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I got a good deal of stuff done after Kyle headed out. I needed to create promo for some of the upcoming library events, so I recruited Fitz into the effort. Although he’d been sleeping happily in a sunbeam, he got right into modeling mode, giving me a bunch of fetching feline smiles. I ended up with a bunch of material that I could use for the month.
I laughed out loud making one of them. I’d used some design magic to make Fitz look as if he was a book critic. I used Photoshop to outfit him in reading glasses, a bowtie, and a tweed jacket. He was staring thoughtfully at the camera and surrounded by books. Then I worked on another one to promote our mystery collection, with Fitz in a Sherlock-esque deerstalker hat and holding a magnifying glass in front of his face.
After a while, Linus walked up to the reference desk. He’d been sitting, in his suit, of course, in the periodicals section, completing his usual morning routine of nonfiction, fiction, and magazine reading. I smiled at him. “How’s our big trivia winner?”
“Fine,” he said with a small smile of his own. “Although I had a tough time falling asleep last night. I guess it must have been all the excitement of the game. I ended up making myself a glass of warm milk, and that helped.”
“Did it?” I asked in surprise. “I’d somehow always thought that was an old wives’ tale.”
“Apparently, it has something to do with melatonin and tryptophan,” said Linus with a small shrug. “The milk settled me down a little. I’m not used to being out that late.”
It hadn’t been late, of course, but I suspected that Linus probably rarely left his house again after returning from the library about four in the afternoon.
Linus said, “Zelda called me up after I got home and set up the dinner for tomorrow night.” He gave me a pained smile. “It’ll be fine.”
I felt bad for him. I couldn’t imagine spending an hour or more in Zelda’s cranky company. “Sorry about that. I’ll fix it so prizes don’t work that way in case of any future ties at library events.”
Linus looked a bit worried. “You don’t think Zelda considers this a date at all, do you? I think that may have been part of the reason I was up last night. I was wondering if I needed to purchase her a corsage or chocolates or something.”
“Do you want it to be considered a date?” I asked in a doubtful voice.
He shook his head. “No, not at all. Nothing against Zelda, of course. I’m afraid that, after losing my wife, I’m simply not interested in seeing anyone else.”
I knew Linus hadn’t recently lost his wife . . . that it had been some time ago. But he and his wife had obviously been soulmates, and he seemed like a one-woman guy. I said, “I didn’t get the slightest impression that Zelda considered this to be a date. She’s a fairly pragmatic woman. I think she didn’t want to waste the extra meal she’d won.” Pragmatic was one way of putting Zelda. There were other less complimentary adjectives, but I didn’t want to make Linus more concerned about his dinner than he already was.
Linus looked relieved. “Okay, good. Thanks, Ann. That makes me feel a lot better.” He hesitated. “I believe I spotted you speaking with Kyle Bowman.”
“That’s right. Do you know him?”
Linus said, “Not really. I have seen him from time to time in the clinic when I couldn’t get in to see Victor Sullivan.”
“What do you make of him?”
“He was very professional. I’m sure any issues I might have had were because of me, not him. But Kyle was in such a rush. I could tell he was a very bright young man, but I wasn’t used to being hurried out of the exam room. Maybe I got spoiled by my years of seeing Victor. Kyle wanted to push things along the whole time. Unfortunately, I’m an old man and some things just can’t be hurried. Kyle cut me off a few times when I was trying to describe different symptoms I was experiencing.” Linus sighed. “It was all rather frustrating.”
“I’m sure it was. Do you have any upcoming appointments?” If he did, it was going to make him even more frustrated than he already was. The clinic was going to be teeming with patients, with Victor gone.
“Fortunately not,” said Linus somewhat fervently. “I can only imagine how busy it will be over there with Victor gone and Dr. Lee and Kyle taking over his patients. Plus, I’m just not sure if I’ll be able to warm up to Dr. Lee. She also seems very knowledgeable and professional. But there’s no genuine kindness there, is there? Not like there was with Victor.”
I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote my doctor’s name. Then I looked up the phone number and address and added them down on the paper, too. “In case you want to change to another clinic, here’s my doctor’s information. I really like her. I’m not sure she takes quite as much time as Victor did, but she never seems in a rush. She also has a really warm, caring manner. But if you’re going to change doctors, I’d go ahead and call as soon as possible before word gets out and everyone thinks about making a switch.”
