Grave Doubts (A Paranormal Mystery Novel) (29 page)

“You
didn’t know, did you?” the other woman said. “I wonder if Diane knew. It was a
good charade.”

“But
why?” Lee asked again.

“Because
it was convenient. Because women are silly. They always want to think they’re
saving someone. Especially from a hopeless marriage. And Bud was very good at
playing the beleaguered husband.”

“But,
why Diane?”

“She
was a means to an end. Information is power, they say. The right information,
anyway.”  Emily Maddox’s lips stretched into a thin, knowing smile.

“The
lab reports,” Lee gasped. “You were blackmailing people. And Bud got the names
of wealthy people from Diane.”

Diane’s
killer began to stroll around the living room, making cursory examinations of
some of Lee’s collectibles.

“Oh,
don’t worry,” she said. “Your dear friend didn’t actually betray the secrets.
She didn’t have to. Bud was good at lifting the things he needed. Like keys. Or
combinations. Or passwords. He could be very persuasive,” she finished with a
sly grin.

 “And
Andrew?” Lee asked.

 “Andrew
was a buffoon, a pathetic little man,” she continued. “With someone like that,
all you have to do is make him believe it was his idea. And he served his
purpose,” she said with a shrug. “He identified certain important clients,
distracted certain prying eyes. And he led me to you.”

“Me?”
Lee nearly laughed. “So Abbot and Costello botched the job, and you’re the cleanup
crew?”

“No,
no, no,” Emily Maddox smiled with patronizing patience. “Andrew just talked my
brother into taking things into his own hands a bit too soon last night.
Obviously, that was a mistake. I don’t make mistakes. You just give me what I
want, and I’ll be gone.”

“I
don’t believe you.”

“Seriously,”
she said, twirling the key around her finger. “The police have never caught me
before, why should now be any different?”

Lee’s
mind whirred as she watched this horrible creature practically swagger around
the end of the sofa. Then she remembered the photos on the shelf at her home.
The photos of Bud with other women.

“You’ve
killed other women,” she stammered. “The other women in those photos.”

Maddox
drifted around the other end of the sofa, coming up on the backside.

“Oh,
well, now. Nothing actually points to me. Just Bud. And as I said, he’s not
here anymore to contradict me.” She stopped, leveling her gaze on Lee. “Now,
it’s getting late.”

The
conflict inside Lee was almost unbearable. The woman standing before her was a
serial killer. Lee needed the photo to turn her in. But the threat against Amy
was too real. Lee had to take a chance. She reached into the inside pocket of
her handbag and pulled out the pewter frame and handed it over.

The
woman exploded, throwing the photo to the ground. “Stop playing games! I swear
I’ll throw this key into the river on my way out of town!”

Lee
let out a strangled cry. “No!  My daughter is an asthmatic. Please, I don’t
understand.” Lee was breathing hard as panic tore at her chest. “I thought
that’s what you wanted. You said Bud couldn’t find it. I took the photo from
your house…”

Lee
stopped.

Her
house had been ransacked, but so had Diane’s. Bud couldn’t have been looking
for the photo at Diane’s, because Emily had taken the entire roll of film. When
Lee realized the truth, she thought she actually felt the light bulb go off in
her head.

“You’re
looking for the camera.”

Emily
Maddox didn’t smile this time. She just stood watching Lee, her features set in
a grim mask. Lee finished the puzzle.

“You’ve
done this so many times before, you got cocky. After you killed Diane, you took
off your gloves thinking the job was done. But then you couldn’t resist, could
you?  You have photos of all the women you’ve killed. Your trophies. And there
was Diane’s camera. Just sitting there on the mantle. You knew she’d gone to
Sisters with Bud the weekend before, so you took out the film. That’s how you
got the picture in this frame. But in doing so, you left fingerprints all over
the camera.”

Lee
paused, allowing the truth to float in the air like mist on a foggy morning.
When Emily Maddox spoke this time, her voice wasn’t much above a growl.

“I
want the camera, Miss Vanderhaven. And I want it now.”

Lee’s
brain was alarmingly clear all of a sudden. She knew that if she told Emily Maddox
the truth, namely that the camera was in her car, she would never find Amy. She
also realized that Maddox had moved in between her and the front door. She was
trapped in her own living room. Her heart fluttered.

