The PMS Outlaws: An Elizabeth MacPherson Novel (24 page)
Read The PMS Outlaws: An Elizabeth MacPherson Novel Online
Authors: Sharyn McCrumb
“Are you sleeping well?” he asked, making a little note on his legal pad.
She barely glanced at him. “How could I not be? The pills
I’m given would stop an elephant in its tracks.”
Dr. Dunkenburger looked at her thoughtfully. “Do you feel ready to do without them? You will have to reach that point sooner or later, you know.”
Elizabeth hesitated, and then shook her head. She had almost forgotten the intensity of emotion that she had felt without them, but she was quite clear on the fact that she never wanted to feel it again. “Let’s keep things as they are for a while longer,” she said.
He scribbled another note. “I think we’ll try you on a different medication. See if that helps. And how are you feeling otherwise? Settled in all right?”
“Never a dull moment,” said Elizabeth. “Emma O. may be lengthening everyone else’s stay, though. Last night in the common room she reduced half of us to tears by asking if we had any friends who were substantially thinner, prettier, or richer than we considered ourselves to be. Of course everyone’s answer was no, and Emma grinned and said, ‘See? The cliques go on. Junior high school is forever.’ ”
Dr. Dunkenburger nodded. “I’ll ask Dr. Skokie to have a word with her. Everything all right otherwise?”
Elizabeth shrugged. “It’s interesting. Sometimes I feel like I’m attending an evening of experimental theatre.”
“These people’s problems are very real, I assure you,” he said gently. “And so are yours. Trouble won’t go away because you ignore it. It might manifest itself as depression, or a sleep disorder, or irritability, or a series of aches and pains, but either you deal with it on its own terms, or it will sabotage you from now on in a dozen little ways.”
“My problem isn’t me,” said Elizabeth. “If Cameron gets found, I’ll be well in a heartbeat.”
“That sort of thinking postpones healing, doesn’t it?”
“How do you heal if your problems are real? How does Mr. Randolph come to terms with being disfigured? That isn’t all in his mind.”
Dr. Dunkenburger gave her that uneasy look that meant she had strayed into unsound topics. “Well,” he said. “Staying angry won’t solve anything, will it?”
J
ust after lunch an orderly had delivered to Elizabeth the latest fax from Cousin Geoffrey. Elizabeth walked into the meeting room for group therapy ten minutes early in order to read it before the session began. Emma O. was there already, hunched over a legal pad, composing a new letter of apology on behalf of society. Elizabeth could not resist peeking at the salutation, which read, “Dear Ms. Reno …”
Emma looked up at her and grinned. “I think I can get Warburton to sign this one.”
Elizabeth nodded. “I expect you can.” She took a seat near the window, pulled out the fax from Geoffrey, and began to read.
MacPherson & Hill
Attorneys-at-Law
TO: Elizabeth MacPherson, Patient
Cherry Hill Treatment Center
FROM: Geoffrey Chandler, President & Founder,
Geoffrey Chandler Design Inc.
(What do you think? Has a ring to it, n’est-ce pas?)
Danville, Virginia
NOTE: Attachments
Dear Cousin Elizabeth:
I trust that you are well. Hmm. I suppose the conventional pleasantries do not work when one is
addressing the—what is the word? Not “incarcerated,” which means to be in prison. And you are not precisely “hospitalized.” … “Facilitated”? Perhaps not. Well, anyhow, I hope progress is being made, or that little chemical miracles are taking place in your cranial cells so that you can come up here and do your own dirty work.
Not that I lack entertainment here. I always contrive to enjoy myself hugely. Nothing annoys other people quite so much, you know. Anyhow, the chance to annoy Cousin Bill is in itself a vacation. I have taken over a sunny south-facing bedroom upstairs, just across the hall from him, and we are currently conducting a war of attrition to see who can occupy the bathroom for the longest time morning and evening, while the other one paces the hall, muttering imprecations under his breath. Also, I occasionally drag in fabric swatches designed to spike his blood pressure. You should have seen him when I suggested purple tubular neon artwork for the walls.
But I do need to work seriously on this renovation plan.
