by Tom Bierdz
“It’s Grant Garrick, Nick.” I raised my arms.
“Megan’s friend.” He lowered his gun. “What are you doing here, Grant?”
I offered my hand. “This is Greg, a friend.”
Acknowledging him with a nod, He repeated, “Why are you here?”
“I wanted to see your rowboat. Some time ago Megan claimed Sasha...” I hesitated, hit with a need to be sensitive to Nick’s feelings. “Megan said she saw your rowboat far out to sea, that it had drifted away.”
Confusion blanketed his face. “Not to my knowledge.”
“This is not a new rowboat?”
“No.”
“Did you have another rowboat in addition to this one?”
“No.”
“Did you tow this one in from the lake?”
“No! Why the twenty questions?”
“I needed to know if Megan lied to me.” I turned to Greg. “Why don’t you go off and take your photos.” I explained to Nick that he was a birder and burgeoning photographer.
“Megan’s a first class liar. She could beat a lie-detector machine.” Bad-mouthing Megan relaxed him, drove out the tension. “I was about to take the boat out. Want a ride?”
Skimming the lake with a sea breeze on my face would have been a good idea on another day. “No, but I’d love to see it.” Leaving my footprints in the wet sand I followed Nick to the boathouse, apologizing for not checking with him before accessing his property.
The rollup door had been raised and the thirty-three foot white cruiser, with a marine blue Bimini top, powered by twin 500 horsepower engines, had been lowered into the water. I hopped on as Nick pridefully showed me the cockpit which seated six and had a built-in wet bar, then led me into the full galley with cherry cabinets and white Corian countertops with sleeping accommodations for four.
“She used to be my mistress. My one and only now that Sasha’s gone.”
I wondered about that remembering Megan telling me that Sasha suspected he was having an affair with another woman after finding a pair of earrings in the boat. But it was not my place to question Nick about his personal life. “How close were Sasha and Megan?”
“Like peas in a pod. I assume you know that Megan practically raised Sasha after both parents had died. The State wanted to put Sasha in a foster home but Megan, barely 18, fought for her. They did everything together.” He opened the fridge, took out two bottles of beer, handed me one. “I don’t mind telling you there were times I resented Megan’s interference. She was always nosing into Sasha’s business, taking her side, pitting her against me. But they had their fights like all sisters do. Sasha hated Megan bossing her. I was grateful when Megan was involved with someone, less tuned in to Sasha like when she was with you, or married.”
“Megan was married?” Every muscle in my abdomen clenched, as though steeling against a punch.
“You didn’t know that?”
“No.”
“More than once I think.”
“When? Who?”
“I don’t know. I never paid it much attention. It was before I knew Sasha.”
“And you knew her how long?”
“Four years. Married almost three.” Hoisting himself on a stool, he swiveled toward me and drank thoughtfully as though the taste was an idea forming in his mind. “Jack. I seem to recollect Sasha referring to Jack as Megan’s husband.”
“What else?”
“That’s it. Like I said it was way in the past. We didn’t talk about it, and Sasha never said Megan complained about...Wait a minute...I was thinking of a bitter divorce but I think she was a widow.”
“Her husband died?”
“I think so.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. I’m not even positive he died.”
“And the other or others?”
“Grant, why are you asking me? You should be asking Megan.”
Because she told me she never married. “You’re right. Megan hasn’t been very open with me. There are a lot of big gaps I need to fill. We’re sort of on the outs right now.” The bottle in my hand began to shake from anger, fear, or both. I steadied it between my knees. “At Sasha’s funeral you warned me about Megan, advised me to get out of the relationship, why?”
“Because she’s destructive. She’ll wear you down and destroy you. Like I said, she would poison Sasha against me. Always interfering. She was always there for Sasha, but somehow she had a way of making Sasha feel bad about herself. And Sasha’s dead. Whether Megan killed her, or caused her to kill herself, the outcome’s the same. She’s gone.” He had struggled to hold it altogether but the tear finally broke through. With a deft movement of his hand, he wiped it away. “I still haven’t got my head around how Megan could have killed the sister she loved and was so close to, but Detective Rollins has got me thinking. He told me he had talked to you so I assume you know about the bruises, that Sasha’s fingerprints weren’t on the pill bottle.”
“Yeah. Megan has to be considered a suspect.”
We got on to other subjects, stopped talking about Megan. Nick talked about his love of boating, about some of the trips he had taken. I politely listened but my mind was preoccupied with Megan and how she had lied and used me.
36
Still in a fog on the way home, I was only half there for Greg as he rambled on about the shots he got and his desire to have the film quickly developed. I told him to take them in and I would call in the payment. He clued in to my unwillingness to talk and drove silently most of the way. Needing to do something physical, I had Greg drive me home so I could wash the car and have a taxi drive him home.
“Get your wheels back, Dr. Garrick?”
I had just finished sudsing up the Porsche in my driveway when Detective Rollins marched over. “Not yet, but there’s no law that says I can’t wash it.” I picked up the hose to rinse it. I had a burning urge to spray the detective. “Move over Detective, I’ve got to wash the soap off.”
