by E. G. Scott
“No, no. It’s understandable.” I pause to consider. “It just raises more questions than it answers.”
She cocks her head slightly and furrows her brow as she looks at me. “And you’re saying that I was this woman’s emergency contact?”
“That’s correct,” I say. “Your name and number were written down on the card we located in the pocket of the deceased.”
I don’t register any of the usual hallmarks of deception as I study her face. She takes another deep breath and shakes her head. “Well, Detective, I have to say, I’m as baffled as you are.” She looks to Fisk for a moment, then back to me. “Who was she, anyway?”
“Well,” I say, “that’s exactly what we’re trying to figure out.”
FIVE
CHARLOTTE
I’m grateful when Detective Silvestri walks me to my car. In spite of my reassurances that I’m stable enough to make it unescorted, the shakiness from the last couple of hours is still intense, and I feel like a foal on new legs when I step out into the evening. I immediately begin shivering like one without my coat, which I’m now wishing I hadn’t left in my office in my earlier panic. I wrap my arms around myself while we near my Prius.
“Are you sure you’re feeling well enough to drive? I’d be happy to give you a lift home and arrange for someone to bring you back to your car in the morning. It’s been a jarring day for you.” He seems overly formal for someone who’s just spent what felt like hours in a small room with me. He holds eye contact a beat longer than expected, as though he’s searching for something subconscious in my movements.
“I’m much better now that I’ve eaten, thanks to you.” I smile and it occurs to me that I very possibly have bright orange remnants between my teeth from the peanut butter and cheese cracker sandwiches he scared up after my fainting spell. The snack paired well with a cran-apple juice box. I wish I had a compact mirror handy to check my teeth. I can’t believe that I’m thinking about how I look at a time like this.
“Ah yes, the fine dining of the Suffolk County medical examiner’s office employees. They have the palates of kindergarteners. Apologies for not having something more sophisticated on hand.” His smile is nice when it emerges. In the course of the afternoon there were mostly pensive looks. Something about leaving the sterile surroundings of our previous venue has loosened him up.
“Actually, peanut butter crackers and juice boxes is one of my favorite snacks.” We both laugh. This is true. “I shouldn’t admit that out loud, since I tell my clients to avoid sugary and processed foods, but the comfort of flavor nostalgia sometimes wins out over common sense. And that used to be my winning combination of sustenance when I was in school.” He smiles and nods. I realize I’m standing somewhat awkwardly in front of my car and angle myself closer to the driver’s-side door.
“Do you have someone at home to keep an eye on you this evening?” he asks protectively.
I was careful not to mention anything about Peter when Silvestri’s earlier questioning veered to who I thought I was brought in to identify. It would be too complicated, and I’m not prepared to answer any questions, nor would Peter want me uttering a word about him to local law enforcement. Not that he’s reachable to call to come and get me.
“My friend Rachel is coming by to keep me company,” I say hopefully. I haven’t been able to get through to her yet. “We’re partners in our practice.”
“Nice. Someone to do needles on you?”
“Actually, she’s a reflexologist and massage therapist, among other things.” I don’t know why I say the last part. What “other things” am I even suggesting? I haven’t been doing a good job today of being clear in my communication. That happens when I’m hiding things, and I hate that my situation is such that I have to be that person again. Especially to a detective.
“Reflexology, eh? I was never one for people touching my feet.” He chuckles. “Glad to hear you have someone.” Someone. A sour thought about my absent group of so-called friends pops into my head as I extract the car keys from my purse and unlock the door. Silvestri leans across me and grabs the handle before I do, opening the driver’s side and guiding me in.
He’s gentle for a cop. He doesn’t have the usual aggressive energy wafting off of him that other men in his line of work do. He has the quiet calm of someone who’s been around the block enough times to know that there is far more power in stillness and patience.
“I will go through all of my client records tomorrow and see if anyone’s name jogs my memory, but I feel positive that I’ve never seen that poor woman before today.” Am I positive? She did look familiar, but for all I know, she reminds me of another movie character from my youth. I worry the admission of familiarity might get his hopes up, and I don’t want to disappoint. “I really want to help, though. Will you let me know what you find out?” I pull the seat belt across my chest.
“Absolutely. In fact, I’m sorry to say it, but you and I will probably be seeing a lot more of each other in the next few days. My partner and I need to determine what exactly befell Jane Doe, and why she had your contact info in her pocket.”
“Yes, of course.” I worry about potential regular interaction with law enforcement. Peter has a way of keeping tabs when he’s not around. Any contact with the police taken out of context could be bad. And it may cause him to stay away longer.
Silvestri shuts the door and I watch him back away a few steps and realize that he’s going to wait until I pull out and drive away before moving any farther. I wave at him and check my mirrors twice before making my way to the exit. In the rearview, he is watching and waiting, and for a moment I feel safe.
* * *
I drive home, where no one will be. I replied to Rachel’s text from earlier confirming that she’d made it back to the office to free Lucy, but she hasn’t replied to my text giving her the broad strokes of today’s roller coaster and an invitation to her to come over this evening for moral support, something she is always eager to do. Her phone goes straight to voicemail when I try her now. I don’t want to be alone, but I may not have a choice in the matter. Maybe I need to process everything that happened today by myself.
