Kisscut (19 page)

"Shit," she cursed, seeing rather than feeling the cut on her palm. Lena stood, more determined now than ever to throw away the alcohol. She would sleep some of it off in her car and drive home when she could see straight.

Reeling back, she tossed the near empty bottle into the Dumpster. It made a rewarding crash as it broke against the metal wall inside the steel chamber. Lena picked up the other bottle and tossed it in. A couple of thunks later, and the bottle had not broken. She contemplated for just a moment going into the Dumpster and retrieving the bottle, but stopped herself before she did.

There was a stand of trees behind the building, and Lena walked over, her feet still feeling as if they were asleep. She bent over and made herself vomit. The alcohol was bitter coming up, and the taste made her sicker than she would have thought possible. By the end, she was on her knees, dry heaving, much as she had been in the car with Hank.

Hank, Lena thought, making herself stand. She was so angry with him that she thought just for a moment about driving into Reece, to the Hut, and confronting him. He had said four months ago that he would stay with Lena as long as she needed him. Where the hell was he now? Probably at some damn A. A. meeting talking about how worried he was about his niece, talking about how much he wanted to support her instead of actually being here and supporting her.

The Celica turned over with a rewarding purr, and Lena gassed the car, thinking just for a moment about letting off on the brake and smashing into the front windows of the Piggly Wiggly. The impulse was surprising, but not completely unexpected. A sense of worthlessness was taking over, and Lena was not fighting it. Even after throwing up the alcohol, her brain was still buzzing, and it was as if her barriers had been broken down, and her mind was letting her think about things that she did not really want to think about.

She was thinking about
him
.

The drive home was dicey, Lena crossing the yellow line more often than not. She nearly ran into the shed behind her house, the brakes squealing on the drive as she slammed them on at the last minute. She sat in the car, looking at the dark house. Hank had not even bothered to turn on the back porch light.

Lena reached over and unlocked the glove box. She pulled out her service revolver and chambered a round. The clicking sound from the bolt action was solid in her ears, and for some reason Lena found herself looking at the gun in a different light. She stared at the black metal casing, even sniffed the grip. Before she knew it, she had put the muzzle in her mouth, her finger resting on the trigger.

Lena had seen a girl do this before. The woman had put the gun right into her mouth and almost without hesitation pulled the trigger because she had seen this as the only way to get the memories out of her brain. The aftershock of the single shot to the head still reverberated to Lena, and what she remembered most of all from that day was that parts of the woman's brain and skull had actually dug into the Sheetrock on the wall behind her.

Lena sat in the car, breathing slowly, feeling the cold metal against her lips. She pressed her tongue against the barrel as she considered the situation. Who would find her? Would Hank come home early? Brad, she thought, because Brad was supposed to pick her up for work in the morning. What would he think, seeing Lena like this? What would that do to Brad to see Lena in her car with the back of her head blown out? Was he strong enough to handle it? Could Brad Stephens go on with his life, with his job, after finding Lena like that?

"No," Lena said. She ejected the clip and kicked out the chambered round, then locked all of it back in the glove box.

She got out of the car quickly, jogging up the stairs to the back porch. Her hands were steady as she unlocked the door and turned on the kitchen light. Lena walked through the house, turning on all the lights as she went. She took the steps upstairs two at a time, turning on more lights. By the time she was finished, the house was completely lit up.

Of course, with the lights on, anyone could look through the windows and see her. Lena reversed her steps, turning off the lights as she ran down the stairs. She could have pulled the curtains and closed the blinds, but there was something rewarding about moving, getting her heart pumping. She had not been to the gym in months, but her muscles remembered the movements.

When she had left the hospital, the doctors had given Lena enough pain medication to kill a horse. It was as if they wanted to give her as much medication as humanly possible to numb her. They had probably thought it would be easier on her to be medicated than to consider what had happened to her. The hospital shrink they had made Lena talk to even offered to give her Xanax.

Lena ran back upstairs and opened the medicine cabinet in her bathroom. Alongside the usual things were a half bottle of Darvocet and a full bottle of Flexeril. The Darvocet was for pain, but the Flexeril was a heavy-duty muscle relaxer that had knocked Lena on her ass the first time she had taken it. She had stopped taking them because at the time it was more important for her to stay alert than not to feel the pain.

