I caught up to Charlotte Truman in the middle of the room.

“Quite a presentation,” I said, falling in step next to her.

She gave me what I thought to be a very practiced smile. “Thank you. You really think so?”

“Actually, I didn’t hear a word of it,” I said. “I was just going by her reaction.”

She cocked her head in my direction, large green eyes sparkling. “It actually sucked.”

“You fooled her?”

“Fooling them is the key to getting invited to these things,” she said. “Anything is better than working, right?”

We walked out into the hallway.

“I suppose,” I said.

She stopped. “You don’t look like an attendee.”

“Why’s that?”

“The visitor badge for starters.” She looked me up and down. “And most of these people don’t own shorts and T-shirts. I imagine they sleep in their suits.”

“Makes it tough to relax,” I said.

“Yes, it does. What can I do for you?”

“Maybe nothing,” I said. “I’m taking a chance.”

“Shorts, T-shirt, and a risk taker. Definitely not a hospital administrator,” she said with an amused smile.

“I’m an investigator,” I said.

She raised an eyebrow, suddenly wary. “If you’re insurance, I’m not talking to you outside my office.”

I shook my head. “No. Something else. A doctor at your hospital.”

Her eyebrow fell. “I’m not sure I’m following, Mr….”

“Braddock,” I said. “But call me Noah.”

“Well, Noah, what is it that you’re here for?”

“I’m doing a background check on a doctor who works at St. Andrew’s. Dr. Randall Tower.”

Until that moment, she’d seemed unflappable. Completely comfortable in her skin and her surroundings, totally in command of the room and the subject about which she was speaking.

Randall’s name destroyed all that.

The color drained from her face. “What the hell is this?”

“You know him?”

She shifted the folders in her arms. “He works at the hospital. Of course I know him.”

“Friends outside the hospital?”

Her eyes narrowed, the easygoing demeanor vanished. “What are you doing?”

“I’m not sure. What am I doing?”

“Pissing me off, for one,” she said, the color rising back to her cheeks.

I decided to be straight. “I’m looking into his wife’s death. Her body was found in the trunk of her car along with this piece of paper.” I pulled the scrap from my pocket and handed it to her.

“Kate’s dead?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She blinked rapidly for a moment, then stared at the piece of paper. She shook her head. “So she knew.”

“Excuse me?”

Charlotte handed me the paper back. “Look, you found this and you found me. My guess is you know more than you’re letting on, seeing if I’ll spill the beans for you.” She smiled but it wasn’t warm. “Randall and I were sleeping together, but I think you already knew that.”

“I had an idea.” I looked at her. “Can we talk for a few minutes?”

She paused for a moment. Then, “Kate’s really dead? You’re not kidding me, right?”

“No, Ms. Truman,” I told her. “Kate Crier is dead.”

She winced slightly, the word “dead” making an impression. She started walking again.

“I can talk for a few minutes. But only a few minutes,” she said. “Because talking about him for any longer than that will make me ill.”

49

We walked outside onto the expansive pool deck. I bought a cup of coffee and a soda from a pushcart under a big palm tree. Charlotte was sitting on the edge of the stone retaining wall that ringed a small garden in the middle of the courtyard. I handed her the coffee and sat next to her.

She squinted into the afternoon sunlight. “You from LA?”

“No, San Diego.”

“And you came up here to see me?”

I nodded.

She sipped from the paper cup. “Well, I guess I should talk to you then.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

“I’ll bet,” she said, setting the coffee next to her. “I met Randall last year. I knew his name as an employee before that, maybe said hello to him a time or two, but didn’t really get to know him until last year.”

We watched a group spill out from the hotel, deep in conversation.

“He had to come see me about some problems he was having,” she said.

“Drugs?”

She glanced in my direction. “You’ve done your homework,” she said, then after a pause, continued. “The hospital put him on probation because of his drug problem. It’s my job to deal with that kind of thing. Not always fun, but it’s my job.”

“Why wasn’t he fired?” I asked. “Seems like a huge risk keeping a drug-addict doctor on staff.”

She crossed her legs and picked up her cup. “You’d be surprised. A good portion of my job is working with our employees who have what I’ll call issues.” She sipped the coffee. “Alcohol, drugs, marital problems, financial problems. Doctors have it all. They aren’t immune from our cultural pitfalls. I could tell you that they are more susceptible, but that’s just my opinion.”

“The result of a high-pressure profession?”

“Sure. They get sucked in like the rest of us.” She rolled the coffee cup slowly between her hands. “Anyway, it was his first offense, as it were. He was receiving counseling and we kept him away from patients for a while to make sure he didn’t slip up.”

“What was he doing if he wasn’t seeing patients?”

She smiled at me. “Fucking me, mostly.”

I took a drink of my soda and said nothing.

“I was immediately attracted to him,” she said, brushing an auburn curl off her forehead. “I knew he was married and thought a bit of harmless flirting would be just that. Harmless.” She clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “I’d just gone through an ugly divorce and was not in the right place. He told me the drug counseling was tough on him, that his wife didn’t understand what he was going through.”

I took another drink of the soda and resisted the urge to point out Randall’s obvious lie. If anyone would’ve known what he was going through, it would’ve been Kate.

“He didn’t have a lot to do without patients to see,” Charlotte continued. “Some paperwork, but not much else. He came to my office frequently.” She paused, pursing her lips. “One thing led to another.”

“Were you in love with him?” I asked.

“Thought I was,” she answered. “He’s handsome, charming, intelligent. Gave me back what I’d lost in my divorce. But I started to realize that wasn’t what he was looking for.”

“So did you break it off?”

She finished the coffee, then shook her head. “Not right away. I was enjoying having someone around. I stayed with it until about a month ago.” She paused and set the now empty cup on the ledge. “I realized I wasn’t the only one.”

“You mean Kate.”

She turned to me. “No. I had somehow rationalized having an affair with a married man. Got it in my head that I was the good one, Kate was the bad one. I was the one he needed, not his unsympathetic wife.”

I frowned. “I don’t understand then.”

“He was seeing someone besides me and besides his wife,” she said, sadness in her eyes. “His cell phone was ringing with calls he wouldn’t take in front of me, I was getting hang-ups on my home line. He started making excuses to get out of meeting me. So I asked him.”