Linus chuckled. “I’m sure word has already gotten out. I read Grayson’s excellent article in the paper this morning, along with his equally well-written profile of the good doctor.”
“True,” I said with a rueful smile. “Then time really is of the essence.”
“I’ll make a new patient appointment with your doctor as soon as I get home today,” promised Linus with a smile before he disappeared back into the periodical section.
The rest of my shift at the library was a fairly quiet one. I had no trouble getting out in time to get set up for the block party in my neighborhood. Fortunately, I’d remembered to make the signs at work and also remembered to bring them back home with me. I put together the salad I was bringing as my food contribution, although I wasn’t certain salad might be particularly in demand during a block party that featured a keg. The nice thing was that it was inexpensive and easy to make. I threw in cherry tomatoes, sliced radishes, shredded carrot, and some feta cheese.
I hung the colorful signs up on the ends of the street right before the designated time, then set up my table in my driveway. I placed the salad there, carefully covered with plastic wrap, along with paper plates and forks. Grayson came right up to see me, giving me a hug. “Hey there! I wanted to come by and eat your salad first thing.”
I gave him a wry smile. “Because you’ve been just dying for a salad all day? That’s sweet of you. I had the feeling I might not get much business over here today.”
We glanced up and down the street. It looked like everybody had taken part. I’d wondered if there might be a couple of holdouts, especially since Zelda had been worried about people responding. Some people had colorful balloons on their mailboxes. Tables were lined up along the sidewalk with food and drinks and seemed to hold an array of homemade dishes. Zelda must have gotten the signups to work as she’d wanted because there was no sign that everyone had picked up cheese pizza. Neighborhood kids were taking advantage of the blocked-off street by playing tag and hide-and-seek. Someone had brought a boombox outside, and it was playing festive music.
“It looks like the party’s a success,” said Grayson cheerfully. “Zelda’s going to be really pleased.”
“Zelda’s going to be nothing of the sort,” I said with a snort. “She’ll be sure to find a problem with the block party, no matter what. You know what a perfectionist she is.”
“True,” said Grayson. “Well, I got the keg set up, which was my appointed task.”
“No food table for you?” I asked curiously.
“I decided at the last minute to pick up a cheese pizza on my way back from getting the keg and set it up in my yard. Figured that might take care of some of the kids who’re here.”
Our neighborhood didn’t have a lot of kids in it, but I was sure the ones we did have would prefer pizza to salad. “Good thinking,” I said. I hid a smile. Hopefully, Zelda wouldn’t go off on Grayson for randomly picking up the dreaded cheese pizza without signing up for it on her spreadsheet.
Grayson said lightly, “Hey, I also wanted to see how you were doing after yesterday. That was a crazy-long day for you. We were up before dawn heading to the gym, then you had a full day at the library after finding Victor. You seemed pretty good at trivia night. Were you able to get any sleep last night?”
“Yeah, I slept like the dead, actually.” Then I winced. “Poor choice of words.”
“Glad you could get some shut-eye. Sometimes when I have a busy day, it’s almost like my brain doesn’t want to turn off.”
I said, “That’s usually my problem, too. I guess I must have been exhausted enough to override that issue. By the way, I wanted to let you know you had a great article this morning. Actually, great articles. The story covering Victor’s death was good, and the profile of him was especially nice. Linus mentioned the same thing when I spoke to him earlier.”
Grayson looked pleased. “Did you think so? I’ve always got some latent insecurity about running those profiles. I have to make them sound insightful and authoritative, like I know what I’m talking about. It isn’t easy when I’m still a newcomer in town. Plus, of course, I didn’t know Victor at all.”
“Well, the quotes you got from people really helped fill in any gaps there might have been. It was a great piece.”
Grayson said, “Off-the-record, of course, but did you hear anything helpful while you’ve been out and about? Get any insights on Victor, or who in town might be considered a suspect?”
I said, “A little, I guess. Of course, I already told you about Paige Lee yesterday.”
“Right. Victor’s colleague at the clinic. It sounded like she wasn’t too broken up when she heard about Victor’s death.”
I nodded. “Or maybe she just keeps a tight leash on her emotions; it’s hard to say. She definitely disapproved of Victor’s patient-centered approach to appointments and how far the clinic ran behind schedule. I found out today from Kyle Bowman that she and Victor had been in a relationship at one time. At least, that’s what Kyle heard from the staff at the clinic.”
