Bound by Suggestion

by L.L. Bartlett

  As the waiter cleared the table, I wondered what I could do with information on Grace’s father. It wouldn’t tell me more about Grace. It couldn’t help me get rid of Krista. But knowledge is power they say, and I needed to fortify myself with something.

  Sam decided on Bananas Foster for dessert. I had nothing more. My gut was already churning.

  It was 5:06 pm—happy hour—and Richard reluctantly ignored the call of the bottle of Lagavulin back in his study. From his seat in the sunroom, he watched the shadows creep across the back yard toward the tulip stalks that swayed in the gentle breeze.

  Two more days, he thought. Two more days and he’d have the capital campaign chairmanship to fill his restless days. Lately life had become a waiting game. Brenda had waiting down to a science. With a focused goal—to have their child—she was forever finding new ways to delight in the anticipation.

  Why wasn’t Richard so lucky? Oh, he looked forward to the birth—but he struggled every day to fill the hours. The chairmanship wouldn’t fill them all, but at least it was meaningful work that he hoped would keep him from thinking about his deepest failure, the one thing he didn’t want Wes Timberly to know about—more than Jeff’s psychic ability, or their mother’s alcoholism.

  There were people, maybe even in this neighborhood, who could benefit from his medical training, his experience, but Richard couldn’t take the day-to-day build-up of death and misery that went with the territory. Every day it ate at him that he couldn’t hack patient care more than a few hours at a stretch, with time off in between.

  The cordless phone on the coffee table rang. Thinking Brenda might get it, he let it go two more times before he picked it up. “Hello?”

  “Dr. Alpert? This is Wally Moses from the university’s Records Department. Are you busy this evening? There’s something I’d like to show you.”

  “Can you tell me—”

  “No,” Wally interrupted. “At least, not over the phone.”

  “Does it have to do with what we discussed the other day?”

  “Yes. And . . . there’s more. But I can’t get into it now. Can you come to the hospital tonight? Say, 7:30?”

  Richard glanced at his watch. “I could be there.”

  “Meet me at my office. I think you’ll be glad you did.”

  The line went dead. Richard hung up.

  Brenda appeared in the doorway. “Who was that?”

  Richard briefly explained.

  “Whatever could he want?” she asked.

  “Maybe to tell me just who’s been in Jeff’s files. But he hinted there was more.”

  “Curiouser and curiouser. You’re going, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “I don’t like it,” Brenda said, a frown creasing her lips. “Why doesn’t he just go to hospital security? Isn’t that proper procedure?”

  “Yes. But—” There really was no good explanation for Wally calling. “Do you think he’s setting me up?”

  Brenda’s frown deepened. “No. But . . . I wish you wouldn’t go—at least not alone. Why don’t you take Jeffy with you?”

  “He works Thursday—she’s probably already left. Besides, I still haven’t caught up with him to tell him about this whole situation. Springing it on him while asking for back-up wouldn’t be a good move, either.”

  “I could go with you.”

  “No.”

  “I’ll wait in the lobby. And if you don’t come down in a reasonable time, I’ll send a posse after you.”

  Richard thought it over. “It could take an hour or so. What’ll you do?”

  “Read. Needlepoint. I can amuse myself.”

  “Okay,” he agreed, getting up from the chair. “In the meantime, what about dinner?”

  “I could sure go for Italian. I’ve got a craving for garlic.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be past craving at this point in your pregnancy?”

  “Ain’t nobody gonna tell me when I can or can’t have a craving, and I want garlic now!” she demanded, her eyes shining with mirth.

  Richard took her in his arms. “Okay, but I guess I’d better kiss you good-night now. I may not want to later.”

  Their lips met, then she pulled him into a joy-filled hug. He savored the feeling, but the niggling restlessness still waited to swoop down on him.

  Two more days, he thought, two more days.

  “So the priest says, ‘That’ll send you straight to hell.’”

