Sisterhood (26 page)

Inside were five neatly banded packets of hundred dollar bills—ten in each.

“The choice is clear,” she said out loud, testing her nursing director’s words. Again the image of David’s face formed in her mind. She stared at the packets, then threw them on her bureau.

“The choice
is
clear,” she whispered.

O
n Thursday, the ninth of October, as on the previous three days, Boston forecasters predicted an end to the tenacious low pressure system and the rain. For the fourth straight day, they were wrong.

In Huddleston, New Hampshire, ninety minutes north of the city, a one-hundred-fifty-year-old covered bridge washed away before Crystal Brook—-little more than a trickle in August.

Accidents on frenetic Route 128, never a rarity, more than tripled.

On David Shelton, however, as on most in the area, the effects of the unrelenting downpour were even more insidious. It was more than a mile from his apartment to the financial district and the law offices of Wellman, MacConnell, Enright, and Glass. Irritable and frustrated by inactivity, he chose to defy the storm and walk to his appointment with Ben. Within a block he was soaked beyond the consideration of turning back. “Wet is wet,” he pronounced testily, trudging head down into the wind.

The suite of offices occupied most of the twenty-third floor of a mirror-glass building whose name and address
were both One Bay State Square. “No wonder he charges $10,000,” David muttered as he approached the reception area. Three women were handling traffic with practiced calm in a space nearly as big as David’s whole office.

He looked and felt like a drowned rodent. For a moment he thought of asking the severe receptionist for some towels and a change of clothes, but nothing in her expression encouraged that kind of frivolity. “Mr. Glass,” he said meekly, “I have an appointment with Mr. Glass?” The woman, struggling to mask her amusement, motioned him to a bank of leather easy chairs. Discreet chimes sounded, signaling Ben.

Whatever the goals of the interior decorators, David decided, making clients who looked like drowned rodents feel less conspicuous was not one of them. The sterile opulence featured thick gold carpeting, original oils on the walls, and a jungle of bamboo palms and huge ferns. A well-stocked library was prominently displayed behind glass walls. Even more impressive to him was the fact that several people were actually using it.

Ben popped around a corner, smiled at David’s appearance, then extended both hands. “Either you walked over or this is autumn’s answer to the Blizzard of Seventy-eight,” he said.

“Both.” He took the lawyer’s hands in his and squeezed them tightly. Ben was a thin break in the clouds—an island in the madness and confusion.

“Had lunch yet?” he asked as they walked to his office.

“Yesterday. But please, nothing for me. You go ahead if you want.”

“Meatloaf à la Amy?” He produced a brown bag from his desk. “There’s plenty here. You sure?”

David shook his head. “No thanks. Really.” He looked around the room. Ben’s cluttered office was in sharp contrast to the rest of the austere suite. Books and
journals were everywhere, many of them open or marked with folded sheets of legal paper. The walls were overhung with framed photographs and pen-and-ink drawings. “Your partners let you get away with all this earthiness?” he asked, gesturing at the disarray.

“They think I’m camp.” Ben grinned. “One of my partners once called my office ‘funky.’ A thousand a month just for this room and he calls it funky.” He took a bite of sandwich, then spoke around chews. “Even soaked, you look better than yesterday. Are you holding up all right?”

David shrugged. “I got suspended from the staff at the hospital,” he said flatly.

“What?”

“Suspended. I had a visit this morning from Dr. Armstrong—she’s the chief of staff and the only one at that place who really seems to give a shit about what happens to me. Anyhow, she called and asked to stop by. I knew what she had to say and suggested she tell me over the phone, but she insisted on doing it in person. That’s the kind of woman she is.”

“So?”

“So, last night the executive committee voted, over her objection, to ask me to voluntarily suspend my staff and O.R. privileges until this whole business is cleared up.”

Ben shook his head. “Not ones to waste any time, this executive committee of yours.”

“According to Dr. Armstrong, Wallace Huttner, the chief of surgery, led the push. He’s also helping the murdered woman’s husband put together a malpractice case against me. If I’m found guilty, they want to be ready to move right in and sue. Dr. Armstrong said they made my suspension voluntary as a favor to me—to keep me from having an enforced suspension on my record. I think they did it because it’s less paperwork for them.”

