I said in a tight voice: “What did you do with her?”
“I left her in some bushes out in the sand.” She bit into the plum, waved vaguely towards the window. “Out there in the desert. There wasn’t anything else I could do with her.”
I ran my fingers through my hair. Maybe she was crazy, I thought, or else I was.
“Was it you who arranged for me to come here?”
“Oh. yes,” she said, leaning against the doorway. “You see, Dr. Salzer has no knowledge of medicine or of mental illness. But I have. I used to have a very big practice, but something happened. I don’t remember what it was. Dr. Salzer bought this place for me. He pretends to run it, but I do all the work really. He is just a figure head.”
“No, he’s not,” I said. “He signed Macdonald Crosby’s death certificate. He had no right to.
He’s not qualified.”
“You are quire wrong,” she said calmly. “I signed it. We happen to have the same initials.”
“But he was treating Janet Crosby for malignant endocarditis,” I said. “Dr. Bewley told me so.”
“Dr. Bewley was mistaken. Dr. Salzer happened to be at the Crosby house on business for me when the girl died. He told Dr. Bewley I had been treating her. Dr. Bewley is an old man and a little deaf. He misunderstood.”