The FBI Thrillers Collection (6 page)

Lily smiled. “It’s my grandmother’s name. Coincidence, maybe, but she grew the most beautiful lilies.”

“It’s interesting how some things work out, isn’t it?”

“Yes, interesting, but sometimes it’s also terrifying.”

“True, but there is nothing here to harm you, Lily.” She patted Lily’s hand again. Dr. Chu knew that Lily Frasier was an artist, and that meant she was creative, probably very bright. Such folk usually went under very easily. She said in her soft voice, “You understand that I’m going to try to help you remember what happened last Wednesday evening. Do you want this?”

“Yes, I want to know very badly what really happened. Just tell me what to do. I’ve never been hypnotized before.”

“It’s nothing, really. I just want you to relax.” She lightly squeezed Lily’s hand.

Lily felt more warmth flow through her, all the way to her bones, felt herself becomimg utterly calm. Those small hands of Dr. Chu’s, how could they make her feel like this?

Savich pulled a chair next to Lily’s and took her other hand. A strong hand, she thought, strong fingers. His hand didn’t make hers feel warm, but it did make her feel safe. He said nothing at all, was just there beside her, there for her. Sherlock sat on a sofa behind Lily, quiet as could be.

Dr. Chu said, “You will perhaps believe this a bit odd, Lily, but I don’t swing a watch in front of your eyes or let you lie on the sofa and chant this and that over and over. No, we’ll just sit here and chat. I understand you draw a cartoon strip.
No Wrinkles Remus
? Such an interesting title. What does it mean?”

Lily actually smiled. She felt the familiar pain of Beth’s death ease away. “Remus is a United States senator from the state of West Dementia, located in the Midwest. He’s very bright, utterly ruthless, completely amoral, has overweening ambition, and loves to pull fast ones on his opponents. He’s also known as ‘Ept Remus,’ as opposed to inept, because he’s so fast to come up with a new angle to get what he wants. He’s a spin master. He never gives up, just ignores what people say because he knows that soon enough they’ll forget, ignores what the truth is, and continues until he gets what he wants. What he wants now is the presidency, and he’s shafted a friend of his to get it.”

Dr. Chu raised a thin, perfectly arched black brow and smiled. “An interesting character study, and not all that unfamiliar.”

Lily actually chuckled. “I finished another strip just last week. His friend Governor Braveheart isn’t taking being shafted well. He’s fighting back. Although he’s tough as hell, he’s got one big problem—he’s honest. It’s good. At least I hope it is.”

“Did you take it to your editor at the paper?”

Lily paused a moment and closed her eyes. “No, I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I started feeling bad again.”

“What do you mean by ‘feeling bad’?”

“Like nothing really mattered. Beth was dead and I was alive, and nothing was worth anything, including me and anything I did.”

“You went from feeling great and creative, from smiles and laughter to utter depression?”

“Yes.”

“In just a day?”

“Yes. Maybe less. I don’t remember.”

“On the day your husband left for Chicago, how did you feel, Lily?”

“I don’t remember feeling much of anything. I was…just there.”

“I see. Your husband called you the next day—Wednesday—and he wanted you to take some medical slides to a doctor in Ferndale?”

“That’s right.”

“And the only road is 211.”

“Yes. I hate that road, always have. It’s dangerous. And it was dusk. Driving at that time of day always makes me antsy. I’m always very careful.”

“It makes me nervous as well. Now, you took two more antidepressant pills, right?”

“That’s right. Then I slept. I had terrible nightmares.”

“Tell me what you remember about the nightmares.”

Dr. Chu wasn’t holding her hand now, but still Lily felt a touch of warmth go through her, felt like it was deep inside her now, so deep it was warming her very soul. “I saw Beth struck by that car, over and over, struck and hurled screaming and screaming, at least twenty feet, crying out my name, over and over. When I awoke, I could still see Beth. I remember just lying there and crying and then I felt lethargic, my brain dull.”