“It’s
not here,” she bluffed.

Her
intruder didn’t move.

“It’s
in my office,” Lee tried to control her voice.

“You’re
lying.”

“I
put it with Diane’s other belongings. Her sister will pick them all up next
week.”

Lee’s
eyes flitted to the box Jenny had dropped off in the entryway. Maddox caught
the slip and turned, eying the open carton filled with Diane’s personal
belongings. Her head snapped back so fast it made Lee jump.

“Dammit! 
Do you think I’m kidding?”  She advanced on Lee, her body as rigid as steel. “I
don’t give a shit about you or your pathetic little daughter. I want that
camera!”

Lee
backed up, her eyes on the key in Emily Maddox’s hand.

“It’s
in my car!  I swear. Please!  Amy’s so young.”

Lee
reached for the key, but Maddox held it back, watching her as if she were
trying to gauge Lee’s truthfulness. Suddenly, as if she’d come to some
conclusion, she sidestepped Lee and threw the key into the fireplace. Lee
screamed, “NO!” and grabbed the fireplace poker.

She
shoved the poker deep into the burning embers, pushing the flaming log aside.
The heat seared her face, but she didn’t care. She would reach in with her bare
hands if she had to. When she found the key, she hooked the chain with the end
of the poker and pulled it out. The tag had just begun to burn, so she quickly
dropped it on the fireplace stones and used her foot to stomp it out. Lee let
go of the poker and leaned over to grab the key by the tag. She stood up and
turned, ready to mow Maddox down on her way out the door if she had to, but the
blur of a needle jumped before her eyes. She had just enough time to deflect it
with her purse. The blow meant for her neck glanced off her shoulder.

Lee
dropped her purse and grabbed the hand holding the syringe, driving it toward
the floor. Maddox was in a rage. She reached in and gripped Lee’s wrist with
her other hand, twisting the skin painfully. The two women struggled, yanking
back and forth, straining to gain control of the weapon. Maddox was strong and
started to snarl, her lips pulled back from her teeth. The sound terrified Lee,
but she held on, her knuckles turning white.

The
two women spun to the right, locked so close in combat that Lee could smell the
foulness of her breath. They slammed into a plant stand, sending it crashing to
the floor. They rolled onto the top of a hutch, wiping it clean of Lee’s
collectibles.

Lee’s
strength began to fail, and Maddox gained the advantage. She swung Lee in a
circle and slammed her into the fireplace. Lee ended up sitting on the
fireplace ledge. But she wouldn’t give up. She used the back of her leg as a
fulcrum and pushed herself back to a standing position. Lee’s muscles burned,
and she was almost too tired to hold on. Maddox seemed to sense this and
smiled. She swung Lee to the left. Then with all the strength she had, she whirled
Lee viciously to the right again.

Lee
flew sideways, but her hand held onto Emily’s an instant too long. Emily was
yanked off balance with a jolt. Her ankle twisted and cracked, and she crumpled
to the floor with a cry, her leg tucked awkwardly beneath her.

Lee
crashed into the side table, her head coming down directly on top of the steel
foot of her Tiffany lamp. The table collapsed under her weight and the lamp
went flying.

When
it was over, Lee lay on her side, watching a blurred image of Emily Maddox sitting
in a twisted heap in front of the fireplace. Lee tried to focus, but all she
saw was a swirling image of the other woman still holding the syringe. Lee
tried to rise, but a wave of nausea stopped her. She couldn’t even get to her
hands and knees. Instead, she lay on the floor watching her attacker attempt to
get up. But something about Emily’s leg prevented her. Both women were
momentarily incapacitated. Or, so it seemed.

“I’m
not finished with you,” Emily Maddox snarled.

Like
any good horror movie, Emily leaned forward and began to crawl painfully in
Lee’s direction, dragging her injured leg behind her. She was determined to
finish what she came for, and Lee was out of options.

A
low-grade humming began to vibrate in Lee’s head, and she closed her eyes,
feeling as if she might actually throw up. As the humming grew louder, a
high-pitched scream brought Lee’s head up in a snap. For a moment, she saw the
living room clearly.

Emily
Maddox was on her hands and knees, about three feet from Lee. Her eyes were focused
in a glazed stare at Lee. No, that was wrong. She was staring at something
behind
Lee. That’s when Lee became aware of another presence in the room. Emily’s eyes
were alive with an intense fire, and her mouth was drawn into a hateful
grimace. Lee had seen that look once before.

