A Case of You

by Pamela Burford

  “There are things we talked about that didn’t make it into the chart,” he said.

  “Such as...?”

  “Unexplained bouts of weeping. Recurrent nightmares.”

  “What did she have nightmares about?”

  The same thing I do. “She didn’t say.”

  “Any idea what had her so worked up?” she asked.

  “I thought you might know.”

  An ingenuous half smile. “You did?”

  Well, he’d lobbed that one out there, but she clearly had no intention of catching the thing and running with it. She let her gaze drift to her surroundings. If Pratte was an unspoiled corner of Americana, his office was one of its dust bunnies, freeze-dried in the sixties. Dark paneling, ponderous furniture, the requisite Norman Rockwell print.

  While she perused the room, he perused her. Absently she adjusted the V neckline of her dress, his eyes following the movements of her graceful fingers. The dress was modest enough, but the supple fabric draped her high, softly rounded breasts in a way that made it hard to tear his gaze away. He didn’t think she was aware of the effect.

  Her eyes found him once more, alight with frank assessment. He liked the fact that Kit took no pains to hide her curiosity. He liked Kit, in fact, and was grateful for the mental discipline that enabled him to acknowledge his attraction with strict detachment, his hard-won emotional shields firmly in place.

  “Your sign outside said family practice. You the only show in town?” she asked.

  “I’m it. I do everything around here from setting bones to delivering babies.”

  “How long have you been in Pratte?”

  “Two and a half years. The last MD left four years before that. In the interim the nearest doctor was a half hour away on dry roads. And he’s a famous drunk—reeks of cheap wine, so Alice informs me. If you were sick, it was either him or the emergency room at Wescott Community Hospital, even farther away.”

  “Not much of a choice when Junior’s running a temperature of a hundred and four. The town must’ve been tickled pink when you came along.”

  “It works out well for all of us.”

  She squinted at a point on the wall above his head. “You got your medical degree from Emory, I see. Is that where you’re from? Georgia?”

  He nodded. “Roswell.”

  “Well, I’m not going to ask how you found yourself with a family practice in the Black Hole of Vermont,” she said, rising. “I’m sure it’s a hellishly long and tedious story, and unless my ears deceive me, your waiting room is full.”

  Noah restrained a smile. Suddenly it was easy to imagine this woman growing up with Joanne Merino, and holding her own. How had Jo put it? They’d raised each other. Absently she brushed another curly tendril of hair off her forehead, and it flopped back. Noah’s fingers itched to lift the strand and tuck it back under her silly hat. He could almost feel the silk of it sliding between his fingers.

  She lifted her cumbersome bag, slinging the strap over her head, bandolier style. He rose to see her out.

  Her steps slowed as she approached the doorway. She eyed him hesitantly. “Just one more thing. Joanne was involved with someone here in Pratte. That’s all I know. I don’t know his name. I was hoping you might.”

  “You think I keep track of who my patients are dating?”

  She stiffened and faced him fully. “Why wouldn’t she tell you? She told you about her kid brother stamping license plates in Joliet. She told you about my worthless mother, for God’s sake!” She squeezed her eyes shut and dragged in a ragged breath. “Look. I’d just like to find out everything I can about her life here.”

  “Kit. Listen to me.” Noah put his hands on her shoulders—a mistake. She twisted abruptly, shaking him off, her eyes flashing dangerously. He knew he was coming off as a condescending jerk. On a frustrated sigh he stuffed the offending hands in his back jeans pockets and said, “You came to Pratte to collect Jo’s things. Do that. Do it and go home.”

  “No.” Her voice was flat, brittle. She looked away for long moments. “I can’t, Noah,” she whispered at last. “I can’t. I need to... I don’t know. Tie up the loose aids. For Jo. For my own peace of mind.” She faced him again, her expression so candid, so raw and wounded, Noah had to turn away to steady his shields against her.

  He scrubbed at his jaw. Cleared his throat. “I know what you think of Tom Jordon, and I’m not about to defend his methods, or his personality. But he has been in the business a long time—”

  “Maybe too long.”

  “Leave all this to him, Kit. I know you’re hurting now—”

  “Don’t! Don’t give me that ‘I know what you’re going through’ crap. You sound like Jordon.” Pure bulldog tenacity underlined the grief in her features, lending starch to her delicate jawline. He didn’t want to admire her, but dammit, how could he not?

