The fifth and final file was a photograph with the caption, “Tim Anderson, Medical University of Trinidad.” And although he’d been much younger then, this was the person I knew as Craig Miller.
So. Right here—this was that final point, the one that would make a straight line.
The Craig Miller I knew was not Craig Miller; he was Tim Anderson. The real Craig Miller had died—or been pushed?—off a mountain in Peru.
Passing himself off as the deceased doctor—the real Craig Miller who’d actually gotten a degree—Tim Anderson had been able to secure a residency in Atlanta. But he hadn’t proven himself to be very competent, had been involved with drugs and gotten fired. He’d come to Aspen Meadow, probably disguising his background once again, and taken a position at Spruce Medical Group, where his track record with patients had attracted Doc Finn’s attention. He’d found a partner in crime in Victor Lane, and, it was my new theory, they’d conspired to use the spa to get clients hooked on drugs. It never ceased to amaze me how bad people tended to find each other. Tim Anderson/Craig Miller had also been able to parlay his looks and his fake doctorhood into a handsome payout from Charlotte Attenborough, who was desperate to get her daughter married off, and if the husband-to-be was a doctor, so much the better. Charlotte had even paid off Dodie O’Neal, so that Craig could avoid a lawsuit.
I got up so quickly my head swam. I had to find Boyd. I had to tell him what I had found out. Then I needed to get Julian, Marla, and myself out of here.
I blinked and tried to get my bearings. I walked out the kitchen’s back door, awkwardly skirted the omnipresent laundry cart, and headed for the various trails where Boyd had gone.
As I rounded the main building, I could see that the poisoned women were still on the ground, but at least they weren’t moaning anymore. Julian and Isabelle continued to move rapidly from person to person, making sure the women were as comfortable as possible.
I looked up into the trees, trying to make out exactly where Boyd had gone. I felt a sudden wave of confusion. Had he scuttled up the path toward the hot springs pool, or had he headed straight up the mountain? I decided on the path to the hot springs pool.
I gave the sick women and all the onlookers a wide berth, then began to stumble up the path to the hot springs pool. I blinked. Was it getting dark really quickly, or was I just moving slowly? Or both?
Once I was partway up the path, I stopped, confused. Which way had I thought Boyd had gone?
Why wasn’t my mind working? I looked down. Where had the path gone?
My shoulder was tapped from behind, and I turned, thinking someone was there to help me. But it was Craig Miller, or the person I thought was Craig Miller, pushing one of the spa’s ubiquitous laundry carts.
“How’s that drug working for you?” he asked with such coolness that my skin prickled with gooseflesh. “That’s the problem with Valium, you know? Especially in large quantities, stirred into your iced coffee. You never know how it’s going to affect the patient.”
“You,” I said, “you—” But now my mouth wasn’t working, either. I also didn’t seem to have much control over my limbs, so when Craig/Tim pushed me into the cart, I fell into it with a painful awkwardness. “Don’t,” was all I managed to say before he threw a pile of dirty towels on top of me and began to push the cart up the hill.
“Just in case you’re wondering,” he said, “I took that flash drive that Doc Finn left.” His voice sounded muffled. “Oh, yes, here we go, up to death,” he said merrily as the cart rattled and bumped over the trail.
I tried to say, “Stop,” tried to struggle, but an overwhelming lethargy was making that impossible. I clawed at the sides of the cart, and managed only to knock the towels off my face. I was being pushed…somewhere. And no one was noticing.
“Want to talk?” Tim/Craig asked merrily. “Oh, wait, you can’t talk. Or not much.”
I groaned. I had enough presence of mind, though, to know that I had to try to make myself puke, to get rid of as much of the heavy-duty dose of tranquilizer as I possibly could. The person pushing the cart had killed both Doc Finn and Jack, and since I’d become an obstacle, I was sure to be next.
When the cart went over a bump, I allowed myself to fall on my side. Even that was an effort, as was the attempt to put fingers down my throat.
“You’ll be my fourth victim,” said Craig. “I did too much partying in Trinidad, too many drugs, didn’t get my medical degree. But old Craig Miller, the real Craig Miller, he didn’t care. That nerd was so happy to have a cool, popular friend! So when we were in Peru, it was easy enough to push him off a cliff. By the time I’d hiked out, then returned with help, Craig’s body was swollen, darkened, unrecognizable. I said it was my dear friend, Tim Anderson. All I had to do was fix his ID to look more like me, steal his diploma, and I was on my way.”
