Julia Spencer-Fleming - One Was a Soldier

Clare smiled. “You’re welcome anytime. Come for Choral Evensong. It’s less hectic.”

Flora looked around her, as if trying to put a priest together with a soldier and a young man in a wheelchair. “What are you all doing here?”

“We have reason to believe your sister-in-law’s death wasn’t accidental,” Russ said. “We think she may have been connected in some way with several people who stole a lot of money from the government.” He indicated the papers stacked everywhere. “We’re looking for a lead. Something to tell us why someone tampered with her brakes.”

“Her brakes?”

Will spoke up for the first time. “They’d been engineered to snap the first time the calipers were engaged. It’s not that hard, if you know what you’re doing.”

“That’s… good Lord. I thought that only happened in old television shows.”

Russ shifted his weight. “Did Ellen ever mention the name Wyler McNabb to you?”

“No.” Flora looked at her husband.

“Never heard of him,” Trip said. “Who is he?”

Clare and Eric and Will stared at him. Finally, Eric said, “He’s Tally McNabb’s husband. She talked about him in group. Several times.”

“Ah.” Trip got that waxy, stuffed look again, the same one he had had in his waiting room.

“How about finances? Did she ever say anything about coming into some money?”

“No, but she would have talked to Trip about that, not me.” She turned toward her husband. “What about when we had her and Olivia for dinner? Just a few days before she died?”

“I remember,” Olivia said. “Iola and I went swimming, and Uncle George made shish kebab.”

“That’s right.” Flora looked at Russ. “Ellen must have spent an hour that evening closeted with Trip in his office.”

“Huh.” Russ frowned. “How about it, Dr. Stillman? Is there anything your sister said that in retrospect throws up a red flag?”

Trip looked blank. “I don’t know.”

“What did you talk about?”

Trip stood there, still, pale, his mouth slightly open. Only his eyes moved, darting from side to side as if trying to find an escape from his head.

“Dr. Stillman?”

Clare could hear the man’s breath rasping in and out.

Flora Stillman’s face pinched in worry. “Darling, you must remember. It was the last time we saw her alive.” She glanced up at Russ. “I assumed they were talking about their mother. She’s been getting a bit difficult, and he tries hard not to drag me into it.”

“Was that what you were talking about, Dr. Stillman?” Russ’s voice had sharpened, like a knife that was about to cut through to the truth. It could be a family member, looking to inherit. “Your mother?”

Silence. Clare heard a rattle in Trip’s throat, like the harbinger of death. “I can’t remember.”

Flora faced Russ. “He’s been under a lot of stress lately.”

“I don’t need word-for-word. The general gist is fine.”

“I can’t remember,” Trip said.

Russ stepped toward him. “You can’t remember what went on between you and your sister the last time you saw her alive? Even though you were alone together for an hour?” He dropped his voice. “Maybe that wasn’t the last time you saw her. Maybe you were up at the resort the night of July twenty-ninth. Maybe you were watching as she drove away.”

“For God’s sake!” Flora threw her arms around her husband, as if to prevent Russ from dragging him away.

“I can’t remember.” Trip’s face fell in on itself. “I can’t remember anything.” He disengaged from his wife. “I’m sorry, Flo. I’m so sorry. I’ve been lying to you. To you, to the partners, to everybody.”

Clare had the stomach-dropping sensation of seeing her own life reenacted as a morality play.

“I’m not-I don’t have PTSD. I’m not stressed, or getting older, or preoccupied. I have a traumatic brain injury to my frontal lobe. The effects include migraines, impaired judgment, and a pervasive loss of short-term memory.”

Flora pressed her hand over her mouth. “Oh, dear Lord.”

“I diagnosed myself back in…” He wiped his hand over his eyes. “I don’t know. Back in the summer, I think. Not long after I got home.”

Flora squeezed her eyes shut. “I knew something was wrong. I knew it. I thought maybe you were drinking or taking drugs or-” She hiccupped and started to cry. “I don’t know what I thought.”

Stillman folded his arms around his wife. “Oh, Flora. I’m so sorry.”

“I should have said something,” she sobbed. “I should have made you go to a neurologist instead of trying to ignore it and hoping you’d get better.”

Trip shook his head. “No, sweetheart, no. I wouldn’t have listened to you. I’ve been in carry-on mode since I figured it out.” He bent down so he could peer up into her face. “You know. Stiff upper lip. Onward, the six hundred.”

Flora gasped, a cross between a laugh and a sob.

“Your PalmPilot,” Clare said, coming around the table toward him.

Trip pulled the PDA from his pocket and set it on the table. “I take notes.” He smiled weakly. “I’ve always taken good notes. It’s important for a clinician. I can keep things in my head for a day. Or two.” Something blank and frightening drifted through his eyes. Clare involuntarily stepped back. “It’s… disorienting, sometimes. Like going forward on a moving walkway. People and pictures flash by and then they’re gone.”

Flora yanked a chair from the table and collapsed into it. “Dear Lord. Dear, dear Lord.” Olivia sat next to her aunt and held out her hand. Flora took it, squeezing hard enough so that Clare could see her knuckles whitening. When she finally spoke, her voice was calmer. “Trip. You cannot practice medicine while you’re suffering from this.”

“I thought so, too, at first! But really, Flo, I can. I haven’t forgotten any of my training.” He pointed toward Russ. “Russell Van Alstyne. Fifty. Married. O positive, no drug allergies. Compound dissociative fracture of the right tibia. Two pins in a Stinowski conformation. No postoperative complications.”

“That’s good,” Russ said, “except I’m fifty-two and widowed.”

Trip’s face went blank again.

“Trip,” Clare said, “your sister could have told you everything that night. For all you know, she might have named her killer. Didn’t you take any notes?”

The doctor looked at the PDA. “No,” he finally said. “I reread her file after I spoke with you at the office. I don’t have anything.” He ran his hand over the top of his close-cropped gray hair. “You have to understand, I was still hoping then… I wasn’t taking notes consistently.”

Flora rocked forward in her chair. “Dear Lord.”

Russ crossed his arms. “Mrs. Stillman, do you recall anything from that night?”

She took a deep breath. “Olivia spent the day here with Iola, swimming and biking. Ellen came over from work. She must have arrived around five thirty. No.” Her brows knit together. “She was later than we expected. Six thirty.”

“Go on,” Russ said.

“We had drinks while Trip grilled. We ate. The girls were tired out and wanted to watch a movie. I joined them.” She paused again. “We made sundaes right before that. I remember warning the girls not to drip on the sofa. It was then that Ellen asked Trip if they could talk. She went out to her car to get something, and right after she came back in they disappeared into his study. The girls and I were already in the family room.”

“Did you see what she went to get from the car?”

Flora shook her head.

“Olivia?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Did either of you see her carry anything back to the car when she left?”