“You felt leached of hope?”

“Yes, that’s it exactly. I felt like nothing was worth anything, particularly me. I wasn’t worth anything. Everything was black, just black. Nothing mattered anymore.”

“All right, Lily, now you’re driving away from your house. You’re in your red Explorer. What do you think of your car?”

“Tennyson yells every time I call it a car. I haven’t done that for months now. It’s an Explorer and nothing else is like it and it isn’t a car, so you call it by its name and that’s it.”

“You don’t like the Explorer much, do you?”

“My in-laws gave it to me for my birthday. That was in August. I turned twenty-seven.”

Dr. Chu didn’t appear to be probing or delving; she was merely speaking with a friend, nothing more, nothing less. She was also lightly stroking Lily’s left hand. Then she turned to Savich and nodded.

“Lily.”

“Yes, Dillon.”

“How do you feel, sweetheart?”

“So warm, Dillon, so very warm. And there’s no nagging pain anywhere. It’s wonderful. I want to marry Dr. Chu. She’s got magic in her hands.”

He smiled at that and said, “I’m glad you feel good. Are you driving on 211 yet?”

“Yes, I just made a right onto the road. I don’t mind the beginning of it, but you get into the redwoods and it’s so dark and the trees press in on you. I’ve always thought that some maniac carved that road.”

“I agree with you. What are you thinking, Lily?”

“I’m thinking that when it’s dark, it will be just like a shroud is thrown over all those thick redwoods. Just like Beth was in a shroud and I’m so depressed that I want to end it, Dillon, just end it and get it over with. It’s relentless, this greedy pain. I’m thinking it’s settled into my soul and it won’t leave me, ever. I just can’t stand it any longer.”

“This pain,” Dr. Chu said in her soft voice, holding Lily’s hand now, squeezing occasionally, “tell me more about this pain.”

“I know the pain wants to be one with me. I want to give over to it. I know that if I become the pain and the pain becomes me, then I’ll be able to expiate my guilt.”

“You came to the conclusion that you had to kill yourself because it was the only way you could make reparation? To redress the balance?”

“Yes. A life for a life. My life—worth nothing much—for her small, precious life.”

Then Lily frowned.

Dr. Chu lightly ran her palm over Lily’s forearm, then back to clasp her limp hand. “What are you thinking now, Lily?”

“I just realized that something isn’t right. I didn’t kill Beth. No, I’d been at the newspaper, giving my cartoon to Boots O’Malley, seeing what he thought, you know?”

“I know. And he laughed, right?”

“Yes. I heard the sheriff say later that Beth’s body had been thrown at least twenty feet.”

Lily stopped. She squeezed Dr. Chu’s hand so tightly her knuckles whitened.

“Just stay calm, Lily. Everything is just fine. I’m here. Your brother and Mrs. Savich are here. Forget what the sheriff said. Now, you suddenly recognized that you didn’t kill Beth.”

“That’s right,” Lily whispered, her eyelids fluttering. “I realize that something is wrong. I suddenly remember taking those sleeping pills that Tennyson put on the bedside table. I took so many of them, felt them stick in my throat and I swallowed and swallowed to get them down, and I sat with that bottle and chanted, more, more, more, and then the bottle was nearly empty and I thought suddenly,
Wait, I don’t want to die,
but then it was too late, and I felt so sorry for the loss of Beth and the loss of me.”

“I don’t understand, Lily,” Savich said in that darkly smooth voice of his. “You told me about the pills you took just after Beth’s funeral. Why are you thinking about that now, while you’re driving?”

“Because I realize that I can’t really remember actually taking those pills. Now isn’t that odd?”

“It’s very odd. Tell us more.”

“Well, I realize I didn’t want to die then, and I don’t want to die now. But why is the guilt eating at me like this? What’s inside my brain that’s making me want to simply drive the Explorer right into the thick trees that line this horrible road?”

“And did you find an answer, Lily?”

