Lemoy’s undergarments flapped on a clothesline. The manager was lugging trash bags out of one of the trailers, but didn’t spot me. It was not Alexandra’s kind of place. The picnic tables in front of the Dairee Dee-Lishus were occupied only by a few quarrelsome crows. The parking lot at Ruby Bee’s was thinning out as the lunch crowd left. The SuperSaver was as busy as usual on a Saturday afternoon. I considered driving by Dahlia and Kevin’s house, but I was afraid she’d come thundering out the door and throw herself in front of my car.

When I gave up and returned to the PD, a small woman with short dark hair was waiting beside a monstrous SUV. She wore jeans and a baggy sweatshirt, and was obviously not pleased to be called away from the prewedding festivities. Before I could get out of my car, she climbed into the passenger’s side and said, “Let’s get this over with; I’ve got a hair appointment at three. You’re Arly Hanks, right? I’m Norberta Oseguerra. I don’t want to hear what this is about. You tell me what to ask, I do it, and then translate.
¡Vamanos!
”

I didn’t need her to translate the last word. We drove in silence to the Stonebridge Foundation. The gate was closed, but swung open after I identified myself on the squawk box. I parked in the back, and we came in by the pool. Deputy Quivers was sitting bolt upright in a chair, but he looked guilty, so I assumed he’d been napping. “Did they feed you lunch?” I asked him.

“Yes, ma’am, but I couldn’t make out what it was and I was scared to eat it. Do you think I could go over to Ruby Bee’s and grab a quick bite?”

“Try the catfish,” I said. Norberta was at the edge of the garden, admiring some sort of flowering bush. I tapped her on the shoulder. “I’ll have someone round up the Mexican employees, and we’ll question them out here, if that’s okay with you.”

“I wish I could get my peonies to bloom like this.”

I left her and went to Stonebridge’s office. His door was open, and he was on the phone, extolling the virtues of the facility and the bucolic marvels of the Ozarks. There was desperation in his voice; he sounded as though he would have sold his soul to Mephistopheles in exchange for a licensed psychiatrist. A half-empty bottle of brandy and a glass were within easy reach.

Brenda Skiller’s door was locked. I continued into the main building and found her in the office behind the reception desk. Except, of course, she wasn’t Brenda Skiller, who was either in an urn on her niece’s mantel or in a cemetery—both of which were preferable to a backyard. I decided to keep the information to myself for the time being.

I tapped on the door to get her attention, then said, “The translator is here. Please send the employees out to the pool area.”

Brenda dropped the clipboard she’d been holding. “What about Alexandra Swayze? Have you found her? I read the entry in her journal. We can’t have her out there in the mental state she’s in. She could harm herself.”

“Or worse,” I said, thinking about Estelle’s missing gun. “I drove around, but I didn’t see her. She may be holed up in somebody’s storage shed, or hiding in the woods. The best we can do is get a police dog out here first thing in the morning. As soon as I question the employees, I’ll go back to Maggody and keep searching for her.”

“Three of the orderlies are here now, but only two of them were on duty that night. The fourth orderly drove some of the women back to the motel. He should be back in ten minutes.” She picked up the clipboard and clutched it to her chest as if it were a life preserver. Stonebridge had sounded desperate, but she sounded perilously close to hysteria. “We have to keep functioning, you know. The patients are our responsibility. Toby was so upset that I told him he could work out in the gym for the rest of the afternoon, even though I couldn’t find Walter to supervise. Dr. Dibbins was very uncooperative when I went in to administer his daily enema, and is refusing to do anything except listen to his opera CDs. The Hollywood brat has been prowling around like a stray cat. I had to shoo her back to her suite half a dozen times. She’s currently watching videos in the day room. But I can promise you one thing—they’re all back on their meds. I myself stood over them and made sure they swallowed every single tablet and capsule.”

