A Deal to Die For (23 page)

“I saw her when I was on my way over,” Dot said. “Given her relationship with the
Franklins, I thought she might be able to help.”

Sam heaved a sigh as if he conceded the point but didn’t want to admit it.

“If you’ll follow me, Mrs. Franklin,” Dot said gently. “Let’s go down to the station,
where we can get you a hot cup of coffee and have a talk.”

Maggie watched as Dot helped Alice into the back of her squad car. She was not getting
to ride like a passenger. Maggie looked at Sam, expecting an explanation. She got
none.

Instead, he looked at her and said, “I think Dot is right. You might be able to help
us. Lord knows I’m not getting anywhere with these people.”

“Sam, I don’t understand, what kind of domestic dispute could have happened here?”
she asked. “These are the Franklins, the nicest people in town.”

“I’m sorry, Maggie,” he said. “You’d better come inside.”

Sam took Maggie by the elbow and steered her through the front door and into the parlor.
The fireplace was going, and the toasty room fought off the evening’s chill.

Lying on the sofa with an ice pack on his head and wearing a shirt that was splattered
in blood was Doc Franklin. Cheryl Kincaid was sitting in the chair beside him, obviously
monitoring the situation.

“Doc!” Maggie cried and she raced forward to kneel by the couch. “Are you all right?
What happened?”

Doc turned his head with a grimace, and then his blue eyes fastened on Maggie like
she was a life raft in a perfect storm.

“I fell,” he said.

Cheryl let out a
tut
of disapproval, and Doc frowned at her.

“I did fall,” he said.

“Yeah, after she cracked your head like an egg,” Cheryl snapped. “That gash on your
skull took seven stitches. What if I hadn’t come by when I did? It’s a darn good thing
I keep a first aid kit in my car for softball emergencies.”

“Well, if you hadn’t come by, then the police wouldn’t be here now, would they?” Doc
retorted.

“Yeah, and she could have killed you.” Cheryl glowered.

“Alice did this?” Maggie gasped.

“No!” Doc said.

Sam blew out a breath, and Maggie met his gaze. He jerked his head toward the door
and she nodded.

“I’ll be right back, Doc,” she said.

Sam closed the door behind her, and they stood in the hallway.

“What’s going on, Sam?”

“Cheryl stopped by after softball practice to check on Doc. She heard a ruckus, and
when she came in, Alice was standing over Doc’s body clutching a frying pan. Cheryl
called us and started first aid on Doc. When I arrived, Alice
admitted that she whacked him with the pan,” Sam said. “But Doc says he fell.”

“I’m not following,” Maggie said. “Why would Doc—?”

“He’s protecting her,” Sam said. “She even handed me the frying pan that she beaned
him with. There’s enough blood and hair on it to make a crime scene investigator do
a cartwheel, but—”

“But if Doc refuses to say it was her or press charges, then there really isn’t anything
you can do,” Maggie concluded.

“Exactly,” Sam said. “I need your help. I need you to get Doc to tell me what is going
on.”

Maggie pressed her fingers to her temples, as if she could ease the headache she felt
coming on with some direct pressure.

“Look, he’s already confided in you,” Sam said. “I know you won’t tell me what he
said because you think you’d be betraying him, but Maggie, this is getting serious.
I’m going to be left with very few options shortly. One of which will be to haul you
in and put you under oath.”

“Sam, I can’t—” she began but he interrupted.

“Just hear me out,” he said. “I need you to get him to talk to me. There’s a murderer
out there, and right now all the evidence keeps circling back to the Franklins. This
little scene here did not help. I’m going to have to question Alice and Doc, and unless
I get some answers, arrests will be made.”

“You may have better luck with Alice,” Maggie said. “I don’t think Doc is going to
tell you anything that he thinks may harm her.”

“So far Alice won’t tell me why she hit him,” Sam said. “But I’m guessing it has something
to do with Vera Madison.”

