“With bells and whistles,” Gavin said. “Wouldn’t miss such a highfalutin shindig.”
“Look!” Finally, the Amarillo scandal involving Anna Hughes loaded onto the computer screen. They all leaned in to read the Amarillo Globe-News article. The deputy’s breath hit the back of my neck. “So the woman died,” he said a few seconds later.
Josie grabbed my arm. “‘Paralysis at the wrinkled area is caused by injecting the neurotoxin, but apparently also caused paralysis of the respiratory muscles and dysphagia—’”
She looked up at Nate. “Trouble swallowing, I think,” he said.
“‘—which led to pneumonia and fluid in the lungs. The incident ended in the death of Louisa Renee Babcott. No charges have been filed and the death has been called a tragic accident.’” She shook her head sadly. “Is that what happened to Trudy Lafayette? Oh, gosh, she’s not going to die, is she? Is her throat paralyzed?” She’d gone a little green as her hand fluttered to her face, then her throat, as if she’d had the treatment and was feeling the infected areas.
I gasped, as all the threads came together into a solid strand. Just like Mrs. James had done when she’d told me about the Amarillo scandal. Lightning doesn’t strike twice.
Or does it, when the same doctor is involved? Meemaw had been trying to tell me. She’d known about it. That’s why she’d gone to the Hughes’s party. I pieced together my thoughts. “Maybe Macon Vance and Anna weren’t having an affair at all.” I snuck a look around, making sure Anna hadn’t suddenly materialized to eavesdrop, then dropped my voice to a whisper. “Maybe he was blackmailing her, too, but over this.” I tapped the computer screen.
The deputy already had his cell phone out, thumb hovering over the SEND button. “Go on.”
“They’re all three from Amarillo. If Macon Vance remembered the scandal, maybe he was trying to get hush money out of her so he wouldn’t blow the lid on them and ruin Buckley’s practice in Bliss.”
As the deputy pressed SEND on his cell phone, retreating to a quiet corner of the lobby, I backed away from the computer, grabbed my cell phone and Will’s arm, and ran outside to call Fern Lafayette.
Chapter 38
I paced up and down the cement slab in front of the country club’s automatic sliding doors. They zipped open, then closed, open, then closed. “How’s Trudy?” I asked Fern when she answered the phone.
“The doctor’s here now,” Fern said. “Hold the line for a minute.”
The doctor had been there when I’d left and that had been hours ago. Presby had good service. I heard a man talking to Fern, but the voices both became muffled as the automatic doors zipped open again and Deputy McClaine stepped outside. “Anna Hughes has an alibi for Vance’s murder,” he announced. “Seems she was in Dallas picking up her son’s Victorian britches.”
My face fell. “Oh.”
“And during the attack on Miss Lafayette?”
“We’re checking it out now, but twelve women at a neighborhood bunco party is a pretty tight alibi, so there you go.”
I began pacing again, pushing against the thickening wall of humidity. “If it’s not Anna, then who?” I muttered.
Fern’s voice on the other end of the cell phone caught me by surprise. “He said the police don’t have any clues about who might have broken into his house—”
I stopped short, barreling right into Will. “What?”
“What? What? Harlow Cassidy, has your mind gone soft?”
“Doctor Hughes!” I whirled around and flung my arms out, nearly sending my cell phone flying. “But he’s here, isn’t he?”
“I saw him before the waltz started,” Will said, but Gavin shook his head. “He left just after.”
Oh Lord. If Macon Vance blew the whistle on what had happened in Amarillo, Buckley’s reputation in Bliss would have been blown to bits. He was the one who’d silenced the golf pro. And if Trudy had pieced it all together, the doctor wouldn’t let her live to ruin his life. “It’s not Anna,” I breathed. The words caught in my throat. “It’s Buckley. Where is he now?” I said into the phone.
Fern hesitated, and I knew she was trying to figure out what had me all worked up. “He just left. Goin’ back to the pageant to see his boy. Why?”
“I’ll tell you when I get there, Fern, but don’t leave Trudy alone.”
I told Deputy Sheriff McClaine that Buckley Hughes was on his way back to the country club. In seconds flat, the deputy had texted God knows who, and was on his phone, alerting the rest of Bliss’s law enforcement team, bringing in the cavalry to stake out the club.
“I’m going to check on Trudy,” I said. The deputy nodded, waving me off as he filled in the sheriff.
Will dug his key out of the pocket of his black slacks. “Let’s go.”
We raced to the parking lot. I had anticipated being able to go home to change before the big pageant, but that also hadn’t happened. Now I was grateful for my flats, capris, and chiffon summer blouse. I was no track star, but I managed to stay with Will. He deactivated the alarm and unlocked his truck’s doors without breaking stride. That was more coordination that I could have mustered. And keeping a car in the right lane? There wasn’t a chance I would have been able to drive in a straight line.
Will revved the engine, backed out, and in seconds flat, we were barreling off the golf course property, down the country road, and heading straight for Presbyterian Hospital.
Chapter 39
“I can’t believe Buckley could do this. You really just can’t ever know a person, can you?” Will mused. He pressed a button on the elevator control panel and the doors slid closed. I explained everything to Will during the NASCAR drive to the hospital, including the fact that Macon Vance was Libby’s father and that he was apparently a serial blackmailer, but he was still having trouble accepting it all.
“But it makes sense,” I said. “They’re both from Amarillo. Maybe it took a while, but Vance must have realized that Buckley was the same doctor who’d been accused of malpractice in the Panhandle. A woman died. That’s a big deal. Who in their right mind would get Botox treatments from a doctor who’d killed a woman getting the same treatment?”
“What about Trudy? She couldn’t have known.”
I’d been wrestling with that. “I don’t think she did. She just thought Anna and Vance were having an affair.”
We watched the buttons light up as we ascended, stopping to take on passengers on the fifth floor.
“But there’s no proof of any of it,” he muttered. “He might get away with it.”
If he’d managed to turn out Trudy’s lights, he just might.
“What if we’re too late? He might could have done it already,” I said, the sound of my thumping heart drowning out everything else.
“As long as he wasn’t alone with her, he couldn’t have hurt her.”
“Murdered her,” I corrected, shuddering at the idea that Trudy had very nearly been killed.
The passengers on the elevator sidestepped away from us, glancing at each other with raised eyebrows. I had to admit, murder wasn’t your typical elevator conversation.
I held on to a strand of hope. I’d seen Trudy earlier. She’d been fuzzy, but talking. And Fern wasn’t leaving Trudy’s side, so the doctor wouldn’t have had an opportunity to do anything more to her. Surely that meant she’d be fine. My insides had twisted into a thousand knots. “But why would he have come if it wasn’t to make sure he finished the job? That was bold,” I mused.