Sing It to Her Bones

11

Connie stood behind her workbench and scowled at me. “You’re out of your tree, Hannah! You’re in no shape to go back to work. You should be resting.”

I nibbled on an Oreo. “If the doctor thinks I’m okay, who am I to argue?”

“I think his need for a temporary receptionist is clouding his medical judgment.” Connie agitated her paintbrush in a mason jar of turpentine, then wiped it on a rag she had tucked into the waistband of her jeans.

“It’s only a few days, Connie,” I said, polishing off the cookie and helping myself to another from a cellophane package that lay open on the counter. I thought I’d use the money to pay down my VISA, which was out of control. Paul worries that I treat my credit card limit like a goal. I’d been trying to watch my spending recently, but the way I felt about my husband just then, it would serve him right if I decided to indulge in a little retail therapy and max out all my credit cards.

I watched Connie paint a brown-gold streak on a gourd that was going to be a rooster and decided not to tell her what I had learned from Angie about Katie’s pregnancy. At least not until I had discovered whether it was true or not. In her present mood I knew Connie would accuse me of meddling, and I didn’t want her snitching to Dennis. Not just yet anyway.

We had tuna casserole for dinner, made just the way I like it with cream of mushroom soup and green pimento olives, followed by rum raisin Häagen Dazs eaten right out of the carton, with two spoons. Between decadent mouthfuls I tried to call Paul but kept getting the blasted answering machine. Hoping he’d be better about returning my call, I left Dr. Chase’s office telephone number as well.

The next morning I wiggled stiffly into my little black dress. Connie appeared at breakfast in a more tolerant mood, so I was able to borrow a green blazer and a Monet “water lilies” scarf from her closet. “Take care of that scarf,” she warned.

“Is it special?” I wondered if it had been a gift from Dennis, but Connie wasn’t saying.

“Just take care of it, that’s all.”

Dr. Chase was already at the office when I pulled into the driveway and parked my Toyota next to his blue Crown Victoria. In the darkened reception area I could see he had left the shade raising and light turning on to me. That done, I stuck my head into the medical records room. “I’m here.”

The doctor was bent over at the waist, flush-faced, elbow deep in a lateral file. “Thank goodness!” He straightened and poked at his glasses where they had slid halfway down his nose. He showed me where to hang my jacket and find the coffee, then gave me the twenty-five-cent tour of the office, ending up in the file room where we had started, in front of a large desk set into an alcove that used to be a fireplace. Over the mantel were mounted lighted panels where the doctor could read X rays. Farther along the wall stood a Xerox machine.

I ran my fingertips along a row of folders, each one distinguished by a set of multicolored tabs. “What do these colors mean?”

“We assign a color to each letter of the alphabet. Each medical chart gets marked with the colors representing the first three letters of the patient’s last name. Makes them easier to file.”

I must have appeared more competent than I felt because the doctor abandoned me almost at once with the appointment book and a suggestion that I pull the charts for today’s patients.

Holy cow! Searching for Katie’s chart was going to be easy. I consulted the appointment book and made a small production of pulling charts for an Abbott and a Morris before inching my way in the direction of the lateral files where I knew the D’s began: Danville, Dickson, Donner. I thumbed past chart after chart until I arrived in the vicinity of the green, yellow, and orange tabs that told me I’d reached DUN territory. I found what I was looking for between Dubonnet and Duncan. Frieda and Carl had charts, and there was one for Elizabeth Marie. I looked inside. There appeared to have been no entries in the record since 1988, when Liz left for college. As I shoved the charts back into place, I puzzled over this; if the inactive files had been shredded as Dr. Chase had told me, why had Katie’s file gone missing while Liz’s was still there?

Dr. Chase’s first appointment was not until eight o’clock, but already the waiting room had begun to fill up and three people had autographed the sign-in sheet. He asked me to stay near the reception desk unless he called for me, so I busied myself answering the phone and making appointments for equally packed days in the future. When the phone wasn’t ringing off the hook, I filed patient charts away.

By nine I had booked the doctor solid for the next three weeks. Five people sat in the waiting room, and he had patients in both examining rooms. Eventually Dr. Chase took a bathroom break. I used the opportunity to revisit the Dunbar files, pawing meticulously through Katie’s parents’ charts, riffling through each page just to make sure her chart wasn’t misfiled. No luck.

