Come Home: a novel Part 9

Jill let it go. She scanned the Programs, found Quicken, and clicked the icon for Household Expenses, which brought a virtual check register onto the screen. "Here we are. This will tell you your fixed expenses each month, and we can make you a budget. Easy-peasy. Where did you say the old bills were, just in case we need them?"

"Here." Abby went to the file cabinet and rolled open the top drawer. "This is all the bills. I went through it, looking for clues, but I didn't find anything."

Jill let that go, too. She crossed to the cabinet and skimmed an array of files that started with AT&T Mobility and ended with Verizon. There was a file labeled Important Doc.u.ments, and she slid it out and opened it. On top was the deed to the house, which was in William's name. "So the house is in your Dad's name, it will have to go through the estate. Let's check out the other drawers."

"They're empty now. Victoria took it all, for the lawyer." Abby closed the top drawer and opened the second, which was empty. "They used to have bank statements and financial stuff."

"Okay." Jill straightened up. "Okay, why don't we bring the files and the laptop to my house, and you stay with us a few days, while we get you up and running? If you have a bag or a suitcase, we'll pack it and go."

"Great, thanks." Abby brightened, then hesitated. "But don't you want to see Dad's room, where he died? Please?" She gestured at a closed door off the office. "I kept it closed after the police left."

Jill sighed. "Why, Abby?"

"To help me." Abby begged Jill with her eyes. "I need your help, Jill. There's no one else."

"But honey, I'm not an expert. Why don't we hire a private investigator? I'll even pay for it, how's that?"

Abby shook her head. "Why? No stranger will care as much as I do. Jeez, aren't you even curious if he was murdered? You loved him once, didn't you?"

"Of course I did, but-"

"Jill, please." Abby grabbed her arm, urgently. "I just want to understand, that's all. My life turned upside-down all of a sudden, and I didn't see any of it coming. Can't you just take a look in the bedroom and tell me if you see anything suspicious?"

How can you not help her, Mom?

Jill sighed. She always had trouble saying no to the girls.

"Please, Jill?"

"All right, but just one look, then we go."

"Thanks." Abby whirled around, and Jill followed her into the bedroom, which was large and modern, with white walls and a navy blue accent wall, a navy oriental rug, and a walnut headboard that matched the nighttable and a long, low bureau. On the bureau was a posed photograph of William and the girls, all of them in matching white s.h.i.+rts with him in the middle, his grin c.o.c.ky and his eyes flas.h.i.+ng darkly under a spray of jet-black bangs.

"Abby, I don't see anything suspicious. Can we go now?"

"Wait, listen." Abby turned, newly animated, her gaze focused. "I know there are no signs of a struggle, nothing out of order or searched, but that's not the way I think it happened."

"What do you think happened?" Jill asked, trying not to sound like she was humoring her.

"I think he'd been in his office with the killer, and they had a drink, then he came in here and ... died. I found him here, on the left side of the bed, nearest the office door." Abby gestured, dry-eyed. "I didn't see any marks on him, like he was. .h.i.t or anything."

"I understand." Jill felt her chest tighten, looking at the bed. The navy sheets were in disarray, and there was a large stain on the left. It was urine, and she shuddered.

"Here's why I think it. He had on his jeans and his white dress s.h.i.+rt, like he'd been out or met someone. You remember how he used to change his pants, but not his s.h.i.+rt?"

"Yes." Jill remembered, but she didn't want to. She just felt sad that Abby sounded so convinced.

"If he was going to stay home, he would have had on a T-s.h.i.+rt or something more relaxed. But he had on a white s.h.i.+rt, which tells me he had a meeting." Abby walked over to the nighttable, which held two pens, a car magazine, and an empty phone charger. "Also, there were three bottles of pills here and his cell phone. The police took them, but I know they weren't his pills. Look." Abby dug in her dress pocket, pulled out a yellow Post-it, and handed it to her. "I wrote down the doctor's name and number. He's not our doctor, and he's not returning my calls."

Jill took the Post-it and read it: Dad's meds: Vicodin, 5 mg, once a day Xanax, 10 mg, once a day Temezepam, 10 mg, once a day Dr. Raj Patel # 9483636 (215) 555-2923.

All were filled same day 4/12 Broad Street Pharmacy, 1200 N. Broad Street (215) 555-9373.

Jill thought a minute. "These could have been prescribed by a psychiatrist, and if your Dad was seeing one, he might not have wanted you to know."

Abby scoffed. "Please, he wouldn't've cared. I tried to Google the doctor, but you know how many Dr. Raj Patels there are? Also, I went to the drugstore and showed the pharmacists a picture of Dad, but they hadn't seen him before, and they were all women." Abby lifted an eyebrow. "Now, I ask you. What woman would forget Dad, only a week later?"

"It's possible, Abby." Jill didn't press the point. She was trying to forget him, years later, but not in a good way. She handed the paper back to Abby. "Here."

