Death by the Bay Page 2

  Cubiak indicated the deceased. “And he is?”

  Sage turned toward the fallen man, but before he could respond a voice from the back of the room rang out. “His name is Leonard Melk.”

  Cubiak turned to find Bathard leaning on his cane inside the doorway. His look was somber, and beneath his neutral tone, the sheriff detected an undercurrent of disapproval.

  “Yes, the deceased is the renowned Doctor Leonard Melk,” Sage said, addressing the coroner.

  The director started back toward the podium but Cubiak caught his elbow. “I’d rather that no one touch Doctor Melk again until Doctor Bathard has had a look.”

  Sage yanked his arm free. “Why him? He’s not part of the institute or the conference. This is an internal affair and he”—Sage pointed a finger at Bathard—“isn’t one of us. He doesn’t belong here.”

  The director’s arrogance riled the sheriff. “You’re wrong on two counts,” he said. “Doctor Melk’s death occurred in a public venue, so it comes under my jurisdiction as sheriff, and I have the full authority to solicit the opinion of anyone I wish on the matter. Doctor Bathard is the former county coroner, and as such, he may, as you say, belong here more than anyone else in this room, conference or no conference.”

  Sage crossed his arms and glowered. “This is bureaucratic nonsense. Doctor Melk died of a heart attack.”

  “I’m inclined to agree, but we don’t know for certain, do we?”

  Cubiak held Sage’s gaze. The sheriff had an uncanny ability to read people. He wasn’t always correct. In fact, when he had met Cate, the woman who was now his wife, he had misunderstood almost everything about her. But most of his initial impressions were on target. He had immediately pegged Bathard as a man of depth and integrity. The sheriff was sure that Sage was hiding something, probably his relief that Melk would no longer overshadow him and his delight at being freed from his influence.

  All business, Cubiak went on. “I’ll need the names and contact information of everyone who was here when the doctor collapsed. When my deputy arrives, he’ll get statements from the three at the back of the room and the woman at the door. I’ll talk to the rest of you now.”

  “Statements?” Sage said. He sounded ready to launch a new protest, but one glance at the sheriff and he swallowed his objections. “Very well, if we must. No one here has anything to hide. Let’s just get this over with.” He looked at the woman in gray. “There’s nothing we can do about this afternoon, but perhaps we can salvage the rest of the conference.”

  As he talked, Sage pulled a cream-colored card from his breast pocket and shoved it at Cubiak. The MD that trailed the director’s name led into an impressive alphabetic litany of credentials. The IPM logo was embossed on the upper right and the institute’s motto printed in a large font along the bottom: For the Greater Good.

  The woman in gray stepped up next. Her card was flimsier than the director’s, but it carried the IPM logo, as well as her name, Noreen Klyasheff; her title, executive assistant; and her contact information.

  The card belonging to Adam McGill, the earnest young man in a drab brown suit, bore only his name and email address. The two were a good match, modest and subdued.

  “You’re not with the institute?” Cubiak said.

  “I’m Doctor Melk’s personal assistant.” Then blushing, McGill corrected himself: “Was the doctor’s assistant.” A shadow passed over his face. Had he just realized that the physician’s death meant he was now unemployed? Cubiak wondered.

  The woman with the two-toned hair was the last to step forward. She was even more pale than before, but Cubiak sensed an underlying steeliness that belied her fragile appearance.

  “Linda Kiel, our own personal scribe,” Sage said with a mixture of amusement and derision.

  “I’m a journalist,” she countered.

  “Writer of Words” read her card. Was the title meant to be pretentious or self-mocking? the sheriff wondered. Did the pronouncement describe what she did or who she was? In either case, it was meant to elicit a response, and he deliberately did not react. The rest of the card was blank except for a phone number, an email address, and the name Cody Longe.

  “My pen name,” she said before Cubiak could ask.

