Grave Secret - Charlaine Harris [77]
I hoped I would not fail again.
Fifteen
I slept that night, but not well. It was reassuring to hear Tolliver’s breathing as I tossed and turned. When light crept under the heavy curtains and I permitted myself to get out of bed, I felt used up, exhausted before the day even began. I made myself run on the treadmill again, hoping to drum up some energy with the exercise. That strategy didn’t work.
Assuming Manfred had tracked down Tom Bowden’s current office, I decided to drop in on Dr. Bowden this morning. It would probably be easy to get past the receptionist, because the mirror told me I looked anything but well. Though we hadn’t set a definite time the night before, Manfred knocked very quietly on our door just as I finished dressing.
Tolliver, just up, had woken as grouchy as a bear. He was about as much fun to be around as a bear, too. Manfred was petty enough to emphasize Tolliver’s invalid status with obnoxious cheerfulness and many wishes for Tolliver’s recovery. Manfred was glowing with health and energy. When you added the lights bouncing off his silver piercings, he practically sparkled.
Manfred liked to talk in the morning.
As we drove to the office building Manfred had scouted the night before, he told me that his grandmother’s will had left everything to him. That had surprised his mother, who was Xylda’s only daughter, but after her initial disappointment, she’d seen the justice in it, since Manfred had taken care of Xylda her last couple of years.
“Xylda had a . . . ?” Then I stopped, embarrassed. I’d been on the verge of expressing amazement that Xylda had had an estate to leave.
“She had a little cash stashed away, and she owned a house,” Manfred said. “It was my good luck that it was in the downtown area, and the school district needed the ground it stood on to build a new gym. I got a decent price. Like I told you before, I found all kinds of weird shit when I was cleaning out all the accumulated stuff. I put everything I wanted to keep into storage until I decide where to base myself.”
“So you’re going to make your living in your grandmother’s business, but do most of your work via email and phone?”
“That’s the idea. But I’m open to new adventures.” He glanced over at me and waggled his eyebrows.
I laughed, though reluctantly. “If you can make even a faint pass, given the way I look today, I think you’re nuts.”
“Didn’t sleep last night?”
“No, not a lot. Detective Powers died.”
Manfred’s cheer was wiped off his face as if he’d used an eraser. “That’s crappy. I’m sorry, Harper.”
I shrugged. There wasn’t anything to talk about; I’d thought everything there was to think during the course of the night, and Manfred had sense enough to recognize that.
DR. Bowden’s office was in a four-story building, an anonymous glass and brick cube that could have held anything from an accounting firm to a crime syndicate. We ran through the pouring rain to reach the sliding glass doors on the south side of the building.
As we entered, I saw a husky gray-haired man leaving the lobby by another set of doors, his jacket held above him to avert the rain. As the automatic doors swooshed shut behind his back, I thought his walk looked familiar. I looked after him for a moment, then shrugged and joined Manfred at the lobby directory. We discovered Dr. Bowden was on the third floor. He was listed as a GP.
Dr. Bowden had a modest office in that modest building. The waiting room was small, and there was one woman behind the sliding glass panel. Her workstation was messy, almost chaotic. She seemed to be the receptionist, the scheduler, and the insurance clerk, all rolled into one. Her short hair was dyed a deep red, and she wore black glasses that tilted up at the outer corners. Maybe she was aiming for retro.
“Trying to make a fashion statement,” Manfred muttered, I hoped too low for her to hear.
“Excuse me,” I said, when she didn’t look