At eleven, two miracles occurred: Emeline Potter didn’t show up for her vitamin B₁₂ shot, and Scott Waldron broke his arm playing softball. At first I didn’t see the potential of these two seemingly unrelated events because I was busy hustling the whimpering ten-year-old and his father into an examining room. As I helped the little guy onto the examining table, my heart ached for him. He sat on the end of the table, back rigid, legs dangling, bravely holding his injured arm to his chest and trying desperately not to cry, but the pain must have been terrible. Tears streaked his dirt-stained face, and his lower lip trembled.

I soaked a disposable cloth in warm water, wrung it out, and gently wiped Scott’s cheeks clean while Dr. Chase bent over the boy. He carefully cut the child’s uniform away from his damaged arm and examined the injury. Without looking at me, he said, “Hannah, grab that tray over there, will you, please?” I stood by as the doctor worked, nodding and listening to Scott’s father natter on, wishing I could stuff the roll of gauze from the tray I held down the big windbag’s throat.

“That was some home run, wasn’t it Scotty?” He turned to me. “You should have seen the little bugger! Hit it clean over the fence.” His son, tears still glistening on his pale eyelashes, managed a weak smile.

“How did he break the arm, Mr. Waldron?”

“Sliding into home, Mrs. Ives. Collided with the catcher right over home plate. Damn, the kid’s good!” Scott squirmed in embarrassment.

Mr. Waldron had launched into a play-by-play description of the ninth incredible inning and Scotty’s starring role therein when I thought I heard the phone at the reception desk ring. I looked at Dr. Chase for guidance. “Go ahead, Hannah. We can manage fine here. I’ll need to take a few X rays anyway.” I thrust the tray into the hands of the startled father in mid two-out-and-two-on-with-Boogie-at-the plate and hurried to answer the telephone.

A pharmaceutical salesman was spending time stuck in traffic by checking in with his customers via cell phone. I thanked him for his thoughtfulness, then stared, unbelieving, at an empty waiting room. I’d already searched the file room and all the cabinets in the reception area for Katie’s chart; perhaps it was time to check out the second floor. Bill had suggested that Dr. Chase used the upstairs for storage. I knew one way to find out.

With a furtive glance over my shoulder, I eased through the swinging doors and into the entrance hall. To my right, a single flight of stairs led straight up to the second floor. Paneled in walnut, it stood in dark contrast with the unrelieved off-white of the first-floor suite. I stood with my hand on the banister, squinting up at a door barely visible in the dim light. I took the carpeted stairs two at a time and tried the door. It was locked. Damn! On the off chance that it might work, I pulled the front door key out of my pocket and slipped it into the lock. It fitted easily but wouldn’t turn. Double damn!

I sat down on the top step to consider my options, feeling a bit like Bluebeard’s last wife. I knew the doctor kept the narcotics in a locked cabinet in his combination kitchen/laboratory, so what could be on the other side of this door that was worth so much protection? I pushed on the door in frustration, then studied the lock.

Back in college I used to be good at picking locks. I’m not as proud of that as I am of my degree in French, but I have to admit that it’s a skill that has come in a lot handier than being able to recite the whole of Las de l’Amer Repos. At Oberlin, I’d used hairpins, but hairpins weren’t something I had sitting around in the bottom of my purse these days. I hurried downstairs to my desk and rummaged through its drawers. Maybe I could use paper clips. I pawed through an assortment of items in the pencil tray until I located what I needed. Nora Wishart’s metal nail file would also come in handy. I tucked it into my pocket.

Amazingly, the waiting room was still empty. If people came in while I was upstairs, I knew they’d just sign in, sit and wait, but what would I do about the phones?

Dr. Chase’s phone was one of those old-fashioned beige models with a row of clear plastic buttons across the bottom labeled “01,” “02,” “03,” and “04.” A fifth button was red and labeled “hold.” I picked up the receiver, got a dial tone on line one, and put the dial tone on hold. Then I punched down the remaining buttons and put them on hold, too. Until I returned, anybody calling Dr. Chase’s office would get a busy signal.

Back in the hallway I stopped to listen; Mr. Waldron droned on and on. His voice behind the door of the examining room rose and fell, punctuated by laughter. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what was so funny, but as long as he kept it up, the coast would be clear.

