Without a Word (5 page)

“Tell me about the children she hurt.”

Ms. Peach pulled her breath in, her chin along with it.

“Please, it's important I understand. If I am, as you say, barking up the wrong tree, then shouldn't I know it? Shouldn't I stop wasting my time and poor Mr. Spector's money?”

“Well, I'll give her this. She never started any of the fights. But if another child asked her a personal question,” she pointed to her eye, “or teased her, well, they could be twice her size, it wouldn't matter to Madison. She'd never back down. She'd go after them like a wild animal.”

“I don't understand. Why would a child get teased here?”

“Not all the children who come here have facial tics, Ms. Alexander. First of all, there are Dr. Edelstein's patients, who are normal children coming in for checkups and shots. But not all of Dr. Bechman's children had visible disabilities. Far from it.”

“I see. So Madison would get teased and she'd react, is that what you're saying?”

Ms. Peach snorted. “React? Overreact would be closer to
the truth. If you'd seen her…” She flapped a hand at me. “You don't want to know.”

But of course I did.

I'd seen dogs like that, dogs who I'd been told wouldn't start a fight, but would never shy away from one if challenged. Show me a dog who won't back down and I'll show you a dog who starts fights. Was that the way it was for Madison, too, that in one way or another, she'd provoke fights because she needed an excuse for venting her terrible rage?

“And what was the teasing like?” I asked, thinking of the kids who said that's why they'd shot up their schools, killed teachers and classmates, because they'd been shunned or teased.

“Oh, the usual thing. Another child would ask her what was wrong with her eyes,” she said. “Or imitate her.”

“Anything else you think I should know, Ms. Peach?”

“If she had to wait for the doctor, she'd pace around the office, or sit and bang her feet against a leg of the chair. Sometimes she'd come over to the desk and pick up my things, examine them, put them down in a different place.”

Clever girl, I thought. She knew exactly how to play Ms. Peach into a frenzy. And I'd best be clever, too, because there was no doubt in my mind that Madison Spector would be turning that very cleverness on me the following morning.

“She filched things, too, at least two times.”

“Like what?”

“Money, for one thing. She was here first thing that day and asked me for a glass of water. I hadn't put my purse away yet and—”

“How did she do that?”

“Well, when I went to get her the water, she must have—”

“No, how did she ask for the glass of water?”

“Oh, I see what you mean. Let me think. Well, it was very hot out and…”

“She looked all sweaty, is that right? So you offered her a drink of cold water?”

“Yes, I guess that's…”

I shook my head. “You read her mind.”

Ms. Peach flushed.

“So it wasn't only Celia who was kind to Madison, was it?”

“Well, she…” Ms. Peach took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I did try to…”

“And what was the other thing she stole?”

“One of the books from the reading nook. It was there that morning and missing when I cleaned up. It could have been one of the other children, of course, but it was a story about a turtle.”

“She brought the turtle here?”

“Emil/Emily? Oh, yes. Mr. Spector even
introduced
me to the turtle. When I suggested that Madison leave it out here when she went in for her examination, she swept everything off my desk onto the floor.”

“And what did her father do then?”

Ms. Peach snorted again. “Her
father.
Do you see the way he lets that child dress? Whose clothes are those she's wearing? They're certainly not hers.”

I thought I had an idea whose clothes they might be, but I didn't say.

“Half the time he'd wait for her in the park, with his…” So angry she couldn't say the word; she mimed taking a picture instead. “He cared more about that than—”

“Oh, I hardly think—”

“It's getting late and I have work to do,” checking her watch. “If you want to see the office, you best come in now.”
She looked at Dashiell, then back at me, her head going from side to side. “But not with…”

Pointing at him.

Hadn't anyone ever told her it was rude to point?

“You'll have to tie him up out here,” she said.

“I can't do that.”

“Why on earth not?”

“Someone might steal him,” I told her.

“Him?” Staring now. Even worse than pointing.