I stuck my fingers down my throat and pushed. Nothing. At least I made a retching sound, which fake Craig found funny.
“Everything was going just fine until Doc Finn came sniffing around,” he continued jovially. “He just couldn’t leave well enough alone. Couldn’t stay in retirement. Couldn’t keep his trap shut. Yeah, that was the worst part. He told my dear fiancée that she shouldn’t marry me. Lucky for me, he didn’t give her a reason.”
The argument out at the spa. Isabelle had been partially right. Doc Finn and Billie had been fighting not about the wedding, but about the marriage, period.
“But Billie,” fake Craig went on, “felt duty bound to tell me all about it. Billie likes having someone take care of her; someone who isn’t her mother. And I liked the idea of having all of Charlotte’s money sooner rather than later. So I stole a pair of Charlotte’s shoes to plant in Finn’s car to attract the police’s attention. Charlotte hated Doc Finn, too, because he was always taking Jack away on expeditions that didn’t include her. I put the shoes in Finn’s car once I ran him off the road, after I managed to get Finn called down to Southwest Hospital. And by the way! That was your first mistake. You had Yolanda lie to that greedy bastard, Victor Lane, and say she was in Southwest Hospital with appendicitis. Guess how hard it was for me to check that she wasn’t there at all? Not hard in the slightest.”
I groaned as he pushed the cart over a large rock.
“Your second mistake, Miss Caterer, was not doing research on what brings people back to a place that serves food! I bet you think you knew all about that. Well, see, in China there was a restaurant that was really popular. Really, really popular, with lines of customers stretching down the street. Everyone said the food made them feel so good. No wonder, either. The food was laced with opium, and that’s what gave Victor Lane the idea to make a killing here, if you’ll pardon the expression, doing the same thing, but with different drugs.”
A rotten-egg scent reached my nostrils. We were close to the hot springs pool, the same one that had been closed since Sunday, when I’d dropped the load holding Craig and Billie’s dishes and glasses. Finally, finally, the sulfurous odor, plus my own attempts made me throw up.
“All out!” fake Craig said joyfully. He bumped the laundry cart to a stop, and once again I retched. “Girl, what are you doing?” he cried. “Don’t tell me I’m making you sick! A doctor’s not supposed to make folks sick!” He dumped the cart on its side, and I rolled out. “You know,” he said, “I’ve never drowned anyone before. Push, bump, poison. This is a first. All right, in you go.”
Just having a chance to breathe outside of the cart made me feel a tad better. Plus—was it wishful thinking or reality?—I was feeling stronger since I’d managed to clear out my gut a bit.
But I didn’t act strong. I remained limp while the man I’d known as Craig Miller grunted and groaned as he dragged me to the edge of the pool. But I would not allow him to hold my head underwater until I drowned.
When I felt the relatively smooth concrete flooring under my behind, I took the deepest breath I could manage and rolled myself into the scalding water, which woke me up ev
en further, thank God.
I allowed myself to go down like deadweight. As Craig’s hands thrashed about trying to get purchase on my hair, I went completely under. Darkness had fallen, and the pool was unlit. So there was no way, or at least I hoped there was no way, he would be able to tell where I was.
I pushed off from the side and was able to come above the water for a moment, to take another deep breath. Craig cursed, stretching his arm out to grab me.
But I knew how to dive…downward. I was aware that I would have only one chance. My hands groped the bottom of the pool for a shard, a piece of that blasted china, a chunk of glass…and then my right hand closed around a large piece of broken dish. I felt for the sharp side even as Craig’s hands splashed furiously to try to get me.
It felt as if my lungs were bursting. But I found the very bottom of the pool and crouched on it, because I knew I would need all my strength to push up, and have good aim.
I thought of Arch; of Tom; of dear Doc Finn; of my sweet godfather, Jack, and pushed hard, up, up, up to the surface, where Craig was so startled to see me that he didn’t think to protect his face. In the fading light, I aimed straight for his eyes.
