Trouble in Mind: The Collected Stories, Volume 3

by Jeffery Deaver

  The first one contained a bill from their lawyer for four hours of legal work, performed that month. The project, the bill summarized, was for “estate planning services.”

  Did he mean redoing the will? Was this another common denominator? Metzer had said that the Bensons had just redone theirs.

  The second letter was an insurance form destined for the Cardiac Support Center at Westbrook Hospital, where Sam had been a patient.

  Nothing unusual here.

  But then he opened the third letter.

  He sat back in his chair, looking at the ceiling then down at the letter once more.

  Debating.

  Then deciding that he didn’t have any choice. When you’re writing a proof you go anywhere the numbers take you. Tal rose and walked across the office, to the Real Crimes side of the pen. He leaned into an open door and knocked on the jamb. Greg LaTour was sitting back in his chair, boots up. He was reading a short document. “Fucking liar,” he muttered and put a large check mark next to one of the paragraphs. Looking up, he cocked an eyebrow.

  Humping his calculator…

  Tal tried to be pleasant. “Greg. You got a minute?”

  “Just.”

  “I want to talk to you about the case.”

  “Case?” The man frowned. “Which case?”

  “The Whitleys.”

  “Who?”

  “The suicides.”

  “From Sunday? Yeah, okay. Drew a blank. I don’t think of suicides as cases.” LaTour’s meaty hand grabbed another piece of paper and pulled it in front of him. He looked down at it.

  “You said that the cleaning lady’d probably been there? She’d left the glove prints? And the tire treads.”

  It didn’t seem that he remembered at first. Then he nodded. “And?”

  “Look.” He showed LaTour the third letter he’d found at the Whitleys. It was a note to Esmeralda Costanzo, the Whitleys’ cleaning lady, thanking her for her years of help and saying they wouldn’t be needing her services any longer. They’d enclosed the check that LaTour had spotted in the register.

  “They’d put the check in the mail,” Tal pointed out. “That means she wasn’t there the day they died. Somebody else wore the gloves. And I got to thinking about it? Why would a cleaning lady wear kitchen gloves to clean the rest of the house? Doesn’t make sense.”

  LaTour shrugged. His eyes dipped to the document on his desk and then returned once more to the letter Tal held.

  The statistician added, “And that means the car wasn’t hers either. The tread marks. Somebody else was there around the time they died.”

  “Well, Tal—”

  “Couple other things,” he said quickly. “Both the Whitleys had high amounts of a prescription drug in their bloodstream. Some kind of narcotic. Luminux. But there were no prescription bottles for it in their house. And their lawyer’d just done some estate work for them. Maybe revising their wills.”

  “You gonna kill yourself, you gonna revise your will. That ain’t very suspicious.”

  “But then I met the daughter.”

  “Their daughter?”

  “She broke into the house, looking for something. She’d pocketed the mail but she might’ve been looking for something else. Maybe she got the Luminux bottles. She didn’t want anybody to find them. I didn’t search her. I didn’t think about it at the time.”

  “What’s this with the drugs? They didn’t OD.”

  “Well, maybe she got them doped up, had them change their will and talked them into killing themselves.”

  “Yeah, right,” LaTour muttered. “That’s outa some bad movie.”

  Tal shrugged. “When I mentioned murder she freaked out.”

  “Murder? Why’d you mention murder?” He scratched his huge belly, looking for the moment just like his nickname.

  “I meant murder-suicide. The husband turning the engine on.”

  LaTour gave a grunt—Tal hadn’t realized that you could make a sound like that condescending. But he continued, “And, you know, she had this attitude.”

  “Well, now, Tal, you did send her parents to the county morgue. You know what they do to you there, don’tcha? Knives and saws. That’s gotta piss the kid off a little, you know.”

  “Yes, she was pissed. But mostly, I think, ’cause I was there, checking out what’d happened. And you know what she didn’t seem upset about?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Her parents. Them dying. She seemed to be crying. But I couldn’t tell. It could’ve been an act.”

  “She was in shock. Skirts get that way.”

  Tal persisted, “Then I checked on the first couple. The Bensons? They were cremated right after they died and their estate liquidated in a day or two.”

