What the hell was going on here? I hadn’t even seen Bernie Kincaid for the last three years, and back then he’d acted as if he couldn’t stand me. And now, after all this time, he’s all … what? All over me like a lovesick schoolboy. What had changed in the last three years? I wondered. Back then he’d been going through a divorce. Now I … oh jeez … might I be too? Did Bernie know something I didn’t? And if so, how?
With difficulty I wrenched my attention back to filling out the death certificate. Under Manner of Death I put “Homicide.”
“You’ll have that report pretty soon?” Rollie asked me.
“Next week,” I assured him.
Back at the hospital, I got the autopsy tissues into formalin, the blood tubes and other samples to the lab, and dictated the gross autopsy findings and the provisional gross diagnoses for the police and Rollie.
Then I went home, uneasily recalling what had happened between Hal and me that morning. The day’s happenings had kept it out of my mind for the most part. Now it all came roaring right back into my consciousness, not to mention the pit of my stomach.
Would Hal still be mad? Or would he have forgotten about the whole thing? Would he even be speaking to me? Or would he give me the silent treatment all evening?
What would I do? Apologize? Beg for forgiveness? Cry?
Wait a minute. What was I thinking? No way. Gawd, Toni, you’re such a girl.
If I asked Hal straight out if he wanted a divorce, what would he say? Would I be prepared for his answer? How would I feel if the answer was yes?
If he asked me the same question, what would I say? No, of course not? Maybe?
I guess my answer to his question pretty much depended on how he answered my question.
My honest answer was, no, I didn’t want a divorce. I wanted Hal to be the way he was before things changed.
If I couldn’t have that, then I guess I didn’t know. I would not beg him to stay in this marriage if he wanted out. If he didn’t want to be with me, I’d let him go.
I prayed that I’d walk in the door and Hal would greet me the same way he always did, having totally forgotten the whole thing. He’d never have to bitch about being awakened at night again, since I planned to follow Mike’s advice.
But maybe being awakened at night wasn’t really the problem.
Maybe it was just a symptom of something bigger.
I climbed up on the front porch and let myself in the front door with trepidation.
But Hal wasn’t home.
Chapter 4
The vow that binds too strictly snaps itself.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson
I didn’t know whether to be relieved at the reprieve or pissed that I’d have to wait, after getting myself all worked up, to face Hal and get it all over with—whatever “it” turned out to be—and put it all behind me and move on.
I let the dogs out and fed them. Then I went upstairs, changed out of my work clothes, and got into the shower. We still had a party to go to that night, and I needed to wash the autopsy stink off me and out of my hair. As I luxuriated in the feel of the hot water coursing down my body, rinsing off the shampoo and soap, I considered what could be bothering Hal and why he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, talk about it.
There was only one thing I could think of that he couldn’t tell me about.
What if he was having an affair?
Of course he is, you idiot. What are you, blind or just stupid? It was as if the scales had fallen suddenly from my eyes. Furthermore, it had to be with someone from the college, because he wasn’t going out at night or on weekends; it was someone he could be with during the work week.
Maybe that was why he’d acted so cavalier about divorce this morning. He had someplace else to go.
Maybe that was why he never seemed to want sex anymore. He was getting it elsewhere.
I then proceeded to torture myself by wondering how and where they managed to have sex with each other during the work day. Students did it in the shrubbery at night; but where the hell did teachers do it during the daylight hours? In their offices? Empty classrooms? Broom closets? Stairwells? Library stacks? Here in the house while I was at work? In our bed? Oh, no. Hal wouldn’t do that to me. At least the old Hal wouldn’t have, but then the old Hal wouldn’t be having an affair in the first place. Anyway, what did I know? The new Hal was a stranger to me.
I wrapped myself in a towel and went into the bedroom, where I stood staring at the king-size bed that Hal and I shared. Tears came to my eyes as I contemplated this comfortable life we’d enjoyed together coming to an end. Goddamn it, we’d both worked very hard to achieve what we had, and now Hal was jeopardizing it all for some little college bimbo who was blonder, younger, prettier, and thinner than I.
