Heartstopper

by Joy Fielding

  The pen fell from Ian’s hand, hit the desk, rolled between two framed photographs of his children, and dropped to the gray-carpeted floor, where it bounced out of sight. “Excuse me?”

  “Monday, April—”

  “I know what day it was.”

  “Then perhaps you can tell me what you were doing that afternoon.”

  “Is this a joke? I’ve already been questioned about this.”

  “No, Dr. Crosbie. I assure you it’s not a joke.” John watched the color drain from Ian’s tanned cheeks and tried not to smile. It wouldn’t be professional to betray his enjoyment of the good doctor’s all-too-obvious discomfort.

  “Well …I was here. I’ve already told that to one of your deputies.”

  “Yes, I believe it was Deputy Trent you spoke to last week,” John said, pulling his small notebook out of his shirt pocket and reading from his notes. “He says you claimed your office was closed that afternoon.”

  Ian became even more flustered. “It was closed. I had some paperwork to catch up on. What are you implying?”

  “So much paperwork you canceled your patients?”

  “I didn’t have any patients booked for that afternoon.”

  “Really?” John flipped forward several pages. “According to your receptionist, whom another of my deputies talked to a couple of days ago, you told her to cancel your appointments that afternoon because of a family crisis.” John had assigned an officer to interview Becky after running into Ian at Kerri’s house.

  “Well, it wasn’t a crisis exactly. My wife was upset about something regarding our son—”

  “Your wife? That would be Sandy Crosbie?”

  “Well, we’re separated, of course, but—”

  “She doesn’t remember being upset about anything.” Actually he hadn’t talked to Sandy, but he had a pretty good instinct he was right about this.

  “That’s because she’s always upset about something. Look, Sheriff, I don’t understand where this is going. I’m beginning to feel a little like a suspect here.”

  “Whoa, slow down a minute, Ian. Who said anything about you being a suspect?”

  “Then why the third degree?”

  “Just doing my job. I mean, try to see it from my point of view.” John glanced around the book-lined room. “Clearly you have a very busy practice. Yet you chose to cancel your patients that afternoon and send your receptionist home. Why is that?”

  “I told you I had a lot of paperwork to catch up on.”

  John smiled. “You might want to rethink that one,” he said slowly.

  There was a pause, followed by a shake of the head, a nod of defeat. “All right, look. We’re both men here. I’m sure you understand about these things.”

  “What things?”

  Another pause. A slight pursing of his lips. “I was with someone.”

  Not altogether unexpected, John thought. “Kerri Franklin?”

  Yet another pause. A roll of his eyes. “No.”

  Now this, this was unexpected. John shook his head, half in outrage, half in admiration. He’d come in here on a fishing expedition. He hadn’t expected to actually catch anything. “Liana Martin?” he asked, almost afraid to hear the doctor’s response.

  “Liana Martin? No! God, no! She was a child, for God’s sake.”

  “She was eighteen,” John reminded him.

  “I didn’t even know Liana Martin.”

  “Who then?” John reached over to grab a pen from the mug on Ian’s desk. “I’ll need a name.”

  “Look. It’s a little embarrassing.”

  “It’ll be more than a little embarrassing if you don’t give me a name. I already have a witness who can place you on Liana Martin’s street around the time she disappeared.”

  “What? That’s crazy!”

  “Is it?”

  “I don’t even know where she lived, for God’s sake. There’s no way I was there.”

  “If you don’t know where she lived, how do you know you weren’t there?”

  “Because I was here.” Dr. Crosbie realized he was yelling and quickly lowered his voice. “I was here.”

  “Who were you with, Ian? Is she a patient?”

  “A patient? No, of course not. You think I’m nuts? You think I want to lose my license over a piece of ass?”

  It was John’s turn to wince. He’d always hated unnecessary crudeness, although he supposed he was as guilty of it as anybody. “Then who?”

  “It’s nobody you’d know.”

  “I’ll need a name to corroborate your story.”