“Yes, I did.” She stopped, just stopped and sighed deeply. She was asleep. Her head fell lightly to the side.

“It’s all right, Mr. Savich. Let’s just let her rest awhile, then I’ll wake her and we can carry on. She’ll be back with us when she wakes up. We’ll see if she needs to go under again.

“You know, Mr. Savich, I’m getting more and more curious about that first time when she took all those sleeping pills. Just maybe we should go into that as well.”

“Oh, yes,” Sherlock said from behind them.

However, they didn’t have to wake Lily up. Not more than another minute passed when suddenly Lily opened her eyes, blinked, and said, “I remember everything.” She smiled at Dr. Chu, then said to her brother, “I didn’t try to kill myself, Dillon, I didn’t.”

Dr. Chu took both of her hands now and leaned very close. “Tell us exactly what happened, Lily.”

“I came back to myself. I felt clear and alert and appalled at what I’d been considering. Then the road twisted, started one of those steep descents. I realized I was going too fast and I pressed down on the brake.”

“What happened?” Savich said, leaning toward her.

“Nothing happened.”

Sherlock whispered “I knew it, I just knew it.”

Savich said, “Did you pump the brakes the way Dad taught you way back when?”

“Yes, I pumped gently, again and again. Still there was nothing. I was terrified. I yanked up the emergency brake. I know it only works on the rear tires, but I figured it would have to slow me down.”

“Don’t tell me,” Savich said. “The emergency brake didn’t work either.”

She just shook her head, swallowed convulsively. “No, it didn’t. I was veering from the center toward the deep ravine on my left. I pulled back, but not too far because the redwoods were directly to my right, thick, impenetrable. I was going too fast, and the downhill grade was becoming even steeper. That stretch twists and wheels back on itself a whole lot before it flattens out at the outskirts of Ferndale.”

Sherlock said from behind her, “Did you slam the shift into park?”

“Oh, yes. There was an awful grinding noise, like the transmission was tearing itself up. The Explorer shuddered, screamed, and all the wheels locked up. I went into a skid. I tried to let the side of the Explorer scrape against the redwoods, to slow me down, but then the road twisted again. I knew I was going to die.”

Savich pulled her very gently into his arms, settling her on his lap. Dr. Chu never released her left hand. Lily lay against him, her head on his shoulder. She felt Sherlock’s fingers lightly stroking her hair. She drew a deep breath and said, “I remember so clearly slamming head-on into that poor redwood, thinking in that split second that the redwood had survived at least a hundred years of violent Pacific storms but it wouldn’t survive me.

“I remember hearing the blaring of the horn, so loud, like it was right inside my head. And then there just wasn’t anything.”

She pulled back and smiled, a beautiful smile, clean and filled with self-awareness and hope. “Now, this is a very strange thing, Dillon. The brakes didn’t work. Did someone try to kill me?”

Since Dr. Chu was still holding her hand, Lily wasn’t frightened. Actually, she felt good all the way to her toes. Her smile didn’t fade a bit with those awful words.

“Yeah,” Savich said, looking directly into her eyes. “Probably so. Isn’t that a kick?”

“Now,” Dr. Chu said, “let’s just go back and see how it happened that you ended up in the hospital with all those sleeping pills in your stomach.”

Lily felt peaceful and excited at the same time. “Yes, let’s go back.”

“All right, MAX, whatcha got?”

Sherlock walked over, looked down at the laptop screen. “Oh, dear, he’s not doing anything. You don’t think he’s becoming MAXINE again so soon, do you, Dillon? He’s in a mood?”

“Nah, MAX is still a he, and he’s just concentrating. He’s going to turn up something for us.”

“You hope.”

“MAX just shuddered a bit. That means he’s digging deep. Is Lily asleep?”

“Yes, I just checked on her. She didn’t want a pain pill. Said she didn’t need it. Isn’t that amazing?”

