by Manhattan Mayhem: New Crime Stories From Mystery Writers of America
“I was her doctor,” Sam told her mother quietly.
“I know who you are,” she said coldly.
She’d been his patient, too, years before—right up until the day she’d taken Priss to him for a pregnancy test.
“May I speak to you privately?” he asked.
She stepped back, indicating with a head gesture that he should follow her to the window ledge behind her.
“Excuse me for asking something that will seem none of my business, but did Priscilla speak to you in the days before she died?”
“Speak to us? If you mean, come here without warning after years of saying nothing to us, then yes, she did. If you mean, did she speak the same unspeakable things she said to us years ago, yes, she did. And I’m assuming she spoke them to you as well, or you wouldn’t be here asking this question. I have to give you credit, Doctor. Apparently, you have never spoken of them to anyone else, because I think we would hear about it if you had broken your vow of confidentiality. So I will confide in you, Doctor, that my elder daughter was a hateful destructive liar, not the saint some people think she was.”
He felt his own anger rise along with hers.
He’d intended to ask if she knew about her daughter’s fatal condition. He thought it might comfort them to know the killer hadn’t taken away a long life from Priscilla, hadn’t deprived her of marriage, a career, children, future friends, and meaningful years. The cancer was going to steal all that, regardless.
Now he didn’t feel like offering a single word of comfort.
It sounded to him as if Priss had given her family one last chance. She had told the truth, and once again they had rejected it and her.
He leaned in toward her mother. “If you ever want to know the real truth, Mrs. Windsor, I have the baby’s DNA. All you have to do is have your husband come in with a sample of his—”
She slapped him.
“Hey, hold up!”
When he stopped his fast walk to the elevator and turned, he was so unnerved that he could feel the blood drain from his face—which must, he thought, make her slap stand out like finger paint on his pale face.
The young woman chasing him down looked so like his late patient that he nearly blurted “Priscilla—”
As she got closer, the eerily strong resemblance vanished; she was younger than Priss, but looked older.
“Ha!” she said. “For a minute you thought I was her, didn’t you? I’ve spooked a whole lot of people today. So much fun. Speaking of which, what’d you do to piss off my mother?”
“I said something she didn’t want to hear. You’re Priss’s younger sister?”
“Yeah, I’m Sydney.” She laughed again. “I hope you think of something else offensive to say to my mother. That was very entertaining. Who are you, anyway?”
“I was her doctor.”
“Mom’s?”
“Well, yes, at one time. But I meant your sister’s.”
He saw a look of distaste cross her face. “Do you know, if she hadn’t given away all that money, I might be three million dollars richer now?”
“What makes you think she’d have left it to you?”
She gave him a sharp look. “And that’s your business how?”
When he didn’t answer, she said, with a lift of her chin and an unpleasant smirk, “At least she left me her boyfriend. Although, to be honest, I stole him a little earlier than that.”
Sam followed her glance to a dark-haired young man slouched against a wall, the sole of his left shoe propped against the gorgeous wallpaper, his hands crossed behind his back as he rested his weight on them. The propped foot made Sam feel like a grumpy old codger; he realized that his first thought was: No manners, no respect for other people’s property. Figures, for a jerk who’d let one sister steal him away from the other sister. He felt pained on Priscilla’s behalf, but then thought maybe she’d got the better end of that particular bargain. The stolen boyfriend and the thieving sister deserved each other.
“Why didn’t your parents hold the service at their own church?” he asked.
“Because our minister might have said nice things about Priss.”
“Wow.”
“Hey, she’s lucky they didn’t hire a funeral home.”
“All this punishment just for being an unmarried pregnant teenager?”
Sydney shot him a furious look, which he received as an equal match to his own fury at all of them.
“What about you?” he asked her very quietly.
“What about me?”
“Your father—”
“Shut up! If you say anything else, I’ll slap you, too.”
Sydney turned away so fast that her long hair swung across her shoulders.
Seeing hostile looks from people around him, Sam continued on to the elevator and took it down, descending in regal solitude because no one wanted to ride with him.
Out on the street, Sam checked his phone.
His receptionist had texted: Cop wants to talk to you. She had left no name but did give him a number, which he called immediately.
The man who answered said, “Dr. Waterhouse. Thanks for calling me back. I’d like to talk to you about the murder of Priscilla Windsor. Where are you right now, sir?”
“Just leaving the funeral reception at her parents’ place.”
“Well, that’s a lucky coincidence, because I’m waiting outside there. By any chance, are you tall and handsome, with ridiculously great silver hair, wearing a really nice gray suit?”
“I think you have me confused with Richard Gere. I’m medium height, mid-fifties, black suit, graying brown hair.”
“Oh, okay, I’ve got you now. I guess we can’t all be Richard Gere. But, really, you’re not so far from George Clooney.”
“Detective …”
“Paul Cantor. Turn left, look ten yards down for a short bald guy in a blue suit that he won’t let his wife throw out.”
They shook hands, crossed over to the Central Park side of the street, and found a bench, where they sat with their backs to the park and their faces toward traffic.
