had on the suspect list?” I asked.
“At this point, they could be. But the cops aren’t going to find any evidence linking you or Myra to Dr. Bainsworth’s murder.” He squeezed my hand.
“Since I’ve only been back in Brea Ridge a few months, I never even met the guy. What was he like?” I asked.
“I didn’t know him that well either. I go to Farmer—the other dentist. But Bainsworth seemed like an okay guy. I interviewed him for the paper a few times.” Ben stretched his legs out in front of him. “I did an article on him when he moved his practice into a new building—where it is now—because it was in the historical section and he was remodeling. I also spoke with him about the mission trip he took a couple months ago.”
“A mission trip? He wasn’t an EIEIO, was he?”
Ben smiled. “I don’t think so. He was doing dental work for the poor, which was really magnanimous of him given his circumstances at the time.”
“What circumstances?” I asked.
“Well, his wife had left him a few months prior and was in the process of taking nearly everything the two of them had,” Ben said.
“That doesn’t seem very fair.” I leaned back into the sofa.
“He was cheating on her,” Ben said. “Angela, his wife, caught him with one of his hygienists.”
“That bites.” I laughed at my own joke, but Ben didn’t.
“Anyway, the mission trip had already been scheduled, which is why I suppose he still went. Once the divorce was more fully under way, I don’t think he could have afforded it,” Ben said. “That’s a shame too, because from the way he talked he’d really enjoyed helping those people.”
BEN LEFT FAIRLY early since he had to get up and go to work the next morning. I was a little tired but restless. I went into my office to search online for a large model of a 1955 Cadillac I could use to make a template for the EIEIO cake.
As I searched, I wondered about Dr. Bainsworth. Maybe his wife killed him. She could still harbor feelings of hurt and jealousy. Surely the police would check her alibi.
Or since he was cheating on his wife, perhaps the other injured party—the hygienist’s husband or boyfriend—had gone to the office to confront Dr. Bainsworth. But why would he wait so long? From the way Ben had talked, Dr. Bainsworth’s wife had discovered the affair and started divorce proceedings more than four months ago. Wouldn’t anyone entangled in that volatile situation have lashed out before now?
What if one of Dr. Bainsworth’s patients told him something while under anesthesia? What if the dentist confronted the patient about it later, and the patient got angry? That could make sense. But then, even if the police questioned every single one of the dentist’s patients, the guilty person wasn’t going to speak up and say something stupid like “Yeah, I slipped into his office to bash him on the head because I confessed to him that I was embezzling from my company while I was all hyped up on nitrous oxide.”
I wondered if Myra was up for some undercover investigation. Fortunately, before I could dwell on Dr. Bainsworth’s murder suspects any more, I found the car I needed for my template. I printed it out and went to bed, resolving to start carving the cake first thing tomorrow morning. This way, I could give it a trial run. And if the cake went wrong, I could make another in plenty of time for the party.
THE NEXT MORNING, I hurried outside to get the newspaper to see what was being written about the Bainsworth investigation. There was the handsome dentist’s face plastered on the front page with the headline POLICE SEARCH FOR DENTIST’S KILLER. The article related how “two local women, one of whom was a patient of Dr. Bainsworth,” had found the body Saturday night at the dental office. Thankfully, they hadn’t named Myra or me in the article. I didn’t need bad publicity to further drive down the market for baked goods in Brea Ridge.
The Chronicle went on to list Dr. Bainsworth’s attributes before saying that police were pursuing several leads in connection with his murder. They weren’t specific about those leads, but at least the paper didn’t say “especially the patient and her friend.”
After reading the paper, I made myself a task list. Mr. Franklin wanted five football-themed cakes for the Save-A-Buck and five party trays to psych people up for the Super Bowl.