I hurried up the stairs, bending one paper clip at a ninety-degree angle as I climbed. At the locked door I knelt and inserted the short end of the bent paper clip into the bottom of the lock and held it there while maintaining a steady sideways pressure. With the straightened end of the second paper clip, I jiggled the tumblers inside the lock up and down, gently coaxing them into position. After a few tense minutes I feared I had lost my touch. My mind wandered, plotting a late-night return engagement wearing gloves and dressed in black clothes when the tumblers fell suddenly into place and the lock turned. Ta-dah! I fell back against the wall, dizzy with relief. Using Nora’s nail file, I eased the lock all the way around, heard a satisfying click, and slowly opened the door.

Before me a corridor ran the entire length of the house. An uncurtained window at the far end filtered pale light into the hallway. On my right was a large bedroom, dominated by a double bed with cannonball posts centered on a richly colored oriental carpet. A white chenille spread covered the mattress and plump pillows were propped up against the headboard. A hand sink stood in the corner, like a European B &B. What on earth did Dr. Chase need a bedroom up here for? I wandered down the hall to check out the bathroom and poked my nose into the medicine cabinet. If he’d entertained any ladies recently, I observed, they’d taken all their personal effects with them. I stood for a moment at the bathroom sink and stared at my face in the mirror. Why would he bring female guests here anyway? He was a bachelor, after all, and had his own apartment. Unless-unless it was a relationship he wanted to hide! Maybe the good doctor was in the habit of having extracurricular affairs. I pulled aside the lace curtain at the bathroom window and peered out toward the water. Frank Chase had been in medical school at the time of Katie’s death, I remembered. Could he have been the college guy Chip suspected of souring his relationship with Katie?

From downstairs came a piercing wail. Dr. Chase must have reset the bone. He’d be putting a cast on Scott’s arm any minute now. I crossed the hallway above them on tiptoe, hoping the floors wouldn’t creak and give me away.

The room at the front of the house was uncarpeted, its hardwood floors spotless. A long wooden table ran the length of the far wall, and bookshelves framed both windows. Clean jars with ground glass stoppers were grouped together on the shelves, their labels missing or peeling. I picked one up and examined it closely. If anything had ever been written on the label, it had long ago faded into illegibility. Everything in the room was neatly arranged and impeccably clean, like a museum. I wondered if this had been old Dr. Chase’s laboratory, where he prepared his herbal and homeopathic cures. But whatever it was, there was no place to store even so small a thing as a medical folder in this austere environment.

The back bedroom also promised to be a major disappointment. Oversize warehouse-style shelves of tubular steel held boxes of paper towels, toilet paper, disinfectant soap, plastic garbage bags, and, as Bill had predicted, paper robes, all purchased in bulk sizes like the kind I brought home from Sam’s Club. Smaller boxes and cartons contained medical supplies. Near the window that overlooked the parking lot, four plastic chairs in the same style as those in the waiting room below were stacked, seat on seat.

I had turned to leave when I thought I’d hit the mother lode. After all those years in Washington, D.C., if there’s one thing I know, it’s archival boxes. And there they were, box after cardboard box of them, labeled “A-B” and “C-D” et glorious cetera, neatly piled in an alcove. I prayed these were the old doctor’s files. Maybe they hadn’t been shredded after all but were just on their way to the shredder. I lifted the lid from the box nearest me. It was empty. So was the box next to it. I pulled the lids of nearly a dozen boxes, but every damn one of them was empty.

My heart sank. Until that moment I’d never really understood that expression. But my heart sank, right down to the floor, and lay there. I chided myself for spinning my wheels on what was turning out to be a wild-goose chase. Yet I had discovered many theoretically inactive folders, like Liz’s, among the files downstairs. Futile or not, I knew I wouldn’t be satisfied until I had searched every last inch of Dr. Chase’s office, and maybe his condominium, too.

As I stood in the alcove, woolgathering, I was startled by the thunk of a car door closing. I rushed to the window just in time to see Mr. Waldron get into his car. Scott was already installed in the passenger seat, a clean white cast on his arm, cradled in a blue sling. Holy shit! I needed to get back downstairs, pronto!

But then I heard the footsteps behind me and knew it was too late.

“Hannah? What are you doing up here?”

I pasted a smile on my face and turned. “I noticed we were low on paper towels, Doctor. I couldn’t find any downstairs, so I thought I’d take a look up here.”

Chase’s eyes were wary slits. “I’m surprised you could get in. I usually keep the door locked.”

I shrugged. “I just turned the knob.” That wasn’t a lie, not exactly.

