Grave Doubts (A Paranormal Mystery Novel)

by Lynn Bohart

  “I put it with Diane’s other belongings. Her sister will pick them all up next week.”

  Lee’s eyes flitted to the box Jenny had dropped off in the entryway. Maddox caught the slip and turned, eying the open carton filled with Diane’s personal belongings. Her head snapped back so fast it made Lee jump.

  “Dammit! Do you think I’m kidding?” She advanced on Lee, her body as rigid as steel. “I don’t give a shit about you or your pathetic little daughter. I want that camera!”

  Lee backed up, her eyes on the key in Emily Maddox’s hand.

  “It’s in my car! I swear. Please! Amy’s so young.”

  Lee reached for the key, but Maddox held it back, watching her as if she were trying to gauge Lee’s truthfulness. Suddenly, as if she’d come to some conclusion, she sidestepped Lee and threw the key into the fireplace. Lee screamed, “NO!” and grabbed the fireplace poker.

  She shoved the poker deep into the burning embers, pushing the flaming log aside. The heat seared her face, but she didn’t care. She would reach in with her bare hands if she had to. When she found the key, she hooked the chain with the end of the poker and pulled it out. The tag had just begun to burn, so she quickly dropped it on the fireplace stones and used her foot to stomp it out. Lee let go of the poker and leaned over to grab the key by the tag. She stood up and turned, ready to mow Maddox down on her way out the door if she had to, but the blur of a needle jumped before her eyes. She had just enough time to deflect it with her purse. The blow meant for her neck glanced off her shoulder.

  Lee dropped her purse and grabbed the hand holding the syringe, driving it toward the floor. Maddox was in a rage. She reached in and gripped Lee’s wrist with her other hand, twisting the skin painfully. The two women struggled, yanking back and forth, straining to gain control of the weapon. Maddox was strong and started to snarl, her lips pulled back from her teeth. The sound terrified Lee, but she held on, her knuckles turning white.

  The two women spun to the right, locked so close in combat that Lee could smell the foulness of her breath. They slammed into a plant stand, sending it crashing to the floor. They rolled onto the top of a hutch, wiping it clean of Lee’s collectibles.

  Lee’s strength began to fail, and Maddox gained the advantage. She swung Lee in a circle and slammed her into the fireplace. Lee ended up sitting on the fireplace ledge. But she wouldn’t give up. She used the back of her leg as a fulcrum and pushed herself back to a standing position. Lee’s muscles burned, and she was almost too tired to hold on. Maddox seemed to sense this and smiled. She swung Lee to the left. Then with all the strength she had, she whirled Lee viciously to the right again.

  Lee flew sideways, but her hand held onto Emily’s an instant too long. Emily was yanked off balance with a jolt. Her ankle twisted and cracked, and she crumpled to the floor with a cry, her leg tucked awkwardly beneath her.

  Lee crashed into the side table, her head coming down directly on top of the steel foot of her Tiffany lamp. The table collapsed under her weight and the lamp went flying.

  When it was over, Lee lay on her side, watching a blurred image of Emily Maddox sitting in a twisted heap in front of the fireplace. Lee tried to focus, but all she saw was a swirling image of the other woman still holding the syringe. Lee tried to rise, but a wave of nausea stopped her. She couldn’t even get to her hands and knees. Instead, she lay on the floor watching her attacker attempt to get up. But something about Emily’s leg prevented her. Both women were momentarily incapacitated. Or, so it seemed.

  “I’m not finished with you,” Emily Maddox snarled.

  Like any good horror movie, Emily leaned forward and began to crawl painfully in Lee’s direction, dragging her injured leg behind her. She was determined to finish what she came for, and Lee was out of options.

  A low-grade humming began to vibrate in Lee’s head, and she closed her eyes, feeling as if she might actually throw up. As the humming grew louder, a high-pitched scream brought Lee’s head up in a snap. For a moment, she saw the living room clearly.

