The Lady Doctor's Alibi (6 page)

He entered the office, found it empty. Lissa must have been checking on the patients again. He had the food out and on plates on Dr. Graham’s desk when she came back into the room.

“Wow, I could smell that from the other room. Thanks. I’m starved.”

“I don’t have anything to drink with it,” he said.

“Coffeepot over there.”

“I’ll make it. How’s the little girl?”

“She’s good. She’s got good color back in her leg. She should have some feeling in it by tomorrow.”

“So you did a good job, huh?”

She bit into a taco and said, “I did a helluva job—and so did you. This is great.”

He put the coffee on and then joined her at the desk, sitting across from her. He grabbed a taco and bit into it. Not as good as Josephina’s, but good nevertheless.

“Did you see the sheriff?” she asked.

“I did,” Clint said.

“What did he say?”

“Well, I didn’t ask him the question straight out,” Clint replied. “I told him you were worried the killer might be killing doctors. He said he had no reason to believe that.”

“That was a smart way to approach him,” she said. “I’m impressed.”

“Well, we finally did move on to the subject you’re actually interested in.”

“And?”

“He seems to think you’re one of the people who might benefit from the doctor’s death.”

“Who else?”

“Well . . .”

“He didn’t mention anyone else, did he?” She put down the taco she’d been eating, as if she’d just lost her appetite.

“No, he didn’t,” Clint said, “but I’m sure that Graham’s wife, at least, is a suspect.”

“Yeah, maybe number two on his list.”

“I’ll just have to make her number one on my list,” Clint said.

“What? You’re going to investigate?”

“I don’t know if I’d call it that,” he said. “But I do have some friends who are very good detectives, and I’ve worked with them. I’ve learned from them that the best way to find out answers is to ask questions. So that’s what I’m going to do.”

“I don’t know how to thank you.” She picked up her half-eaten taco and took a bite. “What will you be doing first?”

“Well, if I make his wife my number one suspect, I’ll have to talk to her,” Clint said. “If she didn’t do it, she might have an idea who did.”

“Maybe she has a lover,” Lissa said.

“Hmm, did you see her the other day?” he asked. “I can’t imagine she’d have a lover.”

“Why not?” Lissa asked. “There’s somebody for everybody.”

“Still . . .”

“Don’t be unkind, Clint,” she said, picking up another taco.

“That woman may be your only out,” he said, “and you don’t want me to be unkind? You’re an amazing woman, Lissa.”

“I hardly think . . .” She trailed off, looking embarrassed. “Do you think the sheriff might come for me?” she asked, changing the subject.

“I doubt it,” Clint said. “There’d be nobody else to take care of these people. By the way, didn’t Dr. Graham have a nurse?”

“I—I don’t know,” she said, looking shocked that she hadn’t asked. “I haven’t seen one all day.”

“I’ll ask his wife about that, too,” he said. “Let me get that coffee.”

He poured two cups and handed her one, then sat down and started in on an enchilada.

“I could use a nurse here, now that you mention it,” she said. “I’d like to have a bath and collect some clothes from home. I think I should be staying here for a few days.”

“What would a nurse have to do?” he asked.

“Just monitor the patients,” she said. “Give them some water if they want it.”

“That’s all?”

“Well, a little more, but I wouldn’t be gone that long. Monitoring their vital signs would be most important.”

“Monitoring vital signs?”

“Watching for a rise in their temperature, taking their pulse, things like that.”

“Could I do it?”

“Well . . . it’s not simple, but . . . you seem like a smart man.”

He frowned and she laughed.

“How about I go and talk to Mrs. Graham, and then after that I’ll come back here and let you go for a little while.”

“Well,” she said, “if Mrs. Graham mentions a nurse, you can come back with her. Otherwise, I’ll show you a few things and take you up on your offer.”

“Okay,” he said. “More coffee and another taco and I’ll be on my way.”

As he reached for a taco, she reached out and touched his hand.

