Mortal Remains

by Peter Clement

  “Well, I’m glad of that, for both of you.”

  Wait a minute. That wasn’t an actor. It was Dan. What would he be doing on a television show?

  Before he could open his eyes, someone pried his right lid up, beamed a white light directly into his pupil, and peered at him through the opposite side of an ophthalmoscope. “Stop it.” He moaned, and tried to move away from the glare, still feeling he had a hot coal buried in there. But a burning sheet of pain snapped up the back of his head and stopped him.

  Then he remembered what had happened.

  “Something has abraded your cornea, Dr. Roper,” the woman said from somewhere beyond the glare, “and I don’t think it was my toenails – wait a minute. Sheriff Evans, can you hand me my medical bag?” She removed the ophthalmoscope, leaving him momentarily blinded, but he could hear her rummaging around for something.

  “What the hell’s going on?” he mumbled, unable to make his mouth move properly.

  “Hold my light, please, Sheriff,” she ordered, and brought a tiny pair of forceps into view.

  “Now wait a second-”

  “Don’t move, Doctor.”

  Before he could reply the white glare of the scope floodlit his eyeball again, and her fingers pulled the lids even farther apart.

  He winced at a slight stinging sensation, then it was over.

  “There,” she said, suddenly releasing her grip and allowing him to retreat back into darkness.

  The hot coal sensation had vanished. He still felt a slight burning, but found it tolerable.

  She studied the tip of the tiny forceps in her hand. “You had a piece of glass stuck superficially in the conjunctival membrane. Luckily it wasn’t embedded in the cornea and came out easy enough. Here, press gently with this,” and she placed a gauze pad over the eye.

  “Who are you?”

  “Lucy O’Connor. I’m so sorry, but when you leapt into the room like that, I acted on reflex.”

  He tried to get up, but another spasm shot up from between his shoulders to the top of his scalp and changed his mind. As he flopped back down, the hard surface made him realize that he was still on the floor. “Lucy who?” he asked between gritted teeth as his neck muscles uncoiled.

  “Lucy O’Connor, your family medicine resident for the next three months. I wrote you that I’d be arriving a day early.”

  “Oh, my God. That’s this week?”

  She ripped strips of tape off a roll and began to apply them across the gauze to hold it in place. “Of course I don’t know if you’ll still have me. I really am sorry, but you looked like a wild man, all dirty and wielding a baseball bat. Frankly, I thought you were going to kill me.”

  Mark forced his good eye open and encountered the same tumbling black hair and white complexion he’d first seen on entering the room. “Weren’t you supposed to be someone named Paul?”

  A frown overshadowed the deep brown eyes hovering inches from his own. “He and I switched at the last minute,” she said. “You didn’t know?”

  He shook his head. Bad move. New spasms raced each other to the base of his skull. Wincing, he added, “And I thought he, I mean you, weren’t due until next Tuesday.”

  “You’re sure you didn’t get a notice? The hospital moved everything up so I’d be back by mid-February to cover the floors when a lot of residents take a winter vacation.” As she talked, her hands continued to work with the tape. “The program director told me he wrote you about the changes weeks ago.”

  His cluttered desktop leapt to mind. “Oh, God.” He groaned. “I haven’t opened my mail for the last-”

  “You can let go now,” she interrupted, and deftly finished anchoring the improvised eye patch with a final strip of adhesive. Her fingers were firm as they worked, yet her touch was light. “There. That should hold until we find you a proper one.”

  “I really am the one to blame, Dr. O’Connor-”

  “Please, everyone calls me Lucy.”

  “Of course. But how did you get in here?”

  “I’m the guilty party on that one,” Dan said, hovering over her shoulder.

  Returning her equipment to a worn black doctor’s bag, she smiled up at him.

  It was a dazzler – what his father used to call a real string of pearls.

  “Yes. Dan’s been most kind to me. When I couldn’t find anyone here, I asked around town where you might be and got sent to your office at the White House. Luckily, Dan had been working late, and after I told him who I was, he figured you wouldn’t want me waiting in the cold.”

  Mark saw a flush of pink in the sheriff’s plump face.

  “I dug up your spare keys and brought her back out here.” He gave a little shrug that seemed to say it was the least he could have done. “I knew you’d want me to.” Then he started to chuckle. “I sure didn’t expect this, though. Luckily I left her my cell number, and she called me after she coldcocked you. When I got here, she was standing over you with the bat.” He turned to Lucy, laughing even harder. “You should have seen your face when I told you who he was.”

  She grinned back at him. “At first I thought you were kidding. Then when I realized you were serious, I felt I’d die.”

  “Well, if he’d jumped out at me looking the way he did, I’d have shot him.”

  They both had a good laugh over that prospect. Mark just held his head and gritted his teeth.

  “But what happened to you?” Dan asked him. “You look as if you’ve been through hell.”

