Working Stiff

by Annelise Ryan

  I lean over to share my thoughts with Izzy only to discover that he has disappeared. I figure there’s no sense wasting any time and zero in on the corner where Sidney, Arthur, and Joe are standing. But just as I take my first step, someone grabs my arm and yanks me back. I turn around and find myself face-to-face with David, and suddenly, looking at the expression on his face, it isn’t hard to imagine him as a killer.

  Chapter 17

  David hauls me off toward an exit and I go along willingly for a few steps, mainly to avoid a scene. But when it looks like he is going to drag me outside, I put on the brakes and shake his hand loose of my arm.

  “If you have something to say to me, David, say it here.”

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell me? You deliberately sandbagged me!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That detective, Harley—”

  “Hurley?”

  “Whatever,” he says irritably. “He said someone told him they’d seen me entering Karen’s house on the night she was killed. And since I wasn’t there, it’s a boldfaced lie. Who else besides you would have a reason to say something like that?”

  I stare at him, incredulous. “You really think I’d lie about something that serious? Why? Just to settle some imagined score or give myself some slight advantage over you in the divorce?”

  “You said it, not me,” David hisses through his teeth. “And being tried for murder isn’t what I’d call a slight advantage. Christ, I know you’re pissed, Mattie, but I never thought you’d stoop this low.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Bullshit,” he says loudly, louder than he meant apparently because he flinches, takes a quick glance around, then leans in closer and drops his voice. “Why would someone make up a lie like that? I wasn’t there, Mattie. So why would someone say I was? What could anyone possibly have to gain by doing that? Anyone other than you, that is,” he adds with a sneer.

  “Damn it, David. I didn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it. And frankly I’m surprised you think I would.”

  “Are you trying to tell me you aren’t pissed as hell with me? That you wouldn’t do anything to pay me back for the hurt I’ve caused you?”

  I suck in a deep breath and try to calm myself before I speak. “Yes, David. I’m trying to tell you that I’m not pissed at you. Oh, I was. You’re absolutely right about that. I was righteously pissed when I discovered you and Karen that night. But I’m over it. Way over it. Right now all I feel toward you is overwhelming indifference. With a little pity thrown in for good measure.”

  I can tell from his face that I’ve succeeded in wounding him, and for a brief moment I feel triumphant. Then I remember that I once loved this man and thought we would spend the rest of our lives together. God, how I want to believe him, to believe that he is innocent and that he still cares. But he’s lied to me before and I just can’t make myself believe in him now.

  “Glad to see Lucien got you out of jail,” I say with all sincerity, thinking it might lighten his mood.

  “No thanks to you.”

  “I had to tell the truth, David.”

  “Is that all you told? Or did you throw in a few lies, too?”

  “Actually, all I told Hurley was that I saw Karen and you together on the night she was killed. I didn’t tell him you were fighting, or that Karen slapped your face.”

  “Well, you might as well have told him. How the hell was I supposed to know what you did or didn’t reveal? Once he made it clear that you’d told him Karen was there that night, I assumed you’d told him everything. So I admitted to the argument before I realized he didn’t know about it. You love making me look like a fool, don’t you?”

  “You seem to be pretty good at that all by yourself.” I am tired of bucking his accusations, defending myself when I haven’t done anything wrong. So I decide to turn the tables on him. “Why didn’t you tell me Karen was pregnant?”

  His face falls and he looks away, scanning the room as a muscle twitches violently in his jaw.

  “I wasn’t sure if you knew,” he says finally, killing my hope that he hadn’t known. He turns and looks at me. “She told me about it that night, the night she died. That was the first I heard of it and, to be honest, I wasn’t sure I believed her. And I figured that even if she was pregnant, I couldn’t be sure it was mine. I always used protection. I didn’t want to endanger my health. Or yours.”

  “How very considerate of you,” I say snidely, not missing the fact that my safety was thrown in there as an afterthought. “You know as well as I do that nothing is 100 percent perfect, David.”

  “The point is, I think she was sleeping with someone else,” David says feebly.

  “Who?”

  He shakes his head. “I’m not sure. But when I tried to get into one of the on-call sleep rooms one night, it was locked and I could hear…you know…sounds…heavy breathing and grunting coming from inside. Later, I saw Karen come out of that same room carrying a pile of sheets and the bed in the room had been stripped. But whoever she was with must have already left because there was no one else in there.”

  “When was this?”

  David furrows his brow as he thinks and I feel a funny little ache as I remember how endearing that gesture used to be to me. “I’m not sure,” he says, “but I believe it was after you moved out.”

  “Do you know who was on call that night?”

  “Yep, it was Arthur Henley. But it couldn’t have been him in the room because he was in an OR at the time along with Cary Snyder, working on a multiple trauma that came in through the ER.”

  “Regardless, it doesn’t change the fact that the baby might have been yours, does it?” I say flatly.

  David’s shoulders sink and his whole body sags. He drops his gaze to the floor, no longer able to look me in the eye. “No,” he says wearily. “It doesn’t.”

  “I heard that Karen had some kind of investment scheme she was working on with some of the docs. Do you know what it was?”

