CHAPTER 39
Rita
MR. LIDDLE WANTS ME TO STOP BY THE REHAB CENTER WHERE HE’S been moved. It was great news that he regained consciousness, but I guess he’s still pretty banged up. Some people can’t catch a break and it looks like the Liddles are some of those people. I pull into the lot in front of the low-slung building that sits a stone’s throw from the psychiatric hospital where Doctor Thayer works. Convenient.
I pull up my collar against the cold wind as I walk to the sliding glass front doors. I sign in and follow the hallway down to room 116.
He’s sitting in one of those generic, vinyl-covered armchairs that are about as comfortable as a slab of concrete. He looks a little better actually than the last time I saw him, back after the baby was found. He looks like someone has washed him up, given him a shave. He has that baby pink look of someone who’s been tended and recently scrubbed. He’s wrapped in a flannel robe.
I knock on the open door. “Mr. Liddle?” He appears to be gazing out the window. And I see that while he has hair on the front of his head, the back is shaved and there’s a row of stitches like train tracks across the back of his skull.
“Yes?”
“Detective Myers.”
“Come in,” he says. “Thanks for coming.” He clears his throat and runs his good hand over his eyes.
I start to sit in a chair that’s across the room when he says, “Would you shut the door?”
“Sure, no problem.” I thought he wanted an update on the kidnapping, but now I’m wondering. Something seems off. “How are you feeling?” I ask as I sit.
He licks his lips. His eyes seem to wander, to focus on nothing.
“Just so you know, Detective, I can’t see you. You’re alone, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” This isn’t good. I knew he was in bad shape. I didn’t know his accident had left him blind.
“Good.” He sniffs. “I’m in a rough spot here, Detective.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
“What progress have you made on my daughter’s case?”
“Well, we’re working it with every resource we have, but there isn’t any news since I talked to your wife yesterday.”
“You are providing protection in case the kidnapper tries again?” His voice is hoarse.
“Yes. We have a cruiser in the neighborhood on a regular basis.”
“Good. What’s next?”
“We’re going to look at everyone the two of you know, expand our circle. I did want to ask if you thought of anyone we should prioritize, anybody we haven’t talked to so far?”
He shakes his head. “I can’t think of anyone.”
“So, what else can I do for you?”
He grimaces. “I haven’t told anybody this yet. You’re the first, but I want this on the record, in case.”
“Okay.” I reach for my notebook, pull it out of my satchel. “What do you want to tell me?”
“I didn’t just fall down the stairs, Detective,” he says quickly, as if trying to get the words out fast. “My wife knocked me down the stairs. She hit me in the back of the head with something.”
I lean back in my chair, dangle my notebook over the armrest. I wasn’t expecting that. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” he snaps. “I wasn’t that drunk!”
I open my notebook to a fresh page. “Let’s back up. What do you remember from that night?” I scribble down the date when the accident occurred.
“I was out on the deck. It was morning. I think, but really early, still dark. I was having a cigarette. We’d been fighting the night before. Well, she’d been fighting. I just stood there and took it. Apologized. Tried to explain.”
“How did the argument start?”
He tips up his head as if looking at the ceiling, blows out a breath. “She came home from work and Rosewyn was in the playpen. I’d only been out on the deck a couple of minutes. But the baby was crying and Eve exploded.” He runs his hand over his mouth. “We hadn’t really talked, Detective. In the days after we got Rosewyn back, we didn’t talk about, you know, the message. I didn’t know what to say except sorry. Eve didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want to hear anything. She told me to move into the guest room, which I did. Then we decided that I would take care of the baby while she went back to work. But we didn’t discuss . . . what I did. I didn’t know what to say and Eve just closed up. I knew she was furious, and I didn’t blame her. But we needed to talk, and that wasn’t happening. That night when she came home and the baby was crying, she went crazy. She took the baby upstairs and put her to bed. Then Eve came back down. She wanted to know all about Nicole and how we met and all that. She was livid.”
His unfocused gaze swings in my direction.
“Detective, she said she could kill me.”
Okay. Many a wife has said those very words to an erring husband. “Then what happened?”
