Sisterhood (21 page)

Excited, David looked up the number of Joey’s Northside Tavern and dialed. Even if Rosetti didn’t have any advice—which was doubtful, since he had advice for everything—he would have encouragement, probably even a new story or two. Just the prospect of talking with him was cheering.

A curt, gravelly voice at the Northside Tavern informed David that Mr. Rosetti was not available. The cheer immediately vanished.

“This is Dr. Shelton, Dr. David Shelton.” David emphasized the title in the manner he reserved only for making dinner and hotel reservations or for working his way past the switchboard operator at an unfamiliar hospital. “I’m a close friend of Mr. Rosetti’s. Could you tell me when he’ll be back or where I can reach him?”

The voice called someone without bothering to cover the mouthpiece. “Hey, some doctor’s on the phone. Says he’s a friend of Mr. Rosetti’s. Can I tell ’im where he’s gone?”

In a few moments it spoke to David. “Ah, sir, Mr.
Rosetti and his wife’ve gone to their house on the North Shore. They’ll be back late tonight.”

David heard the voice ask, “Any message?” but he was already hanging up. In less than a minute the silence and inaction were intolerable. Purely out of desperation, he called Wallace Huttner. When the ringing began, he fought the urge to hang up by pressing the receiver tightly against his ear. The ear was throbbing by the time Huttner came on.

“Yes, Dr. Shelton, what is it?” The distance in the man’s voice could have been measured in light-years.

“Dr. Huttner, I’m very concerned and upset about what happened last night and with some things I’ve learned today,” David managed. “I … I wondered if I might talk to you about them for a few minutes?”

Huttner said, “Well, actually I’m quite far behind in the office and—”

“Please!” David cut in. “I’m sorry for raising my voice, but, please, just hear me out.” He paused for a moment, then sighed relief when Huttner made no further objection. Struggling to keep his words slow and his tone more composed, he said, “Dr. Huttner, I know that you helped Mr. Thomas and his lawyer get a copy of Charlotte’s chart. Somehow you must believe that I had nothing to do with her murder. I may have given you and some of the others the impression that I favor mercy killing, but I don’t. I … I need your help—someone’s help—to convince Peter Thomas and the lieutenant of that. I …” At that instant David realized how ill conceived his call had been. He really had no clear idea of what he wanted to say or ask. Huttner sensed the same thing.

“Dr. Shelton,” he said with cool condescension, “please understand. In no way have I judged your guilt or innocence. I assisted Peter this morning as a favor to a distraught old friend. Nothing more.”

Old friend? David nearly laughed out loud. A few
days ago Peter Thomas had made it clear they barely knew one another. Now they were old friends. He clenched the receiver more tightly and forced himself to listen as Huttner continued. “The lieutenant was by to see me earlier today, and it seems as if he’s conducting a most thorough inquiry into the whole matter. Let us just wait and see what direction his investigation takes. If, as you say, you had nothing to do with Charlotte’s death, I’m sure the lieutenant will be able to prove it. Now if you’ve no further questions …”

David hung up without responding.

When he awoke still dressed at five thirty the next morning, the muscles in his jaw were aching.

David amused himself for nearly an hour by counting the seconds between a flash of lightning in the alley and the subsequent clap of thunder. Three calculations in a row agreed exactly—the electrical discharge was a mile and a half away. Measured against the disappointments of the past two days, his mathematical triumph was like winning an Olympic medal. Fifteen minutes reading a mindless paperback. Two with the weights. Another few with the book. They were, he realized, the random, anxious movements of someone with no place to go. The same sort of restlessness that had characterized his first few weeks of hospitalization in the Briggs Institute.

He stared at the phone and considered trying Lauren again. He had tried earlier in the day—her home number and even the hotels in Washington where she usually stayed. She’ll be here soon, he told himself. If not today then tomorrow. Their only contact after she had left had been a brief conversation just before the hideous session with Dockerty in the Amphi. Lauren had called to explain that she would be on the move, covering reaction to the death of Senator Cormier. In fact, she confessed, her main reason for calling (other than
“just to say hi,” she said) was to see if David could talk to people at his hospital and get some inside information on the sudden tragedy. At the time he’d felt certain he could learn something. Of course, there had been no way of knowing that within a few hours he would become a pariah at Boston Doctors.

