Family Practice (16 page)

She thunked the chicken on the cabinet. Cooking was something she never really cared for. She was a Barrington; they took care of the sick. She collected potatoes from the bin and tumbled them in the sink. In the living room, the clock chimed six. Rubbing her aching head, she wondered if she was up to peeling potatoes. She hated peeling potatoes. Dirt and starchy white stuff all over her hands. She could still smell it even after she washed it off. Maybe baked potatoes.

With the point of the knife, she stabbed the plastic around the chicken and ripped it off. Blood trickled over her hand and puddled on the cabinet. Her stomach clenched. Blood. Oh, God.

Dorothy lying in a pool of blood.

For God's sake, you'd think you'd never seen blood before. When she was tired, her mind did odd things. Odd things. Dorothy dying. Odd. Something she'd thought about. Now, instead of thinking what that meant, she could only think Dorothy was gone. The police asking question after question. The family sitting around talking, pretending—

She really didn't expect they'd do anything different, but she had thought she'd be more in control of herself. Instead, she'd been awkward and apprehensive. Just like when she and Carl were young and had done something Dorothy didn't like and they waited for her to chew them out.

Last night they had all looked at each other and thought about Dorothy. Dead on the office floor. Dead and bloody. Today that piece of carpet was missing. Cut out and gone. Like Dorothy. Gone.

And they still all looked at each other and waited, as if Dorothy would walk in at any moment.

Marlitta stared at the chicken—slimy, white, dimpled skin, legs sticking out, bloody paper packet of neck and gizzard—and felt she might be sick.

Last night she'd been so tired she thought she'd drop before she'd even gotten herself to bed. She never even went to sleep. She lay there, Brent asleep next to her, and stared at the ceiling. And she'd been so cold. So cold. Even with the heat wave and Brent's warm body right beside her.

Abruptly, Marlitta turned on the tap and rinsed the clammy chicken. The doorbell rang. She started and dropped the chicken, splattering water all over herself. She leaned over the sink, holding on with all her strength.

When the bell rang again, she turned off the water, grabbed a towel, and wiped her hands as she went to the door.

“Carl,” she said. Baggy jeans wearing thin at the knees, loose cotton shirt, he looked like a bum. Ragged. He really ought to dress better. “What are you doing here?”

“Thought I'd see how you were holding up. You were a little shaky today.”

“Why wouldn't I be shaky?” She turned around and plodded back to the kitchen.

He closed the door and followed. “Brent not home?”

“No.” With her back to him, she stared at the chicken in the sink. A corpse with its head chopped off. “He had a meeting.”

“Right.”

She wheeled around. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.” He looked as tired as she felt. “Calm down.”

“I can't calm down. I just can't. I think I may opt for a nervous breakdown. So peaceful. Nothing but lying in bed. No sick people to take care of. No disgusting chicken to cook.” She had the urge to pick it up and throw it against the wall.

“Here. Let me do that. Sit down.” He pulled out a chair and nudged her into it. “You got any tea?”

“Top left-hand cabinet.”

He ran water in the tea kettle and put it on the stove, opened the cabinet, and rummaged through boxes. When the kettle shrieked, he poured hot water in a cup and dipped in a tea bag. He plunked it in front of her and turned back for the sugar bowl. “Put some sugar in it and drink it.”

“I don't like hot tea.” She sniffed the spicy orange flavor and felt like weeping.

He rattled around finding a roasting pan and banged it on the cabinet. “You like baked chicken?”

She nodded. Nobody would eat it anyway. She certainly couldn't eat, and God knew when Brent would get home. It just seemed important to carry on with all the usual rituals.

Carl busied himself, patting dry the chicken, sorting out spices, and peeling potatoes. “Carrots?”

“In the refrigerator.”

“Where are the onions?”

She pointed.

He selected one from the bag in the pantry and reached for the chopping board. “We have to do some talking.”

She took a cautious sip of tea and burned her lip. “No. I don't want to talk about it. I won't.”