I’m on Bill’s computer again, and I plan to do a little hardware shopping on-line as soon as I finish this progress report to you. It is nearly eleven here. Mr. Jack is on the sunporch sleeping the sleep of the just (well, perhaps not the just, but anyhow, he’s snoring quite soundly). Bill is upstairs running virtual road races on his Nintendo. Today he moved some more belongings from his apartment to his
room upstairs. I told him that he could put things in the closets without disrupting my renovation plans. He insisted on hauling in his television and his electronic game system as well. In fact, I believe his clothes were an afterthought. Nevertheless, he is busy and happy, and I have taken advantage of his absence to use his computer, about which he is inordinately possessive.
Normally, I would at this point share with you the details of my efforts at transforming the house, but I can sense your growing impatience boring right through the page like the glare of an oncoming train. I am happy to report that I have been successful in my quest. I found out just the sort of thing you wanted to know.
Libraries really are the most wonderful repositories of knowledge. Particularly the archive room containing newspapers and census records, which is the place they have set aside for people who want to do local historical research. All one has to do to find out about some point in local scandalmongering is to hang about in the local archives room looking personable and helpless. Sooner or later, some chatty biddy will come along, strike up a pleasant conversation, and Bob’s your uncle! Or your second cousin once-removed on your mother’s side, anyhow. Ask the right leading questions, and the biddy will proceed to tell you everything you wanted to know, thus saving you from having to do any work at all. Wonderful, I call it.
After a twenty-minute conversation with a Mrs. Verger, whose family apparently has been in Danville since neolithic times—No, that can’t be right. They had to take time off after the Crusades to be kings of France and whatnot—but anyhow, Mrs. V. reckons herself a member of one of the area’s first families, and I wisely did not bring up the subject of certain indigenous tribes of Native Americans or the buffalo that preceded them.… With her talk of “first families,” I believe she was speaking euphemistically. What she meant was: we the people who do not have to buy our silver. We understood each other perfectly. And as Mrs. Verger could talk the hind leg off a donkey, I learned a great deal in a comparatively short time, without having to fiddle any more with those tiresome microfilm machines, or whatever they’re called. I had been at it for most of the afternoon until my brain was beginning to glaze over, so I was no end grateful to the old dear when she began to natter away about Jack Dolan.
You probably want to know what she told me, and the answer is: nothing that would be news to any of the old-timers around here. The trouble with you and Bill is that you grew up too far out in the suburbs to know Danville, and you were born too late to catch the gossip of the Truman era. Fortunately, Mrs. V. is qualified on both counts to dish the local dirt, and she did so at length.
Jack Dolan is much more interesting than one would think to see him today: a stooped old man with
skin like the cover of a Bible, tottering around looking sweet and fragile. According to Mrs. Verger, fifty years ago, Jack Dolan was the Butch Cassidy of Danville, Virginia.
An outlaw, I mean. He did not precisely rob trains or banks, but he did manage to stay afoul of the law on a regular basis. (Note: I was able to document much of this gossip via the old newspapers on microfilm once I knew what—and when—I was looking
for
. I photocopied a few choice articles and will fax them to you along with this letter.)
I even think I know why your inmate—er, patient—might have believed Jack Dolan was dead. At least if he got his injuries when I think he did. May 1953, right? The story stayed on the front page for most of the week. The “feds,” as we in the detective business call them, had been keeping Jack Dolan under surveillance for a couple of months, apparently, and that particular night in May was the time for the big bust. Dolan was moving a shipment out that night, and there was to be an ambush outside Danville to catch him red-handed with the goods. Unfortunately, the plan turned out to be a disaster. Instead of stopping at the roadblock, the car plowed through one of the government agent’s cars, and they ended up with a fiery two-car wreck, an officer burned into an unrecognizable crisp, and the driver and passenger of Dolan’s car incinerated. So for the first couple of weeks of the story, the newspapers were all proclaiming Jack Dolan dead. I guess that’s the last news your
guy had on the matter. If he was in a burn unit, I’m sure he had a lot of other things to think about, and after he recovered, it never occurred to him to ask for an update. Or did you tell me that he quit his job after that? I guess he would have, because of his injuries.