Maggie thought about how angry Alice had been. Could she have been angry enough to
hit Doc? Maggie couldn’t imagine that Alice could be angrier now than she’d been when
she walked in on them all those years ago. Unless there was something Doc hadn’t told
her, like maybe he and Vera had started seeing each other again.

“Maggie, I repeat, there is a murderer out there,” Sam said. “Someone wanted Vera
Madison dead. The only leads I have are that she was found at Doc Franklin’s office
with a suspicious syringe beside her, and her late husband’s first daughter has shown
up to claim her inheritance. If you know anything, you have to help me before someone
else gets killed.”

“I’ll try,” Maggie said. She knew Sam was right. Doc had to tell him what he knew,
all of it. “Maybe if I talk to him alone?”

Sam frowned. He didn’t like it.

“Well, he’s not going to talk in front of you,” she said.

“Fine,” he said. “But could you at least try to get him to talk to me first?”

Maggie nodded. They reentered the room to find Cheryl still clucking over Doc. He
was waving away pain medicine and trying to sit up.

“There’s no sign of a concussion,” he said. “I’m telling you she…I just grazed my
head is all.”

“Ms. Kincaid, can I talk to you?” Sam asked.

“Sure.” Cheryl dropped the pills on the table and strode toward the door. “Maybe
you’ll
listen to me.”

Maggie took the seat beside the couch. Her gaze met Sam’s as he closed the door. She
could tell he was hoping she’d have better luck than he’d had.

“Doc, what happened?” she asked. “And do not tell me you fell.”

Doc pressed his lips together, and for a moment she thought he was going to completely
ignore her.

“Doc, there is a killer out there,” Maggie said. “It’s someone who knows about you
and Vera. Why else would Vera have been found in your office? Someone is trying to
make it look like you killed her.”

Doc looked at her with shock. “But why?”

“I don’t know,” Maggie said. “But if you don’t start telling Sam what is going on,
he’s going to have no choice but to arrest you—or Alice.”

Mentioning Alice was the trump card in her argument, and Maggie watched as Doc registered
her words. He looked angry, then concerned and then resigned.

“What happened, Doc?” she asked.

He started to speak, but she shook her head.

“Sam needs to hear it, too. Please.”

Doc studied her for a long moment, and Maggie felt as if everything rested on what
he saw on her face. She tried to look resolute, hoping he’d realize he was out of
options. It must have worked, for, after a moment, he gave her a reluctant nod.

Maggie jumped up from her seat and crossed the room to the door. She yanked it open
to find Sam standing right there. She waved him in and then looked back at Doc.

“Yeah, Cheryl should hear it, too,” Doc said. “So she understands.”

The three of them sat down and Doc took a sip of water. Maggie noticed that his hands
were shaking, and she wondered if it was anxiety or exertion or both.

“Alice is not at fault,” he said. His voice was surprisingly strong. “I am. I killed
Vera Madison.”

“What?” Maggie gasped. This was so not what she had expected.

“I did,” Doc said. “I called her into my office on the pretext of having a new medication
for her, and instead I filled a syringe with morphine, and I killed her.”

“Doc! I don’t believe it,” Cheryl said.

“Me either,” Maggie said. “Sam, don’t listen to him.”

Sam ran a hand through his hair. He glanced up at the ceiling as if praying for patience.

“Dr. Franklin, do you really want to play it this way?” he asked.

Doc gazed at the three of them but without really seeing them.

“It’s because I cheated on Alice,” he said. “With Vera.”

Cheryl sucked in a breath, but Sam didn’t show any surprise, and Maggie knew it was
because he had already begun to suspect something between Doc and Vera. Doc had probably
just confirmed what he’d already been thinking.

“It was almost thirty years ago,” Doc said. “Things were complicated at the time—not
that I’m making excuses.”

“Did Alice just find out about this now?” Cheryl asked. “I mean, no wonder she smacked
you upside the head with a frying pan.”

“No, she knew.” Doc looked as if he were struggling to find the words for what he
had to say next. “A letter came to the house a few weeks ago. It brought back a lot
of hard feelings.”