“It’s good to know you finally decided to lock the barn door. I’ll be by the pool.” I looked at her for a moment, envisioning her digging graves in a backyard. It was not hard to cast her in that role. After I finished with Norberta’s services and sent her back to have her hair done, I definitely was going to have a chat with Brenda about identity theft and prison food. And Walter, too, when he showed up. Although his whereabouts were not my first priority, I hadn’t spotted his van in Maggody. I suspected he was eating ribs and drinking beer at one of Stump County’s less savory taverns.

Deputy Quivers had wasted no time in heading off in pursuit of lunch. Norberta was not in sight, presumably having been lured into the garden by the prospect of more peonies, but I could call for her when an interviewee showed up. I sat down and tried to sort through what I knew—and didn’t know. For one thing, sweet Molly Foss wasn’t as saintly as Randall Zumi had claimed. She’d played the ingenue to the hilt, but her track record was spotty. It was obvious that she was open to bribery. She’d lingered after the staff meeting, then slipped into Toby’s suite. He was probably right in claiming she’d led him on in hopes of forcing him to pay for her silence. He had a motive to kill her, but so did Brenda Skiller (as I’d decided to keep calling her) and Vincent Stonebridge if she’d made it clear to either one of them that she’d go public with a charge of attempted rape unless she was paid off. The Stonebridge Foundation would lose its precious anonymity, as well as its credibility as a rehab center. Maybe she’d threatened Randall, and the disillusionment had pushed him over the edge. I couldn’t fit Walter Kaiser into the scenario, but he had disappeared and was therefore suspect.

Or, I thought, perhaps Alexandra Swayze had concluded that Molly was part of the conspiracy. Eliminating the gatekeeper would lead to confusion, and give Swayze a better chance to escape. That was based on the presumption she was capable of lucid thought. I dearly hoped she was.

The orderly who’d been minding the desk earlier approached me, his expression wary. Norberta emerged from the garden at the same time. I gestured at the chairs, and the two sat down. I asked Norberta to find out his name.

“Guillermo, señorita,”
he said, looking at me.

“Ask him if he was on duty on Thursday, the night Molly was killed by the fountain,” I said to Norberta. “And what, if anything, he knows about the patients and their treatment.”

They had a lengthy, incomprehensible conversation, then she said, “Yes, he sits at the front desk every night until six the next morning. He responds if the patients press their buzzers for attention. A few times he’s had to wake one of the doctors if a patient was unable to sleep and needed medication. He doesn’t understand much of what goes on, and he’s reluctant to offer many opinions. He thinks the fat man is amusing in a gruff way, like an uncle he has back in his village. The others are rude. He was at the desk when the girl was found dead.”

I agreed with his assessment of the patients. “Did he see or hear anything in the hall that night around ten o’clock?”

Norberta asked him, then listened to his reply. “He heard doors open and close. Low voices, male and female. No one came into the reception room.”

I hadn’t expected to get that lucky. “Ask him about the little bottles in the room at the end of the unfinished wing.”

An even lengthier conversation took place. This time Guillermo was alarmed, his eyes darting and his scarred hands trembling. Norberta kept pressure on him, sometimes shaking her head and leaning forward to hiss at him. Finally she sat back and said, “The little bottles, or ‘
las pequeñas botellas de whisky,
’ as he calls them, were in a box outside the kitchen, where the garbage is set to be taken away by the cook and his helpers. He refuses to say who found them, but all of the men and a couple of the women have been enjoying them. The food they’re served here is dreadful, he says. They do some cooking at the motel, but they have no access to liquor.”

“Did they find any drugs in the box?”

“He says not, just the bottles and food. He’s worried he’ll be accused of theft.”

“Please assure him that he won’t, and ask him to send out whoever found the body in the garden,” I said. After she’d done so and Guillermo had returned inside, we waited at the table. I’d expected her to be at least a little bit curious, but she seemed content to gaze at the garden. After a few minutes, another orderly appeared. He was short and wiry, with sharp features that reminded me of a fox. I’d seen him before, pushing a cart with stacks of clean towels. Like Guillermo, he was wary.