“Nice wheels,” he said, watching me. “Must be cool having a hot car and a hot dame.”
“This was my graduation present when I completed psychiatry school.” I hosed off the other side. “I’ll give you a ride sometime.”
“If I don’t give you one first.” He snickered, thought he was clever.
I turned off the hose, picked up two chamois cloths, threw one to Rollins.
Scowling, he tossed it back. “Careful there, Doc. You don’t know who you’re playing with.”
I wiped the car, wrung out the chamois. “Maybe if you stopped with all the innuendos and tell me why you’re here.”
He pulled out a cigar butt out of his shirt pocket and relighted it, sending a plume of smoke into the air. “The toxicology report came back.”
“Zoloft?”
“Yeah, enough to drop a horse.” He moved closer. “Sasha Kovich only had a fourteen day supply from her doctor. There had to be another source. I’m thinking that a psychiatrist would have a shitload of pharmaceuticals.” He sucked vigorously on his cigar, bringing it back to life. “Making it easy for his girlfriend.”
I had been drying off the car as he talked. Suddenly, I stopped. My stomach clenched. I was right suspecting some of my meds were missing. Did the slippery fingers belong to Megan? Was I suspected of being an accessory to murder? “Obvious, detective, psychotropic medications are an important part of the therapeutic process.” I wrung out the chamois like it was Rollins’ neck dripping blood. “It’s a cheap shot to accuse me. And you have to know I keep my drug supply locked in my office, not in my home.”
“Of course,” he said, sucking like a vacuum to reignite his cigar, then giving up and squashing it with his foot on my drive. “ I’ll get a subpoena when I want to check your drugs. My purpose today was merely to alert you to
the toxicology report. I needed to share my excitement with someone and you came to mind.” Inching into my space, a little more than a foot away, he peered into my face. “You don’t seem to share my excitement.”
He stepped back before I could shove him back. “We don’t all march to the same drummer.” I felt the heat rise from my face.
He walked around the Porsche checking it out. “Have you come up with a solution to the puzzle?”
“What puzzle?”
“How Sasha took the pills and left no fingerprints.”
Feeling a flash of insight, I said, “She used her hand. You said there was only one prescription bottle.”
“One prescription container from Dr. Sam Allende and another Zoloft container, probably a sampler, the one without the prints.”
I frowned. “No solution.”
“Hmm. I thought you’d come up with something like psychokinesis. You know, the power of the mind.”
“Very funny, Detective.”
He got back in my face. I smelled garlic on his breath. “You see, Doc, I’m pretty sure your girlfriend did it. I’m still on the fence about you, but this report is pretty damning. Maybe if you were to help me pin it on her I could see how you were exploited. Most men are saps for a gorgeous woman. We can’t help it. That’s our nature. But when you continue to protect her when the evidence continues to build against her, you appear complicit.” With an avuncular shake of his head, he added, “She’s not worth it. No woman is.”
I watched him walk away knowing I hadn’t seen the last of him. If Megan murdered her sister with my drugs I could be an accessory. I could do jail time as well as losing my practice. My life was going from bad to worse.
I felt I needed to talk to Megan. Her message said not to call unless I was moving back in, but I was a jumble of nerves. Maybe she could shed some light. I called her.
“Grant, it’s about time you come to your senses. When are you moving back in?” There was a bounce in her voice like a contest winner.
“I’m not.” I braced myself for her reaction, needing to keep her on the line to ask my questions.
“Then this conversation is over...”
“Wait! I need to ask you something” She stayed on the line. “Sasha’s rowboat didn’t wash out to sea. Why did you lie to me?”
“I didn’t. I told you Sasha went for a walk, didn’t take her phone.”
“Yeah, but what was all that business about her wanting to drown herself? You’re seeing the rowboat far out to sea?”
A devious laugh. “Men are so dumb. I’m attracted to you. I fabricated a story so you would see me outside the office. It worked. We had dinner together. Grant, you must know that women pull little tricks on their men all the time to get what they want. It’s who we are. You want to make a big deal about it, go ahead. Is it a lie? Maybe a little white lie. Probably no different from when you tell a patient everything is going to be all right.”
I didn’t tell that to patients unless I was reasonably certain of the future.
“So when are you moving back in?” she continued.
“I need more time to think about it.” I didn’t. I wasn’t moving back in. This was my little white lie to buy some more time, to resolve the myriad of questions jumbled in my mind.
“The clock is ticking. I think you know that I’ll follow through on my threat if I have to.”
“But, Megan, this doesn’t make a lot of sense. If you want me to move in because you love me, why would you threaten my livelihood?”
“I’ll do whatever I have to do get my man.” She ended the call.
I felt a chill from her tone, like the temperature in the room had dropped twenty degrees. I poured myself a tall scotch, dizzy with speculation, and walked to the window. Rain pelted down on the car I had just washed. I had failed to put in the garage. It didn’t matter. How luxurious to have such mundane concerns. I believed that the Sasha rowboat story was a ploy to get me to see Megan, but it was also part of a broader plan to provide an alibi for Megan if she did, in fact, kill Sasha and possibly set me up as an accessory.
