by Joseph Badal
“I’m trying to help you understand what Victoria was like. Once you know that, you might have a better sense of why someone would want to kill her.”
“I think I’ve already got a pretty good sense of that,” Barbara said. “But, if you don’t give me names, how do you expect me to find her murderer? I’ve got a feeling your file on Victoria Comstock is loaded with names of potential suspects. Do you think this woman or her husband could have killed her?”
He shrugged. “Not likely. But I can’t give you their names.”
“Then why did you call us?”
Stein cleared his throat. “Sure Victoria was dysfunctional, but she was my patient. I cared about her as I care about all my patients. From what I heard on the radio, she died a horrible death. No one deserves to die like that.”
Barbara stood, thanked the doctor for his time, and dropped the court order on Stein’s desk. “That order gives me access to all of Victoria Comstock’s medical records.”
“There’s no way I’ll turn those files over to you. I could lose my license.”
“I guess we’ll let the judge decide.” She turned to leave, took a step toward the door, but stopped and turned back. “What happened to that couple?”
Stein stood and tented his fingers on the desktop. He seemed suddenly drained of energy. “A truly sad story. Victoria seduced the wife into a sexual relationship and, when the woman had surrendered herself—body, mind, and soul—Victoria seduced the woman’s husband.” He closed the file in front of him and fell back into his chair. “The woman found her husband and Victoria in her own bedroom. She went out to her car and intentionally drove into a bridge abutment. Victoria married the husband shortly thereafter.”
“Would that couple have been the Jamesons?” Barbara asked.
Stein hesitated. Surprise showed on his face. Finally he nodded.
Barbara wanted to leave, to fill her lungs with fresh air. “Is that all you wanted to tell us? Obviously, I already knew about Carol Jameson’s suicide.”
“I have a confession to make,” he said. “Once, when Victoria told me she planned to injure a person, I anonymously called that person and warned him. Not that it did any good. He didn’t believe a word I said.”
“Aren’t you ethically and legally bound to notify the police if a patient threatens to do bodily harm to someone?”
Stein shrugged. “I did what I thought was best. I didn’t want the police involved. I mean, Victoria could have been blowing smoke.”
“Did you ever call Maxwell Comstock to warn him about anything his wife threatened to do to him?”
Stein closed his eyes and rubbed his temples.
“Come on, Doctor. Did you call him?”
He nodded.
CHAPTER 17
Barbara hated to admit it, but the scenes of Victoria in that riding competition video had shamed her. Of course, Victoria was drop-dead gorgeous, but she obviously exercised, stayed in shape, while Barbara for the past couple of years had worked at getting out of shape. Victoria had been seven years older than Barbara, but looked better and younger.
Despite the awful things she had learned about Victoria Comstock, Barbara couldn’t get over what she’d seen on the DVD. Beautiful, elegant, and accomplished, Victoria had it all. But she’d been her own worst enemy. And Barbara knew, in her own way, she was, too.
Barbara stopped at a grocery store on her way home from Dr. Stein’s office. She skirted the packaged food area, the ice cream coolers, the cookies and cakes, and loaded up on fresh vegetables, salad fixings and fruit, skinless chicken breasts, fish, and no-fat dairy products.
She drove home, put away the groceries, and then called Susan’s home number. The answering machine took the call.
“Susan, I’ll pick you up at 8 a.m. Our meeting with Fred Gibson is at 9 in Santa Fe.”
It was now 9:20 p.m. She grabbed a yogurt and an apple from the refrigerator and imagined the pounds that would melt off her. She carried her “lite” snacks to the living room and stopped at the table where Jim’s photo rested. She put down the apple, lifted the picture, and stared at the face of the man she had loved so much, at his blue eyes and sharp features, and felt a dull pain pierce her heart.
“Honey,” she said. “I apologize. I’ve used your death as an excuse to abuse myself. That’s no way to honor your memory.” She kissed the picture and replaced it on the table.
MONDAY
JUNE 28
CHAPTER 18
Fred Gibson, coffee cup in hand, stood at the kitchen counter in the sales trailer on the Coyote Trails Used Cars lot on Cerrillos Road in Santa Fe, when Barbara and Susan stepped inside. He was a scholarly-looking man, with short-cropped hair, small oval glasses, thin bony hands, and a prominent Adams apple. Susan was surprised by the man’s appearance. He didn’t resemble any used car salesman she’d ever seen before. When he made eye-contact with her, he seemed embarrassed, as though ashamed of his lot in life. The trailer held a small office area, an efficiency kitchen, and two tables with three chairs each.
“Detective Lassiter?” he said.
“Yes, thanks for seeing us. This is my partner, Detective Martinez.”
“I don’t suppose you’re here to buy a car,” Gibson said in a monotone. Then he blurted a self-deprecating laugh.
“No such luck,” Susan said. “Official business.”
When she showed him her badge, he raised his right hand as though he was about to go on the witness stand in a courtroom. “I swear I don’t handle any stolen cars. Every car on my lot has its papers.”
Susan didn’t believe him for an instant. He had been in the state pen on the Wainwright Cadillac dealership embezzlement conviction. But it didn’t matter.
