Страница 10 из 34
But at midnight she'd been dead two to four hours. That meant that after he'd left, someone had brought her body here, put it on the bed and laid the empty glass beside it. Someone had wanted to make it seem that Vangie had committed suicide.
"Oh, Lord," Chris whispered. At the last moment Vangie must have known. Someone had forced that poison into her, viciously killed her and the baby she was carrying.
He had to tell the police. And there was one person they would inevitably accuse. As the funeral director stared at him, Chris said aloud, "They're going to blame it on me."
DR. HIGHLEY hung up the phone slowly. Katie DeMaio suspected nothing. Her office apparently wanted nothing more of him than to discuss Vangie Lewis' emotional state. Unless, of course, someone had questioned Vangie's apparent suicide, perhaps raised the possibility that her body had been moved. The danger was still great.
He was in the library of the Westlake home-his home now. The house was a manorlike Tudor with archways, marble fireplaces and Tiffany stained-glass windows. The Westlake house. The Westlake Hospital. The Westlake Maternity Concept. The name had given him immediate entree, socially and professionally. Marrying Winifred Westlake and coming to America to carry on her father's work had been a perfect excuse for leaving England. No one, including Winifred, knew about the years before Liverpool, the years at Christ Hospital in Devon.
Toward the end she had started to ask questions.
It was nearly eleven o'clock and he hadn't had di
Because he needed the freedom of the house, the privacy of his library, he'd gotten rid of Winifred's live-in housekeeper. She had looked at him with sour, sullen eyes, swollen with weeping. "Miss Winifred was almost never sick until…" She was going to say "until she married you," but she didn't finish.
Winifred's cousin resented him too. He had tried to make trouble after Winifred's death, but couldn't prove anything. They'd dismissed the cousin as a disgruntled ex-heir.
Selecting a chilled bottle of wine from the refrigerator, Highley sat down to eat in the breakfast room. As he ate, his mind ran over the exact dosage he would give Katie DeMaio. Traces of the heparin and the Coumadin might show in her bloodstream if there were a thorough autopsy. But he could circumvent that.
Before going to bed, he went out to the foyer closet. He'd get those moccasins safely into his bag now. Reaching into one pocket of the Burberry, he pulled out a misshapen moccasin. Expectantly he put his free hand in the other pocket-first matter-offactly, then rummaging frantically. Finally he pawed through the overshoes stacked on the closet floor.
At last he stood up, staring at the battered moccasin he was holding. The right one. The one he had tugged off Vangie's right foot. Hysterically he began to laugh.
Somehow in the dark the moccasin had fallen out of his pocket. The one he'd found after crawling around in the parking lot like a dog was the one he'd already had. Somewhere the left moccasin that Vangie Lewis had been wearing was waiting to trace her footsteps back to him.
KATIE had set the clock radio for six a.m., but she was wide awake long before. Her sleep had been troubled; several times she'd almost started to jump up, frightened by a vague, worrisome dream. Shivering, she adjusted the thermostat, then ran to the kitchen, quickly made coffee and took a cup back upstairs to bed.
Propped against the pillows, the comforter wrapped around her, she eagerly sipped as the heat of the cup warmed her fingers.
"That's better," she murmured. "Now, what's the matter with me?"
She glanced into the mirror of the antique mahogany dresser opposite the bed. Her hair was tousled. The bruise under her eye was now purple tinged with yellow. Her eyes were swollen with sleep. I look like something the cat dragged in, she reflected.
But it was more than the way she looked. It was a heavy feeling of apprehension. Had she dreamed that queer, frightening nightmare again? She couldn't be sure.
Vangie Lewis. It seemed impossible that anyone would choose to kill her by forcing cyanide down her throat. She simply didn't believe Chris Lewis was capable of that kind of violence.
She thought of Dr. Highley's call. That damn operation. Well, at least she was getting it over with. Check in Friday night. Operation Saturday, home Sunday. At work Monday. No big deal.
As she sipped her coffee, she glanced instinctively at John's picture. A handsome, grave-looking man with gentle, penetrating eyes. Maybe Richard was right. Maybe she was keeping a deathwatch. John would be the first one to blast her for that.
A hot shower picked up her spirits. She had a plea-bargaining session scheduled for nine, a sentencing at ten and Friday's trial to prepare for. I'd better get a move on, she thought.
She dressed quickly, selecting a soft brown wool skirt and a turquoise silk shirt with long sleeves that covered the bandage on her arm. The car from the service station arrived as she finished a second coffee. She took the driver back and drove to the office.
It had been a busy night in the county. There had been a drunken-driving accident resulting in four deaths, and two armed robberies.
Scott Myerson was just coming out of his office. "Lovely night," Katie observed.
He nodded. "Look, I'm interested in the psychiatrist Vangie Lewis was going to. I'd like his opinion of her mental state. I can send Phil, but a woman would be less noticeable over there."
Katie hesitated. "Maybe I can help out. Dr. Highley is my gynecologist. I actually have an appointment with him today. Perhaps I could see Dr. Fukhito before or after."
Scott's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "What do you think of Highley? Richard made some crack yesterday about Vangie's condition; seemed to think that he was taking chances with her."
Katie shook her head, "I don't agree. Highley's specialty is difficult pregnancies. That's the point. He tries to save the babies other doctors lose." She thought of his phone call to her. "I can vouch for the fact that he's a very concerned doctor."
Scott frowned. "How long have you known him?"
"Not long. My sister, Molly, has a friend who raves about Dr. Highley, so I went to see him last month." She remembered his words. "You're quite right to have come," he'd said. "I think of the womb as a cradle that must always be kept in good repair." The one thing that had surprised her was that he did not have a nurse in attendance during the examination, unlike other gynecologists.
"All right," Scott said. "Talk to Highley. And the shrink too. Find out whether or not they think she was capable of suicide. See if she talked about her husband. Charley and Phil are checking on Chris Lewis now. Talk to the nurses too."
"Not the nurses." Katie smiled. "The receptionist, Edna. She knows everybody's business. I wasn't in the waiting room two minutes before I found myself giving her my life history."
Katie went into her office for her files, then rushed to her appointment with a defense attorney about an indicted defendant. From there she hurried to a second-floor courtroom to hear the sentencing of a youth she had prosecuted for armed robbery.
When she returned, she had two messages to call Dr. Carroll. She tried to reach him, but he was out on a case.
She phoned Dr. Highley's office fully expecting to hear the nasal warmth of Edna's voice. But whoever answered was a stranger. "Doctors' offices."
Katie decided to ask for Edna. "Is Miss Burns there?"