I crossed the room to a shelf and selected a four-pack of toilet paper and several rolls of paper towels. “Here, could you help me?” I handed a roll of towels to the doctor. He opened his mouth as if to object but apparently changed his mind. His lips clamped shut, and he sucked them in between his teeth, giving him an odd, lipless look. I prayed he didn’t suspect me of snooping. My spur-of-the-moment explanation had been brilliantly plausible, after all, but I noticed as I preceded him down the steps that he locked the door securely behind him.

As we reached the entrance hall, an elderly woman was just hobbling up the walk, saving me the trouble of making idle conversation with the doctor when my mind was racing off in all directions. Dr. Chase greeted the woman like a long-lost relative, then escorted her back to his private office.

I put the spare toilet paper in the bathroom, then dumped the paper towels on the counter in the kitchen, where I stood for a few moments at the sink and tried to control my shaking hands. I splashed some cold water on my face, dried it with a paper towel from a roll that was, I noticed, nearly new, then hurried to take the telephone lines off hold. But before I went back to work, I returned to the kitchen and spun yards of paper towel off the roll and stuffed them in the bottom of the wastepaper can, underneath the soiled paper robes.

Two patients arrived at noon, but by one o’clock there was a brief hiatus, and Dr. Chase suggested he could handle things on his own while I picked up sandwiches. I called Ellie’s Country Store and ordered a chicken salad for me and a tuna on rye for the doctor.

After my narrow escape I welcomed the lunch break and took my time getting to Ellie’s by walking around the block the long way, turning left down Princess Anne and left again at the old library. I strolled along Ferry Point Road and paused at the old pier across from the Tidewater Pub. I watched the khaki-colored water of the Truxton gently lick the pilings and tried to think of a way to get Dr. Chase out of his private office long enough to search it, too. So far, he’d kept me so busy I’d hardly had time to go to the bathroom, let alone give the place a thorough going-over. That business this morning was just a fluke; I couldn’t count on another broken arm materializing out of the blue. Didn’t the man have rounds to make at the local hospital? Medical meetings to attend? By the time I reached Ellie’s store, I was wishing emergency appendectomies on total strangers and pining for the good old days when doctors made house calls.

Angie already had the order made up and ready for me at the counter. “I put in two iced teas. Hope you don’t mind. That’s what the doctor always orders.” She looked cheerful and well rested and smiled at me in a conspiratorial way because, I supposed, we shared a secret. She must have read my mind. “You won’t tell anybody about Katie’s baby, will you, Hannah?” she whispered.

“No,” I promised again. “No one will find out about it from me.”

“I went to see Lieutenant Rutherford, just like you told me to.”

“I’m glad to hear that, Angie.”

“He was really nice. Brought me a Coke. Thanked me for coming in.”

“He’s only interested in the truth.” I added two Milky Way Darks to the bag feeling just a wee bit guilty about it, paying for it all, including my sweet tooth, out of money the doctor had given me from the petty cash.

“Did Lieutenant Rutherford say anything to you about reopening the case?”

Angie dropped the change into my outstretched hand and shook her head. “Not to me. But they’ll have to now, won’t they? Now that they know Katie was murdered?”

I said good-bye and left her busily wiping the countertop with a damp rag. On Ellie’s front porch, I fished one of the Milky Ways out of the bag, tore off the wrapper, and took what I reasoned was a well-deserved bite. I chewed thoughtfully and watched while an armored truck made a pickup at the bank across the street. Next door S &N Antiques was just opening for business; its door stood open, and the proprietor had dragged a Victorian high chair, a wagon, and two end tables onto the porch. I sucked the caramel off my teeth and studied the back of the Chase house. A huge magnolia tree dominated the backyard, shading what remained of the old doctor’s garden. I remembered what Connie had told me about it and decided to cut through the parking lot and take a closer look.

The garden was a tangle of overgrown shrubs, wayward vines, desultory weeds, and dried, drooping stalks still tied to redwood stakes, but I could tell that the plot had once been extensive and well planned. My experience with herb gardens was limited to what I had read in the Brother Cadfael mystery series. The good twelfth-century monk grew things in his garden at St. Giles with interesting-sounding names like betony, coltsfoot, hyssop, and dock that were used to treat wounds, skin irritations, and stomach ailments. Except for unruly clumps of dill, mustard, fennel, and mint, however, and a scrawny lemon thyme bush, there wasn’t much in Dr. Chase’s garden that I recognized.