  “Liquidated? It was a crime scene. They can’t do that.”

  Tal said, “Well, everybody kept saying, it’s only a suicide…the town released the scene.”

  LaTour lifted an eyebrow and finally delivered a comment that was neither condescending nor sarcastic. “Cremated that fast, hm? Seems odd, yeah. I’ll give you that.”

  “And the Bensons’ lawyer told me something else. They were atheists, both of them. But their suicide note said they’d be in heaven forever or something like that. Atheists aren’t going to say that. I’m thinking maybe they might’ve been drugged, too. With that Luminux.”

  “What does their doctor—”

  “No, he didn’t prescribe it. But maybe somebody slipped it to them. Their suicide note was unsteady, too, sloppy, just like the Whitleys’.”

  “What’s the story on their doctor?”

  “I haven’t got that far yet.”

  “Maybe, maybe, maybe.” LaTour squinted. “But that gardener we talked to at the Benson place? He said they’d been boozing it up. You did the blood work on the Whitleys. They been drinking?”

  “Not too much…Oh, one other thing. I called their cell phone company and checked the phone records—the Whitleys’. There was a call from a pay phone forty minutes before they died. Two minutes. Just enough time to see if they’re home and say you’re going to stop by. And who calls from pay phones anymore? Everybody’s got cells, right?”

  Reluctantly LaTour agreed with this.

  “Look at it, Greg: Two couples, both rich, live five miles from each other. Both of ’em in the country club set. Both husbands have heart disease. Two murder-suicides a few days apart. What do you think about that?”

  In a weary voice LaTour said, “Outliers, right?”

  “Exactly.”

  “You’re thinking the bitch—”

  “Who?” Tal asked.

  “The daughter.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “I’m not gonna quote you in the press, Tal. You—”

  “Okay,” he conceded, “she’s a bitch.”

  “You’re thinking she’s got access to her folks, there’s money involved. She’s doing something funky with the will or insurance.”

  “It’s a theorem.”

  “A what?” LaTour screwed up his face.

  “It’s a hunch is what I’m saying.”

  “Hunch. Okay. But you brought up the Bensons. The Whitley daughter isn’t going to off them now, is she? I mean, why would she?”

  Tal shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe she’s the Bensons’ goddaughter and she was in their will, too. Or maybe her father was going into some deal with Benson that’d tie up all the estate money so the daughter’d lose out and she had to kill them both.”

  “Maybe, maybe, maybe,” LaTour repeated.

  Shellee appeared in the doorway and, ignoring LaTour, said, “Latents called. They said the only prints on the gun were Mr. Benson’s and a few smears from cloth or paper.”

  “What fucking gun?” he asked.

  “I will thank you not to use that language to me,” Shellee said icily.

  “I was talking to him,” LaTour snapped and cocked an eyebrow at Tal.

  Tal said, “The gun the Bensons ki
lled themselves with. Smears—like on the Whitleys’ suicide note.”

  Shellee glanced at the wall poster behind the desk then back to the detective. Tal couldn’t tell whether the look of distaste was directed at LaTour himself or the blonde in a red-white-and-blue bikini lying provocatively across the seat and teardrop gas tank of the Harley. She turned and walked back to her desk quickly, as if she’d been holding her breath.

  “Okay…This’s getting marginally fucking interesting.” LaTour glanced at the huge gold watch on his wrist. “I gotta go. I got some time booked at the range. Come with me. Let’s go waste some ammunition, talk about the case after.”

  “Think I’ll stay here.”

  LaTour frowned, apparently unable to understand why somebody wouldn’t jump at the chance to spend an hour punching holes in a piece of paper with a deadly weapon. “You don’t shoot?”

  “It’s just I’d rather work on this.”

  Then enlightenment dawned. Tal’s office was, after all, on the Unreal Crimes side of the pen. He had no interest in cop toys.

  You’re the best at what you do, statistician. Man, that’s a hard job…

  “Okay,” LaTour said. “I’ll check out the wills and the insurance policies. Gimme the name of the icees.”

  “The—”

  “The corpses, the stiffs…the losers who killed ’emselves, Tal. And their lawyers.”