"Keep it. I have a copy."

Jill stuck it in her purse, which was still on her shoulder. "You said he had a gun. Where is it?"

"Right here." Abby slid open the drawer on the nighttable, revealing a black revolver. "It's loaded."

Jill didn't get it. "Honey, if someone was trying to kill him, why didn't he use the gun to protect himself?"

"What if they drugged him? What if he didn't know it was happening, and by the time he did, he couldn't do anything to help himself?"

"He could have pressed the alarm b.u.t.ton." Jill spotted a burglar alarm panel on the wall, near the bed. She knew it would be there because they'd had one there at their old house, at William's insistence.

"Not if he was drugged."

"But the room is in perfect order. Didn't he fight back, at all? Your Dad was a big, physical guy."

"What if he did, and the killer put it back together, afterwards? Without fingerprints, how would you know?" Abby's tone grew stronger, more confident. "The police refused to call the mobile crime unit because they said there was no sign of a murder, so I'll investigate it myself, whether you help me or not. No matter what it takes, or how long. I'll do it."

"Why would anybody kill him?" Jill asked, trying to reason with her. "There's no sign of a robbery. Look." She walked to the bureau, where a lacquered box was open and in full view, with an array of watches on a velveteen stalk. Then she remembered that William always kept cash in his sock drawer, so she opened the top drawer, and under his balled-up socks nestled a stack of wrinkled twenties. "This money isn't hard to find, all anybody would have to do is open the top drawer. He wasn't robbed, even after the fact. Where was his wallet?"

"In his back pocket. The police took that, too." Abby frowned, frustrated. "Maybe it wasn't about money. Maybe it was personal."

"Do you know of anybody who had it in for him?"

"No. Neil called him The Mayor. Everybody loved Dad, he had tons of friends."

Jill let it go. She hadn't seen "tons of friends" at the memorial service, and there hadn't been a tear in sight. "Who's Neil?"

"Neil Straub, his business partner."

"Oh, right. Did he get along with your Dad?"

"Totally. Neil would never do anything to Dad."

"Where does he live?"

"New York, but he travels with Dad a lot."

"Okay, now, can we go?" Jill had indulged this long enough, and Abby was getting riled up, with all the encouragement.

"Wait, one last thing." Abby went to the bathroom and opened the mirrored medicine chest. "Here's Dad's Crestor. This is where he keeps his meds, not on the nighttable. Also, this prescription was filled at our CVS. Dad chats up the pharmacists, and they all love him. Proves my point." Abby turned at the faint sound of a hip-hop ringtone. "Wait, that's my phone, downstairs. I should get that." She headed out the bathroom door, then the bedroom. "I'll be right back."

"I'll come with you."

"No, wait, stay." Abby rushed out of the room, leaving Jill lingering unhappily by William's bed. She and William used to have a bra.s.s bed, and she flashed on a Sunday afternoon long ago, when they were driving in the car, dropping off the last daughter at her friend's. It was early on in their marriage, still happy times, and as soon as the car door closed, they both looked at each other across the console and realized, in the same moment, that they would have the house to themselves, like a sort of suburban miracle.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking? William had asked her, with a grin.

Totally. Food-shopping can wait.

William had hit the gas, and they raced home, flew from the car, then ran inside, not stopping to let Beef out, and William chased her upstairs to their bra.s.s bed, shouting, Let's make some noise!

"Oh, well." Abby was entering the bedroom, teary again, and the expression on her face brought Jill back to earth. She went over and gave Abby a warm hug.

"What's the matter, honey?"

"That was Victoria on the phone. I can't go to your house, tonight." Abby sniffled in Jill's arms. "She says I'm taking sides, or switching to the wrong side, or whatever."

"Aw, there's no sides, there never was, not to me." Jill let her go, and Abby wiped her eye.

"I know, but still, I don't want to upset her anymore. It's a hard time for her, too, and she's right, I'm not being very considerate."

"I understand." Jill used to mitigate Victoria's tendency to boss her little sister, but those days were gone. "Don't worry about it, honey. Whatever you're comfortable with, I'll do."

"I'll stay here tonight, but please, take the laptop and the other stuff. I do want to try and live here, make a go of it, no matter what Victoria says."

"Okay." Jill hated leaving Abby alone, but there was no choice. "What's in your refrigerator, sweetie?"

"Bottled water." Abby managed a smile. "And half and half, for Pickles."

"How about I go to the store for you, pick up some groceries, and drop them off? Then you can at least make yourself a bowl of cereal in the morning. You still like Special K? With strawberries?"

"You remembered." Abby smiled, more broadly. "You're such a mom."

An hour later, Jill was back in the car in the rain, having dropped off groceries for Abby and picked some up for herself. The traffic on the expressway heading out of the city was congested, and she inched along, using the time to return phone calls and emails from her patients. Padma hadn't called her about Rahul, and Jill hoped he was improving, but the bloodwork would be definitive.