  Emily Maddox was on her hands and knees, about three feet from Lee. Her eyes were focused in a glazed stare at Lee. No, that was wrong. She was staring at something behind Lee. That’s when Lee became aware of another presence in the room. Emily’s eyes were alive with an intense fire, and her mouth was drawn into a hateful grimace. Lee had seen that look once before.

  Emily suddenly raised herself up and swung the syringe high above her head to strike the killing blow. Lee lifted her arm in defense, but the move was wasted. A large, gray blur sailed over Lee’s head and planted a heavy paw in the middle of her shoulder as it slammed full-force into Emily Maddox’s chest.

  Emily flew backwards. The syringe in her hand dropped to the carpet, and her head hit the edge of the fireplace bench with the force of a cantaloupe hitting pavement. Suddenly, all was silent.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  It was Monday, late afternoon, and strings of gray clouds marched across the sky in military formation. Alan leaned heavily against the porch pillar, while Lee sat on the wicker settee wrapped in a fuzzy blanket, enjoying the fresh air. She had arrived home that morning, having spent almost forty-eight hours at the hospital to rule out a possible concussion. Patrick busied himself in the kitchen making dinner.

  Lee was still on pain medication for a headache caused by hitting her head on the lamp stand. And she was mentally and physically exhausted. She found herself staring at her yard, thinking about random things like cutting back the bushes and raising the limbs on some of the trees. Even though Alan had stopped by to debrief her on the police report, she was barely aware he was there. But she was keenly aware of the big dog pushed up against her ankles, snoring.

  “Lee,” Alan interrupted her thoughts. “Are you okay? I can come back.”

  “No, I’m okay,” she said, shifting her attention to him. “Sorry. I’m just tired.”

  “Well, I’ll try to make it quick. It was a neighbor kid from across the street who called the police. He happened to come out around 8:15 and saw weird lighting effects over here. He knew your brother taught in the drama department at the university and thought maybe there was a rehearsal going on.”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “Really?”

  Alan shrugged. “I’m not sure he actually knew Patrick was your brother. Just that he was a drama professor. The point is, he got spooked and called 911 when he heard Emily scream. He knew the scream wasn’t an act.”

  Neither of them said anything for a moment. A delivery truck rumbled by, shaking the ground around them as it passed.

  “I see,” Lee finally responded.

  She lifted her hand and touched the large knot on the side of her head. She remembered enough to know she didn’t want to think about the details. She wasn’t sure she’d ever feel limber or fully mobile again.

  Alan lowered his head slightly. “She was dead when the police got here.”

  “I know,” she said as she pulled the afghan closer. “Patrick couldn’t get the blood stains off the fireplace stones.”

  There was another long silence and Lee’s eyes glazed over for a moment. A large bird of prey descended through the branches of a cedar tree to land on the lower branch of the evergreen bordering her property. She watched it float gracefully down and fold back its wings. Birds that size were rarely seen in the city, but this one didn’t surprise her. She was used to them by now.

  Her fingers moved to her eyes where she let them gently explore the sockets. She needed a rest as her foot gently stroked Soldier’s back. The front door opened and Amy appeared. She’d come home as soon as she’d heard her mother had been attacked again. She’d never seen or heard of Emily Maddox. Dressed in faded jeans and a baggy blue sweater, she came out and draped herself across the arm of the settee. The dog wagged its tail and raised its head.

  “Hey, Mom, are you doing okay? Need anything?” Amy asked, leaning forward to fondle the dog’s nose.

  “No, I’m okay.” Lee answered a
trifle slowly. “Just very tired.”

  Amy looked up at Alan. “Have you found out any more about what was going on? I mean, why that woman killed Diane and tried to kill Mom?”

  “We talked with your friend, Ruth…at the hospital,” he said to Lee. “She found something interesting on Bud’s computer. Apparently, he took names off Diane’s computer and kept a separate file in his own linked to the patient admission information. These were people with money and influence. When someone was admitted to the hospital matching the list he got from you guys, it linked up with the network, alerting him.”

  “Why did he do that?” Lee inquired.

