The Shadow of Your Smile

6

When she left Monica outside the office on Monday evening, Nan Rhodes took the First Avenue bus to meet four of her sisters for their regular monthly dinner at Neary’s Pub on Fifty-seventh Street.

Widowed for six years, and with her only son and his family living in California, working for Monica had proven to be a godsend to Nan. She loved Monica and at the dinners she would often talk about her. One of eight children herself, she regularly lamented the fact that Monica had no siblings and that her mother and father, both only children, had been in their early forties when she was born and were now deceased.

Tonight, at their usual corner table at Neary’s, over a predinner cocktail, Nan got back on the subject. “While I was waiting for the bus I watched Dr. Monica walking up the block. She’d had such a long day, and I was thinking, poor thing, it’s not like she could get a phone call from her mother or dad to talk things over. It’s such a damn shame that when her father was born in Ireland only the names of his adoptive parents, Anne and Matthew Farrell, were given on the birth certificate. The real parents certainly made it their business to be sure he couldn’t trace them.”

The sisters bobbed their heads in agreement. “Dr. Monica is so classy-looking. Her grandmother probably came from a good family, maybe even an American one,” Nan’s youngest sister, Peggy, volunteered. “In those days if an unmarried girl got pregnant, she was taken on a trip until the baby was born and then it would be given up for adoption, with no one the wiser. Today when an unmarried girl gets pregnant she brags about it on Twitter or Facebook.”

“I know Dr. Monica has lots of friends,” Nan sighed as she picked up the menu. “She has a genius for making people like her, but it’s not the same, is it? No matter what you say, blood is thicker than water.”

Her sisters nodded in solemn unison, although Peggy pointed out that Monica Farrell was a beautiful young woman and it would probably be only a matter of time before she met someone.

That subject exhausted, Nan had a new tidbit to share. “Remember how I told you that that nun Sister Catherine is being considered for beatification because a little boy who was supposed to die of brain cancer was cured after a crusade of prayer to her?”

They all remembered. “He was Dr. Monica’s patient, wasn’t he?” Rosemary, the oldest sister, said.

“Yes. His name is Michael O’Keefe. I guess the Church feels it has enough evidence to prove that he really is a miracle child. And just this afternoon I was able to persuade Dr. Monica to at least give testimony that when she told the parents he was terminal, the mother never blinked an eye before she said her son wasn’t going to die, because she was beginning a crusade of prayer to Sister Catherine.”

“If the mother did say that, why wouldn’t Dr. Monica be willing to testify?” the middle sister, Ellen, asked.

“Because she’s a doctor and a scientist and because she’s still trying to find a way to prove that there was a good medical reason for Michael to be cancer free.”

Liz, their waitress, who had worked at Neary’s for thirty years, was at the table, menus in hand. “Ready to order, girls?” she asked cheerfully.

• • •

Nan enjoyed getting to work at seven A.M. She required little sleep, and lived only minutes away from Monica’s office, in the apartment complex where she had moved after her husband’s death. The early arrival gave her plenty of time to keep up with the mail and work on the endless medical insurance company forms.

Alma Donaldson, the nurse, came in at quarter of nine as Nan was opening the just-delivered mail. A handsome black woman in her late thirties, with a perceptive eye and warm smile, she had worked with Monica from the first day she had opened her practice four years earlier. Together they made an enviable medical team and had become fast friends.

As she took off her outer jacket, Alma was quick to spot the concerned expression on Nan’s face. Nan was sitting at her desk, an envelope in one hand, a photograph in the other. Alma skipped her usual hearty greeting. “What’s wrong, Nan?” she asked.

“Look at this,” Nan said.

Alma walked behind the desk and stood looking down over Nan’s shoulder. “Someone took a picture of the doctor with little Carlos Garcia,” Alma said. “I think it’s sweet.”

“It came in a blank envelope,” Nan said tersely. “I can’t believe his mother or father would have sent it without a note of some kind. And look at this.” She turned over the picture. “Someone printed the doctor’s home and office addresses. That seems awfully peculiar to me.”

“Maybe whoever sent it was trying to decide which address to use,” Alma suggested slowly. “Why don’t you call the Garcias and see if it came from them?”

