Sing It to Her Bones (20 page)

“I wonder why she never said anything?” Connie added hot water to my teacup.

“She probably thought it didn’t matter now that her sister has been found dead. Or maybe she didn’t want to embarrass the family,” Dennis said reasonably.

“Liz doesn’t have an unselfish bone in her body,” Connie remarked. “She would have covered up anything she thought might screw up her chances of getting into law school.”

I plunged my used tea bag up and down, hoping to coax a decent second cup of Earl Grey out of it. “The more I think about that conversation and about those creeps who ran me off the road, the more I’m convinced that Liz has to be involved in Katie’s death.” I sipped my tea and studied Dennis over the rim of my cup. “Liz must believe I know something, but what? I could just kick myself for losing that copy of Katie’s chart.”

Dennis stood up. “I can see I’ll need to talk to those two in the morning.”

“Please, Dennis, don’t bring my name into it.”

“I’ll avoid it if I can.” He lay a gentle hand on my shoulder. “You take it easy, now, Hannah. You know, this used to be a quiet little town until you came to visit.”

The next day at nine I watched as the Pearson’s Corner volunteer firemen dredged my poor car, festooned with brown and gray grass, its rear window a mass of cobwebbed glass, out of the pond. I recognized a couple of the volunteers: Bill Taylor, of course, the would-be novelist, and David Wilson, the guy who had given me the willies at Katie’s funeral. It was Bill, in fact, who waded into the water holding a great iron hook attached to a chain that reeled out behind him. The other end was connected to a tow truck that had been driven into the field and parked on a patch of hard-packed clay near an old chicken coop. I could see the hook, clamped to my rear bumper, just visible under six inches of water.

Bill raised his hand and waved it in a tight circle. The tow truck’s engine began a methodical grind. The chain grew taut, then wound itself around and around a drum as my car emerged from the muck, slowly, inch by battered inch.

As it dangled nose down from the winch, water poured from the windows and from the open passenger side door and finally from the wheel wells and engine compartment. While they waited for my car to drain, the workers clustered around Mrs. Baxter, who had just arrived carrying a thermos, a large jar of
lemonade, and a dozen paper cups. She set the cups down on the hood of one of the parked cars and poured out refreshments for the volunteers. She offered me some, but I said I wasn’t thirsty. I felt bad enough about ruining everyone’s Saturday without horning in on the refreshments, too.

I was thinking how nice it might be to live in a town like this where people go all out for folks they barely know when David approached me with a plastic garbage bag of items retrieved from my car.

I picked out a sodden box of Kleenex with two fingers.
Gee, thanks
. The bag also contained a single tennis shoe and an old pair of gym shorts that had probably begun moldering long before this most recent dousing. “How embarrassing,” I muttered aloud. I upended the bag and dumped its pathetic contents out onto the grass: a thermos (unbroken), a coffee mug (minus handle), three waterlogged CDs (Placido Domingo), an umbrella, two pens, a snow scraper, and the car’s owner’s manual.

“Where’s my purse?” I could dry out the money, I thought, and my credit card should be okay. I turned the bag upside down and shook it.

“Sorry, Mrs. Ives. It wasn’t in the vehicle.”

I was short on patience. “It has to be! Look again!”

David regarded me with steady, unblinking eyes and shook his head.

I covered my eyes with my hands. I was certain that the only copy of Katie’s medical record lay somewhere—along with my checkbook, credit cards, and
pictures of Paul and Emily—at the bottom of the Baxter’s pond. If Dr. Chase had destroyed Katie’s file, as Liz had ordered, without that photocopy, it was just my word and Angie’s against everyone else’s.

chapter

14

In the wee hours, when dreams are hard to
come by and good sense sometimes prevails, I made my decision. If the good citizens of Pearson’s Corner wanted me gone badly enough to kill me, I would leave. My narrow escape from the pond had left me weak and shaking. As mad as I was with Paul, I didn’t want to spend another day in Pearson’s Corner if it meant sleeping with one eye open or flinching every time another car tried to pass me on the road. In the morning I would call Paul and ask him to meet me at the Provincetown Airport, if only I could remember where I had put the scrap of paper on which I’d written his phone number.