“Lily told me that a doctor who could make her feel good without hurting her was sure an improvement over a husband who can’t. She said she still feels better for having met her.”

“Since Dr. Chu didn’t hold our hands, we’ll have to work out our stress at the gym. Too bad.” Then Sherlock laughed. “Remember when she asked Dr. Chu to marry her? That was good, Dillon. She wants out of this mess.

“Now, according to Mrs. Scruggins, Tennyson will be home in about two hours. She told me she’s making a vegetarian dinner just for you—her special zucchini lasagna, and an apple-onion dish that she assured me would make you hum and help you keep your, er, physique perfect. I think she’d like to see you on a calendar, Dillon. What do you think?”

Savich just laughed, then smacked MAX very lightly on his hard drive with the palm of his hand.

“Not going to commit yourself, are you? Okay, she’s got a big crush on you, Dillon. I think it struck when she saw you in your T-shirt this morning, your pants zipped up but not fastened. There was lust in her eyes when she said your name. She had her hands clasped on her bosom. That’s a sure sign of palpitations. She wants you.”

Savich cocked a dark eyebrow at his wife. “Don’t go there, Sherlock, it scares me too much.”

She thought about how she felt whenever she saw him in a T-shirt—or less—and didn’t doubt Mrs. Scruggins’s fast-beating heart one bit. She lightly touched her fingertips to the back of his neck and began to knead.

MAX beeped.

“He’s jealous.”

“No, that was a burp. Well, maybe he’s telling me he’s distracted, what with you draped all over me.”

Sherlock leaned down to kiss the back of his neck, then just grinned at him as she did some stretching. “It really is time for the gym. Do you think there’s one here in Hemlock Bay?”

“We’ll find one. Tomorrow morning, if Lily’s still feeling fine, we’ll go get the kinks out and lower our stress levels.”

She stretched a bit more, rubbing the back of her neck. “You think Tennyson was giving her pills to make her depressed, don’t you? You think he changed the pills back, just to be on the safe side since her big brother Fed was here.”

“Sounds good to me. After Dr. Chu couldn’t get anything conclusive about Lily’s so-called attempt to commit suicide right after Beth’s funeral, I’m thinking that maybe she never tried to kill herself at all.”

“It was strange how Lily sort of remembered, but she didn’t really. If she didn’t do it, then it had to be Tennyson, and that was the bastard’s first try. They’d been married all of four months, Dillon. That’s incredibly cold-blooded. It makes me really mad. Let’s prove it so we can pound him.”

“We’ll try, Sherlock. Here we go. Good work, MAX.”

Both of them read the small print on the screen, as Savich slowly scrolled. A couple of minutes later, Savich raised his head and looked up into Sherlock’s blue eyes.

“Not really all that much of a surprise, is it? So, our Tennyson was married once before, just like he told Lily. Only thing is, he didn’t bother to mention that his first wife committed suicide only thirteen months after they’d tied the knot.”

Savich hit his palm against his forehead. “I’m an idiot, Sherlock. I shouldn’t have given him the benefit of the doubt, shouldn’t have respected his privacy. Some brother I am after that bastard first husband of hers. After Jack Crane, I should have opened every closet in his house, checked his bank statements for the past twenty years. You know something else? All I had to do was flat-out ask Tennyson just how his first wife died.”

“He probably would have lied.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered. You know I can tell when someone’s lying. Also, I could have done then what I’m doing now. My holding back, my respecting Lily’s decision, could have cost Lily her life. I want you to flay me, Sherlock.”

Sherlock was twining one curly strand of hair round and round her finger, a sure sign she was upset. He immediately took her hand between his two large ones. She said, “I’d just as soon flay myself, Dillon. Do you think Lily would still have married him if she’d known that the first wife killed herself?”

