Sing It to Her Bones

by Marcia Talley

  I promised I wouldn’t, all the time thinking, Fat chance! I called prescriptions in to the local Giant and Safeway pharmacies and waited, with butterflies in my stomach, for the waiting room to fill up. At two-thirty I got a break. With a Pap smear in A and an EKG in ?, I calculated that Dr. Chase would be busy for a while.

  I felt guilty about hustling the poor woman in A into a paper gown and assisting her up onto the examining table without so much as a magazine to pass the time. How many countless hours had I spent lying about on upholstered tables covered with paper, feeling forgotten, with the air-conditioning whistling through gaps between the ties in my robe, freezing my back, boobs, or buns? How many doctors had kept me waiting with nothing to do but count the holes in the acoustical ceiling tiles? So I used up precious minutes making sure she had everything she needed.

  “Comfy?” I asked.

  She held the inadequate gown together at her chest with a heavily ringed hand. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “I am,” I said, and handed her a copy of the New Yorker magazine that was, amazingly, only two weeks old. She looked like the New Yorker type.

  “Do me a favor,” she said.

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “Ask him to warm up the speculum.”

  I laughed and patted her chubby knee. “Will do!”

  I closed the door behind me and tiptoed down the hall feeling like the thief I was about to become. Just outside the door of Examining Room ? I paused. Inside, I could hear the doctor’s low voice speaking in soothing tones to a patient who was a nervous mountain of a man in his late seventies. As cover—I figured I needed it—I grabbed two charts from the pile waiting to be filed and scurried back to Dr. Chase’s inner sanctum, trying to appear as if I knew what I was doing. Even so, when I finally stood in his office doorway, my face burned and I found myself acutely aware of everything in the room. The framed diploma hanging crookedly on the wall next to the window, the faded floral drapes parted to reveal the untidy garden with the Crestar Bank sign in the near distance behind it, a VCR blinking red at 12:00, even the damned decoys all seemed to have eyes and were staring at me.

  I crossed to the desk, held my breath, and raised a corner of the blotter. The chart was still there. I pulled it out, hardly daring to believe what I read on the label: Dunbar, Katherine Louise.

  I stood there wasting valuable time, my heart thudding in my ears, flipping through the pages, trying to interpret old Dr. Chase’s scrawls, symbols, and abbreviations. I don’t know what I expected, notes in a neat, round hand maybe like “This girl’s pregnant” or “The rabbit died,” so I was disappointed when at first I couldn’t make heads or tails out of anything I saw. Katie’s chart might just as well have been written in code. I found a date: 10/2/90. That was a good sign. BP125/70 must have been her blood pressure and I certainly knew what Pap and menses were, but the meaning of the rest of it, including a funny little diagram with lines and numbers, completely escaped me. I had the feeling that even if I had worked for Dr. Chase’s father for a hundred years, I’d still have needed an interpreter to decipher those Martian runes. It wasn’t until I turned to the next page that I saw it: “A/P:1 8 wk pregnancy.” I didn’t need a translator for that!

  It had been my intention to slip a few pages out of the chart and photocopy them, but I forgot about the fasteners. Katie’s chart consisted of approximately twenty pages held together by a metal bar that passed through two holes that had been punched through the top of each sheet with the ends folded over and secured with another thin strip of metal. Nuts! I’d have to borrow the whole chart. I stuck Katie’s chart among those still in my hand. Clutching the booty to my chest, I ventured out into the hallway and was halfway to the photocopier when the door to Examining Room B opened and Dr. Chase emerged with the old gentleman, who looked so fat and flushed that I expected him to stroke out at any minute. I stood in the hallway grinning stupidly as the two men passed and the doctor began what I now recognized as his customary farewell ritual. I knew he’d spend time standing at the front door waving the old guy down the sidewalk, so I made a mad dash for the photocopier.

  The machine was ominously quiet.