In the soft glow from the bathroom night light I could see Connie’s green linen jacket, a tragic canvas of stains and wrinkles, draped over a hanger in the
doorway, dripping dry. I thought I had put Paul’s number inside Connie’s jacket, but a frantic middle-of-the-night search of the pockets had yielded nothing.

“You don’t suppose Paul’s phone number was inside my purse?” I said to Connie as we were having breakfast the next morning.

“If it was, you can always look the number up in the phone book. How many Zelcos can there be in North Truro?”

“It’s a rental place, Con. Lord knows whose name the phone is actually listed in.” I sat at the table opposite her and pinched pieces off a slice of dry toast.

“Call the Zelcos in Annapolis,” she suggested. “Maybe someone’s at home who will know.”

“Already did. Got the answering machine.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it then, Hannah. Paul will get the message eventually, and even if he doesn’t, surely he’ll call when he hasn’t heard from you.”

I wasn’t so sure. After our recent telephone conversation he’d know I was still furious with him over that disgusting Jennifer Goodall business.

Connie leaned across the table to fill my empty glass with orange juice from a carton, pausing in mid-pour to examine my face. “Except for that red spot on the bridge of your nose, I’d never guess you’d been in an accident.” She handed me the raisin bran. “So what are you going to do today, now that you’ve more or less snooped yourself out of a job?”

“Go to work, of course. Dr. Chase doesn’t know that I know he knows about my finding Katie’s chart.
It’d be suspicious if I
didn’t
show up at the office today, don’t you think?”

“Brilliant, Hannah. Now I’m convinced you’ve lost your so-called mind.”

“I’m not sure how Dr. Chase got involved in this cover-up, but he seems to be a decent sort of guy. I’m going to ’fess up. Admit I saw the chart. Reason with him about it. I should be able to persuade him to share whatever he knows with Dennis. Dr. Chase works with the police department, don’t forget.” I poured some cereal into my bowl. “If he had anything at all to do with those people who ran me off the road, I figure the best way to protect myself is to let him know that I told Dennis all about it.”

Connie stared at me without speaking, a frown of disapproval clouding her usually cheerful face. Suddenly I remembered that I was without wheels, completely at this woman’s mercy. She read my mind. “And I suppose you’ll be wanting to borrow my car?” I nodded. “Jeez, Hannah. With your track record, how can I be sure it’ll be safe with you?”

“Trust me.”

“Oh, I trust
you
. It’s the maniacs you seem to attract that I worry about.”

I had to agree. I’d been mulling it over all morning. I must have stepped on someone’s toes. Big time.

I finished my raisin bran, then spread some toast with grape jelly. I had eaten my toast and was licking the crumbs off my fingers before Connie relented. “Okay, you can have the car, but this is absolutely the last time I loan you any clothes. I don’t need to
be shopping for a car
and
a new wardrobe. And, Hannah?”

“Yes?”

“Be careful. I don’t need to be shopping for a new sister-in-law either.”

Dr. Chase stood on the porch watering geraniums when I pulled into his parking lot twenty minutes before Saturday afternoon office hours were scheduled to begin. I was dressed in comfortable black slacks and a pink, short-sleeve knit top, accessorized with a frayed tapestry vest. Instead of black patent leather pumps, I wore a sensible pair of Easy Spirit sandals. On my head was my wig, washed, brushed, and looking ratty. Following yesterday’s dunking, it was barely presentable, but I wore it anyway. I didn’t have a hat that matched my vest.

As I climbed the steps to the front door, the doctor rested his watering can on the porch rail and smiled as if nothing had happened, completely disarming me. Finding Katie’s chart must not have been that big a deal; otherwise he would have been much cooler toward me. Dr. Chase wore his emotions on his face. He didn’t strike me as that good an actor.

“Hey, Hannah. Thought you were Connie for a minute.” Then he noticed I didn’t have my car. “Your car in the shop?”

“So to speak. A tow truck pulled it out of Baxter’s pond this morning.”

His eyes grew wide. “No kidding? How’d it get in there?”

“Haven’t you heard? I thought the news would be all over town by now.”

“Nope. I’ve been holed up here since last night.”

Without going into detail, I told him about the black van that had run me off the road. I watched his face transform from a mask of amusement into one of deep concern. “I was going to make some smart-ass remark about your being accident prone, but this is serious!”

