Malpractice in Maggody (20 page)

“I bet you say that to all the girls,” I said to Les as he left. I reluctantly abandoned the leather chair, which was a damn sight more elegant than my cane-bottom chair at the PD. “Shall we go count pink and purple pills, Dr. Stonebridge?”

“Yes, of course,” he said, standing up. “How does one go about farming catfish?”

“Once all this is resolved, I’ll arrange for you to take your patients on a field trip.”

Before we reached the door, Brenda came into the office. She gave me a furtive look, then shoved Stonebridge into a corner and began to whisper fiercely to him. His complexion became increasingly mottled as he listened to her. I wondered which of them had the higher blood pressure. At that point, I wouldn’t have ventured a guess.

I waited politely for a few minutes, then said, “If there’s another body, you’ll have to tell me about it sooner or later.”

“Nothing like that!” Brenda snapped at me, then sank down on the arm of the sofa. “Go ahead and tell her, Vince. We’re going to need her help.”

“I suppose we will. It seems that one of our patients has gone missing.”

Brenda groaned. “It’s my fault. With no one to help in the reception room, I was forced to leave the gate open when I went to the kitchen to review the day’s menu with the chef. I knew the authorities would be coming and going, and I anticipated a delivery of produce. There was no way I could be in two places at the same time. You do understand, don’t you, Vince?” Tears began to slide down her face as she gulped noisily. Sniveling did not become a woman of her age and physical proportions; I could see from Stonebridge’s face that he agreed with me. “And I can’t stop thinking about Randall,” she went on. “I should have realized how depressed he was. I tried to talk to him, but he brushed me aside and came here to brood in solitude. Who can know how long he sat at that very desk in the dark, feeling overwhelmed and alone?” She rose unsteadily. “Have you notified his wife, Vince? Someone has to. I’d better look through his address book for her number.”

He caught her arm and said, “The sheriff has that information, and he’s going to call her. I’ll also call her so we can discuss arrangements for the body when it’s released. You need to go to your apartment and have a cup of tea. Once you’re calmer, please return to the reception room in case…the patient calls.”

“I hate to break it to you,” I said, “but I already know the identities of all four of the patients. Who’s missing?”

“Alexandra Swayze,” Brenda admitted.

“When was she last seen?”

Vince nodded at Brenda, who took a breath and said, “She was in the gym with Walter until nine o’clock. She told him she was going to her suite to shower and change clothes. I went there about fifteen minutes ago to remind her that we were scheduled for yoga, and she wasn’t there. Dr. Dibbins swore he hasn’t seen her at all this morning, and Dawn said the same thing. Toby’s suite was unoccupied, so I searched it and then found him and Walter in the gym. The day room is empty. I sent two of the orderlies down the wing that hasn’t been remodeled. They returned and shook their heads, which I took to mean she wasn’t there.”

“What about the garden?” demanded Stonebridge. “Did you search there?”

“Very thoroughly. Vince, what are we going to do? Did she wander away in a drug-induced stupor, or did she escape because she was responsible for Molly’s death? I don’t know which would be worse for our reputation.”

“Sit down, Brenda. Instead of tea, I think you’d better have a glass of brandy.”

“No, I couldn’t possibly. The employees are already snickering at me for enforcing the rules. If they suspect that I’ve had a drink, they’ll retaliate with impertinence and defiance. And what about the patients? What would they think?”

Vincent propelled her to the sofa. “Sit down, shut up, and meditate or something while I get the brandy and a glass. Doctor’s orders.”

I left them to bemoan their fate and went out to the pool, where Deputy Quivers was…well, quivering. “Did you see a woman with white hair go into the garden?” When he shook his head, I continued. “Could she have slipped past you and left through that archway?”

“Nobody left that way but them that’s supposed to. Sheriff Dorfer told me to keep a lookout in case somebody tried to sneak out.” He gave me a pinched look. “I been here since eight o’clock this morning, sir. Do you think maybe I could step away for a minute and—er, take a break?”

“Go ahead, Quivers,” I said. “I suggest you duck behind the kennel at the end of the parking lot.”

“Thank you, sir.” He scurried away, taking very small steps.

I sat down on one of the wrought-iron chairs to wait for him. Quivers was dim, but presumably capable of noticing Senator Swayze if she’d come this way. That pretty much left the front door, the brick driveway, and the open gate. She might have prearranged to have someone pick her up, but there was no way she could have anticipated the traffic and confusion that had followed the discovery of Randall’s body.

So where the hell was she? Wading in Boone Creek, cutting through the pasture across the road, or hitching a ride with Raz and Marjorie?

From the journal of Shelby Dibbins:

I was still sitting by the pool when Walter and Toby came out of the gym. Toby pulled off his T-shirt and dove into the pool. Walter watched him for a moment, then sat down near me.

“Our golden boy’s compulsive these days,” he said. “He’s been lifting weights and running sprints on the treadmill for two hours. Most mortals might be worn out, but not Toby. If I could trust him to come back, I’d send him out to run twenty miles cross-country.”

“You can’t trust him?”

“Hell, no. Once the endorphins kicked in, he’d keep on going. I don’t know what he was like before he came here, but the withdrawal regime has turned his brain to testosterone slush.” Walter leaned back to expose his face to the sun. “Shame about Randall. Suicide, I was told.”

“Dr. Stonebridge seems to think Randall was overwhelmed by financial problems and afraid the foundation would fail. I’m not so sure that was the reason. Randall admitted to me that he was enamored of Molly. What do you think?”