Without a word, the detective handed Sam a long thin piece of notepaper with Sam’s name and office information at the top. Under that were the words TELL THE TRUTH, and then a list with an asterisk in front of each entry.
* Hotdog guy
* Dog lady
* Taxi drivers
* Sydney/Allen
* The Awful Parents
* The Other Awful Parents
* Dustin
All but the last entry had a single line drawn through it, as if each had been taken care of and then crossed off. Additional asterisks followed down the page, but nothing was listed beside them; she had either meant to add more or figured she already had plenty.
“Where’d you find this, Detective?”
“In her fanny pack. Do you have any idea what it is?”
“It’s a bucket list,” Sam informed him, and then he detailed the facts of the illness that had been set on killing Priscilla until someone took its chance away.
“Ah, some of this explains the funeral,” the detective said.
“I think so.”
“Hot-dog guy. That was amazing.”
“She was an amazing young woman.”
“Five thousand bucks. Makes me wish I’d had a chance to be rude to her, too.”
Sam laughed.
“You liked her?” the cop asked him.
“Oh, yes. She was a genuinely nice person.”
“Who might want to kill her?”
“What? It wasn’t a random guy?”
“We have a witness who saw somebody dressed like a runner near her building. Leaning against it, like he was waiting. Straightened up when she came out. Started walking, as if following her. Crossed a street when she did, turned the direction she did, and kept going after her. It didn’t look dangerous at the time, our witness says; it looked more casual. But that’s a hell of a casual coincidence—that he’d just happe
n to be hanging out near her building.”
“I don’t know what to say. Wow. That’s”—Sam stared at the traffic going by—“really awful. I can’t imagine who—”
The cop shrugged. “I’m thinking it wasn’t the hot-dog guy or that taxi driver.”
“Yeah.” Sam glanced at the detective. “I heard a story you didn’t hear. Remember the woman who got up to say something, but she never got a chance?”
“There were people popping up all over the place. I was at the back. I could see all of them. Which one was she?”
“Floral dress. Middle aged. Close to the front.”
“What was her story?”
“That she fired Priscilla the day she died.”
“She was going to tell that?”
“Well, no, she was going to say that all the little kids loved Priscilla.”
“Then why fire her?”
“For telling the truth.” Sam told the whole story, according to both women, as it had been told to him.
“So that would be ‘The Awful Parents,’ I guess. But who are ‘The Other Awful Parents’?”
“Her own, I think. Or vice versa.”
“So that could explain the incredibly impersonal service. I’ve never seen one like it. All those fancy people there to hear nothing about her, at least not until the mourner rebellion.”
“Mourner rebellion.” Sam nodded. “That’s what it was.”
“The mom and dad looked as if they’d wandered into a funeral for a stranger.”
“I just got slapped by one of them.”
The detective’s eyes widened. “What did you do, tell them you liked her?”
“I suggested to her mom that if she ever wants to know for sure whether her husband had molested their daughter, I still have some DNA that could prove it one way or the other.”
“Holy moly, Doc. Let’s walk while you tell me more.”
As they got up to enter the park, the detective pointed to the bucket list. “Who are Sydney and Allen, do you know?”
“Sydney is the sister who hated Priss for giving away three million dollars to charity, and I’m guessing that Allen is Priss’s boyfriend who cheated on her with her sister.”
“Man, oh, man,” the detective said. “Am I ever glad you gave her a piece of paper with your name on it.” He laughed a little. “What about this last name? Dustin.”
“Don’t know,” he said, lying.
As they parted, the detective said, “Don’t worry. We’ll catch her killer the easy way—with surveillance video.”
Sam’s heart picked up its pace.
He had worried about exactly that possibility.
He steadied his voice: “A camera in the park?”
“No, across the street from her building.”
For the first time that day, Sam felt beyond nervous, beyond anxious, and deep into frightened. When he shook hands in farewell, he hoped his palm wasn’t as sweaty as he feared it was.
At the last minute, he found the nerve to ask, “Have you looked at it yet?”
“The video?” The cop shook his head. “No, but I hear it’s good stuff. See ya, Doc. You gave me good stuff, too. Thanks.”
Sam got his breathing under control and then called home just to hear his wife’s voice. She was an architect, working from their house.
“How’s tricks?” she answered, their habitual query.
“Okay. How are you and Eric?”
They had a ten-year-old son, the light of both of their lives.
He would have been adopted if they’d gone through proper channels, if Sam hadn’t put the proper papers under his patient’s nose and whisked them away to be shredded after Priscilla signed them. No one was ever supposed to know her baby was a child of incest; Eric was only ever supposed to know that he had been loved by a young mom who couldn’t keep him. And when the time came for him to ask about her, she would have vanished into bureaucratic thin air. He would never know where she was, she would never know where he was, and everybody would be happier for it.
Priss had named him Dustin.
Of course, he would be on her bucket list.
Of course, she would want to see him once more before she died, if only from a painful distance. That’s what Sam’s wife Cassity had predicted when he told her about Priscilla’s diagnosis. His wife, so smart, so empathetic, had immediately cried, with desperation and doom in her voice, “She’s going to want to see him, Sam! It’s going to ruin his life!”
