“Who was the first?”
“Eva.”
“Great minds think alike. But seriously, have you seen the way he looks at you? He loves you.”
“Whatever.”
“All right, blow me off,” Amy said. “For now, at least. But when you two get back together, I’m going to say the biggest ‘I told you so’ ever.”
“You do that. Now hand me that piece with the chocolate chips on it, would you?”
“Sure,” Amy said, coaxing it onto Heather’s plate. “Just because this breakup is only temporary is no reason to let a perfectly yummy cheesecake go to waste.”
Chapter 9
Heather sat cross-legged on her back stoop, watching Dave run around in the yard and sniff as many different objects as he could. A frown wrinkled her forehead, but she didn’t notice.
She had the distinct feeling she was missing something. Something important. Something that would make sense out of all the non-clues in the Verna Dixon case, or at least push one or more of those clues to the fore so that the solution would be obvious.
After all, someone had wanted to kill Verna Dixon. Even if she couldn’t yet find a sufficient motive, someone had had one—at least one that he or she regarded as sufficient.
Was it Dr. Edward Banner, who may or may not have had an argument with Verna? The other volunteer from Caring Hearts, whose name she still didn’t know, who had good reason to dislike Verna? Wilbur Smith, the abrasive neighbor with a temper, who wanted Verna’s land?
Wait a minute. Edward Banner may have been arguing with Verna, but what would have been his motive to kill her? Lots of people had arguments and didn’t wind up killing the person they had argued with.
Well, if they were arguing, what were they arguing about? Kristen, the nurse, had said Banner always got upset when he lost a patient, especially one who was a Vietnam vet. Probably some sort of brothers-in-arms thing. But Banner had denied being upset and said that it was Verna who’d been upset. Said she needed comforting, in fact.
Something didn’t ring true about that. Even if the two of them weren’t arguing, there must have been some reason for the witness to think they were. Unless, of course, the witness was lying. But there didn’t seem to be a motive for that, either. How could it benefit anyone to say that Banner and Verna were arguing about a patient?
But if the witness was telling the truth, that meant Banner was lying. Why? Was it that he didn’t want anyone to know he had been arguing with someone who wound up being a murder victim not too long afterward?
Or…was there another reason? Could it possibly have been that Banner didn’t want anyone knowing the subject matter of their argument? That they were arguing about a patient?
Heather sat straight up as the tumblers began to fall into place. Verna and Banner had been arguing (of which she was now certain) about a patient who had died. Was it possible that Verna believed Banner had somehow committed medical malpractice in failing to properly treat his patient, thus hastening or failing to prevent the patient’s death?
That would explain why Verna had needed some time off. She was used to patients dying; she worked in ICU and in hospice care, after all. Yet she had been particularly upset about this death, which would make perfect sense if she felt that Banner was in some way to blame.
Another tumbler clicked into place. Eva had said Verna was worried about something, worried enough that she had a hard time sleeping, and that she’d said she had a decision to make. What if she were considering reporting Banner for malpractice?
You’re adding two and two and getting five, she told herself. But it was possible that she was right, wasn’t it? Shouldn’t she at least check out that hypothesis?
Maybe so. But how would she do that? She couldn’t ask Verna what she’d been worried about, and she couldn’t very well march up to Banner and ask him if Verna had told him she thought he was guilty of malpractice.
She stood up, dusted off the seat of her jeans, and headed inside. Her cell phone lay on the kitchen counter, and she punched in William Dixon’s number, thankful he’d given it to her the other day when she and Eva had been out at Verna’s house. The phone rang once. Twice. Three times.
“Hello?”
“William? This is Heather Janke. I’m the friend who came out to your mother’s home with Eva Schneider the other day.”
“Yes, Heather. I remember you.”
“I’m so sorry to disturb you. But I was wondering if there was any way I could look through your mother’s things like her computer, her desk, stuff like that.”
“What would you be looking for?”
“For any indication she was aware of a malpractice case at the hospital or intended to take action about reporting it.”
William’s voice lost some of its weariness. “Do you think this has to do with her murder?”
“If I find anything along those lines, I guarantee you it has something to do with her murder,” Heather said.
“Then please, look at anything you want. I’ll meet you out there. I’ll be in my wife’s car. She’s here in town with me now. Twenty minutes?”
“I really appreciate this.”
“I’ll see you then.”
She grabbed her purse, dropped her phone into it, and headed for the car. Fifteen minutes later, she pulled into Verna’s driveway behind a gold Lexus. She got out, walked up the porch steps to the back door, and knocked. There was no answer. Maybe William was in a part of the house where he couldn’t hear her.