Lena read the labels on the bottles, looking past the warnings to take the medications with food and not operate heavy machinery. There were at least twenty Darvocet and twice as many Flexeril. She turned on the faucet, letting the cold water run for a while. Her hand was perfectly steady as she took the cup out of its holder and filled it nearly to the brim.

"So," Lena mumbled, looking at the clear water, thinking she should say something important or poignant about her life. There was no one to hear her words, though, so it seemed silly to be talking to herself at this point. She had never really believed in God, so it wasn't as if Lena expected to meet up with Sibyl in the great hereafter. There would be no streets of gold for her to walk on. Not that Lena was well-versed in religious doctrine, but she was pretty sure that anyone who committed suicide, no matter what the religion, was pretty fucked as far as heaven was concerned.

Lena sat down on the toilet, considering this. For just a brief moment, she wondered whether or not she was still drunk. Certainly, she would not be contemplating such an act if she were sober. Would she?

Lena looked around the bathroom, which had never been her favorite room in the house. The tiles were orange with white grout, a popular color scheme when the house had been built in the seventies, but now was tacky. She had tried to compensate for the color by adding other colors: a dark-blue bathmat by the tub, a dark-green cover for the box of Kleenex on the back of the toilet. The towels tied the colors together, but not in a pleasing way. Nothing had helped the room. It seemed appropriate, then, that she would die here.

Lena opened the bottles and spread the pills out on the vanity. The Darvocet were large, but the Flexeril were more like little breath mints. Moving them around with her index finger, she alternated the big pills with the little pills, then moved them all back into their own separate piles. She sipped some of the water as she did this, and realized that to some degree she was playing.

"Okay," Lena said. "This one is for Sibby." She opened her mouth and popped in one of the Darvocets.

"To Hank," she said, chasing it with a Flexeril. Then, because they were small, she popped two more Flexeril, followed by two Darvocet. She did not swallow yet, though. Lena wanted to take them all at the same time, and there was one more person she felt the need to recognize.

Her mouth was so full that when she said his name, the sound was muffled.

"These are for you," she mumbled, scooping the remaining Flexeril into the palm of her hand. "These are for you, you fucking bastard."

She shoved the handful into her mouth, tilting back her head. She stopped midtilt, staring at Hank in the doorway. They were both quiet, their eyes locked on to each other's. He stood there with his arms crossed, his lips a firm line.

"Do it," he finally said.

Lena sat there on the toilet, holding the pills in her mouth. Some of them had started to break down, and she could taste an acrid, powdery paste forming at the back of her mouth.

"I won't call an ambulance, if that's what you're thinking." He gave a tight shrug. "Go ahead and do it if that's what you want to do."

Lena felt her tongue going numb.

"You scared?" Hank asked. "Too scared to pull the trigger, too scared to swallow the pills?"

Her eyes watered from the taste in her mouth, but she still did not swallow. Lena felt frozen. How long had he been watching her? Was this some kind of test she had failed?

"Go on!" Hank yelled, his voice so loud that it echoed against the tiles.

Lena 's mouth opened, and she started to spit out the pills into her hand but Hank stopped her. He crossed the small bathroom in two steps and clamped his hands around her head, one over her mouth, the other behind her so that she could not pull away. Lena dug her nails into his flesh, trying to pull his hand from her mouth, but he was too strong for her. She fell forward off the toilet, onto her knees, but he moved down with her, keeping her head locked between his hands.

"Swallow them," Hank ordered, his voice gravelly and low. "That's what you want to do, swallow them!"

She started to shake her head back and forth, trying to tell him no, that she did not want to do this, that she could not do this. Some of the pills started to slide down her throat, and she constricted the muscles in her neck to stop them. Her heart was beating so hard that she thought it might explode.

"No?" Hank demanded. "No?"

Lena kept shaking her head, digging at his hand to release her. He finally let go, and she fell back against the tub, her head popping against the edge.

Hank threw open the toilet lid and half grabbed, half dragged her toward it. He pushed her head down into the bowl and she finally opened her mouth, gagging, spitting the pills out. Retching sounds echoed back at her until her mouth was empty. She used her fingers to clean around her gums and then used her nails, scraping at her tongue to get the taste out.

Hank stood, and when she looked up at him she could tell that he was pissed as hell.

"You bastard," she hissed, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

His foot moved, and she thought he was going to kick her. Lena curled, anticipating the blow, but it did not come.

