Still Lake - Anne Stuart [80]
“Here you go,” he said, coming back onto the porch with two mugs of coffee. He sat in one of the rocking chairs, then took a sip. “Wonderful,” he said.
“What did you mean, like the old days?” she asked. “Were you friends with Peggy Niles?”
Doc laughed. “Everyone around here is related. Peggy was my older sister. I thought you knew that. This was our family place. My father was the town doctor, my mother the nurse, and they used the whole back end of the building as the hospital. I grew up in this house.”
“I knew the closed-up wing had been a hospital at one time. For some reason I just didn’t connect you with it. Why didn’t you keep the place? How did your sister end up with it?”
“Times changed. Back when I was a kid every small town had its own hospital, but by the time I was growing up the local ones had closed and everybody started going down to Morrisville or St. Johnsbury. Or to Burlington for the big stuff. It made more sense for me to have an office in town, and Rima never liked being too far out in the country. Peggy married Burt Niles, and they stayed on here to farm for a while. Not that it worked,” he said, leaning back in the rocker. “Burt was never good for much, and he took off eventually. Peggy tried to keep the place going, first as a nursing home, then as a bed-and-breakfast, but obviously it didn’t work. She was about ready to give up when the murders happened.”
“She died, didn’t she?”
“Peggy? She got cancer a few years later. There was nothing anyone could do,” Doc said, grief and dignity etched in his seamed face. “All the training I had, and I couldn’t save her.”
“I’m so sorry, Doc,” Sophie said.
He shrugged. “I’m a doctor—I should get used to death. But you know, you never do, no matter how many times you have to deal with it.”
“No, I imagine you don’t,” she said.
Doc gave himself a little shake. “Heavens, I didn’t come out on this beautiful morning to talk about gloomy things like death. I wanted to find out what happened last night and make sure you’re okay.”
“Last night?” she echoed, feeling guilty, immediately thinking of sex. She’d run at the last minute, she hadn’t given in to temptation and gone back to bed with John Smith—no matter how much she’d wanted to. Besides, what did Doc care about such things…?
“I heard you had car trouble,” he said. “Zebulon King was out early this morning, and he dragged your car out of a ditch down the road and hauled it to town. Said it looked as if you’d had a fender bender. He said there was blood all over the seat.”
“I hit my head,” she said, feeling almost embarrassed.
“So I can see. You should have come to see me right away, Sophie. Or given me a call—I would have come out here. Head wounds are nothing to mess around with—you might have a concussion, or worse.”
“I’m fine, Doc. It just bled like crazy.”
“Was it your neighbor? Did he run you off the road?”
“Why would you think such a thing?” she demanded. “No one ran me off the road.” And then she realized that wasn’t strictly true. The drunk driver up near Dutchman’s Falls had been the cause of it all, but whoever it was, he was long gone. “I was driving home late, it was raining, and I wasn’t paying enough attention to the roads. I missed my turn and ended up in a ditch. Embarrassing, but really quite simple.”
There was a long pause. “Zebulon King says there’s blue paint on one of the fenders. He’s a bit of a religious kook but he doesn’t tend to get these things wrong. Did you hit someone, Sophie? You can tell me the truth. Were you drinking last night? If you hit something, or someone, the best thing you can do is admit to it. I can help you…”
“Doc, I wasn’t drinking last night!” Sophie said with a little laugh. “I don’t drink much, anyway, and I certainly don’t drink and drive. I was just distracted. Thinking about things, and the roads were slick in the rain.”
She didn’t tell him about her near miss. It seemed like a waste of time, and he’d worry needlessly, but it felt strange to be lying to him. Maybe it was simply because he