"Thanks, David. I appreciate it. The Cove is an inter-esting little town, don't you think?"
"It is now. You should have seen it three or four years ago. It was as ramshackle as you could imagine, everything run-down, only old folks here. All the young ones hightailed it out of town as soon as they could get. Then prosperity. Whatever they did, they did it well and with admirable planning.
"Maybe some relative of one of them died and left a • pile of money, and that person gave it to the town.
Whatever, the place is a treat now. Yep, it shows that folk can pull themselves out of a ditch if they put their minds to it. You've got to respect them."
David set his empty cup in the sink. "Well, I'm back to Doc Spiver's house. I've got exactly nothing, Quinlan."
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
"If I uncover something, I'll call."
"I won't hold the lines open. I just realized that these two deaths have got to be real hard on the townsfolk. Here I am, just about accusing one of them of holding the woman prisoner before killing her.
Hey, I was even thinking those four old men already knew that Doc Spiver was dead when you volunteered to go fetch him for Hunker Dawson, that maybe they'd had something to do with it. That's just crazy. They're good people. 1 want to get this cleared up as soon as possible."
"As I said, I'll tell you if I find something."
David didn't know if that was the truth, but Quinlan sounded sincere enough. Well, he should. He'd been trained by the best of the best. David had a cousin, Tom Neibber, who had washed out of Quantico back in the early eighties, only gotten through the fourth week out of sixteen. He'd thought his cousin had what it took, but he hadn't made it.
David turned in the kitchen doorway. "It's funny, but inescapable. Sally wasn't expected here. Whoever killed Laura Strather was already holding her prisoner. If Sally hadn't heard the woman scream that first night she was here, you can bet no one else would have-but that's exactly what happened. If you and Sally hadn't been out there on the cliffs, that woman's body would never have been found. There would never have been a crime. Nothing, just another missing persons report put out by the husband.
"Now, Doc Spiver, that's different. The killer didn't care if Doc was found, just didn't care."
"Don't forget, it could be suicide."
"I know, but it doesn't smell right, you know?"
"No, I don't know, but you keep smelling, David. I do wonder that nobody heard a blessed thing. Hardly seems possible, does it? People are just too contrary to all agree with each other. Now, that must smell big time to you."
"Yeah, it does, but I still think the old folk are just afraid. I'll be around, Quinlan. Take care of Sally.
There's something about her that makes you want to put her under your coat and see that nothing happens to her."
"Maybe right now, but I imagine that usually if you tried that she'd punch your lights out."
"1 get the same feeling-probably she would have some time ago, but not now. No, there's something wrong there, but 1 fancy you're not going to tell me what."
"I'll be talking to you, David. Good luck with that autopsy."
"Oh, yeah, I got to call my wife. I think she can forget me being home for dinner."
"You married?"
"You saw my wedding ring first thing, Quinlan. Don't be cute. I even mentioned one of my kids. I've got three little ones, all girls. When I come through the front door, two of them climb up my legs and the third one drags a chair over to jump into my arms. It's a race to see who gets her arms around my neck first."
David gave him a lopsided grin, a small salute, and left.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
No one could talk about anything else. Just Doc Spiver and how two outsiders had found him lying in his rocking chair, blood dripping off his fingertips, half his head blown off.
He'd killed himself-everyone agreed to that-but why?
Terminal cancer, Thelma Nettro said. Her own grandpa had had cancer, and he would have killed himself if he hadn't died first.
He was nearly blind, Ralph Keaton said. Everybody knew he was pleased because when they got the body back, Ralph would lay him out. Yeah, Ralph said, Doc couldn't stand it that he wasn't really an honest-to-goodness doctor anymore.
He was hurt because some woman rejected him, Purn Davies said. Everyone knew that Amabel had turned Purn down some years before and he was still burning with resentment.
He just got tired of life, Helen Keaton said, as she scooped out a triple-dip chocolate pecan cone for Sherry Vorhees. Lots of old people just got tired of living. He just did something about it and didn't sit around whining for ten years until the devil finally took him.
Just maybe, Hunker Dawson said, just maybe Doc Spiver had something to do with that poor woman's death. It made sense he'd kill himself then, wouldn't it? The guilt would drive a fine man like Doc Spiver to shoot himself.
There were no lawyers in town, but the sheriff found Doc Spiver's will soon enough. He had some $22,000 in a bank in South Bend. He left it all to what he called the Town Fund, headed by Reverend Hal Vorhees.
Sheriff David Mountebank was surprised when he was told about the Town Fund. He'd never heard about such a thing. What effect would this Town Fund have had on people's motives? Of course, he didn't know yet if someone had put the.38-caliber pistol in Doc's mouth and pulled the trigger, then pressed the butt into Doc's hand.
Premeditated murder, that was. Or Doc Spiver had put the gun in his own mouth. Ponser called David at eight o'clock that evening. He'd finished the autopsy and now he was equivocating, damn him. David pushed him, and he ended up saying it was suicide. No, Doc Spiver didn't have any terminal illness-at least Ponser hadn't seen anything.
Amabel said to Sally that same evening, "I'm thinking you and I should go to Mexico and lie on a beach."
Sally smiled. She was still wearing Amabel's bathrobe because she just couldn't seem to get warm. James hadn't wanted to leave her, but then it seemed he remembered something that had made him go back to Thelma's. She'd wanted to ask him what it was, but she hadn't. "I can't go to Mexico, Amabel. I don't have my passport."
"Alaska, then. We could lie around on the snowbanks. I could paint and you could do-what, Sally? What did you do before your daddy got killed?"
Sally got colder. She pulled the bathrobe tighter around her and moved closer to the heat register. "I was Senator Bainbridge's senior aide."
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
"Didn't he retire?"
"Yes, last year. I didn't do anything after that."
"Why not?"
Vivid, frenzied pictures went careening through her mind, shrieking as loudly as the wind outside. She clutched the edge of the kitchen table.
"It's all right, baby, you don't have to tell me. It really doesn't matter. Goodness, what a day it's been. I'm going to miss Doc. He's been here forever. Everyone will miss him."
"No, Amabel, not everyone."
"So you don't think it was suicide, Sally?"
"No," Sally said, drawing a deep breath. "I think there's a madness in this town."
"What a thing to say! I've lived here for nearly thirty years. I'm not mad. None of my friends is mad.
They're all down-to-earth folk who are friendly and care about each other and this town. Besides, if you were right, then the madness didn't begin until after you arrived. How do you explain that, Sally?"
"That's what the sheriff said. Amabel, do you really believe that Laura Strather, the woman James and I found, was brought into town by a stranger and held somewhere before he murdered her?"
"What I think, Sally, is that your brain is squirreling around, and it's just not healthy for you, not with everything else upside down in your life. Just don't think about it. Everything will be back to normal soon.