Desert Winter (28 page)

“Why? Sloppy records at the paper?”

“Not at all. Bonnie wrote the letters under a pseudonym—to protect her job, no doubt—which slipped past the editorial staff's verification process. She supplied her real address and phone number, so when the paper called to confirm her authorship, she simply answered to her pen name. In order to straighten this out, my contact in the editorial department had to research the letters by topic. When he found several relating to mercy killing, he dug into their files for addresses. Then it was easy to determine that the real writer had been one Bonnie Bahr of Cathedral City.”

“How accommodating of them.”

Larry laughed. “I'm a detective working on a murder case. Whatever the paper's policy, my contact had no qualms about opening their files for me.”

“I presume you're ready to confront Bonnie with this.”

“Correct. I'm in the car right now, driving over from Riverside. And that's why I'm calling, Claire. You and Bonnie sort of clicked. If you'd care to meet me at her house, I think the confrontation might be easier. She seems more willing to open up to you.”

“She's a woman,” I noted. “So am I.”

“It's more than that. You're good at this.”

It was an invitation I could hardly refuse. “How soon will you arrive?”

“I'm still on the interstate. Figure thirty minutes.”

That would give me enough time to put myself together and make the short drive from Palm Desert. “I'll be there, Larry.”

He thanked me, and we hung up.

Grant asked, “Yet another lead?”

“Suddenly, it seems, there's no shortage of suspects.” I filled him in.

“Good,” said Grant. “If Larry is preoccupied with the nurse, that buys us some time with Kane.”

“But not much. We need to question him quickly. When I finish up with Larry, let's meet at the museum. Kane will be there, right?”

Grant nodded. “He works in the office on Thursday mornings. Shall we meet there at, say, ten-thirty?”

I checked my wrist, but in my rush to dress, I'd neglected to put on my watch. “That sounds fine, Grant. I'll see you later.”

He gave me a kiss.

As I left the room, I turned to see him staring at Kane's computer.

17

When I pulled onto the
unassuming side street in Cathedral City, I saw Larry Knoll's unmarked cruiser waiting at the curb a block ahead. Larry was still sitting inside, talking on the phone. As I parked behind him, he spotted me in his mirror and waved through the rear window. As before, Bonnie Bahr's Korean compact was parked in the driveway leading to her snug stucco home.

I got out of the Beetle and paused a moment to savor the brilliant blue sky, the cool morning sun. Not relishing my mission, but eager to resolve it, I dismissed the fine weather, gathered my thoughts, and stepped to Larry's car.

He opened the door and stepped into the street to greet me. “Thanks for coming, Claire. Hope I'm not messing up your day.”

“Not at all. I enjoy being involved.”

“Enjoy?” He eyed me skeptically.

“I mean, I want to see the crime solved, and I'm happy to help.” I didn't explain that my baser motive was to get the murder behind us because the buzz and speculation threatened the performance of a school play. Our opening was now a scant thirty-some hours away.

Larry's mind was elsewhere. “You know,” he said, shaking his head, “I usually look forward to confronting a suspect with a sticky piece of evidence. Those moments are rare and often mark the turning point in a case. But this business of mercy killing—it leaves me edgy.”

“You've come face-to-face with far worse,” I presumed.

“Sure, but I'm not talking about the
crime
of mercy killing. I'm talking about the psychology of it, the woman behind it.”

Wryly, I asked, “Nurse Ratched? She was sadistic, yes, but I doubt that anyone would describe her as merciful.”

“Good point. And that's exactly what makes this so … well,
eerie.
I've dealt with killers who've killed with hate or killed with greed, but none who've killed with kindness.”

“It sounds as if you think she's guilty.”

“At the moment, I have no better theory. Do you?”

“No.” Nor could I think of any feasible connection between Bonnie Bahr and the fake newspaper clipping on Kane's computer, which was now clearly part of the riddle, one that Larry knew nothing about. If Bonnie had killed Stewart, was it mere coincidence that someone else had forged the clipping? This struck me as highly implausible.