Heather turned the knob, and the door opened. She stepped inside, calling, “William! It’s Heather!”
She shut the door behind her and set her purse down on the counter. Grabbing her cell phone, she slid it into a rear pocket of her jeans. As footsteps approached from the direction of the living room, she decided to wait next to the kitchen table.
“Hello, Heather,” a voice said calmly as a figure stepped around the corner.
But the person who stood facing her was not William.
And he was holding a gun pointed straight at her chest.
***
“Dr. Banner?” she gasped through lips that had gone dry.
“You have bad timing,” he said. “Another five minutes, and I would have been gone.”
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on here—”
“I think you do. I think we’re both here looking for the same thing.”
“You killed Verna,” she said.
“I eliminated a threat,” he countered.
“How could a little old lady have been a threat to you?”
“I think you’ve figured that out,” he said.
“She was going to accuse you of malpractice, wasn’t she? Of some mistake you made that cost your patient his life.”
“Maybe you don’t have it figured out, after all,” he said, eyebrows rising slightly. “I guess you’re not as good at unraveling mysteries as everyone says you are.”
“Why don’t you explain it to me?” she suggested, desperate to keep him talking.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Can you at least put the gun down, and we can talk?”
“I can’t do that,” he answered. “This thing has gone too far.”
Without taking her eyes off Banner or the weapon in his hand, Heather shifted her weight to the foot that was closest to the door.
“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” Banner said. “In Vietnam, I got used to hitting moving targets. Even with a handgun, I could hit you dead center from a hundred yards away.”
“You served in Vietnam?” she asked, scrambling for something, anything, to say in order to keep him talking.
He went on as if he hadn’t heard her. “Of course, most of my targets in ’Nam were much farther away than that. Fifteen hundred yards. Two thousand. My longest confirmed kill was at 2,150 yards.”
A sniper? He’d been a sniper in Vietnam? Oh, dear God, she was doomed.
“You should know,” she began, trying to keep h
er voice steady, “that someone is meeting me here. He should be here any second.” She strained to hear even the faintest crunch of car tires on gravel. But she heard nothing.
“Your cop boyfriend is busy on another case,” Banner said. “You’re bluffing.”
“I’m not bluffing,” she said, trying to sound confident. It was hard, with her heart pounding a staccato rhythm in her chest. “He should be here any time.”
“If you’re talking about William, he won’t be coming to rescue you, either. He and his wife and their children are meeting with the minister who is going to preside over the funeral. Don’t you think I checked out the whereabouts of the only person who would have a right to be here before I came?”
“I’m sure you did,” she said. “But you don’t have to kill me. You really don’t. Nobody’s going to believe the word of a volunteer over the word of the Chief of Internal Medicine. Your patient was close to death, anyway. Even if Verna had some sort of records here of what she thought, whatever she believed your mistake was, no one would take her word over yours.”
Heather knew she was babbling. Repeating herself. But it was all she could think of to do. Banner’s eyes were fixed on her, his expression alert but not flustered. Calm. Eerily calm.
“You really don’t get it, do you?” he said. “Verna wasn’t going to accuse me of making a mistake.”
“But you said she was going to accuse you of malpractice,” Heather protested.
A scornful smile lifted one corner of his mouth. But he said nothing, instead watching her intently.
And in a blinding flash of insight, she realized what he meant. Verna wasn’t going to accuse him of making a mistake that caused his patient’s death. She was going to accuse him of causing the death on purpose.
Oh, dear God.
“You killed him on purpose,” she whispered.
“I ‘released him from his suffering,’” he corrected. “Him, and a few others. So now you understand. I assume you also understand why I have to kill you.”
“But you don’t,” she protested. “There’s no way I could prove it. You could walk out of here scot-free.”
“No,” he said. “It’s too late for that.”
She made one last-ditch effort. “Any second, now,” she said, “William will be here, and—”
Banner interrupted her. “Then we don’t have much time,” he said coolly. His index finger tightened on the trigger.
KA-BOOM!
Heather screamed, clutching desperately at the table.
But she wasn’t falling.
It was Banner who was crumpling to the floor before her eyes.
Sucking in great, heaving gulps of air, Heather’s shocked mind was unable to comprehend what had just happened. “You ain’t hurt,” a voice said, sounding like it was coming from miles away. “I got him. You’re okay.”
Disbelievingly, she turned toward the back door to see who had fired the shot.
And looked straight into the lined face of Wilbur Smith.
