Hemlock Bay

She nuzzled her nose into his shoulder, hummed a bit, a sure sign she was thinking hard, and said, “Well, just last week, Lily sent us a No Wrinkles Remus strip she’d just finished, her first one since Beth was killed, and she sounded excited. So what happened over the past four days to make her want to try to kill herself again?”

4

Hemlock Bay, California

“I stole the bottle of pills,” Savich said, as he walked into the kitchen.

Sherlock grinned at her husband, gave him a thumbs-up, and said, “How do we check them out?”

“I called Clark Hoyt in the Eureka field office. I’ll messenger them up to him today. He’ll get back to me tomorrow. Then we’ll know, one way or the other.”

“Ah, Dillon, I’ve got a confession to make.” She took a sip of her tea, grinned down at the few tea leaves on the bottom of the cup. “The pills you took, well, they’re cold medicine. You see, I’d already stolen the pills and replaced them with Sudafed I found in the medicine cabinet.”

Sometimes she just bowled him over. He toasted her with his tea. “I’m impressed, Sherlock. When did you switch them?”

“About five A.M. this morning, before anyone was stirring. Oh, yes, Mrs. Scruggins, the housekeeper, should be here soon. We can see what she’s got to say about all this.”

Mrs. Scruggins responded to Sherlock’s questions by sighing a lot. She was a tall woman, nearly as tall as Savich, and she looked strong, very strong, even those long fingers of hers including her thumbs, that each sported a ring. She had muscles. Sherlock didn’t think she’d want to tangle with Mrs. Scruggins. She had to be at least sixty years old. It was amazing. There were pictures of her grandchildren lining the window ledge in the kitchen and she looked like she could take any number of muggers out at one time.

Savich sat back and watched Sherlock work her magic. “An awful thing,” Sherlock said, shaking her head, obviously distressed. “We just can’t understand it. But I’ll bet you do, Mrs. Scruggins, here with poor Lily so much of the time. I’ll bet you saw things real clearly.”

And Mrs. Scruggins said then, her beringed fingers curving gracefully around her coffee cup, “I’d think she was getting better, you know?”

Both Savich and Sherlock nodded.

“Then she’d just fall into a funk again and curl up in the fetal position and spend the day in bed. She wouldn’t eat, just lie there, barely even blinking. I guess she’d be thinking about little Beth, you know?”

“Yes, we know,” Sherlock said, sighed, and moved closer to the edge of her chair, inviting more thoughts, more confidences.

“Every few weeks I’d swear she was getting better, but it wouldn’t last long. Just last week I thought she was really improving, nearly back to normal. She was in her office and she was laughing. I actually heard her. It was a laugh. She was drawing that cartoon strip of hers, and she was laughing.”

“Then what happened?”

“Well, Mrs. Savich, I can’t rightly say. Before I left, Dr. Frasier had come home early and I heard them talking. Then she just fell back again, the very next day. It was really fast. Laughing one minute, then, not ten hours later, she was so depressed, so quiet. She just walked around the house that day, not really seeing anything, at least that’s what I think. Then she’d disappear and I knew later that she’d been crying. It’s enough to break your heart, you know?”

“Yes, we know,” Sherlock said. “These pills, Mrs. Scruggins, the Elavil, do you refill the prescription for her?”

“Yes, usually. Sometimes Dr. Frasier just brings them home for her. They don’t seem to do much good, do they?”

“No,” said Savich. “Maybe it’s best that she be off them for a while.”

“Amen to that. Poor little mite, such a hard time she’s had.” Mrs. Scruggins gave another deep sigh, nearly pulling apart the buttons over her large bosom. “I myself missed little Beth so much I just wanted sometimes to lie down and cry and cry and never you mind anything else. And I wasn’t her mama, not like Mrs. Frasier.”

“What about Dr. Frasier?” Savich asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Was he devastated by Beth’s death?”

“Ah, he’s a man, Mr. Savich. Sure, he looked glum for a week or so. But you know, men just don’t take things like that so much to heart, leastwise my own papa didn’t when my little sister died. Maybe Dr. Frasier keeps it all inside, but I don’t think so. Don’t forget, he wasn’t Beth’s real father. He didn’t know little Beth that long, maybe six months in all.”