“Shit,” Ben muttered.

“It’s probably just as well. Even before I was arrested the place became instant iceberg the minute I set foot in the door. It’s all crazy. I … I don’t know what the hell to do. I’d fight back if I had even a faint idea of who or what I was fighting, but …”

“Hey, easy,” Ben urged. “The fight’s just starting. For now
I’ll
throw the punches, but you’ll get your chance. This afternoon we share ideas about who and why. Tomorrow we’ll start planning what to do. Somewhere out there is an answer. Just be patient and don’t do anything rash or crazy. We’ll find it.”

David nodded and managed a tense smile. “Hey, I almost forgot this.” He pulled a soggy envelope from his pants pocket. “Good thing pencil doesn’t run,” he said, passing it over. “Dr. Armstrong didn’t want me to get into any more trouble at the hospital, so in exchange for my promise to stay put, she did some checking for me. There are four names on the sheet inside. She got them from the hospital personnel computer. Two orderlies with prison records, a nurse with a drug-use history, and another nurse who is pressuring the hospital to post a Patient’s Bill of Rights. I don’t know any of them. It’s not much, but Dr. Armstrong said she would get the names to Lieutenant Dockerty.”

Ben cut him off. “She already has, David.”

“What?”

“The lieutenant called a short time ago. I talked to him for half an hour. He wants you—and Dr. Armstrong—to quit playing Holmes and Watson and let him do his work.”

“Do his work?” David’s voice was incredulous. “Ben, the man has spent almost a week tar-and-feathering me. He’s the other side. He’s one we should be fighting.”

Ben shook his head. “No, pal, he’s not,” he said firmly. “He’s, a damn good cop. I’ve known him for as long as I’ve been in practice. Whether you believe it or not, he doesn’t want to see you fall.”

“Then why the fuck did he arrest me?”

“Had to.” Ben shrugged. “Pressure from all sides and a ton of circumstantial evidence. Motive, opportunity, weapon—you know all that.”

David clenched his fists. “I also know that I didn’t kill that woman,” he said.

“Well, John Dockerty’s not one hundred percent convinced you did either. Otherwise he wouldn’t be trying to work on Marcus Quigg, the pharmacist who—”

“Dockerty told me who he is,” David broke in. “But, Ben, I never met the man. Why would he want to do this to me?”

“One of the big three,” Ben said. “Vengeance, fear, money.”

David shook his head. “Ben, until Dockerty said his name, I’m sure I never heard it before. Marcus Quigg isn’t exactly John Jones, you know. If I took care of a Quigg … no, vengeance doesn’t make any sense at all.”

“Unless it was a sister or daughter,” Ben said. “Different name.”

“I guess.” David slapped the desk in exasperation. “But there are just too many unpredictable events to believe anyone could have planned to frame me. Way too many.”

“David, right now it can’t do anything but harm to try and overthink this thing. There simply isn’t enough information … yet.” Ben paused, twisting his wedding band as he searched for words. “David,” he said finally, “I wasn’t going to bring this up today, but maybe it’s best that I do. I told you yesterday that I wanted complete honesty from you, yes?” David nodded. “You didn’t mention to me that you were once accused of deliberately overmedieating a cancer patient of yours. Is that true?”

David stiffened. Disbelief widened his eyes. “Ben, I … this is crazy,” he stammered. “That was at least
nine years ago. I was completely exonerated. I … how do you know about it?”

“Lieutenant Dockerty knows. I don’t know who, but someone tipped him off.”

“The nurse, it must have been that goddamn nurse. How in the hell …?”

“What happened?”

“It was nothing. Really. I ordered pain medicine on a dying old lady—every four hours as needed. And believe me, she had plenty of pain. Well, I found that this one nurse was too damn lazy to check on whether she needed it. So I changed the order to every two hours, lowered the dose, and took out the ‘as needed’ part so the woman had to receive it. The next day the nurse reported me. There was an inquiry and I think
she
ended up getting censured.”

“Well, now it seems she’s getting even,” Ben said. “Listen, David, you must tell me everything. No matter how insignificant it might seem to you. Everything. This nurse coming forward after nine years may be yet another coincidence. There
was
the article in last night’s paper. But if someone put her up to it, we’ve got even more problems than we realized. And maybe, just maybe, you have the answer inside you without even knowing it.”