"Get cleaned up," Hank ordered. With an open palm, he swept the remaining pills off the basin and onto the floor. "Clean up this shit."

Lena moved to do as she was told, walking on her hands and knees, collecting the Darvocet.

Hank leaned against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. His voice was softer now, and she looked up at him, surprised to see that there were tears in his eyes. "If you ever do that again…" he began, then looked away. He put his hand over his mouth as if to fight back the words. "You're all I got, baby."

Lena was crying now, too. She said, "I know, Hank."

"Don't…" he began.

Lena asked, "Don't what?"

He slid down the wall, sitting on the floor with his hands to his side. He stared at her openly, his eyes searching hers for something. "Don't leave me," he whispered, his words hanging in the air above them like a dark cloud.

The distance between them was only a few feet, but to Lena it felt like an endless chasm. She could reach out to him. She could thank him. She could promise him that she would never try this again.

She could have done any or all of those things, but what Lena ended up doing was picking up the pills off the floor one by one and throwing them into the toilet.

Tuesday

Chapter Ten

"Hold on, Sam," Sara coaxed, struggling to hold a wriggling two year old in her lap so that she could l isten to his chest.

"Be still for Dr. Linton, Sammy," his mother said in a singsong voice.

"Sara?" Elliott Felteau, who worked at the clinic for Sara, poked his head into the room. She had hired Elliott right out of his residency to help her out, but so far Sara had spent most of her time holding his hand. It was a trade-off, because an older doctor would have insisted on some kind of partnership, and Sara was not about to relinquish her control. She had worked too hard to get to where she was to start listening to someone else's opinions.

"Sorry," Elliott apologized to the mother, then said to Sara, "Did you tell Tara Collins that Pat could play football this weekend? She needs a medical release before the school will let him back on the team."

Sara stood, taking Sam with her. His legs wrapped around Sara's waist, and she scooted him up on her hip as she lowered her voice, asking Elliott, "Why is this question coming from you?"

"She called and asked for me," he told her. "Said she didn't want to bug you."

Sara tried to unclench Sam's fist as he tugged her hair. "No, he can't play this weekend," she whispered. "I told her that on Friday."

"It's just an exhibition game."

"He has a concussion," Sara countered, the tone of her voice a warning to Elliot.

"Hmm," Elliott said, backing out of the room. "I guess she thought I'd be an easier target."

Sara took a deep, calming breath, then turned back around. "Sorry about that," she said, sitting down in the chair. Thankfully, Sam had stopped fidgeting, and she was able to listen to his chest.

"Pat Collins is their star quarterback," the mother said. "'You're not going to let him play?"

Sara avoided the question. "His lungs seem clear," she told the woman. "Make sure he finishes his antibiotics, though."

She started to hand the child back to his mother, but stopped. Sara lifted up Sam's shirt and checked his chest, then his back.

"Is something wrong?"

Sara shook her head no. "He's fine," she told the woman, and the boy was. There was no reason to suspect abuse. Of course, Sara had thought the same thing with Jenny Weaver.

Sara walked to the pocket door and slid it open. Molly Stoddard, her nurse, was at the nurses' station writing out a lab request. Sara waited until she was finished, then dictated Sam's directions.

"Make sure I follow up," Sara told her.

Molly nodded, still writing. "You doing all right today?"

Sara thought about it, and decided that no, she was not doing all right. She was actually pretty on edge, and had been since her confrontation with Lena yesterday afternoon. She felt guilty, and ashamed of herself for letting her temper get the better of her. Lena had been doing her job, no matter what Sara thought about it. It was unprofessional to question the young detective, especially in front of Jeffrey. On top of that, what Sara had said was not only inexcusable, it was just plain mean. Sara was not the kind of person who liked to be mean. It was not in her nature to attack, and the more Sara thought about it, the more she believed that she
had
attacked Lena. Of all people, Sara should have known better.

"Hello?" Molly prompted. "Sara?"

"Yes?" Sara said, then, "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm just…" She nodded toward her office so that they could get out of the hallway.

Molly let Sara go first, then slid the door closed behind her. Molly Stoddard was a compact woman with what could be called a handsome face. In great contrast to Sara, the nurse was always neatly dressed, her white uniform starched to within an inch of its life. The only jewelry Molly wore was a thin silver necklace that she kept tucked into the collar of her uniform. The smartest thing Sara had ever done was hire Molly as her nurse, but some days Sara felt tempted to snatch off the woman's hat and ruffle her hair, or accidentally spill ink on her perfect uniform.