I stripped some thyme from a spindly stalk and rolled the leaves between my fingers until the sweet, sharp aroma reached my nose. It would have taken days of major-league weeding, hoeing, and pruning to get that garden looking even halfway presentable. A breeze rippled through a clump of pampas grass, suddenly reminding me of the weeds growing wild about the cistern where I had found poor Katie’s body. Where had she spent the last hours of her young life, I wondered, and, more important, with whom?

I shuddered and reminded myself that the answer might very well lie somewhere inside this house. Using my key, I let myself in through the back door.

When I returned to reception, only one patient remained in the waiting room, an overlarge woman in a loose cotton dress whose broad bottom encroached on the nearby chairs. “Have you signed in?” I asked. She nodded. I pushed through the swinging doors into the medical records room and stood there for a few seconds wondering what to do with lunch when Dr. Chase emerged from Examining Room A. He stripped off his latex gloves with a snap like a rubber band and tossed them into an oversize trash can next to the door.

I cradled the bag in my hand. “If I don’t do something with this soon, Doctor, the bag’s going to break.” I showed him where the condensation from the iced tea bottles was beginning to soak through the bottom of the paper bag. I nodded toward his private office down the hall. “Should I take it in there?”

“Oh, thanks, Hannah.” He nodded. “Just put it on my desk, will you?” He lifted the chart I had placed in the wall pocket outside Examining Room B, consulted it briefly, then tucked it under his arm. “And put Mrs. Logan in A. As soon as I finish with her, I’ll be able to take a break for lunch.”

Dr. Chase disappeared into the examining room and shut the door.

Patting myself on the back for how neatly I’d just engineered an excuse to spend a little legitimate time in Dr. Chase’s office, I hurried in. It wasn’t any neater than the first time I had seen it yesterday. Bookcases, full to overflowing with books, medical journals, framed photographs, and carved duck decoys covered the chocolate brown walls. A large wooden desk stood in the center of the room, the two legs nearest me planted firmly on the fringe of an antique oriental carpet.

I set the bag down on the desk, first clearing a space by shoving a few charts aside. I withdrew the plastic-wrapped plate holding his tuna on rye and one of the bottles of iced tea. Out of habit, I set the damp bottle down on a folded napkin to keep it from ringing the desk, although a new blemish would hardly have been noticed among the many others that marred the once highly polished walnut. Intersecting circles decorated the surface, like those on the Olympic flag. A nice ring was forming now around the perimeter of a coffee mug, half full of a viscous brown liquid that even a good nuking in the microwave couldn’t have made drinkable. I picked up the mug and used another napkin to wipe up the spill and, to be thorough, followed the liquid trail to where it disappeared under a corner of the desk blotter.

I was straightening the blotter when I realized that there was something stuck underneath it. Since I had recently spent long minutes nosing around in the good doctor’s records without a second thought, it surprised me that I now felt like a cat burglar. I glanced over my shoulder toward the door, lifted the corner of the blotter, stooped, cocked my head, and peered under it. Green, yellow, and orange tabs. Ohmagawd! I had my finger on the chart and was just beginning to slide it toward me when I heard Dr. Chase’s voice behind me in the hall.

By the time the doctor appeared in his office doorway, I had dropped the corner of the blotter, twisted the cap off a bottle of iced tea, and was busily stripping the paper wrapper from a straw. My heart was pounding so loudly in my ears that I thought he’d hear it from where he stood-without a stethoscope.

“Lunch is served.” I popped the straw into the bottle and tapped it down where it sat for a moment as if thinking about something, then floated up lazily. “Would Monsieur like the see the dessert menu?”

Dr. Chase chuckled and rubbed his hands together briskly. “Tira misu? Crême brulée?”

I pulled the remaining Milky Way out of the bag. “Will this do?”

He settled comfortably into his desk chair. “Thanks, Hannah, but I’m afraid I don’t eat chocolate.”

“Doctor, I am shocked. Deeply shocked.” I pocketed the candy. “All the more for the rest of us, as my mother used to say.” With a show of nonchalance that I didn’t feel, I backed toward the door, certain that the letters G-U-I-L-T must be emblazoned across my forehead. I couldn’t keep my eyes off the blotter. As I waited for it to rise up, point, and accuse me of snooping, I noticed that Dr. Chase probably hadn’t been in his office all morning. The Post-It messages I had taken for him were stuck all over his telephone and lampshade. He picked up one of the messages now, took a bite of his sandwich, and began to dial.

