Insidious

“I checked the floor but couldn’t find him and he didn’t answer his page. One of the nurses said she’d seen him going toward the doctors’ on-call room. I checked. There was only one intern in there, Dr. Lyons, snoring like a bull. I’m very sure Dr. Richards wasn’t there. I called his cell, but it went to voice mail. I had to leave a message. I didn’t call him again because Dr. Lyons came around and okayed the patient’s sedative.

“It was nearly one o’clock when I saw Dr. Richards at the nurses’ station, yawning. I was going to ask him where he’d been, but there was a call from the ER about an admission and things turned hectic. I didn’t think much about it until you called and asked me. I’m sure Dr. Richards can explain where he was. There was no harm done.”

Arturo turned off the video, sat back in his chair, crossed his arms. “Where were you, Dr. Richards, during that three-quarters of an hour?”

Doc blinked at him, cocked his head to the side. “I remember now. Nurse Simpson was right about Keith’s—Dr. Lyons’s—snoring being way too loud for me, so I went two floors up to the doctors’ break room and slept there for a bit.”

“The break room on the sixth floor?”

“That’s right.”

“Now that’s curious, Doctor. There’s a security camera right outside the door of the sixth-floor break room. We have video footage from eleven forty-five p.m. to one o’clock a.m. You are not on the footage, either going into the room or coming out.” Arturo leaned forward. “It’s time for you to tell me the truth. No more lies.”

Doc stared at Arturo straight on, and said, his voice eerily calm, “I understand all this now. You think I hurt Deborah. I couldn’t ever hurt her. I loved her more than my own life.”

Arturo waved that away. “I hear what you’re saying, Dr. Richards. But the fact remains you weren’t in the hospital. Are you ready to tell me where you were during those missing minutes?”

“Yes, all right. This is the truth, I swear it. I went out to get some air—I needed some time alone to think, it hit me that night that I was moving into a house with Deborah, one step away from marriage. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to marry her. I didn’t care if she ever succeeded in her acting career, I only wanted her to be happy. But I started doubting myself because with her role in The Crown Prince it looked like she would hit it big and I had to wonder if she’d still want me, want a family with me. How could I measure up to all those hotshot actors she’d be working with? And how would I deal with her fame?

“I jogged down to the beach and sat on the sand. Tuesday night was beautiful out, calm, nearly a full moon overhead. And it all came clear to me. I decided I wouldn’t worry if she fell out of love with me, I’d have her for a certain time, and that would be enough. If she wanted to keep acting, I’d stop carping at her about it. I’d support her, completely, no more denigrating the industry. I’d do my best to help her, whatever it took. I wanted her, loved her; I wanted her to be my wife.” Tears ran down his cheeks. Arturo said nothing.

Doc swiped his hand over his face. “I’m sorry. I ran back to the hospital. I don’t know exactly how long I was gone, but it wasn’t even an hour.

“Listen, Detective, I actually forgot about leaving the hospital when you first asked me, and then I realized Deborah was being killed the same time I was gone. I got frightened. I knew you suspected me of killing her, and so I kept quiet. I didn’t think anyone had noticed.

“Then early the next morning one of the nurses woke me. I’d fallen asleep at the nurses’ station, after all. She told me I had to get moving, it was a big day for me and Deborah. I was happy and I left and went home and found her.” He simply stopped talking, stared blindly past Arturo, at her, Cam thought, as if he knew she was behind the two-way mirror, watching him, listening to him, weighing his every word.

“That’s quite a story, Doctor. In my experience, innocent people don’t generally lie to the police to avoid arousing suspicion. Let me tell you another story, one a jury is more likely to believe.” Arturo sat forward, clasped his hands in front of him. “You and Deborah had a huge fight, maybe about that role she was playing in The Crown Prince, maybe about what she’d done in Italy for those two weeks she’d been gone filming, who’d she seen, gone out with, maybe slept with. Or maybe you fought about the producer, Theo Markham, the big shot you’d met at that party six months ago. How you despised him, thought he was a lecher, and here he’d hired Deborah to play this role. She’d be with him countless hours, here, in Italy, out of your sight.”

“No! None of that’s true, none of it!”

“Did you know, Doctor, that Theo Markham, the producer of The Crown Prince, Deborah’s producer, was sleeping with Connie Morrissey? Did you know he was about to give the role in The Crown Prince to her before she was murdered? And then Deborah got offered the role. Surely you had to wonder if she’d betrayed you, if she’d slept with that corrupt debaucher to get the role?

“Or did Deborah break, finally see you as everyone else did—always belittling her, making her career seem unimportant, even immoral, always trying to get her to quit. How long would anyone take that kind of abuse?”

Doc rose straight out of his chair. “No, no! Look, I did have my doubts, yes, but Deborah loved me, she always loved me!”

“Do you know Markham is convinced you murdered Deborah? That he’s even hired a private investigator to prove it? This man has a serious hate-on for you. Why? What is he to you, and what are you to him?”

Doc looked puzzled. Arturo would swear it wasn’t an act. “Markham? I only met the man that one time. He’s nothing at all to me.”

“Then why is he convinced you murdered Deborah?”

Doc shook his head. “I don’t know, but that’s why you came after me, isn’t it? Because of what this Markham says?”

“Do you know Deborah’s neighbor Mrs. Buffet?”

“What? Mrs. Buffet? The whole neighborhood knows her. She’s always watching everyone from her window. Why?”

“She saw the murderer leave Deborah’s house, after midnight. Tall and thin, wearing a ball cap, which, she said, he pulled off to rub blood off his bald head.”