"You've got about five minutes before your next appointment," Molly told her. "What's wrong?"

Sara leaned her back against the wall, tucking her hands into her white lab coat. "Did we miss something?" she said, then amended, "Did
I
miss something?"

"Weaver?" Molly asked, though Sara could tell from her reaction that the other woman knew. "I've been asking myself that same question, and the answer is I don't know."

"Who would do that?" Sara asked, then realized Molly had no idea what she was talking about. The physical findings from the autopsy were hardly public, and even though Sara trusted Molly, she did not feel like she was in a position to share the details. Molly probably would not want to hear them.

"Kids are hard to explain," Molly provided.

"I feel responsible," Sara told the nurse. "I feel like I should have been there for her. Or paid more attention."

"We see thirty to forty kids a day, six days a week."

"You make it sound like an assembly line."

Molly shrugged. "Maybe it is," she said. "We do what we can do. We take care of them, we give them their medicine, we listen to their problems. What else is there?"

"Treat 'em and street 'em," Sara mumbled, remembering the phrase from her E.R. days.

Molly said, "It's what we do."

"I didn't come back here to work like this," Sara said. "I wanted to make a difference."

"And you do, Sara," Molly assured her. She stepped closer, putting her hand on Sara's arm. "Listen, honey, I know what you're going through, and I'm telling you that I see you here every day, putting your heart and soul into this job." She waited a beat. "You're forgetting what Dr. Barney was like. Now, there was an assembly line."

"He was always good to me," Sara countered.

"Because he liked you," Molly said. "And for every kid he liked, there were ten he couldn't stand, and toward the end he passed the ones he hated on to you."

Sara shook her head, not accepting this. "He didn't do that."

"Sara," Molly insisted, "ask Nelly. She's been here longer than I have."

"So, that's my standard? That I'm better than Dr. Barney?"

"Your standard is you treat all the kids the same. You don't play favorites." Molly indicated the pictures on the wall. "How many kids did Dr. Barney have on his walls?"

Sara shrugged, though she knew the answer to that. None.

"You're being too hard on yourself," Molly said. "And it's not going to accomplish anything."

"I just want to be more careful from now on," Sara told her. "Maybe we can cut the schedule so I can spend more time with each patient."

Molly snorted a laugh. "We barely have enough time in the day to see the appointments we have now. Between that and the morgue-"

Sara stopped her. "Maybe I should quit the morgue."

"Maybe you should hire another doctor?" Molly suggested.

Sara tapped her head against the wall, thinking. "I don't know."

The door shook as someone knocked on it.

"If that's Elliott…" Sara began, but it was not. Nelly, the office manager at the clinic since before Sara was born, slid open the door.

"Nick Shelton's on the phone," Nelly said. "Want me to take a message?"

Sara shook her head. "I'll take it," she answered, then waited for Molly to leave before picking up the phone.

"Hello, sunshine," Nick said, his south Georgia drawl clear across the line.

Sara allowed a smile. "Hey, Nick."

"I wish I had time to flirt," he told her. "But I gotta meeting in about ten seconds. Real quick, though," he began, and she could hear him shuffling papers. "Nothing current came up on female castration, at least, not in the United States. But I'm sure you're not surprised to hear that."

"No," Sara agreed. Something so volatile would have certainly ended up in the press.

"A few years ago in France, a woman was tried for performing over fifty procedures. I think she was originally from Africa."

Sara shook her head, wondering how a woman could do this to a child.

Nick said, "Hey, what do you already know about this?"

"Infibulation falls under the general heading of F.G.M.," she said, using the acronym for female genital mutilation. "It's sometimes practiced in the Middle East and parts of Africa. It's tied somehow to religion."

"Well, about as much as suicide missions are tied to religion," Nick corrected. "You can make a religious justification for just about anything these days."

Sara made a noise of agreement.

"Mostly, it's a custom passed down from village to village. The more uneducated the group, the more likely they are to do it. There isn't a real good religious argument to justify it, but the men over there like the idea of making sure their women don't stray."

"So they make it impossible for them to enjoy sex. Perfect solution. If this was happening to men over there, Africa and the rest of the Middle East would be an empty crater."