As we walked up the driveway, brushing past Bonnie's parked car, I asked, “Is she expecting us?”

“Me, yes. You, no.” The setup was the same as on Tuesday.

So was our reception. Bonnie answered the door, apologizing for having kept us waiting (which she hadn't) because the TV was too loud (which it was). She showed no surprise that I had tagged along again, extending a warm welcome. Turning to Larry, she said, “I'm at your service, Detective, but I must admit, I'm sorta curious about the return visit. You said it was urgent?”

Larry fudged, “Perhaps that was an overstatement. May we come in?”

“Certainly. Please.” She ushered us through the door and into the living room, which was semidarkened, as before, for enhanced television viewing. A commercial for some hemorrhoid medication blared too cheerily from the big-screen behemoth in the corner. Bonnie switched it off before settling on her recliner. She wore white nurse's pants and duty shoes with another mismatched flouncy smock.

Larry and I sat, as before, on the nubby green couch, flanked by two huge table lamps. He took out his notebook, flipped it open, and reviewed a page for a moment. I studied the dreary quarters of a lonely woman who had lost her job—and had possibly slain her employer.

She ventured, “I assume you've made some discoveries, Detective.”

Larry glanced up from his notes. “Why do you say that?”

She shrugged. “This meeting. When you left here on Tuesday, you seemed at a loss to explain Mr. Chaffee's death. But when you phoned this morning, you left the distinct impression that something had happened.”

He confirmed, “There
has
been a new development, but I'm not sure what bearing it has on the case. It may mean nothing, or everything. Perhaps you can help me sort it out.”

“I'll try.”

Larry closed his notebook, recalling, “On Tuesday, you were telling us about the transition you made from hospital nursing to home care—two years ago, when you went to work at the Chaffee estate.”

She nodded. “It was the best move I ever made in my life, a sound career decision. I'm at loose ends right now, but that's mostly due to the shock of how Stewart died.”

I asked her, “Then you'll be seeking another position in home care?”

“Well, sure. I have to work. And I wouldn't go back to hospital nursing if you
paid
me.” She laughed, a tad embarrassed. “I mean, of course they'd pay me, but I have no interest in it.”

“We understand,” said Larry. “Miss Bahr, I wonder if I might ask you, was there any other reason you made this career shift two years ago?”

Eyes to the ceiling, she recapped, ticking off on her fingers, “Impossible hours. Bureaucratic quagmire. Inflexible regulation.” Her gaze returned to Larry. “What other reason would anyone
need,
Detective?”

He paused. “I'm not sure how to broach this, but it came to our attention that your departure from hospital nursing may not have been your own decision.”

“That's plain silly—” she started to say. Then her face went hard. “Who told you this?”

“I'm not at liberty to say, but—”

She interrupted, sitting bolt upright. “It was Pea, wasn't it? That contemptible little pissant!”

“It's not important who said it.”

“The
hell
it isn't. Don't you know mean-mouthed gossip when you hear it? Consider the source, Detective. What's
he
hiding, that he has to go spreading malicious hearsay?”

Calmly, Larry assured her, “If it were only hearsay, I wouldn't be here.”

She sat back, asking through a wary squint, “What does that mean?”

Larry glanced at me with an expression suggesting that I was better suited to lay our cards on the table—woman to woman, I guess.

“Bonnie,” I began, “it
was
a rumor, and secondhand at that. There was talk that you hadn't left hospital nursing because of the conditions, but because you were pressured to leave.”

She insisted, “My record speaks for itself.”

“It well may, but it seems your departure was negotiated off the record. The issue was”—I paused, I may have gulped—“euthanasia.”

Larry added, “Mercy killing.”

She shot at him, “I
know
the term.”

“Apparently quite well,” I said. “We heard that you'd written a number of letters to the editor of the local newspaper in support of mercy killing. This was two or three years ago. I imagine the debate was fueled when Dr. Kevorkian popped into the headlines again.”