  Damn and double damn! Dr. Chase must have turned the photocopier off while I was fetching lunch. Now I would have an infuriating wait while the blasted thing warmed up. I folded a few pages back and slammed Katie’s chart against the glass. I mashed the photocopier cover over the chart and held it down while I waited for the ready light to come on. Shit! I heard a familiar thud as the front door closed, followed by the sound of Dr. Chase’s footsteps returning down the hall. Through the glass panels of the swinging doors I could see the approaching expanse of his white lab coat and flashes of light reflecting off his little, round glasses.

  At that moment the copier’s ready light blinked on. I punched the green copy button, deathly afraid that he’d figure out what I was doing. A brilliant bar of light swept over the page from right to left and back again. A single copy dropped into the paper tray. I could see Dr. Chase’s arm extended toward the door, pushing it open ahead of him.

  I snatched the chart from the photocopier and held it behind my back like a naughty child, but Dr. Chase entered the room and passed me with merely a nod before vanishing into Examining Room A. I flipped to the next page of Katie’s chart, slapped the chart down on the photocopier and had another go with the print button. Just as the copy emerged into the tray, I heard him call, “Hannah, I’ll need you to assist.”

  Damn! I’d forgotten a doctor couldn’t be alone with a female patient during a gynecological exam. I stalled for time. “She says she’d like you to warm up the speculum, Doctor.” I folded the photocopies I had made into quarters and stuffed them into the pocket of Connie’s blazer.

  “I always do.”

  Although Dr. Chase was in the examining room, the door stood wide open. I couldn’t get back to his office without his seeing me. What would I do with Katie’s chart? I shoved it into the nearest file cabinet. I would sneak it back under his blotter later.

  But I never got the chance. Dr. Chase kept me busy the rest of the day. Even after the last patient left at four-thirty, he remained in his office. I was determined not to leave until I had replaced the chart, so I dawdled at the reception desk, straightening up a desk that was already impossibly neat. I washed dirty coffee mugs. I cleaned the coffeepot. I watered the potted plants. I telephoned folks to remind them of tomorrow’s appointments, mostly talking to answering machines.

  The next time the telephone warbled, it was for me.

  “Hi, hon.”

  “Paul!”

  “Just got off the horn with Connie. Glad to be back on the employment rolls?”

  “If you called me more often, you wouldn’t have to ask.” There was a long silence, and I could hear the antique clock in our entrance hall strike five.

  Paul cleared his throat. “I just turned in my final grades and wanted to let you know that I’m off. For a few weeks at least.”

  “Where to, may I ask?”

  “Cape Cod. Do you remember Steve Zelko? He’s renting a summer house in North Truro.”

  “The strange little English prof with the black glasses and the fifties crew cut?”

  Paul laughed. He sounded like the old Paul, warm and comforting. “You remember! Look, honey, I just wanted you to know that I’d really like you to join us up there. It’s a big house, and Steve’s offered us a room of our own overlooking the water. With adjoining bath. I’ll drive down to Pearson’s Corner and pick you up.”

  “Sorry, Paul, but I promised Dr. Chase I’d see this through.” I couldn’t bring myself to admit to my husband that I’d been snooping around my employer’s office like an amateur sleuth in a bad paperback novel. He’d think the chemo had gone to my brain.

  “Sounds like just an excuse to me. Connie tells me you’ve gotten yourself all wrapped up in that cheerleader’s murder.”

  “Your sister should stick to her painting,” I sa
id. In the moment before I spoke again, I imagined I heard our clock ticking. “Look, Paul. Let me think about it. I’ll call you when I’m free.”

  Paul must have expected excuses because he already had the flight schedules handy. “You can fly from BWI to Logan and take the shuttle to Provincetown. Just call me and I’ll meet you at the airport.”

  “I said I’d think about it, Paul!”

  I had pushed him too far. When he spoke again, his voice bristled with anger. “What’s so fascinating about this dead girl anyway? You didn’t even know her, for Christ’s sake!”

  “It’s hard to explain. I feel like I owe it to her, having found her body and all. In some convoluted way I’m thinking that if I can figure out who murdered Katie, it will make up for all the times I failed with Emily.”

  “That’s bullshit, Hannah. You bent over backward for Emily. We both did.”

