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.
12
My Toyota had sat in the sun all day with the windows closed, allowing the heat inside to build up high enough to broil meat. While I waited for the steering wheel and plastic upholstery to cool down enough to touch, I imagined Dr. Chase’s eyes boring into my back, but when I turned around to check, whatever I had taken to be Dr. Franklin C. Chase, Jr., had disappeared from the window.
I tested the temperature of the upholstery with the palm of my hand, then threw my purse behind the driver’s seat and climbed in. I slotted the key into the ignition, turned it, and as the engine started, both the air conditioner and All Things Considered blasted into life, right in the middle of the news.
Keeping the air conditioner set to high, I headed for the farm. Just after I passed through the intersection at Church and High with the light in my favor, a black Lexus sped through on yellow, going in the opposite direction. I was wondering where I had seen the car before and then I remembered: Katie’s sister. Opposite St. Philip’s, I checked the rearview mirror and watched Liz’s Lexus squeal around the corner on Princess Anne. Where on earth was she going at such speed? Dr. Chase’s? My paranoid imagination had clearly shifted into overdrive. She doesn’t have to be going to see the doctor, I reasoned. There’s a lot of stuff down that road. Ten to twelve houses. A beauty parlor. Harrison’s Restaurant-I checked my watch-and it’s almost dinnertime. Maybe I was adding two and two and coming up with five. Then again, maybe not. I had always been good in math.
I turned into the parking lot at Harmony Baptist, reversed, and headed back to the doctor’s office. As I drove past, I saw that I hadn’t been paranoid after all. Liz’s Lexus was parked in the lot next to Dr. Chase’s Ford. I tried to recall an earlier conversation with the doctor. Hadn’t he told me he hardly knew Liz? It could be true, I supposed. Maybe she was sick. Or perhaps Dr. Chase had called her in because he had discovered something in Katie’s file that he wanted to share with the family.
I was reminded of the photocopy, which now rested safely in my purse along with the slip of paper on which I had jotted down Paul’s telephone number. I thought about Paul, trying in his sweetly clumsy way to make up to me after our stupid fight yesterday morning.
To reassure myself that the documents were safe, I slipped my hand into the side pouch of my purse. The photocopy felt warm to the touch, as if it had just rolled out of the machine, but I couldn’t find the scrap of paper anywhere. I scrabbled around in my purse and checked the pockets of my jacket with no luck. Shit! I must have left it on my desk. Dr. Chase had warned me about his cleaning lady: anything that wasn’t tied down would be out with the trash by morning. Now I’d have to go back for it.
Erring on the side of caution, I parked in front of an old Victorian house several doors down. From there it took only a minute to reach the office and climb the steps to the porch. I peered through the glass in the front door. Everything inside was dark. My key grated noisily in the lock and I held my breath as I twisted the doorknob and let myself into the deserted waiting room. I stood still and listened. Nothing. Maybe they were in the back.