Malpractice in Maggody (23 page)

I finally decided to get Stonebridge’s opinion, then call Harve. I’d taken a couple of steps when Toby Mann came around the corner from the reception room and blocked my way. Considering his height and bulk, this did not require any effort on his part. He had a towel draped around his neck, but water dripped on the floor and his hair hung in his eyes, partially hiding what I’m sure was a well-practiced twinkle on his part.

“You’re the cop, right?” he said, scowling.

H
arve bellowed for LaBelle, then realized she was off duty for the weekend. It was a mixed blessing. She annoyed the hell out of him every damn time he told her to do something, and more often than not she simply ignored him and went back to painting her nails or reading a magazine. On the other hand, her replacement was a mousy little woman whose name he never could recollect. She scurried around so quietly that he never knew where she was or what she was doing. Every once in a while, he’d look up and find her standing in his office, too timid to open her fool mouth. He was getting used to it, but it was still unnerving.

Cussing under his breath, he pushed his chair away from his desk, struggled to his feet, and lumbered down the hall to find her. Her desk was vacant. He frowned before remembering he’d sent her out to pick up sandwiches for lunch.

He snatched up the Rolodex and returned to his office. After some fumbling, he found the telephone number of the Maggody PD and dialed it. Nobody answered, which meant Arly was still out at the loony bin like she damn well was supposed to be—or on her way back to Missouri. He left a message that it was real urgent that she call him, then banged down the receiver and listened to his stomach growl.

As much as he would have liked to walk across the street to the café at the bus station for a bowl of chili, he figured he’d better wait by the phone. If Arly didn’t call pretty damn soon, he was gonna have to drive out there to tell her what all the FBI had to say about the fingerprints they’d run through their fancy database.

She wasn’t gonna like it one bit.

I looked up at Toby Mann, who was a good five or six inches taller than I was. I didn’t even want to think about the number of pounds he had on me. “Yes,” I said evenly, “I’m the chief of police.” Just to annoy him, I added, “And you are?”

“You’re kidding, right? Everybody knows The Man.”

“I know a lot of men,” I said, shrugging.

“I’m Toby Mann. I won the Heisman when I was in college, and some sportswriters claim I’m the best quarterback in the history of football. You want to know how many touchdown passes I threw in the last Superbowl? I’ve been on the cover of
Sports Illustrated
four times.” He thumped his chest. “I am
The Man.
”

“I don’t pay much attention to football, but if you say you’re Toby Mann, I guess you ought to know. Do you want to speak to me?”

He gaped at me, still unable to believe I’d never heard of him. He finally pulled himself together and said, “Yeah, but not here. Let’s go in my suite.”

I trailed after him, since he was the only patient I hadn’t interviewed. He continued into the bedroom and yanked off his swimsuit, no doubt thinking he could win my undying adoration with a stolen peek at his manhood (aka The Manhood). I averted my eyes and picked up a creased copy of a sports magazine that did indeed have his picture on the cover. His blond hair was tousled, his face streaked with sweat. The black smudges under his eyes made him look like a raccoon, but I decided not to point it out, since I was already pressing my luck.

When he joined me, he was wearing a short robe and boxers. “There’s something I got to ask you,” he said as he sat down on the sofa.

“Have at it.” I sat down on the easy chair and mentally measured the distance between us. My chances of making it to the door were not good.

“I saw you talking to Dawn yesterday. I want to know what she said about me.”

I thought for a moment. “She said that you were horny and had a thing for Molly Foss.”

“The fat cow’s jealous. Yeah, Molly was pretty enough, and this stinking place is making me crazier than when I got here. There are a couple of maids I wouldn’t mind banging, but they’re terrified of getting caught with their apron strings untied. As for Brenda—you met her?” I nodded. “If there was an uglier, bossier woman, I sure as hell haven’t met her. Brenda should go off to Africa and mate with a gorilla.”

“I gather you’re not fond of her.”

He gave me a perplexed look, then relaxed. “That was a joke, right? So anyway, maybe I flirted with Molly out of boredom. I led her on, just for the hell of it.” He paused. “Look, if Dawn said something about what happened the other night, she was lying through her teeth. She’d say anything to get back at me for not falling down and kissing her feet because she was in some stupid sitcom. She’s all washed up, and she knows it. I’m the one with the screaming fans and the big bucks. Those women reporters who come into the locker room can’t keep their hands off me. The talk show hosts all beg me to come on their shows. ESPN did a feature on me after I was named MVP at the Superbowl.”

I couldn’t help myself. “I remember now—I have seen you on TV. Don’t you do commercials for Drippers or whatever those diapers are called?”

“That was my agent’s bright idea. They pay me a lot of money,” he said, flustered. “I’ve got a lot of expenses, you know. My fans expect me to drive expensive cars and be seen in the right clubs.”

“Let’s go back to what Dawn said about the other night,” I suggested, as if she had said something. Which she hadn’t.

“Yeah, well, whatever she said was a bunch of lies. She’s made too many crappy cable movies about teenage girls who run away from home and become hookers. You ever seen any of them? One of the guys on the team had one on tape, so we watched it in the locker room after the coaches and trainers left. Turns out she was all fucked up because her sister got better grades and was a cheerleader. It should be a cult classic.”

“Thank you very much!” snapped Dawn as she came into the suite. “I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am that you and your teammates enjoyed the movie. I guess you know all about underage hookers, don’t you? That woman you raped in the hotel—was she a pro or just a high school girl that you got drunk in the bar?”

I remembered what Randall had told me about the less than successful anger management role-playing session earlier in the week. “Dawn, if you want to talk to me, why don’t I meet you out by the pool in a few minutes?”

She sat down on an arm of the sofa. “Oh, no, let’s talk right here.” She leaned over and flicked Toby’s ear with a manicured fingernail. “You want to know what happened between Molly and Toby the night she was killed?”

