money. She unfolded it, thinking it might be a ten or a twenty. Instead, she found it to be a single hundred dollar bill.
“There’s more where that came from,” Jim Bob Brady declared in a forceful whisper.
With that, her father-in-law turned and strode away. Blinded by tears, Joanna stumbled back into the kitchen, sank into the break-fast nook, put her head down on her arms, and bawled her eyes out, grateful that there was no one else around the house to see or hear her do it.
It was some time later before she managed to pull herself back together enough to get up and pour a second cup of coffee. She supposed it would be like this for some time-one step forward and two back, then she’d be fine for while until something set her off again. In her present condition, kindness was almost ore difficult to handle than anything else.
The fit of crying had passed and she was just beginning to work on a complex TO-DO list when the phone rang. Afraid it might be her mother, she almost didn’t answer. Finally she did.
“Mrs. Brady?” a man asked. The voice sounded familiar, although at first Joanna couldn’t place it.
“Yes.”
“Dr. Sanders,” he announced. “From University Hospital.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, thinking she must have fled to fill out one of the billing forms properly. “What can I do for you, Dr. Sanders?”
He paused. “This may sound funny, Mrs. Brady, but with all due humility, I’m a good doctor and an excellent surgeon. When you ked about your husband’s prognosis yesterday morning, I gave you the worst possible scenario. I always do that as a matter of course, so that families have a chance to work backwards from there. I couldn’t predict the eventual outcome of the possible paralysis, but from the family’s standpoint, a partial recovery would have been better than no recovery at all, if that’s what you’re prepared for. Does that make sense?”
“Yes.”
“I usually take Wednesday afternoons off. If I had thought your husband’s condition was that critical, I never would have left the hospital. That’s why I wasn’t there when your husband’s status deteriorated so rapidly. Now, I’m trying to make sense of what happened.”
“They scheduled an autopsy,” Joanna said.
“I know. Actually, I’ve already seen it. The preliminary results are inconclusive. With the kind of extensive injuries your husband sustained, I would have expected to find a stray blood clot that had come loose and made its way to either the heart or lungs, but the medical examiner found nothing of the kind. She’s ordered a full battery of toxicology tests, but those take time.”
“Toxicology?” Joanna asked. “Why that?”
“Because,” he answered, without really addressing the question. “The reason I’m calling you right now,” he continued, “is to see if you noticed any change in your husband’s condition the last time you saw him.”
“No. None. I was away from the hospital, too, when it happened. Have you spoken to the other doctor?”
“What other doctor?” Sanders demanded sharply.
“The one who stopped by just before Andy went into cardiac arrest. My mother said he told her everything was fine.”
There was dead silence on the other end of the line. “Mrs. Brady,” Dr. Sanders said slowly. “I have your husband’s chart right e in front of me. There’s no indication of a doctor’s visit after my last rounds at 11:30 A.M. just before I left for the day. Did your mother mention a name?”
“No, but she did say she talked to him when came back out to the waiting room. He told her there wasn’t anything to worry about.”
“Has she spoken to the police about this?” Dr Sanders asked.
“The police? Why would she?”
“She’d better,” Dr. Sanders said quietly. Someone posing as a doctor would explain a lot.”
“What are you talking about?” Joanna ed.
“As I said, we can’t be positive until after toxicology report, but once you’ve seen or two O.D.’s you know what they look like.”
“O.D.,” Joanna repeated. “As in drug overdose? How could that be? You mean someone accidentally administered the wrong thing?”
“I’m not saying anything of the kind,” Dr. Sanders returned. “This so-called doctor your mother told you about wasn’t a doctor at all.”
The room spun around her. Joanna gripped the counter top in order to maintain her balance. “He was an imposter then?”
“Yes. I don’t know about the bullet wound. I’m saying that I think there’s a good possibility you were right. Those powder burns on your husband’s hand and fingers may or may not have been faked, but at the time of his death, your husband was in no condition to self-administer a lethal dose of anything.”
“You’re saying he was murdered after all,” Joanna managed.
“Damn right!” Dr. Sanders returned forcefully. “To be perfectly frank, Mrs. Brady, my initial interest in the autopsy was strictly from a medical malpractice standpoint. A patient was dead and I wanted to know, for my own benefit, if I was in any way liable. But after our conversation I wanted to call you right away and let you know what’s going on. I would imagine the Tucson police will attempt to get in touch with your mother.”
“I’m sure they will,” Joanna agreed.
When she hung up the phone, Joanna didn’t waste a moment before dialing her mother’s number herself, but there was no answer. Eleanor Lathrop was already up and gone. Joanna was disappointed, but there was one small consolation. If she couldn’t find her mother, neither could the Tucson police.
ELEVEN
After a virtually sleepless night, Angie Kellogg staggered out of bed. She didn’t want to anywhere near Tony when he woke up. She didn’t want him to touch her.
Angie was a survivor. She had avoided the pitfaIIs of drug use, not out of some sense of superior morality but because she saw for herself, time and again, that drug-using hookers died with astonishing regularity. And so far, she had managed to elude AIDS as well. Tony had insisted on having her tested before he’d take her to bed. Once he’d reassured himself t she was clean, he’d taken steps to make sure she stayed that way. It was funny that a cold-blooded killer would himself be so frightened of death. This morning Angie Kellogg wished she could give him a good healthy dose of clap just to get his attention.
On her part, she had allied herself with Tony Vargas when he was the only way out of what would otherwise have been a life-or-death situation. And now, ten months later, here she was in another one.
The day before, when Tony had left the house after watching the noon news, Angie had guessed what he’d be about. Now, knowing for sure, she was sick with revulsion. And fear. She wasn’t sure of all the legal ramifications, but she was convinced that somehow, by knowing and keeping silent, the law would deem her an accomplice, if not before the fact then certainly after.
If the cops ever did manage to catch Tony and charge him, if Tony took a fall, so would she. When it came to dead cops, she knew she’d be sucked into the vortex right along with Tony. In fact, out of sheer spite, Tony would probably drag her down right along with him.
But fear of Tony and fear of the consequences weren’t all that had kept her from sleeping. The other cause of her insomnia was guilt, the sure knowledge that by doing nothing, by not acting on her suspicions, she had played an unwitting part in the death of that sheriff’s deputy.
After the terrible things her father had done to her, Angie had both blamed and hated her-self. She had allowed self-condemnation to be-come the central issue of her life, distorting and dictating her every action, but compared
