Bad Medicine (25 page)

Not a huge surprise in this town. After all, Peg belonged to the Lawyer's Club and the MAC, as did any other self-respecting attorney in this town. Even so, every instinct Molly had sent her heart into overdrive.

"Is this helping?" Mrs. Ryan asked from the doorway.

Molly looked up and did her best to keep her smile calm. "It might, Mrs. Ryan. Do you remember Peg mentioning anybody named Harry McGivers, or Pearl Johnson?"

"I know the name Pearl Johnson," she answered, pushing ineffectually at her bangs, which seemed grayer than ever. "But isn't she somebody... I don't know..."

"The city comptroller."

Mrs. Ryan nodded, her eyes unfocused. "Yes, that's it. I think... I don't know. I can't remember her saying anything."

"Peter VanAck?" Molly asked, walking closer, trying hard to keep the connection.

Mrs. Ryan shook her head, but it seemed more to clear it than to answer. "She knew so many people. She worked so hard, you know. Frankie said she was going to be a star."

"Yes, ma'am. I know. Did Peg mention a... well, a group of people she met with regularly for lunch?"

Mrs. Ryan laid her hand against the doorjamb, as if to stabilize herself, and sighed. Deep and long, deflating.

"She might. I don't know."

Molly knew she'd passed her optimum time with the poor woman. There was nothing left in there
to
offer but regrets, so it was time to go.

"May I ask a favor, Mrs. Ryan?" she asked, lifting the leather-bound book for the woman to see. "Could I borrow this for a few days? I promise I'll give it back."

The watery brown eyes couldn't quite come to life. "Anything," she said vaguely. "Anything for my Peg."

"Did she... do you know if she kept a diary?"

Molly got a small smile. "She used to. When she was a girl."

"Thank you, Mrs. Ryan."

* * *

There weren't any first-class junk food stands near the Ryans' house, so Molly grabbed some take-out Chinese and carried lunch and the daykeeper along to Tilles Park, where she could settle by the pond.

It wasn't any cooler outside, but at least in the shade there was a suspicion of a breeze. Nestled between Brentwood and Ladue, Tilles was a small urban surprise, rolling lawns, mature trees, and at least three baseball diamonds. Along the wandering pathways, young mothers pushed strollers and retirees marched in pairs, arms swinging like British field officers on parade. One of the volunteer gardeners was watering a patch of chrysanthemums and begonias. Traffic droned along McKnight Road, and somewhere someone was cutting a lawn with a mower that needed a tune-up. Molly settled herself on a bench where she could see the kids and the swans and the quiet water, and she set to work.

She wasn't sure what she expected to find. A confession, a connection, a cry for help. She knew damn well that what she wanted was to find that Peg hadn't committed suicide after all. She wanted a conspiracy or a serial killer or a case of massive mercury poisoning in the lunches at the MAC. Somehow that would make all this a little easier. Distance the evil from the act, like secondhand smoke, that could relieve Peg of responsibility for her death and relieve Molly of the task of telling her brother he'd been wrong.

The lo mein was only so-so, but the book was fascinating, its pages filled with Peg Ryan's personal shorthand in a strong, spiky script, its covers jammed with receipts from restaurants and one three-and-a-half-inch computer disc labeled
Veldux Notes.
Sum total of the first eight months of Peg Ryan's year. Days filled to brimming with the accumulation of success and power. Deadlines met and appointments set up already well into October, including a week-long cruise in the Aegean. The schedule petered out well into December, where the quick scrawl of
Mom and Dad's anniversary
was left as a sad coda on the Ryan family.

Not the calendar of a woman tying up loose ends.

"I don't suppose you want to tell us what you were doing at the Ryan house."

Molly damn near fell straight into the pond. She hadn't even been paying attention to the people on the path alongside her, and suddenly she looked up to find the Feds standing there, watching her like well-mannered crows in suits and regulation Ray-Bans. They'd evidently traded the pair of intelligence guys in for another interchangeable cop suit with dandruff problems and piggy eyes.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded, to cover for the guilty feeling that she was doing something wrong.

"We're Feds," the darker agent said with a smile. "We can go anywhere."

Molly's smile was just about as hospitable. "Doing what?" she demanded. "Protecting me from swans?"

"Trying to find out why you're still diddling in a closed case."

Instead of answering, Molly turned her attention on the newest member of the team, who at that moment was mopping his forehead.

"Thurmon Prentice," the dark guy said. "Gaming Commission."

"Ah. Has he found anything?"

Still the FBI guy answered as if Prentice had had his tongue cut out by gangsters or something. "This isn't exactly television. Most of these investigations take months, if not years, to complete."

"Uh-huh. Well then, you won't mind if I finish my lunch."

"What about Mary Margaret Ryan?"

Molly turned a page and kept looking. "Her brother is having a lot of trouble believing she'd kill herself. I'm taking another look just to make sure. And how did you know about Mary Margaret Ryan anyway? That's not your case."

"We were following you. We thought it would be a good idea to find out what you were up to in there. You're not removing evidence, are you?"

Molly looked up. "Evidence? For what?"

"I don't know," he answered, still evidently staring straight at her. With the shades on, it was hard to tell. "You wanna tell me?"

"All right," she said. "What do you think of this? Peg Ryan knew at least three of the other lawyers who committed suicide, one of whom was Pearl, whom you are investigating."

"And?"

"And don't you think that means something?"

He shrugged, the other two guys still standing rock solid behind him like the Pips waiting for Gladys to show up, "They're lawyers. Figures they'd know each other."

"Did you know Ricky Ricardo?" Molly retorted, hoping like hell he really was Lopez.

"What?"

