What had Susannah seen in this...this... Tag’s head jerked around at the smell of—“Damn!” The eggs! He bolted for his smoky kitchen.
THE DAY SLID STRAIGHT downhill from there. Reporters were camped out at the back door of the clinic when Tag went in to work. He had to wade through the baying pack, hands jammed in his pockets to keep from punching the eager faces thrust into his own.
“Dr. Taggart!”
“Dr. Taggart, would you care to comment on—”
“Dr. Taggart, were you aware that—”
“Move it or lose it, pal.” He gained the back door and unlocked it, opened it wide enough to slide in sideways—
“Taggart, how much did Mrs. Colton have to pay you to get you to geld Payback?”
An ice cube slithered down his spine. They couldn’t think he’d—He halted, half in, half out the door. “We charged her our standard fee for—” His heart dropped a beat as he remembered. At least they’d tried to charge her the usual fee for that procedure. God, Susannah’s ring! Let it be zirconium, oh, please God!
He had a feeling God had gone south on vacation this week.
He slammed the door on his own aborted statement and locked it. Fists pounded, voices rose indignantly. Did they think they owned him? If Payback was a national treasure, then what was he? National whipping boy? He half ran toward the office. “Carol Anne!”
She sat behind her counter with a stunned and mutinous look on her face, her hair escaping its pins. Beyond the locked front door, he could hear more of the same mob. “Carol Anne, did you tell anyone about the ring? Her ring?”
“And good morning to you, too, doctor.”
“I’m sorry, good morning. The ring—did you tell anyone?”
Her glower turned to a blinking stillness. She sniffed, opened the appointment book and buried her nose in it.
Control, control. If he shook her she’d quit. “Who, Carol?” She flipped to the next page, as if today could simply be skipped over. He leaned above her, a silent growl vibrating deep in his throat. She hunched her shoulders. “Doc Higgins, okay?”
Higgins wasn’t so bad. Higgins was as stingy with his words as he was with his gauze pads. He wouldn’t—
“—and my sister,” she added in a mutter, not looking up.
Wonderful. “All right, I want you to toddle straight out that door and tell her—”
“She’s already gone in to work. Her shift starts at six.”
Carol Anne’s sister was a waitress at the best place—the only place—in town to get an early breakfast At six this morning the diner’s counter would have been lined elbow to elbow with newsmen, sucking down coffee and local gossip. “Cripes. Then I want you to call her and—”
“Call—ha! I unplugged the phone. Somebody’s got an automatic dialler locked in on us. You can’t call in or out.” She rubbed her nose and looked up. Her eyes were red-rimmed. “And you know what’s on our answering machine from last night? Loonytunes calling in from all over, threatening to burn us down, or blow us up, or do to you what you did to that stupid nag!” She snatched a tissue from her pocket. “If you’d only listened to me...”
All right, forget the ring. By now that horse was out of the barn. “What did Higgins say?” He’d not been able to face the old man last night. Nor call, not with his own line jammed with incoming viciousness.
“He said you should’ve listened to me.”
Tag counted backward from ten, then slowly up again. “What else?”
“He said you’d better get yourself a good lawyer and it better not be on his dime.”
“I was going to phone Glassman at nine. Guess I’ll have to go see him, first break in the schedule I get.”
That break came earlier than expected. The first appointment of the day was a no-show. Simply forgot, or something more ominous? The second, Mrs. Wiggly and her cat, Sherman, arrived on time, but after they’d run the gauntlet of newshounds, Mrs. W was near tears and Sherman was doing a Persian variation of the Saber Dance.
When the third and fourth appointments were no-shows, it began to look like a trend. The fifth was an overweight dachshund, who bit a newsman on his way in the door. The reporter threatened to sue. Tag came out and offered to punch his nose for him, which seemed to cheer the reporter and his photographer no end, after which Tag completed Bismarck’s exam, then declared the clinic closed for the morning. He hung a sign in the window and left Carol Anne trying to phone out to cancel the rest of their appointments.
Because even more than loyal patients Tag needed a good lawyer.
He took the long way into town, which was down a logging road, then up over a rocky hillside pasture, thankful that his new truck had four-wheel drive. By the time he reached Main Street he’d lost his pursuers. Shutting the outer door to Glassman’s office behind him, Tag breathed a sigh of relief-Ollie, Ollie oxen free—then grimaced as he remembered who’d said that last.
Glassman’s receptionist looked up with a smile. It froze on her face.
“Hi, Barbara. I know I don’t have an appointment, but...” He gave her his best grin. They’d had a flirtation going while Glassman had been drawing up his contracts to buy into Higgins’s practice. He’d considered asking her out, but somehow couldn’t see himself ever telling Barbara about the car collection he’d started at age thirteen. Barb believed in The Law, not the unbearable beauty of Porsches.
“I’m afraid—”
“Barb, if he could see me for even a minute. I’m in the soup. I guess you know, if you saw—”
“I did.” She shot a glance over her shoulder toward the inner office. “But I’m afraid we—he—can’t help you.” She lowered her voice. “He took a retainer this morning. The other side.”
Tag stared at her blankly.
“Colton. Stephen Colton,” she hissed. “He’s retained us.”
Colton? Here? “To do what?”
“I’ve no idea, Tag, and if I had, I couldn’t tell you. Colton’s man showed up waving a check for five thousand half an hour ago. They’re in there now, so if you don’t mind...”
“Yeah. Sure.” Just like that, wave a check and he was the enemy? Well, hell, there were other lawyers.
THERE WERE THREE OTHERS in town—and Colton had retained all three. For a pretty boy, he played dirty. Outside the office of the third and last, Tag stopped to rub his aching neck. Okay, so now what? Drive to Bennington?
But would a small-town lawyer do the job, if Colton intended to go for blood? Maybe he should hire a Boston heavy?
But a big-time legal shark would do his own bloodletting, and Tag had zip to spare. He’d used every dollar he’d saved since graduation to buy his first slice of Higgins’s practice.
And surely it was too soon to be talking lawsuits? First he should talk to the guy. Colton might be a snob, but he hadn’t looked stupid or unreasonable. And his real quarrel was with his crazy wife, not an innocent bystander. Find a phone then, that was next. Once Colton had heard Tag’s side of the story...
It took him eighteen tries to get past a busy signal. When someone picked up the phone at last, Tag drew a thankful breath.
“May I speak to Mr. Colton, please?”
“I’m afraid he’s not available just now.” Another pattering Kentucky drawl—a woman’s, sweetly professional. “But may I take a message?”