anything. Very, very damn sure.”
Alexa nodded.
“You’re lucky she just pushed you down the stairs,” he said. “That sure isn’t the worst she’s capable of.”
“Obviously not.”
Manseur said, “Here’s the deal. I’ll handle this as an anonymous-reported death and keep you out of it. So, how do you think it went down?”
“I think Fugate was attacked in the kitchen probably with that meat hammer and dragged down to the basement, because the kitchen and the stairs were cleaned up. You know, something about Sibby doing this doesn’t quite make sense,” Alexa said.
“Since when do crazy people make sense?” he asked.
“Okay, she loses it, beats Fugate to death, then drags the body down there to keep it from being found, which means she knew killing her was wrong. I wouldn’t imagine an inner-voice-minding psychopath would bother to mop up. And there’s no blood spatter on the walls and ceiling. That would seem to indicate Fugate was first assaulted upstairs, maybe was struck just hard enough to knock her out. Sibby calmly drags her down the stairs, props her against the wall, and then does the real damage with the mallet and puts it in her hand for some reason.”
“Maybe her rage grew as it went on,” Manseur conjectured. “Or she was staging it as a suicide.”
“Funny. To be released by the committee, Sibby had to be cured. Twenty-six years rocking away and suddenly she does this. It doesn’t feel right. And why would she mop up?” Alexa asked.
“Maybe she was crazy enough to kill her, but cured enough to realize she screwed up and, filled with remorse, cleaned up as best she could. Or maybe she just straightened up because she planned to stay here and didn’t want to stumble over the corpse every day when she was cooking her breakfast.”
Alexa was silent.
“So, where’s Danielson now? I have to get an updated description of her.” Manseur nodded solemnly. “I’ll see if that young woman at the hospital can give me one. You suppose Fugate’s tied into the West thing?” he asked. “I didn’t see a car in the driveway. Maybe Sibby took her car and went after Gary West?”
Alexa shrugged, which made her shoulder ache. “I only know that the only common thread in both is Dr. LePointe,” she said.
“I’ll assign two of my detectives to this scene. Find anything on Fugate’s next of kin?”
“I found papers and pictures. If she has kin, I don’t know who they are or where. Somebody took the answering machine’s outgoing and incoming voice tapes out. The machine showed there were eighteen new messages, though. We need her phone records.”
“I spoke to Jackson Evans about the letter from Gary West. I asked to see it and Evans thanked us for trying to help. I’m not sure how to handle it to get a look at the letter. He’s made it clear the case is closed.”
“You could push it,” Alexa said.
“How?”
“You’d have to bring in this murder.”
“Not unless I have cause,” Manseur said. “I don’t think this is enough as it stands.”
“Maybe when you process this place, you’ll get something. Check the toilet for prints. I think a man was here recently. He might have left something of himself. Fingerprint, DNA in the bowl.”
“I’ll tell Cooley to check.”
“Come take a look at something I found,” she said, leading Manseur to the cigar box. Carefully she sifted through the pictures until she got to the money shot of LePointe.
He whistled softly. “I could have gone the rest of my life without seeing that. I think I should take that one out.”
“Send it to Playgirl magazine,” Alexa said. “It’s evidence.”
“Maybe. I’m not sure of anything other than the doctor’s obvious suntan deficiency,” Manseur said.
“I’ll figure it out.” Alexa picked up her purse, wincing. “First thing I’m going to do is run by the hotel and take a hot shower and change clothes. Then I’m going to have a talk with Casey West.”
“Remember that the letter means it’s not a kidnapping,” Manseur reminded her, shrugging.
“Even if Gary West did send LePointe a letter, it doesn’t mean he wasn’t abducted after that. Gary West was the victim of foul play. Only question is who’s behind it and what the reason was. Maybe West will show up, but he’ll have a bad knot on his head and hopefully he’ll tell us what happened and who abducted him.”
“This is your field, but if he knows who abducted him, will they let him live?”
“That’s not how it normally goes, unless the abductor used a third party, or Gary has a reason not to tell anybody. I’m going.”
“Like they know if he tells he’ll have more to explain. Maybe Gary West has a secret he doesn’t want anybody to know. Think Gary has secrets he doesn’t want Casey to know? West could have staged this.”
“Why?”
“To get his wife wet for him. I don’t know. The way this is shaking out, nothing would surprise me. Rich people like them live in a different universe than we do.”
“And who makes that possible?” Alexa asked, waving good-bye as she left.
38
When Leland’s head stopped hurting, he was in the closet, his body drawn up into a tight fist, drenched in sweat. One second pain was all there was in the world and then it was gone, leaving him totally spent. He knew the weakness would pass momentarily and he could step back into the light-filled world. He wouldn’t soon forget to take the medicine Doc had gotten for him.
After a few minutes, Leland climbed out from the stuffy space, to discover that Doc sat on the edge of the bed reading a red notebook he carried everywhere he went.
“Feeling better?” Doc asked without looking up, or meaning it either.
“Hate headaches,” Leland said.
“I agree,” Doc said. “Nothing worse than a migraine. Unless it’s having an abscessed tooth, your fingers flattened by a hammer while a furious big dog is chewing on your balls and you’re having to hit him with your broken hand.” Doc chuckled to himself.
“You say awful things, you know that?” Leland said.
“Medical knowledge warps the innocent. I can’t help it.”
“What’s it say in that there book that’s so interesting you have to keep reading it all the time?” Leland had never learned to read, but he knew some of the alphabet, and recognized his name when he saw it written out. And he could write it down by rote, having learned to re-create the specific letters.
“Aside from wealth beyond imagination?” Doc closed the book with a pop. “Nothing to speak of, my fine cretinous companion.”
“What you need me to do now?”
“You may go out into yon murk and mire to get the nice young man who’s presently residing within the four walls of your lovely floating hovel and bring him back here.”
“What if he’s already dead? Then do I have to?”
“Regardless of his vitals, you definitely have to do that for me. Best if he is, of course, but what is, will be.”
Leland shrugged. “I need to go get in my boat and check on my traps, because you stay off for long and just anybody can mess with your traps and lines. You know it?”
“ Your boat?” Doc said in his high-pitched voice. “ Whose boat is it, Leland?”
“You said I could have it for the jobs I’ve done did already,” Leland said, feeling the heat building in his head. People that lied and did take-backs got hurt and deserved it. Leland couldn’t change the way he saw that, and none of the doctors at the old hospital that smelled of pine resin and Clorox could either. The medicine they gave him made his arms feel heavy as wet oak logs, and he didn’t plan to ever take it again, on account of he didn’t like the
