“I admit I had ulterior motives when I volunteered to help out here. I thought it’d be an opportunity to check out the information in Katie’s file without bothering anyone. But discovering you and Liz together was purely accidental. I’d left the phone number to the vacation house my husband is renting at the reception desk, and I had to come back for it.”
“Humph.” The doctor scowled in my direction.
“And while we’re on the topic of Liz Dunbar”-I blundered on-“what did she mean by ‘I’ll take care of the other’? Maybe I’m being a bit paranoid here, Doctor, but there’s something I’ve neglected to tell you about my so-called accident. I lost control of the car because two jerks in a dark van tried to force me off the road.” I saw, rather than heard, Dr. Chase’s intake of breath. “And when I didn’t drift off the shoulder obediently, like a good little girl, someone in the van decided to shoot at me.”
Five seconds passed with no sound in the room but the tick-tick of his pencil as it slipped through his fingers and dropped, point down, on his desk. And again. How could I get him to talk? I decided to change tactics. “I know she was pregnant, Dr. Chase, because I saw it on her chart. But I’m not the only one who knows it. She told a girlfriend, you see.”
Dr. Chase, who seemed at that moment a bunch of loosely connected parts, gathered himself together at last and responded directly to what I’d said. “Let me deal with this.” He mumbled something I couldn’t catch.
“What?” I leaned forward.
“I said…” He paused. “Never mind.”
“Do you know who shot Katie?” He shook his head. All of a sudden I thought I knew what he feared. “Are you covering up for your father?”
“No!” The word exploded from his lips.
“Who then? You must be protecting somebody. Why else would you destroy that chart?”
Dr. Chase rose from his chair and walked around the desk, wearing his kindly physician face, once again in control. Standing over me like that, he looked taller than his five feet ten, but his face was so calm that it didn’t occur to me to be frightened. “This is more complicated than it looks, Hannah, and I know this is going to sound melodramatic, but for your own protection, I’d suggest you mind your own business.”
“But-”
“Lay off it, Hannah.”
I considered reminding him of his duties as a coroner, threatening to go to Dennis with what I knew, but thought better of it. “You’re a good doctor,” I said instead, grasping his free arm and squeezing it gently. “I’ve seen the way you care about people, and I know you couldn’t have done anything to hurt Katie.”
“I have no idea who killed that young woman.” He stepped to his desk and fidgeted with a glass paperweight that had a dandelion in full white-headed bloom encapsulated inside like a moth in amber.
“Then tell the police what you know,” I insisted. “We’re talking about 1990 here! An out-of-wedlock pregnancy wasn’t the end of the world like it was in the forties and fifties. It may not have had anything to do with Katie’s death, but it may help the police.”
“I’ll consider what you’ve said, but I won’t make any promises.” Dr. Chase returned to his chair and flung himself into it so hard that it rolled backward and the wheels slipped off the edge of the carpet. I decided to leave him there, scowling, with his feet stretched out straight in front of him and his arms dangling limply over the upholstered leather arms of his chair. From my position in the hall he looked small and defeated.
“Hannah? I’m sorry about your car.”
I massaged a sore spot on my shoulder. “Me, too, Doctor. Me, too.”
“But under the circumstances, I don’t think we can work together anymore.”
I couldn’t argue with that. “I’ll call Redi-Temp and get someone to fill in for me on Monday.”
“That will be fine.” His voice seemed lifeless.
As I left the office, I was sure of only one thing: Until I sprang it on him, he didn’t know about my accident. But by the frightened look on his face, I was certain he suspected who was behind it. And, although I couldn’t work out exactly how she managed it or why, that somebody was probably Liz.
15
I accelerated away from the doctor’s office, feeling relieved, even though I had just lost my second job in less than four months. On my left, halfway down High, I could see the low brick and cinder-block building of the Volunteer Fire Department, its oversize garage doors rolled open. A single fire truck had been pulled into the drive, and someone had bathed and polished the vehicle until its yellow paint and chrome grill gleamed in the sun. A volunteer dressed in blue jeans and a Grateful Dead T-shirt was washing down the drive with a hose. At the end of the drive stood a sign on wheels with removable letters: WEDNESDAY NIGHT SPAGHETTI SUPPER-ALL YOU CAN EAT. My stomach rumbled.
I wasn’t in the mood for one of Connie’s PB and Js. My mouth was all set for a thick, flavorful tuna fish sandwich on whole wheat (with fries) from Ellie’s when I remembered I had no money or credit cards to pay for it. I’d last seen my purse as the pond gulped down my car. I checked my watch. Bill Taylor was usually working the afternoon shift at Ellie’s. The last time I’d seen him he’d been standing in water up to his waist, rescuing my car. As a volunteer fireman I knew he would be tuned in to what was going on at the fire hall. Maybe they’d found my purse. He also might sell me a sandwich and an iced tea on a smile and a promise. I wanted to ask him about Katie and his former teammates anyway.
I pulled into the parking strip in front of Ellie’s and breezed into the store. Neither Angie nor her mother was about. Somewhere a radio played softly, but otherwise, the place was deserted.
I stuck my head into the kitchen. “Hello?” Nobody was there, either.
I was about to leave, when I smelled cigarette smoke. Curious, I ambled through the kitchen and stuck my head out the back door. Bill was sitting on the back porch, smoking.
“There you are!”
“Just taking a break, Mrs. Ives. Been kinda slow today.”
I didn’t want to hit him up for a sandwich right off the bat, so I asked, “Any news about my car?”
Bill took a drag from his cigarette and held the smoke in his mouth for an extraordinarily long time. “We towed it to the Exxon station,” he said as he exhaled. “Rutherford doesn’t want anyone to touch it until his forensic team’s been over it with their tweezers and magnifying glasses.”
“That’s good. How about my purse, though? Any word about that?”
He shook his head. “Probably sitting in the muck at the bottom of that old pond, Mrs. Ives. If I were you, I’d just buy a new one, claim the expense on your insurance. That’s what insurance companies are for.”
I slapped myself in the forehead. “I was here to pick up a sandwich for lunch, but I don’t have any way to pay for it. How can I have been so stupid?”
“You’ve had a lot on your mind lately.” The way he looked at me, one bushy eyebrow raised, made me wonder if he had heard about Paul’s predicament. “I think I could rustle you up a sandwich.” He crushed out his cigarette, and I followed him into the store, my mouth already beginning to water.
“How are you feeling today?” he asked from the kitchen as I nosed around the empty store.
“A little stiff.” In point of fact, I was a mass of scars, scrapes, cuts, and bruises, old and new, and my right arm was aching again. “But I’ll do.”
“You need to be careful, Mrs. Ives. First you fall off that boat; then you wreck your car. Makes me wonder.”
Is that how he saw me? Ms. Klutz? I wasn’t sure I liked this guy, even if he was making me lunch. “Makes you wonder what, Bill?”
“Wonder if they might not have been accidents. You come into town and all, pretty much a stranger, and the next thing you know, all these bad things start happening to you. Don’t you wonder why?”