Fatal Reaction (4 page)

CHAPTER 6

Anthony Dowling hadn’t been too hard to find. He answered the door of Misty Harper’s one-bedroom apartment, wearing only a pair of nylon shorts and holding a mostly empty bottle of beer. Dark curls covered his broad chest, and hair stuck up in sparse tufts along the back of his toned shoulders. His dark hair had been cut short enough that his scalp was visible, a drastic change from the wavy, gelled-back look Mike was used to seeing on him. Candles flickered in the background, and for as close a friendship as Anthony and Mike once had, the expression on Anthony’s face was anything but welcoming.

Mike cleared his throat and peered into the dismal apartment. “Am I interrupting something?”

Anthony glanced over his shoulder. “I’d say it’s pretty obvious,
Detective
.”

“Sergeant,” Mike corrected, “but I’m not on duty.” He pointed to his street clothes. “Can we talk?”

“Look, Mike, whatever Sydney told you, I haven’t done anything wrong. From now on, our lawyers do the talking.”

At six foot three, Anthony had a good five inches on Mike, who had to crane his neck to make eye contact. It had to be worse for Misty. She stood only to his chest. She was ten years his junior, so Misty and Anthony looked more like father and daughter, or uncle and niece, than a couple.

Misty appeared behind him, wearing a pair of sweatpants with the legs rolled up and an oversized T-shirt. Her green eyes had the half-dazed look of someone who just woke up, but the bags beneath them said she was exhausted. Faint red marks dotted the skin around her mouth, and she looked frail, as if she’d recently lost weight.

“Oh God. What
now
?” She scowled at Mike, keeping her head turned to the side in a posture he’d seen with domestic abuse victims hiding a shiner.

Anthony wasn’t the type, but Mike angled for a better look anyway.

“You really don’t know?” For as fast as word normally traveled in Marion, somehow, it seemed, neither Anthony nor Misty had heard what happened to Sydney. He hadn’t planned on being the one to break the news.

“Don’t know what?” Anthony said.

“It’s better if we sit down. May I come in? I just want to ask you a few questions.”

Misty shook her head. “You don’t have to let him in, Tony. Tell him to get lost.” No one had ever called Anthony “Tony.” He hated the nickname, and everyone who
really
knew him, knew it.

Anthony backed away from the door and gestured for Mike to come in. “Let me grab a shirt, would you?” He blew out the candles and headed toward the bedroom.

Mike paced the cramped galley kitchen, taking stock of the bleak surroundings and wondering how Anthony could’ve ever thought this was a better situation.

A pile of laundry overflowed from a plastic hamper in the corner, and the room reeked of smoke. Mike had heard about a big fire in the warehouse district a week earlier, but it seemed a long time to have not done the laundry. Dishes were piled in the kitchen sink, and a dirty apron hung from a nail in the wall. The yellowed name tag heralded too many years spent serving fryer grease-soaked food.

Misty, who hadn’t said a word since Anthony let Mike in, must have noticed him staring. She huffed out a breath, rolled the apron into a ball, and threw it in the trash.

“Aren’t you going to need that for work?” Mike said.

“She doesn’t work anymore.” Anthony came out of the cluttered bedroom, wearing a firehouse sweatshirt, shorts, and a pair of dingy socks with the pink-red hue of having been washed with mixed laundry. He pulled out one of four mismatched chairs at a vintage kitchen table and offered Mike a seat.

Mike brushed the crumbs off the chair and sat down.

Misty turned her head into the light and blew a thick curl from in front of her face.

Mike noticed what looked like scratch marks down her cheek. “What happened there?”

“She broke up a fight at the diner,” Anthony answered before Misty had a chance to. “You know how it gets in that place late at night when the bars close.”

Misty uncrossed her arms and tousled her hair. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

“Big enough deal that you quit, though, right?” Mike said.

Again, Anthony spoke for her. “She was going to quit anyway, weren’t you, babe?”

“Yeah, sure.” Misty brushed her hair back from her forehead, and Mike caught the glimmer of a diamond solitaire on her left ring finger.

“Looks like congratulations are in order.”

“Not if this divorce isn’t finalized.” Anthony sighed. “You said you had some questions, so shoot. I know this isn’t a social call.”

“Okay, does Sydney know about the engagement?”