  She pulled in a deep breath, composing herself. “You don’t know me, Noah. You may have known Jo, she may have told you all about her old pal Kit, but you don’t know me. Not if you think I can walk away from this.” The last word was punctuated with a sharp yank on her shoulder bag.

  With jerky motions she unlatched the bag and extracted a sealed brown cardboard carton, about the size of a shoe box but stumpier. She placed it in his hands. It was heavier than it looked.

  “That’s all that’s left.” Her voice cracked. “I stopped by the funeral home after I saw Chief Jordon.”

  Noah understood then. He knew that if he opened this box, he’d find a metal canister containing Jo’s ashes. Just the way they packaged it at the crematory. Neat and tidy.

  A sharp knock on the door startled them both. “Noah? The natives are getting restless,” came a gravelly voice from the other side.

  “I’ll be right there, Alice,” he called. When he turned back to Kit, he read the plea in her eyes.

  “Help me, Noah. I need an ally here in Pratte. Someone who knows these people.” Her voice became a whisper, her eyes searching his. “You cared about Jo. I can tell.”

  “I don’t know what I can do for you, Kit. What anyone can do at this point except the police.”

  “The police!” The starch was back. “If Jordon had anything on the ball, don’t you think he would’ve contacted me at the beginning of the investigation instead of my having to call him? Wouldn’t he have asked if I knew anything, if Jo might’ve told me anything that could give them a lead?”

  “Did she?”

  She hesitated only an instant. “Yes.”

  He waited for details he already knew. She stared back impassively. So much for putting her trust in the kindly country doctor. He knew if this bright, resourceful woman chose to stay in Pratte and pursue the circumstances of her friend’s death, she’d leave Tom Jordon’s lumbering investigation in the dust.

  And then, God help him, he might have to stop her. “This information, whatever it is, did you share it with Chief Jordon?” he asked.

  “What do you think? I cast my pearls before that swine, and look where it got me.”

  “Well.” He aimed for a tone of finality. “That’s all you can do for now, Kit. Go home. I’ll personally keep track of Tom’s progress and let you know when there’s anything to know. That’s a promise.”

  “Thanks, but that’s just not good enough.” She took the box from him.

  “Does this mean you’ll be staying?”

  “I guess it does.” Gently, almost lovingly, she tucked the box into her shoulder bag. “There’s no one back home who needs me as much as Jo does.”

  Noah had no choice. If he couldn’t dissuade Kit from staying and nosing around Pratte, he had to closely monitor her activities. And the danger she represented.

  “All right,” he said, forcing a smile. “Don’t make a move without me. I’ll do everything I can to help.”

  Kit’s shoulders sagged in relief. Her face lit in a broad smile that transformed her features and made his breath snag in his throat. God, she was beautiful. It was the
first time he’d seen her smile. Really smile.

  He wanted to tell her he didn’t deserve that smile, didn’t deserve the naked gratitude in those beautiful brown eyes. A cold, hard weight settled in his chest as he asked himself, What have I become? What has Ray made me?

  Impulsively she grabbed his hand in both of hers and squeezed it, her eyes misty as she beamed up at him. “Thank you, Noah,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

  Chapter Two

  THE TIGER STARED at Kit with its one remaining eye, its body limp from decades of literally having had the stuffing squeezed out of it.

  Tenderly she stroked the dingy, matted fur, recalling a time when Tiggy had been plump, two eyed, and master of all he surveyed from the head of his mistress’s bed. Joanne was ten when she won him at her neighborhood block party, having clobbered the competition in a sack race. The prospect of losing had never crossed her mind.

  Kit was eight, and covetous. She’d gone home with a tiny baby doll that night, the cheap kind molded of brittle plastic that splits along the seams. Its hair was painted on. Jo’s Tiggy was covered in fluffy acrylic plush. The tag said it was made from “all new material.” Kit wasn’t sure what the alternative was, but she was impressed nonetheless.

  She knew it was just as well she hadn’t won Tiggy. It had been hard enough finding a hiding place for the little doll. Irene Roarke saw no reason to allow her daughter that which Kit had stolen from her by her very existence: a childhood.