“Randall kept to himself, and he sure as hell didn’t confide in me. A couple of times I saw him and Molly in the office in the reception room. I just assumed he was waiting for her to get out a file for him. He could have had a crush on her, but we’ve only been here a week or so. Except for the night she was killed, she left around five to go make dinner for her beloved Ashton, master welder and bowling kingpin.”

“Did he, or any of the rest of you, ever leave in the evenings?” I asked.

He lifted his face to look at me. “To do what? Hang out and have a beer with the locals? Now that would be exciting.”

“I was thinking more like going into Farberville to watch a movie or go to the clubs on Thurber Street.” Water splashed on my leg. I looked down as Toby executed a turn and took off for the far end of the pool.

“One of these nights, I might try it. But to get back to your question, as far as I know, nobody’s gone anywhere. I watch TV or read. Brenda retreats to her office and does paperwork. Randall usually hangs out in the garden until it gets dark, then goes to his apartment to watch TV. I mean, that‘s what he usually
did.
Vince might swim a few laps. He said something about taking off next weekend for New Orleans. He told Randall to take off the weekend after that, but Randall didn’t say anything.”

“Did anything out of the ordinary happen yesterday afternoon or evening?”

He thought for a minute. “Not really. Brenda wigged out after you left, so I canceled my token session with Dibbins and hung around the reception room. Dawn and Toby had a brawl outside her room. Dibbins stood in his doorway and egged them on. Mrs. Swayze came out and screamed at both of them. It took two orderlies and a maid to separate them and mop up the blood.”

“That’s not out of the ordinary?” I asked, appalled.

“You’ve never been around people going through withdrawal. The replacement drugs and vitamin supplements are supposed to help, but these people are at the mercy of their brain chemistry. Some days everybody is at least superficially calm. Other days all hell breaks loose. The first two weeks are the worst, or that’s what I keep telling myself, anyway.” He looked at Toby. “Is it possible he has gills?”

“What happened after the fight was broken up? Did tranquillity ensue?”

“Yeah, I’d say so. Mrs. Swayze and Dawn sat out here until dinner. Toby demanded that I unlock the gym for him, and I wasn’t about to argue with him. Dibbins went back to his opera. We had some sort of curdled bean paste soup for dinner, so I went out to my van and grabbed some provisions that would have given Brenda hives.”

He was more forthcoming than the other remaining members of the staff, so I decided to see what else I could get out of him. “Randall told me someone searched his office and apartment.”

“Why would anybody do that? All the drugs are locked up in the storage room off the surgical suite.”

“You assuming it was a patient, then?” I asked.

“I suppose I am,” he said, wincing as Toby made a sloppy turn that splattered both of us. “These people are addicts, and they always will be. They may be able to avoid certain substances, but they’ll be tempted every waking minute. No matter what the voice of reason tells them about the dangers of whatever it is they crave, a second voice will be prompting them to try it ‘just once’ to prove they can take it or leave it. That second voice will never go away completely. It’ll wake them up in the night, or catch them while they’re reading a newspaper or driving home from work. Sometimes it’s a scratchy little voice, whiny and filled with self-pity; other times it’s loud and belligerent. ‘Just once,’ it says over and over.”

“Sounds like you’ve been there.”

He leaned back and crossed his legs. “A close encounter of the worst kind with smack. After I bottomed out in a dive in San Salvador and did some time in a rat-infested jail down there, I moved to Taos. I still smoke a little weed and munch on a magic mushroom when the moon’s full, but I stay away from the hard-core stuff. That’s why I sympathize with these poor bastards. It’s harder for them than it was for me. Nobody ever told me I walked on water. That’s not to imply that I’d trust any of them for fifteen seconds. They’re all as devious as rattlesnakes pretending to bask in the sunshine.”

“Is that why they’re sedated at night?” I asked, resisting the urge to move my chair away from the edge of the pool before its occupant could rise from the water and lunge at me.

“In a pig’s eye,” Walter said, amused at my discomfort. “Let me brief you on how the meds are given, morning, noon, and night. Brenda labels each cup with the patient’s name, then fills it with the various pills and places it on the appropriate meal tray. She has to administer the shots, of course, but it’s up to the patients to take the pills. At eight each night, an orderly takes a cup to the patient with whatever sedative is prescribed and supposedly makes sure it’s taken. Maybe it is, maybe it’s not. There is a certain amount of late-night activity, both inside and out here.”

“What about the guard and the dog?”

Walter snickered. “The guard spends most of the night nodding on a chair on the porch. Nocturnal prowling is a popular pastime.”

I envisioned the garden at night. “Shouldn’t you have mentioned this to Dr. Stonebridge and Brenda?”

“Why would I? I don’t care if these people enjoy a little solitude. They’re hounded all day long to go here and there, confess to compulsions, meditate, exercise, lie still while their backsides are stuck with needles, decide if they want their bodies tightened and trimmed, their noses tweaked, their wrinkles eradicated. Hell, I’d go crazy after a couple of days. I’m not going to rat them out for wanting an hour or two of freedom, even if it’s inside a locked compound.”

I looked up as Stonebridge escorted Brenda to her office door and waited until she’d gone inside. He did not seem pleased to see Walter sitting near me. “Aren’t you supposed to be with a patient?” he asked him as he walked over.

Walter pointed at the pool. “I’m on lifeguard duty. We can’t afford to lose another one, can we?”

Stonebridge struggled for a moment, then said, “Do you have any idea whatsoever about where Mrs. Swayze might have gone? Did she seem especially agitated when she was in the gym with you?”