  Another pretension? The sheriff wasn’t sure; he had never known anyone with a pen name, but beyond talking with a few local reporters he had limited experience with journalists. “Sounds impressive,” he said and was certain he heard the woman in gray snigger.

  He took in the trio. “The three of you can wait over there,” he said, indicating the chairs on the side of the dais away from the body. “I’ll start with Doctor Sage.”

  The writer stayed her ground. “How long is this going to take? I have an appointment.”

  “You’ll need to reschedule.”

  The young woman’s manner bothered Cubiak. There was a duplicity to her that he couldn’t pinpoint. In the face of the day’s unfortunate events, she seemed flippant. Perhaps she was in shock, he thought, deciding to give her the benefit of the doubt for now.

  “I’ll try and be quick,” he said by way of consolation.

  He was about to suggest they send for coffee when Rowe came through the door. The sheriff gave the deputy a quick rundown on events and pointed him toward the women at the back of the room.

  “Get everything you can from them, what they saw, who was where when the doctor collapsed. You know the drill.”

  As he conferred with Rowe, Cubiak watched the others. Sage talked on his phone. Klyasheff rummaged in her purse and finally pulled out a lipstick, which she uncapped and dabbed at her mouth. McGill trailed Linda Kiel to the table and reached around her for her jacket. She snatched it from him and said something sharp under her breath, leaving McGill red with embarrassment again. Then she grabbed her laptop and stomped off to a seat in the middle of the first row, pointing him to a spot at the end. Her meanness annoyed the sheriff. McGill only meant to be helpful, Cubiak thought. Kiel had no reason to humiliate him.

  “That’s it?” Rowe said.

  “What? Yes. I don’t expect anything to come of this. Things seem pretty cut and dried.”

  2

  “SNOW”

  Cubiak walked Sage toward the window near where Doctor Melk had collapsed. He wanted the body in full view while he questioned the institute director. The sheriff pondered which role he should play: should he be bad cop or good cop? He didn’t suspect any untoward activity in Melk’s death, but he was put off by Sage’s arrogance and was tempted to come down hard on him. He knew that, TV cop shows notwithstanding, the tough guy approach was counterproductive in most situations and reserved it mainly for dealing with recalcitrant witnesses and in cases that involved an abusive spouse or parent. In those situations, he figured the offenders should consider themselves lucky that was the worst they got from him. No, most situations did better when the good cop showed up on the scene. The average Joe was more at ease talking to Officer Friendly. He felt a bond with the kind of lawman who, under other circumstances, would sit down and buy him a beer and nod sympathetically as he complained about the raw deal he had gotten from life.

  Sage was better educated and more polished than the average citizen, but he wasn’t immune to a touch of human kindness.

  On the other side of the glass, a patch of yellow jonquils bloomed in wild profusion. The flowers’ cheerful demeanor contrasted sharply with the mood in the room. Cubiak looked from them to Sage and started with condolences.

  “I’m sorry about the loss you’ve suffered today. Doctor Melk’s death must be a blow to the institute and to you as well. I gather that you’ve been associates for many years.”

  Some of the stiffness went out of Sage’s shoulders. “Doctor Melk and I worked together for more than four decades.”

  “He was your mentor?”

  “Yes, in many ways. He brought me into the institute.”

  “Ah, that’s tough.” Cubiak switched gears slightly. “I hope you’ll understand
that my questions are merely routine. Personally, I’d rather forgo the formal process under these kinds of circumstances but . . .” He let the thought trail off.

  “Whatever you need,” Sage said.

  From his tone, the sheriff knew that the director felt in control of the conversation. That was his first mistake.

  “Tell me what happened,” Cubiak said.

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t here. I’m giving a lecture later this afternoon, or I was until now, I guess. At any rate, I was down the hall preparing for my session when I heard the scream and came running.”

  Sage exhaled and ran a hand through his hair.

  “Adam had already reached Doctor Melk. He’d loosened his tie and unbuttoned his shirt and was about to start CPR. I’m sure he’s been trained, but he’s not a physician. Instinctively, I pushed him aside and took over just before you showed up.”

