When Secrets Die (32 page)

I stuck to the edge of the tree line, where Blaine could watch her mother and stay hidden. I didn't find anything, like threads or lost buttons, but about a hundred yards farther up the road, I found another small footprint. Looked just like the ones near the Jeep tracks. It looked like Blaine had come out of the woods there, and walked back out on the road.

The footprints pointed to the highway, and most likely she had crossed the road to walk on the asphalt walkway that ran along the lake on the other side. I crossed right where I found the footprint and walked for a while. I didn't see anybody. It was early, there wasn't much traffic. Blaine Marsden had picked an isolated spot, and she was a very pretty teenage girl.

I checked my watch. Eleven AM, my hungry time, but I had no appetite today.

Blaine was smart. That much was clear from meeting her the other afternoon, and from everything that Emma Madsen had said about her. She struck me as sensible. She'd moved around a lot, which would give her some street smarts, and she was very self-possessed for a fifteen-year-old.

She'd walk along the road, looking for a phone. That was the most likely thing. But she hadn't called her mother. So either she hadn't found a phone, or she had called someone else.

Unless Emma Marsden was lying and trying to cover up something. Parents, in the way of spouses, are always suspect number one. But I didn't think so, and the footprints bore me out.

I got in the car and drove slowly, looking left to right. I saw two other cars. I supposed Blaine might have tried to hitchhike, in which case Franklin would likely know what had happened to her before I did.

Three miles down the road I found a Texaco station and food mart. I pulled up next to the curb in front of stacks of canned Coca-Cola on sale for three ninety-nine for twelve, and went inside.

I waited for a woman wearing uncomfortably tight blue jeans to pay for gas and a package of M&M's. I usually have a hard time resisting M&M's, and just seeing someone buy a pack would usually trigger me to buy one myself. Today I was not tempted.

The guy behind the counter was in his early thirties, long, lean, eyes set close together and lips thin and tight.

“Help you?” he asked.

“Yes, I'm looking for a missing girl.” I took out the picture and handed it to him. “I wonder if she came in here day before yesterday in the morning, some time around eight-thirty, nine o'clock.”

The guy spent a long time looking at the picture, and the way he looked at it made me put him on my list of people to check out.

“I didn't work that day.”

He held on to the picture, and I held my hand out. He passed it over.

“Can you tell me who did?”

He shook his head. “Company policy. We can't give out the names of our employees.”

“You can tell me or the cops.”

“I'll tell the cops.”

“Excuse me, miss?”

I turned. An old man in a dirty corduroy coat came from behind an aisle where he'd been looking at the Little Debbie Snack Cakes.

“You mind if I take a look at that picher?”

I handed it to him. More thumbprints.

“I seen her.”

I looked at him. He met my gaze and held steady, nodding his head.

“I was in here a couple days ago, buying my smokes. And this little missy comes in limping and needing the phone.”

As soon as he said limping, I believed him. Blaine Marsden had walked over three miles in platform shoes.

“Did she use the phone then?”

“Oh, yes, Belinda was working here, 'cause him yonder didn't show up for work.”

I had to resist turning and looking at “him yonder.” But I was glad that he hadn't shown up for work.

“Now Belinda, she's just the sweetest woman ever live. She sets that little missy up to sitting on the stool, gets her some hot chocolate and some little doughnuts, and tells her to go on ahead and use the phone all she want. And after a while, some lady come and pick her up.”

“You saw the lady who picked her up?”

“Nope, 'cause she didn't get out the car.”

“But you saw the car?”

“Yes, ma'am. Was one of them old Chevy Novas.”

“What color was it?”

He squinted. “Not quite sure. Green, maybe? Is the little missy okay? Din she go home? She said she was a-wanting to call her mama, but there weren't nobody home. Belinda tol' her to call a fam'ly friend.”

“I don't know if she's okay or not, sir. But I'd like your name and number if I need to get in touch.”

