by Tracy Weber
I’d seen the stranger before.
In the chaos of Dr. Dick’s murder, I’d forgotten about the angry man with the goatee—who was now standing in Kendra’s doorway. Although he’d exchanged his T-shirt and jeans for a jacket and slacks, I’d have recognized those dark, wary eyes anywhere. They belonged to the man who’d glared at Dr. Dick and Mariella. The man who’d been upset enough to drop his plate. The man who’d disappeared from the room when Dr. Dick left to chase after Rachel.
Nerve endings tingled up and down my arms. Was this also the man who had killed him?
Kendra waved him inside. “Hey, sweetie. I’m glad you’re here. This is the yoga teacher I told you about. Kate, meet my husband, Liam Delaney.”
Kendra, Liam, and I made small talk while I tried to find a way to smoothly turn the conversation toward murder. I finally segued by bringing up the open house.
“I think I’ve seen you before. Weren’t you at the celebration this past Saturday?”
Liam’s eyes, never that friendly to begin with, clouded over. “For a little while.”
“Did you hear about the incident that afternoon?”
“You mean the doctor that was killed?” He lowered his voice. “Good riddance.”
Kendra gasped. “Liam!”
“What? Do you seriously expect me to act like I care? That SOB killed our son.”
Their son? Was he referring to their stillborn baby?
I chose my next words carefully. I didn’t want to upset Liam—or Kendra, for that matter—any more than necessary. “Kendra told me about your son’s stillbirth. I’m so sorry.”
The words, though true, felt entirely inadequate. Then again, how could any words be sufficient? I glanced at Kendra, conflicted. Should I press Liam for more information? Upsetting Kendra couldn’t be good for her blood pressure, which by definition couldn’t be good for her baby. Still, Liam was my first solid suspect, and I didn’t want to waste the opportunity to question him.
In the end, Kendra decided for me. “Please excuse Liam. I suppress grief with panic. Liam gets angry. Most people think we should be over the loss of our baby by now, but they don’t understand.” Her eyes grew wet. “How could they? No one knows what it’s like to give birth to a stillborn child. Not unless they’ve gone through it.”
“Especially when it could have been prevented,” Liam growled.
Kendra reached for his hand. “Honey, we don’t know that.”
He crossed his arms and walked to the window. “I do.”
Kendra stared at his back for a moment, then spoke to me. “The man who was killed—Dr. Jones—was our first fertility doctor.”
Dr. Dick was a fertility specialist? That surprised me. I’d assumed he was an OB/GYN. I remained quiet and let her continue.
“Liam never trusted Dr. Jones,” Kendra said, “but his clinic came highly recommended, and for good reason. We got pregnant on our first IVF cycle. Everything went like clockwork until the delivery.”
Kendra glanced toward her husband, as if waiting for his permission to go on. Liam stared out the window, body as rigid as Mount Rainier.
After several long, uncomfortable moments, I gently prodded them. “You don’t have to tell me, but … ” My voice trailed off.
Kendra finished my question. “What happened? That’s just it. Nobody knows. My labor was slow, but everything seemed to go fine.” Her face became blank, as if she was purposefully numbing herself for the end of the story. “When the baby came out, he wouldn’t breathe. Dr. Jones tried CPR, but … ” She closed her eyes for a breath, then slowly opened them. “We had an autopsy done, but it didn’t find anything. The coroner’s best theory is that the baby’s cord got constricted somehow during the delivery.”
The baby’s death saddened but didn’t shock me. Summer had mentioned a similar case in doula training. Although it was extremely rare, sometimes things went horribly wrong, even in the lowest-risk births. I was, however, surprised that Dr. Jones was present. Since when did reproductive endocrinologists deliver babies?
“The hardest thing for me is that we never got any answers,” Kendra continued. “That’s why I keep panicking. If they don’t know what caused my first baby to die, how can I prevent it from happening again?”
Liam turned away from the window, kneeled, and took his wife’s hand. “We are preventing it. We’re going with a completely different clinic this time. We may not know specifically who’s going deliver our baby until the day it’s born, but it won’t be some high-profile quack.”