  “Doctor Melk was scheduled to give his presentation at three o’clock?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “What time did he arrive?”

  “He was here all day. In fact, he was here all day yesterday as well. He had a room at the lodge. Today, I saw him at breakfast, probably around eight.”

  “Did he attend any of the sessions?”

  “That I can’t say for sure. He liked to keep his hand in things, so he may have sat in on one or two presentations. At some point he probably went out for a short walk. He liked to spend time outside. He said it helped him clear his mind.”

  “When you saw him, what was his manner?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Was he anxious? Did he seem unduly concerned about anything?”

  Sage shook his head. “Doctor Melk is—was—one of the most sanguine men I’ve ever known. He was completely himself when we spoke.” He hesitated. “If anything, he may have been a bit melancholy about stepping aside from the institute after all these years.”

  Time for a touch of bad cop. “It was about time, wouldn’t you say?”

  Sage stiffened. “I’m not at all sure what you mean.”

  You’re not? Cubiak thought.

  “Melk started the institute and ran it from the beginning. If he was true to human nature, that could mean he’d be resistant to change. After all those years, maybe it was time for new leadership, new ideas.” The sheriff almost said new blood, but caught himself. “Surely by now you were ready to take the reins.”

  Sage’s mouth tightened, but he, too, stopped before he said what he really meant. “For all intents and purposes, I’d done so years back.”

  “Right.” But always under the watchful eye of your mentor, another thought Cubiak kept to himself. He paused a moment and shifted tactics again.

  “Tell me about the institute.”

  Sage took his time answering, but what he finally offered sounded like the standard overview found on the opening page of an annual report. “The Institute for Progressive Medicine embodies a forward-thinking approach to health care. We incorporate the latest advances in traditional Western medicine with alternative methodologies that have proven effective in other regions of the world in an ongoing quest to cure disease and alleviate patient suffering.”

  “You hold an annual conference?”

  “This is our fifth. The conference is open to our member doctors as well as those in the profession who are interested in widening their horizons, medically speaking. Unlike most conventional medical conferences, we also offer sessions designed for the lay audience.”

  “Do you mean patients?”

  “Some patients come, as do their families, but the sessions are open to anyone interested in learning more about new or alternative approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of disease and disability. These are often of special interest to people in the media. Writers, bloggers, and such.”

  “And Doctor Melk always participated?”

  “Of course.”

  “He appears to have been quite elderly.”

  Sage smiled. “Doctor Melk was just shy of ninety-three, but his age was largely irrelevant. Physiologically he was at least a decade younger than he was chronologically. In other words, Doctor Melk had the body of a healthy eighty-three-year-old. He liked to say that based on genetics he had at least another decade to go. His father lived to ninety-eight, and his mother died quietly in her sleep at one hundred and three after she’d spent an afternoon in her kitchen canning pears.”

  “He had no health issues?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary. A touch of arthritis in the spine. Elevated cholesterol that was controlled with medication. He has an ICD, an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator, but that’s not unusual either.”

  “Was there any chance the device malfunctioned?”

  Sage gave Cubiak an exasperated look. Another ignorant layman. “That’s a fairly common misconception among the general public. Of course, when they were first introduced, in the 1980s, there were issues, but every generation represents an improvement over the previous one. I won’t say the devices are foolproof, but they are getting there. Besides, they’re monitored on an ongoing basis.”

  “There’s virtually no chance of a malfunction.”

  “None. Or at least very little.”

  “But a device like that can’t keep the patient alive forever.”

  “Correct. At some point even the healthiest heart runs its course.” He sighed. “There are none of us immortal, Sheriff.”

  McGill, the personal assistant, had nothing more to add. He had been sitting at the table checking emails on his phone when Melk collapsed.

  “You didn’t see anything?”