  Tal wrote down the information and handed the neat note to LaTour, who stuffed it into his plaid shirt pocket behind two large cigars. He ripped open a desk drawer and took out a big chrome automatic pistol.

  Tal asked, “What should I do?”

  “Get a PII team and—”

  “A what?”

  “You go to the same academy as me, Tal? Post-Incident Interviewing team,” he said as if he were talking to a three-year-old. “Use my name and Doherty’ll put one together for you. Have ’em talk to all the neighbors around the Bensons’ and the Whitleys’ houses. See if they saw anybody around the houses just before or after the TOD. Oh, that’s—”

  “Time of death.”

  “You got it, my man. We’ll talk this afternoon. I’ll see you back here, how’s four?”

  “Sure. Oh, and maybe we should find out what kind of car the Whitleys’ daughter drove. See if the wheelbase data match.”

  “That’s good thinking, Tal,” he said, looking honestly impressed. Grabbing some boxes of 9mm cartridges LaTour walked heavily out of the Detective Division.

  Tal returned to his desk and arranged for the PII team. Then he called DMV, requesting information on Sandra Whitley’s car. He glanced at his watch. One p.m. He realized he was hungry; he’d missed his regular lunch with his buddies from the university. He walked down to the small canteen on the second floor, bought a cheese sandwich and a diet soda and returned to his desk. As he ate he continued to pore over the pages of the crime scene report and the documents and other evidence he himself had collected at the house.

  Shellee walked past his office, then stopped fast and returned. She stared at him then barked a laugh.

  “What?” he asked.

  “This is too weird, you eating at your desk.”

  Hadn’t he ever done that? he wondered. He asked her.

  “No. Not once. Ever…And here you are going to crime scenes, cluttering up your desk…Listen, boss, on your way home?”

  “Yes?”

  “Watch out for flying pigs. The sky’s gotta be full of ’em today.”

  + − < = > ÷

  “HI,” TAL SAID to the receptionist.

  Offering her a big smile. Why not? She had sultry, doe eyes, a heart-shaped face and the slim, athletic figure of a Riverdance performer.

  Margaret Ludlum—according to the name plate—glanced up and cocked a pale, red eyebrow. “Yes?”

  “It’s Maggie, right?”

  “Can I help you?” she asked in a polite but detached tone. Tal offered a second assault of a smile then displayed his badge and ID, which resulted in a cautious frown on her freckled face.

  “I’m here to see Dr. Sheldon.” This was Sam Whitley’s cardiologist, whose card he’d found in the couple’s bedroom last night.

  “It’s…” She squinted at the ID card.

  “Detective Simms.”

  “Sure. Just hold on. Do you have—”

  “No. An appointment? No. But I need to talk to him. It’s important. About a patient. A former patient. Sam Whitley.”

  She nodded knowingly and gave a slight wince. Word of the suicides would have spread fast, he assumed.

  “Hold on, please.”

  She made a call and a few minutes later a balding man in his fifties stepped out into the waiting room and greeted him. Dr. Anthony Sheldon led Tal back into a large office, whose walls were decorated with dozens of diplomas and citations. The office was opulent, as one would expect for a man who probably made $30,000 an hour.

  Gesturing for Tal to sit in a chair across the desk, Sheldon dropped into his own high-backed chair and said, “I was troubled to hear the news.”

  “We’re looking into their deaths,” Tal said. “I’d like to ask you a few questions if I could.”

  “Yeah, sure. Anything I can do. It was…I mean, we heard it was a suicide, is that right?”

  “It appeared to be. We just have a few unanswered questions. How long had you treated them?”

  “Well, first, not them. Only Sam Whitley. He’d been referred to me by his personal GP.”

  “That’s Ronald Weinstein,” Tal said. Another nugget from the boxes of evidence that’d kept him up until 3 a.m. “I just spoke to him.”

  Tal had learned a few facts from the doctor, though nothing particularly helpful, except that Weinstein had not prescribed Luminux to either of the Whitleys, nor had he ever met the Bensons. Tal continued to Sheldon, “How serious was Sam’s cardiac condition?”

