Rose Hill by Pamela Grandstaff Page B

replied. “Someone from the county sheriff’s department was here asking about him, as well. What an awful thing to have happen, even to a fellow as unappetizing as Theo. His father was a good friend to me when I was just starting out, and I always felt it was a pity the younger son drowned and not Theo. Life is such a mystery to me. I shared his records with the deputies who came with a search warrant; do you need to see them as well?”
    “No,” Scott said. “I want to know if you had any personal dealings with Theo outside of your doctor/patient relationship.”
    Doctor Machalvie looked surprised, and more than a little offended.
    “What are you insinuating, Scott?”
    Scott felt the rebuke and it made him incredibly uncomfortable.
    “Any business dealings, investments, leases, things like that,” he said.
    “Heavens no,” Doc said. “Business deals are my brother’s forte, not my own. I personally found Theo repellant, and would not have given him two nickels for a dime. I can’t think of anyone who will miss him.”
    “I have to ask everyone this,” Scott said. “Where were you the night Theo died?”
    Doc took a deep breath and appeared to think very carefully before answering.
    “I was at home in bed with my wife,” he said finally. “I’m pretty sure the lodge meeting was the night before.”
    “It was,” Scott said.
    “Well then,” Doc smiled broadly and stood. “I guess we’re all done here and I can get back to my forms.”
    Scott was mollified, as he was intended to be, and left the office knowing he had let himself be handled, but at a loss as to what to do about it. He just couldn’t picture Doc Machalvie stalking Theo with a baseball bat.
     
     
    Later that evening , Knox’s wife Anne Marie was awakened, still high and very drunk, by her husband, who dragged her out of bed, and then dressed her in the clothes she’d worn earlier in the day.
    “Where we goin’?” she asked him, repeatedly, but he just hummed to himself and would not answer.
    He slung her up over his shoulder, carried her to the garage, heaved her not so gently onto the backseat of his car, and shut the door. Cradled in the soft, warm leather, she allowed herself to drift, listening to the classical music Knox always played when he drove.
    Maybe he was taking her to rehab again, she thought. It hadn’t been too bad; the spa part had been relaxing, and she had lost some weight. She felt dizzy but not sick, which was exactly the feeling she liked best, most often followed by unconsciousness or sex, although sometimes she’d wake to find both seemed to have happened without her remembering. 
    She lost track of time as he drove, but she was conscious of the curves in the road, and the swaying motion of the car lulled her to sleep in the warm, leather cocoon. She woke up to a sudden blast of cold air upon her lightly clad body, and it was enough of a shock to her system to sober her up a tiny bit. Knox hauled her out of the back seat, leaned her back against the side of the car, and then lightly slapped her face until she protested.
    “Pay attention to me,” he said. “I’m getting out here and you have to drive yourself home.”
    Anne Marie looked around; they seemed to be parked on the side of Pine Mountain Road, the nose of the car pointed downhill. It was dark, snow was pouring down, and Knox seemed to be insisting she drive somewhere. He pressed the keys into her hand and walked away to where she could see another car was waiting farther up the road, facing in the opposite direction.
    “Hey!” she yelled, and the effort caused her to slip and fall into the snow bank created by the snowplows.
    “Shit!” she shrieked. “Knox! Come help me up, ya big jerk!”
    She heard the other car pull away, going uphill, toward Glencora. She struggled out of the snow bank and stumbled against the car.
    “Knox!” she screamed after the disappearing taillights, “I can’t drive; I’m drunk!”
    This struck her as