  “He couldn’t always count on being the lab tech that ran tests when VIPs were admitted to the hospital. He had to have a way of knowing who they were and when they were admitted. When one was, he would come in after hours and run a sample drug test with false results. Since it was a sample test, we’re told it wasn’t picked up anywhere else in the system. He could produce an official looking document showing the individual had tested positive for amphetamines, cocaine, or whatever. He knew exactly the kind of people he wanted to target and used your information to build the profiles. Then, he and Andrew would wait until the opportunity presented itself to blackmail them.

  “Martha,” Lee said quietly to herself.

  “Martha?” Alan’s ruddy face twisted into confusion.

  “Martha Osgood. I think she may have seen something up in the lab and tried to alert me, but she was killed before I could ever figure out what she was trying to tell me.”

  Alan nodded. “Yeah, a runner out early the morning she was killed identified Bud Maddox’s truck near the spot where we found the stolen car that hit Martha. He must have dumped the stolen one and switched back into his truck.”

  “I still don’t get it,” Amy said, confused. “How would they blackmail people if the person they tested knew the results were false?”

  “Think about it,” Alan replied. “If you were running for a political office and someone threatened to leak it to the press, it would kill your campaign instantly. Or, what if your mother was in a nursing home, frail and on the verge of death? Threatening to expose the fact you had HIV might kill her. Wouldn’t you pay to save her from that?”

  “Even if you cleared your name,” Lee continued, “the suspicions would always be there. I suppose most people would rather just try and make it go away.”

  “Besides,” Alan interjected, “Maddox and Andrew weren’t asking for exorbitant payoffs. Usually not more than $25,000. And they picked people very carefully. People with a little money, but who wouldn’t be likely to have the resources or the fortitude to challenge them.”

  “Then all they had to do was destroy the phony report?” Lee finished.

  “That’s right. No evidence left behind. And the real tests were still in place, so no one was the wiser.”

  The porch had grown quiet except for the backdrop of rustling trees at the corner of the property. The bird, still perched among the evergreen watched them as if waiting for something.

  “We found that lab report you mentioned in Diane’s bathroom drawer, just where you said it would be,” he said to Lee. “The report has the name of one of your donors on it. We’ll probably never know where she found it, but she must have gotten suspicious and asked Bud about it. That’s what started the whole ball rolling.”

  “But if she suspected something like that,” Lee shook her head, “why would she agree to go to Portland with him? Why would she talk about marrying him?”

  “Remember that he was very good at lying. He must have been able to explain it away somehow, but it didn’t matter. By that time her fate was sealed.”

  “So, Emily Maddox was a full partner in all of this?”

  “We think so. We’re not sure what the relationship was between Emily and Bud. We sent a couple of officers down to Redding, where they grew up. From what they learned, Emily was older by four years. Apparently their father was a blatant philanderer, even sexually abusing Emily from the time she was very small, although she denied it. According to neighbors, she would get especially hostile every time another woman entered the picture. A couple of them even speculated that she was jealous of her own mother. When she was sixteen, one of the father’s girlfriends turned up dead. He took off, but was never implicated in the murder. The mother tried to kill herself twice and was finally committed to a mental hospital. Emily spent the next few years raising her younger brother, doing God knows what to him,” Alan cringed. “Anyway, the two of them have never been apart for more than a few months at a time. They eventually moved to Medford as a couple, either as a façade, or for some twisted reason I’d rather not think about.”

  “You learned a lot in two days,” Lee said.

  “Well, one of the detectives also contacted the attending physician at the institution where her mother was hospitalized,” Alan said. “I guess mom talked a lot while she was there. And, we’ve talked to several former neighbors and church friends. For instance, one story corroborated by several people was that when Bud was seventeen, he got a girl pregnant. Not long afterwards, the girl mysteriously disappeared. Everyone suspected it was Emily who had gotten rid of her, but there was no evidence.”

  “So Emily eliminated Bud’s girlfriends,” Lee whispered.

  Alan was leaning against the porch railing and watched her as if judging how to respond.

  “There were suspicions in Medford, too. Two different women who dated Bud at the hospital died suspiciously. He was cleared each time, but now both the Redding and Medford Police Departments have reopened the cases. So, whether Emily Maddox killed Diane because she had uncovered their little blackmailing scheme, or just because she was involved with Bud, we’ll never know. By the way, we found your driver’s license in Emily’s purse. I guess that’s how she found you.”