“Excuse me,” I said to Kendra, “but I’m confused. I thought Dr. Jones was your fertility specialist, not your OB/GYN.”
“He was both. That’s one of the unique selling points of Reproductive Associates. They stay with their clients from pre-conception to birth.”
Liam stood up again. “I had a bad feeling about that clinic all along. Reputable fertility docs don’t deliver their own babies. We never should have let them and that stupid birth coach talk us into using that new-age birth center. If we’d been in a hospital, our son would still be alive.”
“Honey, we don’t know that either,” Kendra replied.
“Our lawyer thought so. If we’d been here, you would have been consistently hooked up to a fetal heart monitor. It might have shown heart decelerations. Our doctor certainly wouldn’t have been drunk.”
“Drunk?” I asked.
Kendra frowned. “Please ignore that, Kate. And Liam, stop saying it. Our lawyer warned you. We could get sued for slander. You have absolutely no proof that Dr. Jones was drinking that night.”
“Well, something was off about him. We certainly weren’t his highest priority.”
“What you mean?” I asked.
“Like I said earlier,” Kendra replied, “my labor was long. Dr. Jones wanted to hurry things along.”
“It was more than that,” Liam said. “He acted irritated by the delay, as if our birth somehow inconvenienced him. Believe me, as much money as we paid that SOB, he could have worked a few hours of overtime.”
The petty part of me wondered if Dr. Dick had been anxious to meet Mariella in a hotel room somewhere, but I didn’t say that. “You mentioned a lawyer. Was there a lawsuit?”
The two spouses shared a veiled look.
“If you can call it that,” Liam said. “We tried to sue both the so-called doctor and that birth coach with the hippie name. Spring, or Sunshine, or whatever it was.”
The name popped out before I could stop it. “Summer?”
Liam narrowed his eyes. “You know her?”
I backpedaled as fast as I could, hoping I hadn’t blown it. “I took a class with her a while ago. I don’t know her personally.” I neglected to mention a couple of minor details—like that “a while ago” was six weeks ago, Summer had taught the class, and I was meeting with her again in a few hours.
Kendra continued the story. “The case never made it to court. Our lawyer told us that a bad outcome didn’t equal malpractice. He said if we didn’t settle, our case might get tossed out before it ever went to trial.” Her chin trembled. “Liam wanted to keep fighting. For our loss to have meaning. But I needed to move on with my life. I couldn’t keep talking about that horrible day over and over. All I wanted was enough money to pay for fertility treatments again.”
“So we settled for … well, for not nearly enough,” Liam grumbled. “What’s the price of a son you’ll never have?”
Kendra gave him a wan smile. “Honey, none of this makes sense to me, either. I mourn Liam Jr. every day. Maybe losing him was the price we had to pay for our daughter. Maybe that’s our meaning.”
We sat silently for several moments, the only sound the soft tick, tick, ticking of the wall clock across the room. I wanted to ask for more specifics about the lawsuit. I could understand Liam’s grudge against Dr. Dick, even though it might
be factually unfounded. But Summer? How could Summer have been responsible for the baby’s death? There was a story there, and I wanted to hear it.
More than that, I wanted to help. To come up with a magic assurance that would make everything better. Some healing phrase that would melt away Kendra and Liam’s pain. Of course, there was none. I settled for words that were at least true. “I can’t imagine how hard that day must have been for both of you.”
“You have no idea,” Liam replied. “That’s why I almost lost it when I saw that quack at the open house. It felt like some demented version of Groundhog Day. Like we couldn’t be safe from him, even here.”
That was my cue. “Is that why you didn’t stay at the party? I noticed you left about the same time Dr. Jones did.”
Small muscles on either side of Liam’s jaw twitched. “Wait a minute. How do you know when that quack left the party? You knew him, too?” He took several steps toward me. “What’s going on here?”