  “When I got here, Doctor Melk was sitting over there talking to Noreen.” He pointed to the other side of the podium. “I didn’t want to disturb them, so I sat at the table and waited, knowing he’d call me if he needed anything. Like I said, I was busy catching up on email. The next time I looked up, Doctor Melk was at the podium. I went back to what I was doing and didn’t pay attention until . . . ,” he faltered, “until it was too late.”

  “How much time elapsed between the time you got here and Doctor Melk collapsed?”

  “Five, ten minutes. Fifteen at the most.” McGill blanched. “I heard a thump and then a scream. When I looked up, I didn’t see Doctor Melk, but I didn’t realize what had happened until I saw Linda staring at the podium. Then I knew something was wrong, so I got up and ran over.”

  “Where was Ms. Kiel standing?”

  “Over there, by the window.”

  “Behind the podium?”

  “Yes, and a bit off to the right.”

  “Who screamed?”

  “It must have been Noreen, Ms. Klyasheff. She was kneeling by Doctor Melk when I got there.”

  “What about Linda Kiel? Did she come over to the doctor?”

  McGill shook his head. “Like I said, she was plastered up against the window, white as a ghost. I thought she might faint.”

  “Did Melk say anything?”

  “Not to me. By the time I reached him, I think he was already dead.”

  Cubiak pulled two chairs to the window and offered a seat to Noreen Klyasheff. She smoothed her skirt with manicured hands and pulled her feet back toward the chair. She took her time getting settled and he didn’t rush her.

  “You’re the executive assistant to Doctor Sage?” he said when he sensed that she was ready.

  “Now, yes. Before that I worked for Doctor Melk.”

  “How long?”

  “Eighteen years.”

  “You must have known him well.”

  She smiled weakly. “I think so, yes.”

  “I’m sorry; this must be hard for you.”

  She closed her eyes and nodded.

  Cubiak waited a moment before going on. “You saw the doctor collapse?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where were you when it happened?”

  “There.” She stood halfway and pointed to a front-row chair on the other side of the podium. “I was l
ooking right at him.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  Klyasheff settled back and folded her hands in her lap. “I wanted to have a good seat for the talk so I got here early. A few other people were doing the same; I could hear them behind me. Several minutes after I sat down, I saw Doctor Sage leave. I presume he wanted to check on the presentations that were scheduled for the end of the day, to make sure everyone was prepared with what they needed. You know how annoying it is when someone stands up to give a talk and something goes wrong with the mic or the PowerPoint. Anyway, a few minutes later, Doctor Melk came in. He sat down next to me for a bit, probably just to be polite—he was that kind of man. Then he went up to the podium. There was still plenty of time before his speech, but he liked to get in early and make sure things were right. I saw him check the mic—he always checked the mic—and arrange some papers on the podium, probably notes for his speech.”

  “Did he seem nervous?”

  “Doctor Melk?” She laughed. For a moment, she seemed to retreat into happier memories. “Doctor Melk wasn’t the nervous type. Public speaking came easily to him, and he relished the opportunity to talk about the institute and his work there. He may have been a little sad about leaving, but nervous? No, never.”

  “He was alone at the podium?”

  “Until she came up and started talking to him.” Not attempting to hide her scorn, Klyasheff motioned toward Linda Kiel.

  Cubiak hid his surprise. What did the journalist have to say that was so important that she would bother Melk before his speech?

  “How did Doctor Melk react?”

  “Well, as I said before, he was ever the gentleman. He smiled and pretended to be interested in what she was showing him.”

  “Could you see what it was?”

  “No, her back was to me.”

  “Did you hear what they said?”

  “I couldn’t. A woman in back started coughing, plus Linda was practically on top of him.”

  “I thought Ms. Kiel was in front of the podium.”

  Klyasheff shook her head. “At first, yes, but then she moved to the side and stepped right up to him. That’s when she held up a sheet of paper, practically shoved it in his face, if you ask me. I don’t know what it was but his expression was . . . well, I don’t know how to describe it except to say that he seemed stunned. He looked very stern and said something to her.”