  “Fairly serious. Hold on—let me make sure I don’t misstate anything.”

  Sheldon pressed a buzzer on his phone.

  “Yes, Doctor?”

  “Margaret, bring me the Whitley file, please.”

  So, not Maggie.

  “Right away.”

  A moment later the woman walked briskly into the room, coolly ignoring Tal.

  He decided that he liked the Celtic dancer part. He liked “Margaret” better than “Maggie.”

  The tough-as-nails part gave him some pause.

  “Thanks.”

  Sheldon looked over the file. “His heart was only working at about fifty percent efficiency. He should’ve had a transplant but wasn’t a good candidate for one. We were going to replace valves and several major vessels.”

  “Would he have survived?”

  “You mean the procedures? Or afterward?”

  “Both.”

  “The odds weren’t good for either. The surgeries themselves were the riskiest. Sam wasn’t a young man and he had severe deterioration in his blood vessels. If he’d survived that, he’d have a fifty-fifty chance for six months. After that, the odds would’ve improved somewhat.”

  “So it wasn’t hopeless.”

  “Not necessarily. But, like I told him, there was also a very good chance that even if he survived he’d be bedridden for the rest of his life.”

  Tal said, “So you weren’t surprised to hear that he’d killed himself?”

  “Well, I’m a doctor. Suicide doesn’t make sense to most of us. But he was facing a very risky procedure and a difficult, painful recovery with an uncertain outcome. When I heard that he’d died, naturally I was troubled, and guilty, too—thinking maybe I didn’t explain things properly to him. But I have to say that I wasn’t utterly shocked.”

  “Did you know his wife?”

  “She came to most of his appointments.”

  “But she was in good health?”

  “I don’t know. But she seemed healthy.”

  “They were close?”

  “Oh, very devoted to each other.”

  Tal looked u
p. “Doctor, what’s Luminux?”

  “Luminux? A combination antidepressant, painkiller and antianxiety medication. I’m not too familiar with it.”

  “Then you didn’t prescribe it to Sam or his wife?”

  “No—and I’d never prescribe anything to a spouse of a patient unless she was a patient, too. Why?”

  “They both had unusually high levels of the drug in their bloodstream when they died.”

  “Both of them?”

  “Right.”

  Dr. Sheldon shook his head. “That’s odd…Was that the cause of death?”

  “No, it was carbon monoxide.”

  “Oh. Their car?”

  “In the garage, right.”

  The doctor shook his head. “Better way to go than some, I suppose. But still…”

  Another look at the notes. “At their house I found an insurance form for the Cardiac Support Center here at the hospital. What’s that?”

  “I suggested he and Liz see someone there. They work with terminal and high-risk patients, transplant candidates. Counseling and therapy mostly.”

  “Could they have prescribed the drug?”

  “Maybe. They have MDs on staff.”

  “I’d like to talk to them. Who should I see?”

  “Dr. Peter Dehoeven is the director. They’re in Building J. Go back to the main lobby, take the elevator to three, turn left and keep going.”

  Tal thanked the doctor and stepped back into the lobby. Cell phones weren’t allowed in the hospital so he asked Margaret if he could use one of the phones on her desk. She gestured toward it distractedly and turned back to her computer. It was three forty-five and Tal had to meet Greg LaTour in fifteen minutes.

  One of the Homicide Division secretaries came on the line and he told her to tell LaTour that he’d be a little late.

  But she said, “Oh, he’s gone for the day.”

  “Gone? We had a meeting.”

  “Didn’t say anything about it.”

  He hung up, angry. Had LaTour just been humoring him, agreeing to help with the case to get Tal out of his hair?

  He made another call—to the Cardiac Support Center. Dr. Dehoeven was out but Tal made an appointment to see him at eight thirty in the morning. He hung up and nearly asked Margaret to clarify the way to the Cardiac Support Center. But Sheldon’s directions were solidly implanted in his memory and he’d only bring up the subject to give it one more shot with sweet Molly Malone. But why bother? He knew to a statistical certainty that he and this red-haired lass would never be step dancing the night away then lying in bed till dawn discussing the finer points of perfect numbers.