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The waiting room of the community hospital was open and pleasant, with greenery and an indoor pond, not unlike the lobby of a small hotel. He never saw it without remembering the hours he had sat here, when Jeanie was a patient…
He was informed that the doctors were working on Mrs. Meehan, that Dr. Whitley would be available to see him shortly. Elizabeth came in while he was waiting.
"How is she?"
"I don't know."
"She shouldn't have had those injections. She really was afraid. She had a heart attack, didn't she?"
"We don't know yet. How did you get here?"
"Min. We came in her car. She's parking it now. Helmut rode in the ambulance with Mrs. Meehan. This can't be happening." Her voice rose. People in nearby chairs turned to stare at her.
Scott forced her to sit on the sofa beside him. " Elizabeth, get hold of yourself. You only met Mrs. Meehan a few days ago. You can't let yourself get this upset."
"Where's Helmut?" Min's voice, coming from behind them, was as flat as though there were no emotion left in her. She too seemed to be in a state of disbelief and shock. She came around the couch and sank into the chair facing them. "He must be so distraught…" She broke off. "Here he is."
To Scott's practiced eye, the Baron looked as though he had seen a ghost. He was still wearing the exquisitely tailored blue smock that was his surgical costume. He sank heavily into the chair beside Min and groped for her hand. "She is in a coma. They say she had some sort of injection. Min, it is impossible, I swear to you, impossible."
"Stay here." Scott's look included the three of them. From the long corridor that led to the emergency area, he had seen the chief of the hospital beckon to him.
They spoke in the private office. "She was injected with something that brought on shock," Dr. Whitley said flatly. He was a tall, lean sixty-three-year-old whose usual expression was affable and sympathetic. Now it was steely, and Scott remembered that his longtime friend had been an Army fighter pilot in World War II.
"Will she live?"
"Absolutely impossible to say. She's in a coma which may become irreversible. She tried to say something before she went totally under."
"What was it?"
"It sounded like 'voy.' That's as much as she got out."
"That's no help. What does the Baron have to say? Does he have any idea how this could have happened?"
"We didn't let him near her, Scott, frankly."
"I gather you don't think much of the good doctor?"
"I have no reason to doubt his medical capabilities. But there's something about him that shouts 'phony' at me every time I see him. And if he didn't inject Mrs. Meehan, then who the hell did?"
Scott pushed back his chair. "That's just what I intend to find out."
As he left the office, Whitley called him back.
"Scott, something that might help us-could someone check Mrs. Meehan's rooms and bring in any medication she may have been taking? Until we reach her husband and get her medical history, we don't know what we may be dealing with."
"I'll take care of it myself."
Elizabeth drove back to the Spa with Scott. On the way he told her about finding the shred of paper in Cheryl's bungalow. "Then she did write those letters!" Elizabeth exclaimed.
Scott shook his head. "I know it sounds crazy, and I know Cheryl can lie as easily as most of us can breathe, but I've been thinking about this all day, and my gut feeling is she's telling the truth."
"What about Syd? Did you talk to him?"
"Not yet. She's bound to tell him she admitted that she stole the letter and that he tore it up. I decided to let him stew before I question him. That sometimes works. But I'm telling you, I'm inclined to believe her story."
"But if she didn't write the letters, who did?" Scott shot a glance at her. "I don't know." He paused, then said, "What I mean is, I don't know yet."
Min and the Baron followed Scott's car in her convertible. Min drove. "The only way I can help you is to know the truth," she told her husband. "Did you do something to that woman?"
The Baron lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. His china-blue eyes watered. The reddish tint in his hair seemed brassy under the late-afternoon sun. The top of the convertible was down. A cool land breeze had dispelled the last of the daytime warmth. A sense of autumn was in the air.
"Mi
"Helmut, who is Clayton Anderson?"
He dropped the cigarette. It fell on the leather seat beside him. Min reached over and picked it up. "You'd better not ruin this car. There won't be a replacement. I repeat: Who is Clayton Anderson?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," he whispered.
"Oh, I think you do. Elizabeth came to see me. She read the play. That's why you were so upset this morning, isn't it? It wasn't the appointment book. It was the play. Leila had made notes in the margin. She picked up that idiotic phrase you use in the ads. Elizabeth caught it too. So did Mrs. Meehan. She saw one of the previews. That's why you tried to kill her, isn't it? You were still hoping to conceal the fact you wrote that play."
"Mi
"That's nonsense. She talked constantly about her fear of needles."
"That could have been a cover-up."
"The playwright put over a million dollars in that play. If you are that playwright, where would you have gotten the money?"
They were at the gates of the Spa. Min slowed down and glanced at him, unsmiling. "I tried to phone Switzerland to check on my balance. Of course, it was after business hours there. I will call tomorrow, Helmut. I hope-for your sake-that money is in my account."
His expression was as bland as ever, but his eyes were those of a man about to be hanged.
They met on the porch of Alvirah Meehan's bungalow. The Baron opened the door and they went in. Scott saw that Min had clearly taken advantage of Alvirah's naivete. This was the most expensive of their accommodations-the rooms the First Lady used when she saw fit to seek R-and-R at the Spa. There were a living room, a dining room, a library, a huge master bedroom, two full baths on the first floor. You sure socked it to her, Scott thought.
His inspection of the premises was relatively brief. The medicine chest in the bathroom Alvirah used contained only over-the-counter drugs-maximum-strength Bufferin, Allerest, a nasal spray, a jar of Vicks VapoRub, Ben-Gay. A nice lady whose nasal passages get stuffed up at night and who probably has a few twinges of arthritis.
It seemed to him that the Baron was disappointed. Under Scott's careful scrutiny, he insisted on opening all the bottles, spilling out the contents, examining them to see if any extra medication was mixed with the ordinary tablets and pills. Was it an act? How good an actor was the Toy Soldier?
Alvirah's closet revealed well-worn brushed fla
An incongruous note was the expensive Japanese recorder in the carry-on bag that was part of the Louis Vuitton matching luggage. Scott raised his eyes. Sophisticated, professional equipment! He wouldn't have expected it of Alvirah Meehan.