  “Investments? No idea.” He looks away as he answers and I know he is lying.

  “Right,” I say, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “Now who’s telling lies?”

  I leave him standing there and work my way to the middle of the room, watching the crowd. There’s another tap on my shoulder and I whirl around in anger thinking David is back for more, but instead I find myself face-to-face with Alison Miller, Sorenson’s ace reporter. She is wearing a knee-length red dress made out of some shimmery material that looks great with her olive skin and dark hair. The effect is somewhat diminished, however, by the camera she has hanging around her neck. Alison never goes anywhere without a camera.

  “Hello, Alison.”

  “Hey, Mattie. Saw you chatting with David. What’s the scoop? I hear he spent the night in the lockup.”

  “He did.”

  “What was the charge?”

  I give Alison a sardonic look. “Like you don’t already know,” I say.

  She laughs. “One of the first things they teach you in any journalism class is to always verify your information. I just want to make sure all the facts jibe.”

  “I don’t want to talk about David.”

  “Okay. How about that new detective, Steve Hurley?”

  I can’t help but notice the slightly breathless tone in her voice. “What about him?”

  “Is he a hunk, or what?” she says, fanning herself. “I mean the guy is seriously cute! He’s got great buns and those long, long legs. And the eyes! My God, those eyes! Bluer than my morning glories.”

  This isn’t good at all. It looks as if Izzy was right—Alison is sniffing around Hurley for more than just news. “Hurley also has a full head of hair, Alison,” I point out. “I thought you went for bald guys.”

  “That was last year. This year I’m into hair. And I wouldn’t mind running my fingers through those locks of Hurley’s. Yum, yum.”

  Fickle wench. “Try to control yourself, Alison. You’re going to start droolin
g in a minute.”

  She laughs again. “I know but I just can’t help it. That guy makes me crazy. Don’t you think he’s gorgeous?”

  “He’s okay, I suppose.” I utter this with great nonchalance, trying to look bored. No way am I going to let Alison know that I want to rip her eyes out.

  “Okay? Just okay? You must be in shock over this David thing, Mattie.”

  “Whatever.” I let my gaze drift off into the crowd, the perfect image of indifference.

  “Well, I’ve got a date with Mr. Gorgeous next Friday night,” Alison says.

  “A date?” I screech, my head whipping back around to her. So much for indifference. “With Hurley?”

  “Yup. I can’t wait.”

  Man, how I want to wipe that smug smile off her face. “Where is he taking you?”

  “I don’t know. Dinner somewhere. If I’m lucky, it will be at his place.” She wiggles her eyebrows a few times and gives me a little nudge with her elbow. And suddenly I see it in my mind: an intimate little dinner for two with Alison and Hurley making goo-goo eyes at one another over a candlelit table. I feel like crying.

  “Oh, look,” Alison says, pointing across the room. “There’s the mayor. Photo op! Gotta run.”

  She disappears into the crowd while I try to obliterate the image of her and Hurley from my mind. I remind myself that I am here for a reason. I have people to see, things to find out, doctors to talk to. I scan the room, searching out the faces I need as I tap into my knowledge of the surgeons.

  Table talk, as OR chatter is sometimes called, can range from golf techniques and the latest film releases to last night’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy. It often invites the occasional personal revelation as well. Thus, I often knew who had a happy marriage and who didn’t, who was sleeping with someone else and who was merely thinking about it…a fact that made the irony of not knowing these facts about my own husband much more bitter.

  In the past, my insider knowledge has led to some awkward situations when I found myself sharing a social circle with the other wives. But I played my role well over the years, listening but never blabbing. This only strengthened the surgeons’ trust in me, and with that trust came more knowledge.

  Consequently, I am currently armed with enough ammunition to do some serious damage to several of them. It is ammunition I am holding in reserve, only to be used if I’m desperate to get them to talk to me. For I can’t be sure how they’ll treat me now that I’m no longer an insider.

  I move three names to the top of my mental list, two of them, Mick Dunn and Arthur Henley, because I know they have slept with women other than their wives. The third name on my list is Sidney Carrigan’s. While I’m not aware of any infidelities on Sidney’s part, the mere fact that he has piles of money makes him a likely target for any investment scheme Karen might have cooked up. Plus, I feel that Sidney, more than any of the others, will still talk to me. We’ve always gotten along extremely well.

  Sidney is in his early fifties, tall and slender, and has avoided the paunch some of his contemporaries have succumbed to. His hair is dark but graying at the temples, his features strong and patrician. His family money is evident in his impeccable manners, the expensive cut of his suits, and his air of confidence and privilege. He rubs elbows with the rich and famous on a regular basis and rumor has it he is even close friends with Steven Spielberg.

  Yet despite all that inherited privilege, Sidney is a pretty down-to-earth guy. Down-to-earth for a surgeon, that is. There’s a reason so many of them are thought to have a God complex. Slicing, dicing, or simply holding someone’s heart or liver in your hands can seriously mess with your ego. It takes a certain amount of chutzpah, plus an unwavering and massive ego to cut open living, breathing people and muck around in their insides.