“Anything else you need?” I asked.

“No, thanks, Hannah. Eat your lunch, but stay by the phone. After lunch you’ll probably have time to pull charts for the afternoon.”

I negotiated the hallway in a daze, then sat down at the reception desk. I unwrapped my sandwich and stared at it, but my stomach was tied in such nervous knots that I didn’t feel very hungry. Please don’t move that chart! Not until after I’ve had a chance to check it out.

I drank some tea and found myself wondering why Katie’s chart had been hidden. Maybe it had been in the file room all along and Dr. Chase hadn’t given it a thought until I mentioned it yesterday. Maybe he’d found it in the files and put it under his blotter for safekeeping so it wouldn’t get lost in all the clutter. But then again, maybe he was involved in Katie’s murder right up to his scrawny little neck. I nibbled my sandwich in silence, watching as the buttons on the telephone blinked on and off as the doctor returned his calls.

Maybe it isn’t Katie’s chart at all. Lots of names start with DUN, I reasoned. Duncan, for example, or Dunnet or Dunstable. Angie had put an extra pickle on my plate, and I ate it slowly. I’d have to make my opportunity. I checked the appointment book. Beginning at two o’clock, there were six appointments plus two folks who had called in: eight patients in all. I polished off the last potato chip, washed the salt off my hands at the kitchen sink, and pulled the charts. Eight patients would certainly be sufficient to keep the doctor busy long enough for me to get back into his office and take a second look under his blotter.

As I stood behind the reception desk, lost in thought, the intercom on the telephone buzzed so loudly that I nearly jumped out of my pantyhose. “Hannah,” Dr. Chase said when I picked up, “if you’re finished with lunch, I’ve got a few prescriptions for you to call in.”

I tossed the remains of my lunch in the trash and hurried back to his office. As I reached for the prescriptions, I noticed that the blotter had been moved a few inches closer to the lamp. Blast! I flashed what I hoped was a disarming smile, told him I’d take care of the prescriptions right away, and turned to go.

“Hannah?”

Oh-oh. I held my breath.

“How are you feeling? I’ve been so busy I forgot to ask.”

I had to think for a minute before I realized what on earth he was talking about. I’d nearly forgotten about my tumble off the sailboat. “Much better, thanks. The medication really helped.”

The doctor balled up his sandwich wrapper and, with a flip of his wrist, made a perfect rim shot to the trash can. “Good. Just make sure you don’t overdo it, okay?”

I promised I wouldn’t, all the time thinking, Fat chance! I called prescriptions in to the local Giant and Safeway pharmacies and waited, with butterflies in my stomach, for the waiting room to fill up. At two-thirty I got a break. With a Pap smear in A and an EKG in?, I calculated that Dr. Chase would be busy for a while.

I felt guilty about hustling the poor woman in A into a paper gown and assisting her up onto the examining table without so much as a magazine to pass the time. How many countless hours had I spent lying about on upholstered tables covered with paper, feeling forgotten, with the air-conditioning whistling through gaps between the ties in my robe, freezing my back, boobs, or buns? How many doctors had kept me waiting with nothing to do but count the holes in the acoustical ceiling tiles? So I used up precious minutes making sure she had everything she needed.

“Comfy?” I asked.

She held the inadequate gown together at her chest with a heavily ringed hand. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I am,” I said, and handed her a copy of the New Yorker magazine that was, amazingly, only two weeks old. She looked like the New Yorker type.

“Do me a favor,” she said.

I raised my eyebrows.

“Ask him to warm up the speculum.”

I laughed and patted her chubby knee. “Will do!”

I closed the door behind me and tiptoed down the hall feeling like the thief I was about to become. Just outside the door of Examining Room? I paused. Inside, I could hear the doctor’s low voice speaking in soothing tones to a patient who was a nervous mountain of a man in his late seventies. As cover-I figured I needed it-I grabbed two charts from the pile waiting to be filed and scurried back to Dr. Chase’s inner sanctum, trying to appear as if I knew what I was doing. Even so, when I finally stood in his office doorway, my face burned and I found myself acutely aware of everything in the room. The framed diploma hanging crookedly on the wall next to the window, the faded floral drapes parted to reveal the untidy garden with the Crestar Bank sign in the near distance behind it, a VCR blinking red at 12:00, even the damned decoys all seemed to have eyes and were staring at me.