  Another pause. Ian Crosbie pressed the fingers of his right hand against his temple, as if he had the worst headache in the world.

  And perhaps he did, John thought, deciding to sit down and make himself comfortable after all. He sat back, stretching his long legs out to one side. “A name?”

  “Marcy. Marcy Grenn. Look, do you have to …?”

  John jotted down the unfamiliar name. “Address?”

  “She lives in Boca. She’s married,” Ian admitted sheepishly. “The only address I have is her e-mail.”

  This just keeps getting better and better, John thought. “You’re saying you met her online?”

  “I don’t appreciate your tone, Sheriff.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t realize I had one.”

  “My personal life is none of your business.”

  “I’m investigating a murder, Dr. Crosbie.”

  “Which I had absolutely nothing to do with, no matter who says they saw me on Liana Martin’s street the day she disappeared.”

  John pretended to scribble something in his notebook. In truth, nobody had come forward claiming to have seen the good doctor on Liana Martin’s street that afternoon. He’d just thrown the accusation out to provoke Ian further, see where it might lead. And what do you know? It had led him to Boca Raton and a married woman named Marcy Grenn. Sometimes, he thought, feeling a sudden surge of energy, this job was downright fun. “I’ll need that e-mail address.”

  Ian Crosbie quickly jotted down the address on a piece of prescription paper and handed it across the desk. “I trust you’ll keep this information confidential.”

  “I don’t think this exactly qualifies as doctor-patient privilege,” John told him, pocketing the piece of paper along with his notepad, then returning the pen to its former home.

  “Look. I’m just asking you to be discreet,” Ian said. “There’s no reason anybody else has to know about this, is there?”

  “Nice talking to you, Ian,” John said, rising to his feet. “I’ll be in touch.” He walked from the office, saying a pleasant good-bye to Becky and the people in the waiting room, knowing the whole town would soon be whispering about his unscheduled visit with Ian Crosbie. He’d contact this Marcy Grenn in Boca, he was thinking as he climbed into his cruiser, even though he was pretty certain Ian was telling the truth about her. There was no point in saying anything about her to Kerri, he decided as he pulled away from the curb and headed toward the highway. She’d just accuse him of being jealous and spiteful, acting more from sour grapes than genuine concern. In the end she’d believe what she wanted to believe. People always did.

  “Mr. Peterson,” John said to the balding science teacher as he slid into the booth across from him. “Mind if I join you?”

  “Sheriff,” the man replied, looking just past John’s head toward the washrooms at the back. Even though it was a Monday night, Chester’s was filled to capacity. Avery Peterson was sipping on a gin and tonic. An untouched Coca-Cola sat in the middle of the polished wooden table, a slice of lemon balancing precariously from the rim of the tall glass. “Actually, I’m with someone. She’s just ‘powdering her nose.’”

  “That’s all right. I won’t be here long. I just need to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

  Avery Peterson shrugged. “I thought I answered all your questions last week.”

  “These are new ones. Mr. Peterson—”

  “
Avery,” the science teacher interrupted.

  John nodded. He had no desire to be on friendlier terms with the middle-aged Romeo. He’d seen the someone he was with, a young woman named Ellie Frysinger, who’d graduated from Torrance High only two years earlier and who now worked at the mall selling discount clothing. What the pretty, young woman saw in this nondescript, balding lothario was beyond John’s comprehension. And yet rumor had it he’d been involved with a surprising number of eager young women ever since his rather acrimonious divorce five years earlier.

  “I hear he’s hung like a horse,” Pauline had confided the other night over a dinner of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

  “I believe that falls under the category of too much information,” John had testily replied, tossing his untouched drumstick to the plate. Did women really consider such things important? he’d wondered then as he wondered now. He’d always liked to believe that they were less superficial than men, but increasingly he wasn’t so sure. Being the fairer sex didn’t make you the better one. Vulnerability didn’t necessarily equal sensitivity.

