The Alpine Betrayal (29 page)

We sat in Doc’s office for close to an hour, with the night enfolding the clinic like a shroud and the wind finally blowing up through the river valley between the mountains. Doc was behind his desk. Vida had the patient’s seat. And I languished in the wheelchair.

I’d interviewed murderers before. Some were sullen; some were self-righteous; some were scared to death. There had been a few I’d felt sorry for, but there had never been one I’d admired. Until now. Doc might not have acted in self-defense, but he’d killed Cody to save others. In effect, he’d defended the community. Cecil Dewey had devoted a lifetime to saving lives. Now he’d taken one, but only to spare others. The earnest young priest, with his call for justice, had jolted my mind. It was Doc himself who had said only God could straighten out the Marsh family’s problems. But Doc had decided not to wait for divine intervention.

“I couldn’t let Cody marry Marje,” Doc said flatly, after he’d recovered from the shock of being discovered and ushered us into his private office. “She’s been like a daughter to me and she wouldn’t listen to reason. But I knew that
what happened to Dani and little Scarlett could happen to Marje and her baby some day. Cody was a vicious spoiled brat with no conscience.”

“He had charm,” Vida put in. “I couldn’t see it, but those girls could. Girls can be so silly.”

Doc nodded, a gesture that seemed to tax him. “Dani and Marje may seem unalike, but they’re not. Basically, they’re small-town girlies who figure they can reform the Cody Graffs of this world.” He gave a sad shake of his head. “No woman can do that with any man, let alone a bad apple like Cody.”

Silence filled the room for a few moments, while the three of us contemplated the futility of trying to improve on nature. It was Vida who spoke next, her elbow resting on Doc’s desk and looking for all the world like a patient giving advice to her doctor.

“It was the denials that gave you away,” she said. “Nobody—at least among the people who could be considered suspects—would admit it was murder. When Emma and I finally discovered that little Scarlett hadn’t died of SIDS, we assumed that either Dani or Cody had killed her. Then we figured that Art Fremstad must have realized the truth, so he was pushed over the falls. That didn’t seem like the work of a woman, especially a little thing like Dani. So it had to be Cody, and of course it was Cody who was poisoned.”

Doc inclined his head. His eyelids seemed very heavy, but when he looked up at us, his gaze was as shrewd as ever. “I knew, too. I went around looking over my shoulder for almost a year. And Curtis—I think he guessed, but he didn’t want to turn in his own brother, and he was in love with Dani.”

“Was the baby his?” I asked.

Doc frowned. “I’ve never been sure, but I think so. Which may be why Cody killed the poor little thing. But I wouldn’t have put it past him to do it to his own. God help us, it happens. My problem was that I wasn’t positive who had smothered that tyke. And maybe I was wrong. It’s not
the kind of thing you run around asking people to help you make up your mind. If it had been Dani, she’d left town and there was nothing I could do about her. As for Cody, as long as he wasn’t remarried or living with some woman who had kids, I figured it was best to let sleeping dogs lie. I could have done an autopsy, but I didn’t have the heart for it. And somehow, knowing that one of the parents—maybe both, as it turned out, if Curtis was Scarlett’s father—were innocent, I couldn’t put them through that. It was a mistake, of course.”

I gave Doc a sympathetic look. “But it didn’t happen again, and that was the main thing.”

Doc turned very grave. “It might have saved Art Fremstad, if I’d acted fast enough.”

Vida’s jaw thrust out. “You and Curtis and even Dani might have ended up dead, too, Doc. You can’t look at it like that.”

Doc shrugged. I scooted the chair forward a few inches. “All along I kept feeling as if I were watching scenes from a movie,” I said, unable to keep from wondering how long it would be before I could get some painkiller inside my aching body. “How much of all that was make-believe?”

Doc scratched his bald spot. “Not as much as you’d think. Patti always blamed Dani, and Dani was never sure what had happened. But when Curtis came back to town and told Dani and Patti what he thought was true, they joined forces. Then Reid and that actor fellow got into the act, too. After all, Scarlett was Reid’s granddaughter as much as Patti’s. They came to me one evening and asked what I thought. Then they asked what ought to be done about it.” He stared at his hands which were lying flat on the desk. “I’d already tried to talk Marje out of marrying Cody. Now it seemed that I was being asked to administer justice. I considered going to Milo, but what could we prove? It never occurred to me that Art Fremstad had been murdered, at least not by anyone around here. Maybe I didn’t want to believe it. Art wasn’t the suicidal type, that’s for sure. But,” Doc went on and his words were meant for
me, rather than Vida, “a small town is the center of the universe to the people who live there. Even though we know better, we like to believe that its imperfections aren’t as bad as other places’.”