I crossed to the desk, held my breath, and raised a corner of the blotter. The chart was still there. I pulled it out, hardly daring to believe what I read on the label: Dunbar, Katherine Louise.

I stood there wasting valuable time, my heart thudding in my ears, flipping through the pages, trying to interpret old Dr. Chase’s scrawls, symbols, and abbreviations. I don’t know what I expected, notes in a neat, round hand maybe like “This girl’s pregnant” or “The rabbit died,” so I was disappointed when at first I couldn’t make heads or tails out of anything I saw. Katie’s chart might just as well have been written in code. I found a date: 10/2/90. That was a good sign. BP125/70 must have been her blood pressure and I certainly knew what Pap and menses were, but the meaning of the rest of it, including a funny little diagram with lines and numbers, completely escaped me. I had the feeling that even if I had worked for Dr. Chase’s father for a hundred years, I’d still have needed an interpreter to decipher those Martian runes. It wasn’t until I turned to the next page that I saw it: “A/P:1 8 wk pregnancy.” I didn’t need a translator for that!

It had been my intention to slip a few pages out of the chart and photocopy them, but I forgot about the fasteners. Katie’s chart consisted of approximately twenty pages held together by a metal bar that passed through two holes that had been punched through the top of each sheet with the ends folded over and secured with another thin strip of metal. Nuts! I’d have to borrow the whole chart. I stuck Katie’s chart among those still in my hand. Clutching the booty to my chest, I ventured out into the hallway and was halfway to the photocopier when the door to Examining Room B opened and Dr. Chase emerged with the old gentleman, who looked so fat and flushed that I expected him to stroke out at any minute. I stood in the hallway grinning stupidly as the two men passed and the doctor began what I now recognized as his customary farewell ritual. I knew he’d spend time standing at the front door waving the old guy down the sidewalk, so I made a mad dash for the photocopier.

The machine was ominously quiet.

Damn and double damn! Dr. Chase must have turned the photocopier off while I was fetching lunch. Now I would have an infuriating wait while the blasted thing warmed up. I folded a few pages back and slammed Katie’s chart against the glass. I mashed the photocopier cover over the chart and held it down while I waited for the ready light to come on. Shit! I heard a familiar thud as the front door closed, followed by the sound of Dr. Chase’s footsteps returning down the hall. Through the glass panels of the swinging doors I could see the approaching expanse of his white lab coat and flashes of light reflecting off his little, round glasses.

At that moment the copier’s ready light blinked on. I punched the green copy button, deathly afraid that he’d figure out what I was doing. A brilliant bar of light swept over the page from right to left and back again. A single copy dropped into the paper tray. I could see Dr. Chase’s arm extended toward the door, pushing it open ahead of him.

I snatched the chart from the photocopier and held it behind my back like a naughty child, but Dr. Chase entered the room and passed me with merely a nod before vanishing into Examining Room A. I flipped to the next page of Katie’s chart, slapped the chart down on the photocopier and had another go with the print button. Just as the copy emerged into the tray, I heard him call, “Hannah, I’ll need you to assist.”

Damn! I’d forgotten a doctor couldn’t be alone with a female patient during a gynecological exam. I stalled for time. “She says she’d like you to warm up the speculum, Doctor.” I folded the photocopies I had made into quarters and stuffed them into the pocket of Connie’s blazer.

“I always do.”

Although Dr. Chase was in the examining room, the door stood wide open. I couldn’t get back to his office without his seeing me. What would I do with Katie’s chart? I shoved it into the nearest file cabinet. I would sneak it back under his blotter later.

But I never got the chance. Dr. Chase kept me busy the rest of the day. Even after the last patient left at four-thirty, he remained in his office. I was determined not to leave until I had replaced the chart, so I dawdled at the reception desk, straightening up a desk that was already impossibly neat. I washed dirty coffee mugs. I cleaned the coffeepot. I watered the potted plants. I telephoned folks to remind them of tomorrow’s appointments, mostly talking to answering machines.

The next time the telephone warbled, it was for me.

“Hi, hon.”

“Paul!”

“Just got off the horn with Connie. Glad to be back on the employment rolls?”

“If you called me more often, you wouldn’t have to ask.” There was a long silence, and I could hear the antique clock in our entrance hall strike five.

