Trick or Deadly Treat (7 page)

T
he neighborhood where Phyllis's house was located was one of the oldest parts of Weatherford, not far from the courthouse, and most of the residences along the tree-lined streets had been built no later than the 1950s. Some were considerably older than that. At least on the surface, it was a haven of sorts from modern life. Only the cars parked along the curbs and the occasional satellite dish on a roof indicated that it was the twenty-first century.

Because of that, the neighborhood was popular for old-fashioned trick-or-treating on Halloween. For nearly two hours that evening, a steady stream of costumed youngsters showed up on Phyllis's front porch, their childish voices singing out, “Trick or treat!” as the door swung open in response to their knocks.

Sam and Buck had door duty for a while. The kids enjoyed having the Dalmatian greet them, although a few were scared of dogs and hung back, in which case Sam led Buck
back into the living room and Phyllis or Carolyn dispensed the candy.

Mike took Bobby around the neighborhood fairly early; then the two of them and Sarah went back to their own neighborhood to finish off the evening.

Before they left, though, Sam took Mike aside for a moment and asked him, “What's gonna happen to Dr. Baxter now?”

“He'll be arraigned in the morning and the judge will set bail,” Mike said. “You've been around several of these cases, Sam. You ought to know the drill by now.”

Sam scrubbed a hand over his face wearily and said, “Yeah, you're right. The whole thing surprised me so much I guess I'm not thinkin' straight. He'll need a lawyer, won't he?”

“Yep. There are plenty of criminal defense attorneys around, though. You can't throw a stick around the courthouse without hitting somebody carrying a briefcase.”

“Then the case will go to the grand jury and they'll decide whether or not to indict him?”

“That's it,” Mike said. “The process is pretty cut-and-dried.”

“Not to a fella goin' through it, I'll bet,” Sam muttered.

“Well, no, probably not.” Mike paused. “You think Baxter is innocent, don't you?”

“Yeah, but it's just a gut feelin'. I don't have a thing in the world other than that to go by.”

“What about Mom?” Mike asked warily.

“You mean does she think he's innocent, too?”

“Yeah. That's exactly what I mean.”

“She does,” Sam said, “but you don't have to worry, Mike. She says she's gonna stay out of it.”

“Uh-huh. I'll believe that when I see it.”

Solemnly, Sam said, “I think she means it. She doesn't want to worry you anymore, and she's really tired of folks thinkin' that somehow she's a magnet for murder.”

“I don't blame her for feeling that way.” Mike hesitated again, then said, “The only problem is, she's always been right about these things. If she believes Baxter is innocent, there's a good chance he is, at least as far as I'm concerned. Warren Latimer is a good cop, but he thinks he's already got the killer he's after. He's not going to bust his hump looking into other possibilities.”

“That's where your mama always took up the slack in those other cases.” Sam didn't know whether he ought to tell Mike his intentions. Mike was an officer of the law. He wanted truth and justice, but it was also ingrained in him to believe that civilians ought to butt out of police work.

“Baxter just needs to get a good lawyer,” Mike said. “If he really is innocent, there ought to be enough reasonable doubt to make sure he's not convicted.”

Ought to be, Sam thought. But there was no guarantee of that.

*   *   *

By the next morning, he hadn't changed his mind. He didn't know how much good he could do, but he wasn't going to stand by and let a good man go down without at least trying *   *   *

to help.

The rain had finally moved in for the first day of November. It was just a chilly drizzle for the moment, the sort that could hang around for days at this time of year. Buck had spent the night in the utility room, and after Sam took him outside,
gave him his breakfast on the porch, and let him do his business, he brought him back inside.

“All right if I leave Buck in the utility room?” Sam asked Phyllis. “I've got some errands to run this morning.”

“Of course,” she said. “He's good about going to the back door and barking if he needs to go out. Whoever had him before must have house-trained him.”

“Yeah, before they abandoned him,” Sam said. Buck had been on his own for a while before that car hit him. He wouldn't have been so skinny otherwise. He was starting to get some meat back on his bones now, though, with the good care he was getting.

Buck was curled up on his bed next to the dryer, sound asleep, when Sam left. Sam drove through the drizzle toward the vet clinic. He wore blue jeans and a denim jacket this morning, along with a lumberyard cap to keep the rain off his head.