I tried to give Doc a thin smile of understanding. “So you and the others formed a sort of pact?”

“There was never much said out loud.” Doc leaned back in his chair and let out a weary sigh. “The rest of them had somehow designated me as their avenging angel. They tried to create a smokescreen by carrying on as if they were all still mad at each other—at least Dani and Patti did—but the only one who was really disturbed by Dani’s return to Alpine was Cody. He may have hated her, but mostly I think he was afraid of her. I’d bet my bottom dollar he would have liked to have landed that axe right in her gizzard.”

“I was never in favor of Marje marrying Cody, either,” sniffed Vida. “I said something to her parents once, which wasn’t enough, because my brother and his wife are both dumb as a brick wall. And Marje thought I was being an old fogey.”

“But,” I noted quietly, “Marje knew, didn’t she?”

Doc again nodded. “I told her. After he was dead. She carried on something fierce when she heard he’d been hit by a car. She called me at the hotel in Seattle that Sunday, all upset. I didn’t let on then, I hoped maybe the whole thing would actually be passed off as an accident. But after Cody’s autopsy, I called her back a couple of days later and told her what Cody had done to little Scarlett. She cried some more. But she thanked me.”

“For what?” The question fell out of my mouth.

Doc gave a little grunt. “For saving her, I guess.” He glanced at Vida, then looked back at me. “If I’d told her earlier what I thought Cody had done to that baby, she might not have believed me. Even if she had, there would have been another foolish girl and another innocent baby. Nobody—not Dani, not Patti, not Curtis, not me, by God—wanted that. I think Marje guessed … what I’d done to Cody.”

Vida nodded vigorously. “Of course she did. Marje tried to divert Billy Blatt and Milo by saying Cody was taking Haloperidol. But he wasn’t. You and Marje were really the only ones who could have put the stuff into Cody’s beer. In fact, you put it in all three of his beers, didn’t you, Doc?”

He gave a little grunt of assent. “I had to be sure. Nobody can calculate an individual’s tolerance.”

“I guessed that,” I put in. “Cody was already showing signs of drunkenness when I got to the tavern with Carla and Ginny. You were the only one on duty behind the bar and you’d been there the whole time, doing your two-hour stint. I wondered about the bottles of Haloperidol, then I remembered that clicking sound in your pocket. Although it didn’t register at the time, it was glass striking glass. I finally realized that when Honoria and I toasted Milo.”

Vida shot me a sidelong glance, but this was no time to get distracted. “I thought the person with the poison”—I was careful to avoid the word
killer
, which seemed so ill-suited to Doc—“might be taking a risk by bringing the stuff into the tavern, but if you were found with it, no one would think twice. You’re a doctor. Still, I had to wonder if you were concerned about being found out.”

Letting out a disdainful breath. Doc scowled at me. “I sure was! My family, my reputation, the whole works, would—will—be hurt. I didn’t want that to happen. I may have killed somebody, but I’m not nuts.”

“Of course not,” Vida agreed. “You carried it off beautifully. This is all conjecture, Doc. I doubt that a serious case could be made against you.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” mused Doc. “It could be done if we had a decent prosecutor in this county.” He seemed quite untroubled, however, his clinical air intact.

“Witnesses are so unreliable,” Vida remarked. “Dani passed the mug along, but someone might have seen her tamper with it.”

“Actually,” I noted, “Jack Blackwell could have done it, since he was behind the bar. He had no motive, unless he was acting on behalf of Patti. But I ruled him out when
Honoria Whitman told me he hadn’t touched Cody’s beer. Neither did Reid or Matt or Patti herself. Honoria never mentioned Donna Fremstad Wickstrom. I doubt she knew who Donna was, but I never seriously considered her anyway because I honestly don’t think she knew Cody killed Art until the last few days. If she did, and had wanted revenge, she would have acted much sooner.” I paused, my voice tired and my ankle making my ears ring with pain. “Curtis Graff was there, but he was nowhere near his brother. That left you and Marje, Doc. And I had to believe Honoria would have seen Marje if she’d been the one with the Haloperidol.” Oddly enough, the once-unfamiliar word slipped easily off my tongue. I was beginning to know its name all too well. “But Vida’s right. Conflicting testimony, no concrete evidence—it’s all circumstantial.”