“Don't got no phone, but I live right up yonder there on the hill. White trailer.”

“Thank you, sir. You've been a lot of help.”

“I hope she is okay. Such a polite little thing. Sayin yes ma'am and all. Belinda took a shine to her.”

“I really appreciate your help.”

“Ma'am, I don' want to hold you up. But you think you could drop back by here and let us know when she turns up? Belinda and me would be happy to know she's okay.”

I promised him that I would, and exchanged glares with the guy behind the counter as I headed to my car.

Amaryllis Burton drove a turquoise Chevy Nova.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-SIX

I knew where Mr. French had his office, so I made it past reception at the Tundridge Children's Clinic without being seen. I had checked every car in the lot. The Chevy Nova wasn't there, and the car in Dr. Tundridge's parking spot was a RAV4, not the Volvo that had been there before.

I heard the shouting before I got to the door. Mr. French and a woman. No point knocking and giving them a chance to say no.

Mr. French was standing up next to his desk, and a woman was sitting in his chair, computer screen pulled close.

“—I
sign
those tax returns, I'll remind you of that.” The woman was furious, and she turned to me with a frown.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“She's that detective,” Mr. French said, and to me, “And I'll be calling the police.”

“You go right ahead,” I told him. “Because Emma Marsden's daughter is missing, and someone on your staff is involved. While you're at it, call the FBI.”

“
Detective
? Mr. French, what is this?”

“It's nothing you need to worry about.”

“Do I need to remind you that I'm a major stockholder in the clinic corporation, and that you answer to me?”

He looked at her and blinked.

“Sit down,” she ordered. He sat in the chair that had been pulled up close to the desk. She turned to me, and held out a hand for me to shake, which made me like her. “I'm Syd Tundridge.”

“The doctor's wife.”

She looked expensive. The hair, the nails, the casually thrown-on slacks that had a designer tag in the back. I knew because I'd seen Judith wear a pair just like them, and she told me they cost her over three hundred dollars.

“That's right, I'm Ted's wife. Who exactly are you?”

“This woman came in last week,” Mr. French said. “She's working for Emma Marsden. Her client's son was Ned Marsden, one of the patients who died.”

“Yes, I know exactly who Emma Marsden is. Her son was barely over two years old. Liver failure, over a year ago, wasn't it?”

“That's right,” I said. “About three months ago someone from this office called my client and said that Ned had been buried without all his internal organs.”

Syd Tundridge leaned closer. She looked grim, but not surprised. “Go on.”

“My client wasn't aware that anything had been … kept back. She thought she'd buried her son completely intact.”

She looked at Mr. French. “The permissions again.”

He shook his head. “I know, Syd, I've tried, but what can I do? You know what he's like.”

She cut him off with a wave of her hand. “Then what?”

“Then my client came here and found that her son's heart and various other parts were preserved as samples downstairs in your chamber of horrors.”

“It's a pathology lab,” Mr. French said.

“Quiet,” Syd told him.

“She objected, and soon after Dr. Tundridge accused her of Munchausen by proxy. None of this is news to you, is it, Mrs. Tundridge?”

“No, it's not.”

“You've seen the videotape?”

“I'm the one who insisted we send it to the police.”

“Then I'll tell you to your face, I think someone on your staff here had something to do with it.”

Syd Tundridge shook her head. “Not a chance. We have better things to do.”

But she looked like she felt guilty about something.

She tapped a finger on the desk. “What about the missing girl? What did you mean when you said somebody who works here was involved?”

“You have a woman on your staff named Amaryllis Burton?”

“Not anymore,” Mr. French said.

“I fired her day before yesterday. Why?”

“Emma Marsden's daughter has disappeared, and she was last seen getting into a car with Amaryllis Burton.”

“Amaryllis and Emma Marsden are friends, as I understand it,” Mr. French said.

“Are you aware that Ms. Burton is a licensed practical nurse?”

Something in his eyes. “Only recently. Not when we hired her.”