Paul cleared his throat. “I just turned in my final grades and wanted to let you know that I’m off. For a few weeks at least.”

“Where to, may I ask?”

“Cape Cod. Do you remember Steve Zelko? He’s renting a summer house in North Truro.”

“The strange little English prof with the black glasses and the fifties crew cut?”

Paul laughed. He sounded like the old Paul, warm and comforting. “You remember! Look, honey, I just wanted you to know that I’d really like you to join us up there. It’s a big house, and Steve’s offered us a room of our own overlooking the water. With adjoining bath. I’ll drive down to Pearson’s Corner and pick you up.”

“Sorry, Paul, but I promised Dr. Chase I’d see this through.” I couldn’t bring myself to admit to my husband that I’d been snooping around my employer’s office like an amateur sleuth in a bad paperback novel. He’d think the chemo had gone to my brain.

“Sounds like just an excuse to me. Connie tells me you’ve gotten yourself all wrapped up in that cheerleader’s murder.”

“Your sister should stick to her painting,” I said. In the moment before I spoke again, I imagined I heard our clock ticking. “Look, Paul. Let me think about it. I’ll call you when I’m free.”

Paul must have expected excuses because he already had the flight schedules handy. “You can fly from BWI to Logan and take the shuttle to Provincetown. Just call me and I’ll meet you at the airport.”

“I said I’d think about it, Paul!”

I had pushed him too far. When he spoke again, his voice bristled with anger. “What’s so fascinating about this dead girl anyway? You didn’t even know her, for Christ’s sake!”

“It’s hard to explain. I feel like I owe it to her, having found her body and all. In some convoluted way I’m thinking that if I can figure out who murdered Katie, it will make up for all the times I failed with Emily.”

“That’s bullshit, Hannah. You bent over backward for Emily. We both did.”

“Well, bullshit or not, that’s the way I feel.” I waited for Paul to say something, and when he didn’t, I added, “A few more days, Paul. That’s all I’ll need. Where can I reach you?”

Paul read me the telephone number of Steve’s rental house, and I wrote it down on the prescription pad in front of me.

“Hannah?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry I snapped at you. I’m just trying to understand.” He paused and then chuckled, his good humor returning. “Sometimes you are a colossal pain in the ass.”

“I know.”

“And, Hannah?”

“What?”

“I love you.”

He probably expected to hear me say, “I love you, too.” A few days ago it would have been easy. Practically automatic. I twisted the telephone cord around my finger in silence.

“I love you,” Paul repeated.

“I know.” We listened to each other breathe for a few seconds, then hung up without actually saying good-bye.

When I replaced the receiver after talking to Paul, the light indicating my extension went dead, but the 02 extension remained brightly lit. The doctor was still on the phone. While I watched, 03 came on, too.

I wandered into the waiting room, turned off the Muzak, and pulled down the shades. I decided to join Paul in Cape Cod, eventually, if I didn’t get myself arrested first. I worried that it was way after closing time and Dr. Chase was still in his office, keeping all the telephone lines lit up like a department store Christmas tree.

At five-thirty all the lights on the telephone went out, and he emerged, looking perfectly normal. “Thanks, Hannah, that’s all for the day.”

“Do you want me to lock up?”

“No, no. I’ll do it. You’ve worked hard. Please go on home.” He surprised me by heading for the staircase that led to the second floor.

“Aren’t you going home?”

“Afraid not. I’m sleeping here tonight. My condo’s being painted.”

Screwed! So much for sneaking back later to replace Katie’s chart. I must have looked puzzled because he explained that he’d kept his old bedroom upstairs, “for emergencies.”

“Handy,” I said.

“It certainly is.”

I thought I detected a hint of suspicion in his voice but reasoned that if he’d discovered that the chart was missing, he’d surely have been all over me by now. Dr. Chase didn’t seem too organized to me, so maybe he hadn’t even noticed that his blotter was flatter than it had been several hours before, or if he had, perhaps he’d think he’d merely misplaced Katie’s chart.

Nevertheless, I pulled the door shut behind me with my lunch sitting in my stomach like a softball, and just about as indigestible. Please God, I prayed in the parking lot, please don’t let Dr. Chase discover that Katie’s chart isn’t where he left it. As I unlocked my car, I looked back at the house and thought I saw the doctor standing at a window on the second floor, watching me, the light of the early evening sun glinting off his glasses.