“Dennis is treating it as a hit-and-run, but he’s not optimistic he’ll find the driver.”

“I’m surprised you’ve come to work today. Sure you’re okay? Come inside. Let’s have a look at you.” The way he fussed over me made me miss my mother.

“I’m fine, Doctor. Really. But I would like to talk.”

“Well, of course. Come in, come in.” He set the watering can down on the porch next to a fuchsia plant in full bloom and held the door open for me. I headed directly down the long hallway and turned into his office. Dr. Chase followed and tossed his key ring on the desk. While he got settled, I pulled up a blue upholstered armchair, tried to collect my thoughts, and began to sweat. My anxiety must have showed.

“Sure you’re okay?” He appeared genuinely concerned.

“Quite sure.” I leaned forward and took a deep breath, knowing when I did so that the charade would be over. I’d be putting an end to my part-time employment. “Dr. Chase, I have a confession. I know you told me Katie Dunbar’s chart had been shredded, but yesterday, when I came to work, my curiosity got the
better of me. I’m sorry, but I went rummaging through the file room, looking for it.”

Dr. Chase stared at me, eyes enormous behind his glasses, his tented fingers just touching his lips.

“As you know, I didn’t find it there. But I did happen to notice a chart on your desk when I was cleaning up some spilled coffee.” I pointed. “It was stuck under your blotter.”

The doctor still didn’t comment, so I floundered on. “I meant to put it back, of course, but things were so hectic yesterday, I just stuck it in the nearest file cabinet.” I thought it would be wise not to mention the photocopy. “I’m sorry. I feel just awful about this. I know I’ve betrayed the confidence you placed in me. But what’s done is done.”

I straightened my back and took another deep, steadying breath. The next part was going to be harder. It would have been easier if the doctor had reacted to anything I’d told him so far but no, he sat there like the great Sphinx, drawing the point of a pencil mindlessly forward and back along a seam on the arm of his chair. “Dr. Chase, I need to tell you that I
did
read the chart. I know that when your father examined Katie in 1990, she was two months pregnant.”

Dr. Chase rested his elbows on the arms of his chair and adjusted his position slightly, as if trying to get comfortable. “Sometimes charts that would normally be declared inactive get missed when they’re part of a family unit that includes current patients. In Ms. Dunbar’s case, though, the chart was shredded.”

“But, Doctor, I saw it!”

It was weird. Dr. Chase was staring at the bookshelf near the window, but I had the feeling he was aware of every move I made. “You’re mistaken.” The doctor removed his glasses by the nosepiece and, still holding them, rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. Maybe it was easier for him to lie to someone whose face appeared before him as an impressionistic blur.

“Katie Dunbar is dead, Dr. Chase. What can her pregnancy matter to anyone now?”

Dr. Chase sprawled in his chair and stared at the ceiling, his mouth a thin, tight line. His eyes traveled from the ceiling to the window where sunlight dappled the sill. “It’s too complicated to explain.” He was addressing the magnolia tree in his garden, not me.

“Explain about Elizabeth Dunbar, you mean?”

His head snapped in my direction, his dark eyes wide. “What do you know about Liz?”
At last! My questions had triggered a reaction
.

“Only what I overheard of your conversation with her last night.” I thought I’d keep him guessing about the point at which I’d stumbled upon their argument.

Dr. Chase closed his eyes and wagged his head silently from side to side. When he finally spoke, his words lay flat and frosty in the space between us. “You seem to be everywhere, Mrs. Ives.”

“I admit I had ulterior motives when I volunteered to help out here. I thought it’d be an opportunity to check out the information in Katie’s file without bothering anyone. But discovering you and Liz together was purely accidental. I’d left the phone number to
the vacation house my husband is renting at the reception desk, and I had to come back for it.”

“Humph.” The doctor scowled in my direction.

“And while we’re on the topic of Liz Dunbar”—I blundered on—“what did she mean by ‘I’ll take care of the other’? Maybe I’m being a bit paranoid here, Doctor, but there’s something I’ve neglected to tell you about my so-called accident. I lost control of the car because two jerks in a dark van tried to force me off the road.” I saw, rather than heard, Dr. Chase’s intake of breath. “And when I didn’t drift off the shoulder obediently, like a good little girl, someone in the van decided to shoot at me.”