Double Shot

there was semen…oh God.” Nan swallowed, and tears spilled out of her eyes. “He had raped her in the stirrups. And then he’d told her to go back to her room and keep her mouth shut.”

“You didn’t report him?” Marla asked.

Nan’s expression and voice became bitter. “He was a doctor. He would have denied everything. And I can assure you, in those days, there would have been no punishment. I’m not even sure there would be any punishment today.” She paused. “The only person who would have lost her job would have been me.”

Marla and I exchanged a glance. I mumbled, “She’s probably right.”

“I know I’m right,” Nan snapped. “Later, I kept wondering why our patient didn’t scream when Dr. Korman first…started in on her.” Nan swallowed. “I think I know now. The rumor is that…her father…had abused her, too. I heard this later. It would explain the infection, anyway.”

“Oh my God,” I whispered. “Who was it?”

Nan gave me a sour look. “Brisbane. As in Walter Brisbane, the owner of the Mountain Journal. You know? Whose wife Cecelia could gossip about everything else because she couldn’t face the truth. And now Cecelia is dead, too.”

“Where is the Brisbane daughter now?”

“I don’t know. Her name was Alex. Alex Brisbane.” Nan took a deep breath. “Last I heard, she was in the navy, far away.”

20

We escorted Nan to her car. Spilling her guts had shaken her up, and she wasn’t in the mood for walking anymore. I didn’t blame her.

“Alex?” Marla repeated to me, incredulous. “That’s what they called her. I don’t have her in my database, that’s for sure.”

“It wouldn’t be anything he’d brag about, I don’t think. Not once he got sober.”

We climbed into the Mercedes. Marla revved the engine and grunted. “So, did you ever know Alex Brisbane?”

I shook my head. “Still, it’s a puzzle. Except for Cecelia, I don’t know of anyone even related to Alex. Maybe Cecelia’s remorse overtook her and she tried to hang herself. That would explain the ligature marks on her neck. When that failed, she drove into the lake.”

“And this Alex?”

“I saw a picture of her at Cecelia’s house. It’s at the library, too. Alex was in Greece.”

“In Grease?” Marla cried. “The Denver producers closed that show two years ago.”

“Greece like the country, silly.”

“Talking about grease makes me hungry for lunch,” Marla countered. “We’ve got to eat before the Jerk’s memorial service. Let’s go.”

At home, Tom and Arch were talking in the kitchen. Tom was in an unusually good mood, asking Arch questions while puttering around the kitchen. He had potatoes boiling on the stove—for potato salad, he said—and he was forming and seasoning large hamburgers from ground beef. Arch, sitting at a kitchen chair, looked shell- shocked. His mouth hung open and his glasses were skewed. What had they been talking about? And how was I going to tell Tom about Nan’s confession when Arch was around?

“Uh-oh,” Marla said, bustling up to Arch and giving him a kiss on the head. “Somebody doesn’t look very good.”

Arch took a deep breath and straightened his glasses. Tom stopped his food prep and flashed us a warning look.

“Here’s what happened,” Arch said, his voice dead. “The detectives found one hundred, eight thousand dollars in gold coins in the safety-deposit box. They took it down to the department.” Arch rubbed his cheeks. “So. Do you think somebody shot Dad for that money?”

“Honey,” I said softly, “I don’t know. You did the right thing, though, helping those detectives.”

Arch shook his head. “It didn’t feel like the right thing. Especially since I promised Dad I’d never tell.”

“Come on, Arch,” Tom said jovially. “Lunch in half an hour.”

“I can’t,” Arch said dismally. He raised his eyes to us. “I’m not mad at anybody. But I don’t want anything to eat, and I don’t want to…be with people. I just want to be by myself. Mom, I’m not trying to be rude. Could you just let me be alone until it’s time to go to church?”

“Sweetheart—”

“Mom. Please.” I nodded. He quietly turned and left the kitchen.

While Marla, Tom, and I ate the hamburgers, we told him about our talk with Nan Watkins. He left the table to put in a call to the department. It looked as if Nan would have to talk to the cops, after all. When Tom returned, he served us his hot potato salad, along with a spinach salad that he had tossed with thick, crispy pieces of bacon and a fresh sweet-sour dressing. For dessert, he cut us slices of deep-dish strawberry pie and topped each piece with mammoth scoops of vanilla ice cream.

“Thanks for the feast,” Marla declared, lifting a glass of water in salute, “celebrating the demise of one of the worst creeps who’s ever lived!”

The woman was incorrigible.

At a quarter-past twelve, Arch came down the stairs. He still looked green around the gills. I was consumed with guilt for enjoying a prefuneral banquet. Marla, Tom, and I hadn’t meant to rejoice over the Jerk’s passing, it had just happened. And we’d been ultra-quiet, in case Arch had decided to lie down. But I still felt bad.

Tom, looking devilishly handsome in a somber jacket and tie, drove Marla home (in her Mercedes!) so she could change into a black suit. We figured parking would be bad at St. Luke’s, so we were taking as few vehicles as possible. But Marla had flatly refused to arrive at church in Tom’s sedan, or, as she called it, “that disgusting old thing you call a vehicle.”

I’d promised to pick up Sandee for Marla, so Arch and I were taking the van. From the back of my closet, I pulled out a black silk dress that I’d bought to wear to a sheriff’s department dinner, with my pearls…agh!

The jeweler! In all the hubbub of getting Arch off to the bank, making a pie, reading my notes, and intercepting Nan Watkins at the lake, I’d completely forgotten about the pearls I’d picked up on Stoneberry.

“I’ll be waiting in the van,” Arch said as he headed out.

“Two minutes. Just getting bottles of water.” As soon as the door closed behind him, I tapped in the number for the jeweler. While I was put on hold, I scrambled with my free hand to find a canvas bag, into which I put two large bottles of artesian water. “Come on, come on,” I said into the phone. The clock indicated it was 12:20. I was due at Sandee’s at half-past twelve. Finally the jeweler clicked in.

“It’s Goldy Schulz. I was wondering about those pearls I left you!”

“Fake.” His voice was expressionless.

“Not real?” I cried, amazed. “Not genuine pearls?”

“Nope. Bye.”

A man of few words, was our town jeweler. I lugged the water-bottle bag out to the van and revved the engine. Then I tried not to count up all the worthless leads this investigation had engendered. This case was more of a dead end than Stoneberry itself.

Sandee Blue had returned to the condo she’d previously shared with Bobby. It was in a townhouse area very similar to the one at Aspen Meadow Country Club, only this one bordered Interstate 70 and overlooked Denver. I wondered how Sandee’s stripper dollars and Bobby’s music could enable them to live in such a nice place. But maybe the band made more money than one would suspect from listening to their music.

“Thanks for picking me up!” Sandee burbled as she teetered to the van in her black spike heels. Never one for conservative dress, Sandee wore a tight, low-cut black dress and sparkly jet jewelry. She’d teased her platinum hair up in front and then loosely pinned that section off her face. Two walls of long blond hair swung by her ears. She looked very fetching. I wondered if she was trolling for a wealthy new underwriter. No telling what Bobby’s reaction