Oh, fuck it, now I was sobbing like a child. This had to stop or my eyes would be so puffy that I wouldn’t want to show my face at the party tonight. I went back into the bathroom and stared at my tear-streaked countenance, making faces at myself, trying to make myself laugh. It had always worked when I was a child but not so much now. At least I had stopped sobbing. I wrung out a washcloth in cold water and applied it to my eyes, hoping that would get rid of the puffiness.
The doorbell rang. It figured. Here I was, sopping wet with red puffy eyelids and veritable suitcases under my eyes. Shit. I hurried into my old black sweats and ran downstairs to answer it, prepared to give short shrift to any door-to-door salesperson who dared to bother me at a time like this; but to my astonishment, Bernie Kincaid stood there. The very last person I’d have expected.
“What are you doing here?” I inquired, my tone somewhat less than friendly.
He responded in kind. “Well?” he said. “Are you going to just stand there, or let me in, or what?”
I stepped back. He stepped inside. I closed the door. “I just came by to tell you about the fingerprints on the light button,” he said.
“What about it?”
“It was wiped clean.”
“So, that means it really is a homicide, doesn’t it?”
He stepped closer. “You’ve been crying,” he said, his voice low and intimate. Then, before I knew it, he had taken me in his arms. I stared into his black eyes in disbelief. Oh jeez, there was that look again. I didn’t recall having said anything particularly provocative. Then his arms tightened and he kissed me. Tongue and all. Oh, my God.
I pulled myself away. “What the hell are you doing?” I demanded, endeavoring to maintain a shred of dignity.
Bernie rubbed his hands over his flushed face as if he were trying to wash it, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Jesus, Toni. I don’t know what got into me. I’m so sorry. Christ. Hal would kill me.”
“Hal isn’t home yet,” I said. “You’d better get out of here before he is.”
But before he could leave, Hal drove into the driveway.
Luckily, Bernie was a lot better than I at keeping his mind on business. It must be a guy thing.
“I was just telling Toni about what we found in Jay Braithwaite Burke’s car,” he told Hal. “There were traces of blood on the back seat and on the floor in the back that matched Jay’s. And as far as fingerprints are concerned, there weren’t any. Not even his.”
“So?” Hal said. “Whoever was driving probably wore gloves.”
“No,” Bernie told him. “The deceased wasn’t wearing gloves. Everything, including the light button, was wiped clean. That makes it a homicide, as I was just telling Toni.”
After he left, Hal hugged me and gave me a kiss. Then he got a good look at my face.
“Are you okay? You look like you’ve been crying. Did that asshole Kincaid …”
I shook my head. It wasn’t Kincaid, but if I told Hal that, he’d want to know what it was. With this party to go to, was I really ready for this di
scussion? No. There wasn’t time to get into a discussion about the future of our marriage. It would involve more crying. We couldn’t beg off this party, either. Mike and Leezie were giving it at their house, and as Mike’s partner, I felt obligated to go. This discussion would have to wait. We’d go, and I’d try to act normal.
Hal’s uncomplimentary opinion of Kincaid stemmed from the way he’d treated me three years before. It was just as well that he not know what had transpired between us here tonight.
So I said nothing, and Hal went off to take his shower.
Nothing was resolved; it was only postponed.
The Leonards lived in a ranch house on five fenced acres five miles out of town. We could see it from a mile down the road. Red lights outlined the entire fence. An illuminated sleigh and eight tiny reindeer decorated the roof. Multicolored lights covered all the trees around the front of the house, and life-sized, illuminated plastic carolers stood by the front door. When we rang the doorbell, it played the first few bars of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.”
Somebody in that family was obviously a Christmas junkie. I suspected it was Leezie.
Leezie answered the door, pointed out the bunch of mistletoe hanging over our heads, and kissed both Hal and me.