Through being Phyllis's friend, he had met a few people in the police department and the district attorney's office, but he doubted if any of them really knew him from Adam. He couldn't just walk into the courthouse and start asking questions about the Baxter case. The vet clinic was a place for him to get his feet wet in this detecting business. After that he'd figure out what to do next.

A car was parked next to the building and a pickup was out by the barn, so somebody was there. Sam went into the office and found Holly behind the counter, talking on the phone.

“I don't really know,” she told whomever she was talking to. “I have a list of other vets I can refer you to, though, until we get all this straightened out . . . Yes, I know you'd rather
see Dr. Baxter. We all would . . . All right. Thank you. And I'm sorry.”

She thumbed the phone off, gave Sam a harried smile, and said, “It's been like that all morning. I've been calling everybody who had appointments today and canceling them.” She frowned. “You don't have an appointment, do you, Mr. Fletcher? I don't remember—”

“No, that's right, I don't,” Sam said as Holly started to turn on her stool to check the computer. “Buck's home, doin' fine. I came to see how you folks are handlin' things and find out if you've heard anything about Dr. Baxter.”

“That's really sweet of you. Tommy and I are holding down the fort the best we can. Like I said, I'm canceling the appointments and offering to refer people to other vets. That's what I'm doing with people who call for new appointments, too. I tell them we don't know when the doctor will be back in the office and that they need to . . . need to find somebody else . . .”

Tears gleamed in Holly's eyes as she had trouble going on.

“Sounds to me like you've got things under control as much as you can,” Sam said. “What about the doc? Do you know if he's got a lawyer?”

Holly shook her head and said, “I don't know. They won't let Tommy or me talk to him. I don't think they're going to let anybody see him until after his arraignment this morning.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “Actually, that ought to be over by now, or pretty soon, anyway. Maybe we'll know something by lunch.”

Sam pointed with a thumb and asked, “Tommy out in the barn?”

“Yes, he's tending to the patients we have out there. A couple of horses, some pigs, and a goat.”

“You reckon it'd be all right if I went out there and talked to him?”

“I don't see why not.”

Sam smiled and nodded. He could tell how upset Holly was, but he couldn't offer her much in the way of comfort at the moment.

The rain had tapered off to sprinkles while he was inside the clinic. As he drove around the building and headed toward the barn, he wondered if Holly's reaction was simply that of an employee sympathizing with a friend and employer, or something more. He still thought it was likely she had a bit of a crush on Baxter.

Maybe the real question was whether or not the doctor had returned that affection, if indeed he even knew about it.

Sam parked and went into the barn. Tommy was filling up water troughs in the stalls, using a hose. He lifted his other hand in greeting and said, “Hey, what's up, man? Something I can do for you?”

“I'm Sam Fletcher.”

“Sure, I know you. Buck's daddy, right? He's a good dog.”

“He sure is,” Sam agreed. “I was just inside talkin' to Holly. Sounds like the two of you really got your hands full.”

“Yeah, I suppose,” Tommy said with a shrug. He twisted the cutoff on the end of the hose to stop the water flow. “We don't have much choice in the matter, though. Until Hank gets back, we need to keep things going. All the animals we have here still need attention. We'll take care of the ones we can, and the others will have to go to other vets, I guess.” He started coiling the hose on a holder attached to the wall. “Buck
gets his cast off in a few weeks, right? Maybe Hank will be back by then.”

“You think so?”

“Well, sure. The cops will figure out who really killed his wife. Or at least they'll realize that Hank couldn't have.”

“You sound pretty sure about that.”

“Of course I'm sure,” Tommy said. “Hank's a good guy. He wouldn't kill anybody. Not even a gold-plated—”

He stopped himself before he finished the sentence and shook his head.

“Not supposed to speak ill of the dead, I guess,” Tommy went on. “But the way I see it, if Hank hadn't killed the other Dr. Baxter before now, with all the excuses she gave him, he was never going to.”

“Hard to get along with, was she?”

“Well, you saw her a time or two, right? Those were some of her good days.”

Sam grunted and said, “Hard to believe that.”

“Well, believe it. She made that poor guy's life a living hell. It's a real shame, too, because from what I've heard, they were a good couple starting out. I didn't know Hank back then, of course, but he's talked some about it. She worked and put him through vet school. Then he took over making a living and she went to medical school. It wasn't until she became a doctor that things started to get worse between them.”

“Why do you reckon that was?” Sam asked.

Tommy was like most people, Sam thought. Give him the opportunity to gossip, and he'd take it. The young man said, “You know how they say that some doctors get a god complex?”