  Sidney has all that and more. But there is this easygoing affability about him that seems to soften those traits. He hasn’t always been that way; apparently he was something of a hellion during his twenties and thirties. But when Gina came onto the scene, Sidney settled down.

  Despite her local fame, Gina remains something of a mystery, a fact that seems to only enhance her cachet. No one knows anything about her background or her family. She simply appeared at Sidney’s side when he returned from a two-week trip to New York and, a month later, they were married. They have remained childless in the twelve years since then and I’ve never been sure if it’s because they can’t have kids or because they made a conscious decision not to.

  I search the room for Sidney and spot him over by the bar schmoozing with the CEO of a large manufacturing company that is located just outside of Sorenson. I plaster a friendly smile on my face and move in. Halfway there I realize that I probably should have gone to the ladies’ room first to make another adjustment on my panty hose; they are slipping lower with every step I take. But just as I am about to turn around to do that, Sidney sees me.

  The CEO moves off and Sid quickly breaches the distance between us. “Mattie!” He gives me a quick hug and adds, “The prodigal nurse returns. It’s really good to see you. How have you been?”

  “Good, Sidney. Thanks for asking. You?”

  “Doing just fine, thanks.”

  “You look a little tired,” I note, observing the bluish circles under his eyes. I think I see something dark flit across his face, but it is there and gone so fast I can’t be sure.

  “Long night last night,” he says with a smile. “I was on call. You know how that goes.”

  “Sure do.” Knowing my time in the spotlight of Sidney’s attention is likely to be short, I decide to plunge right in. “Damn shame about Karen Owenby, isn’t it?”

  “An awful thing,” he says, shaking his head. “I hope they catch who did it soon.”

  “Me, too. I’ll bet it’s really disrupted things over at the hospital, eh?”

  “It sure has. That and the fact that David’s surgeries are subject to last-minute cancellations at the whim of the local cops. But then I guess you probably know all about that already, particularly since I hear your brother-in-law is defending him.”

  I nod. “Yes, Lucien’s been keeping me informed. Hopefully, it will all work out soon.”

  “Will you? You and David, I mean.”

  “Will we what? Work out?”

  Sid nods.

  “I don’t know, Sid. I don’t think so. Things have gone too far.”

  “He made a dumb mistake, one I know he’s come to regret. He’s a good man, Mattie. I don’t know why the cops are hassling him, because there is no way he did this. I’d stake my life on it.”

  A curious choice of words. And what does it say about the future potential for my marriage if Sid has more faith in David’s innocence than I do?

  “So,” I say, deciding to fish, “were you in on that investment thing with Karen? I can’t help but wonder what’s going to happen with that now.”

  Sidney looks puzzled for a second, then a dawning awareness hits his face. “You mean that thing with the medical supply company? I didn’t get in on that. It sounded a little too edgy to me and I don’t really need the extra cash flow.”

  I have no idea what he means and am about to ask when a voice behind me interrupts.

  “Hello, Sidney. Mattie.”

  It’s Robert Calhoun, the hospital’s CEO. Beside him is Gina. “I found your wife over in the corner charming the socks off a half dozen men,” Robert says to Sid with a wink. “So I thought I’d return her to you.”

  Gina rolls her eyes at me and it is all I can do to choke back a laugh.

  “There’s something I need to discuss with you, Sidney,” Robert goes on. “If you can spare me a moment.”

  “Certainly.”

  “Ahem,” Gina says, leaning up and giving her husband a peck on the cheek. “While you guys talk business, we girls are going to have a little chat of our own. Try to stay out of trouble, you two.”

  With that, Gina links an arm through one of mine and steers me away. So much for my time w
ith Sidney. Maybe I can try again later.

  “That was a narrow escape,” Gina says in a low voice. “Calhoun wants to talk to Sid about opening up a new women’s suite at the hospital by converting the old nurses’ quarters into an outpatient center. And trust me, when Calhoun gets to talking business, it’s a real snore.”

  “I know,” I say. “Been there, done that.”

  Gina laughs. “Sid knew Calhoun would approach him tonight. He got wind of it from one of the admin. secretaries. Every time Calhoun comes up with a new scheme, you can bet he’s going to run it by Sidney first. The idiot thinks he has us fooled into believing that the only reason he comes to us is because he respects Sid’s opinion and not because he wants Sid’s money to back him up.”

  She pauses and flashes me a wicked smile. “You know what I told Sid last night when he mentioned this latest venture idea of Calhoun’s? I told him he should suggest they open up a sleep studies center instead. Then, to help the patients nod off, they can bring Calhoun in and get him talking business.”

  We both snort a laugh and my spirits get an even bigger boost when I see that Gina has steered us to the bar, where she orders us each a glass of champagne.

  “Cheers,” Gina says, holding her glass aloft. We clink and drink. Then she shakes her head and smiles that megawatt smile of hers. “Mattie, I must say, you are looking fantastic tonight. That dress is beautiful.”

  “Thank you,” I say. A few more compliments like that and my head will be so big I won’t be able to fit through the doors.

  “You’ve done something different with your hair, haven’t you?”

  “I have. I finally found a great stylist.”

  “Well, that is a coup!” she says. “Whatever you’re doing, it’s working. You’ve been turning heads since you got here.”