Lost Girls

chapter 28

The Murdoch District Medical Clinic is a single-level construction across from the sign declaring the town limits, the sign bearing what appear to be bullet holes shot through the O and the trough of the M in MURDOCH. The building's front doors open up into what was once a mobile home, the wards nothing more than two school portables with one of their walls cut out of the pea-green aluminum siding so they could be riveted to each flank of the main building. Aside from an ambulance that sits in the lot and a painted sign directing OUTPATIENTS one way and EMERGENCIES the other, there's nothing about it from the outside that would suggest it was a hospital. But once inside I'm met by the complicated smell of disinfectant, stewed vegetables, burnt coffee, and, carried on the air just above these, the vapors of human waste that unmistakably designate places of the sick.

''I'd like to speak to the Emergency Room physician on duty on April the first of this year, please,'' I ask the woman sitting behind the RECEPTION sign which hangs lopsided from a thread pierced into the ceiling tiles.

''Was that during day hours?''

''Yes.''

''Well, that would be Dr. MacDougall. It's always Dr. MacDougall during day hours.''

''So he'd be there now?''

''Is it day hours?''

''I suppose it is.''

''Then he'd be there.''

I'm directed down the hallway on the right to where the ''Emergency Room'' is located: four folding chairs arranged around a TV broadcasting an American soap opera, a nurse behind a narrow metal desk, and muttering to himself as he crosses the hall between the two examination rooms, Dr. MacDougall. As I approach I try to hear exactly what he's saying, but the words are lost somewhere in his dense Scottish brogue and the carrot-cake bread that has colonized the whole of his chin, neck, and cheeks.

''Dr. MacDougall, can I speak to you for a moment?'' I ask as he rushes by the position I've taken up directly between his destinations. In the one room sits a kid with angry welts blooming around his mouth, and in the other a pregnant woman lying back on an examination table and chewing gum with an unnatural ferocity.

''Sign up with the nurse first, then you get a look-over,'' he responds before stepping around me into the pregnant woman's room and closing the door behind him. I have no choice but to hold my place and wait for him to come out again, and when he does I put my hands on my waist and stick out my elbows to block his way.

''It's about Thomas Tripp and Krystal McConnell.''

He stops in front of me and raises his bloodshot eyes. The whiff of hangover rising up from an open collar.

''Who are you?''

''Barth Crane. Thom Tripp's lawyer.''

''Ah.''

''I was wondering if you saw Krystal McConnell before her disappearance, stitched up her knee--''

''Now, lad, don't you think we should be speaking about this in private?''

''If you could spare a moment.''

''Ach, I've got nothing but moments to spare, Mr. Crane.''

He steps around me once more, scribbles out a prescription for the kid with the welts, and ushers him out while waving me in.

''Nuts,'' he sighs as I pull the door closed.

''Sorry?''

''Allergic to nuts. I keep telling him to stay away from the devils, but he can't resist. They'll be the death of him one day, though.''

''That's rough.''

''Not so rough. I see a good deal of rough in here, by God, but a wee fellow who passes out every time he sticks his finger in the peanut butter jar is not so rough at all.''

MacDougall stands and opens the small window above the counter cluttered with boxes of surgical gloves, tongue depressors, adhesive bandages, and jumbo tubes of lubricating jelly.

''Mind if I smoke?'' he asks, already digging his hand into the breast pocket of his lab coat and pulling out a pack.

''Not at all. Although I would've thought that hospital policy wouldn't--''

''To hell with hospital policy, Mr. Crane,'' he snaps, lighting his cigarette and slumping back down into his chair.

''Fair enough. You're the doctor. Which leads me to my question: Did you treat Krystal McConnell for a scraped knee on the first of April of this year?''

''Are you planning on calling me as a witness?''

''Depends on your answer.''

''What if it's yes?''

''Then my answer would be yes too.''

''Bloody hell!''

The doctor takes a long haul on his cigarette, managing to burn the thing down to half its original length.

''Did Tripp bring her in?''

''He did.''

''You put four stitches in her knee?''

''Indeed. She said she was pushed around by some of the older boys at school. Flirting.''

''Of course. Thank you. That's all I really need at this time, Doctor. You can expect a subpoena sometime in the next couple of weeks.''

''Sure, sure.''

He keeps his eyes on me as I rise, with what I assume to be his upper lip rolled thoughtfully beneath his whiskers.

''I was just wondering if your Tripp told you the funny part,'' he says, stubbing his cigarette out in the stainless-steel bedpan he pulls out of a cupboard next to him.

''All he told me is that Krystal got hurt at school, that he drove her in here to get stitches, and then took her home. Where's the funny part in that?''

''Well, now, it's not surprising he left that out of his story. But didn't he tell the nurse who was doing the paperwork that he was her father.''

''What?''

''Filled out the form just that way. 'Patient delivered by father, Lloyd McConnell.' But I saw him standing there myself and I knew damn well it was Thom Tripp. My own son's been in the fellow's class, y'see. Lucky for him that particular nurse was new up from Toronto and couldn't have told the difference between Tripp and The Lord High Mayor, but when she told me later how strange that girl's father was behaving, all sweaty and worked up, nobody knew what she was talking about. I mean, why would he even try pretending he was McConnell? What's the point in trying to fool anyone about that?''

''Were the authorities contacted? The police, I mean, or the high school?''

''Why would I do that?''

''Because Tripp might have been considered, I don't know, dangerous. Impersonating a young girl's father--''

''Now, look here. While in hindsight what Tripp told our nurse that day makes a little more sense, at the time there was no way to know he was dangerous. We get some very strange people in here. Some have become strange over time, others were strange to begin with. If I was to call the cops every time one of them walked through our doors, I'd be on the phone all day.''

''Well, thanks again, Doctor. You've given me something to think about.''

''Like whether you're going to want to call a witness to tell a funny story like that?''

''Among other things.''

I pull open the door.

''Sure you won't join me?'' he asks, shaking the cigarette pack once more and sticking one in the middle of his beard, but I shake my head no and let the door close behind me, walk out past two new faces sitting in the waiting room. A man holding his wife's pale hand as she rocks back and forth in pain but with eyes fixed on the TV. A greasy-spoon waitress using two kinds of paper towel to sop up a puddle of spilled coffee. One absorbs, the other disintegrates. At this the husband turns to look up at me with both helplessness and accusation, uncertain as to who to blame for his wife's suffering, for cheap paper towels that always let you down. My face must offer no answers, for in the next moment his eyes return to the screen. ''It's the quicker picker upper!'' the TV chirps as I push through the Emergency Room doors and out into the stabbing rain.