“I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to thank you for your help.”

“Hey,” he said, “my foot feels a lot better. That’s thanks enough.”

She shook her head but didn’t argue.

Clint found Dr. Graham’s address in the dead man’s desk. He left the office and headed back to the docks to retrieve Eclipse from the livery. He rode the big Darley Arabian to the better part of town, where he matched the address up to a big two-story house with white columns out front. As he dismounted and looped Eclipse’s reins around a pole, he thought—to his mind anyway—Mrs. Graham’s motive for murdering her husband, or for having him murdered, had just gotten stronger. Maybe she was worried he was going to use too much of his own money to start up his hospital.

He mounted the front steps and knocked on the huge ornate front door. When it opened, he found himself looking at the woman from the restaurant, Mrs. Graham. She still had a hatchet face, but the dress she was wearing showed that she had a good body for a woman her age, which he figured to be late forties. Maybe the idea that she had a lover wasn’t so far-fetched after all.

“Yes?”

“Mrs. Graham?” he said. “My name is Clint Adams.”

She frowned.

“I’ve seen you—yes, in the street the other day. You helped lift that buckboard off my husband’s patient.”

“That’s right.”

“What do you want here?” she demanded.

“Just a talk.”

“About what?”

“Your husband’s death.”

“Do you know something about that?”

“I don’t know anything about it,” he said, “but that’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“Are you working with the sheriff?”

Instead of answering truthfully, he said, “I just came from Sheriff Brown’s office,” to see if that would get him through the front door.

It did.

“Very well,” she said. “Come inside.”

Clint entered, and she left it to him to close the door and then follow her. She led him into a plushly furnished living room. If she spent this much money on furniture, he thought, she probably wouldn’t want her husband spending it elsewhere.

“What can I do for you, Mr. . . . Adams, did you say?” she asked.

“That’s right.” She didn’t seem to recognize his name. That was fine with him.

“Well, have a seat and say what you’ve come to say.” She sat on the sofa. He chose an armchair across from her. When he sat, he felt like he was going to sink out of sight.

“First, I’d like to say I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Yes, yes,” she said, “I’ve been hearing that from everyone. What questions do you have for me, Mr. Adams?”

“Well, first, do you know anyone who might have wanted to kill your husband?”

“The sheriff asked me that,” she said. “No, I don’t.”

“Are you sure?” Clint asked. “He never came home and said someone threatened him?”

“No.”

Clint looked around.

“This is quite an expensive house, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Who gets it, now that your husband’s dead?”

“Why, I do, of course.”

“And your husband’s money?”

“I get that, too,” she said. “Mr. Adams, are you trying to insinuate that I killed my husband? Do you think I marched into his office and beat him to death?” She raised her hands. “With these?”

“No,” he said, “of course not.”

She lowered her hands. “Of course not.”

“But you could have hired somebody to do it.”

“Why would I do that?”

“I got the impression, when I saw the two of you together, that you didn’t quite get along.”

“We got along fine.”

“As long as he did what you said, right?”

“I am not a woman easily dominated, Mr. Adams,” she said. She thought the comment was ironic, but this man had no idea of the irony. “And my husband was a man who needed to be dominated.”

“Is that a fact?”

“It is.”

“Do you think he saw it that way?”

“To tell you the truth, Mr. Adams, I really never cared how he saw it,” she said.

“You’re a hard woman, Mrs. Graham.”

“That’s right, I am, Mr. Adams,” she said. “I think it’s time for you to leave.”

He stood up.

“Before I go, did your husband have a nurse?”

“He did, for a while, lovely young girl named Marietta.”

“What happened to her?”

“I fired her.”

“You fired her?”

“That’s right.”

“What gave you the right to fire her?”

She smiled.

“I gave myself the right,” she said. “She was too . . . pretty.”

“Young and pretty, huh?”

“That’s right.”

“Was she a good nurse?”

“I didn’t care.”