David went to the kitchen for some water, then to the bathroom for some more.

She’d said she’d be in Springfield today covering the funeral. Possibly for a day or two after that. Perhaps she would call and they could meet in Springfield. Maybe they could even drive to New York or … or maybe up to Montreal.

Random movements, random thoughts.

He reopened the mystery novel, read for a time, then discovered that the last ten pages of the tattered paperback were missing. He barely reacted—just shrugged—and shuffled off to take a shower—his second of the day. As he turned on the water, the telephone rang.

David skidded into the hallway and raced to the bedroom. “Hey, where have you been?” he panted. “I’ve been worried. I didn’t even know for sure what city you were in.”

“David, it’s Dr. Armstrong. Are you all right?”

“Huh?” Oh, damn. “I’m sorry, Dr. Armstrong. No, I’m fine. I was expecting a call from Lauren and … uh … she’s a woman that I …”

“David? Take a minute and relax. Do you want me to call back?”

“No, no, I’m fine. Really.” He stretched the phone cord to reach his bureau and pulled on a pair of scrub pants. Then he sighed and sank to the bed. “Actually, I’m not fine. I’ve been sitting around here all day. Half the time I wait, and the other half I try to figure out what I’m waiting for.”

“But you haven’t …?” She let the question drift.

“No, not even close,” he said, forcing a laugh. “Not a pill or a drop of anything. I told you the other night that nothing was going to get me back there.” Actually, the urge had been there several times—fleeting, but unmistakable. It never lasted long enough to pose a major threat, but after so many years, any sense of it at all was frightening.

“Good. I’m glad to hear it,” Armstrong said. “I’m truly sorry to have taken so long to get back to you.”

“I understand.” He cut in, hoping to spare her any uncomfortable explanations of the turmoil he knew was surrounding him—and her—at the hospital. “Any news?”

“Not really. Our friend the lieutenant has been present on and off since Sunday. He checks in with me or Ed Lipton to let us know he’s around, but that’s about it.”

“Well, I bumped into Miss Dalrymple yesterday and asked for her copy of Charlotte Thomas’s chart. I thought perhaps I could get some brainstorm from studying it.”

“And did Miss Dalrymple give it to you?”

David missed the chord of heightened interest in her voice. “No. I think she would have, but she didn’t have it anymore.” Briefly, he reviewed the conversation with Dotty Dalrymple and his subsequent call to Huttner.

“So,” she said after a moment’s pause, “the buzzards circle.”

David smiled ruefully at the image. “Circle and wait,” he said. “I feel so damn helpless. I want to do something to show them all I’m still alive and fighting, but I can’t even find a stick to wave.”

“I understand,” she said. “If I were you, I would just sit tight and see what develops.”

“You’re probably right, Dr. Armstrong, but unfortunately passivity has never been one of my strong suits. If I don’t do something to sort this whole mess out, who will?”

“I will, David.”

“What?”

“I told you the other night I would do what I could.”

“I remember.”

“Well, I have a friend in personnel who’s checking the hospital computer for any former mental patients or drug problems or prison records. That sort of thing.”

David became excited. “That’s a great idea. How about past employment at Charlotte Thomas’s nursing agency?”

“We could try that.”

“And graduates of her nursing school. And . . and activists supporting patients’ rights, living wills, things like that. And …”

“Whoa! Slow down, David. First things first. You just stay where I can get in touch with you, and fight that self-destruct impulse of yours. I’ll do the rest—don’t worry. Are you coming back to work?”

“Tomorrow. I thought I’d try tomorrow. Anything would be better than sitting around like this waiting for the other shoe to drop. Thanks to you, it’ll be much easier to concentrate on my job knowing at least that something’s being done.”

“Something’s being done,” Armstrong echoed.

Margaret Armstrong set the receiver down and glanced through her partially open office door at the patients in her waiting room—half a dozen complex problems that she would, almost certainly, unravel and deal with. Even after so many years, her own capabilities awed her.

“Mama, please. Tell me what I can do to help.”

She understood now. She had the knowledge and the power and she understood. But how could she have been expected to know then what was right? She had been still a girl, barely fifteen years old.

“Kill me! For Gods sake, please kill me.”