“That’s not why we’re here, Mr. Gibson,” she said. “It’s about Victoria Comstock.”
The coffee cup in the man’s left hand shook; coffee sloshed over the rim and fell to the carpet. He turned pale and reached to support himself on the counter with his free hand. Susan quickly stepped forward, took away the coffee cup, and moved Gibson to a chair.
“You all right?” she asked.
“Sorry,” he said. “All I have to do is hear that name and I fall apart. Same thing happened when I read in the newspaper that someone had killed her.” He paused and then said, “I expected to hear from the police sooner or later.”
“When was the last time you saw Victoria?” Barbara asked.
Gibson leaned his elbows on the table and covered his face with his hands. “June 13, 2001.” He dropped his hands to the table.
“How can you be so sure of the date?” Susan asked. “That was a long time ago.”
Gibson smiled. “Just like you know your own birthday, I will never forget that June 13. That was the day I was born again.”
Gibson must have noticed something in Barbara’s eyes. He held up both hands, palms toward Barbara. “Don’t get me wrong. Born again, but not in a religious sense. I started on the road to sanity that day.”
Barbara made a “go on” gesture with her hand. She took a seat across from Gibson; Susan sat down between the two of them.
“Julius Wainwright gave me my first job out of college. The man treated me like a son. I would have done anything for him. But when Victoria came on to me and told me she wanted to get together for a drink, I forgot about everything important in my life. My wife, kids, church, job, and Julius. We met at the Hilton Hotel bar for a cocktail. You know what she said to me not five minutes after we sat down?” He stared at Susan, then Barbara, and answered his own question. “She says, ‘I’ve never fucked an accountant.’ Before I knew what had happened, we were in a hotel room and I thought I had just died and gone to heaven. Imagine a man like me in bed with the most beautiful woman imaginable.
“What I didn’t realize then was that I hadn’t gone to heaven; I’d gone to hell. Victoria was like a narcotic. She could make me do anything she wanted, no matter how demeaning or how wrong. She comes up with this scheme to sell car
s out of trust, screwing Julius and the bank. I knew it would only be a matter of time before I got caught, but it didn’t matter.”
He laughed his dry laugh again. “You know what’s really funny? I gave her all the money I scammed out of the deal and I took the fall. Her name never even came up.”
“You didn’t testify against her?” Barbara asked.
“To what purpose?” Gibson said. “I may have been crazy, but I wasn’t stupid. No one would have believed me. Especially a male judge. Besides, I’d already hurt Julius enough. I would have looked like a real shit trying to pin the crime on his wife.”
“Especially with no proof she’d been involved,” Susan said.
“That, too,” Gibson said.
“So, what about June 13, 2001?” Barbara asked.
Gibson laughed. It sounded almost maniacal. “I’d agreed to a plea bargain. That was the day I was sentenced to five years in the state penitentiary. Victoria was in court to watch. Can you believe that?”
“Why did you say you were born again that day?” Susan said.
Gibson looked at her as though she was dense. “The only way I would get over that woman was to do it cold turkey. I’d considered suicide but decided that wasn’t an option, after all. I realized I had to be locked up to gain my freedom from her. And to atone for my crimes.”
“And you haven’t seen her since?” Barbara asked.
“Let me tell you something, Detective. Victoria ruined my life in every way you can imagine. It’s been almost fourteen years since I last saw her, but if she walked in here right now and told me she wanted to go find a hotel room, I wouldn’t think twice. I’d follow her right out that door. Just like a junky.”
Barbara sighed. “Can you tell us where you were the night Victoria was murdered?”
Gibson walked to a desk at the far end of the trailer and picked up a slip of paper. He handed it to Barbara. “As I said, I expected a police call sooner or later. I prepared this list of friends, along with their telephone numbers. We were all up on the Pine River near Bayfield, Colorado. Our annual camping trip.”
CHAPTER 19
“Do you think it’s too early for a drink?” Susan asked as they drove south from Santa Fe toward Albuquerque.
“I’d rather not,” Barbara said. That earned her a surprised turn of the head from Susan.
“I was just kidding, anyway,” Susan said. “It’s this case. The more we learn about Victoria Comstock, the weirder I feel.”
Barbara nodded and kept her eyes on the road.
Susan picked up Navarro’s file again to study names and events. “So Vickie divorced Wainwright, took him for a ton of dough, and escaped to Las Vegas to drown her sorrows.”
“The grieving divorcee,” Barbara said. “I can just visualize how depressed she must have been in Sin City with all that money and her world-class looks.”
“Navarro didn’t have much to say in his report about her time in Vegas,” Susan said. “I can’t believe she didn’t target some new dupe there.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Barbara said. “But maybe she’s selective about her hunting grounds. Like a lioness that stakes out a territory and only hunts within those boundaries.”
“Interesting theory, but I don’t buy it. Given what you told me you learned from Dr. Stein and your psychology text book, I doubt Vickie could exist without some stooge in her life. There have got to be victims in Nevada, too.”