“Think that's odd?”

Syd frowned. “Amaryllis is an LPN?”

“Not licensed anymore,” I said. “Tell me why you fired her.”

Syd shook her head. “I can't do that.” She looked at Mr. French, who threw up his hands.

“Syd, I think you better.”

Syd Tundridge sat and thought, rocking from side to side in her chair. She closed her eyes for a minute and took a breath.

I lifted my chin. “Maybe I can help you. Are you aware that your husband patented genetic material from the blood of Ned Marsden and is in the process of selling this patent to a pharmaceutical company?”

Syd Tundridge opened her mouth, then closed it. “Not until yesterday, no. I didn't know the patient was Ned Marsden, I just knew it was one of the patients who had died. But the patent is already sold, for the price of four-point-eight million dollars.”

She braced her arms on the desk. “Amaryllis dropped by my house several days ago. Bringing me some of the accounting statements. I don't like Amaryllis, and she knows it. It's mutual. I couldn't figure out why she dropped the statements off, but I figured she was trying to cause trouble. Messing with people is one of her favorite pastimes.”

“She had no business with that paperwork,” Mr. French said. “She took it right off my desk.”

“I'm aware,” Syd said. “Obviously something was up. I started going back over the books. I found this million-dollar slush fund—” She glared at French, who winced. “I think that's what Amaryllis wanted me to find. She knew it would cause problems between me and Ted. But I also found out that Amaryllis has been buying medical supplies on our account. Not using our money—we would have caught that. Just going to Scotties and buying things with our discount and authorization codes, and paying for it herself. That's why it took us a while to track it down.

“Day before yesterday, I came in to fire her. I had talked to Mr. French by phone, and we both agreed she had to go.”

“Long overdue,” Mr. French said.

“She didn't seem all that upset,” Syd said, frowning. “I was braced for this big emotional scene. But she just smiled at me, really nasty, and said okay. I asked her what she was using the supplies for, and she said she was setting up her own little business down in Tennessee.”

“Tennessee?” I said. “Why Tennessee?”

“She's from there. From Gatlinburg. She's got a house down there she inherited with her brother. She spends a lot of weekends down there.”

“That's why she's been calling in sick all the time,” Mr. French said. “She's been setting herself up in business.”

“What kind of business?” I asked.

“She didn't say.” Syd pushed hair out of her eyes. “And then, she gets this really sickening little smile, and says maybe I should ask my husband about the millions he's made selling patents to the drug companies. If she hadn't told me that, I don't know how long it would have taken me to catch on.” She looked over at Mr. French. “You didn't do such a bad job of hiding it, but you shouldn't have paid off those loans.”

“I was under orders, Syd,” French said.

“Then what?” I asked.

“Then Janet comes in and says that Amaryllis had a phone call, and that's the last time I saw her. I cut her a check for two weeks' pay and went to find her, but she'd gone. Didn't even clean out her desk.”

“It wasn't her desk,” French said.

“Don't pick at things, Mr. French, it might not have been her official desk, but she used it.”

“What time did the call come through?” I asked.

“I don't know, after nine, maybe nine-thirty. Why?”

“Can you get Janet in here?”

Syd inclined her head to French, and he picked up the phone and spoke softly. His shoulders slumped, and he rubbed a palm across his forehead.

Janet was quick. No doubt she had overheard the shouting, because she looked tense and wide-eyed.

Syd smiled at her. “Janet, do you remember when you came in here the day before yesterday and told me that Amaryllis Burton had a phone call?”

Janet nodded.

“Do you know who it was?” I asked.

“They didn't say.”

“Female?” I asked.

Janet nodded. “It sounded like a young girl. It was somebody Amaryllis knew because she called her honey and was really sweet to her, which was weird because I knew she just got fired. I thought she would have been all upset, but it didn't seem like it.”

“Did they talk long?”

“No. But she did say something about she'd come and pick somebody up. And then she walked right out.”