Hemlock Bay

“Then what happened?”

“Well, Mrs. Savich, I can’t rightly say. Before I left, Dr. Frasier had come home early and I heard them talking. Then she just fell back again, the very next day. It was really fast. Laughing one minute, then, not ten hours later, she was so depressed, so quiet. She just walked around the house that day, not really seeing anything, at least that’s what I think. Then she’d disappear and I knew later that she’d been crying. It’s enough to break your heart, you know?”

“Yes, we know,” Sherlock said. “These pills, Mrs. Scruggins, the Elavil, do you refill the prescription for her?”

“Yes, usually. Sometimes Dr. Frasier just brings them home for her. They don’t seem to do much good, do they?”

“No,” said Savich. “Maybe it’s best that she be off them for a while.”

“Amen to that. Poor little mite, such a hard time she’s had.” Mrs. Scruggins gave another deep sigh, nearly pulling apart the buttons over her large bosom. “I myself missed little Beth so much I just wanted sometimes to lie down and cry and cry and never you mind anything else. And I wasn’t her mama, not like Mrs. Frasier.”

“What about Dr. Frasier?” Savich asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Was he devastated by Beth’s death?”

“Ah, he’s a man, Mr. Savich. Sure, he looked glum for a week or so. But you know, men just don’t take things like that so much to heart, leastwise my own papa didn’t when my little sister died. Maybe Dr. Frasier keeps it all inside, but I don’t think so. Don’t forget, he wasn’t Beth’s real father. He didn’t know little Beth that long, maybe six months in all.”

Sherlock said, “But he’s been so very worried about Lily, hasn’t he?”

Mrs. Scruggins nodded, and the small diamond studs in her ears glittered in the morning sunlight pouring through the window. Diamonds and muscles and rings, Sherlock thought, and wondered. Mrs. Scruggins said, “Poor man, always fretting about her, trying to make her smile, bringing her presents and flowers, but nothing really worked, leastwise in the long term. And now this.” Mrs. Scruggins shook her head. She wore her gray hair in a thick chignon. She had lots of hair and there were a lot of bobby pins worked into the roll.

It occurred to Sherlock to wonder if Mrs. Scruggins really cared for Lily, or if it was all an act. Could it be that she was really Lily’s companion, or maybe even her guard?

Now where had that thought come from? Hadn’t Mrs. Scruggins saved Lily’s life that first time Lily had taken the bottle of pills right after Beth’s funeral? She was getting paranoid here; she had to watch it.

“I have a little boy, Mrs. Scruggins,” Savich said. “I’ve only had him a bit more than seven months, and you can believe that I would be devastated if anything were to happen to him.”

“Well, that’s good. Some men are different, aren’t they? But my daddy, hard-nosed old bastard he was. Didn’t shed a tear when my little sister got hit by that tractor. Ah, well, I’m afraid I have things to do now. When is Mrs. Frasier coming home?”

“Perhaps as soon as tomorrow,” Sherlock said. “She’s had major surgery and won’t be feeling very well for several days.”

“I’ll take care of her,” Mrs. Scruggins said and popped her knuckles.

Sherlock shuddered, shot Savich a look, and thanked the older woman for all her help. She shook Mrs. Scruggins’s hand, feeling all those rings grind into her fingers.

Just before they left the kitchen, Mrs. Scruggins said, “I’m real glad you’re staying here. Being alone just isn’t good for Mrs. Frasier.”

Savich felt a deep shaft of guilt. He remembered he hadn’t said very much when Lily had insisted on returning here after recuperating with their mother. She’d seemed just fine, wanted to be with her husband again, and he’d thought, I would want to be with Sherlock, too, and he’d seen her off at Reagan Airport with the rest of the family. Te

During the months she was home, she hadn’t ever called to complain, to ask for help. Her e-mails were invariably upbeat. And whenever he and Sherlock had called, she’d always sounded cheerful.

And now, all these months later, this happened. He should have done something then, shouldn’t have just kissed her and waved her onto the flight to take her three thousand miles away from her family. To take her back to where Beth had been killed.

He looked down to see Sherlock squeezing his hand. There was immense love in her eyes and she said only, “We will fix things, Dillon. This time we’ll fix things.”

He nodded and said, “I really want to see Lily’s in-laws again, don’t you, Sherlock? I have this feeling that perhaps we really don’t know them at all.”

“Agreed. We can check them out after we’ve seen Lily.”

At the Hemlock County Hospital, everything was quiet. When they reached Lily’s room, they heard the sound of voices and paused at the door for a moment.

It was Te

And Elcott Frasier, his father.

Elcott Frasier was saying, his voice all mournful, “Lily, we’re so relieved that you survived that crash. It was really dicey there for a while, but you managed to pull through. I can’t tell you how worried Charlotte has been, crying, wringing her hands, talking about her little Lily dying and how dreadful it would be, particularly such a short time after little Beth died. The Explorer, though, it’s totaled.”

That, Savich thought, was the strangest declaration of caring he’d ever heard.

“It’s very nice of all of you to be concerned,” Lily said, and Savich heard the pain in her voice, and something else. Was it fear? Dislike? He didn’t know. She said, “I’m very sorry that I wrecked the Explorer.”

“I don’t want you to worry about it, Lily,” Te

“I’ll buy you another one. A gift from me to you, my beautiful little daughter-in-law,” Elcott said.

“I don’t want another Explorer,” she said.

“No, of course not,” continued Elcott. “Another Explorer would remind you of the accident, wouldn’t it? We don’t want that. We want you to get well. Oh yes, we’ll do anything to get you well again, Lily. Just this morning, Charlotte was telling me how everyone in Hemlock Bay was talking about it, calling her, commiserating. She’s very upset by it all.”

Savich, quite simply, wanted to throw Elcott Frasier out the window. He knew Frasier was tough as nails, that he was a powerful man, but Savich was surprised that he hadn’t been a bit more subtle, not this in-your-face bludgeoning. Why? Why this gratuitous cruelty?

Savich walked into the room like a man bent on violence until he saw his sister’s white face, the pain that glazed her eyes, and he calmed immediately. He ignored the men, walked right to the bed, and leaned down, pressed his forehead lightly against hers.

“You hurt, kiddo?”

“Just a bit,” she whispered, as if she were afraid to speak up. “Well, actually a whole lot. It’s not too awful if I don’t breathe too deeply or laugh or cry.”

“More than a bit, I’d say,” Savich said. “I’m going to find Dr. Larch and get you some more medication.” He nodded to Sherlock and was out the door.

Sherlock smiled brightly at both her brother-in-law and Elcott Frasier. He looked the same as he had the first time she’d met him, eleven months before-tall, a bit of a paunch, a full head of thick, white hair, wavy, quite attractive. His eyes were his son’s-light blue, reflective, slightly slanted. She wondered what his vices were, wondered if he really loved Lily and wanted her well. But why wouldn’t he? Lily had been his son’s wife for eleven months now. She was sweet, loving, very talented, and she’d lost her only child and fallen into a deep well of grief and depression.

She knew Elcott was sixty, but he looked no older than mid-fifties. He’d been a handsome man when he was younger, perhaps as handsome as his only son.