Anyhow, then one night a couple of months later, Jack Dolan got arrested for speeding on a country road outside Danville. The trooper was a local man who knew Dolan on sight. So now they’re wondering who died in the fire. The driver on the night of the wreck was a fellow called Larry Garrison, but as far as I can tell, the second passenger was never identified. Probably doesn’t matter after forty-something years. Dolan spent a couple of years in prison for a smorgasbord of charges. When he was stopped for speeding, the trooper found “controlled substances” in his vehicle. In the Fifties, I’m guessing alcohol, not drugs. As far as I can tell, though, Jack Dolan is not a wanted fugitive these days. He’s just an ancient old man haunting a house, even though he hasn’t quite died.
Your fellow patient appears to be simply the victim of incomplete information—not an unusual occurrence when one’s source is local newspapers. Sometimes you could go over their articles with a divining rod and not find any facts. But I digress.…
Shall I broach the subject of Mr. Dolan’s checkered past? Do you want to know more? What if he tries to beat me up with his walker? Aside from that,
would it be in good taste to inquire about his criminal history? I cannot find anything in Miss Manners on Etiquette Regarding Felons. Please advise, but be quick about it. I have done all I can in the way of decorating advice at this stage of Bill’s patience and budget, so I am coming back to Georgia tomorrow. As it is on my way home, I will stop by and see you for an hour or so: a ray of sunshine in your somber existence. But I warn you: I will not be undertaking any more errands in the way of grief therapy. This is merely a social call.
Until tomorrow then …
Your man in Danville,
G.C.
It was nearly nine o’clock before Jack Dolan managed to make it to the local Hardee’s for his regular breakfast of black coffee and an egg-and-sausage biscuit. That Edith girl meant well with her bran flakes and grapefruit, talking nineteen to the dozen about vitamins and fiber (whatever that was), but he was too old to reform his habits now. He had made it past ninety on sausage biscuits and black coffee, and he reckoned if his diet was going to kill him, it would have done so by now. He’d had to eat some of Edith’s health muck to get a minute’s peace out of her, and then the lawyer and his arty cousin had come down and insisted on joining him at the table. They hadn’t liked Edith’s idea of a healthy breakfast any more than he had, and he’d almost offered to bring them back sausage biscuits from his breakfast run, but it occurred to him that if he mentioned his plan to go to Hardee’s, one of them might insist
on accompanying him. Company would cramp his style, so the minute they wandered out of the kitchen in search of the newspaper, he’d snatched up his hat and jacket, hobbled out the back door, and lit out through the shortcut in the tall shrubbery that lined the property. His morning trip to the fast-food palace wasn’t just for mealtimes. He had business to conduct.
He settled into an orange-upholstered booth, out of the line of sight of the workers behind the counter, and sipped his coffee. He was a regular, and with the privilege of his great age, he could sit there all morning if he wanted to and nobody would bother him. The most they would do was come out and take a look at him every now and then, just to make sure he was still breathing. Mr. Jack began to unwrap his sausage biscuit, with an approving smile at the film of grease oozing from within. That ought to counteract the health muck he’d been forced to eat back at the house.
After a few pleasant moments of solitude and sausage grease, another elderly man approached the booth. “Mornin’, Jack,” he said in a hoarse voice that was trying to be a whisper. He slid into the booth opposite Jack Dolan, glancing around to see if anyone was watching. “I hear that you’re back in business.”
Mr. Jack took another swig of black coffee. He’d known the man for years, and the damn fool never did have any manners to speak of. Not so much as a how are you? Or nice weather we’re having … Straight to business … Mr. Jack didn’t bother to wonder how the fellow had known he was back in business. Small towns are always full of rumors. It stood to reason that occasionally one of them would be true.
“Just to keep my hand in,” he said, doing his best to sound
indifferent. “Not really what you’d call business. Not at my age.”
“Well, there’s people that might want to lend a hand, Jack. Know-how like yours doesn’t come along every day.”
“Or even every decade,” grunted Jack Dolan. “I am the last.”
“You are that. But I’d need a sample to take to these fellows. To show them that you haven’t lost your touch.”
Mr. Jack turned his head like an old turtle and surveyed the restaurant with narrowed, unblinking eyes. Satisfied that they were unobserved, he reached into the pocket of his coat and drew out a pint-size glass bottle. It was filled with an amber-colored liquid. “That ought to show them,” he grunted.