I held up my palms and took the same number of steps back. “Nothing. I swear. The birthing community is a small world. I knew who he was, that’s all.” I wasn’t sure my words appeased Liam, but I pressed on anyway. “I’m super curious about what happened on Saturday, though. Aren’t you? Did you see anything suspicious or unusual?”
Liam’s eye’s hardened. “The police asked me the same question. I didn’t see anything. I came right back here to Kendra’s room the minute I saw that SOB. I didn’t leave again until after the police told me he was dead.”
Kendra didn’t make eye contact. Her hands trembled in her lap. “Liam was here with me all day Saturday, except for the fifteen minutes he went to the party. And that’s exactly what I told the police.”
Liam marched to the door and held it open. “I don’t mean to be rude, but you’re upsetting my wife. She needs to rest, not be reminded of death. Please leave. Now.”
It wasn’t a request. Either I left the room voluntarily or he’d carry me out.
I chose option one.
I paused at the doorway. “I’m sorry if I upset you.”
Liam slammed the door so forcefully that—unlike the saying—it actually did hit me on my way out.
I rubbed my bruised elbow all the way to the parking garage, feeling paradoxically saddened and re-energized. I was fond of Kendra. I’d hate for her to raise a child alone while Liam spent twenty-to-life in prison. But it might happen. I could easily envision Liam thrusting a knife into Dr. Dick’s sternum. Maybe even twisting it a time or two.
They were both hiding something. I didn’t know what, and I didn’t know why, but I was determined to find out.
First, I was going to have a very interesting conversation with Summer.
Thirteen
Bella and I arrived at Gasworks Park at five-thirty, which left me thirty short minutes to strategize. I felt uneasy about my upcoming meeting with Summer. When I’d called her yesterday, all I’d wanted was to finagle Nurse Tamara’s phone number out of her. But my discussion with Liam and Kendra had unearthed new, potentially significant information. Information Summer could help clarify. Was Dr. Dick’s murder related to Liam and Kendra’s stillborn baby? If so, was Summer an innocent bystander, a suspect in Dr. Dick’s murder, or the next victim? And how could I find out without admitting that I was investigating Dr. Dick’s death?
Dad’s voice echoed inside my head. Good luck with all that.
“Come on, Bella. I can think while you walk.”
I clipped a leash on Bella’s collar and meandered behind her as she followed an invisible scent trail across the parking lot, through the trees, and onto the large grassy field. As I took in the green space around me, I was awed—as always—by the park’s junkyard-meets-playground vibe. A short walking distance from the University of Washington’s main campus, Gasworks Park had been dubbed “one of the strangest parks in the world.”
I could understand why. The nineteen-acre, waterfront recreational area was built on the grounds of an abandoned coal gasification plant. Rusted distillation columns towered over a backdrop of emerald green grass, Lake Union’s sparkling blue water, and the distant gray skyscrapers of downtown Seattle. Dark relics of Seattle’s industrial past shadowing its metropolitan future.
The boiler house to my left had been converted into a children’s play barn filled with a maze of brightly painted machinery. To my right stood a steep, man-made grassy hill that was bisected by a zigzag white path and dotted with evening sun worshippers. At least fifty Canada geese waddled around the hill, herding their teenage goslings toward its top. I said a quick prayer to the universe that the Seattle City Council wouldn’t gas them this year. Unattractive—and supposedly unhygienic—droppings or not, I loved the majestic creatures.
“Come on Bella, let’s hike up to the top.”
I followed the uphill pathway, enjoying the sun on my shoulders and the cool evening breeze on my cheeks. Bella tugged at the end of her leash, playfully teasing the geese into flight.
A large, surprisingly grumpy-looking goose stood in our path, away from his gaggle. Bella glared at him, giving a clear, silent message:
Move.
The goose ignored her.
Bella added a single, loud bark and a halfhearted lunge.
I said, move.
The goose lifted his wings and replied with a fierce-sounding hiss.
I wrapped Bella’s leash tightly around my wrist. “Bella, leave it.” I punctuated the command by stepping off the path. Bella planted her paws, assumed the stance of a hundred-pound statue, and growled.