“Me llamo Rodolfo,”
he blurted out, having been briefed by his compatriot.
“Sí, encontré el cuerpo muerto por la fuente. Ella era una mujer joven, muy agradable.”

Norberta smiled. “Yes, he found the body by the fountain. She was a nice woman, very pretty.” She asked him questions, listened to his responses, then added, “His job is to mop and wax the floors, sweep the sidewalks and areas around the pool, and wipe off the tables and chairs out here. The birds…ah, leave droppings. He’s not sure of the time, but around four he decided to have a cigarette. He was afraid that Dr. Skiller—the
bruja,
or witch, as he calls her—might catch him if he stayed near the pool, so he went into the garden. As soon as he found the body, he went to Dr. Stonebridge’s door and woke him up. That’s all he knows.”

“Ask him,” I said slowly, “if he saw anyone between ten and midnight.”

She turned to Rodolfo and quizzed him. At first, he shook his head, but after a moment he nodded and said something. Norberta was finally beginning to sound somewhat curious as she said, “He says the doctor with the long hair came out of his office about two hours after it got dark and wandered around for a while, then sat down at this table and stared at the pool. Eventually he went out to the parking lot, but didn’t drive off. Rodolfo isn’t positive, but he thinks he may have heard voices from that direction. They were whispering, so he isn’t sure if they were male or female.”

I thought about this for a moment. Maybe Toby Mann did have an alibi—unless the second person had been Molly. Walter had claimed to have little interest in her, but he’d admitted that the two of them had parted on hostile terms. He could have been a lot angrier than he’d implied. A woman scorned was purportedly a dangerous creature, but testosterone could be a potent drug. Ask Genghis Khan or Alexander the Great.

“What time did he hear this?” I asked.

Norberta relayed the question, but even I could translate Rodolfo’s shrug.

I took a final shot. “Does he, or any of the others, know the names of the patients or why they’re here?”

She asked him, but once again he shook his head and shrugged. She persisted, and after a long exchange, she sent him away and said, “He suspects one of the male patients is a professional athlete, but that’s about all. Marisela, a maid, worked in a border town in Texas a few years ago and claimed that she’d seen one of the female patients in a movie shown on TV one afternoon. They all agree the patients are here because they’re crazy.”

“No argument from me,” I murmured. “I don’t guess there’s any reason to question the others, since they weren’t on duty that night. I’ll take you back to your car so you can get ready for the wedding.”

I dropped her off at the PD, then resumed my search for Senator Swayze. I wasn’t about to go door-to-door and risk getting shot between the eyes by one of Mrs. Jim Bob’s militia ladies. If the senator had gone up on Cotter’s Ridge and stumbled onto Raz’s still, no one would ever find her. The best I could hope for was that she’d hitched a ride out of town. If not, we were in for a rough night.

“Just smile,” whispered Ruby Bee as she and Estelle walked down the motel parking lot to the units at the end. She was carrying an apple pie fresh from the oven; Estelle had a pan of cornbread that had been liberally laced with jalapeño peppers on account of everybody knowing how Mexicans like spicy food. Two women were sitting outside on a bench made of concrete blocks and a plank. One of them was wrinkled and plump, with a few white hairs mixed in her neat black bun. She looked like she might prove to be ornerier than Perkin’s mule, given half a chance. The other was younger and had a flat sort of face, like someone had squashed her features when she was a baby. A gawky boy sat on the ground nearby, a guitar in his lap. All of them stared as Ruby Bee and Estelle joined them.

“This is for y’all,” Ruby Bee said loudly, pausing between each word. She put the pie on one end of the bench and beamed broadly at them.

“And this, too,” Estelle said as she set down the cornbread.

The older woman nodded, and the younger one smiled timidly. The boy did not respond, although he was watching them like they were some sort of wild animals.

Ruby Bee nudged Estelle and whispered, “Go ahead and say what we planned.”

Estelle gulped, then managed to say, “Bonos dee-as.”