  The crowd around the bar broke into raucous laughter. I’d heard that one the last three nights I’d worked. Joe—nobody seemed to know his last name—one of the regulars, delighted in telling and retelling his limited repertoire of jokes gleaned from the Internet.

  A new face in the crowd caught my attention. A chubby guy of about thirty, with a beard. Damn. Where had I seen him? Something told me it had something to do with Grace. I’d like to say the proverbial light bulb went on over my head, but it was the Erie Medivan logo on his jacket that tipped me off. He drove the van that brought Grace to Krista’s office. That meant he knew where she lived—maybe more.

  Now to get him to tell me.

  I sidled down the bar. “Can I get you guys another round?” I asked. Nobody said no.

  I drew beers and set out a fresh bowl of popcorn. The chubby guy gravitated toward it, just as I’d hoped he would.

  “So, you work for Erie Medivan.”

  He nodded, stuffing a handful of popcorn into his mouth. “It’s an okay job. I used to drive a cab—this is a lot safer, although I do miss the tips.”

  “And the stiffers?” I asked.

  He laughed. “No, not them. But livery’s livery in my book. I’ve carted a few famous people around in my day. Once drove Tony Bennett to the airport. Got him to sing a line of Chicago, too.”

  “I don’t suppose you get any famous people nowadays.”

  “Drove Senator Vanderstein’s crippled daughter to her shrink yesterday. Do it a couple times a week, in fact.”

  Bingo! But didn’t anybody use the socially acceptable term ‘disabled’ these days?

  “I heard her old man had bucks,” I said. “She’s gotta live in some fancy digs.”

  He shook his head. “Nah, just a house on Rembrandt Ave. Nothing special. A group home or something. They have lots of gimps in wheelchairs. I’m carting them around all the time.”

  Rembrandt Avenue. I’d have to check a map to see where that was. I could take a drive after I got off work. If there were only one house with wheelchair ramps, I’d have my answer to where Grace lived.

  But what good would that do? If I showed up unannounced, would her keepers let me in to talk to her? Would Grace refuse to see me? If she didn’t, could we talk undisturbed? That wasn’t likely. And what would I say, anyway? That I had vague feelings of uneasiness about her treatment? That I didn’t know what Krista was doing with us—to us.

  Would she be willing to compare notes? Did she come away from those sessions feeling as frustrated and groggy as I did? Her mind muddled, and the growing fear of—of . . . .

  I couldn’t even bear to think about the unsavory ideas that had been flitting around the back of my consciousness. But the growing dread that something awful was about to happen, something permanent and evil and . . . .

  God, was I paranoid. Where was this all this shit coming from?

  “Hey,” Joe said from the other end of the bar. “What’s it take to get some service around here?”

  “Sorry.”

  He ordered another Coors Lite and I moved behind the sink to wash the backlog of dirty glasses. I hated that job. Sometimes each piece of glassware held the patrons’ feelings, frustrations and baggage. Tonight they were benign. Good. I didn’t think I could handle any more.

  I glanced at the clock. At least five more hours until I could leave. Five hours to think about my next move.

  Five hours to torture myself with unwelcome thoughts.

  Joe regaled his audience with another Internet story.

/>   God, I wished I were . . . .

  Dead.

  “I’m sorry the service at the restaurant was so slow,” Brenda apologized again, and tried to keep pace with Richard’s longer strides. “You’re only ten minutes late.”

  “It’s okay,” he said for at least the tenth time. Wally had asked him to come. Whatever had prompted that call would keep him there until Richard showed up. Wally hadn’t tried to call the house again, because Richard had forwarded all calls to his cell phone, and it hadn’t beeped all evening.

  The automatic door slid open and Richard and Brenda entered the hospital lobby. “Now wait here,” he said. “You’ve got your phone, right?”

  She nodded.

  “If it looks like it’ll be longer than half an hour, I’ll give you a call.”

  “Take your time,” she said, already looking over the seating area to choose her territory. “I’ll be fine.”