The feathered menace—who apparently had a death wish—glared at Bella, flapped his wings, and marched toward her, hissing.
Bella erupted.
She lunged, she jumped, she snarled, she growled. Cujo on meth would have been friendlier. I dug my heels into the earth and held on, mentally translating her vocalizations into English:
I said move! And I mean now! Or I’ll crush your hollow-boned body between my jaws and shake until every one of those ugly black feathers falls out. I’ll—
The goose took the hint. Sort of. He slooooowly waddled away, down the hill, one grumpy step at a time. Bella followed, barking and lunging at his tail feathers.
I desperately waved my free arm, trying to prevent the impending nosedive, but it was no use. Bella and I each weighed a little over a hundred pounds. Since dogs can pull two-and-a-half times their weight, Bella could easily drag two-point-five yoga teachers. The best I could do was hang on for the ride.
Five steps later, I fell. Bella charged after the feathered creature, pulling me down the hill like a kite behind her. The goose finally took flight. He soared overhead, dropping a parting gift on my forehead.
Gross!
Bella stopped pulling, happier than I’d seen her in days. She pranced. She play-bowed. She nibbled my chin. She jumped up and down at the end of her leash, tongue lolling out in a clear doggy grin:
Did you see? Did you see? I chased him away! She stopped, suddenly transfixed, and took three quick sniffs. What is that delicious-smelling morsel dripping down your nose?
I muttered words likely banned in most Bible Belt states and pulled myself up to standing. No injuries, at least not that I felt so far. But I was seriously reconsidering my pro-waterfowl position. I wiped my forehead with one of Bella’s dog-waste bags and cleaned my fingers on the grass.
“Come on, Bella. We’re going to the beach.”
Bella reversed course and pulled me toward the water.
I stopped her at the edge of the embankment. “Not so fast, sweetie. The sign says no swimming.”
Dogs weren’t allowed on Seattle beaches, a ridiculous law that most dog owners—myself included—ignored with impunity. In this case, however, the warning was important. In spite of multiple cleanups, the sludge along the shore was still polluted with toxic chemicals. Much too toxi
c for Bella’s paws.
I kneeled at the edge of the cement embankment, reached my hand into the water, and rinsed my forehead with the hopefully-not-too-health-threatening water. A voice came from behind me.
“That water’s toxic, you know.”
Bella whipped toward Summer, gave a single, loud warning bark, and stepped between us, blocking her. I knew Summer, of course, but to Bella, she was a stranger. Any stranger who approached me, especially from behind, was automatically suspect. Bella’s actions put Summer on notice: if she planned to harm me, she’d have to go through a hundred-pound German shepherd first.
I placed my hand between Bella’s shoulder blades and gave her the canine version of a “stand down” order. “Bella, this is Summer. Summer is our friend. Say hello.”
Exactly the words Bella had been hoping to hear. Her ears relaxed. Her tail lowered and slowly swished back and forth. She eased up to Summer, sat, and lifted her paw. Summer cringed but gave it a cautious shake.
“Oh my goodness! Look at the size of that paw!” Summer backed away. “Are you sure it won’t eat me?”
I understood her reaction, but it still caught me by surprise. After living with Bella for almost a year and a half, I sometimes forgot how truly imposing she appeared, especially to strangers.
“You’ll be fine,” I assured her. “Bella’s friendly to women and kids, especially if they give her a treat.”
At the sound of the T-word, Bella’s ears pricked forward with interest. I pulled a dog cookie out of my pocket and handed it to Summer, who awkwardly held the treat at the end of her fingertips, as far from her body as possible. A position I secretly called the please-amputate-my-fingers mudra. Bella gingerly grasped the treat between her teeth without touching skin.
Good girl.
Summer snatched her hand back and buried her fists underneath crossed arms. “That animal’s huge. How much does it weigh?”
I smiled. “Almost as much as a five-foot-three-inch yoga teacher. Don’t worry, though. She’s truly a big teddy bear.” I thought back to her most recent adventure. “Unless you’re a goose.”