Emily
suddenly raised herself up and swung the syringe high above her head to strike
the killing blow. Lee lifted her arm in defense, but the move was wasted. A
large, gray blur sailed over Lee’s head and planted a heavy paw in the middle
of her shoulder as it slammed full-force into Emily Maddox’s chest.

Emily
flew backwards. The syringe in her hand dropped to the carpet, and her head hit
the edge of the fireplace bench with the force of a cantaloupe hitting
pavement. Suddenly, all was silent.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

It was Monday,
late afternoon, and strings of gray clouds marched across the sky in military
formation. Alan leaned heavily against the porch pillar, while Lee sat on the
wicker settee wrapped in a fuzzy blanket, enjoying the fresh air. She had
arrived home that morning, having spent almost forty-eight hours at the
hospital to rule out a possible concussion. Patrick busied himself in the
kitchen making dinner.

Lee was still
on pain medication for a headache caused by hitting her head on the lamp stand.
And she was mentally and physically exhausted. She found herself staring at her
yard, thinking about random things like cutting back the bushes and raising the
limbs on some of the trees. Even though Alan had stopped by to debrief her on
the police report, she was barely aware he was there. But she was keenly aware
of the big dog pushed up against her ankles, snoring.

“Lee,” Alan
interrupted her thoughts. “Are you okay? I can come back.”

“No, I’m okay,”
she said, shifting her attention to him. “Sorry. I’m just tired.”

“Well, I’ll try
to make it quick. It was a neighbor kid from across the street who called the
police. He happened to come out around 8:15 and saw weird lighting effects over
here. He knew your brother taught in the drama department at the university and
thought maybe there was a rehearsal going on.”

Her eyebrows
lifted. “Really?”

Alan shrugged. “I'm
not sure he actually knew Patrick was your brother. Just that he was a drama
professor. The point is, he got spooked and called 911 when he heard Emily
scream. He knew the scream wasn't an act.”

Neither of them
said anything for a moment. A delivery truck rumbled by, shaking the ground
around them as it passed.

“I see,” Lee
finally responded.

She lifted her
hand and touched the large knot on the side of her head. She remembered enough
to know she didn't want to think about the details. She wasn't sure she'd ever
feel limber or fully mobile again.

Alan lowered
his head slightly. “She was dead when the police got here.”

“I know,” she
said as she pulled the afghan closer. “Patrick couldn't get the blood stains off
the fireplace stones.”

There was
another long silence and Lee's eyes glazed over for a moment. A large bird of
prey descended through the branches of a cedar tree to land on the lower branch
of the evergreen bordering her property. She watched it float gracefully down
and fold back its wings. Birds that size were rarely seen in the city, but this
one didn’t surprise her. She was used to them by now.

Her fingers
moved to her eyes where she let them gently explore the sockets. She needed a
rest as her foot gently stroked Soldier’s back. The front door opened and Amy
appeared. She’d come home as soon as she’d heard her mother had been attacked again.
She’d never seen or heard of Emily Maddox. Dressed in faded jeans and a baggy
blue sweater, she came out and draped herself across the arm of the settee. The
dog wagged its tail and raised its head.

“Hey, Mom, are you
doing okay? Need anything?” Amy asked, leaning forward to fondle the dog's
nose.

“No, I'm okay.”
Lee answered a trifle slowly. “Just very tired.”

Amy looked up
at Alan. “Have you found out any more about what was going on?  I mean, why
that woman killed Diane and tried to kill Mom?”

“We talked with
your friend, Ruth…at the hospital,” he said to Lee. “She found something
interesting on Bud’s computer. Apparently, he took names off Diane’s computer
and kept a separate file in his own linked to the patient admission
information. These were people with money and influence. When someone was
admitted to the hospital matching the list he got from you guys, it linked up
with the network, alerting him.”

“Why did he do
that?” Lee inquired.

