Doc Finn, too, because he was always taking Jack away on expeditions that didn’t include her. I put the shoes in Finn’s car once I ran him off the road, after I managed to get Finn called down to Southwest Hospital. And by the way! That was your first mistake. You had Yolanda lie to that greedy bastard, Victor Lane, and say she was in Southwest Hospital with appendicitis. Guess how hard it was for me to check that she wasn’t there at all? Not hard in the slightest.”
I groaned as he pushed the cart over a large rock.
“Your second mistake, Miss Caterer, was not doing research on what brings people back to a place that serves food! I bet you think you knew all about that. Well, see, in China there was a restaurant that was really popular. Really,
A rotten-egg scent reached my nostrils. We were close to the hot springs pool, the same one that had been closed since Sunday, when I’d dropped the load holding Craig and Billie’s dishes and glasses. Finally, finally, the sulfurous odor, plus my own attempts made me throw up.
“All out!” fake Craig said joyfully. He bumped the laundry cart to a stop, and once again I retched. “Girl, what are you doing?” he cried. “Don’t tell me I’m making you sick! A doctor’s not supposed to make folks sick!” He dumped the cart on its side, and I rolled out. “You know,” he said, “I’ve never drowned anyone before. Push, bump, poison. This is a first. All right, in you go.”
Just having a chance to breathe outside of the cart made me feel a tad better. Plus—was it wishful thinking or reality?—I was feeling stronger since I’d managed to clear out my gut a bit.
But I didn’t act strong. I remained limp while the man I’d known as Craig Miller grunted and groaned as he dragged me to the edge of the pool. But I would
When I felt the relatively smooth concrete flooring under my behind, I took the deepest breath I could manage and rolled myself into the scalding water, which woke me up even further, thank God.
I allowed myself to go down like deadweight. As Craig’s hands thrashed about trying to get purchase on my hair, I went completely under. Darkness had fallen, and the pool was unlit. So there was no way, or at least I hoped there was no way, he would be able to tell where I was.
I pushed off from the side and was able to come above the water for a moment, to take another deep breath. Craig cursed, stretching his arm out to grab me.
But I knew how to dive…downward. I was aware that I would have only one chance. My hands groped the bottom of the pool for a shard, a piece of that blasted china, a chunk of glass…and then my right hand closed around a large piece of broken dish. I felt for the sharp side even as Craig’s hands splashed furiously to try to get me.
It felt as if my lungs were bursting. But I found the very bottom of the pool and crouched on it, because I knew I would need all my strength to push up, and have good aim.
I thought of Arch; of Tom; of dear Doc Finn; of my sweet godfather, Jack, and pushed hard, up, up, up to the surface, where Craig was so startled to see me that he didn’t think to protect his face. In the fading light, I aimed straight for his eyes.
I missed them. But the broken dish sank deeply into his cheek. I pushed the sharp piece in as hard as I could, while Craig screamed in agony. He stopped trying to grab me, and brought both hands up to his face, which was streaming with blood.
I pushed myself clumsily out of the pool and called for help. My voice came out as a squawk. Drenched, scalded, and furious, I struggled with the gate to the pool and tumbled on to the walkway. My right hand with the broken dish was covered in blood. Boyd was already racing up the path toward me, shaking his head.
Behind him, to my surprise, came Billie Attenborough. “Have you seen Craig? Is he in there? This cop would only look for
I tried to say, “Nothing he didn’t deserve,” but I was still having trouble talking.
TWO WEEKS LATER, we packed a reunion picnic lunch for Norman O’Neal, Ceci, and Lissa at the Mountainside Rehabilitation Center. Marla, who had “missed all the action at the spa,” as she put it, had insisted on bringing a basket of fresh farmers’ market fruit.
“Alcoholics love sugar,” she confided to me. “In fact, they need it.” She frowned at the nectarines and peaches. “Maybe I should have brought something chocolate.”
“I already did that,” I said. In our cooler I’d packed a dessert made with vanilla ice-cream sandwiched between layers of a chocolate Bundt cake, which I’d glazed with more chocolate, then frozen hard. I was calling the confection Black-and-White Cake.
Black and white. A description of this case? Yes, if you thought only of the greed that had led Craig Miller/Tim Anderson to kill and kill and kill again. Billie had been greedy to be married to a doctor, and she’d been sufficiently flaky, temperamental, and spoiled not to notice that her groom didn’t really love her. She’d already filed for divorce, and the last I heard, she had signed up for an Internet dating service.
After the memorial service for Doc Finn, Father Pete told me when the service for Jack would be. I had thought my grieving was over, but I cried anyway. When my godfather died, I’d believed that staying home and doing nothing but cry was not the way to mourn. I’d gotten out there in the world to figure out what had happened.
Craig Miller wasn’t a real doctor, and he’d been incorrect in his diagnoses of patients, some of whom had gone straight to old, reliable Doc Finn for help. They’d brought tales of other patients being misdiagnosed, friends who were exhibiting signs of drug withdrawal after visiting Gold Gulch Spa. Doc Finn had decided to investigate, and that had put him on a collision course with Craig Miller and Victor Lane.
Of course, it was easy enough for Craig Miller to make that anonymous “emergency” call from Southwest Hospital to Doc Finn, then hightail it up the canyon until he saw Finn’s Cayenne coming in the opposite direction. He’d made a U-turn and hit Finn’s car so hard from behind that it had catapulted into a ravine. The cops found Craig’s banged-up vehicle where he’d hidden it away. Once Miller had bashed in the doctor’s head with a rock, he’d taken the shoes he’d swiped from Charlotte’s voluminous closet and planted them in Finn’s Cayenne…to point the cops toward her, and away from him, as part of his plan to get her sent to prison, leaving her new son-in-law free to take her money.
Of course, getting Craig Miller indicted for murder, and Victor Lane, his partner in crime, indicted for the illegal distribution of Valium and cocaine had provided some satisfaction for me. Yes, cocaine, the lab determined! That was what Victor had used to get the spa clients moving in their morning exercise classes! That was what was in the fruit cocktail that he had insisted on cleaning up all by himself! The Furman County Sheriff’s Department had discovered the drugs in the Smoothie Cabin, once they’d finally gotten the analysis back on the drugs Isabelle and I swiped. Armed with a search warrant, they’d found what they needed zipped into those packets that read chamomile (for the crushed Valium) and protein powder (for the cocaine). Blech!
In the spa trash, investigators found the bottle of ipecac that Victor Lane had mixed into my lovely butter icing when he was alone in the kitchen. He’d caught me not once, but twice, trying to figure out what he kept hidden in the Smoothie Cabin. Victor Lane had been willing to make his own clients sick just because he sensed I was getting close to figuring out what he was up to. Brother.
“Gold. Fin. Key.” Those were the words Jack had written for me in the hospital, shortly before he was killed. He had wanted me to go to Gold Gulch Spa. He’d hoped I’d find out what Finn had discovered. And that was why he’d left the key Finn had given him inside his house, to which he’d also given me the key. My godfather had been addled and sick, but he’d been determined to give me enough to go on that I could figure out his last puzzle.
The spa was closed by order of the county health department. Last I heard, Lucas Carmichael was trying to buy it. He put Jack’s unfinished Victorian up for sale.
A teary-eyed Charlotte Attenborough gave me a wordless embrace before Jack’s memorial service. What was there to say? I had no idea.
But I was quite surprised when Lucas Carmichael gave me a strong hug briefly before the service began.