  Now John was having a hard time looking at the science teacher—his daughter’s science teacher, for God’s sake—without thinking of horses. It was the last thing he wanted to be thinking about after an exhausting day spent driving back and forth to Boca Raton, although Marcy Grenn had been both pleasant and cooperative. She’d confirmed Ian’s story, even showed him the e-mails they’d exchanged after connecting in a chat room some weeks earlier. Her husband was always away on business, she’d confided, and she enjoyed the occasional diversion. She was smiling when she told him not to lose her e-mail address. John, while tempted, had driven away from her town house thinking that he and Dr. Crosbie already had one woman in common, and he wasn’t about to make it two.

  There was an accident on the highway and he’d spent over an hour stuck in traffic, then had a fight with Pauline over absolutely nothing, before heading over to Chester’s to reinterview Cal Hamilton. After all, his impromptu visit with Ian Crosbie had yielded a virtual treasure trove of information, albeit ultimately useless as far as Liana Martin’s case was concerned. He thought maybe he’d be able to loosen Cal Hamilton’s tongue as well.

  Except that when he’d gotten there, Cal Hamilton had already left. According to the bartender, he’d stormed out of Chester’s over an hour ago without a word to anyone and had yet to return. John had been sitting at a table on the other side of the bar, nursing a beer and waiting for him to come back. It was almost nine o’clock. Pauline had already called twice to ask when he was coming home, and he’d been just about to leave when he saw Avery Peterson come in with Ellie Frysinger.

  “We’ve had reports you were seen in Pearson Park the night of Liana Martin’s wake,” the sheriff began.

  Avery Peterson didn’t flinch. “That’s right.”

  “Mind telling me why you were there?”

  The science teacher shrugged. “I was just curious.”

  “Curious?”

  “About who would show up, what they had planned, that sort of thing.”

  “You knew it was supposed to be a ‘kids only’ event?”

  “Just watching out for my students. In case anyone got carried away.”

  “Anyone ask you to do this?”

  “Lenny and I discussed it earlier.”

  “That would be Leonard Fromm?”

  “Our esteemed school principal, yes. That would be him.”

  “And if I were to call him right now, he’d confirm this?”

  Avery Peterson retrieved his cell phone from his jacket pocket, offered it across the table. “Be my guest.”

  “Several people reported you lurking behind the bushes,” John said, ignoring the phone.

  Avery Peterson returned it to his pocket and smiled. “I was trying to be discreet.”

  “What was your relationship with Liana Martin?” John asked pointedly.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Answer the question please, Avery.”

  “She was my student.”

  “Nothing more?”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, it’s no secret that you like your women on the young side.”

  “Is that a crime?”

  “No, but murder is.”

  Avery Peterson laughed. “Please tell me you didn’t really say that.”

  There was the muffled sound of a police siren. John shrugged. “That would be my cell phone,” he announced, extricating it from the rear pocket of his pants. “The siren was my daughter’s idea.” He pressed the correct button and lifted the phone to his ear.

  “John,” the woman’s voice shouted before he had the chance to say hello. “You have to get over here right away.”

  In the background John heard banging and yelling. “Kerri?”

  But before she had a chance to answer, the line went dead in his hands.

  TWENTY-ONE

  What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the man demanded, advancing angrily, swatting the phone from Kerri’s hand with a furious flick of his wrist.

  Kerri felt the sting of his fingers as the phone flew into the air, then crashed to the floor, the piece of plastic at the back of the receiver coming loose and disgorging the batteries inside. They rolled across the rose-colored carpet, coming to rest under the white, pleated dust ruffle of her queen-size bed. “I’ve called Sheriff Weber,” she told him, shielding her face in case he got tired of swinging at inanimate objects and started taking his frustrations out on her. She’d invested far too much time and money on her face to have it casually destroyed by some moron who was mad because he couldn’t find his wife. “He’s on his way.”

  Cal Hamilton sneered, “I’ve seen the sheriff in action. Trust me. He doesn’t move that fast.”