“He couldn't
always count on being the lab tech that ran tests when VIPs were admitted to
the hospital. He had to have a way of knowing who they were and when they were
admitted. When one was, he would come in after hours and run a sample drug test
with false results. Since it was a sample test, we're told it wasn't picked up
anywhere else in the system. He could produce an official looking document
showing the individual had tested positive for amphetamines, cocaine, or
whatever. He knew exactly the kind of people he wanted to target and used your
information to build the profiles. Then, he and Andrew would wait until the
opportunity presented itself to blackmail them.

“Martha,” Lee
said quietly to herself.

“Martha?”
Alan’s ruddy face twisted into confusion.

“Martha Osgood.
I think she may have seen something up in the lab and tried to alert me, but
she was killed before I could ever figure out what she was trying to tell me.”

Alan nodded. “Yeah,
a runner out early the morning she was killed identified Bud Maddox’s truck
near the spot where we found the stolen car that hit Martha. He must have
dumped the stolen one and switched back into his truck.”

“I still don't
get it,” Amy said, confused. “How would they blackmail people if the person
they tested knew the results were false?”

“Think about
it,” Alan replied. “If you were running for a political office and someone
threatened to leak it to the press, it would kill your campaign instantly. Or,
what if your mother was in a nursing home, frail and on the verge of death? 
Threatening to expose the fact you had HIV might kill her. Wouldn't you pay to
save her from that?”

“Even if you
cleared your name,” Lee continued, “the suspicions would always be there. I
suppose most people would rather just try and make it go away.”

“Besides,” Alan
interjected, “Maddox and Andrew weren't asking for exorbitant payoffs. Usually
not more than $25,000. And they picked people very carefully. People with a
little money, but who wouldn't be likely to have the resources or the fortitude
to challenge them.”

“Then all they
had to do was destroy the phony report?” Lee finished.

“That's right.
No evidence left behind. And the real tests were still in place, so no one was
the wiser.”

The porch had
grown quiet except for the backdrop of rustling trees at the corner of the
property. The bird, still perched among the evergreen watched them as if
waiting for something.

“We found that
lab report you mentioned in Diane’s bathroom drawer, just where you said it
would be,” he said to Lee. “The report has the name of one of your donors on
it. We’ll probably never know where she found it, but she must have gotten
suspicious and asked Bud about it. That’s what started the whole ball rolling.”

“But if she
suspected something like that,” Lee shook her head, “why would she agree to go
to Portland with him? Why would she talk about marrying him?”

“Remember that
he was very good at lying. He must have been able to explain it away somehow,
but it didn’t matter. By that time her fate was sealed.”

“So, Emily
Maddox was a full partner in all of this?”

“We think so.
We’re not sure what the relationship was between Emily and Bud. We sent a
couple of officers down to Redding, where they grew up. From what they learned,
Emily was older by four years. Apparently their father was a blatant
philanderer, even sexually abusing Emily from the time she was very small,
although she denied it. According to neighbors, she would get especially
hostile every time another woman entered the picture. A couple of them even
speculated that she was jealous of her own mother. When she was sixteen, one of
the father’s girlfriends turned up dead. He took off, but was never implicated
in the murder. The mother tried to kill herself twice and was finally committed
to a mental hospital. Emily spent the next few years raising her younger
brother, doing God knows what to him,” Alan cringed. “Anyway, the two of them
have never been apart for more than a few months at a time. They eventually moved
to Medford as a couple, either as a façade, or for some twisted reason I’d
rather not think about.”

“You learned a
lot in two days,” Lee said.

“Well, one of
the detectives also contacted the attending physician at the institution where
her mother was hospitalized,” Alan said. “I guess mom talked a lot while she
was there. And, we’ve talked to several former neighbors and church friends.
For instance, one story corroborated by several people was that when Bud was seventeen,
he got a girl pregnant. Not long afterwards, the girl mysteriously disappeared.
Everyone suspected it was Emily who had gotten rid of her, but there was no
evidence.”

“So Emily
eliminated Bud’s girlfriends,” Lee whispered.

Alan was
leaning against the porch railing and watched her as if judging how to respond.

“There were
suspicions in Medford, too. Two different women who dated Bud at the hospital died
suspiciously. He was cleared each time, but now both the Redding and Medford
Police Departments have reopened the cases. So, whether Emily Maddox killed
Diane because she had uncovered their little blackmailing scheme, or just
because she was involved with Bud, we’ll never know. By the way, we found your
driver’s license in Emily’s purse. I guess that’s how she found you.”

