Peter Clement - Mortal Remains

“Just remarking on how lonely your father must have been during the years after your mother died. He and Kelly spent a lot of time alone during that period, didn’t they?”

“Son of a bitch!” Mark started for the old man.

“Are you menacing me now, Mark?” Charles said. His voice rose only a shade louder, but it reverberated with authority.

Mark checked himself, his fists clenched.

“Innuendo can be so damaging, almost as much as the lies that have been told against my son.”

“Is there a point to this, Charles?”

“Only that this case could get a lot messier than you ever imagined unless you slow down. What’ll happen to your credibility once the press gets even a whiff of the possibility you could be covering up an indiscretion on the part of your father with the victim?”

“What!”

“It’s not me you have to worry about. I already told you, I may have the evidence to hand you Kelly’s murderer in a matter of days and end this nastiness for all of us while protecting the reputations of the innocent, your dad’s included. So in the meantime, back off, young man.”

Mark stood still, his insides tightening as he contained his fury. He’d been outflanked and trapped.

He pivoted on his heel and strode down the corridor back into the salon, unsure how long he could keep from throttling the manipulative bastard.

Lucy was still surrounded by her newfound admirers. He walked up to where she held court. “Sorry to interrupt,” he announced, “but Dr. O’Connor and I have to leave. We’ve got a patient in the oven that needs basting.”

She looked startled, but said lightly, “He just means my turkey.”

“By the way,” Mark continued, “I hope you boys are more careful with your rifles than the asshole who took a shot at me two nights ago. It happened on a country road not twenty miles from here.”

The men fell quiet.

“What are you saying, Dr. Roper?” Braden asked, having rushed in a dozen seconds behind Mark.

“Oh, I think you know. Just some of my ‘fresh thinking’ again. Since you already told Sheriff Evans that Chaz was sick and headed back to his New York apartment that night, I thought I’d ask a few of his friends what happened. Maybe they know something about it.”

Braden stiffened. “I’ll have you know that my guests are all excellent marksmen.” His normally genial tone had turned to ice. “Harrison here is even a regular participant in the Marlborough hunt. Besides, these men didn’t arrive until Tuesday. So if you’re suggesting any of them could be part of that unfortunate incident, you’re not only unforgivably rude, but sorely mistaken.”

“Really? I’m merely advising everybody with a gun to be careful. Very careful.”

Before anyone could say a word he took Lucy’s arm and walked out of the room.

“You sure do know how to start a war, Mark Roper,” she said once they were out on the highway. Her tone sounded more amused than critical.

He could barely speak, still shaken by the slimy insinuations Braden had made. Of course they weren’t true, he kept telling himself. But the press would have a field day with that kind of salacious garbage. And he’d better improvise something to explain himself to Lucy. She was looking at him expectantly, obviously awaiting an explanation for their abrupt departure. “Sorry for losing it back there. I just wanted to shake their above-it-all, smug-assed attitudes. And that house, it stirred up a lot of memories, from when Mom and Dad were alive.”

She didn’t reply, but he could feel her studying him as he drove. His knuckles hurt, he gripped the steering wheel so hard, and his clenched teeth made his jaw ache. “So what did you learn from the boy’s club?” he asked, her silence getting to him.

“You mean besides the fact they’re sexist, racist, xenophobes?”

“That deep, are they?”

“Creeps are the same the world over – desperate to find like-minded creeps. They throw out their filth like feelers. And once Braden went off with you, they became outright talkative. I’d say that your investigation of Kelly’s murder doesn’t faze any of them. It’s amazing what men will tell a woman if she shows the least interest in their work or hobbies and comes across just the tiniest bit slutty.”

“You acted slutty?”

She cut the darkness with a grin. “Just a little. Purely to get information.”

“Such as?”

“Three of them gave me their private cell numbers.”

“I’m not surprised. Those young bucks couldn’t take their eyes off you.”

“I’m talking about their fathers.”

He forced a chuckle. “You learn anything more useful?”

“Not much. Like they said, they’re here to hunt, though they seemed more interested in talking about their financial empires. One thing’s clear. They’re all pretty enthralled by their host. Especially how he greases the chute for them when it comes to medical matters.”

“Greases the chute?”

“They kept bragging how, thanks to Charles, they had access to the best specialists in New York. That’s something I notice a lot in Manhattan – people boast about their doctors with the same passion they show for cars, houses, or favorite baseball teams. Trouble is, they can’t all be right.”

He chuckled easier this time. “Did any of them let slip they’d been up here before Tuesday?”

“They were too busy asking if men minded when I checked their prostate. Told them I had guys lining up for a second opinion.”

He laughed and felt the coiled spring in his chest unwind a turn or two. “Did anyone say anything about Chaz being there?”

“I was roundabout in asking, so as not to put them on guard. Told them I knew him through my residency, which is true, and that I wanted to say hello. To a man they said he was in New York, down with the flu.”

“Did you believe them?”

“I think they believed it.”

More Braden alibis, he thought, sinking back into the driver’s seat. They passed the floodlit grounds of Nucleus Laboratories. The sodium lamps cast the swirling snow in a giant web of yellow light, at the center of which sprawled the darkened building.

He’d phone Victor Feldt in the morning, although he wasn’t optimistic about finding any leads there. But the prospect of calling up the list of doctors Victor had provided him with seemed a tad more interesting now. They were an A -list, the kind of physicians, apparently, that Charles Braden referred his friends to.

Victor heard the car drive up.

He switched off his computer screen and peeked out the window.

Four men in bright ski outfits got out of a red sedan.

Lost tourists? He opened the front door before they came all the way up the walk. “Evening. Can I help you-”

That’s when he saw the black stubby cylinders two of the men carried at their sides, muzzles pointed to the ground.

Victor slammed the door shut, snapped the lock, and ran for the phone. He’d barely dialed nine when the line went dead. He raced for the rear of the house. In seconds he was through the kitchen and out the back entrance. A fifty-yard sprint through a half foot of snow and he’d be into the forest. Moonlight glinted off the snow, revealing the black line of trees. The shouts of the intruders indicated they were still at the front of the house.

“Unlock the door.”

“We’ll go easy on you.”

“Liquor and money’s all we want.”

Yeah, sure.

The terrain sloped upward, and the leather soles of his shoes kept slipping. After a dozen paces he already gasped for air. He tried to accelerate, only to send his feet flying out from under him, catapulting to his hands and knees. The icy surface of the snow abraded his wrists. Sliding in every direction, he finally managed to get up and look over his shoulder, expecting to see that the four men had realized he made a break for it and were coming after him.