Read Online Family Practice by Charlene Weir - Free Book Online Page B

couldn’t see clearly. So scared she was, when she realized whose car she’d hit: Dr. Willis Barrington. But he was so nice, so sweet. She was crying and saying how sorry. He tried to comfort her, saying only a dent, nothing to worry about, nobody hurt.
    He’d taken her for coffee. And he’d talked. After that he’d started taking her out. He had a sweet smile and a sweet voice, and he’d talked and talked. It wasn’t until sometime after their marriage that she realized he never said anything.
    All her girlfriends had been ripe with envy. He was so handsome, an older man, and a Barrington. Her parents were so pleased when he asked her to marry him. “You can have pretty things,” her mother said. Her mother had longed for pretty things all her life, but there was never money to buy them. “He’s a good catch,” her father said. Both her parents had beamed with pride at the wedding.
    Not so any of the Barringtons. None of them thought she was good enough; they all thought she was stupid because she had no education and had this dumb idea that she could be a singer. Dorothy thoroughly disapproved and tried to talk Willis out of the marriage. It was probably the only time he had ever gone against her wishes.
    Looking back, Vicky sometimes felt the wedding was the high point of her life and everything was downhill from there. Willis always wanted her to look perfect. Never a spot, never a wrinkle. Makeup from the moment she woke.
    She sighed as she rinsed the dishcloth and hung it over the towel bar. Sometimes she felt so awful she just wanted to cry. Or scream. Or find a pen full of pigs and roll around in the mud. She knew what they thought about her, all those Barringtons, how they felt.
    When she’d heard about Dorothy’s death, she’d felt relieved, and then glad, and then hopeful. It was very un-Christian of her. She could hear her mother’s disapproving voice. She felt guilty for not feeling what she ought to feel, but with Dorothy gone, Vicky thought, maybe now we can have a life. Dorothy had always told them what to do. Willis had always done what she said. And the money Willis would get meant they could move away, far away from here.
    She had a secret. She didn’t know how Willis would feel if he knew.
    And she was afraid. She really was.

7
    A T THE POLICE department, Susan sat at her desk reading through the reports in thus far on the Barrington shooting. Paperwork: everybody hated it, grumbled about it. She’d done her share of grumbling, but now she was on the receiving end, she had more appreciation. Nobody yet found who’d seen anything suspicious in or around the medical building. She thought of the general rule of twenty-four and twenty-four, the basic principle that the last twenty-four hours of a homicide victim’s life and the first twenty-four hours of the investigation were crucial to nailing the perpetrator.
    The department was quiet. Hazel had gone home, and Marilee Beaumont was working as dispatcher. Eight-thirty. Too early for Saturday night activities: the usual disorderly, driving under the influence, traffic offenses, disturbances. Not that there would be an abundance. Back in her rookie days in San Francisco, Saturday nights were known as spot ’em, scoop ’em, run ’em nights: get the injured party into an emergency vehicle and to a hospital.
    At this point in an investigation, she’d be high on adrenaline and bad coffee, caught up in the crazy tension and energy of the team. Homicides averaged out to one every three days in San Francisco. She’d already have a backlog; a new one would feel like overload, and she’d want to wrap it up immediately and have it out of her way.
    Dropping her pen, she leaned back and rubbed her eyes with a thumb and forefinger. When she opened her eyes, Parkhurst was sitting in the wooden armchair in front of the desk. She sat up straight. “Didn’t your