“I bet the ranch it didn’t,” Nan muttered, as she picked up the phone.

Rosalie Garcia answered on the first ring. No, they hadn’t sent a picture and couldn’t imagine who might have done it. She was planning to frame the one they took of the doctor and Carlos and send it, but she hadn’t had time to buy a frame yet. No, she didn’t know the doctor’s home address.

Monica came in as Nan repeated that conversation to Alma. The nurse and the receptionist exchanged glances and then at Alma’s affirmative nod, Nan slipped the picture back into the envelope and dropped it in her desk drawer.

Later Nan confided to Alma, “There’s a retired detective from the District Attorney’s Office who lives down the hall from me. I’m going to show it to him. Mark my words, Alma, there’s something creepy about that picture.”

“Do you have the right not to show it to the doctor?” Alma asked.

“It’s addressed to ‘occupant,’ not directly to her. I will show it to her, but I’d like to get John Hartman’s opinion first.”

That evening, after phoning her neighbor, Nan walked down the hall to his apartment. Hartman, a seventy-year-old widower with iron gray hair and the weathered complexion of a lifelong golfer, invited her in and listened to her apologetic explanation of why she was bothering him. “Sit down, Nan. You’re not bothering me.”

He went back to his club chair, where the newspapers he’d obviously been reading were piled on the hassock at his feet, and turned the switch on the standing lamp to full strength. As Nan watched intently she saw a frown that deepened on his face, as holding the picture and the envelope with the tips of his fingers, he studied them both.

“Your Dr. Farrell isn’t a juror on some trial, is she?”

“No, she isn’t. Why?”

“There’s probably an explanation but in my business this is the kind of piece of mail we’d consider a warning. Does Dr. Farrell have any enemies?”

“Not one in the world.”

“That’s as far as you know, Nan. You’ve got to show her this picture, and then I’d like to talk to her.”

“I hope she doesn’t think I’m overstepping my bounds,” Nan said anxiously as she got up to go. Then she hesitated. “The only thing that I can think of is that someone from Boston calls her from time to time. His name is Scott Alterman. He’s a lawyer. I don’t know what happened between them but if he calls the office, she never gets on the phone with him.”

“He’d be a good place to start looking,” Hartman said. “Scott Alterman. I’ll do a little background work on him. I used to be a pretty good detective.” Then he hesitated. “Dr. Farrell’s a pediatrician, isn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Has she lost any patients lately? I mean, did a child die unexpectedly where the parents might blame her?”

“No, on the contrary, she’s being asked to testify about one of her patients who was terminal and not only is still living but is cured of brain cancer.”

“I didn’t think that was possible, but at least we know that family isn’t going to be responsible for stalking Dr. Farrell.” John Hartman bit his tongue. He had not planned to use that word but something in his gut was telling him that someone out there was stalking the young doctor who was Nan’s employer.

He reached out his hand. “Nan,” he said. “Give that back to me. Did anyone besides you handle the picture?”

“No.”

“I’ve got absolutely nothing important to do tomorrow. I’m going to take it down to headquarters and see if I can pick up any discernible fingerprints. It’s probably a waste of time, but then again you never know. You wouldn’t mind my taking your fingerprints, would you? Just for comparison purposes. It would only take a minute and I still have a kit in my desk.”

“Of course I don’t mind.” She tried to stifle her rising anxiety.

Less than ten minutes later, Nan was back in her own apartment. John Hartman had promised to return the picture to her by tomorrow evening. “You should show it to Dr. Farrell,” he said. “It’s up to you whether or not to say you gave it to me.”

“I’m not sure what I’ll do,” she had replied, but now as she locked and bolted her door she found herself thinking of how vulnerable Monica Farrell was in her apartment. That kitchen door to the patio has a big window, Nan thought. Anybody could slice out the glass and reach in and open the lock. I’ve already warned her she should have a much stronger grille over that window.

Nan did not sleep well that night. Her dreams were haunted by distorted images of Monica standing on the steps of the hospital, Carlos in her arms, with her long blond hair streaming on her shoulders, then coiling like tentacles around her neck.