Grayson raised his eyebrows. “You’re kidding.”
“I know. I was shocked, too. It sounded like they had nothing at all in common.”
Grayson said, “I guess opposites can attract.”
I grinned at him. “They did in our case, anyway.”
“Are we really opposites? I’m not so sure.”
I said, “Think about how extroverted you are compared to me. You’re always more interested in going out at night and seeing people. Or going to cookouts and tailgates. I’m the one who wants to curl up on my sofa with a book and my cat.”
“That’s true,” said Grayson. “Although you rally to the occasion really nicely when we do go out. You also spend most of your day with people at the library, so it’s not like you’re not around people.”
“Right, but that’s kind of in a different capacity, isn’t it? I’m rarely just overtly socializing there, unless I’m talking with Luna. It’s more like I’m helping people out. Maybe that’s what makes it easier. Anyway, yes, that’s what I heard about Dr. Lee and Dr. Sullivan. They’d dated before. Keep in mind, like I mentioned, that I found that out third-hand. It’s sort of like the game of telephone—you’re never sure if what you’re hearing is entirely accurate.”
“Kyle Bowman,” said Grayson with a frown. “I’m trying to remember who he is.”
“He’s the medical student who came into the library this morning. He’d heard I’d found Victor and wanted to pump me for information. He was less interested when he realized I knew about as much about Victor’s death as he did,” I said. “Paige Lee had said Kyle and Victor didn’t work together really well.”
“Were you able to ask Kyle if that was true?” asked Grayson.
“He talked a little about his work relationship with Victor. Victor served as his supervising physician for the rotation. Kyle didn’t have any alibi for yesterday morning because he was out running errands. He’d been commuting from Charlotte every day and just settled into some sort of rental where nothing works.”
Grayson gave a low whistle. “Commuting from Charlotte? That’s quite a drive.”
“He was driving four hours a day. It sounded like he was trying to save money instead of getting a hotel room or renting an Airbnb. Anyway, he also complained about Victor spending so much time with each patient.”
“Yeah, that would be annoying. I’m guessing Dr. Lee and Kyle were having to pick up the slack when the waiting room was full. But is that really a motive to kill somebody? It sounded like this was a planned murder, right?”
“Maybe,” I said. “The killer used improvised weapons. The murder weapons were Victor’s own stethoscope and book. But it seems to me like the murderer must have been lurking around, waiting for the doctor to show up for work.” I hesitated. “There’s someone else who makes for a good suspect. I can’t give much information because it’s one of my patrons. This person was unhappy about what they considered malpractice by Victor.”
Grayson nodded. “When I was working on my profile piece yesterday afternoon, I came across Veronica Carpenter while researching online for information about Victor. I’m guessing that’s who you’re talking about. She had a real vendetta against him online, posting all the time.”
“Kyle mentioned she showed up at the clinic sometimes, too,” I said. “He said she would tell Victor off in front of his own patients sometimes.”
“Nice,” said Grayson.
I said, “I’d forgotten that Victor was divorced until I read your article this morning. You didn’t get a quote from his ex-wife, I noticed.”
Grayson snorted. “Not a chance. I called and asked if she wanted to contribute a brief statement about Victor for the profile I was working on. She couldn’t get off the phone fast enough.”
“Too bad,” I said. I thought for a moment. “I’m guessing an ex-wife would be on Burton’s list of possible suspects.”
Grayson shook his head. “It doesn’t sound like she’ll be on his list at all. I’d gotten her phone number from a friend of a friend of a contact. She was on the other side of the country, sightseeing.”
“She’d heard the news about Victor, though?” It made me anxious to think of calling somebody up and having to tell them about somebody’s death, even if it had been an ex.
“Fortunately, yes. And perhaps not surprisingly, considering how Whitby is. I’m sure somebody called or texted her as soon as the news was out. Or maybe the police reached out.”
“I wonder if Victor was dating again.”
Grayson smiled at me. “You must have been pretty distracted while you read that profile piece.”
I chuckled. “I probably couldn’t pass a reading comprehension test that early in the morning. Why?”
“Victor remarried last year. He married the woman he was having the affair with. And his wife’s ex-husband is coming down the street toward us right now.”