Doc glanced around the room, as if looking for the letter. Maggie saw a crumpled-up
piece of paper on the floor by his desk in the corner.

She glanced at Doc, and he nodded. Maggie rose to retrieve the paper. She uncurled
it and spread it flat against her lap.

“Go ahead,” he said. “Read it.”

Maggie scanned the letter before she cleared her throat and read it aloud. It was
from Courtney, and it was short and to the point.

Courtney had found out, upon her mother’s death, that she was really Buzz Madison’s
daughter. She intended to claim her share of the inheritance. Upon going through her
mother’s personal things, she found a letter from her father, Buzz, stating that he
believed his current wife, Vera, was having an affair.

The letter went on to say that Buzz planned to disown Vera and leave the Madison estate
in its entirety to Courtney. Since this had never happened, Courtney felt that Vera
had manipulated Buzz into keeping his will the way it was, but Courtney had filed
a motion to set aside Buzz’s current will, and she would be investigating who Vera
might have had an affair with. She planned to prove the affair existed and reclaim
the Madison estate as her own. Several names
were listed at the bottom of the letter, one of which was Doc’s.

“So you were on her short list of men Vera might have cheated with?” Cheryl asked.

“Yes, I think Courtney suspected that I was Vera’s lover,” Doc said.

They all looked away, uncomfortable with an almost seventy-year-old man using a term
like
lover
. Maggie knew it was ridiculous, but still she felt embarrassed for all of them, especially
Doc.

“Vera, was in a state about the letter and thought she might lose everything. She
wanted me to lie to the judge and tell him that we’d never had an affair,” Doc said.
His voice got tight, and he stared at the floor when he said, “I refused. We fought,
and that’s why I killed her.”

They were all silent. Sam looked at Maggie over Doc’s bent head and shook his head.
He wasn’t buying it.

“So why did Alice hit you then?” Sam asked.

“She was mad that I’d been talking to Vera again,” he said.

“So Alice did hit you?” Sam asked.

“No, what I meant was, she was just holding the pan when I fell and hit my head on
it,” Doc said. His eyes were worried, as if he knew he’d just messed up.

“I’m going to have to take you to the station, Doc,” Sam said.

Doc nodded as if he’d expected as much. Sam stepped out of the room, and Maggie followed.

“You can’t take him to the station this late at night with a head injury,” she protested.

“He just confessed to murdering Vera Madison. I have no choice,” Sam said. “You know
as well as I do that he
confessed to protect Alice. What he doesn’t realize is that just makes Alice look
guilty as hell. Sheesh, even her own husband thinks she killed Vera, and no wonder.
Is this what he told you?”

Maggie opened her mouth to deny it, but one look at Sam’s face and she thought better
of it. He was not going to be happy no matter what she said. She nodded, and he frowned.

“I’ll go with you, Doc,” Cheryl said as she and Doc stepped into the hallway. She
looked at Sam to make sure he understood that this was not negotiable. “Under arrest
or not, we need to monitor him for signs of a concussion.”

“Fine, you can follow in your own car,” Sam said.

“Cheryl, I’ll come with you, if that’s okay,” Maggie said. “And we’ll pick up Max
on our way.”

Sam lifted an eyebrow at her tone.

“I was going to suggest that,” he said.

“Uh-huh,” she said. She had a feeling the detective in Sam was just itching to put
one or both of the Franklins behind bars and declare this murder solved.

“You don’t trust me,” he said.

“Do I have any reason to?” she asked.

To her surprise Sam looked a bit hurt, but then he gave her a small smile.

“Yes, actually, you do. I would think you, of all people, would know that I am trustworthy,”
he said. “And when it comes to my job, I am very thorough.”

He stepped forward to assist Doc, and with Cheryl on one side and Sam on the other
they helped Doc out to the waiting squad car. Maggie followed, feeling like she had
lost an argument somehow, although she was pretty sure she hadn’t engaged in one.