  A cardboard carton lay open on Jo’s bed, where Kit sat with Tiggy on her lap. She laid him in it, on top of a well-worn dictionary and the other accoutrements of Jo’s trade. She’d already bagged her friend’s clothes. Jo’s landlady, Etta, had told her a school for troubled children in the next town was planning a rummage sale to raise funds and could use the donated clothes. Kit thought that plan would have met with Jo’s approval. If anyone knew what it was like to be troubled children, it was Kathleen Roarke and Joanne Merino.

  She crossed to the window and put her back into the task of forcing the paint-choked frame another inch higher. An early-summer breeze carried the aroma of green living things. Nice view—the generous back lawn of the rambling white clapboard boardinghouse and the woods beyond.

  She smiled. Jo wouldn’t have appreciated the view. Not that it would have bothered her. It would simply have gone unnoticed, along with everything else that didn’t directly pertain to the book she was working on—her current raison d’être, requiring a tour of duty in Pratte, Vermont. In any event, green stuff never rated high on Joanne Merino’s list of priorities. Not even the folding kind.

  The room itself was another matter. Try as she might, she couldn’t picture the Jo she knew willingly spending one hour, much less eleven months, between these walls. No, she couldn’t imagine her sitting at the wobbly white dressing table to write her book and her articles for the weekly Pratte Citizen on her laptop computer. Or sleeping under the prosaic floral bedspread that matched the faded curtains swagged over white sheers. Not exactly Jo’s speed.

  Her gaze wandered to the shelves filled with an appalling array of knickknacks—tchotchkes, Etta called them. Figurines of Boston terriers, ballerinas, and children with large, sad eyes; souvenirs of Etta’s trips to Greece and Cincinnati; mementos of her daughter’s Girl Scout days.

  Jo must’ve had some burning need to write that book.

  She looked at the dressing table, now bare but recently occupied by Jo’s laptop, a stack of printouts, and a caddy of three-and-a-half-inch computer disks, according to Etta. She wondered who had all that now, or whether it still existed.

  Thinking about that brought her back to the day Jo died—the longest day of Kit’s life. She’d spent most of that Saturday in staff meetings. Jo’s father had called her at the school with the news just after three, when she was about to leave for the day. By the time Sal Senior’s sister had finally arrived from Florida and Kit had felt free to leave him, it had been after midnight. She’d climbed into her six-year-old Celica and had tried to remember driving from the Harrington Academy in Lincoln Park to Sal’s little frame house south of the Loop near the old stockyards, but had drawn a blank.

  She’d let herself in to her one-bedroom apartment, hauled the Stoli out of the freezer, dropped her keys and briefcase to the kitchen floor, and slid into a corner, where she woke six hours later with a throbbing head and a stiff neck.

  After most of a pot of coffee, she was able to orchestrate a hot shower. Only then did she reenter the kitchen and push Play on her answering machine.

  Kit, someone broke into my room. They ransacked it. They took my laptop. My disks. My hard copy and all my notes. My God, Kit, they’re after my book! Listen, call me right away, okay?

  Kit’s heart was thundering so violently she missed the beginning of the next message and had to rewind the tape. Jo’s tone was less frantic now, more guarded. Kit remembered there was no phone in her room. She’d had to make her calls from the kitchen of her boardinghouse.

  Me again. I’ve thought about it. I think... I think it’s this guy I’m seeing. That took my book. I know, I know, I never told you about him. A gust of nervous laughter. So call me a dirty name, but I knew you wouldn’t approve. He’s not suitable. Well, maybe you wouldn’t say it that way, but you’d think it. I know you would.

  Anyway, I never thought I’d say this, but I think I’m in way over my head on this one. This guy, he found out about the book. And... well, that’s not good. And he knew I’d be at the gym this morning, and that’s when it happened.

  God, where are you, Kit? You told me you check your machine. Call me!

  She fast-forwarded past the next message, from her cousin Marc, and heard Jo’s voice for the last time.

  Listen, I’m leaving the house now. The town treasurer has this garden party thing she does every year. The entire staff of the Citizen is invited. Counting the freelancers, that’s, like, a whopping eight of us.