“I did,” I said.

Ms. Peach looked up, reluctantly, as if it were difficult to take her eyes from Dashiell's eyes.

“That's how I got him,” I said, neglecting to add that he'd been a puppy at the time and that by removing him from where he was, I'd saved him from a life, or a death, in the pit, the dirt-floored ring where illegal dogfights took place.

“He's house-trained,” I said, “and anyway, we'll be in and out in a minute.”

She opened the gate and then turned to face me. “I don't guess there'd be any harm in it. But I'll be right there with you every minute.”

“I wouldn't expect anything less,” I said, following her into the small courtyard. She unlocked the wrought iron gate and then two locks on the inner door.

The waiting room, not unexpectedly, was full of toys and books, with cheerful pictures of animals on the walls, everything in pale peach, including the carpet. Ms. Peach punched a code into the alarm system to disarm it.

“I bet you're the one who's responsible for this,” I said. “It's perfect.”

Ms. Peach beamed, opened a drawer on the other side of her desk, dropped in her purse and locked the drawer. “Dr. Willet wanted to redecorate shortly after I was hired. He asked me to find someone. I said, ‘Why spend all that extra
money? I did the office at my last job,' I told him. ‘I can do this one, too.'”

“And he agreed?”

“He was delighted.”

She led me to the second office down the long hallway. She opened the door, stepped back and let me pass.

Dr. Bechman's office was done in beige, and like the waiting room, walls and carpet were in shades of the same color. His rather imposing desk was in the center of the room, bookshelves were to my right, three chairs faced the desk, a place where the child and his or her parents might sit and talk to the doctor.

Dashiell dipped his head and began soaking up the scents on the rug, right at the place where Dr. Bechman must have fallen.

“What is he doing?” Ms. Peach asked, as if it was now registering for the first time that I'd brought a dog into the doctor's perfect office.

“Just checking out the scents on the carpet,” I told her.

“There are no—”

I held up my hand. “That's just the way dogs view the world,” I told her.

She watched him a moment longer, as if he might do something untoward in this sacred space, while I looked around the room. Behind the desk, on the windowsill, facing the patients' chairs, were the obligatory photos of the doctor's family, an expensively turned-out wife who, my guess was, looked years younger than her age and two well-groomed teenage boys.

“That would be Mrs. Bechman,” I asked, pointing, “and the children?”

“A lovely person.”

“You've met her?”

“Just on the phone, of course.”

“Never here?”

She shook her head.

“So she doesn't work in the city?”

“Mrs.
Bechman
?” Ms. Peach smiled, the kind of smile that lets you know how perfectly silly your question was.

“No shopping trips and then lunch with the doctor?”

“Oh, Dr. Bechman never went out for lunch. He just worked straight through, same as Dr. Willet and Dr. Edelstein, busy, busy, busy.”

I took a step toward her. For a moment, I thought Ms. Peach would take a step back, but she just stiffened.

“I've been so rude,” I said in a stage whisper. “I should have asked you right away. Was it Dr. Bechman who hired you? Is your job in jeopardy now?”

“Oh, no. I mean, yes, it was Dr. Bechman, but I work for the whole office. I'm sure…” And then the doubt I'd planted was written all over her face.

“I imagine they'll find someone else to share the office, or buy his practice. After a decent interval, of course.”

“Of course.”

Ms. Peach was fussing with her hair.

I picked up one of Dr. Bechman's cards. “Another pediatric neurologist, perhaps.”

“I'm sure Mrs. Bechman will sell the practice. It's customary.”

I nodded. Dashiell lay down.

“We've had several inquiries already,” she whispered.

I nodded again, picking up a heavy paperweight from the doctor's desk, turning it over in my hands and then putting it down an inch or so from where it had been. Ms. Peach reached by me and moved the paperweight back to its proper place.

I took a step toward the bookshelves. “The cops have been by a lot, I bet.” My back to Ms. Peach.

