Ellen Crosby - The Chardonnay Charade

I knew all of the painkillers by heart. In fact, I knew many of them firsthand. Weaning myself after my surgeries had been hell, but I’d done it. When I was through, I swore I’d never be dependent on drugs like that again. I picked up a couple of the dark brown plastic bottles. All controlled substances. When had Siri and Ross started stocking them? It didn’t jibe with the “No Drugs on the Premises” sign by the front door.

“Lucie?” Siri called.

“In the pink flip-flop room.”

She stood in the doorway, her gray-streaked dark brown hair cascading around her shoulders, classically elegant in a white sweater and navy skirt. “I thought you were in the volunteers’ lounge,” she said smiling. “You were supposed to be offered a cold drink.”

“I wanted to see the latest décor. And I did get offered a drink.”

Her eyes fell on the toolbox. “Lord,” she said. “Those meds should be in Ross’s office or else in mine—when we have them here.”

“I didn’t know you kept stuff like this around.”

“It was Ross’s idea. We’re pretty discreet about it and we only do it on the days we have clinic sessions. That’s why we kept the sign out front about no drugs. Otherwise we’d be robbed all the time.”

“Wouldn’t it be safer to use a pharmacy?”

“I don’t know how to put this,” she said, “but not all of those drugs are ours, so to speak. We’re so desperate to help our patients that sometimes if someone passes away and has a prescription for a medication that lowers blood pressure or cholesterol or whatever, then the next of kin or the funeral home will let us know.”

“You use dead people’s pills?”

“They’re not going to use them, are they? Lucie, we’re desperate!” She sounded reproving. “Most of our patients have no jobs and many of them are here illegally. Ross treats anyone who walks through that front door. And if he has to he goes to them. Just like he did with Emilio and Marta. He doesn’t care if they landed here from another planet, frankly. But drugs don’t grow on trees. We already beg, borrow, and, well, we don’t steal…but we do anything we can to get the treatment and medication we need for our patients. Some of those pills cost as much as a dollar each.”

“I had no idea.”

“It’s not something we broadcast.” The reproach was still there, but milder. “But you know Ross. He doesn’t have much tolerance for following the rule book, if it doesn’t make sense. I like that about him.”

“I do, too,” I said. “I’m sorry if it came out sounding judgmental. Anyway, the real reason I stopped by was to see what I could do to help for the wake or funeral.”

“Just be there for him,” she said. “He’s under so much stress because Marta and Emilio are gone. We’ve asked around, but no one’s talking. Who knows if they’re in Salvador or Sterling?”

“Ross didn’t kill Georgia, Siri. Even if they’re gone, the police will figure it out.”

She nodded, eyes dark with worry. “I hope so. By the way, Ross left something for you. It’s on his desk. I’ll get it.”

She returned with a large sealed envelope with my name scrawled in Ross’s familiar doctor’s chicken scratch. I thanked her and said I’d see her tomorrow. “Tell Ross everything’s going to be fine.”

Siri smiled thinly. “Sure.”

I let myself out and headed to my car, which I’d parked out front. Marty Gamble, the medical examiner who’d taken care of Georgia and volunteered at the clinic part-time, was just sprinting up the stairs to the front porch, sweat-drenched in a T-shirt and running shorts.

I called his name and waved. He came back down the steps.

“Lucie! What are you doing here?”

I liked Marty. He and one other doctor were the only medical examiners the county had. The county paid him the princely sum of fifty dollars a body, so he once said he reckoned he had two volunteer jobs when all was said and done. Fortunately, they had the appropriate gallows humor for their work. “You stab ’em, we slab ’em” was Marty’s off-the-record motto.

He said the joking kept him from falling apart on the tough cases—especially children and the tragic deaths. Georgia must have been one of the tough ones, but I hadn’t had a chance to ask.

“I was in Leesburg, so I thought I’d stop by and see Ross,” I said to him. “I heard he’s at the church.”

“Yep.” He pulled off his shirt and wiped his sweaty face. I tried not to stare. Marty was in great shape. “You’re coming tomorrow, of course?”

I knew he meant the wake and funeral. “Of course. How was your run?”

“Not bad. Ross and I are going to do the marathon again this year. Our tenth together. When the funeral is all over and done with, it’ll do him good to get back to training.”

“Does the sheriff still think he did it? Siri just told me he’s a basket case because he can’t find Marta and Emilio.”

“You know I can’t talk about this,” he said carefully. “But he isn’t out of the woods.”

“What about that note he found? Someone wanted to meet Georgia the night she died. Ross thinks Randy Hunter wrote it and he was pretty sure he and Georgia were having an affair,” I said. “Plus she had sex with someone right before she died.”

Marty nodded as the light went out of his eyes. “Yep. She did. No surprise, frankly.”

He bent to fix the lace of one of his running shoes. The sudden silence lay heavily between us. He was still fiddling with a lace that needed retying, deliberately avoiding my eyes.

“Why wasn’t it a surprise?” I asked quietly. “You know who it is, don’t you?”

He straightened up and a muscle twitched in his jaw, as if he were trying to keep some emotional reaction in check. “I withdraw the remark. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“But you did,” I said. “So you knew she was having an affair with Randy?” His eyes answered for him.

“How did you find out?” I persisted. “From Ross?”

“Lucie…” he warned. “I don’t want to talk about it. I shouldn’t be talking about it.”

“Did Ross tell you?”

“God, no!”

“Then how did you find out?”

He rubbed his forehead with both hands as if trying to excise something from his mind. “Because I treated her for a little infection she’d picked up. She told me it was Randy. This one was.” Now his eyes met mine. “It wasn’t the first time I took care of her, either. She came to me for the others.”

“Oh, God. The others? Ross has no idea?”

His voice was flat. “Of course not.”

I closed my eyes. “Don’t tell him now.”

“I won’t. I can’t.”

“Why you?” I asked. “She could have gone to a doctor in D.C. and no one would ever have known.”

He didn’t answer. Just stared at me with eyes filled with sadness. And something else.

Shame. He’d been one of her lovers.

“She wanted you to know?” I asked. “Didn’t she?”

He nodded and said, still in that monotone, “Georgia could be a very cruel lover. I broke it off after we slept together a couple of times. I couldn’t keep doing it to Ross. Or to Tina.” He began twisting his wedding ring, but when he spoke he was bitter. “It seemed like the honorable thing to do, even though I was still so crazy about her. So to punish me, to let me know there were others, she made sure I was her doctor of choice for all her female problems. At least I never had to help her with an abortion. Thank God she couldn’t have kids.”

“Couldn’t or wouldn’t?”

“Couldn’t. She had the surgery so she’d never have to worry.”

“I had no idea.”

“Don’t repeat this, Lucie. Ever.”

“Of course not.”