I needed to see Carrie and prayed the Benson murder trial was ending. Instead of moping around I decided to join Nancy, Bruce’s wife, at the ballgame. Her girlfriend had cancelled out and Nancy called to see if I wanted to use her ticket.
37
The rain was relentless, streaming down like sheets, but the stands inside Safeco Field were comfortable because the roof was closed. The intermittent, daunting pounding on the roof was mostly drowned out by the boisterous crowd. Nancy was seated behind the Mariner dugout, clinging to a cup of wine when I arrived. She wore a player’s blue Mariner jacket and baseball cap, the curls of her brunette hair bouncing beneath. She greeted me with bright brown, almond eyes, pert freckled nose, and genuine smile. I hadn’t seen her since my divorce and she looked younger now than then, a sign that life was going well for her. I sat, kissed her on the cheek.
“You’re looking great, Nanc,” I said.
“I don’t know that my mirror agrees with you, but thanks.” She flashed me one of those impish looks where her lips barely curled up like she did when we were in school together. “Every now and then I think about some of the fun times we had in med school.”
“Fun times? I remember it as punishment the way they wore us down.”
“That’s why those dorm room parties were so much fun. We had to let off steam.” She glowed. “I ran into Kelli last month. Remember her?”
Of course, I did. I had a near-affair with Kelli that could have cost me my marriage. Attractive with flaming red hair, she pursued me aggressively. It took everything I had to turn her down. “How could I forget her. She was around every corner, popped up at every bend.”
“She asked about you. I said you were a practicing shrink. She was impressed.”
“Where did you see her?”
“In LA, when I was attending a conference.”
“Kelli’s a pediatrician?”
She laughed. “No, I ran into her at a mall. She didn’t finish. She’s working for a health insurance company.”
“Kelli wasn’t disciplined like you were.” I shouted down a beer vendor. “How’s your practice going?”
“Phenomenal. I have trouble keeping up with it all. I have a PA but I’m going to have to hire another pediatrician. Bruce is on the road a lot so being busy is good in that sense, but this is the first game I’ve gone to. I like to be there for him when he pitches. He doesn’t say it, but I know he’s disappointed when I don’t come.”
“I would have suspected nothing less with your success. You’re the complete package.”
“You also had a thriving practice at one time.”
“Yeah. Lots of things have happened.”
Her expression saddened. She sipped her wine. “Did Bruce tell you I saw Hanna a few months back? She was really down. I was worried about her. I urged her to see a therapist. She didn’t, did she?”
“No. She has had it with therapists.”
She frowned. “Sorry, Grant. I thought you two were good as a couple.”
“Things happen.” I drank from my beer.
“I should have followed up.”
“I’m sure she’d be glad to see you, but Hanna’s doing better. We talk. She’s not as angry at me anymore.”
An announcer asked everyone to stand for the National Anthem. A local singer sang The Star Spangled Banner. Afterwards, Bruce blew a kiss to Nancy, waved to me, and then joined the Mariners who scampered onto the field. Bruce began his warm ups.
I felt a pinch of envy without a trace of resentment for Bruce doing what he loved with a intelligent, supporting wife at his side and mourned my loss. Once I had it all. I even thought my life with Megan was a new beginning. It was not only a false start but f
raught with perilous danger.
We were playing the Oakland A’s and it was beginning to turn into a romp, one of those rare days when the Mariners could do nothing wrong. The hits were plentiful, the defense outstanding, robbing the A’s of sure base hits, and Bruce was in the groove threading the strike zone with pitches that moved as if they had a mind of their own. He struck out every other batter which brought the crowd to their feet, waving towels. Nancy was among the first to stand up and shout when Bruce had two strikes on a batter.
“I hear you’re involved with some blonde. You have a picture of her?
I shook my head, then remembered how a tipsy Megan and I had our picture taken on my cell phone by a bystander after dining in a nearby restaurant. Later, I had two shots developed, shoved them into my wallet between my money and had forgotten about them. I never bothered putting them in the plastic windows. “I think I do,” I said, taking out my wallet. The photos were bent, stuffed between the greenbacks. I pulled them out, two near identical, cheek-to-cheek, head photos, and glanced at them. Megan and I were both so loose and uninhibited, caught up in the excitement of our freshness, feeling bold and alive. I couldn’t fathom how the woman in the photo could be the wicked schemer I’d been experiencing lately. I handed the photo to Nancy.
“Stunning,” Nancy said, “even in these photos.” She handed the photos back. “Does Hanna know?”
“She knows I’ve been dating.”
Nancy rolled her eyes. “Everyone knows your dating! This town still has a rumor mill. Grapevine has it that you’ve gone out with eighty percent of the eligible women in town.”
I flushed, embarrassed.
“I’m not judging you, Grant. You’ve been through a lot. You know what they say in the medical professions – Physician heal thyself.”
“You’re right,” I said, lowering my defenses. “I’ve turned the corner. I’m only seeing Megan, but my practice is still suffering.”