“We can ask her. You can bet she’ll be asking herself the same question, over and over. But the thing is that this is now, and her eyes are wide open. Eleven months ago she believed she loved him, thought she’d found a really wonderful father for Beth. If Tennyson had told her, she’d probably have felt sorry for him—poor man—losing his wife like that. She probably would have married him anyway. If I’d told her, it probably would have pissed her off, she’d have resented me, and she would have married him.”

“Okay, so no flaying. You know, Dillon, sometimes we women do think with our hearts, not like you men, who think with your…well, that’s better left unsaid, isn’t it?”

He grinned up at her. “Yep, probably so.”

“All of it was an illusion. Look, the first wife—her name was Lynda—was rich, Dillon, had a nice, fat trust fund from her grandfather. Oh, my, she was only twenty-five.”

“Ah, just read this, Sherlock.” Savich stroked his fingers over his jaw and added, disgust thick in his voice, “That immoral bastard. It usually comes down to money, doesn’t it? Daddy got himself into a mess and so his son tries to bail him out. Or maybe it was both of them in the mess up to their necks. That sounds more likely.”

“Yes,” Sherlock said. “It’s so mundane, really, just a couple of greedy men trying to get what they want.”

Savich nodded as he read to the end of MAX’s information. He sat back a moment, then said, “It seems very likely to me that Tennyson killed his first wife as well as trying to kill Lily. Was Daddy in on it with him? Very likely. Doesn’t matter. I don’t want to take any more chances. I want Lily out of here. I want you to take her to that very nice bed-and-breakfast we stayed at once in Eureka. What was it?”

“The Mermaid’s Tail, just off Calistoga Street. It’s late fall. Tourist season is over so they’ll have room. What will you do?”

“I’m going to have a nice vegetarian dinner with Tennyson. I love lasagna. I’m going to see if I can get him to admit to anything useful. I really want to nail him. I’ll join you and Lily later.”

He rose and pulled her tightly against him. “Take MAX with you. Keep after him to find out all he can about Daddy Frasier’s efforts to get that public road built to the lovely resort spot on the coast he’s so hot to build. Without the state legislature passing it, the project would be doomed. He’s having trouble. Maybe they ran out of bribery money.”

“Don’t forget the condos he’s planning, too—Golden Sunset.”

“Yes, lots of potential profit from those as well. Elcott Frasier has lots and lots of bucks already invested. I wonder if they ran into more roadblocks. Maybe that’s why they wanted Lily out of the way. They were in deep financial trouble again. Now, let’s get you guys packed up and out of this house.”

But Lily didn’t cooperate. She was awake, she still didn’t hurt very much at all, and she was very clearheaded. She smacked her palm to the side of her head and announced, delight and wonder in her voice, “Would you look at me—I’m not depressed. In fact I can’t imagine being depressed. Nope, everything inside there is rattling around clockwise, just as it should be.”

They were in the hallway outside her bedroom. Lily was dressed in loose jeans and a baggy sweater, hair pulled back in a ponytail, no makeup, hands on hips, reminding Savich of his once sixteen-year-old sister who stood tall and defiant in front of their parents, who were dressing her down but good for her latest bookie scheme. “No, Dillon, I won’t just turn tail and leave. I want to read everything MAX has come up with so far. I want to speak to Tennyson, confront him with all this. It’s my right to find out if my husband of eleven months married me only to kill me off. Oh, dear. There’s a big problem here. Why would he do it? I don’t have any money.”

“Unfortunately, sweetheart,” Savich said, his voice very gentle, “you are very rich. All us kids tend to forget what Grandmother left us.”

“Oh, my Sarah Elliott paintings. You’re right, I forget about them, since they’re always on loan to a museum.”

“Yes, but they’re legally yours, all eight paintings, willed to you. I just e-mailed Simon Russo in New York. You remember him, don’t you? You met him way back when he and I were in college.”

“I remember. That was way back in the dark ages before I started screwing up big time.”

“No, you were screwing up then, too,” Savich said, lightly punching her arm. “Remember that point spread you had on the Army-Navy game? And Dad found out that you’d gotten twenty dollars off Mr. Hodges next door?”