Chapter 10
William did, indeed, arrive only moments later as she sat huddled on the back stoop next to Wilbur Smith. “Heather? What’s the matter?” he asked, seeing the look on her face. He glanced from one of them to the other, then to the open back door.
“You’re not going to believe this,” she said, but was interrupted by the arrival of the first patrol car with its lights blazing and siren blaring. The car screeched to a stop at an angle without entering the driveway. The driver’s door was shoved open, and the driver crouched down behind it, his hand on his gun.
“Officer Foley, Hillside PD!” he shouted. “We got a report that someone was shot. Where’s the gun?”
Wilbur Smith stood up and took a couple of slow steps toward the officer. “I’m the one who—”
“Stop right there!” Foley ordered. “Where’s the gun?”
Smith came to a stop in the driveway. “It’s in my waistband,” he answered.
“Sir, I need you to stand right there until we get some more officers here and we can figure out what’s going on,” Foley said.
Seconds later, a second car skidded to a stop, and another officer joined the first. After that, it seemed like officers were arriving in droves. Foley ordered Smith to slowly remove his gun from his waistband and lay it on the ground, then back away. Another officer secured the gun in the trunk of his vehicle.
Smith obeyed. William’s mouth dropped open as he and Heather raised their hands, too. “Where’s the gun?” the officer repeated.
“It’s in my waistband.”
“I need you to stay right there until another officer gets here,” Foley instructed.
Ten seconds later, another patrol car slid to a stop, and a second officer joined Foley. After that, it seemed that officers were arriving in droves. Foley ordered Smith to lay the gun on the ground, then back away. An assist officer secure the weapon in the trunk of his vehicle.
Two officers led Smith to the porch of his own home; others allowed William and Heather to sit at opposite ends of Verna’s front porch. The ambulance arrived, and the paramedics went inside. A few minutes later, they came back out, and more officers went in.
“May I make a phone call?” Heather asked one of the officers standing on the porch with them.
“Not yet, ma’am. I’m sorry,” he answered.
Another officer, whose silver name tag read Carlson, took her name, address, phone number, and other basic information. “Can you tell me what happened tonight?” he asked.
“I was supposed to meet William here,” she answered. “Just to go through some of his mother’s things. We thought maybe there would be something there that was connected to her murder.”
“What time?”
“No certain time. After we hung up, we were both going to leave right away and get here as soon as we could. When I got here and saw there was a car in the driveway, I thought it was William. But it wasn’t.”
Slowly, because it seemed that a fog of unreality was enveloping her brain and making it hard to think, Heather told him about knocking on the door. About trying the knob and stepping inside. About discovering that the person who was there was not William, as she had thought, but Edward Banner.
And as she gave him the details and answered his questions, one thought kept circling in her mind: I wish Ryan were here.
But he wasn’t. And when two homicide detectives arrived, he wasn’t among them.
***
“Do you have any rum?” Amy asked, opening the cabinet where Heather kept her liquor.
Wrapped in an afghan, sitting on the couch with her legs tucked up under her, Heather leaned backwards toward the kitchen. “Should be up there,” she said.
“Never mind, I found it,” came Amy’s voice. “I’m making you hot buttered rum.”
Heather sat listening to her rattle things around in the kitchen. After awhile, Amy brought two glasses into the living room and handed one to her. “Drink up,” she said. “You need it.”
“I’m okay,” Heather said. “Really.”
Amy’s eyebrows rose. “And you’ll be even better after you drink that,” she said. “So, okay, tell me the details. When you’re ready.”
Once again, she went through the story, skimming over the details because she was tired of thinking about them. All she wanted to do was close her eyes and go to sleep.
“So did your boyfriend show up to work the case?” Amy asked.
“Ex-boyfriend,” Heather corrected. “And no, he didn’t. They sent out two detectives, but I didn’t know either of them.”
“Where was Ryan?”
“No clue. Not that I have a right to know anymore.”
“Well, maybe he’ll call. Surely he’ll at least call and say ‘hey, glad you’re okay.’”
Heather shrugged as silence fell. She toyed with the fringe on the afghan that covered her.
“I brought an overnight bag,” Amy said finally. “I can stay over tonight if you want.”<
br />
“You don’t have to. I’ll be fine.”
“I know you will be. But sometimes it’s nice to be fine with someone instead of all by yourself.”
Heather nodded. “You’re right.”
“I’ll go get my bag,” Amy said.
***
When Heather woke sometime in the middle of the night, it took her a few moments to remember why she was on the couch. Why wasn’t she in her own bed?
Cadbury Creme Murder Page 6