She stewed behind the wheel, her thoughts all over the map. So much had happened, she couldn't absorb it quickly enough.

What woman would forget Dad?

Jill couldn't shake the question, and it wasn't the kind of thing that would get the attention of the police, even if they had followed up. You had to know William to know it was fishy. She fed the car some gas, then braked again in traffic, and the reflective letters of a sign on the overpa.s.s caught her headlights. BROAD STREET, MILE.

She remembered that William had filled his scripts for the drugs at a pharmacy on Broad Street, and she wondered if she should stop in and ask. She was curious about the scripts, and Broad Street was on the way home.

You're a doctor, and Sherlock Holmes was a doctor.

She thought of the lesson she'd taught Abby, that all deductive reasoning was the same, a process designed to find the truth. When Jill ran a differential for a patient, she would systematically cross off diagnoses that weren't supported by the data and keep those that were, testing as she went along, until she understood what was really going on. That was the reason she'd ordered the blood test for Rahul; if his results came back normal, as she expected, she'd have ruled out the more serious diagnoses.

Jill thought about it in traffic. If she could go to the pharmacy and rule out anything being wrong with the scripts, she could put to bed Abby's murder theory. So she reached for her purse and felt around for the yellow Post-it.

Chapter Thirteen.

Jill cruised down Broad Street, going north in the driving rain. The boulevard bisected the city, and this stretch was lined with check-cas.h.i.+ng agencies, empty storefronts, and used-car lots. Streetlights were broken, leaving entire blocks in darkness, and Jill tried to understand why William would have come here to fill the scripts. She saw the BROAD STREET PHARMACY sign ahead and scanned in the darkness for a parking s.p.a.ce. One opened up suddenly, and she braked to pull into it, but when she checked her rearview mirror, something strange caught her eye.

Mom, look in your mirror. There's a padiddle behind us, one car back.

She blinked. There was a padiddle, two cars behind her. To double-check, she squinted at her outside mirror, and she could see the padiddle clearly, though raindrops dotted the mirror. It was two cars back, and it was also a black SUV, with the left light out and the same boxy grille, which was quite coincidental.

Jill's mouth went dry. She hit the gas, drove past the drugstore, and turned right off Broad Street. The sidestreet was skinny and even darker, lined with rundown brick rowhomes and plenty of parking s.p.a.ces. She pulled over, shut off the engine, and slid down in the driver's seat to see if the SUV would follow her.

Her heart started to pound, and she felt scared and silly, both at once. Her eyes were glued to the outside mirror. A few minutes later, the padiddle appeared, driving fast. She ducked deep into her seat, let it pa.s.s, and popped up again. She couldn't see the driver, but she caught the beginning of its license plate, and the first letter was a T.

Jill told herself to calm down, trying not to jump to conclusions. There would be no reason for anybody to be following her, and it would be dumb to follow anybody in a padiddle. Then she thought again. The driver might not know he had a headlight out, and maybe he'd started following Abby, then more recently started following her.

Jill started up the car, drove out of the s.p.a.ce, took the next right, and backtracked three blocks, heading for the drugstore. She parked, chirped the car locked, grabbed her purse, and checked around her before she got out, but the SUV wasn't anywhere in sight. She climbed out and hurried through the rain into the drugstore, more than a little spooked.

She hustled inside the bright-lit store, which was cold, empty, and dingy, with a tile floor that felt gritty under her pumps. She spotted herself on a security monitor, then hustled to the back where the pharmacy would be and got in line at the counter behind a young blonde mother, with a crying baby wrapped in a thin receiving blanket. There wasn't a pharmacist on duty, just a young male clerk with gelled hair, whose pallor wasn't helped by the fluorescent lights overhead.

"Is this a drop off?" the clerk asked the young mother, who was jiggling the baby while he cried.

"Can I see the pharmacist?"

"No, she's gone for the night."

"Then can you help me?" The woman held the baby close, but the crying didn't stop. "My little boy's teething, and my aunt said to rub brandy on his gums, but it doesn't help."

"You gotta go to the doctor. I'm not a doctor."

"I don't have one. I went to the ER, but it was too crowded. Can you just answer a question for me?"

"No, I just work here, sorry."

Jill felt torn, knowing she wasn't supposed to step in. The baby wasn't her patient, and the Good Samaritan didn't apply. But she wasn't about to let a mother and child suffer, even if the system would. "Miss, maybe I can help you. I'm a pediatrician."

"You, a doctor?" The young woman's eyes lit up, an exhausted blue, and she had a neck tattoo with her name written in curlicued script. "He kept me up all night with his crying, and I can't calm him down, no matter what."

"Let me see his hand a second." Jill checked his tiny hand, and he had a telltale rash. She didn't even have to take the baby, because when he cried, he opened his mouth wide enough for her to see a blister on his tongue. "How did he sleep and eat, today?"

"Not much."

"And he has a fever, I bet."

"Last night it was 101, and he's still warm, for sure."