A Dose of Murder (38 page)

I couldn't take my eyes off it, until I ordered myself to. He couldn't see me staring at it or he'd tighten his hold and be more cautious.

“She was married. I wouldn't come between someone and their spouse.”

But you'd commit fraud and murder. I thought better than to say that. Vance was on a roll. I let him go on as I kept glancing at the gun and wiping the sweat from my forehead.

“Then her marriage became rocky. I only meant to comfort her, but . . . things happened. You know how that is. I needed you to take any suspicion off of Charlene and I being together.”

“Glad to have helped.”

“Thank you,” he said, then continued in a monotone. “She had two kids, and her ex left town. Bastard of an ex. Left her high and dry. So, I couldn't get openly mixed up with her.”

“Daddy wouldn't approve.”

He nodded.

I cursed his father for messing with Vance's mind.

'Cause look where it got him.

“But I still wanted to be with her even if secretly. That's why you and I didn't go out that often.”

No great loss there, buddy. I looked at him and nodded.

“But with her kids, and paying off huge debts her husband had left her, Charlene wasn't financially well off. Even for a doctor.”

“That's why you didn't marry her.” It wasn't a question. I knew Vance. Even though he loved her, and I didn't doubt that, he would be a failure in the eyes of his father if he didn't become wealthy. A woman and two kids needing that much money would be a drain on that plan.

“So you decided to commit fraud to get more money?”

He gave me a “What? Are you stupid?” look. “No, Pauline. Don't interrupt. Charlene and Donnie came up with the idea. They attended a medical seminar back in '98 over in England, where some consultants, who were subsequently caught and charged, discussed medical fraud, the fools. They actually would
teach
doctors how to commit fraud, under the pretense of teaching you how to watch out for it. Charlene and Donnie started out small. One claim here. A false claim there. One night when Charlene and I had finished making love . . .” He looked at me.

I yanked my eyes from the gun.

“Sorry. I don't mean to rub our sex life in your face.”

“No problem. I understand how you felt about her.”

“Feel.”

Yeah, right. And he'd proposed to me a time or two. I'd never really been in love and now I was dying to tell my mother that she was wrong about me marrying Vance after all the numerous times she'd tried to talk me into it.

I only hoped I would get the chance to tell her.

I'd started to feel a bit dizzy either from shock or claustrophobia or Vance. But I bit my lip a few times, figuring the pain would keep my mind clear.

“Anyway, after sex she'd told me about the money she and Donnie were making. I couldn't believe how easy it was.”

“So that's why you came to this practice.”

“You
are
smart. But it did take me a long time. I do have a conscience, you know, Pauline.”

Had one
. “I know, Vance. But, really, you broke the law and two people are dead.”

“It was their own fault. Eddy squealed and Linda had a fight with Charlene. Linda secretly loved Charlene, and when Charlene wouldn't . . . go for her . . . Linda threatened to report all of us. Charlene had to inject her to end the threats.”

“By inject I'm guessing you mean with a deadly drug.”

“Pavulon.”

I gasped. “A neuromuscular blocker? Without a respirator, a person dies.”

He sighed. “That was the idea.”

Linda had suffocated when her muscles relaxed so much that her lungs didn't function and her diaphragm didn't work. How awful. Yet clever, since it wouldn't be easily traced. Paralyzed to death with a simple injection.

“What about Tina and Donnie? Weren't you afraid they'd tell someone?”

“Ha! They're up to their eyeballs in debt. They need the money a hell of a lot more than Charlene and I.”

“So Tina was shredding evidence so you all wouldn't get caught?”

He looked confused.

“Oh, hell. I was following Tina. My new job is as a medical insurance fraud investigator.”

He laughed. “How ironic.”

“I'm glad you see humor in that.” I rubbed my arm.

“If I had my bag, I'd give you a shot of morphine for the pain. I figured you were snooping around for something. I thought you suspected me of something. Actually, I thought Eddy had told you about all of it. I'd seen you talking to him and that other man, whoever he is, far too often.”