Anthony shrugged. “If she does, I didn’t tell her. It’s been hard enough trying to reach a divorce agreement without pissing her off worse. Misty and I have been trying to keep things quiet, but, you know how it is.”

Misty set a pot on the cluttered counter, a mix of clean and dirty dishes, and it slid, knocking a spatula into a pile of crumbs on the dirty linoleum floor. She picked it up and, without so much as brushing it off, put it into a drawer.

Mike tried not to think about how many times she’d done similar things at the diner he frequented. “I do ‘know how it is,’” he said. “Divorces get nasty, even between the most agreeable couples. Is that why you were going after half of Sydney’s house?”

Anthony looked over his shoulder at Misty and lowered his voice. “I don’t want the house, Mike. Sydney should know that. It’s a bargaining chip to get the things that
do
matter to me. She’s not giving an inch. Maybe you can talk to her for me? At this point, I just need this to be over with.”

There was something going on with Misty that Anthony wasn’t comfortable talking about.

Mike drew his bottom lip between his teeth and let it out before asking the big question. “Anthony, where were you last night?”

The color drained from Anthony’s face.

Misty turned around at the sink, her hands dripping soapy water on the floor. “He was here, with me. Why?”

“Has something happened to Sydney?” Anthony’s mouth bent into a frown.

Mike drew a breath and nodded with tears in his eyes. “I’m afraid so. She’s . . . dead.”

Misty dried her hands on her pants and set them on Anthony’s shoulders.

He quickly pushed her away.

“Just give me a goddamn minute, would you?” Anthony started to cry, the kind of genuine tears Mike, himself, had cried for hours after finding Sydney’s body. “What happened?”

Misty all but threw the rest of the dishes into the cabinets. She’d gone from empathetic to angry in a matter of seconds, as if somehow Anthony’s mourning the loss of his wife said more about his feelings for Sydney than those he had for her.

“I’m not in a position to share details right now. I’m sorry,” Mike said. “Can you think of anyone who would want to hurt her?”

“Hurt Sydney?” Anthony cast a glance at Misty. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“I wish I were. The first thing to come into question is usually motive.”

“What are you getting at, Mike? You think I’m the closest thing Sydney had to an enemy?”

“I wouldn’t classify you as an
enemy
, Anthony. I don’t think Sydney would have, either.” Mike turned to Misty. “What can you tell me about the fight at the courthouse?”

Misty threw her hands up and launched the dish towel across the counter. “All right. That’s it. I’ve had enough.” She flung the apartment door open. “You have to leave. Now.”

Mike raised his eyebrows at Anthony.

“Sydney called Misty a whore and a home wrecker. There was a slap-fight and raised voices, but nothing out of the ordinary, considering.” Anthony wiped the tears from his cheeks. “We were here last night,
both
of us, and neither out of the other’s sight. Misty and Sydney had their history, but a minor scuffle doesn’t equal murder, Mike. Not by a long shot.”

Mike pushed in his chair and pulled a business card out of his shirt pocket. “If you think of anything at all that might help with the case, call me.”

“I will,” Anthony said, following Mike into the hallway and out of Misty’s earshot. “Look, I’m sorry about how we reacted. This divorce has things here on edge. I loved Sydney, Mike. You know that. Even after the separation, I tried putting things back together, but sometimes life puts people on different paths, you know?” Mike nodded, at ease that this was the Anthony he’d known and trusted for years. Anthony reached out and shook Mike’s hand. “You’ll tell me as soon as you know something?”

“I will, thanks, and sorry for ruining your night.”

Anthony shrugged. “It was ruined before you got here, trust me.” He went back inside and closed the door.

Misty’s shouting came as soon as the deadbolt latched.

Mike eavesdropped, and finding no useful information in their argument, headed back into the cold to track down the medical examiner.

CHAPTER 7

Ana walked up the flagstone path to her former childhood home, a craftsman-style bungalow on a postage-stamp lot where her parents once lived and where, in their absence, her sister, Sydney, had raised her.

Snow collected in the nooks and crannies of the stone columns holding the main roof over the expansive front porch. Ice coated the remains of the robin’s nest that she and Sydney had kept a close eye on the previous spring. Two eggs had hatched, and, eventually, the young birds flew safely away. Sydney left the nest intact, hoping some bird might take up residence again the next year.