“I hid out in your room, under your bed, until he calmed down.”

They laughed. It sounded especially good to Sherlock, who beamed at both of them. Lily depressed? It was hard, looking at her now, to believe that she’d ever been depressed.

Lily said, “Yes, I remember Simon Russo. He was a real pain in the butt and you said yeah, that was true enough, but it didn’t matter because he was such a good wide receiver.”

“That’s Simon. He’s neck-deep in the art world, you know. He got back to me right away, said eight Sarah Elliotts are worth in the neighborhood of eight to ten million dollars.”

Lily stared at him blank-faced. She was shaking her head. “That’s unbelievable. No, you’re pulling my leg, aren’t you? Please tell me you’re kidding, Dillon.”

“Nope. The paintings have done nothing but gain in value since Grandmother died seven years ago. Each of the four grandchildren got eight paintings. Each painting is worth about one million dollars right now, more or less, according to Simon.”

“That’s an enormous responsibility, Dillon.”

He nodded. “Like you, I think the rest of us have felt like we’re the guardians; it’s our responsibility to see that the paintings are kept safe throughout our lifetimes and exhibited so that the public can enjoy them. I remember yours were on loan to the Chicago Art Institute. Are they still there?”

Lily said slowly, rubbing her palms on the legs of her jeans, “No. When Tennyson and I married he thought they should be here, in a regional museum, close to where we lived. So I moved them to the Eureka Art Museum.”

Savich said without missing a beat, “Does Tennyson know anyone who works in the museum?”

Lily said very quietly, “Elcott Frasier is on the board of the museum.”

“Bingo,” Sherlock said.

•
When Tennyson Frasier walked through the front door of his house that evening, he saw his wife standing at the foot of the stairs, looking toward him. She watched his eyes fill with love and concern. But it didn’t take him long to realize that something was up. He sensed it, like an animal senses danger lying in wait ahead. His step slowed. But when he reached Lily, he said gently, as he took her hands, “Lily, my dear, you are very pale. You must still be in pain. After all, the surgery wasn’t long ago at all. Please, sweetheart, let me take you up to bed. You need to rest.”

“Actually, I feel fine, Tennyson. You needn’t worry. Mrs. Scruggins has made us a superb dinner. Are you hungry?”

“If you’re sure you want to eat downstairs, then yes, I’m hungry.” He sent a wary look to his brother and sister-in-law, who had just walked into the entrance hall from the living room. “Hello, Sherlock, Savich.”

Savich just nodded.

“Hope you had a good day, Tennyson,” Sherlock said and gave him a sunny smile. She hoped he couldn’t tell just yet that she wanted to strangle him with his own tie.

“No, I didn’t actually,” Tennyson said. He took a step back from Lily and stuck his hands in his pockets. He didn’t take his eyes off his wife. “Old Mr. Daily’s medication isn’t working anymore. He talked about sticking his rifle in his mouth. He reminded me of you, Lily, that awful hopelessness when the mind can’t cope. It was a dreadful day. I didn’t even have time to come visit you before you left the hospital. I’m sorry.”

“Well, these unpleasant sorts of things occasionally happen, don’t they?” Sherlock patted his arm and just smiled at the disgusted look he gave her.

Savich winked at her as they walked to the dining room.

Tennyson tenderly seated Lily in her chair in the long dining room. Lily loved this room. When she’d moved in, she had painted it a light yellow and dumped all the heavy furniture. It was very modern now, with a glossy Italian Art Deco table, chairs, and sideboard. On the walls were five Art Deco posters, filled with color and high-living stylized characters. Tennyson was no sooner seated than Mrs. Scruggins began to serve. Normally, she simply left the food in the oven and went home, but not this evening.

Tennyson said, “Good evening, Mrs. Scruggins. It’s very nice of you to stay.”

“My pleasure, Dr. Frasier,” she said.