“But, Claire,” she said, smiling, pleading to be believed, “that's nuts. I'm a
nurse.
I would never take such a stand—certainly not in print.”

Larry told her, “Before you go too far with that denial, you should be aware that we've already looked into this. I checked with the
Desert Sun,
and they traced several published pro-euthanasia letters to this address and phone number.” He checked his notes. “They were signed by a Marjorie Horne, but clearly, that was your pseudonym—unless someone else was living here two years ago.”

She frowned, then heaved a sigh. “Oh, hell. Since you seem to know all about it, there's no point in saying it didn't happen. I must've been stupid.”

I asked her quietly, “Why would you write such letters?”

Her tone was candid and direct. “Because I believed what I wrote.”

Larry asked, “Do you still believe in mercy killing?”

“Look,” she said, leaning forward, elbows to knees, “it's a
philosophy,
an idea. In my heart of hearts, yes, I support euthanasia—in principle. But I'm well aware it's against the law—in practice. I'm also well aware that mercy killing runs contrary to medical ethics, but honestly, I don't know how anyone who's seen what I've seen can possibly argue that it's noble or righteous to prolong a hopeless, painful, or vegetative life.”

Larry posited, “And those views ended your hospital career.”

“They sure did. Word got around about my letters—I still don't know how—and eventually the hospital administration confronted me with the rumor. They threatened a full-blown investigation and a much-publicized purge, offering me the alternative of a quiet resignation with an unblemished record. Easy choice, huh?”

I almost felt sorry for Bonnie. At the very least, I admired her integrity and sympathized with her dilemma, though I still had trouble with her underlying belief. I asked, “Have you ever had a terminally ill patient ask for assistance in ending his life?”

“No,” she answered at once, “thank God. That really
would
be a pickle. But no, I've never faced such a decision.”

Larry said, “Then you're telling us that you never even considered euthanizing Stewart Chaffee, correct?”

“
Detective,
” she said, aghast, splaying a hand on her chest, “you can't seriously think that
I
had anything to do with Stewart's death. He had some problems, sure—he was eighty-two, for God's sake. But he was
not
terminally ill, and he led a very comfortable life. What's more, he demonstrated a strong will to live. You should have seen the way he applied himself to physical therapy—this was
not
a man at the brink of the grave. Why, I doubt that Kevorkian himself would have judged Stewart a candidate for euthanasia. And besides”—Bonnie's tone turned huffy—“if I'd wanted to kill Stewart, I would have devised a means considerably more finessed than crushing him with a refrigerator!”

Larry reminded her, “But someone did precisely that.”

“So you've said. But it wasn't me. Get this straight: Stewart Chaffee was alive and well, sleeping peacefully, when I left the estate on Monday morning.”

“And when was that?” Larry had his notes open in front of him. He was doubtless checking whether her story would remain consistent.

“I arrived around nine and left within ten minutes.” Bonnie's account of the events stayed the same, though we still had no way to verify her departure time.

Larry closed his notes. “Then we're left with a total mystery.” His tone seemed to ask, Any suggestions?

Bonnie tisked. “Come now, Detective. If you need a suspect, he's been under your nose all along.”

Larry arched his brows naively.

“Pea!” she blurted. “He and Stewart had a past. He resented that he'd been reduced to domestic help, and I'll bet he expected to inherit a fortune. If that's not a recipe for murder, I don't know what is.” She ranted on, building her case against a scheming, nefarious little houseman. Though most of her accusations were emotional, even irrational, her basic argument was sound—Pea had harbored resentment and expectations.

What's more, Bonnie presumably didn't know that Pea had arrived at the house from the gym that morning at nine-thirty, after she claimed to have left. But Larry and I were privy to this detail, which lent credence to Bonnie's accusation. On the other hand, Bonnie and Pea's mutual hostility had been vented repeatedly, so her current denouncements could have been based on nothing more than spite.