“Maybe …” David’s voice drifted off. For a few seconds he squinted and scratched above one ear.

“What? What is it? Do you remember something?”

David shook his head. “I could swear something popped in and out of my mind. Something someone said about Charlotte Thomas. I …” He shrugged. “Whatever it was—
if
it was—is gone.”

“Well, go home and take it easy, pal. We’ll meet again tomorrow. Same time?”

“Same time,” David said weakly.

“Say, listen, if you’re free tomorrow night, why don’t you plan on coming here at four. We can talk, then you
can come home and have dinner with us. You can meet Amy and the kids and get a good meal in the bargain. She’d love to get to know you. Would even if I hadn’t told her you were paying for little Barry’s orthodontia.”

“Sounds fine,” David said with little enthusiasm.

“Do you good,” Ben added. “Besides, Amy has this sister …” He smiled, then suddenly the two of them were laughing. David couldn’t remember the last time he had.

“You’re losing it, Shelton,” David said as he paced through the apartment. “You’re losing it and you know it.” The two hours following his departure from Ben’s office had seemed like ten.

Outside, the steady rain continued, punctuated now and then by the muted timpani of distant thunder. One minute the three rooms felt like an empty coliseum, the next like a cage. It was becoming harder and harder to sit, more and more difficult to concentrate—to focus in on anything. Call someone, he thought. Call someone or else ignore the rain and go run. But stop pacing. He picked up his running shoes and stepped to the window. Sheets of rain blurred the somber afternoon sky. Then, as if in warning, a lightning flash colored the room an eerie blue-white. Seconds later, a soft rumble crescendoed and exploded, reverberating through the apartment. He threw the shoes in his closet.

This is how it felt; he recognized it. After the accident. This is how it all started. Still the restlessness increased.

Is there anything in the medicine chest? Didn’t Lauren always keep something here for her headaches? Just in case the pacing won’t stop. In case the loneliness gets too bad. You don’t need anything, but just in case. In case the sleep doesn’t come. In case the night won’t end.

He paced from one end of the hall to the other, then
back. Each time he paused by the bathroom door. Just in case …

All at once he was there, reaching for the mirrored door of the medicine chest. Reaching, he suddenly realized, toward himself. He froze as his outstretched hand touched its reflection. His eyes, glazed with fear and isolation, locked on themselves and held. A minute passed. Then another. Gradually, the trembling in his lips began to subside. His breathing slowed and deepened. “You’re not alone,” he told himself softly. “You have a friend who has learned over eight hard years to love you—no matter what. You have yourself. Open that door, touch one fucking pill, and lose him. All those years, and he’ll be just … gone. Then you
will
be alone.”

His hand dropped away from the mirror. Resolve tightened across his face, then pulled at the corners of his mouth until he was smiling. He nodded at himself—once, then again. Faster and faster. He saw the strength, the determination grow in his eyes.

“You’re not alone,” he said as he turned from the mirror and walked to the living room. “You’re not alone,” he said again as he stretched out on the sofa. “You’re not …”

Twenty minutes later, when the phone rang, David was still on the sofa. He skimmed over the last few lines of the Frost poem he was reading, then rolled over and picked up the receiver.

“David, I was afraid you hadn’t gotten home yet.” It was Ben.

“Oh, no, I’m here,” David said. He smiled, then added, “I’m very much here.”

“Well, enjoy your free time while you have it,” Ben said excitedly, “because I think within a day or two you’ll be back to work.”

David felt an instant surge. “Ben, what’s happened? Talk slowly so it registers.”

“I just received a call, David, from a nurse at your hospital. She said that she can positively clear you of the murder of Charlotte Thomas. I’m meeting her at a coffee shop in a couple of hours. I think she’s for real, pal, and if I’m right, the nightmare’s over.”

David glanced down the hall in the direction of the bathroom. “Thank God,” he said, half to the phone and half to himself. “Ben, can I come? Shouldn’t I be there?”

“Until I know what this woman has to say I don’t want you involved. Tell you what. Expect me at your place at nine—no, make that nine thirty—tonight. I’ll fill you in then. With luck, our dinner tomorrow night will turn out to be a celebration.”