Let There Be Suspects (30 page)

Pretending never seems to work for me. I guess I need acting lessons. I edged toward the wall so I could position myself for a run for the doorway.

“My family knows where I am,” I said, “and people know you’re the only person besides Lucy who has a key.”

“I don’t know what to do with you.” He sounded as if he meant it.

I sized him up. He was bigger and stronger, but I was trained in self-defense. Of course for all I knew, so was Cliff. Lesson One. Never underestimate your opponent.

I played for time. “Tell me why. Why you used the guinea pig and the motion detectors to set up an alibi so you could kill Ginger. Why murder, Cliff? If you didn’t want to be married to her, why didn’t you just divorce her? That’s what people normally do.”

“You think I set out to kill
Ginger
?”

It was the slight emphasis on that last word that put it all in perspective.

“It was Schaefer, wasn’t it? You went to kill him.” And at last the reasons clicked into place, as well. Lucy had given me the final clue; I just hadn’t yet put it all together. Peter Schaefer had told me his last practice was in Chicago, and that his partner had died. Schaumburg was a suburb of the city, Schaumburg, where Cliff Grable and Marilyn Matthews had been living when Marilyn committed suicide. The same Marilyn who had suffered from a condition that sounded like the one Peter had mentioned to me when he was explaining the theories of pain relief, a condition so painful that she had killed herself to escape it.

Lucy had said that the partner of Marilyn’s doctor avoided prosecution. But if I was right, he had
not
avoided Cliff Grable’s wrath.

“He killed my Marilyn,” Cliff said.

“But her doctor had a different name . . .” I couldn’t remember. I edged a little closer to the wall.

“Lawson. James Lawson. Yes, but Peter Schaefer was his partner.”

“Did he ever prescribe for her? I thought the courts found him innocent.”

“You know a lot.”

“And so do other people who will put two and two together if I disappear.”

“Schaefer didn’t prescribe for Marilyn, no. At first I wasn’t going to kill
him.
Then I came here and I met him at your open house. There he was, in the flesh. It almost seemed like a sign when he and that other character Sid was with, what was his name?”

“Bix.”

“Yes, Bix noticed my fraternity ring. What an idiot. He’d already discovered somehow that Schaefer was a Delta Xi, so he introduced me, and that’s when I realized who he was.”

“You’d never seen him?”

“No, everything he did for Marilyn was by phone. I never saw him in court. He was exonerated before it came to that.”

“I guess he didn’t recognize your name.”

“Marilyn went by her maiden name. The suit was in her name, and besides, I’m not even sure Bix used my last name when he introduced me.”

“So you thought seeing him at the party was a sign you should kill him?”

“Don’t make me sound like some kind of fruitcake. I don’t act on signs. I’m a scientist. No, even at that point I was going to let it all go. Then I discovered that my wife”—he cleared his throat, but the rage couldn’t be cleared away so easily—“My second wife was seeing him. He was giving her drugs. Just the way his partner gave Marilyn drugs. So damned many drugs! And they made it so easy for her . .”

“Oh, Cliff . . .” Despite everything, I felt sorry for him. In his mind, Ginger had been a victim, just like Marilyn. He couldn’t see that Peter’s mission was to help patients, not to hook them on drugs or give them the means to kill themselves. And maybe there was some grain of truth to his suspicions. The jury was still out on whether the kind of medicine Peter practiced harmed or helped.

He was pacing now, unfortunately right in front of the door. Back and forth, but blocking my exit still and watching me as he went.

“Cliff ”—I cleared
my
throat—“a moment ago you said you weren’t going to kill
him.
You sort of emphasized that last word.”

“There’s a lot you can do with wiring.”

The three-alarm house fire that had killed Peter’s partner. I moved away from that subject rapidly, even as I moved closer to the wall and the door. “I know you didn’t mean to kill Ginger. What happened?”