And ours, Sam had realized at that moment.
At first, he’d tried to convince himself that nothing could happen, for Priscilla couldn’t find any of the information she might seek; she didn’t possess copies of the paperwork and had been too young to know to ask for them.
But he realized that if she were as determined as he knew she was capable of being, she would then come to him, asking for the information: Where is my child?
What would he tell her? He could lie, but that would only lead her to an adoption agency that had never heard of her. He could tell her the truth—that he had fooled her and taken her baby—a revelation that could spiral into disaster.
Maybe she’ll be happy I did it, he’d tried to convince himself. Maybe she’ll think it’s all for the best.
But what if she didn’t? Could they take that chance?
They could lose Eric.
Losing his medical license would be the least of Sam’s punishments; losing Eric would be the very worst. Between those two consequences would be kidnapping charges against him and his wife.
“Honey,” Cassity said, interrupting his terrified thoughts, “he’s still at school. Are you so busy you’ve lost track of time?”
“I guess so. Speaking of … gotta go. Love you guys.”
“Ditto, Doctor.”
The dog lady couldn’t get her terrier to shut up.
The dog barked. His owner yelled at him. The dog barked again because the owner yelled. The owner yelled again because the dog barked. And around and around they went, barking and yelling, all because of a knock on the door.
“Who is it?” she screamed at her apartment door.
“Police!” a male voice called back.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Buddy, be quiet!”
As she unlocked and opened the door with one hand, she held onto the dog with her other arm. “Hang on. Let me get his magic collar and he’ll shut up. I guess I’m going to have to keep it on him all the time.”
The thick-set man in a blue suit stood in the doorway as she picked up the little dog and scurried to her tiny dining room, where she picked up a collar and struggled to get it onto the pooch.
“It’s eucalyptus!” she said to the cop at the door. “Just watch!”
Somehow she got it fastened onto the dog.
Buddy started to make a ferocious charge toward the door, opening his mouth to bark, but a second in he stopped barking.
“See?” his owner crowed. “Magic, I’m telling you.”
“What the heck?” the blue-suited cop asked as he stepped inside. “Why’d he stop barking?”
“The collar lets out a spray of eucalyptus scent! He hates it.”
“I never heard of that. That’s amazing. Where’d you get it?”
“My neighbor, that poor sweet girl, gave it to me the day before she got murdered. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To ask me about Priscilla? She was lovely. I know Buddy’s barking drove her mad. It drove me crazy, too. But she found out about these magic collars and gave one to me.”
“I’ve got to get one for my dog.”
“They’re expensive, and it doesn’t work on all dogs, I hear.”
“It sure works on this one.”
“Oh, yes. And Buddy’s a barking demon.”
The cop, who had crouched to take a look, stood back up. “Yeah, I heard him.”
“I don’t know anything about her getting killed except that it was horrible, and I’m just broken up about it.”
“Did she say
anything about being stalked or followed?”
“Oh, my word, no. I never heard anything like that. Was that what happened?” She didn’t give him time to answer. “I’ll tell you what I did hear, though. When she came down to give me the collar, she was jittery, and she told me she was going to do something she wasn’t sure she should do.”
“What?”
“She told me she’d had a baby when she was only sixteen, and her parents had kicked her out of the house, and by that time it was too late for an abortion, and she’d put it up for adoption, and she was going to try to find the baby and just get a look at him. That’s all she wanted, she said, just to see him one time before she died to make sure he was taken care of. She told me she had cancer. Isn’t that ironic? That she had only a short time to live anyway, and then some monster kills her and takes away her only chance to see her only child. It’s just so sad and awful. She had the worst luck. Seems so unfair for such a nice person. I’ll think of her every time Buddy doesn’t bark.”
With a shaking hand, Sam laid his keys on the little curved table in the foyer of his home.
“Cassity?” he called out to his wife. “I’m going to change clothes. Then let’s go for a run.”
“Okay!” she called back from her office.
Minutes later, they met in the foyer, and she smiled a welcome home for him. It looked forced; there’d been a brittle, frantic quality to her since Priscilla’s murder. It hurt his heart to see it in her face and hear it when she spoke to him. Only with Eric did she still seem like herself.
She was tall and athletic, with college-shot-putting shoulders and legs that could pound down tracks as if Olympic medals were at stake.
“I’m rarin’ to go,” she said, though she sounded weary.
She had on running shoes, pants, and a top; her long dark hair was pulled into a ponytail at the top of her head. She’s so beautiful, Sam thought, and such a wonderful mother. They’d both married late and then waited for many fruitless, disappointing years for the child they both wanted. Nothing had worked, but somehow their marriage grew deeper in a situation that would have weakened many others. He loved her fiercely, thought her brave and tender, brilliant and wonderful. He had felt guilty through all the years of trying to have a baby because it was his biology that failed them. When they finally agreed on adoption, enough years had passed that their ages became a problem on applications.
