Миранда Джеймс - File M For Murder

When I mentioned the dead playwright’s name, I heard Magda Johnston whimper. I shot her a quick glance, but her face was averted. Was she upset over what happened to Laura, or was it Lawton’s name that elicited a response?

She had been very interested in the playwright at the party, I recalled. At the time I had put it down to her inebriated state, but what if there was more to it?

An even uglier thought came to me then. Was Magda Johnston Laura’s assailant?

SEVENTEEN

By the time Sean dropped me off at the hospital, a nurse and an ER physician were examining Laura. The nurse appeared to be cleaning the wound while the doctor watched. The doc, an attractive woman in her forties, asked who I was, and before I could reply, Laura said, “My father.” I spotted the doc’s name embroidered on her lab coat: LEANN FINCH.

The nurse, a chunky, short man of about thirty, didn’t stop what he was doing, but the doc nodded in acknowledgment before she resumed watching the nurse work.

When the nurse finished, the doc bent over Laura. Her gloved fingers probed the back of Laura’s head. Laura, on her side facing me, winced.

I stood at the side of the small room and observed the rest of the examination.

After some minutes the doc said, “Your hair is very thick and seems to have cushioned the blow. You don’t even need stitches.” She nodded at the nurse who took over and finished treating the wound while the doc continued to talk.

“Her reflexes are good, although she’s complained of a little dizziness and nausea. She lost consciousness, she told me. Any idea how long she was out?”

“No.” I glanced over at Laura, who now appeared to be asleep. I explained what I knew of the situation.

Dr. Finch nodded. “She doesn’t have any memory of what happened in the moments leading up to the blow on the head. Not unusual in the circumstances. I want a CT scan to see whether there’s any kind of internal trauma.” She laid a hand on my arm, evidently having noticed my alarmed expression. “I don’t think there will be any. As I said, her hair is very thick, but the blow did break the skin enough for her to bleed. Just a mild concussion probably. The CT scan is a necessary precaution.”

“Whatever you think best,” I said. I prayed the doc was right and there was no internal injury.

“Once I’ve had a chance to examine the results of the scan, I’ll probably send her home. I’ll discuss with you later the kind of aftercare she needs.” Dr. Finch smiled warmly. “Any questions?”

“Does she need to stay awake? I’ve read that you need to keep someone with a concussion awake for a while.”

“No, that’s not really necessary,” Dr. Finch said. “Natural sleep is okay, but if she loses consciousness you’d need to bring her back in.” She paused, apparently waiting for further questions, but when I nodded, she smiled and moved to a nearby laptop computer and began typing.

“You can sit here if you like.” The nurse’s deep voice startled me, because I hadn’t seen him approach. He indicated a chair near Laura’s bed. “It’s going to be a little while before they come to get her for the CT scan.”

I thanked him and sat down. My head was about two feet from my daughter’s, and as I gazed at her, I could feel my heart rate increase. Seeing her like this brought back sad memories of her mother’s times in the hospital.

Then I chided myself for such morbid thoughts. Laura was going to be fine. This was nothing like her mother’s case, when pancreatic cancer ravaged her. Laura was young and healthy and would make a rapid recovery, I assured myself.

As I watched, Laura’s eyes fluttered open and she yawned. “Guess I dozed off,” she said, her voice weak and low. “When can I go home?”

“They want to do a CT scan first,” I said. “The doc wants to make sure there are no internal injuries.”

Laura frowned. “Okay.”

I checked to see whether Dr. Finch and the nurse were out of the room. They were, and one of them had pulled the door almost shut. I turned back to my daughter.

“Time for a few questions,” I said. I hated doing this now, but Laura was in grave danger. “You’ve been through a lot in less than twenty-four hours, and I need some answers. I want to know what’s going on in that pretty, stubborn head of yours.”

“Yes, sir.” Laura offered a brief smile.

“First, tell me what you remember of this morning,” I said.

“I woke up early, around six, I guess.” She paused. “I was hungry, so I went downstairs and had some toast and a cup of hot tea. No one else was up, and, I don’t know, I guess I had this urge to get out of the house. So I had a quick shower, dressed, and walked over to campus. By then it was seven, probably.”

“Why didn’t you leave a note?” I tried to keep my tone even, though my aggravation level was rising. “Considering what happened yesterday, didn’t you think we might be concerned when you didn’t turn up for breakfast?”

“I wasn’t thinking about that.” Laura looked guilty at this confession of thoughtlessness. “I’m sorry. The last thing I wanted was to worry you, Dad.”

“I know, sweetheart.” I clasped her right hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “After you reached campus, what did you do?”

“The weather was so nice, I decided to walk around a bit. I must have wandered for at least an hour, and I ended up in front of the fine arts building. I went up to my office and sat there and stared at the wall for lord knows how long.”

“What were you thinking about?” I could have prompted her with a more specific question, but I decided to leave it to her to tell it how she wanted.

Laura was silent for a moment. A shadow passed over her face when she finally spoke. “Mostly just thinking about Connor, I guess. Everything happened so quickly, or at least that’s the way it seems now, and I was trying to process it all. It’s such a waste.”

Tears threatened, and I squeezed her hand again. “I know, sweetheart. He was too young.”

“Yes, he was,” Laura said sadly.

I decided to bring the conversation back to her activities this morning. “You were in your office, thinking about all this. What happened next?”

Laura frowned again. “That’s where it starts to get hazy. I think I went to bathroom down the hall and then into the faculty lounge. I was going to make some coffee. Yes, that’s it. I wanted some coffee, and while I was waiting for the coffeemaker to finish, I sat in the lounge and glanced through one of the scrapbooks Sarabeth Conley has kept over the years. I stayed there while I had my cup of coffee, and then I think I went back to my office.” She paused, looking pleased for a moment. Then doubt returned. “And that’s it.”

I tried to fill in from there, to see if it jogged her memory at all. “So you went back to your office. I presume you’d left the door open?”

Laura nodded. “I don’t usually lock it while I’m there, just going in and out.”

“The person who struck you must have been in your office, and you surprised him or her, you got knocked on the head, and then the assailant either left or kept ransacking your office.” As I described the potential scene, I could feel chills dancing up my spine and settling in the back of my neck. Laura could so easily have been killed.

“Dad, are you okay?” Laura sounded alarmed. “You’re really, really pale.”

“I’m okay, sweetheart.” I tried to give her a reassuring smile, but I wasn’t certain how successful I was. At least Laura looked less disturbed. “Thinking about someone hurting you is upsetting.”