“Yeah, I reckon I've heard that expression.”

“Well, it hit Susan really hard. She's a surgeon, and they're supposed to be the worst about it. Everybody told her how wonderful she was, and she started to believe it.” Tommy shrugged again. “And to be fair, from what I've heard, she was really good at her job. But she started to look down on Hank. To her he was just an animal doctor, and it was like she didn't think he was worthy of her anymore.”

“That's crazy,” Sam said. “I like animals more than I do a lot of people.”

“Yeah, I know! Me too. And that's all Hank ever wanted to do—take care of animals, I mean. So it was hard on him when she kept throwing that junk in his face about not being good enough because he's only a vet. Man, if I was him I would've—”

Again Tommy stopped abruptly. A hollow laugh came from him. “That sounded bad, didn't it?” he asked.

“No. I know blowin' off steam when I hear it. I've got a hunch Mrs. Baxter got under the skin of a lot of folks.”

“Yeah, like accusing Hank of fooling around with Holly. That's just crazy. He's nearly twice as old as she is. Anyway, she's got a boyfriend.”

“You,” Sam said.

“That's right. I don't know how Susan got all that crap in her head. Hank works too hard to be carrying on with anybody. The guy wouldn't have the time, even if he wanted to!”

“The other day it sounded like Hank was the one accusin' his wife of carryin' on.”

“I don't know anything about that. I stay as far away from that crazy bi—”

Tommy fell silent as a car pulled up to the clinic and
stopped. A man and a woman got out and went inside, but from his angle, Sam couldn't tell anything else about them.

Evidently, Tommy recognized them, though, because he said, “I'd better get up there. Holly's liable to need some help.”

“You know those folks?”

“I know them,” Tommy said. His voice held a grim note. “The woman is Susan Baxter's sister. She's not quite as hard to get along with as Susan was, but I don't know of any reason she'd be here unless it was to cause trouble!”

Sam opened the door of his pickup and nodded toward the passenger door.

“Hop in and I'll give you a ride,” he offered.

Whatever had brought Susan Baxter's sister to the vet clinic, Sam figured it might help his investigation to be on hand and find out.

I
f Tommy thought it was odd that Sam went into the clinic with him, he didn't say anything about it. The man and woman who had arrived a couple of minutes earlier stood in front of the counter, with Holly on the other side looking defensive.

“I don't want to have to get the law involved in this, but I will if I have to,” the woman was saying. “I have a right to go in there and look at whatever I want to. This clinic is going to belong to me.”

“I don't know how you figure that, Mrs. Carlyle,” Holly said. She glanced at Tommy like she was pleading for help.

“What's going on here?” he asked.

“You stay out of it,” the woman told him. “The first thing I'm going to do when I'm running things around here is fire the two of you. Whoever buys the clinic will want to hire a new staff anyway.”

Sam took an instant dislike to the woman. She was in her
thirties, he judged, and actually quite attractive, with a sleek figure in jeans, a sweater, and a long coat. Thick dark brown hair fell to her shoulders and onto her back. A few drops of rain had been caught in the strands and still sparkled in the light from the overhead fluorescents.

Her companion was tall and also stylish in an expensive suit, and handsome enough in a bland way, Sam supposed, except for the large bald spot on the back of his head. He needed some of that hair-growing goop.

Holly said, “Mrs. Carlyle wants to go into Dr. Baxter's office and go through the records on his computer. I told her I couldn't allow her to do that.”

“Of course not. Not without Hank's permission,” Tommy said. “This is still his place.”

“A murderer can't profit from his crime,” Mrs. Carlyle said. “That means he can't inherit Susan's half of this business. As her sister, I will. His pathetic attempt at a frame-up isn't going to work, and once he's convicted and sent to prison where he belongs, I'm going to court to take the other half away from him.”

“Why would you do that?” Holly asked. “You don't want it.”

“Of course I don't. Like I said, I'll sell it as soon as I can.” The woman looked over at Sam and frowned in puzzlement. “Who's the redneck?”

“Sam Fletcher, ma'am,” Sam introduced himself with as polite a nod as he could muster. “I'm one of Dr. Baxter's friends.”

That claim stretched things a mite, but Sam didn't care. He was grateful enough for the way Baxter had taken care of Buck that he considered them friends even though they didn't
know each other well. Holly and Tommy didn't contradict him, either.