  Maybe not for you, Kerri was thinking, although what she said was “I really think you should go now.”

  “Not till I get what I came for.” He folded one muscular forearm over the other, planted his feet a shoulder-width distance apart.

  Mr. Clean with hair, Kerri thought, although his white T-shirt was covered with grime, and even from a distance of several feet she could smell the liquor on his breath. “I told you. She’s not here.”

  “Then where is she?”

  “How the hell would I know?” Kerri asked impatiently. “I’ve never said two words to the woman.”

  “No, but your daughter has.”

  “And she already told you she has no idea where your wife is.”

  “The little pig is lying, and so are you.” Cal pushed a small chair out of his way and inched closer.

  Kerri took an involuntary step back, angry at herself for allowing this man to intimidate her in her own home. Three husbands had already tried that. Three husbands had been sent packing. If only Delilah hadn’t answered the door. “It’s Mr. Hamilton,” Kerri could still hear her daughter’s little-girl voice announce warily as she opened the front door.

  And then it was chaos.

  Cal Hamilton, whom Kerri had always considered cute in a thuggish sort of way, and Delilah, looking especially lumpish in her unflattering denim cutoffs, had exchanged heated accusations and denials, eventually waking up the sleeping giant that was Rose, who began yelling down from her upstairs bedroom, ordering everyone to shut the hell up. When it came to intimidation, Kerri thought, not without a trace of admiration, no man could hold a candle to her mother.

  Delilah and Kerri had raced upstairs as Cal began taking the downstairs rooms apart, tossing heavy furniture aside as if it were weightless, then tearing through the kitchen and the hall closet before bounding up the stairs and bursting into Kerri’s bedroom. She’d managed to shout out only a few words to the sheriff before Cal had furiously slapped the phone from her hand. Hopefully John was on his way. With any luck he’d get here before Cal did any real damage.

  Her mother and daughter had locked themselves in Rose’s room, but all it would take was a few swift kicks from Cal’s black leather boots
to bring the door crashing down. Unless Delilah had managed to push her mother’s heavy dresser from its place against the wall opposite Rose’s bed to barricade the door. Which was entirely possible. Her daughter was hardly a delicate flower, and all that extra weight should be good for something, Kerri thought, then immediately felt guilty. It wasn’t right to have such unkind thoughts about your own flesh and blood. Although it was hardly surprising. She was her mother’s daughter after all.

  “Last time, Kerri,” Cal warned now. “Where the fuck is she?”

  “Last time, moron,” Kerri answered steadily. “I have no fucking idea.”

  It was then that he hit her, a hard smack across the face with his open palm that sent her sprawling across the top of her billowing white comforter. Kerri didn’t move. She was thinking that she should have seen it coming. She’d been in situations like this before, tense standoffs with drunken men who weren’t above using their fists to win an argument. Her first husband had beaten her so badly when she was pregnant with Delilah that he’d sent her to the hospital with two cracked ribs and a fractured wrist. Six months after their daughter’s birth, another beating had broken Kerri’s nose.

  The first of her cosmetic procedures, she thought now, reaching up to feel that Cal hadn’t damaged anything. What was taking John so long? And why wasn’t Delilah coming to her rescue? Surely she could hear what was going on. Surely she knew her mother was in trouble. Surely if she’d actually been able to drag the dresser in front of the bedroom door, she could push it away again.

  And then Kerri heard her daughter’s halting, little-girl voice ordering Cal to step back, and miraculously, she felt him comply. “Hey, girl,” she heard him say. “Don’t do anything stupid now.” And when she turned her head and looked toward the bedroom door, she saw Delilah standing there, her arms extended, a gun at the end of her trembling fingers.

  “Get your hands up in the air,” Delilah ordered, and again Cal did as he was told. “Are you all right?” Delilah asked her mother.

  Kerri nodded. “Sheriff Weber’s on his way.” Where on earth had Delilah gotten a gun?