There was no indication, even in the throes of a messy divorce, that Sydney wouldn’t be there to see it.

The porch swing creaked in the wind, and Ana closed her eyes, imagining her father’s arms around her and her mother’s sweet voice singing. They rocked, with Ana between them, the night before they left for the twentieth anniversary celebration from which they’d never returned. Sixteen people had died in the plane crash, but to seven-year-old Ana, this loss was the whole world.

She lingered at the threshold for a moment of silence before salvaging the spare key from under the snow-crusted welcome mat. She turned the lock and opened the front door, nervous to face the memories.

In twenty years, nothing had changed.

The living room was arranged exactly the same way their mother had left it. The plaid sofa and love seat, unraveling at the seams, had been repaired more than once. Her father’s afghan hung folded over the back of her mother’s rocking chair where Sydney had read J. M. Barrie’s
Peter Pan
to Ana every night until she moved past the fact their mother had never finished the story. It had taken more than a year, and they read the book a dozen times before she was ready for something else. Ana could still recite her favorite passages.

Fresh tears ran down her cheeks. She let them fall, unable to stifle her grief.

She couldn’t imagine how Sydney had lived with the memories, or how she would live with them, now that the house was hers.

She walked up the stairs to the tiny spare bedroom that had served as Sydney’s office and sat down in the chair behind the desk. A half-empty cup of coffee on top of a coaster bore a faint pink ridge of Sydney’s lipstick. Ana brushed her fingertips along the handle and powered up the computer.

If there was any explanation of why Sydney had gone to the Aquarian, Ana was determined to find it.

The blue log-in screen appeared, and Ana typed her full name, “Anneliese,” the only password Sydney had ever used. She double-clicked the envelope icon and, as the messages poured in, looked over her shoulder. Being caught snooping was an irrational fear, but the reality that Sydney was gone hadn’t fully set in, and Ana felt like an intruder. The in-box quickly filled with credit card offers and messages about unclaimed foreign inheritances. Ana deleted the spam and printed bills she knew would have to be paid sooner than later. She reviewed the list of folders in the sidebar and opened one called “Divorce.” Sydney had red flagged an e-mail from Anthony, dated a week earlier. Ana clicked on it. An arrow icon announced that the message had been forwarded to Sydney’s attorney. Ana shook her head, unable to believe how far out of hand the divorce had gotten. Anthony made more of the usual threats, claims about taking the house and things that belonged to their parents if Sydney didn’t cooperate, but by the end, it seemed his temper had burned itself out. He agreed to walk away with nothing if Sydney would settle in the next couple of weeks. Ana wondered what the hurry was. Anthony had e-mailed Sydney almost daily, but whereas the others sounded humble and like he needed forgiveness, this one demanded Sydney’s cooperation and the last line was weighted with threat:

This is my last offer. Agree to it. Let this all be over. Give me what I want or I’ll take it.

E-mails continued to load, and Ana sorted them by sender.

A dozen replies appeared from someone named Kristin Newman. Quick inspection of the electronic signature identified her as Dr. Dorian Carmichael’s secretary from the Oakland Street office where Sydney had been a patient.

The uterine cancer diagnosis had hit Sydney hard, and she believed that the hysterectomy, that losing the ability to have children, was some kind of karmic punishment for secretly taking birth control. Ana told her that just wasn’t the way things worked, but she couldn’t make her sister believe it. She sifted through Kristin’s e-mails. It seemed that Sydney had contacted Dr. Carmichael’s office numerous times in recent weeks for copies of her pathology reports. Every request was met with an excuse as to why the office couldn’t provide one. Kristin’s most recent reply said for Sydney to speak with Dr. Carmichael directly.

Ana printed the message and added it to the growing stack. She grabbed a scrap of paper from the cube on the corner of the desk and reached into the side drawer, feeling around for a pen. Her nail caught on a small, hard edge, and she recoiled with a yelp, sucking the tip of her middle finger, which was now dark with blood. She held pressure on the cut and searched for the culprit. An ivory business card with raised black lettering that read, “Dr. Alan Sanders, Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Fertility Specialist,” was stuck in the seam of the drawer.

Sydney never mentioned seeing another doctor.