Margaret Truman's Experiment in Murder Read Free

doctor might have been a victim of a crime, but the threat sometimes worked. It didn’t with Betty Martinez.
    He shifted the conversation.
    â€œWas the doctor married?”
    â€œDivorced.”
    â€œWhere’s his ex-wife live? And kids.”
    She gave him the address and phone number in Chevy Chase.
    â€œHe have a girlfriend?”
    She managed a smile. “A few.”
    â€œWhat about his patients? He get involved with any of them?”
    â€œInvolved? You mean romantically?”
    He nodded.
    â€œI don’t think so.”
    He hated “I don’t think so.”
    But she did know. She’d become aware over the years of working for him that he had become sexually involved with a few of his patients. It bothered her, but she wasn’t in a position to challenge him about it.
    The detective’s cocked head invited her to answer again.
    â€œNo,” she said, “I don’t think so.”
    Nothing to be gained by pressing her.
    â€œHe have any enemies, you know, people who got mad at him for something he did or didn’t do in his practice, somebody who held a grudge?”
    â€œI don’t think so. I mean, I don’t know of anyone.”
    Their questioning of her lasted another fifteen minutes. Their final query was, “Do any of his patients have blond hair?”
    This brought forth an incredulous, pained laugh from her. “Lots of them do,” she said.
    After suggesting that she call all the patients to alert them that the doctor wasn’t available—and informing her that other officers would be back later that day to ask more questions and to examine the office—they left.
    â€œHe was screwing patients,” one said as they drove back to headquarters.
    â€œLooks that way.”
    â€œYou figure that’s the direction we go?”
    The driver shrugged and swerved to avoid a bicyclist. “Idiot!” he muttered.
    â€œThe world’s full of them.”
    â€œIf the good doctor was playing kissy-face with his patients, the world has one less idiot.”
    â€œI’m hungry.”
    â€œMe, too. Dunkin’ Donuts?”

 
    CHAPTER
    4
    After jelly donuts and coffee, the detectives who’d been called to the accident scene contacted their superior and were instructed to go to Sedgwick’s apartment, seal it off, and wait for Forensics to show up. They secured the cooperation of the building’s superintendent and now sat in the living room, where they discussed their confusion over the order they’d been given.
    â€œThey’re treating this like a crime scene,” one said. “Doesn’t make sense. The guy was just a shrink in private practice who got run over.”
    â€œDeliberately.”
    â€œEven so.”
    â€œHomicide is homicide,” his partner said. “Doesn’t matter how somebody kills somebody. Maybe there’s something in here that’ll point to the mysterious blonde with the heavy foot.”
    His colleague got up and perused a floor-to-ceiling bookcase, then went to the window and looked out over a pocket park. “Nice place the doc had.”
    â€œThere’s good money in treating head cases,” said his partner, who’d left the living room and gone to a small second bedroom used by Sedgwick as an office. He slipped on a pair of latex gloves, sat at the desk and opened its drawers, fingered their contents, and closed them. A desk calendar contained handwritten dates and times of its owner’s October schedule—lunch dates, a dental appointment, reminders of TV shows he’d wanted to watch, a Saturday notation “Day with kids,” and other indications of his life slipping by. He looked up at the second detective, who stood in the doorway. “You figure they’ve notified the doc’s ex-wife?”
    â€œI hope we don’t catch it,” was the response. “Petrewski enjoys catching next-of-kin notification. You know