  Richard gave her hand a quick squeeze. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  He strode down the corridor and looked back to see she’d found a seat and was already taking a paperback out of her purse.

  The elevator seemed interminably long in reaching the ground floor. When the doors finally hissed open, Richard stepped into the empty car, pressing the button for four.

  What was he so uptight about anyway? Wally had information he wanted. If Wally wanted a bribe to give out that information . . . well, he might be willing to pay it. Depending on what Wally had to say. Maybe that’s what had been bothering Richard all evening.

  “There’s more,” Wally had said, meaning more than just Jeff’s records had been tampered with? Not that Richard didn’t care if other people’s records were illegally accessed, but what would Wally think he could do about it? Hospital security had been concerned with Mona’s computer after the break-in. Wally might’ve known Richard had ties to the Hospital Foundation and her. Maybe Wally had connected the two events.

  The elevator door opened and deposited Richard on the empty floor. He hadn’t expected the place to be quite so deserted. Of course, most of the office staff left between five and six, but he thought he’d see a few more employees wandering the halls.

  Richard headed down the corridor and turned the corner just as the fire door to the stairs clicked shut. Thinking nothing of it, he continued toward Wally’s office.

  The office lights were off, but the door was ajar.

  “Wally?” Richard called. Had he just missed the man? Then why leave the door open?

  He reached for the handle to push the door open wider and hesitated, staring at his outstretched hand. His nerves seemed to vibrate in warning. Was that what Jeff would’ve called one of his funny feelings? Instead, Richard nudged the door open with his shoe.

  “Wally?”

  Still no answer.

  Fumbling for the light switch, he found it, flicked it on with his elbow.

  Desk and file cabinet drawers hung open; computer printouts and manila folders lay strewn around the floor. A pair of brown, scuffed shoes stuck out from behind the edge of the gray steel desk.

  Richard hurried across the paper-littered carpet, knelt by the prone man, feeling for a pulse at his neck. There was none. The body was starting to cool. Wally had been dead for longer than a couple of minutes.

  The door to the stairwell—had Richard just missed the killer?

  He got to his feet, burst from the office, sprinted down the hall, and yanked the door open, too late thinking about smudging possible fingerprint evidence. He gazed down the stairs, but there was no one in sight—no sound of footfalls. Damn!

  Snatching his cell phone from his jacket pocket, Richard punched in 911.

  “I want to report a murder.”

  Chapter 13

  My insides thrummed like a cell phone on vibrate. The closer I got to Rembrandt Avenue, the stronger the feeling became.

  It was Grace, of course. Or at least my proximity to her.

  I turned onto her street and pulled the car to a stop along the curb. The map spread out on the passenger seat would be my cover if anyone questioned why I was there. But why would anyone? And how long did I think I was going to be there, anyway?

  I looked down the darkened road. The streetlights did little to illuminate the gloom. No mailboxes lined the curb, that meant house-to-house delivery, no numbers on boxes as references points. And it wasn’t likely I’d be able to find house numbers anyway.

  Cutting the headlights, I pressed the accelerator lightly and crept forward, my internal Geiger counter clicking all the faster.

  Three-quarters of the way down the street I saw wheelchair ramps. The house was big—two levels. Did they have ambulatory patients . . . clients . . . residents? What did they call the people who lived there?

  The Medivan driver was right. It wasn’t fancy digs; just a big, gray-shingled, ugly old house. It had escaped being subdivided into apartments by virtue of its transformation into some kind of halfway house for the physically disabled. Learn to function on a higher level and maybe you’d be sprung. At least, that had been Grace’s hope. But even the promise of independence had soured for her.

  Shut up, I told myself. Concentrate on something else.

  Unlike most of its neighbors, this house was well-lit outside, with six-inch luminous numbers clearly visible under a mercury vapor lamp: 699 Rembrandt Avenue.

  Okay. So I knew where Grace lived. Now what?

  Go home.

  Then what?