“Marlitta—”

“No. Willis is right. An addict looking for drugs.”

“Maybe.”

“Of course.”

“There's no ‘of course' about it. It's a possibility, but a remote one, and you better prepare yourself for a lot of nastiness.”

“I don't see why. The police will look into all that. They might even find the person. They won't want to investigate us. We have standing in the community.”

“You're right about one thing. They won't want to investigate us.”

“There you are, then.”

“But they will. They'll have to.” He scraped chopped onions into a bowl.

“I don't see why.”

“Oh, for Christ's sake. Because we have
standing,
as you say, they will have to solve this murder. They'll mess around with addicts and hassle a few people, but they'll keep coming back to us.”

She wrapped both hands around the cup.

“Ellen's been talking to me.” He put the chicken in the pan and surrounded it with potatoes and carrots.

“What about?”

“She's worried about Daddy's gun.”

“What about it?”

“It's missing.”

“I don't see what that matters.”

“Use your head, Marlitta. The cops will find the gun. It will turn out to be the one that killed Dorothy. Then we're all up shit creek.”

The room seemed to spin around. “No,” she said. “Don't say it. Don't say one of us killed her.”

He opened the oven door, slid the pan inside and banged the door shut, then turned to face her, leaned back against the cabinet, and crossed his arms. “It's not going to do any good to bury your head in the sand.”

“I don't want to hear it.”

“You never did like to look anything straight in the face.” He opened the refrigerator door and selected a bottle of beer. “Imported. Going fancy.” He twisted off the cap and sat down across from her.

She stared into her tea.

He took a long swallow. “Marlitta, did Dorothy ever mention Daddy's paintings to you?”

She couldn't make sense of what he was saying. Nothing made sense anymore. She squeezed the cup so tightly her fingers turned white. “Why would she? What do they have to do with—”

“I don't know. She dashed over to Comach's gallery on Saturday to find out if he'd sold the one he has.”

Sold Daddy's painting? Why was she so slow and thick? Thick like blood. Thicker than water. “Had he?”

“No. Did she talk to you about them?”

Marlitta rubbed her face—it felt numb—and shook her head. “She never talked about them. Nothing's ever been said, except when Ellen wanted to take one. Right after she bought that place. She said the painting was hers and she wanted it. They fought about it, but Dorothy wouldn't let her have it.”

Marlitta took a sip of tea. “Nobody ever got away with one of Daddy's paintings.” She raised her eyes and looked at Carl. He looked older. When had he gotten older? “Except you.”

He grinned, and suddenly looked like Carl again, the Carl she had always known, about to suggest something that would get them both into trouble. “Daddy gave it to me. I always liked it the best of all his stuff.”

“I don't see how you could. It's so—”

“Marlitta, you never were one to look very far under the surface. I got that one away before Dorothy knew what was happening, and she never could figure how to get it back.”

“I never wanted one. I don't think Dorothy liked them much either. I don't think she ever even looked at them. They were always just there. In that room.”

“When was the last time you looked at them?”

“I don't—” She squeezed her eyes shut tight. They stung, felt dry and scratchy. “Years. I—”

“Are you sure they're all still there?”

*   *   *

After the rainstorm, the sun came out to blaze fiercely, making the most of the short time left before it had to go down. Trees dripped; water rushed along the gutters and flooded over the curbs. As Susan drove by the Tudor-style house on Kentucky Street, a car backed out of the driveway and took off in the other direction. The driver was Carl Barrington. She U-turned at the end of the block and parked in front.

With a finger against the bell, she heard the ding-dong, ding-dong, ding inside. Nobody answered. She pressed again. Just as she was about to give up, the door opened.

“Good evening, Dr. Barrington. I wonder if I could speak with you a few minutes.”

Marlitta looked at her blankly, then seemed to focus, realize who she was, and stepped back with a sigh.

The wide entry had slate tiles, and Marlitta's flat-heeled shoes made a weary thumping sound as she showed Susan into the living room.