  “Well, bullshit or not, that’s the way I feel.” I waited for Paul to say something, and when he didn’t, I added, “A few more days, Paul. That’s all I’ll need. Where can I reach you?”

  Paul read me the telephone number of Steve’s rental house, and I wrote it down on the prescription pad in front of me.

  “Hannah?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry I snapped at you. I’m just trying to understand.” He paused and then chuckled, his good humor returning. “Sometimes you are a colossal pain in the ass.”

  “I know.”

  “And, Hannah?”

  “What?”

  “I love you.”

  He probably expected to hear me say, “I love you, too.” A few days ago it would have been easy. Practically automatic. I twisted the telephone cord around my finger in silence.

  “I love you,” Paul repeated.

  “I know.” We listened to each other breathe for a few seconds, then hung up without actually saying good-bye.

  When I replaced the receiver after talking to Paul, the light indicating my extension went dead, but the 02 extension remained brightly lit. The doctor was still on the phone. While I watched, 03 came on, too.

  I wandered into the waiting room, turned off the Muzak, and pulled down the shades. I decided to join Paul in Cape Cod, eventually, if I didn’t get myself arrested first. I worried that it was way after closing time and Dr. Chase was still in his office, keeping all the telephone lines lit up like a department store Christmas tree.

  At five-thirty all the lights on the telephone went out, and he emerged, looking perfectly normal. “Thanks, Hannah, that’s all for the day.”

  “Do you want me to lock up?”

  “No, no. I’ll do it. You’ve worked hard. Please go on home.” He surprised me by heading for the staircase that led to the second floor.

  “Aren’t you going home?”

  “Afraid not. I’m sleeping here tonight. My condo’s being painted.”

  Screwed! So much for sneaking back later to replace Katie’s chart. I must have looked puzzled because he explained that he’d kept his old bedroom upstairs, “for emergencies.”

  “Handy,” I said.

  “It certainly is.”

  I thought I detected a hint of suspicion in his voice but reasoned that if he’d discovered that the chart was missing, he’d surely have been all over me by now. Dr. Chase didn’t seem too organized to me, so maybe he hadn’t even noticed that his blotter was flatter than it had been several hours before, or if he had, perhaps he’d think he’d merely misplaced Katie’s chart.

  Nevertheless, I pulled the door shut behind me with my lunch sitting in my stomach like a softball, and just about as indigestible. Please God, I prayed in the parking lot, please don’t let Dr. Chase discover that Katie’s chart isn’t where he left it. As I unlocked my car, I looked back at the house and thought I saw the doctor standing at a window on the second floor, watching me, the light of the early evening sun glinting off his glasses.

  chapter

  12

  My Toyota had sat in the sun all day with the windows closed, allowing the heat inside to build up high enough to broil meat. While I waited for the steering wheel and plastic upholstery to cool down enough to touch, I imagined Dr. Chase’s eyes boring into my back, but when I turned around to check, whatever I had taken to be Dr. Franklin C. Chase, Jr., had disappeared from the window.

  I tested the temperature of the upholstery with the palm of my hand, then threw my purse behind the driver’s seat and climbed in. I slotted the key into the ignition, turned it, and as the engine started, both the air conditioner and All Things Considered blasted into life, right in the middle of the news.

  Keeping the air conditioner set to high, I headed for the farm. Just after I passed through the intersection at Church and High with the light in my favor, a black Lexus sped through on yellow, going in the opposite direction. I was wondering where I had seen the car before and then I remembered: Katie’s sister. Opposite St. Philip’s, I checked the rearview mirror and watched Liz’s Lexus squeal around the corner on Princess Anne. Where on earth was she going at such speed? Dr. Chase’s? My paranoid imagination had clearly shifted into overdrive. She doesn’t have to be going to see the doctor, I reasoned. There’s a lot of stuff down that road. Ten to twelve houses. A beauty parlor. Harrison’s Restaurant—I checked my watch—and it’s almost dinnertime. Maybe I was adding two and two and coming up with five. Then again, maybe not. I had always been good in math.