I missed them. But the broken dish sank deeply into his cheek. I pushed the sharp piece in as hard as I could, while Craig screamed in agony. He stopped trying to grab me, and brought both hands up to his face, which was streaming with blood.
I pushed myself clumsily out of the pool and called for help. My voice came out as a squawk. Drenched, scalded, and furious, I struggled with the gate to the pool and tumbled on to the walkway. My right hand with the broken dish was covered in blood. Boyd was already racing up the path toward me, shaking his head.
Behind him, to my surprise, came Billie Attenborough. “Have you seen Craig? Is he in there? This cop would only look for you, instead of helping me.” She muscled past me into the pool area and saw Craig, bleeding, on the ground. He was shrieking unintelligibly. “Goldy!” cried Billie. “What have you done to my husband?” She eyed me furiously.
I tried to say, “Nothing he didn’t deserve,” but I was still having trouble talking.
TWO WEEKS LATER, we packed a reunion picnic lunch for Norman O’Neal, Ceci, and Lissa at the Mountainside Rehabilitation Center. Marla, who had “missed all the action at the spa,” as she put it, had insisted on bringing a basket of fresh farmers’ market fruit.
“Alcoholics love sugar,” she confided to me. “In fact, they need it.” She frowned at the nectarines and peaches. “Maybe I should have brought something chocolate.”
“I already did that,” I said. In our cooler I’d packed a dessert made with vanilla ice-cream sandwiched between layers of a chocolate Bundt cake, which I’d glazed with more chocolate, then frozen hard. I was calling the confection Black-and-White Cake.
Black and white. A description of this case? Yes, if you thought only of the greed that had led Craig Miller/Tim Anderson to kill and kill and kill again. Billie had been greedy to be married to a doctor, and she’d been sufficiently flaky, temperamental, and spoiled not to notice that her groom didn’t really love her. She’d already filed for divorce, and the last I heard, she had signed up for an Internet dating service.
After the memorial service for Doc Finn, Father Pete told me when the service for Jack would be. I had thought my grieving was over, but I cried anyway. When my godfather died, I’d believed that staying home and doing nothing but cry was not the way to mourn. I’d gotten out there in the world to figure out what had happened.
Craig Miller wasn’t a real doctor, and he’d been incorrect in his diagnoses of patients, some of whom had gone straight to old, reliable Doc Finn for help. They’d brought tales of other patients being misdiagnosed, friends who were exhibiting signs of drug withdrawal after visiting Gold Gulch Spa. Doc Finn had decided to investigate, and that had put him on a collision course with Craig Miller and Victor Lane.
Of course, it was easy enough for Craig Miller to make that anonymous “emergency” call from Southwest Hospital to Doc Finn, then hightail it up the canyon until he saw Finn’s Cayenne coming in the opposite direction. He’d made a U-turn and hit Finn’s car so hard from behind that it had catapulted into a ravine. The cops found Craig’s banged-up vehicle where he’d hidden it away. Once Miller had bashed in the doctor’s head with a rock, he’d taken the shoes he’d swiped from Charlotte’s voluminous closet and planted them in Finn’s Cayenne…to point the cops toward her, and away from him, as part of his plan to get her sent to prison, leaving her new son-in-law free to take her money.
Of course, getting Craig Miller indicted for murder, and Victor Lane, his partner in crime, indicted for the illegal distribution of Valium and cocaine had provided some satisfaction for me. Yes, cocaine, the lab determined! That was what Victor had used to get the spa clients moving in their morning exercise classes! That was what was in the fruit cocktail that he had insisted on cleaning up all by himself! The Furman County Sheriff’s Department had discovered the drugs in the Smoothie Cabin, once they’d finally gotten the analysis back on the drugs Isabelle and I swiped. Armed with a search warrant, they’d found what they needed zipped into those packets that read chamomile (for the crushed Valium) and protein powder (for the cocaine). Blech!
In the spa trash, investigators found the bottle of ipecac that Victor Lane had mixed into my lovely butter icing when he was alone in the kitchen. He’d caught me not once, but twice, trying to figure out what he kept hidden in the Smoothie Cabin. Victor Lane had been willing to make his own clients sick just because he sensed I was getting close to figuring out what he was up to. Brother.