  Jo sounded breezy. Relaxed. Hell, she was going to a party, right? How better to forget your troubles? Kit lowered herself into a chair and cradled her head in her hands.

  The sound of an indistinct male voice in the background of the tape yanked her head back up.

  What? Oh. Jo laughed lightly. Kit could almost see her tucking the receiver under her chin to address her companion. You think you need a drink. If Grace doesn’t bring out the hard stuff, we’ll pick up a bottle of Glenfiddich after. More male noise and the sound of Jo rummaging in her purse. Be that way. I’ll just sneak some of yours when you’re not looking. Damn. I left my shades in the living room. Would you? I think they’re next to the TV. Thanks, hon.

  Softer now, right into the mouthpiece. Sorry, Kit. Listen, I gotta run. It’s just, I know how paranoid I sounded before, and I didn’t want you to worry. Everything’s fine. And listen. A whisper. I was so wired before, I forgot to tell you the book’s safe, ‘cause I saved it on a disk. Not with the others—

  Loud. That was fast. Okay, I’m ready. Let’s rock and roll!

  *

  HE RECORKED THE bottle of Glenfiddich and picked up the half-full jelly glass before pushing Record.

  “Paul, it’s two-thirty a.m. on the twenty-sixth... uh, the twenty-seventh, I guess. I know I told you I’d had it with these tapes—the midnight ramblings of Noah Stewart—but the hell with it, I’m not going to get back to sleep tonight, and I can’t face Attack of the Fifty-Foot Woman on the late late show, so you win. This time.

  “This dream was a keeper. Not as hazy as the others, a little crisper around the edges, if you know what I mean.

  “He got closer, Paul. Closer than ever before. I was—he was—Christ, we were in bed. With Ruby. Asleep. The phone woke me up. I answered. I mean Ray, dammit, Ray answered. And it was her.

  “Well, this part we’ve seen before, right? So it’s the same as before, it’s her and she can’t breathe, she sounds real bad. I can hardly make out what she’s saying, it’s just this panicked wheezing. And I say, ‘Anita, calm
down, try to calm down, I’ll be right there—’ I almost say ‘honey,’ but I stop myself in time.

  “Ruby’s real groggy, and I tell her Anita’s having an attack, I’ve got to run over and give her a shot. And meanwhile I’m pulling on some clothes real fast—flannel shirt and chinos, no underwear. I sleep naked, by the way. Don’t think I ever told you that. Ruby’s always after me—after Ray—to wear boxer shorts or something in case Debbie has a nightmare and decides to crawl into bed with us. So I sleep naked just to rile her.

  “Where was I? So I’m dressed now and—and, Paul, that’s as far as I’ve ever seen before, right? But now I run downstairs, just flying down those stairs, and I run into the office and grab my black bag, and I know it’s already packed, I have everything I need in there.

  “My God. Think about that, Paul. I kept it in the damn bag, all ready to go. Just waiting. I’m a cold goddamn bastard.

  “Okay, uh, so I jump into the Fairlane, and I’m thinking about the fight on TV that night. I watched a boxing match on TV. Won twenty bucks from Henry betting on some fighter, and that’s what I’m thinking about as I tear down those dark back roads to get to his house, collecting that twenty from Henry when he gets back from Montpelier tomorrow. Not about his wife and how she can’t breathe, not about the thing I’m about to do to her. I’m thinking about the damn fight.

  “And that’s as far as I got. Thank God. The sheets are soaked with sweat. I think I scared the doggy doo out of Max, must’ve yelled or something, because he jumped on the bed. Or maybe he woke me up. Good old Max.

  “So there you have it, the latest installment in the continuing saga of Dr. Ray Whittaker, The Final Days. Tune in next week for another zany episode.”

  He pushed Stop for a minute to collect his thoughts, and tossed back the last of the Scotch before reaching for the Record button again.

  “Listen, I need to talk to you, Paul. In person, not like this. Helluva time for you to go on sabbatical, buddy. Hold on to your hat. When you get back, I may finally let you put me under. You know, take me back. No, not thirty-two years, so don’t even ask. The dreams are graphic enough, thank you. If I ever got the Cinemax version, crisp, clear and unabridged, I’d go over the edge for sure. No, I need you to help me tap into more recent events.