“I heard a phone call she made to the doctor’s office. I was beginning to get suspicious that something was going on because she kept disappearing. I knew she wasn’t with your family, and Emerald Springs is no shopping mecca. So I picked up the extension in the kitchen. Good thing we took a suite, huh? Then when she left the room I found an appointment card in her nightstand, and I knew. I realized I had been wrong to let Schaefer off the hook. So the night after we had dinner here I went to his office. I did some scouting, and I found the pond. I figured it would be easy to rig things so it looked like a simple accident.”

“What if somebody else had gotten there first?”

“What’s the first thing a homeowner does when he sees fish floating in his pond? He scoops them out so nobody else will see them. I figured that wasn’t something Schaefer would leave to his staff or that they would agree to do for him. I was going to set it up while everybody was off at the Christmas Eve service, then whenever he came back? I figured the first thing he would do was check the pond. I planned to disconnect the ground fault interrupter. It’s not hard. Make a few adjustments to his extension cord, get inside and do a little work on the circuit breakers. His pump had enough juice, which was thoughtful, wasn’t it?”

He was describing Peter’s accident perfectly, except the date and victim were wrong. “So what happened on Christmas Eve instead?”

“I didn’t really think I’d need an alibi. I had no idea when Schaefer would return and find the fish, and I doubted anyone would suspect it was sabotage. But I figured an alibi wouldn’t hurt. Ginger said she was going to the church service, so I dropped her off in town a little early, like she asked, to do some last-minute shopping. When I got here I saw the woman next door gazing at me and the house through her window. I had the guinea pigs to give to your girls that night at dinner. I came in and set the black and white one loose. I had treats, and I scattered food through the rooms that had my switches, so it would come and go. Then the moment it got dark, I left by the back door.”

He seemed happy to talk about this, as if he was explaining how he had gotten Ed’s train running after decades.

“I guess something went wrong though,” I prompted.

“I had a long black overcoat I keep in our car for emergencies. I put it on to cover what I was wearing in case anyone noticed me, then I made my way to Schaefer’s. It took a little longer than I’d expected. I was afraid I wasn’t going to have time to do everything. But it didn’t matter because he was still there. He was just closing the front door. It was Christmas Eve, and he had stayed late to give his patients enough drugs to destroy their lives. On Christmas Eve! I watched him drive away, and I knew killing him was the right thing to do, even if I had to wait for a better time.”

He stopped pacing. “And then I realized who his last patient had been.”

“Ginger.”

“She was coming down the sidewalk when she saw me.”

I waited, because what else could I do? Cliff looked like he was far away, most likely reliving the next events. But he was still between me and the door.

He finally glanced at me. “I told her I knew what she was doing and why, and I wanted to help her. She looked at me like I was dirt under her feet. You know that look?”

I was afraid I did. “She wasn’t the woman you thought she was, Cliff. But she fooled a lot of people in her time.”

“I told her I loved her, that I wanted to help. She said she was sick of my help, that I was nothing but a loser, and it was my fault she had to score drugs from people like Peter Schaefer to sell, that if I had just taken what I’d been offered by my last company, we could have lived in luxury.”

“Cliff, she owed money to someone. She was trying to pay it back.”

He stepped toward me, his eyes blazing. He pointed a finger at me and jabbed it at my chest. “Does that matter? Does why she was doing it matter? She was putting those drugs out on the street! I guess she thought I realized that, too, that
that’s
what I had meant when I said I knew what she was doing. But until that moment I thought she was just trying to get relief. Then all I could think about was the fact that this woman had used me! She had married me because I was an easy target, and when she didn’t get what she wanted, she found a way to find drugs and sell them. Drugs like the ones that killed my Marilyn!”

I stood perfectly still as I scrambled for a way to get around him or disable him badly enough that I could escape. But anything I tried might push him over the edge. And where would that leave me? Free to have another heart-to-heart with Roussos? Or sitting somewhere in the great beyond listening to Ginger describe more bad ideas for another cookbook.

Before I could act I heard steps on the staircase, and a voice.

“Aggie? Who are you talking to?”

It was Sid. Cliff hadn’t locked the front door after he came in. Sid had let herself in, and was on her way upstairs.

She appeared before I could shout a warning.

“Hey, Cliff, it’s you.” Sid smiled at him. “Putting in more switches?”

