Read Online Murder Suicide by Keith Ablow - Free Book Online Page B

meet him at the Beacon Street Bank for a cocktail party.  A fund-raiser or something.  She never showed up.  He came home looking for her."
    "Did she leave a note?"
    "Yeah.  Coady didn’t say what was in it."
    "Can you meet me over there?" Clevenger asked.  Part of his reason for wanting to go was that Grace had been his patient, if only for one session.  The rest of his reason was that two lovers had died within several hours of each other.  One possibility was murder-suicide — that Grace Baxter had killed John Snow, then killed herself.  But there were other possibilities.  He wanted to see where Grace had died, take a look at the layout of the place, whether there were signs of a struggle.
    "I should tell you they also found a piece of paper on the night stand with your name and number on it, along with her appointment time for tomorrow.  I guess the husband knows she was in to see you today.  He’s looking for someone to blame."
    "He won’t have to look hard for me.  I’ll be at 214 Beacon in fifteen minutes."
    "See you there."
    Clevenger left a note for Billy, then drove into Boston.  He know psychiatrists lost patients, just like other doctors did, that some psychiatric illnesses were fatal.  And he knew he had heard everything the law said he needed to hear from Grace Baxter — her contract not to harm herself or anyone else.  But his mind kept replaying the forty minutes or so they had spent together, kept going back to when he had asked her whether she intended to strike out at her husband.  Why hadn’t he dwelled on the real danger — that she would do herself in?  Why hadn’t he felt that risk in his gut?
    He found a space on Beacon and jogged three blocks to number 214, a stately bowfront of two-hundred-year-old brick, with wide, granite steps and a pair of black, wrought iron lanterns framing a high-gloss crimson door.  Two officers stood in front of the steps.  Three cruisers and North Anderson’s black Porsche Carrera were parked out front.
    The officers recognized him and stepped aside.
    As he walked up to the door, it opened.  Anderson walked out, shut the door behind him.
    Clevenger looked down Beacon.  "I didn’t see this coming."
    "If you didn’t, no one could have."
    Clevenger looked at him.  "I’m not sure."
    Now Anderson looked away.  "The husband is more bent out of shape than Coady let on.  Maybe it’s better to let them take her body to the morgue.  You can learn what you need to from Wolfe."
    Clevenger shook his head.  "Where is she?"
    "I can be our eyes here."
    Clevenger started to move past him.
    Anderson caught his arm.  "Upstairs, in the master bedroom.  Coady’s there.  Her husband’s in the den to the right of the entryway."
    Clevenger opened the door and walked into the house.
    George Reese, Grace’s husband, stood up from a burgundy leather armchair, cocked his head and stared at Clevenger through storm gray, bloodshot eyes.  He was imperially slim, about six feet tall, and looked younger than his fifty-two years.  His white, wing tip shirt was covered with blood.  His the black hair, worn oiled back, had fallen over his forehead.
    Clevenger walked over to him.  The palms of his hands and one of his cheeks were bloody, too.  "I’m very sorry about..." he started.
    Red blotches appeared on Reese’s neck.  "You have real nerve setting foot in my home," he said, struggling to keep his voice down.
    Anderson moved to Clevenger’s side.
    Reese squinted at Clevenger.  "She told me she called you five times today.  And you never got back to her.  What did you put before my wife’s life?"
    Clevenger smelled alcohol on Reese’s breath.  He glanced into the den, saw a bottle of Scotch open on the coffee table.  "She called for an appointment," Clevenger said.  "She got one for eight A.M. tomorrow morning."  He knew that didn’t sound like much of an answer.
    "She didn’t make it until morning," Reese seethed.
    "I wish I could have done