Nick was silent, and Sara felt guilty for painting him with the same brush. "I'm sorry, Nick. It's just-"

"You don't have to explain it to me, Sara," he offered in a soft tone.

She waited a beat, then asked, "What else?"

"Well," he began, and she could hear him shuffling through his notes. "After the procedure, they usually bind the legs together to promote healing." He paused as if to catch his breath. "In a lot of cases, they sew them shut, you know, like your girl was, and leave an opening for her time of the month."

"I read about that," Sara confirmed. She also knew that women in the village who weren't mutilated were not considered marriage material.

"The thread you pulled from the area looks common. I've sent samples to the lab, but they're pretty certain you can find it in any Kmart." He made a thinking noise. "You think whoever did this has some kind of medical experience?"

"Are you looking at the photographs?"

"Yep," he answered. "Looks kind of elementary, but not half-assed."

"I agree," she told him, thinking that whoever had sewn the girl up was probably good with a needle and thread.

"I read this statistic," he said. "A lot of the girls die from shock. They don't exactly anesthetize them, if you know what I mean. Most times they use a piece of broken glass to perform the procedure."

Sara shuddered, but tried to maintain her composure. "Any idea why someone would do this here?"

"You mean someone who's not part of an immigrant population?" he asked, but didn't let her answer. "Over there they do it to make sure a girl stays pure. Usually, the husband opens her up on their wedding night."

"Purity," Sara said, focusing on the word. Jenny Weaver had used it with her mother.

Nick asked, "Was she a virgin?"

"No," Sara answered. "Judging from the size of the vaginal orifice as compared to the urinary meatus, she was sex-ually active well before the castration. Probably with a number of partners."

"You check her for any STDs?"

"Yes," Sara said. "She came back negative."

"Well, it was worth a shot."

"Anything else?"

Nick was quiet for a few beats, then asked, "You talking to Jeffrey this week?"

Sara felt a bit embarrassed, but said, "Yes."

"Tell him that drawing he sent didn't come up on our computers. We faxed it up to the FBI for a run-through, but you know they'll take their time."

"What's the drawing?" Sara asked.

"Some tattoo. I dunno. He said it was on the webbing between the thumb and pointer finger."

"I'll tell him."

"Over dinner?"

Sara laughed. "What are you getting at, Nick?"

"If you're not busy, I'm gonna be down in your neck of the woods this weekend."

Sara smiled. Nick had asked her out several times before, mostly as a courtesy. He was about six inches shorter than Sara and wore more gold jewelry than any man ought to be allowed. She doubted very seriously that he thought he had a chance in hell with her, but Nick was the kind of man who liked to leave no stone unturned.

She told him, "I guess I'm seeing Jeffrey again."

"You guess?"

"I mean," she paused. "Yes, we're dating again."

He took the refusal good-naturedly, as usual. "Can't blame an old boy for trying."

After they said their good-byes, Sara stayed in her chair, thinking about what Nick had told her. There had to be some connection between Jenny's desire for purity and the castration. She was missing something, probably something very obvious. What would make a girl feel unclean, Sara wondered. Unfortunately, the only thing she could come up with was sex. Jenny Weaver had certainly been active. Maybe the guilt from her sexual promiscuity had been too much for Jenny to bear.

Also, there was the greater question of who had performed the mutilation on Jenny. It wasn't as if the girl could do it to herself. She would pass out from the shock or the pain before it was completed. There had to be another person involved, someone who could do the cutting and sewing. Perhaps Jenny had drunk until she passed out, or bought pain killers or muscle relaxers from someone at the school. A veritable pharmacy existed at the high school. Anyone with the right money could practically stock an operating room.

Nelly slid open the door, saying, "The Patterson kid is here." Then added, "Without the mother," in a hushed whisper.

Sara glanced at her watch. Mark was supposed to have been in yesterday morning. His dropping by today would throw her whole schedule out of whack. "Put him in six," she said. "Tell him he'll have to wait."

"Him?" Nelly asked. "It's Lacey, the girl."

Sara sat up in her chair. "Did she say why she's here?"

"Just that she's not feeling well," Nelly answered, then whispered again, "She doesn't look well, if you ask me."

Sara whispered, "Why are you whispering?"

Nelly allowed a smile, walking into the office. She closed the door, saying, "She's acting strange. She's not with her mother."

Sara felt the hair on the back of her neck rise. "How long has she been waiting?"

"Not long," Nelly answered. "Put her in six?"