“Gold. Fin. Key.” Those were the words Jack had written for me in the hospital, shortly before he was killed. He had wanted me to go to Gold Gulch Spa. He’d hoped I’d find out what Finn had discovered. And that was why he’d left the key Finn had given him inside his house, to which he’d also given me the key. My godfather had been addled and sick, but he’d been determined to give me enough to go on that I could figure out his last puzzle.
The spa was closed by order of the county health department. Last I heard, Lucas Carmichael was trying to buy it. He put Jack’s unfinished Victorian up for sale.
A teary-eyed Charlotte Attenborough gave me a wordless embrace before Jack’s memorial service. What was there to say? I had no idea.
But I was quite surprised when Lucas Carmichael gave me a strong hug briefly before the service began.
“I’m sorry about everything,” I said.
“It’s okay,” he said, then leaned into my shoulder and sobbed. “Oh, God, I feel so awful.” I gave his back a gentle pat, but he tore away and rushed into the church.
As we processed slowly into St. Luke’s, Tom murmured to me that we were on our way to getting justice for Jack and Doc Finn. Yes, okay.
As Father Pete led the prayers, my thoughts returned to Jack’s last note to me: “Finn left me this key, he said, as an insurance policy, in case something happened to him. But I don’t know what it goes to, and I couldn’t figure it out. Maybe you can.” And I had.
But despite my reconciliation with Lucas, I didn’t yet feel a sense of comfort regarding the death of his father. No, not by a long shot. Once again, Jack’s words came to mind: “I’ve had a good run, and you were a big part of it.”
He’d given me puzzles and games, and love. And I’d always worked on solving his puzzles, including the last one. And I’d loved him right back.
We prayed, and Arch, bless his heart, got up in front of the congregation and talked about how much fun Jack had been. I hadn’t been up to it; nor had Lucas. Tom squeezed my hand.
Finally, at the end of the service, I thought of the last words in his note: “Wherever God sends me, I want you to know that I’ll be thinking of you.”
Now, when I miss my godfather, that’s what I remember.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author would like to acknowledge the help of the following people: Jim Davidson, Jeff, Rosa
, Ryan, and Nicholas Davidson, with particular thanks to Rosa for help with the Spanish in the text; J. Z. Davidson; Joey Davidson; Linda, David, and Becca Ranz, with thanks for giving me a place to work in Nashville; Sandra Dijkstra, my extraordinarily hardworking agent, along with her excellent team; Carolyn Marino, my superb and kind editor; Brian Murray, Jane Friedman, and Michael Morrison, all of whom have been very supportive of Goldy; Lisa Gallagher, for the tremendous job she has done at Morrow; Dee Dee De-Bartlo, Joseph Papa, Wendy Lee, and the rest of the fabulous team at Morrow/HarperCollins; Kathy Saideman, for her remarkably insightful readings of the text; Richard Staller, D.O., who always patiently answers my many medical questions; Carol Alexander, for patiently and lovingly testing all the recipes; the following writers friends, who are always willing to be supportive: Julie Kaewert, Jasmine Cresswell, Emilie Richards, Connie Laux, Karen Young Stone, and Leslie O’Kane; Ed Neiman, the wonderful chef and chief caterer of Sage Creek Foods in Evergreen; Ed’s phenomenal sous-chef, the tremendously talented Dave Pruett, who patiently instructed me for hours as he allowed me to work a wedding and reception with his team; Triena Harper, who, even though she is retired from being deputy coroner of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department, still helps me enormously; and as always, my amazingly helpful source on police procedure, Sergeant Richard Millsapps, now also retired from the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department, Golden, Colorado.
RECIPES IN
FATALLY FLAKY
Julian’s Summer Frittata
Nutcase Cranberry-Apricot Bread
Totally Unorthodox Coeur à la Crème
Heirloom Tomato Salad
Arch’s Flapjacks
Figgy Piggy
Yolanda’s Cuban Bread
Chilled Curried Chicken Salad
Fatally Flaky Cookies
Black-and-White Cake
Julian’s Summer Frittata
8 ounces fresh broccoli
6 tablespoons best-quality extra-virgin olive oil, divided
Fatally Flaky gbcm-15 Page 29
