Her Sister's Keeper

“That’s ridiculous. I just want to ask him about Ariel.” Melanie pulled out of his grasp and backed up a step. “Victor has a right to know about Rachel and Stephanie. You can’t possibly think he’s involved in any way.”

“This is a murder investigation. I’m talking about police procedure here and we’ve already violated a number of important protocols. I’d like to keep my job, if you don’t mind.”

“I won’t mention them,” she promised, inwardly seething at the way he was treating her. She wheeled around and exited the little nursery, dashing down the stairs in angry haste. As she rushed forward to meet Victor, she heard the faint sound of sirens approaching from the main road. Victor stopped the tractor and cut the ignition.

“Melanie,” he said, climbing off the seat. He seemed surprised and pleased to see her. “Have you come to see Ari? This is good, so good, but I don’t think she is here.” Victor’s eyes focused over her shoulder. “Come up to the house, bring your gentleman friend, we’ll share a glass of wine and talk….” His expression changed as he heard the approaching sirens. “What’s wrong, Melly? What is it?”

“Oh, Victor,” Melanie said, crumbling at his use of her pet name. “We were hoping you’d know where Ariel was. It’s very important that we find her.” Melanie turned as Kent stepped up beside her. “This is Dr. Kent Mattson, and he’s…”

“Is Ariel sick? Is the baby all right?” Victor interrupted, his face becoming pale. “Something terrible has happened. What is it? Dear God, tell me.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Kent said. “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for the police to arrive. Maybe you’d better sit down.” He guided Victor toward the passenger side of the unmarked car before walking away to meet the police cars, and Melanie’s heart broke at how old Victor looked as he half collapsed onto the seat with a dazed, apprehensive expression.

“Melanie?”

“I’m here, Vic.” She knelt beside him. “I’m right here.”

“What has happened? Why can’t you tell me? Is Ariel all right? And her baby?”

Melanie closed her hands around his, feeling their cold tremble. “I don’t know, Victor. I honestly don’t know. Do you have any idea where she might be?”

“At her apartment, maybe? She spends most of her time there, now that Mitch is dead.”

“She isn’t there. We’ve checked.”

“I just cast her as the lead in our next production, Celtic Runes. Did she tell you? We were going to begin filming shortly…. Is she sick? Is she in some kind of danger?”

Victor was so distraught that Melanie was on the verge of telling him everything she knew when she felt Kent’s hand on her arm, drawing her to her feet as the police cars, a seeming platoon of them, careened around the corner and skidded to a stop, blue lights flashing, sirens cutting out one after another. Kent propelled Melanie along with him as he approached Captain Murphy’s car. She fixed Kent with a steely expression as she exited her vehicle. “Well?”

“The man over there is Victor Korchin,” Kent said. “According to Melanie, he was like a father to Ariel. All he knows is that she’s missing, and he learned that from us not five minutes ago. We told him nothing about the two murders, and we didn’t touch anything inside the cottage except for the letter in the nursery, and I wore gloves when I took it out of the envelope.” Kent glanced at Melanie, then ran his fingers through his hair. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get Melanie out of here. It’s been a helluva long day for her.”

Murphy gave Kent a curt nod of dismissal as she moved toward the unmarked car, signaling two other officers to accompany her. The three of them assisted the visibly shaken Victor to the captain’s vehicle. Halfway there he paused.

“Where are you taking me?” he asked, removing his straw hat. “I will need to leave a note for my wife that I am going.” He reached into his trouser pocket and drew forth a large handkerchief to dab the sweat from his forehead.

Melanie took a step forward, but before she could voice a single word, Kent pulled her back. He escorted her firmly to the car and planted her in the passenger seat. “But, Dr. Mattson, I can’t just leave Victor like this….”

“Not another word,” he said, his eyes steely. He shut the door and returned to where Murphy stood, bending close for a brief conversation before returning and climbing behind the wheel.

Kent backed up carefully, threading through the maze of police vehicles. “Murphy’s aware of the details. She’ll handle the questioning from here on out. She’s an expert at that.”

He was heading back down the winding driveway as he spoke, driving cautiously and yielding the right of way as other police vehicles approached. Melanie stared at his calm, impassive profile, experiencing another wave of heated indignation at his words. “You talk as if Victor’s a suspect.”

“It’s standard police procedure,” he repeated. “Murphy might not take him to the station house, but we have to question everyone who has any connection to these women.” He paused, then glanced sidelong at her. “I don’t suppose there’s anyone else Ariel was close to that you haven’t told us about, or any other places she might have been living?”

Melanie faced front and laced her hands tightly in her lap. “No.”

“Okay.” He turned left when he exited Blackstone’s impressive gate. “Then I think it’s time we found you a safe haven for the night.”

“Just drive me home, please,” Melanie said, battling an overwhelming weariness. “I want to be there if Ariel calls. She could be in terrible trouble.”

“It’s not a good idea for you to be alone.”

“You can’t possibly believe that I’m in danger, too,” Melanie said.