“
Dr.
Baxter,” Mrs. Carlyle said. “There was only one real doctor in that family, and she's dead.” Her face started to crumple, and tears ran down her cheeks. “My sister is dead.”

The balding man took her in his arms and patted her back. “It's all right, dear,” he told her. “There's no need for you to upset yourself. Why don't you go back out to the car? I'll handle this.”

Sam noticed that the woman stiffened when the man put his arms around her, as if she wanted to pull away from him. She didn't, though. Instead she took a silk handkerchief from the pocket of her coat and dabbed it at her eyes. After a moment she nodded and stepped back.

“All right,” she said. “But you tell them, Jack. You tell them we'll get a court order if we have to.”

“Of course, Meredith,” he assured her.

Meredith Carlyle glared at Holly and Tommy and threw a hostile glance toward Sam for good measure before she turned and walked out, the heels of her boots clacking against the floor tiles.

Once the glass door had swung closed behind her, the man said, “You'll have to excuse my wife. Susan was her only sibling, and with both their parents dead . . .” He shrugged. “They were really all each other had left as far as family goes.” A curt, humorless laugh came from him. “Well, other than husbands, of course.”

Tommy said, “Look, we're not trying to cause trouble here, Mr. Carlyle. We just want to do the right thing. But you have to understand. Mrs. Carlyle can't just barge in here and take
over. It hasn't even been twenty-four hours since Hank was arrested.”

“You mean it hasn't even been twenty-four hours since Susan was murdered,” Jack Carlyle said.

“Yeah, but Hank hasn't been convicted of killing her. He hasn't even been indicted yet. The cops could decide they made a mistake and release him.”

“Oh, I don't think that's going to happen. Who else had any reason to want Susan dead?” Carlyle shook his head. “Let's face it. We all know how troubled their marriage was. When somebody is murdered, aren't the odds astronomical that the killer will turn out to be their spouse?”

Sam said, “That's not always the case, though.”

Carlyle frowned at him and said, “Who are you again? I don't remember Hank ever mentioning you.”

Holly said, “Mr. Fletcher brought his dog Buck here with a broken leg.”

“Oh. So you're not really a friend, then. You're just a customer.” Carlyle turned back to Holly. “Listen, young lady, you know Meredith is serious about this. She doesn't joke around. I'm sure we'll be going straight from here to our lawyer's office to get him working on that court order to turn over Hank's records.” He spread his hands. “And hey, we're not trying to do anything shady here. Meredith just wants to know what sort of financial footing the clinic is on, so she'll be able to determine a good price when she goes to sell it.”

“Hank is getting out of jail,” Tommy said through clenched teeth. “He's coming back to run this place just like he always has.”

Carlyle shook his head and said, “Oh, I seriously doubt that.”

Tommy took a deep breath. His hands tightened into fists. “I think you need to leave now,” he said.

“Tommy . . .” Holly said warningly.

Carlyle laughed and said, “Do you really think it would make things better to take a swing at me, kid? Then you'll be arrested, too. That's all you'll accomplish. It won't change a thing.”

“It might make me feel better.”

“Until they slammed the cell door on you. Then you'd be asking yourself what the heck you were thinking.” Carlyle started toward the door. Over his shoulder he added, “Don't be stupid. Try to make the best of this. Maybe I can talk Meredith into keeping you on for a while. Not permanently, of course, but hey . . . you do what you can do.”

With that, he stepped out into the drizzle.

“What a jerk,” Tommy muttered.

Sam nodded. He watched through the glass door as Carlyle got into the car with his wife and drove off.

“They both are,” Holly said. “I swear, if that woman gets her hands on this clinic, she won't have to fire me. I'll quit.”

“And I'll be right with you,” Tommy said. He sighed and turned to Sam. “Was there anything we could do for you, Mr. Fletcher?”

“No, I won't take up any more of your time,” Sam said.

Holly asked, “Do you want me to make an appointment for you with another vet?”

Sam shook his head. “Nope. I'm gonna assume that Dr. Baxter will be back,” he said. “If he's not, we'll deal with it then.”

“Better not wait too long,” Tommy cautioned. “You might
have trouble getting Buck in somewhere else. Give it until the end of the week, maybe.”

“I'll do that,” Sam said with a nod. He reached for the door. “Thanks again.”

“Anytime,” Tommy said.

As Sam drove away, he thought that he hadn't really learned anything new. He was no closer to proving Hank Baxter's innocence than he had been when he started.