He was softening. Maybe I could catch him off guard. I didn't allow myself to think of the “other man.” Jagger. “So you tried to scare me with the stuffed Spanky.”

“Spanky never liked me.”

Good taste.

“So I thought it was appropriate to put a note of warning on his little collar, telling you to give up this job. I thought it would scare you enough never to come back here.”

“Good thinking.”

“Why didn't it?”

Oh, hell. “Because I never got to see it. The police have it. They'll get you eventually, Vance.”

“With you out of the way, they'll have no proof. I used surgical gloves. They'll never trace the note to me. And . . . whatever I tell you will go no further than these walls.”

He might be right if Jagger wasn't on the case.

“Why couldn't you have gotten scared off when I followed you near Tina's house that day? Would have been to your benefit, Pauline.”

“You own a green parka.” I'd never suspected Vance to be a stalker. Not his style. Guess greed changed people.

He smiled—no, he grinned, a very clichéd sinister grin.

“I don't understand why Tina faked an injury—”

“Fat greedy bitch. If they had let me control things, and had listened, we'd all be millionaires and no one would ever have known.”

Again, not with the likes of Jagger around.

Jagger.

“They never listened to me. Even Charlene has her faults. I told her running you over would be a mistake—”

“That
was
her at the restaurant! And that guy in the Steelers hat zooming out of here was her too.”

“She had to get away after injecting Linda. No one was going to use the X-ray room that morning, so it was a perfect setup.”

I shivered. Linda had lain there paralyzed until she could no longer breathe and died.

“So, Vance, how did you get away with giving those basketball players new shoes to lie for you?”

He curled his lip. I could tell that “fake break” stuff wasn't his style. He really hadn't wanted to involve others in the deception. “A man from the YMCA told all of us doctors that the kids needed newshoes. We used it as a tax write-off.”

The capper who gave us Polish people a bad name. So that's how they allayed suspicion about the shoes. I wasn't far off in my thinking on that one.

“So all along it was you doctors and nurses that were committing the fraud. And here I thought the Mafia was involved.” Okay, that wasn't really true, but in this situation, I lied. There never had been any truth to the old rumors of Tina's family being involved with the Mafia from our nursing-school days. But Vance didn't have to know that.

I thought I heard a noise in the distance, but then Vance started to speak. “I don't know what the hell you're talking about. I'd never had anything to do with the Mafia. My family is pristine in their reputation.”

Until their son became a murderer.

I wondered if I'd ever see my family. Mom, or Dad, or Uncle Walt. Tears welled up in my eyes. “I want to see my family.” Sobs followed.

Vance looked more confused than before. But he knew how I felt about my family, so he bought it. He reached over and wiped a tear from my cheek. “It'll be all right. It'll be fine, Pauline.”

How could death be fine? I realized that Vance
was
cracking, but not in a violent sort of way. No, his style was more mellow, more emotional.

So, I had to use that.

I cried louder.

“Pauline. Please. You know I don't like tears.”

“I . . . can't . . . help . . . it.”

He reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a linen handkerchief. Wow. He really had suffered a meltdown to let me use his linen on my nose.

I blew loudly.

He shut his eyes.

A loud banging came from above, outside the elevator.

Vance looked up.

I lunged, ignored the pain in my arm, and managed to grab his gun.

Boom!

December 24

I looked at the Christmas tree in my mother's living room and smiled. Daddy always waited until Christmas Eve to get a good buy. Thing was, he inevitably got one that was about two feet too tall, and then he cut off the top, making it out of shape.

It warmed my heart to see the familiar hacked-up, out-of-shape tree.

It also warmed my heart to see my family milling about dressed in festive holiday attire—and I was alive to see it. That felt pretty damn good too.

I ran my hand across my neon pink cast and shut my eyes. How clearly I could picture Vance lying on the elevator floor, me with his gun pointed at him as if I'd known how to shoot, and my other hand slamming the elevator button to make it go.