I feel a little drunk with all the conflicting emotions roiling in me. The relief of seeing Jane Doe’s face, and not his, has wrung me out. I shudder at the thought of seeing Peter’s face. I have escaped tragedy for one more day, so there is an enormous weight lifted. But he’s still gone. And then, her.
Who is this stranger who made me her emergency contact? The confusion of never having seen the dead woman before today, mixed with the unsettling feeling of her being familiar, is unshakable. I hit the gas impatiently and pass a car in front of me. The driver makes an exasperated face and flicks his middle finger when I glide by, and I smile sweetly while telling him to fuck off in my head. The exchange brings me back into the moment. I look down at the speedometer and realize I’m racing toward sixty miles an hour. In a school zone, no less.
I pull over to the side of the dark road and place the car in park. I close my eyes and breathe deeply as I try to place her. When I open my eyes, I see her in the glass looking back at me for a split second and flinch. I pull out my phone and text the number I’ve been trying him on for weeks now.
I need to talk to you. Something bad has happened.
In the darkness of the trees outside my car I see the nearly autumn branches moving in the wind, and my loneliness is magnified. I stare at the screen, knowing in my heart there will be no response. I feel a breath on my neck and whip my head around to inspect the back seat. Empty. Spooked, I start the car and take in the warm air pushing out of the vents. I drive slowly and carefully home, feeling haunted and shaken by dread.
I pull into my driveway and look at my dark house.
I think about the first night I slept in it by myself, after moving out of my mother’s house for the second time. I’d taken refuge there for an incredibly difficult year
of recovering from my hospitalization, the end of my career and relationship, and the slow but sure new beginnings of my life now.
Rachel and I were sitting on the front stoop in the summer evening humidity, exhausted from moving my few belongings into the sweet little rental I’d found, soaking in the smell of the burning sage we’d just passed through the house.
“Can you stay over?” I’d asked her. This would be the first time I’d ever lived completely alone. I’d gone from my mother’s straight into years of college and med school roommates to living with Henry.
“You are going to have to sleep here alone eventually. Why not have it be on your first night? It’s very symbolic. Besides, I have to get home and feed the fur babies, or they’ll claw my eyes out tomorrow.” She’d hugged me tightly and left me to start my second attempt at an adult life.
I don’t think I’d have made it out of my mom’s or found my own place without Rachel’s encouragement. She was the first friend I’d ever had who treated me like I was strong when I was feeling my weakest. “I can feel the fight in you.” She’d said that the first time she worked on me. She saw strength and courage in me that I didn’t know I had or how to tap into at that point. I’m having trouble accessing that courage right now.
I lift my phone in the hope that Rachel has responded, but I have no new messages. I text her again, letting her know I’ve just gotten home. It’s our pact. For whenever we are apart or leave each other, we always have to let the other know we are okay. As I type, it dawns on me that Rachel is my “in case of emergency” person. My chest swells with love and gratitude that I have someone who cares about my whereabouts and safety. I finish typing and send.
Home safe.
SIX
WOLCOTT
“Mornin’, sunshine.” I catch Silvestri in the hallway and hand him his tea as we walk toward our desks.
“Thanks, partner.” He tests the heat with a tentative sip. We round the corner, where he’s greeted with a hero’s welcome. His desk is papered in a couple dozen of those “Hang in There!” cat posters, there are several bags of feline treats tacked to a corkboard, and our colleagues are clapping and hooting. Even Captain Evans has gotten in on the fun.
Silvestri assesses the scene and suppresses a smile. “No wonder our budget’s gone to shit around here. Get back to work, you derelicts.”
A couple of the detectives make meowing sounds as they return to their desks. My partner and I remove our coats and settle in. “So,” I say. “Heard you got to don your grief counselor hat. Can’t tell you how much I would have paid to see that.”
He looks suddenly perplexed. “Yeah, quite a curious fucking case with that one.”
“How so?” I ask.
“Well, this woman, Charlotte, comes down to identify the body.”
I notice he refers to her by first name only. “Usually how it works.”
“Right, except she gets here, looks at the photo, and claims to have no idea who she’s looking at.”
I feel myself perk up. “Okay, that’s unusual.”
Silvestri takes a moment before he speaks again. “It’s . . .” He shakes his head. “Odd.”
“Do you think she’s on the level?”
“That’s just it,” he says. “She seemed genuine. That’s a hard thing to fake in the moment. I thought I caught a flash of hesitation, but she could have just been processing. There was a palpable sense of relief. It seemed as if she was expecting to see someone else on the slab.”
“And we’re sure she’s not just an exceptional liar?”
“She’s some sort of holistic practitioner. Really open, positive energy, warm. Does not strike me as the devious sort. Unless I’m completely misreading the situation.”
“You tend to have a good gut with these things,” I say.
“I’d like to think so.”
“So, we’ve got a young woman found dead in a park, and we’re no closer to answers than we were before.”
“Thankfully, you cracked the case of the hot-tub bandits. Otherwise, the day would have been a total wash,” he says.
