“Tell me about the conversation you had with Joy.”
“Joy and I have been friends for years. We were the founders of the Stillwater Dozen—” She broke off when Flora raised an inquiring brow. “It’s a baking club. You know the saying ‘a baker’s dozen’? The club meets every Thursday at the Clarence Delaney Hall. We each bring along something we’ve made. We have a tasting session and trade recipes. I don’t know how the conversation started, but Joy and I got talking about money. Specifically, we discussed how we never had any. One thing led to another, and we realized how much of our income we were giving to Dr. Grayson by seeing him, even with insurance.”
Flora sat back in her chair. Although she had her own reservations about Alan Grayson, she wasn’t ready to share them just yet. “It’s a big step from knowing you both spend a lot on medical care to suspecting a professional of malpractice.”
“It sure is and I don’t want you to think we reached that conclusion lightly.” Lilith clasped her hands beneath her chin and Flora noticed again the ease with which she moved that wrist joint. “But Dr. Grayson kept warning us against researching our disorders. He was really passionate about it. Joy had spent a long time believing she was suffering from Crohn’s disease. Then she met someone who had irritable bowel syndrome. The symptoms were similar, but, when she asked Dr. Grayson if there could have been a mistake in her diagnosis, his reaction shocked her. He was furious and refused to listen to what she was saying. But what made her suspicious was that she felt he was nervous.”
Flora knew the rest of the story. “Was that when Joy stopped taking her medication?”
“I did try to talk her out of it, but she could be very strong-willed once she made a decision,” Lilith said. “And, of course, she found it didn’t make any difference.”
“So, when this center opened, she decided to contact me.”
“Within days of doing that, she was dead.” Lilith choked back a sob. “I want to do the right thing...but I don’t want to be next.”
Flora focused on maintaining a professional manner to reassure the other woman. Even so, she was alarmed at what she was hearing.
When Joy had come to her—on the very day the Ryerson Center had opened—Flora had been concerned by what she had heard. But the leap from concern to accusing someone of malpractice was a big one. That was why she had arranged for Joy to see one of her colleagues. A second opinion would either validate or contradict her own findings. In a way, Flora had been hoping for an opposing view. Because confirmation of what she believed meant she had walked right into a huge scandal on day one of her new job.
She hadn’t gone to the police with Joy’s initial, unconfirmed fears about Alan Grayson. Besides, malpractice was generally dealt with through the civil courts. The problem had gotten bigger, of course, for different reasons, ones she could never have foreseen. Instead of a malpractice investigation, she had become embroiled in a murder inquiry.
Now, having taken down the details of Lilith’s story, she knew a different approach was needed this time. Leaning forward, she gripped Lilith’s hand. “We need to speak to Chief Delaney.”
Leon had been born in Stillwater. When he left at eighteen, he had taken a career path that had allowed him very few opportunities to return. College, followed by medical school, then entry into the army as a military doctor.
He and Karen had met when they were in college. They married while Leon was in medical school and she was working as a librarian. Since Karen had no family of her own, the wedding had been a low-key affair, just the two of them and a few friends. The summer after the wedding had been the first time Karen had visited Stillwater. Leon’s parents were still alive back then and the week they’d spent together stood out as a sweet, shining memory of his family and his hometown.
Now, his parents were both dead. His father had been carried off by a heart attack six weeks after that visit with Karen. Five months later, his mother had suffered a stroke. Leon had been racing to be at her side when he got the call informing him that a second stroke had killed her. Karen’s second and third visits to Wyoming had been to hold his hand at his parents’ funerals. In that time, Stillwater had started to feel like someone else’s hometown.
Then the unthinkable had happened. On a snowy New Year’s Eve four years ago, on his return from duty in Afghanistan, he had booked a surprise weekend break in the luxury mountain hotel where Karen had always wanted to stay. Leon blamed himself for the tragic chain of events that had followed. He had decided it was okay to drive in the snow. He had been the one who’d decided to take the steep mountain pass instead of the longer route through the valley. He had been the person at the wheel when the out-of-control truck had come toward them. If his reflexes had been faster...
No one had been to blame for what had happened on that icy patch of road. The other driver had not been drunk or reckless. It had just been an awful accident.
Karen, who’d been five months pregnant, had been killed instantly. Leon had escaped with minor injuries. Physically, at least. Unable to cope with the guilt and grief, he had commenced a downward spiral into depression that manifested itself in bouts of binge drinking. Given a medical discharge from the army for mental health reasons, he’d been able to keep his license to practice medicine because he had never been negligent in the performance of his professional duties.
With nowhere else to go, he had returned