He shrugs. “I stayed downstairs. She went back upstairs. I fell asleep on the couch. Then I woke up, but it was still dark. I went out on the deck for a smoke. Then next thing I know she hits me in the back of the head, and I fall. I remember falling and the pain. Then I wake up in the hospital six days later.” He whooshes out a breath.
“There was nothing unusual in the police report,” I say. I’d looked at it when we’d heard about Mr. Liddle’s fall. “It was listed as an accident.” But I’ll pull the report and give it another read.
His face reddens. “Who wouldn’t believe my wife? The well-respected Doctor Eve Thayer.”
Okay. This is possible and needs following up. I admit, we as a society aren’t quick to look at women in spousal abuse cases. “I’ll need to speak to your doctors, Mr. Liddle. I’ll need to see your medical records.”
“I’ll sign whatever damn forms you need. I just feel vulnerable now that I can’t see a fucking thing. I wouldn’t be able to see her coming.”
“Okay, Mr. Liddle. We’ll look into it.”
“Thanks,” he says. “Oh, and I don’t want her to know. Eve. Just keep this between us for now.”
“Okay. But I’ll have to see where it leads.”
“Yeah. I know. Just don’t tell her I accused her, okay? Not yet anyway.”
“All right.”
“I’ll call my nurse to get whatever release forms you need to see my records.”
“Good deal,” I say.
* * *
Back at the station, the afternoon flies by. I look over Lauren’s list and we try to figure out a game plan for how to attack it. Doctor Thayer hadn’t been any more help than her husband had been when I’d asked her about prioritizing the people on it.
But Mr. Liddle’s latest revelation sits in the back of my mind like a snarling beast. I reread the report our officers filed on the accident. They didn’t see anything at the scene that aroused their suspicions. No evidence that this was anything other than an accident.
Near the end of the day, I get a call from the rehab center. Mr. Liddle’s doctor can meet with me on my way home.
* * *
We’re sitting in a small consultation room that is cold as hell. The walls are painted gray and there’s a framed print of two happy penguins on the wall. Seems out of place in this dreary building.
Doctor Lassiter looks to be about eighty years old. His thick glasses keep riding down his drooping nose and I’m antsy, worrying they’re going to drop onto the file folder he has open on the table.
He goes into medical-speak, detailing Mr. Liddle’s injuries.
“I’m interested in his head injury, Doctor.” Then he launches into more medicalese. “Was it consistent with the fall that he took?”
Doctor Lassiter peers at me quizzically. “Yes. His injuries are all consistent with someone having fallen down twelve steps and hitting concrete below. Also, his blood alcohol was twice the legal limit.”
Hmm. “What about his vision loss? Is that permanent?”
“We don’t know at this point. He had bleeding on the brain.”
“What about his memory? Was that compromised?”
“Could be. Most patients don’t remember what actually happened to them in a case like this.”
“What about cognitive function?”
“Too early to tell.” He looks at his watch, a big gold piece like you might get at a retirement party.
“I need your opinion, Doctor. From a medical standpoint, is there any reason to believe that Mr. Liddle might have sustained a head injury right before he fell down the stairs.”
Doctor Lassiter leans closer to the folder on the table. His glasses slide. He shuffles through a couple of papers. Then he sits back in his chair. “There’s nothing here that indicates that, Detective. But we can’t say for sure either way.”
The doctors wouldn’t have been overly concerned about how their patient was injured. They would’ve been focused on treatment. The how would be up to law enforcement. Did we drop the ball? If Mr. Liddle had died, an autopsy might have given us the information we needed, but since he survived, that, of course, didn’t happen. That makes our job, especially days after the fact, much more challenging.
* * *
I head back out to my van. Could Doctor Thayer have been so angry that she hit her husband and caused him to fall down the stairs? I didn’t get that impression when I spoke to her afterwards. No vibes from her that this was anything other than an accident. I think back to our conversations. She’s a bit of an enigma. Quiet. Austere. Emotions usually well hidden. Even when their daughter was missing, she seemed to hold up much better than her husband. But am I speculating? Reading too much into this? Mr. Liddle has been through awful trauma. Sometimes it’s hard for people to admit that their misfortunes are just damn bad luck. They want to assign blame. It’s a common human reaction.
I sigh. I need to get home, have some dinner, and pour myself a glass of wine.