Barbara groaned. “We have a long list of suspects right here in New Mexico. We could be old ladies and still on this case if we expand to possible victims in Nevada.”
“That’s what I call job security,” Susan said.
“Huh,” Barbara grunted.
They rode in silence for a while until Barbara said, “I can’t believe we haven’t found the Alban girl. We’ve had uniforms out looking for her, and the APB we put out on the VW the Comstocks gave her has turned up zilch.”
“It’ll turn up sooner or later.”
“Yeah, unless she’s dead.”
“That’s always a possibility,” Susan said. “We’ve suspected all along she might have been at the Comstock’s when Victoria was murdered. Maybe the killer took her along.”
“Assuming she’s not the murderer.”
“If she was there, it’s more likely the killer would have done her, too,” Susan said. “I bet if she witnessed the crime or just found the body she ran like a scared rabbit.” Susan shrugged. “But I’m betting she’s the killer. And the longer she’s gone, the more convinced I become. She’s probably on the run and as far from New Mexico as possible.”
“The problem is we could probably make a case that any one of a half-dozen people or more had motive.”
“But how many had opportunity?” Susan countered.
“That’s why we’re on the job,” Barbara said. “To come up with the answer to that age old question.”
Susan thought about what Marge Stanley had told them about Connie Alban’s relationship with Victoria and how there was no way Connie could kill Victoria. But she had always trusted her own instincts. “If I’m correct about Connie being the killer, maybe Marge Stanley tried to throw us off Connie’s tracks?”
“She’s the kid’s mother. What would you expect?”
“But what if she knows her daughter killed Victoria?” Susan asked. “What if she’s hiding the kid?”
“Then we have a two-fer—Connie for murder and Marge for obstruction of justice, conspiracy, and aiding and abetting. Now, wouldn’t that make our day?”
“Doctor Seth Horton’s our next appointment,” Susan said. “He was Victoria’s husband between Robert Jameson and Maxwell Comstock, right?”
“Correct. We’re meeting him at his Rio Rancho office.” Barbara glanced at the dashboard clock. “At 11:30. We should be right on time.”
“I wonder how the hell the guy lives with himself. Former wife’s in the loony bin, all because of lust for some hot babe who makes Lucretia Borgia look like Mother Teresa.”
“Yeah, plus his kids died in a fire after he took up with Victoria.”
CHAPTER 20
Barbara and Susan waited impatiently in Doctor Seth Horton’s waiting room in Rio Rancho for fifteen minutes. The receptionist told them he was running late due to complications with a surgery.
“Makes me feel just like a patient,” Susan said.
“How’s that?” Barbara asked.
“Being kept waiting.”
“At least we’re being paid while we wait,” Barbara said.
“If you can call it pay,” Susan added.
The receptionist signaled them before Barbara could respond. “The doctor will see you now,” she said. “His office is at the end of the hall.”
Susan led the way down a wide corridor bracketed on both sides by exam rooms. The hall dead-ended at a built-in glass cabinet packed with medical supplies. A nameplate on the left wall by an open door read: Seth F. Horton, M.D. Susan tapped her knuckles on the door. “Dr. Horton?”
A stoop-shouldered man with thinning white hair, hands stuck in the pockets of a knee-length lab coat, stood by a bank of windows that faced east toward the Sandia Mountains, across the Rio Grande River. He was about five feet, eight inches tall and slim. “Come in. Please sit down,” he said, without turning around.
They took seats in front of a desk laden with files and medical journals.
“Would you care for something to drink?” he said, as he finally turned to face them. He sat in the chair behind the desk.
“No thanks,” Barbara said. “We know you’re busy. If you have time for a few questions, we’ll get out of your hair.”
He jerked his head and raised a hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about my time,” he said. “I don’t see patients here on Monday afternoons. I . . . please, go ahead; ask your questions.”
“You haven’t asked why we’re here,” Susan said. “Usually that’s the first thing people want to know.”
Horton steepled
his fingers and rocked slowly in his chair. “I thought you were here to interrogate me about Victoria’s murder. Or is this about something else?” There was no emotion in his voice
“When did you learn of her death?” Barbara asked.
He looked back toward the windows. “The same day she was murdered. I heard it on the radio while driving home from the Heart Hospital downtown.”
“When was the last time you saw Mrs. Comstock?” Susan asked.
Horton turned toward Susan. “Two months ago at a Community Foundation fundraiser.”
“Did you talk to her then?”
Horton clasped his hands together on the top of his desk and stared at them. “She talked to me.”
“Do you remember what she said?” Barbara asked.
“Of course,” Horton answered. He raised his gaze to Barbara.
His narrow-eyed, clenched-jaw expression revealed what Barbara thought might be anger.
“She came up to me, put her arms around my neck, and kissed me on the cheek.” He touched his right cheek with his fingers in an absent-minded way, then reclasped his hands on the desktop. “She told me, ‘You look like shit, Seth. Old and tired. Probably not getting laid.’ She laughed, patted my hand, and asked, ‘How’s Patience doing?’ Then she breezed away.” Horton’s face flared beet-red and his eyes narrowed. “That woman was the vilest person I have ever known.”