“They've been wanting to take Madison's records, but they need a court order. Anything between doctor and patient—”

“Right,” I said, turning back to face her. “And there's been no court order yet?”

She shook her head. “Dr. Willet is adamant that the police can't look through the files without a court order.”

“The files? Not just Madison's?”

Now she was whispering, though we were the only ones there. “That's the hitch. They've asked for everything. Dr. Willet is adamant about protecting the rights of patients, particularly minor patients.”

“Why everything?”

Ms. Peach tightened her lips again.

“Maybe they want to see if any of the other children suffered harm from one of the doctor's treatments.” I waited, but Ms. Peach had no comment. “Just being thorough, I guess, perhaps because no one actually saw Madison slam that needle into the doctor's heart. Do most of the kids come with their parents?”

Ms. Peach nodded. “Except for Madison. She usually came alone. She was, is, a very strange child. Don't you think so?”

“I couldn't say, Ms. Peach. As I already told you, I've only met her once.”

“Yes,” she said, “I recall now, you mentioned that.” She squared her shoulders and backed up a step to the doorway, waiting for me to pass by into the hall.

“I can't thank you enough, Ms. Peach. And I wish you all the best.”

Again, Ms. Peach looked nervous. Perhaps, when I left, her eyelids might twitch the way Madison's did, as she wondered why I needed to wish her all the best.

I looked at the locks on the door again on the way out, the
heavy iron gate, the gated windows, all backed up by an alarm system. If I were to get Dr. Bechman's patient list, it couldn't be by coming back here at night and jimmying the locks with a credit card. It could only be through Ms. Peach.

“I'm sure everything will be all right,” I said as she saw me out.

“What do you mean?” Her voice an octave higher than it had been.

“With your job,” I whispered. “With leaving while the doctor was still with a dangerous patient.”

I took another step, then stopped and turned back. Ms. Peach did not look well.

“Was the door locked?” I asked her.

“Locked? What door?”

“The front door, Ms. Peach. This one. Had you locked it behind you when you left?”

I could see the panic creeping into her eyes, then the anger.

“Of course not. The child had to be able to leave.”

“Couldn't the doctor have let her out? Wouldn't that have been a safer solution?”

“Why, no, we've never—”

“So then the alarm hadn't been armed, is that correct? And since you were gone and the door wasn't secured, isn't it possible that after Madison left, someone else entered the office, while the doctor was returning phone calls, say? You didn't mention which phone you used to call the police?”

“The closest phone,” she said, her face flushed now. “As anyone would in an emergency.”

“Was it on the hook or off when you reached for it?”

“On the hook. I see what it is you're trying to do, Ms. Alexander, and I understand why. But you're wrong. No one else came in after Madison. She was the one who killed Dr. Bechman. Doesn't the note tell you that?”

“The note?” I said.

Ms. Peach wheeled around and walked around her desk, opening the top left drawer, reaching under some papers and pulling out a single sheet. She came back to where I was standing and shoved it at me. “The note,” she said, too upset to remember that moments earlier she'd told me she hadn't copied it. “The way Madison says what's on her mind.”

It was a rather crude drawing, a heart with a shaky line going into the middle of it, just as it had been described to me.

I stood staring at it. Then I looked into Ms. Peach's smug brown eyes.

“Why?” I asked her.

“Because of the droop,” she said, pointing to her own eyelid. “She had an absolute fit about it.”

“No, why did you copy the drawing?”

Ms. Peach just stood there, her face a perfect blank, as if she had been given Botox after all.

“Well, since you did,” I whispered, “how about if you make one more?”

She began to shake her head, but I interrupted.

“Surely making a copy of your copy wouldn't be against the law, Ms. Peach.”

She went back to her desk and put the drawing in the copy machine. I heard it click and whir, saw the lights flashing.

“Were her fingerprints on the note?” I asked. “Madison's?”