"Well, you're Hispanic. Didn't you know Ricky Ricardo?"

For the first time since she'd met him, he smiled. Just a little. "Point taken. We'll look into it."

Molly nodded and went back to poring through the date book. When she looked back up ten minutes later, the Feds were gone and the park was once again in the hands of preschool terrorists.

* * *

When Molly got back to her house, her first instinct was to call Frank Patterson. But Frank didn't have the information she needed right then, so she called Brittany instead.

"Ms. Ryan's secretary?" the blonde whispered as if divulging state secrets. "Well, yes, but she works for somebody else now."

Molly bit back the urge to say that she figured as much, since legal secretaries weren't obliged to sit shiva, and just asked to speak to the woman.

"The Shitkickers?" came the answer in raspy, nicotine-sanded tones a few minutes later. "Yeah, sure. I used to make her reservations. MAC Grille, twelve-thirty the first Tuesday of the month. She'd rather miss final argument than one of those meetings."

"Who were they?" Molly asked, leaning over her kitchen counter to take notes.

"The Shitkickers? Well, I'm not really sure. Peg just talked about them as a whole, a unit, ya know?"

"What about Pearl Johnson or Harry McGivers or Peter VanAck?"

"I'm not sure. Peter maybe. She was really upset when he died. She knew Pearl, too, because I think that was the last... well, the last..."

Even that strong, certain voice faltered over that one.

"I know," Molly said simply. "Can you tell me what the Shitkickers was all about?"

"The joys of trial law, basically. Whoever was in the group did trial law. Loved it. Peg said they were thinking of calling it the Testosterone Club, because they found out there was a study that showed trial lawyers of both sexes had an inordinate amount of testosterone in their systems. From what I could gather, they kind of considered themselves the Top Guns, if you know what I mean."

"Yes. Do you think Peg Ryan committed suicide?"

For this Molly got a sigh. "Peg wasn't one to let anybody get close enough to ask questions like that. I have to say I was really surprised. But I was even more surprised when I realized that after working with her for over a year, I didn't really know her at all."

"Could I call you if I have any other questions?"

"Sure, but I thought things were all settled."

"So did I." Molly had no sooner hung up the phone than it rang again. Against her better judgment, she picked up. "Speak."

"You're just dying to come down here and talk to me."

Molly's stomach sank. Right after she recognized Kevin McCaully's voice, she caught the undercurrent. Something was not right in the world of the senior death investigator. "I am?"

"Yes. As soon as possible."

"Is it good news or bad news?"

"I'll see you in twenty minutes."

Click.

Molly did not want to go in. If she did, she'd have to tell Kevin what she had. She'd have to give up Peg's book before she got all the way through it. It didn't occur to her that no more than twelve hours earlier, the last thing in the world she'd wanted was to look more closely into Peg Ryan's death.

There was a good chance now that Peg hadn't committed suicide after all. It made all the difference in the world.

Molly went on down to the office. First, though, she called Rhett Butler. Unfortunately, Rhett wasn't as impressed as Molly with her information.

"She was a lawyer," he said. "Of course she knew the others."

Molly bit back an oath. She didn't think she'd get away with another Ricky Ricardo allusion. "But I think they were all in a club of some kind together."

"Oh, great. Does that mean they were Satan worshipers or something?"

"Rhett," she chided, "you re awfully churlish about this. I can't help it if I think there might be foul play involved."

"Tell you what," he said, his voice softening a little. "You come down here and coordinate the double homicide I'm working, I'll go interview suicide survivors."

"Double homicide," she scoffed. "Hell, son, you can do that in your sleep."

"Not when they're an eighty-year-old preacher and his wife, and we're down a couple of men to Major Case Squad."

"Major Case Squad?" The special crimes unit comprised of detectives from squads all over the bi-state area, called together for homicides in areas without sufficient staff to solve them. Usually high-profile stuff.

"You didn't hear. They found a nine year-old girl this morning out in Gumbo. Has all the markings of a sadistic sexual offender."

"Oh, Jesus."

"Yeah. Oh, Jesus. I'm sorry, Molly. If you get anything concrete, let me know."

"Yeah. Well, I did let the FBI know. Maybe that'll help."

"Good. Let them carry it till I'm free. Maybe by then you'll find the suicide pact note."

* * *

The news wasn't any better down at the ME's office, where Kevin's idea of waiting involved pacing the halls.

"I know you wouldn't be this stupid," Kevin greeted her.

"It's lovely to see you, too, Kevin," Molly said, leaning against the wall by his office until he made the circuit around to her again. He got there and stopped, his forehead tight with worry, his skin pale against that pirate beard of his.

"Tell me you didn't take Pearl Johnson's file out with you this morning."

"I didn't take Pearl Johnson's file out with me this morning. Why?"

That didn't seem to make him feel any better. In fact, it sent him straight to rubbing at his face with his hands. "Because it isn't here."

And here Molly had been meaning to make Kevin's day brighter by telling him that all the suicides they'd cleared and closed might actually be homicides after all. All she could come up with was a rather pathetic "Oh, boy."

"Yeah. Oh, boy."

"I didn't lose it, Kevin. Not this one."

"You're sure?"

Molly gave Kevin some latitude for being upset. Otherwise she might have decked him. "Yes," she said. "I'm sure. I don't take files out. I don't know what to tell you."

He nodded, his eyes closed. "I found out it was missing when the Feds called me asking about it. They got a sudden hair up their butts that there's some kind of conspiracy involved in her death that has to do with their gambling case. They say they found out Pearl knew the other suicide victims, think it's important."

"I know," Molly admitted. "I told them."

Kevin's hands came down and his eyes came open. "What?"