When the door had opened, Jagger yanked me out in a nanosecond. Vance's gun went off a second time and hit the same spot on the ceiling that I'd shot earlier. All I could say as Jagger held me was, “I couldn't do that again if I tried.”

It'd been over a week since I'd seen or heard from Jagger.

I opened my eyes. The six-o'clock news was on the television. No matter what the occasion, Daddy had to watch the news. If he saw it at lunchtime, he wouldn't watch it at six. I always wanted to point out that a lot could happen in the world between noon and six, but, well, that was Daddy.

I loved him as he was, as I loved all the rest of my family too. Each had their own quirks, but hey, they were
my
quirky family. It'd been tough the first few days after the incident with Vance since the news covered the case over and over. My poor parents had just about made me move in with them.

I inhaled.

Pine Renuzit.

Suddenly that thought wasn't so bad.

Yikes! It had to be the fact of nearly being killed that had my mind discombobulated. Sure, I loved the folks, but moving back . . . ack. Still, it was great to see that the six-o'clock news now covered sightings of Santa. My nieces and nephews were ecstatic each time a reporter mentioned spotting the old man at the North Pole.

I looked into the kitchen to see Goldie, wearing the lovely mauve striped silk scarf I'd just given him as a Christmas Eve gift, dancing about to “Jingle Bells” while he bounced my niece Hanna around.

Miles was quoting from the cookbook I'd given him, and my mother and he stood arguing about how much vinegar went into the dried mushroom soup. Oh, she'd given Miles and Goldie condoms as stocking stuffers. Gotta love her.

Uncle Walt sat at the table with his fork in his hand even though dinner wouldn't be ready for about an hour. I'd learned earlier that Jagger had come over a few days ago and given Uncle Walt a ride around the block in his Suburban.

I sighed.

Ring. Ring
.

“Pauline, don't just stand there in a fog. Get the door,” Mom called from the kitchen.

“Sure.” I hadn't taken a head count, but thought we were all here. Come to think of it, I hadn't seen ex-nun Mary and her husband. “Merry”—I opened the door—“Christmas!”

“Yeah.”

“Jagger.”

He walked in and stood in the foyer, where he shrugged off the freshly fallen snow. It cascaded to the floor like frozen diamonds. “You were expecting Santa?”

No, this is way better
, I thought, then looked outside to see it would be a white Christmas after all.

“Well? Aren't you going to take these?” He held out a gigantic Christmas bag.

“Aren't you going to use
that
?” my mother said coming up from behind.

We looked at her.

She pointed to the ceiling.

Mistletoe. I actually think it'd been hanging there since 1969, but it never got much use from me.

“Mother. No—”

Jagger pulled me closer and planted a kiss on my
cheek
.

Close up I could see that his shiner, faded to a dull yellow, was nearly gone. Good thing, or I'd have to explain it to my folks. I had enough on my mind, like if he let me go right now, I'd collapse against my mother and probably crush her. Then who would clean up?

I summoned my mental faculties and said, “Come in. We haven't started to eat yet.”

“I need to talk to you first,” he said. “Merry Christmas, Missus Sokol.”

She nodded.

“Talk to me? Sure.”

My mother raised her hands. “I'll leave you two alone.”

Mom!

Jagger followed me into the study and shut the door. “I had to wrap up a few things about the case, but here.” He took an envelope out of his pocket.

I stared at it. “I didn't get you a Christmas present 'cause—”

“I said I'd pay you for the job.”

At least my crimson complexion was festive with my green wool pants and green sweater.

He held out the bag. “Where do grab bags go?”

“I'll take them.”

He handed me the gift. “Look, I tried to get to you as soon as I had figured out Vance was involved. Your god damn cell phone conked out. It took me forever to find you. Then . . . then the elevator . . .”

I shut my eyes. I couldn't go through that scene again. I opened my eyes. “I know. In my excitement of the new job, I forgot to charge the phone.”

He shook his head.