Vida was making stabbing gestures on Doc’s desk with her forefinger. “Tell me this, Doc—was it planned that Dani would drive Cody out and dump him by the Burl Creek Road?”

Doc’s tired face wrinkled up, then sagged again. “No. There was no plan, as such. But I think Dani knew what I’d done and she hoped to make it look like an accident, so she borrowed Matt’s car—more smokescreen, maybe—and went over to Cody’s. I’m surprised he could get as far as the street, but he must have, unless she had help.”

“Maybe she did,” I suggested. “Maybe there were two cars.” Had Dani lost her eyeliner while she was trying to get Cody out of the car? Or had Patti, perhaps with Reid Hampton in tow, actually dropped it? The point was now moot. “Reid or Matt or even Curtis might have been driving the other one.”

“Could be.” Doc looked as if not only the subject at hand, but the world itself had gotten very tiresome. “When are you going to call Milo?” The question was put to Vida.

For once, she actually squirmed. “Ooooh … I don’t know—he may not be back from Seattle yet.” Her hand went to her glasses, then her hair, and finally came to rest
on the edge of the desk. “Doc, what did they tell you in Seattle?”

He lifted his hands, which still trembled slightly. “Three months, six at most. It’s lymphatic. I diagnosed myself, you know.”

“I should think so,” Vida retorted, bridling a bit at the mere suggestion that Doc would allow some big city specialist to figure out his condition.

Doc was on his feet, moving toward the door. “Parker’s is closed,” he said. “I’ll get something out of the supply closet for you, girlie.”

“Okay,” I said, much relieved. I had the good sense not to tell him to skip the Haloperidol.

M
ILO SHOWED ME
how to shift my body and thus keep my weight on my hands rather than my armpits. I thanked my lucky stars I only weighed a hundred and twenty-five pounds. I cursed the Fates that had made every ounce so clumsy.

“Damn,” said Milo, after he’d finished his demonstration and was lapping up a beer, “what do I do now?”

“That,” I replied, lying on the sofa like a nineteenth-century tubercular heroine, with a bowl of popcorn as an unlikely prop, “is up to you.”

“Hell.” Milo was staring at Honoria’s ceramic blob which I had put on the coffee table for want of a better venue. “This puts me in a terrible spot,” he muttered. “If I arrest Doc, the whole town will hate me and I could lose the election to Hitler. If I don’t make an arrest, I’m a goner, too.”

I moved my ankle, complete with tightly wrapped Ace bandage, slightly to the left. “You have to see that justice is done, Milo.” I put absolutely no emotion into my words. The truth was, I didn’t have much left.

“Yeah, sure, right …” Milo’s annoyance could have been with me or with the concept. Maybe both. Finally it dawned on him that he wasn’t the only professional who was on the hook. Since it was almost midnight and we’d been hashing Cody Graff’s death over since ten-thirty, it was about time. But as Vida says:
men aren’t like other people
. I could hardly have expected him to consider anybody’s position but his own so quickly.

“Say, Emma,” he said, rolling the beer can between his hands. “What are you going to do about this? You’ve got one hell of a story.”

I gave him my most innocent gaze. “Only if you make an arrest, Sheriff. Otherwise, I’ve got hearsay and a libel suit.” It was a non-story, and I mustn’t beat myself over the head for suppressing the news.

“Oh.” Milo slumped with disappointment. I didn’t add that if I were back in Portland, working on
The Oregonian
, I would have used the information I had to rock City Hall. If some doctor had poisoned somebody else, no matter how benign the killer or how malignant the victim, I would have seen it as my professional duty to bring the culprit to justice. But that was Portland, and this was Alpine. I knew Doc Dewey. I knew Cody Graff. I knew what had gone before, and what might have been. I would rather burn
The Advocate
to the ground than sully Doc’s reputation.

“Cancer, huh?” murmured Milo. I nodded. Milo swore. “What’ll we do without Doc?” There was a plaintive note in the sheriff’s voice.

“There’s young Doc, and I suppose he’ll get somebody new. It would have happened eventually. Doc must be seventy, at least.”

“Seventy-four,” said Milo, into his beer can. The words echoed; the can must be empty.