I ponder the situation. “I’m just curious why in the hell someone would be an emergency contact if—”
I’m interrupted by the rattle of my partner’s cell phone against his desk. “Detective Silvestri,” he answers. “Oh, hey, Fisk . . . Yeah, we’ll be right over . . . Thanks a bunch.” Silvestri nods, and we get up and grab our coats.
* * *
“How’s our favorite croaker doing today?”
Our medical examiner looks at me with an arched eyebrow. “Hey, three-piece. Missed you yesterday.” It would be an understatement to describe Fisk as an odd sort. Then again, I’d be certifiable if I had to clock in to this place every day. And I do appreciate her arid brand of humor.
“Yeah, heard you had Nurse Ratched here to assist with the grief therapy,” I say, nodding in Silvestri’s direction.
“He was a real prince,” she answers. I can’t tell if she’s being sincere.
“Enough with the sentiment,” Silvestri quips. “What’s doing, Fisk?”
“I got a weird one for you two,” she answers.
“Thank fuck,” says Silvestri. “I was getting restless.”
“So,” she continues. “The tox screen on your Jane Doe came back. She seems to have been poisoned.”
“That right?” I ask.
Fisk continues. “You two ever heard of Atropa belladonna?”
“Sounds sexy,” answers Silvestri.
“If you’re into that sort of thing,” she says. “Atropa belladonna, more commonly known as deadly nightshade, is a highly toxic plant, albeit one used for a variety of medicinal purposes.”
“You’d think with the word ‘deadly’ right there in the name . . . ,” begins Silvestri.
“That’s where it gets interesting,” says Fisk. “There are a handful of toxic plants that are used for medicinal purposes. Belladonna is very effective for treating anything from asthma to sciatica to Parkinson’s.”
“We found an inhaler on the body,” I say. “You think they were using the stuff to treat her asthma?”
“Quite possibly. I can go ahead and test the inhaler. The key with these remedies is potency. If you dilute it enough, it’s rendered safe. But it can be a tricky practice. There was a pharmaceutical company a couple years ago that recalled a line of children’s earache medicine that contained belladonna.”
“But you said it’s safe . . . ,” I begin.
“At the proper level of dilution. The dose makes the poison, as they say. Belladonna shows up mostly in homeopathic remedies. A lot of those pass under the FDA’s radar, so these gray areas pop up.”
My partner’s eyes meet mine. “Homeopathic?” he asks.
“Yeah, it’s not as regulated a market,” she explains.
“So, you can just get your hands on this stuff without it being evaluated?” I ask.
“I mean, any responsible company will adhere to accepted standards of potency. But you could always get some yahoo who whips up his own batch without knowing any better.”
“And are these plants widely available?” asks Silvestri.
“Sure,” says Fisk. “Anyone can buy a bag of seeds and plant them in the garden. Little tricky to grow in this climate, but it can be done.”
“So,” I ask. “What’s your guess with our Jane Doe?”
“Hard to say. This is so rare that it took me a few different rounds to figure out what was going on here. Obviously the asthma component could explain it, where she OD’d on something that was prescribed to her. Or could be that someone dosed her. In any case, she was swimming in the stuff.”
* * *
We’re standing in the hallway outside Fisk’s office. Silvestri is looking off into the distance, perturbed. “Well,” is all he can manage.
“I�
��m suddenly curious about your holistic healer,” I say.
“You and me both,” he answers, shaking his head.
SEVEN
CHARLOTTE
By the time my alarm goes off at eight A.M., I’ve been staring at the ceiling for an hour. I’ve repeatedly tried meditating, but seeing Jane Doe’s face every time I shut my eyes has put a major damper on my hopeful calm.
I can’t stop obsessing over the possibilities of who she could be, and who I was to her. After a restless night of trying to conjure a forgotten patient, classmate, or even passing acquaintance, my nerves are shot and my head is a kaleidoscope of people I haven’t thought of for years. So far, I’ve come up with nothing. The only consolation is that her identity search has replaced my constant thoughts about Peter’s whereabouts and my unsuccessful attempts to reach Rachel or Henry, so at least there is some variety from the last handful of sleepless nights and restless mornings spent ruminating.
I’ve never had a good short-term memory recall, especially for faces and names. It was a quality that Henry used to chide me about. “You really need to get better at that if you are going to be a surgeon.”
I don’t like thinking about Henry, but the message has made it unavoidable. After my hospitalization, I promised myself that I’d never contact him again. Our relationship feels like it happened to someone else.
Things looked so different then; all my long-held dreams were coming true, or at least I thought they were my dreams at the time. I felt unstoppable. I was pioneering major things in my field, being given the runway to create and explore in directions few people in my position had been allowed to, all with the support of one of my heroes.
Dr. Henry Thornton was a rock star. I’d been following his career like a medical groupie since my undergrad days, when I saw him speak about the work he’d done with PTSD in the survivors and families of terrorist attacks. He was the resident surgeon of the best psychosurgical medical program in the country, which I’d been gunning to work in from the first day I saw him present to a room filled with hopeful premed students.