“Mama, please. You don’t know what you’re saying
.
Let me get you something for the pain. When you feel better, you’ll stop saying such things. I know you will.”

“No, baby. It doesn’t help. Nothing has helped the pain for days. Only you can help me. You must help me.”

“Mama, I’m frightened. I can’t think straight. That lady down the hall keeps screaming and I can’t think straight. I’m so frightened
.
I … I hate this place.”

“The pillow. Just set it over my face and lean on it as hard as you can. It won’t take long.”

“Mama, please. I can’t do that. There must be another way. Something. Please help me to understand. Help me to know what to do.… ”

Margaret Armstrong’s receptionist buzzed several times on the intercom, then crossed to the office door and knocked. “Dr. Armstrong?”

The door swung open and the receptionist knew immediately that she should have been more patient. It was just one of those times when the cardiac chief was totally lost in thought. One of those times when she sat fingering a small strip of linen, staring across the room. They came infrequently and never lasted long.

The receptionist eased the door closed and returned to her desk. Minutes later, her intercom buzzed.

The talk with Margaret Armstrong and their plan of action, however ragtag, injected a note of optimism into David’s day. Some Bach organ music and twenty minutes of hard, almost vicious lifting nurtured the mood. He was showered, dressed, and stretched out, thumbing through a journal, when a key clicked in the front door. He charged down the hall and was almost to the door when Lauren entered. She was carrying her raincoat and a floppy hat, but otherwise looked as if she had just come in from a garden party. Her light blue dress clung to her body, more out of will, it seemed, than
design. A thin gold necklace glowed on the autumn brown of her chest.

In those first few moments, standing there, looking at her, nothing else mattered. Then, as he focused on her face, she looked away. Suddenly David felt frightened even to touch her. “Welcome home,” he said uncertainly, reaching a tentative hand toward her. She took it and moved to him, but there was no warmth in her embrace. Her coolness and the scent of her perfume—the same fragrance she had worn the morning she left—filled him with a sense of emptiness and apprehension. “I had no idea when you’d be coming back,” he said, hoping that something in her response would dispel the feelings.

“I told you when I called the other day that I’d be tied up with the Cormier story,” she said, settling into an easy chair in the living room. David noted that she had avoided the couch. “What a shitty thing to have happen,” she went on. “Of all the people I ever interviewed in Washington, Dick Cormier was the only one I really trusted. Everyone did. His funeral was very moving. The President spoke, and the Chief Justice, and …”

David Could no longer stand the tension inside him and in her nervous chatter. “Lauren,” he said. “There’s more, isn’t there? I mean it’s not just the senator. Something else is eating at you. Please talk to me. I’m … I’m very uncomfortable with the feeling in this room right now. There’s a lot I have to tell you, but first we’ve got to clear the air a little.” Another man, he thought. Lauren’s met another man. There was nothing in her face to discourage that notion. She stared out the window, biting at her lower lip. For a moment David thought she was about to cry, but when she finally spoke, her voice held far more irritation than sadness.

“David,” she said, “a policeman was waiting for me when I arrived home. I spent more than two hours at
the police station answering questions from Lieutenant Dockerty—some of them very personal—about you, and about us.”

“Did Dockerty tell you what it was all about?” he asked, relieved that he’d been wrong about another man.

Lauren shook her head. “Only briefly. He was nice enough at first, but his questions got more and more pointed—more and more offensive. Finally I just stalked out and told him I wouldn’t talk to him again without a lawyer. He made it sound like you were really sick and I was protecting you in some way. David, I can’t have—”

“Damn that man!” David shouted. “When this is all over, he’s going to answer for this shit. I’ve had about all I can take.” His fists were white and tight against his thighs. “Lauren, this is a nightmare. The man’s on some land of vendetta. Ever since he came on the scene he’s gone after me like he had blinders on. I didn’t do anything. He’s taken a pile of circumstantial horseshit, and he’s been trying to mold it into some kind of case against me.” His control was disappearing. He sensed it, but was unable to back off. One after another, his words tumbled out, each louder and higher pitched than the last. “I could handle the crap he’s been laying down at the hospital. That I could handle. But hauling you in … The bastard’s gone too far.” He was pacing now, thumping his fist against his side.