Lee frowned,
her mind backtracking to the Bates party and her purse.

“Listen, Lee. I
owe you an apology,” Alan said quietly. “If I’d listened to you, maybe none of
this would have happened.”

She shrugged. “It’s
okay, Alan. In the beginning, I wasn’t even sure what I believed. I probably
sounded like a nut case.”

“No,” he said,
holding up a hand. “You didn’t. You knew what you knew about your friend, but I
wasn’t hearing it. I learned something in all of this.” He nodded his head
toward Lee. “To listen better. Read between the lines,” he said. “Well, I have
to go,” he said, rising. “You'll be okay?”

“Yeah. Thanks,
Alan,” she said with a half smile. “You’re a good friend.”

He smiled and
kissed the top of her head. “Let me know if you need anything.” He patted Amy
on the shoulder and stepped off the porch to lumber down the sidewalk.

Amy squeezed
her mom's shoulder. “I'm proud of you, Mom. You were very brave.”

Lee reached a
hand up and caught Amy's. “I'm not sure brave is how I'd describe it. By the
way, how in the world did she get your bracelet?”

Amy curled a
lip. “The apartment manager let her in. She said she was my aunt. It was too normal
to sound suspicious, I guess. I never saw her. I was out with a friend. She was
long gone by the time I came back. I never even knew she’d been there until
Uncle Patrick told me about it.”

“So her threat
was an empty one.” Lee squeezed Amy's hand. “I'm just glad you're okay. The
thought of that woman even touching you could drive me mad.”

“Well, it's all
over. Now, maybe things can get back to normal around here. I'll take Soldier
back in the morning, and you can get some rest. It's pretty cool though, don't
you think, that Soldier saved you?” Amy patted the dog’s head. “By the way, is
Uncle Patrick actually moving in?”

Lee smiled in
spite of herself. “For a while. He is my brother after all.”

Amy smiled
back. “Awesome! It'll give me one more reason to come home on the weekends.
I'll go help him with dinner.”

Amy turned and
went inside.

Soldier got up
and sat patiently by the settee, her eyes imploring Lee for attention. Lee
patted the sofa. With one graceful movement the animal landed softly beside
her, turned once in a circle and tucked herself under Lee's elbow. Lee draped
her arm across the muscular back and rested her hand gently on one ear,
thinking the dog hadn’t turned out to be so bad after all.

She was lost in
thought when a young man appeared on the steps in front of her. Soldier came to
attention, making Lee look up. The boy was medium height, slight build, short
brown hair and pleasant features. He stood hesitantly on the steps.

“I'm glad to
see you're okay. That was quite an ordeal.”

“You're the
young man who rescued me,” she guessed accurately.

He took this
recognition as permission to move to the top step.

“Yes, I called
for help.”

“Well, thank
you. I was in no condition to call them myself.”

“I did look in
on you before the police got here, but your dog wouldn't let me get near you.”
He nodded to Soldier. “So I waited outside until the police arrived. In fact,
they weren’t successful either, until your brother showed up. He’s one
protective dog,” the boy said with admiration.

He seemed rather
mild-mannered and a bit shy. Lee liked him immediately.

“It’s a she,
actually. You live across the street, I understand.”

“Yes,” his eyes
lit up. “I live with six other guys. It's kind of a madhouse over there. I hope
we don't make too much noise.”

She smiled. “No.
Actually, I've been surprised that you don't. I thought it was a fraternity.”

“Nothing that
organized,” he laughed. “We all happen to be architectural students. I've drawn
your house a couple of times − because of the gables.” He pointed towards
the roof. “It's a great old house. I've even taken a couple of pictures of it.
I'll show them to you sometime.”

“I’d like to
see them. I was told you recognized my brother, Patrick.”

“Yes,” he
answered quickly. “One of the guys I live with does some designing for the
theater.” He shuffled from foot to foot. “Is your daughter in the theater also?”

“My daughter?”
So, he had noticed Amy. No wonder he seemed so interested in the house. “No,
she goes to Corvallis.”

“Oh. Well, I'm
sure she's glad you're okay, too,” he said awkwardly. He stood a moment
glancing back and forth to the door. It was obvious he hoped Amy would make an
appearance. “Well,” he began almost disappointed, “I guess I'd better go.” His
eyes searched the entryway one last time.