Mike, behind her, said “Hey,” and hugged me. Then he shook Hal’s hand. “I ain’t kissin’ y’all,” he said.
Leezie, true to form, wore a long, red, sequined, strapless gown and spike heels. Diamond drops dangled from her ears. Mike, also true to form, wore jeans, cowboy boots, and a red T-shirt upon which drunken-looking elves and reindeer cavorted around a leering Santa Claus, who held a half-naked buxom female elf on his knee, with the legend “OFFICE PARTY AT THE NORTH POLE” underneath. He had a beer in his hand. Mike, I mean, not Santa Claus.
Inside the house, huge red poinsettias stood everywhere. Santas, angels, sleighs, wreaths, candles, and miniature trees covered every available surface: a veritable Christmas obstacle course. Christmas songs played softly in the background.
The Christmas tree stood in the middle of the living room, the only place the vaulted ceiling rose high enough. The top four feet protruded into the second story. “You see that?” I said to Hal, sotto voce. “That’s a real tree.”
“So what?” Hal muttered back.
“It looks a lot better than ours,” I persisted. “I told you I didn’t want a fake tree, and you insisted. Aren’t you sorry now?”
“No way. I’d hate to have to clean up all those needles,” Hal grumbled as we made our way through the living room to the kitchen.
Mike and Leezie Leonard were both pathologists’ children but from totally different backgrounds. Leezie had grown up in the Bay area and was the spoilt darling of two highly successful and wealthy physician parents. Her mother was a plastic surgeon; her father was a pathologist who had filled in for me while I recovered from a car accident three years ago. Leezie had been a debutante, attended private schools, and lived the life of a socialite in San Francisco while Mike did his residency there.
Mike, on the other hand, had grown up on a Texas ranch, with five brothers. He fit right into the small-town lifestyle here, but poor Leezie seemed like a fish out of water, and I had been afraid Mike wouldn’t come to Twin Falls because of her. Once here, I feared that Leezie would force Mike to choose between her and his job; but Leezie surprised all of us and plunged right into the social life of Twin Falls, joining the Symphony League and becoming active in the South Central Medical Auxiliary.
She had never changed her style, though, and Mike had never changed his. Over the past two years, they’d learned to accept each other and their differences and go on from there. Mike had been indifferent about children, and Leezie definitely didn’t want horses, but now they had both.
The large and informal kitchen had been decorated Santa Fe-style in shades of pale blue, tan, and terra cotta, with southwestern Indian designs. Pale-blue countertops and brick-colored tiles around the sink complemented the pale oak cabinetry. Terra cotta tiles covered the floor. A large trestle table, also of pale oak, filled the end of the room.
The country club had catered the affair, with a standing rib roast and a dizzying array of hot dishes and salads. For once, I wasn’t particularly hungry. Facing possible disintegration of life as I knew it might have had something to do with that.
Hal grabbed a beer and disappeared into the family room, where most of the guys had congregated to watch a football game, and proceeded to pretty much ignore me. Fuck him, I thought and made up my mind to have a good time if it killed me. I fixed myself a scotch on the rocks and joined the women in the kitchen, but after a while I got bored and wandered out into the living room to contemplate the Christmas tree—or just to breathe in the balsam smell that was so lacking in our fake tree at home. Pine-scented air freshener just doesn’t cut it, in my opinion.
“Gorgeous, isn’t it?”
Startled, I turned to find Rebecca Sorensen, wife of Jeff, the surgeon, standing behind me. She was tall, thin, blonde, and gorgeous, the opposite of me in oh-so-many ways, the epitome of glamor in a red sequined dress that fit her like a second skin and stopped at midthigh. No way would I get away with wearing a dress like that, I thought enviously. I had attempted to disguise my short, stocky figure in a black pantsuit with a tunic top, which I had accessorized with lots of heavy onyx and silver jewelry to draw attention away from my hips. I looked okay. She looked stunning.