“Until we know for certain that you aren’t, I’m not taking any chances. I’d like you to give us permission to stake out your apartment for a few days, just in case, and if you insist on staying there, I’d like you to consider having an undercover officer on the premises. A woman, of course,” he added, as if she might have thought he was volunteering himself.

“Absolutely not,” Melanie said with a firm head shake. “My apartment is in a very safe part of town and I’ll be fine there by myself. I’m not going to argue about this, Dr. Mattson. I appreciate your concern, but please, just take me home.”

AS HE ENTERED Melanie’s apartment for the first time, Kent fully expected that he’d be overwhelmed with Hollywood pretentiousness and was pleasantly surprised by the homey simplicity of the place. It was a small apartment—the kitchen, dining room and living room all blending into one open space— furnished in an inexpensive yet tasteful style.

“It’s small,” Melanie had said as she unlocked the door, “but I don’t need much.” She flung her purse on the sofa, ran her fingers through her hair and heaved an exhausted sigh that turned into a moan as her eyes fixed on a broken bowl on the kitchen floor. Her shoulders slumped. “Oh, no. That crazy cat of mine thinks he has the right to sample anything I accidentally leave out on the counter.” She knelt to gather up the broken pieces, her hair tumbling around her face in a soft glossy fan. “Trust Shakespeare to help himself. He knows the counter’s off limits, but apparently Anatanyia’s Mexicali shrimp dip was too much of a temptation. Never cared for it myself—too spicy. I’m sorry about the mess.”

“I’d like to check out your apartment before I leave, just to make sure everything is okay,” Kent said.

She glanced up at him, hands full of broken shards, and nodded. “All right. Thank you.”

It didn’t take him long to figure out that nobody lurked in the closets or hid in the bathroom, and no murderer lingered in the bedroom, but something caught his eye beneath the bed. The tail of a cat protruded from beneath the dust ruffle. “I found your dip thief,” he called to Melanie, “hiding out under the bed.”

“Typical,” he heard Melanie say, and he stood for a moment, wondering why the tail didn’t move. Cats were cautious creatures by nature. Kent knelt and lifted the bedspread. The cat was lying on its side—big, orange and unmoving. He reached his hand to touch the animal. There was no response, and he was not surprised. The cat was quite dead and he noticed a bit of white froth around the animal’s mouth.

With a surge of adrenaline Kent was on his feet, running to the kitchen. “Don’t touch that!” he snapped. Melanie had a wad of paper towels in her hand to wipe up the remnants of the dip that soiled her kitchen floor. She froze, then rose slowly to her feet.

“What’s wrong?” She stared at him, her eyes widening. “Where’s Shakespeare?” Kent closed the distance between them, as if by being near her he could protect her from the next bad shock of her horrible day.

“He’s dead,” Kent said. “I’m sorry. Wash your hands immediately and don’t touch the dip. We’ll need to get a sample of it to the lab and get it analyzed….”

“Dead?” she echoed faintly. “Shakespeare? Dead?”

“Did you eat any of that dip yourself? Even to be polite?”

She shook her head. “No. Like I said, I never cared for it. It was supposed to go in the trash this morning but I forgot to take it out with me when I left.”

“Where did it come from?” Kent asked.

“Stephanie dropped it off here the morning after the dinner party….” Her eyes filled with tears that spilled over onto her cheeks.

“Who is this Anatanyia? What dinner party? When?”

“Victor Korchin’s wife,” she said. “The party was at Blackstone the day before yesterday. It was held to celebrate the birth of Ariel’s baby. I was invited but I didn’t go, I didn’t want to go. I wasn’t ready to see her yet, I wasn’t ready to forgive her, and so Stephanie brought me the dip to tell me about the party and how beautiful Ariel’s daughter was and…” Melanie’s voice choked off for the second time and she leaned into him, pressing her hands to her face and drawing a deep, shuddering breath. She was trembling like a leaf in high winds. Kent supported her with one arm, while his other hand reached for his cell phone.

Murphy answered on the fourth ring. “This had better be important, Kent, because I’m in the middle of an interrogation that you should most definitely be witnessing.”

“I may have just discovered what killed those two women,” Kent said. “Send a crime team to Melanie Harris’s apartment, would you? Tell them there’s a dead cat in the bedroom and some dip on the kitchen floor that may contain a poisonous substance. And Murph? I think we’d better assign twenty- four-hour surveillance of her apartment, as well as an officer to stay with Melanie. I don’t think she’s safe here by herself, but she insists this is where she wants to be, in case her sister tries to contact her.”

Kent felt Melanie stiffen in his arms as he stuffed the cell phone into the holder on his belt.

“Dr. Mattson,” she said, drawing away from him and drying her cheeks. “I really don’t want to stay here now. Not after what’s happened to Shakespeare. If you could drop me at a hotel….” There was a flicker of dread on her face as she remembered that Stephanie had died in a hotel room surrounded by people. She shook her head, a small, helpless gesture. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where else to go.”