The rich smell of roasting chicken permeated the house, making Susan hungry. Pick up something on the way home and actually cook it? Nah. It was a lot quicker to pick up something already cooked. And that way, no cleanup.

“Can I get you anything?” Marlitta asked. “A cold drink, or some tea?” She looked tired to the point of dropping, still dressed in working clothes: a gray skirt, a white blouse, and hose.

“No thank you. I have only a few questions.”

Susan was struck by how much Marlitta resembled her older sister, but a blurred, softer version; her hair, slightly longer but still short, was lighter, her face less defined. A plain woman, not unattractive, but next to her startlingly handsome husband, she must look drab. She blended in with the muted colors of the room. Two chairs in a soft peach color, and a couch in a still paler peach, two watercolors above the couch: a bride being driven in a horse-drawn wagon to a church in the distance, and a row of ducks in tall grass by the edge of a stream.

Marlitta dropped into the wing chair as though she couldn't take another step. “I'm sorry I seem so slow-witted, but I really don't think there's anything else I can tell you.”

Susan settled on the couch. “Is your husband home?”

“I'm sorry,” Marlitta said again. A smile flickered thinly across her face. “I seem to be saying that a lot lately. Brent isn't home yet. He has some kind of meeting.”

Susan wondered whether Brent's meeting was with a female.

“There's really nothing he can tell you. He knows nothing about Dorothy's—about what happened. He was on campus Saturday afternoon.”

So he claimed. “We have to keep going over things. I know it's difficult, but it is important. What happened the week before Dorothy's death?”

“Nothing happened,” Marlitta said with a bewildered shake of her head. “It was an ordinary week.”

“Nothing at all unusual or different?”

“No.”

“You must have talked with her.”

“Of course. We talked about patients, other things. I don't know. There wasn't anything. I'm truly sorry—” She stopped and sighed. “There I go again. I've tried to think, but really there was nothing.”

This family didn't seem to go in much for cozy chats with each other. If Dorothy'd had anything on her mind, she might not have mentioned it to any of them. But unless the perp had indeed skulked into the medical building and shot Dorothy for no other reason than because she'd caught him, something had led up to her death. “What did Dorothy like to do when she wasn't working?”

A facsimile of a smile. “Dorothy was always working.” Marlitta laced her fingers, held her hands palm up in her lap, and talked to them. “She liked to play the piano. We all played together. Used to. We haven't done that much lately.”

“You all play the piano?”

“Only Dorothy. She said it relaxed her. Carl and I— Oh, how we hated to practice.” Marlitta separated her hands and smoothed the skirt over her knees.

“She'd been—” Marlitta paused. “Oh, I don't know, remembering things.”

“What things?”

“I don't know if that's the right way to say it. I don't mean depressed or anything like that. Feeling nostalgic perhaps. Actually, I believe she was quite liking it.”

“Liking what?”

“Gathering up all the old photographs. Going through them.”

“Did she do that often?”

“None of us had looked at those old pictures for years. They were just packed away someplace in the house. You can't imagine what-all is packed away in that house. She found it kind of fun, I think, going through them. Albums and boxes.”

“Why was she doing this?”

“The Historical Society—well, it's really Holly Dietz—wants to do a photo book of the early history of Hampstead. She asked Dorothy to bring her old pictures. Oh—” Marlitta rubbed her eyes. “Friday, I think, she meant to do that.”

“Dorothy did some work at the battered women's shelter. Did that pose any difficulties for her?”

Marlitta took in a slow breath; otherwise she simply sat like a lump. Susan couldn't tell if she was avoiding an answer or if the switch in subject had come too fast for her.

“It made her mad. She got very angry that the men would do such a thing. And even angrier when the women wouldn't even get themselves out of the situation.”

“It's not always—”

“I know. It's not as simple as all that.”

“Did anyone ever threaten her?”

“I don't—” Something shifted in her eyes. Susan had no idea where to go with it. “Maybe.”

“Who?”