In spite of all that, Rebecca was actually a pretty nice person and popular with the other wives. She was president of the ladies’ golf association down at the country club. I wondered why she was out here with me instead of being the center of attention in the kitchen with the wives, like she usually was.
So I asked her.
“Sometimes,” she said, “I just get tired of all the girl talk—you know, about the kids and the pregnancies and the illnesses and the husbands and all the dumb stuff they do. Besides, I was curious, so I went looking for you.”
“Really,” I said. “Why me? About what?”
“You did an autopsy today, didn’t you?”
“I did,” I said, wondering what she was getting at.
“Kathleen Burke is my next-door neighbor,” she said.
“Kathleen Burke? Who’s that?”
“Mrs. Jay Braithwaite Burke,” she said. “I was just wondering what you found.”
Oh, that Kathleen Burke. I should have known. No, wait. Why should I have known? It was a coroner’s case. The next of kin didn’t have to sign the consent. Rollie, the coroner, had done that.
“Oh, you were,” I said. “Why?”
“I just wondered if he was murdered,” she said. “Was he? I want to know all the details,” she added, clasping her hands charmingly under her chin and giving me a beguiling smile. She really did have a pretty smile. It lit up her whole face. But it was wasted on me.
“He died of carbon monoxide poisoning,” I told her, hoping that would be enough to satisfy her.
It wasn’t. “So it was just an accident after all?” She sounded disappointed.
I wasn’t sure how much I should tell her; so I tried to tell her as little as possible. At the same time, it occurred to me that Rebecca might know things that might help me solve the murder.
Wait. Solve the murder?
Since when was it my job to solve the murder? Bernie Kincaid would have my head if I tried to do that.
Only I wasn’t sure if that was the part of my anatomy Bernie had in mind these days. But never mind. Rebecca had asked me a question.
“It’s possible,” I said. “I can’t give you all the details, but I think he might have been. Why do you want to know?”
Rebecca sighed. “Okay. I’ll tell you. But let’s sit down. My feet are killing me.”
She was wearing four-inch stilettos. No wonder. We adjo
urned to the couch. As she turned, I couldn’t help noticing a little tummy bulge. “Are you pregnant?” I asked.
She smiled. “Yes. I’m four months along. It’s our first.”
“Congratulations,” I said.
“Thanks. Anyway, Kathleen’s my friend,” Rebecca began. “I’ve known her ever since we moved here thirteen years ago. I’ve been sort of, oh, I don’t know, a confidant to her. I’m worried about her. That’s why I wanted to know if Jay was murdered.”
“You think she murdered him?” I asked.
“Oh, I don’t know!” She buried her face in her hands. “I don’t want her to have murdered him. I don’t want her to go to prison. But I wouldn’t blame her if she did. Jay was an absolute asshole and treated her like shit. He treated the kids like shit too. He was a thoroughly nasty person. The world’s better off without him, in my opinion!”
Wow. Are you sure you didn’t murder him?
I cleared my throat. “Exactly what did he do?”
“He cheated on her,” Rebecca said. “He’d done it for years. His secretary was the latest. Tiffany. She even had a child by him.”
“Goodness,” I said. “And Kathleen didn’t know?”
“I can’t imagine that she didn’t,” Rebecca said. “But she didn’t do anything about it until she came home and caught them in bed together.”
I felt a pang. Would I be catching Hal that way too, sometime soon? Resolutely I pushed that nasty little thought right out of my mind. “So that’s why she divorced him?”
Rebecca nodded. “Kicked him out of the house on the spot and then divorced him. He rented an apartment over on Washington Street for a while, but when he went bankrupt, he had to move out.”
“Where could he go with no money?” I asked.
“Who says he didn’t have money?” Rebecca said. “He had money in a Swiss bank. Kathleen set that up back when she worked for him, but that was a long time ago, before the kids were born. He could have spent it all by now, for all we know.”
“I didn’t know she worked for him,” I said.
Too Much Blood Page 4