He stared at her. She cocked her head. “I just came over to see if Aggie realized my sweater’s in the closet. I forgot to tell her, and she was taking so long. I thought maybe she was searching the house.”

She glanced at me. “Aggie, I finally got in touch with Bix. He’s in Pennsylvania with some woman he used to date. He’s been there since . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she turned back to Cliff. “Cliff, what’s going on?”

He didn’t speak.

This time when she looked at me, she was frowning. “Is that another guinea pig? You got Teddy another one after all? Why, to cheer her up because of Moonpie?”

When no one answered she fell silent.

I addressed Cliff. “There are two of us now, Cliff. Are you going to kill two innocent women? Isn’t it time to end this a better way?”

“Kill?” Sid squeaked. “What are you talking about? Cliff’s a good guy.”

A good guy who had never stopped grieving for the first woman he loved, a woman who had been able to explain the world to him. A good guy who had seen a way to avenge her and taken justice into his own hands. How quickly a good guy becomes a bad one.

Sid didn’t move away from Cliff. In fact she moved closer. She stretched out her arm and touched his. Just one brief, light touch. “Ginger?”

He gave a sorrowful nod.

She sighed. “Oh, Cliff, she hurt so many people. She just never learned not to. I guess when you’re hurting yourself, it’s like leveling the playing field.”

My little sister. The Material Girl. The princess. And yet here she was, facing a murderer and showing a compassion so genuine, it broke my heart.

There were more footsteps, and this time the body in the doorway was Detective Roussos, followed by a woman in uniform. Their guns were drawn.

“Step away from him, Miss Kane,” Roussos said calmly.

“I was never going to hurt them,” Cliff said. “Not Aggie, and not Sid. Just so you know.”

Sid backed away and Roussos filled the space where she had been. He holstered his weapon, then he pulled Cliff’s arms behind him and snapped handcuffs in place. “Cliff Grable, you’re under arrest for the murder of Ginger Grable and the attempted murder of Peter Schaefer. You have the right to remain silent.”

19

Life seems to be improving for me. After all, the last time I faced a murderer, I got a concussion. This time I was only badly shaken.

“I’ll stop trembling next year,” I promised Ed. “That gives me, what, another two and a half hours?”

Junie sat on the sofa, one arm around me, one around Sid, who had been sniffing suspiciously for the past fifteen minutes. “My precious girls. What were you thinking?”

“Well, I wasn’t thinking Cliff Grable was a murderer,” I admitted. “At least not in time to do anything about it.”

Ed had Teddy on one hip and Deena clutched against his side. “Would this be a good time to point out that I told you not to pursue this?”

Ed could be forgiven. His face had drained completely of color as Sid and I gave the abbreviated version of our evening’s adventure. Now Deena’s sturdy little body was probably keeping him upright. Besides, he wasn’t the first man to say “I told you so” tonight.

I managed to get to my feet and put my arms around all of them. Ed kissed my forehead. Teddy hooked a hand around my neck. Even Deena forgot she’s supposed to be breaking away and wrapped her arms around my waist.

“Girls, you come with me.” Junie got to her feet and held out her arms for Teddy. “We’re going to see if the brownies are ready. Then we’re going to fix something good to go with them. That’s what this family needs.”

They went, although Deena gave one long, searching look before she left the room, just to make sure Sid and I were really okay.

“Let’s hear it all.” Ed took Junie’s place on the sofa and dragged me down beside him.

After Cliff was arrested, Sid and I had driven to the station to give brief statements, but not a lot of detail was needed. Apparently Cliff started talking in the police car and continued in what passed for an interrogation room. For his sake I was sorry the station hadn’t settled into nicer quarters. But I guess Cliff wasn’t going to be in nicer quarters for a very long time.

So far I’d only said that Cliff killed Ginger by accident, and he was telling me the story when the police showed up. I wasn’t going to lie to my daughters, but I needed a little time to sort out how to present it to them.

Now I explained how Cliff had planned to kill Peter and killed Ginger instead when she came out of Peter’s office that night. “I guess for the first time he realized what a fool he’d been. And it hit him hard.”