  Lee frowned, her mind backtracking to the Bates party and her purse.

  “Listen, Lee. I owe you an apology,” Alan said quietly. “If I’d listened to you, maybe none of this would have happened.”

  She shrugged. “It’s okay, Alan. In the beginning, I wasn’t even sure what I believed. I probably sounded like a nut case.”

  “No,” he said, holding up a hand. “You didn’t. You knew what you knew about your friend, but I wasn’t hearing it. I learned something in all of this.” He nodded his head toward Lee. “To listen better. Read between the lines,” he said. “Well, I have to go,” he said, rising. “You’ll be okay?”

  “Yeah. Thanks, Alan,” she said with a half smile. “You’re a good friend.”

  He smiled and kissed the top of her head. “Let me know if you need anything.” He patted Amy on the shoulder and stepped off the porch to lumber down the sidewalk.

  Amy squeezed her mom’s shoulder. “I’m proud of you, Mom. You were very brave.”

  Lee reached a hand up and caught Amy’s. “I’m not sure brave is how I’d describe it. By the way, how in the world did she get your bracelet?”

  Amy curled a lip. “The apartment manager let her in. She said she was my aunt. It was too normal to sound suspicious, I guess. I never saw her. I was out with a friend. She was long gone by the time I came back. I never even knew she’d been there until Uncle Patrick told me about it.”

  “So her threat was an empty one.” Lee squeezed Amy’s hand. “I’m just glad you’re okay. The thought of that woman even touching you could drive me mad.”

  “Well, it’s all over. Now, maybe things can get back to normal around here. I’ll take Soldier back in the morning, and you can get some rest. It’s pretty cool though, don’t you think, that Soldier saved you?” Amy patted the dog’s head. “By the way, is Uncle Patrick actually moving in?”

  Lee smiled in spite of herself. “For a while. He is my brother after all.”

  Amy smiled back. “Awesome! It’ll give me one more reason to come home on the weekends. I’ll go help him with dinner.”

  Amy turned and went inside.

/>   Soldier got up and sat patiently by the settee, her eyes imploring Lee for attention. Lee patted the sofa. With one graceful movement the animal landed softly beside her, turned once in a circle and tucked herself under Lee’s elbow. Lee draped her arm across the muscular back and rested her hand gently on one ear, thinking the dog hadn’t turned out to be so bad after all.

  She was lost in thought when a young man appeared on the steps in front of her. Soldier came to attention, making Lee look up. The boy was medium height, slight build, short brown hair and pleasant features. He stood hesitantly on the steps.

  “I’m glad to see you’re okay. That was quite an ordeal.”

  “You’re the young man who rescued me,” she guessed accurately.

  He took this recognition as permission to move to the top step.

  “Yes, I called for help.”

  “Well, thank you. I was in no condition to call them myself.”

  “I did look in on you before the police got here, but your dog wouldn’t let me get near you.” He nodded to Soldier. “So I waited outside until the police arrived. In fact, they weren’t successful either, until your brother showed up. He’s one protective dog,” the boy said with admiration.

  He seemed rather mild-mannered and a bit shy. Lee liked him immediately.

  “It’s a she, actually. You live across the street, I understand.”

  “Yes,” his eyes lit up. “I live with six other guys. It’s kind of a madhouse over there. I hope we don’t make too much noise.”

  She smiled. “No. Actually, I’ve been surprised that you don’t. I thought it was a fraternity.”

  “Nothing that organized,” he laughed. “We all happen to be architectural students. I’ve drawn your house a couple of times − because of the gables.” He pointed towards the roof. “It’s a great old house. I’ve even taken a couple of pictures of it. I’ll show them to you sometime.”

  “I’d like to see them. I was told you recognized my brother, Patrick.”

  “Yes,” he answered quickly. “One of the guys I live with does some designing for the theater.” He shuffled from foot to foot. “Is your daughter in the theater also?”