“Great,” he said. “They need a nurse at your husband’s office.”

“His office? What are you talking about?”

“There are still patients there,” he said. “The doctor looking after them needs a nurse.”

“Doctor? What doctor? The only other doctor in town is . . . that bitch? She’s in Oliver’s office?”

“That’s right.”

“By what right?”

“The sheriff asked her to look after the patients.”

“That’s . . . impossible.”

“Do you know where I can find Marietta, the nurse?”

“No,” Lillian Graham said. “And I don’t care. You tell that woman to get out of my husband’s office.”

“If I did that, ma’am,” he asked, “who would take care of those people?”

“I don’t care!” she shouted. “I want her out!”

“You’ll have to take that up with the law, Mrs. Graham,” Clint said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .”

He turned and left the house.

 

Lillian stood there for a few moments after Clint Adams left, trembling with rage. She didn’t move until Rufus came down. He stood in the doorway, naked, his huge penis and balls dangling down.

“You comin’ upstairs, baby?” he asked.

She looked at him. He was huge and hairy.

“I have something I’d like you to do,” she said.

“Well, come upstairs and I’ll do it.”

“Oh, we’ll do that, too,” she said, “but after, I need you to do something for me.”

“Okay,” he said, “but first you do somethin’ for me.”

He walked up to her, grabbed the front of her dress in his left paw, and tore it from her. Her breasts came into view, pale and kind of saggy. He’d always known they were kind of saggy, but they seemed even more so today. Once he had his hands on some of her husband’s money, he’d be able to buy himself some women with perky breasts. But for now . . .

He pushed her down to her knees.

“Wait,” she said.

“I don’t wait,” he said. “Ain’t that why you like havin’ me around?”

He reached down and massaged his prick until it started to rise up.

“Come on, now,” he said. “Be a good girl and open your mouth.”

She was kinda ugly, but she had a hot mouth. He stuck his dick in, grabbed the back of her head, and started to fuck her mouth.

Damn it, she thought, she was getting wet between her legs. She couldn’t resist him when he treated her this way. She opened her mouth wider and took him in.

“That’s nice, real nice,” he said as she sucked him.

Later, she thought, she’d have him go to the office and throw that bitch out.

She reached between her legs with one hand and touched herself while she took hold of him with the other hand and stroked him, all the while still sucking.

Clint rode back to the doctor’s office.

“Did you talk to her?” Lissa asked as he entered.

“I did,” he said. “That’s one hard woman.”

“What did she say?”

“Enough to convince me that she had her husband killed,” he said.

“Can you prove it?”

“Not right now,” he said. “I’m going to work on it, but first there’s something else I have to do.”

“What’s that?”

“Get you your nurse.”

“He had one?”

“Once,” he said, “but his wife fired her.”

“Oh, my. Do you know who she is?”

“I have a first name,” he said. “Marietta. There should be a file here someplace with her last name, and address.”

“I saw some files here,” she said, opening a drawer. She leafed through them, then pulled a folder out and read the name off of it.

“Marietta Gonzales.”

“Write her address down for me,” he said. “I’ll go tell her she has her job back, if she wants it.”

She wrote it down and handed it to him.

“Who’s going to pay her?”

“We can worry about that later. Do you want me to stay awhile so you can go and have that bath?”

“No,” she said, “it would take me too long to show you what to do. Why don’t you go and see if Miss Gonzales even wants her job back. If she does, you can bring her back here. Then I can go.”

“Okay.”

“Do you know where that is?” she asked, indicating the piece of paper in his hand.

“I’ll find it,” he said. “Be back soon.”

 

He had to ask directions, but he eventually knocked on the door of Marietta Gonzales’s house. It was on the totally opposite side of town from Dr. Graham’s home.

The man who answered the door was in his late thirties, very tall but out of shape. He had a potbelly, was balding, and was wiping the greasy fingers of one hand on his shirt. In the other he held a huge chicken leg.