Toby started to rise. “You stupid bitch, I ought to—”

”Wait just a minute!” I said loudly. I stood up and pointed at Toby. “Sit down and shut up, or I’ll call for Brenda to bring a hypodermic and shoot you full of Demerol.” I looked at Dawn. “And you either cut it out and sit over here, or I’ll grab a handful of your bleached blond hair and drag you out to the hall. What’s it going to be?”

She moved over to the chair where I’d been sitting, and in a sullen voice, said, “I don’t know who the hell you think you are. If Dr. Stonebridge knew you’d spoken to me like that, he’d kick your ass out of here in no time flat.”

“Why don’t you trot down to his office and lodge a complaint?”

“Yeah,” said Toby. “The cop doesn’t want to listen to your lies.”

Dawn glared at him. “She can decide for herself.”

“An excellent idea,” I said, finally daring to relax a little bit. “So tell me.”

“Well,” she began, still glaring at Toby, “I was in my suite at about nine, staring at the wall and counting the number of days I was stuck in this crappy place. I heard Molly giggling in the hall. I was kind of curious, since she usually leaves before dinner is served. Then I heard this conceited prick talking to her. They went into his suite and closed the door. I figured I could get them in big trouble, but I decided I didn’t want to get Molly fired. She was pretty good about allowing me to make phone calls when Brenda wasn’t around, as long as I paid her. I didn’t do anything for about an hour. That’s when I heard Molly come out in the hall, whimpering and hiccuping.”

“I hope you’re not buying this shit,” said Toby.

“At this point, I’m listening,” I said.

Dawn was clearly having a fine time watching him squirm. “So I opened my door to see what was going on. Molly was leaning against the wall, her face all wet with tears and her hair tangled and ratty. I dragged her into my suite and asked what happened. She told me Toby tried to rape her.”

“That is such a fuckin’ lie!” he snarled.

“Why would she lie about something like that? She knew she’d get fired if she told any of the doctors. She was messed up so bad she could barely whisper. I tried to get her to stay until she calmed down, but she was afraid Toby would find her. I mean, she was really freaked out. I even offered her a Valium. She wouldn’t take it because she had to drive home.”

Toby leaned forward, his elbows on his bare knees, and gave me what was supposed to be a very earnest look. “Molly was freaked out, yeah, but it wasn’t my fault. She told me earlier in the day that she was staying late for some kind of meeting, and would drop by for a visit when it was over. It was all her idea, not mine. She showed up, and we went into my room. I put on some music and we stayed on the sofa for a while. She was the one who suggested we go in the bedroom. I wasn’t about to turn her down. We got to rolling around on the bed, and she got her hands all over me—and I mean all over me. I start to unbutton her blouse, and all of a sudden she panicked and told me to stop. I thought she was kidding. Maybe I tried a little harder to persuade her that she didn’t really want me to stop, but she slapped the holy shit out of me, jumped up, and left. I sure as hell didn’t force the little bitch into doing anything she didn’t want to do. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had been scheming all along so she could sue me for big bucks. For all I know, her husband put her up to it.”

“Poor baby,” cooed Dawn. “It’s not your fault you’re so rich and pretty that women are after your money. You must feel awfully insecure.”

“Not nearly as insecure as you. At least I’m not a failure.”

“Okay,” I snapped, “enough of this. Dawn, what did Molly do after she left your suite?”

“She didn’t want to risk running into Brenda, so she went out the door at the far end of the hall. After that, I guess she decided to sit in the garden until she was calm enough to drive herself home.”

“What about you?”

“Nothing,” she said, blinking in surprise. “It wasn’t like we were close friends or anything like that. I forgot about it and went to bed. Shouldn’t you be asking Toby what he did?”

“What the hell do you think I did?” he said angrily. “Follow her and kill her? Give me a fuckin’ break! So maybe I was annoyed with her on account of the way she pretended she was so hot for me and then left. I didn’t try to stop her, fercrissake! When I get out of this place, I’ll have more women than I can handle waiting outside the locker room. And a helluva lot classier ones than that little cock-teaser!”

“So what did you do?” I asked.

“I popped a pill and went to bed.”

Dawn shook her head. “Oh, no, you didn’t. I heard your door open about five minutes later. You went down the hall and out the same door that Molly left through.” She looked at me. “You can ask Dibbins. He heard it all, too.”

“I went outside,” said Toby. “Big goddamn deal. I needed some fresh air, that’s all. But I wasn’t following Molly. I thought she’d gone straight to her car and left. I just walked around until I calmed down, then came back and went to bed.”

I wasn’t quite ready to buy his story. “Did your walk take you into the garden?”

“Hell, no,” he muttered. “The last thing I wanted to do was run into her and have her start screeching.”

“You said you assumed she left immediately,” I pointed out. “How could she have been in the garden?”

“I don’t know. You’re getting me confused. Maybe I wasn’t sure she wouldn’t be in the garden. I sat by the pool for an hour or so, then came back here. That’s when I popped the pill.”

“Did you see anyone?” I asked.

“You mean, did anyone see me? How the fuck should I know? I was too busy kicking myself for letting her in my room in the first place. I should have known she was setting me up so I’d have to pay her to keep her big mouth shut. Another accusation of rape, and I might as well skip the trial and check into a cell.”

“It sounds like a motive to me,” Dawn said smugly.

Toby’s face turned red. He started to stand up, then caught my stare and sank back down. “Okay, while I was by the pool, Walter came by and asked me if I wanted to smoke a little weed. We went out to his van and stayed there until about midnight, smoking and drinking wine. I don’t want to get him in trouble, so don’t ask him in front of Stonebridge or Brenda. They’d both shit in their pants if they knew.”