“Were you treating her for depression?”
“No. I wouldn’t call her adjustment problems depression…”
“Well, would you say she was depressed? Capable of suicide?”
Shepherd hesitated. “It is possible, of course. But I can’t say that I foresaw it. Not depression.”
“All right then, Doctor, why are you here?” asked Rountree gently.
“I was invited to the wedding. I’m not here professionally.”
“And who invited you?”
“Eileen Chandler. She didn’t have too many friends, poor kid. She was extremely shy. And from what I heard about this whole setup, I thought it might be a nice thing to do.”
“I see. Well, anyway, you can tell me something about her state of mind as you’ve observed it since you’ve been here.”
“Er-no. I really can’t. I saw Eileen for less than a minute.” He shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
Rountree leaned forward with quickened interest. “Now, why is that?”
Dr. Shepherd was silent for a moment, framing his answer. Finally he said, “Sheriff, it beats the hell outta me. I had been here less than an hour, and I was out in the hall talking to her Cousin Elizabeth, when Eileen walked in, screamed that she didn’t want me here, and went charging off upstairs.”
“And why did she do that?”
Shepherd shrugged. “I’m a psychiatrist, not a mind reader. All I know is, she fled when she saw me, then broke a mirror in the upstairs hall. Her family said it was just wedding nerves, and that may be as true as anything. She wasn’t a stable girl.”
“Should she have been getting married?”
Shepherd grinned. “That, Sheriff, is one form of insanity I don’t deal with. I told you: she was no longer a mental patient. We would have classified her as neurotic. And surely you know that neurotics get married all the time.”
Rountree grunted. “Did she have any reason to resent you being here?”
“I wouldn’t think so, Sheriff. Remember, she invited me herself. Handwritten invitation.”
Rountree sighed. “Well, I’ll have to look into it. You got all that down, Clay?”
The deputy, hunched over his notepad, nodded briefly, and went back to writing.
“So, we’ve established that she was upset, but we don’t know why. Of course, I reckon there’s the obvious. You want to tell me what you thought of the groom?”
“I didn’t know him. I mean, I’d met him, of course, but only once. He came by to pick her up one afternoon after our session, that’s all.”
“But she’d have talked about him, wouldn’t she? Must have been pretty important to her.”
Shepherd grimaced. “Did she talk about him? Constantly! But you see, Sheriff, her viewpoint was hardly objective. According to Eileen, Michael Satisky was a knight in shining armor. She talked like a bride, in fact.”
“Which she was-or almost was. Well, if this turns out to be a suicide, we may have to check the shining armor for rust spots. Reckon I’ll have a talk with the young man. All right, Dr. Shepherd, that’s all I can think of. Is there anything else you want to tell us?”
“Well, let me remind you that I knew Eileen when she was away at school. Away from her family, I mean. That change of environment could make a big difference in her state of mind.”
“How’s that?” asked Rountree.
“Well, Eileen seemed anxious about coming home. As if she were dreading something.”
“You want to take a guess at what that was?”
“Well… offhand…” Shepherd glanced up at the ceiling. “Have you ever met her mother?”
CHAPTER TEN
“HE WASN’T MUCH HELP, was he?”
Clay shrugged. “Well, if she was suicidal, and he didn’t know it, it won’t look so good for him professionally.”
“Oh, hogwash!” sneered Rountree. “Her state of mind could have changed something awful since she got home. That’s what we got to figure out: what’s been going on around here-and could it have made her want to kill herself?”
Michael Satisky, who had been sent in by Shepherd, halted in the doorway. “Kill herself?” he echoed, forgetting his nervousness. “Is that what happened? Are you sure?”
“Will you sit down,” moaned Rountree. “And don’t jump to so dad-burned many conclusions. You probably know more than we do right now. So, what do you think? Did she kill herself?”
“How-how could I know?” Satisky stammered. The sheriff’s genial drawl did not make him feel at ease. It reminded him of the easy, philistine confidence of the high school athletes who had made his life miserable as a teenager. He felt that he was being baited, and he became even more tense.
“Well, since you were going to marry her, we thought you’d be able to tell us a little something about her state of mind,” said Rountree with heavy sarcasm.
Satisky winced. “She was upset about something,” he admitted. “But I don’t know why. It wasn’t about our engagement, because she didn’t know-”
Rountree pounced. “Didn’t know what?”
“Oh… well… nothing important. I mean, she didn’t know, so it couldn’t very well be relevant, could it?”
“I think I’d better hear this,” said Rountree. “You’d be surprised at what people know. They got the darndest ways of finding out-listening at doors and I don’t know what-all.”
Satisky blushed, remembering his opening words of the interview.
Rountree pretended not to notice that his shot had hit home. “Anyway, you never can tell what’s going to be important, so I think you’d better tell us what this is all about.”
“It’s nothing really,” Satisky insisted. “I was just… you know… getting nervous. About the wedding and all-uh, this is hard to discuss with police officers…”
Rountree snorted. “You think this is hard? You should have tried explaining to the bride that you’d changed your mind.”
“Well, I hadn’t actually made any decision…”
Too spineless to go through with it, Rountree’s look suggested; but he merely asked: “Are you sure Eileen Chandler couldn’t have figured this out?”
Satisky hesitated. “Well… I did mention something about it to her cousin last night.”
“Her cousin. Who would that be?”
“Elizabeth MacPherson.”
“Oh, that pretty little gal with the dark hair. I see!” Rountree beamed at him with understanding.
“No! I’m sure you don’t see at all. I merely mentioned to Elizabeth that I was somewhat apprehensive. I certainly did not make any advances of the kind that you suggest!”
“Talks just like a book, don’t he?” Rountree beamed happily at Clay.
Clay nodded. He had seen Rountree’s clown act pay off too many times to question it, but he couldn’t join in on the spirit of it. He contented himself with playing straight man.
“So, we know you had a little confidential talk with ‘Cousin Elizabeth,’ right here in the house of your intended. Is that right?”
“Uh-yes,” said Satisky miserably.
“Now, are you sure you couldn’t have been overheard?”
“Oh, I don’t think so! I mean, no one has mentioned it!” Rountree and Taylor exchanged glances of exasperation. “Anyway,” Satisky continued shrilly, “I don’t think that had anything to do with it! And I don’t think she killed herself! I think she was murdered for money. Have you heard about the will? Well, find out about that! If you ask me, she was murdered!”
“Yes, I witnessed the will,” Elizabeth told them a few moments later. “She had her lawyer come out to talk to her about the inheritance, and she asked him to draw one up. But she had a handwritten one already done, and he told us it was legal-though he didn’t seem to like the idea much.”
“A will,” mused Rountree. “Did she have a lot to leave?” He wondered what the Chandlers would consider “a lot.”