  Come back tomorrow? Talk to her? Compare notes? Experience every rotten emotion she feels? Slip deeper into her personal pit of despair?

  Go home, I told myself again. And don’t come back!

  My gaze traveled to a darkened downstairs window. Grace was in there—awake. Maybe lying in her narrow bed, staring at the ceiling, feeling . . . . Oh, man, the bitter intensity of what she was feeling. It seemed like I always knew what she was feeling. That life was shit. That she was shit. That I was shit. That nothing ever would be right again. And she was right. It wouldn’t. How could it?

  Ripping my gaze from the unlit panes, I clenched the steering wheel and hit the gas, the tires spinning, the engine’s roar breaking the fragile stillness.

  I ran the stop sign at the end of the road, plunged onto Hertel Avenue, the incessant thrumming inside me fading with every block. But it didn’t go away. By the time I got home it was still with me. A low hum, like an old electrical motor on the verge of seizing up.

  “Go away,” I muttered, as I hit the garage door button. The door opened and I parked my car. Richard’s slot was empty. Odd for them to be out on a week night. Probably another fund-raiser. I hit the button to close the garage and got out of my car.

  Slamming the driver’s door with unnecessary force, I watched the door go down, but stayed rooted. The garage was lit by the bulb on the opener. A three minute reprieve from darkness to sort your keys, pick up the groceries, or laundry, or . . . .

  “Get out of my head, Grace,” I grated, still feeling that niggling quiver through every cell in my body. But she wouldn’t leave me. She was always with me, clinging to my heart and soul like a leech.

  I had a full bottle of Makers Mark on the sideboard. Except for a visit to the tux shop, I didn’t have to be anywhere until Saturday. I could drink myself into oblivion. Drink and drink until I puked, until I couldn’t feel, until . . . .

  I’d have a hangover, but I wouldn’t have to function. I could lie in my darkened bedroom and maybe my own misery would drown out the incessant tentacles winding tighter through my mind.

  I had to dump that girl—get her out of my life, my thoughts. She was pulling me down, dragging me deeper into . . . into . . . .

  The timer clicked and the light went off, dousing me in dank darkness. I stumbled past Brenda’s car, headed for the door to the stairs to my home over the garage, and then took them two at a time. I didn’t bother to switch on the lights, but went straight for the sideboard to drown myself in a glass of liquid gold.


  The silver Lincoln glided down the near-empty Main Street toward home. It had taken hours for Richard to explain to the cops what he’d experienced in less than a minute after finding Wally Moses’ body. They’d taken him through it again and again, first at the scene and then later at the police station.

  Storefronts and restaurants flashed past the passenger side window. Brenda had insisted on driving. Women needed to be caregivers. It was easier to let her fuss than refuse. Not that the sight of a dead body bothered him. It was the information Wally had taken with him in death that bothered Richard more.

  “We’re back to square one, you know.”

  Brenda tore her gaze from the road. “We aren’t back to anything.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Brenda braked for a red light. “Yes, and quite frankly, I’m scared.”

  “Why?”

  She gave him that familiar glare. “Because you won’t let this drop. You’ll sink your teeth in like a terrier and not give up until you find the answers to whatever it is you’re looking for.”

  “You know what I’m looking for—whoever’s messing with Jeff’s records.”

  “It’s up to hospital security, not you, to find out.”

  The light turned green and Brenda hit the accelerator.

  “You did tell them, didn’t you?” she asked, after a moment of silence.

  “Tell them what?”

  “Don’t play innocent,” Brenda said, unable to keep exasperation from her voice. “Why you were meeting Wally.”

  Richard maintained his silence.

  “Richard.” Anger seeped into her tone.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it isn’t relevant.”

  “Of course it’s relevant! My God, the man was killed.”

  “I don’t know that he was killed because he was going to speak to me. He might have had gambling debts. He might have been blackmailing someone. He might have tried to blackmail me.”

  “For what?”

  “How do I know? Maybe he intended to sell me the information on who was tampering with hospital records.”