  I turned into the parking lot at Harmony Baptist, reversed, and headed back to the doctor’s office. As I drove past, I saw that I hadn’t been paranoid after all. Liz’s Lexus was parked in the lot next to Dr. Chase’s Ford. I tried to recall an earlier conversation with the doctor. Hadn’t he told me he hardly knew Liz? It could be true, I supposed. Maybe she was sick. Or perhaps Dr. Chase had called her in because he had discovered something in Katie’s file that he wanted to share with the family.

  I was reminded of the photocopy, which now rested safely in my purse along with the slip of paper on which I had jotted down Paul’s telephone number. I thought about Paul, trying in his sweetly clumsy way to make up to me after our stupid fight yesterday morning.

  To reassure myself that the documents were safe, I slipped my hand into the side pouch of my purse. The photocopy felt warm to the touch, as if it had just rolled out of the machine, but I couldn’t find the scrap of paper anywhere. I scrabbled around in my purse and checked the pockets of my jacket with no luck. Shit! I must have left it on my desk. Dr. Chase had warned me about his cleaning lady: anything that wasn’t tied down would be out with the trash by morning. Now I’d have to go back for it.

  Erring on the side of caution, I parked in front of an old Victorian house several doors down. From there it took only a minute to reach the office and climb the steps to the porch. I peered through the glass in the front door. Everything inside was dark. My key grated noisily in the lock and I held my breath as I twisted the doorknob and let myself into the deserted waiting room. I stood still and listened. Nothing. Maybe they were in the back.

  I crept to the reception area and peered over the counter. The slip of paper on which I had written Paul’s phone number was right where I had left it, half under the telephone, printed in neat capital letters. 508 something. I thought that if I could just reach over the counter, I might avoid going through the double doors where there’d be a risk of running into Dr. Chase or his visitor. If Liz and Dr. Chase were in cahoots, being caught here after hours could prove injurious to my health.

  I stood on tiptoe and leaned as far over the counter as I could, but the slip of paper remained just out of reach. In that awkward position, the edge of the Formica counter cut uncomfortably into my stomach and I thought it would be all I’d need to be caught here like this, balancing on my stomach, good arm outstretched, reaching over the counter like a common shoplifter. I squirmed backward until my feet touched the floor, then pushed cautiously through the swinging doors and turned right into the reception area. From there I could hear the low
murmur of voices on the other side of the wall.

  I snatched Paul’s number off the desk, then pressed my back against the cabinets that lined the wall, not even breathing, straining to catch something of what they were saying. Unexpectedly Dr. Chase’s voice reached me, distinctly louder. Someone must have opened his office door.

  “How was I to know that she was one of Dad’s patients?”

  “You should have checked it out, Frankie. You should have thought of it.”

  Frankie? So much for his feeble story about hardly knowing the woman.

  “You were a damn fool to leave it lying about.” Liz was shouting now.

  “It wasn’t just lying about, Liz. I stuck it under my blotter, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Are you sure she saw it?”

  “Almost positive. I never would have misfiled a chart like that. The colored tabs stood out like a sore thumb when she stuffed it in the U’s.”

  I shrank back into the shadows near the coatrack, sandwiched between a soft wool coat and a down jacket left over from winter, feeling like a complete idiot. It would have been so easy to file Katie’s chart back in the D’s, and he might never have noticed. Now that I was clearly persona non grata, in addition to being muy stupida, I prayed for an opportunity to escape. I hoped that with the lights turned off in the waiting room, they couldn’t see me, although I could see them plainly enough through the glass panels in the swinging door as they bickered in the brightly lit hallway.

  Liz stood with her back against the door of Examining Room B, flipping briskly through the pages in Katie’s chart. She must have been a speed reader. “What is all this shit?”

  “As I told you, even if she’d looked at it, I doubt that she’d have understood my father’s shorthand.”

  “But what if she did, Frankie? What then?”

  “She’ll know for sure that you sister was pregnant. That’s all. We should have reported that to the police in the first place, Liz. You know that.”