This business of being a detective wasn't as easy as Phyllis made it look.

*   *   *

Once Sam had left on his mysterious errands, Phyllis went into the living room and sat down at the computer. Carolyn stuck her head into the room and said, “Don't forget about the recipes for that contest in
A Taste of Texas
.”

“Don't worry. I haven't,” Phyllis said. “In fact, I thought I might make the white chili casserole for supper tonight. It ought to be really good on a cold, gloomy day like this.”

“All right. And we can have my breakfast casserole tomorrow morning.”

Phyllis smiled and nodded. She said, “I'm looking forward to it.”

Carolyn left her to what she was doing.

What
was
she doing? Phyllis asked herself. She had all but told Sam that she wasn't going to get involved in Hank Baxter's case. And yet what was she about to do?

She was about to search the Internet for news about Dr. Susan Baxter's murder.

If she really wanted to follow through on her decision, she
would turn the monitor off and stand up from the computer right now, she told herself. But she didn't, and a couple of minutes later she was reading a story about the case on the website of the local newspaper.

The facts were pretty skimpy. The day before, the body of Dr. Susan Baxter had been found in her office when her receptionist returned from lunch. It appeared that she had been killed by a blow to the head, although the official cause of death had not yet been determined. Later in the day, the police had taken into custody Dr. Henry Baxter, a local veterinarian and husband of the victim, and he had been charged with her murder.

That was it, just a dry recitation of those few details. It was the sort of story you would glance at in the paper and then promptly forget, unless you happened to be acquainted with the people involved. Spouses getting into an argument and one killing the other wasn't really news. Phyllis supposed the fact that both people in this case were doctors gave it enough so-called glamour to justify the story's placement on the front page of the paper.

She checked the website of the Fort Worth and Dallas papers. Susan Baxter's murder was mentioned in the Fort Worth paper, but it wasn't on the front page, not by a long shot. The Dallas paper didn't have anything about the story in its pages.

So if things ran their normal course, Susan Baxter was dead and her husband's life would be ruined, and the general public wouldn't care. It was just another tragedy in a seemingly endless series of tragedies that filled the world from the streets of Weatherford to the halls of the world's capitals, Phyllis thought.

She gave a little shake of her head and told herself not to be so blasted gloomy. That was a little difficult to do on a day like this, but she could at least make the effort.

Buck distracted her by going to the back door and whining. Phyllis turned off the monitor and went into the kitchen to let him out.

Given the rainy weather, his cast was wrapped in plastic again. When Phyllis opened the back door, he started to go out, then stopped, looked at the rain dripping from the eaves, and turned his head to look up at her.

“I can't help it if it's raining,” she told him. “Just don't waste any time getting your business done, and when you come back up on the porch, I'll dry you off.”

While Buck was outside, she got one of the old towels she had used to dry him after the skunk incident. Even though she had washed it with baking soda and peroxide added to the machine, she thought a very faint odor of skunk still clung to the towel. It was probably just her imagination, she knew, but even so, she didn't want to put it back with the other towels for regular use. As far as she was concerned, it was Buck's towel now.

He was waiting for her when she came out onto the porch. She sat down in the rocking chair where Sam usually sat and began drying the Dalmatian. Buck cooperated by sitting peacefully next to her feet. While she was doing this, it was almost like he was her dog instead of Sam's.

Not that she would ever try to steal him away from Sam. Those two made a good team. She wouldn't want to come between them. She rubbed Buck's ears and said, “You and Sam are buddies, aren't you, Buck? Yes, you are.”

The back door opened and Sam stepped out onto the porch.

Phyllis glanced up at him and said, “Well, speak of the devil.”

“Devil?” Sam repeated. “What'd I do?”

“Oh, I was just talking to Buck about you.”

“Really? What were you sayin'?”

“Oh, you'll have to ask Buck about that. Did you get everything done you needed to?”

“I don't know. Not really, I don't think.”

“Is it anything I can help you with?” Phyllis asked.

He shook his head and said, “Not right now, but thanks.”

“Well, if you change your mind, just let me know.” She started to get up. “Here, you can have your chair—”

“You're fine right where you are,” Sam told her. He leaned against one of the porch posts. The roof had enough of an overhang that the rain didn't fall on him. There was no wind, so the light drops were coming straight down. Buck sat between them.

The three of them stayed there on the porch for a while, watching the rain in companionable silence.