“We’re here about your ex-wife Natalie,” Mo said, trying to see the woman she’d known with this man. In the time she’d spent time around the woman, Natalie had never mentioned her ex.
“Natalie and I are no longer married.”
“We are hoping you’d seen her today,” Brick said.
Dr. Philip Berkshire shook his head. “Why would I? I haven’t even seen her in years.” He started to rise.
“She contacted you for bail money when she was arrested,” Mo said.
He slowly lowered himself into the chair. “I said I hadn’t seen her. I didn’t say I hadn’t heard from her.”
“She didn’t call you today?” Brick asked.
“No. She called when she needed bail money, and I turned her down.”
“Why?” Brick asked.
“Why?” the doctor seemed shocked by the question. “Because I don’t owe her anything.”
“Or because you believe she’s guilty?” Mo asked. “The two of you worked together. That’s how you met and married, right?”
“That was a long time ago. I know nothing of the kind of woman she is now.”
“What kind of nurse was she?” Mo asked.
“She was a fine nurse, a devoted, compassionate nurse.”
“Why did she quit nursing to become a nanny?”
“You would have to ask her that.”
Brick shifted in his chair. “I would love to, but since she’s not here and you are...”
“We divorced.”
“Why?”
Berkshire shot Brick a narrowed look. “That’s personal.”
“Look, we’re trying to find her. Her life is in danger,” he said. “Also, she might have information that we need in another death.”
The doctor closed his eyes and slowly shook his head. “She had this thing about babies, sick babies. I’m sure you already know this,” he said, opening his eyes and turning his attention on them again. “She had a younger sister who was born very sick. The doctor had given the infant only weeks to live. Natalie told me that she couldn’t bear the child’s suffering and was relieved when the baby passed. That is what you’re looking for, isn’t it? A reason?”
“You think she put her sister out of her pain and suffering?” Mo asked, feeling sick to her stomach. What if it had begun when Natalie was only a child herself?
“I think she wanted to. Whether or not she did... I believe it’s why she became a nurse and why when we divorced, she left the hospital to become a nanny for fatally ill children.”
“Is she capable of killing a suffering infant?” Brick asked.
Berkshire steepled his fingers in front of him, studying them for a moment before he spoke. “Not without causing herself great harm. If Natalie is anything, it is too caring. She was incapable of keeping any distance between herself and her patients. I could see how it was eroding her objectivity. She was too involved, too compassionate.”
“Does she have a close friend that she might turn to?” Mo asked, hoping for some clue where the woman might be headed now that she was injured.
He shook his head and then shrugged. “I have no idea.”
Brick leaned forward in his chair. “She was injured in a car accident in Ennis. I thought maybe she might have come to you for help.”
“No. Natalie wouldn’t come to me. Not after I wouldn’t give her the bail money. Her pride wouldn’t allow that.”
“What about her family?” Mo asked. “Would she go to them?”
“Her mother’s dead and she had a falling out years ago with her father when her mother got sick. Look, I’m sorry, but I’m scheduled for a surgery,” he said as he rose to leave.
Mo asked for directions to Natalie’s father’s house and the doctor told her. “What kind of falling out?” she asked as he headed for the door.
The doctor stopped but didn’t turn around. “Her mother asked Natalie to help her die.” With that, he was gone.
BRICK FOLLOWED A long dirt road that cut across arid country bare of little more than sagebrush. They’d been driving all day across Montana, from Ennis to Helena and now to the eastern portion of the huge state. He was wondering if they’d taken a wrong road when they came over a rise and he saw an old farmhouse in the distance.
As they grew closer, he could see that the two-story stick-built house was once white. Over the years, the paint had faded and peeled until now it was a windswept gray. The yard resembled other ranch and farmyards he’d seen across Montana. Ancient vehicles rusted in the sun along with every kind of farm implement. An old once-red barn leaned into the breeze. A variety of outbuildings were scattered like seeds over the property.
As they pulled down the driveway, an equally weathered looking man came out the screen door. Shading his eyes, he watched the pickup approach as if he hadn’t seen anyone this far out in a very long time.
Brick parked, killed the engine and got out. He heard Mo exit the pickup and wondered what she was thinking as she took in this place. This was where Natalie had grown up?
“You lost?” the man asked. His voice and on closer inspection, his face, though weathered, was closer to fifty than eighty. Brick realized he was probably looking at Natalie’s father.
“We’re looking for Natalie Berkshire,” Mo said.
Before she could get the words out of her mouth, the man was shaking his head. “Never heard of her,” he said, already turning back toward the house.
“She’s your daughter,” Mo snapped.
The man stopped, his back to them. “Not anymore.”
“She’s on the run from people who want to hurt her,” Brick said quickly. “She’s injured and scared and probably has no one else to go to. Why wouldn’t she come here?”
The man let out a deep-rooted bitter sound and slowly turned to face him. “Because she knows better than to come here.”
“You wouldn’t help her?” Brick asked, finding it hard to believe that blood wouldn’t help blood.
“I wouldn’t throw water on her if she was