  “You’re not going to believe this, but-”

  “Before you two start chatting,” Lucy interrupted, “I need to examine Dr. Roper further.” Her fingers slipped behind his neck and applied gentle pressure to the tip of his seventh cervical vertebra. “Any tenderness there?”

  “No. But I really have to apologize-”

  “How about there?” she cut in, her fingers slipping up a notch.

  “No. You see, someone broke in here last night, and I thought you were him-”

  “And there?” Her touch found vertebra number five.

  “Fine. I’m sure they’re all fine.”

  “For the moment, I’m the doctor, Doctor.” She gave his fourth cervical vertebra the once-over. “Is there pain here?”

  Pretty damn sure of herself for a resident, he thought. He found her exam uncommonly thorough. He also found himself wondering about her age. She looked older, leaner than the usual crop he got up here. Male or female, they all seemed barely out of their baby fat these days. She also had a hint of sadness in her eyes that the usual polished faces lacked.

  Once she pronounced that he could safely stand up, he cautiously rolled on his side and managed to push himself to a half-sitting position without setting off the muscles in his neck again. With her on one arm and Dan on the other, he got all the way to his feet. He had a headache, but nothing else. “I’m glad you went easy on me,” he said, hoping to relax the worried look on his two helpers’ faces.

  Lucy’s frown deepened. “Part of my reflex. If I hadn’t held back, you would have been dead.”

  From the matter-of-fact way she said it, he thought she must be kidding. But her expression remained all business. In fact, she appeared downright calm for someone who’d just clobbered her teacher-to-be. He liked that, figuring she didn’t rattle easily. And now that he was upright, he also realized how petite she seemed, her head coming up only to his shoulders. Of course her being in bare feet and still clothed in an oversize bathrobe helped make her look tiny. But there had been no mistaking the strength he felt in her hands and arms as she supported him. “Now let’s see if you can walk on your own,” she said, very much in charge.

  He made it to the doorway, no trouble. “How long was I out?” he asked, pivoting around to make the return trip. The general rule was that anyone who remained unconscious more than twenty minutes after a blow to the head warranted special observation for subsequent damage, including a CT to rule out a fracture or bleed.

  “Don’t worry. I
’d say five minutes, tops. No need for a CT. But I’ll wake you on and off tonight, just to be sure.”

  This woman knew her stuff. “Thanks, but I don’t think that’ll be necessary – oh, shit.”

  “What?” the two said in unison. Alarm creased their faces as they rushed to his side.

  “Whoa! I’m fine. I just realized I hadn’t made arrangements for where you were to stay yet. Normally male residents stay with me, but the women I billet with a local family-”

  “Dr. Roper!” Lucy’s concerned look vanished with a laugh, and her eyes lit up like sun-kissed earth. “For a young-looking guy, you’re certainly old-fashioned. I’ve been living in coed quarters for the last seven years, plus I grew up with four brothers, so if it’s okay with you, I’ll be fine right here.”

  Mark felt at a loss for words. “Of course, if you like, you’re most welcome…” He trailed off at the sight of Dan rolling his eyes toward the ceiling and smirking at him.

  “Great,” Lucy said, looking around the room. “I loved the feel of this place the minute I stepped inside. There’s a real sense of home in these old wooden houses. Reminded me of where I grew up outside Montreal.”

  “Oh, you’re Canadian?” Mark said, all the while thinking he might not be old-fashioned, but Hampton Junction sure was. Nell would bust an artery spreading the word about this one. Dan, still behind Lucy’s line of sight, didn’t help matters any, shaking with laughter, his face red from trying not to make a sound.

  “Originally,” she replied, “but I’ve been so many places, especially in the last seven years, I don’t know what I am anymore. Maybe a citizen of the world? Say, I checked out your kitchen. You obviously don’t eat in much, but there’s the makings for tea. I’d prescribe a cup for all of us. You two go downstairs and get it ready while I change.”

  Obediently following her orders, Mark led the way. He used the opportunity to inform Dan of his ordeal.

  “Jesus!” Dan responded, after hearing the story. “You could have been killed. And not just by that yahoo. Those poachers get so tanked up they’re liable to fire off a shot if a leaf rustles. You tearing up the ridge must have sounded like a whole herd of deer.”

  “I don’t think it takes much guesswork to finger who it was-”

  “Now, Mark-”

  “My question is, what are you going to do about it?”

  “One thing I’m not going to do is go into the Braden estate leveling accusations against Chaz without a shred of evidence.”

  “Shred? Who the hell else would want me out of the way? Admit it. Or are you too afraid of them?”

  Dan bristled, and his face went livid. “You’ve no cause to say that.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “No problem! I’m always careful not to go off half-cocked with unsubstantiated allegations.” His tone of voice had turned icy. “But I learned long ago to be very cautious about taking on some people more than others.”

  The hurt in his baggy eyes bothered Mark. But he wasn’t in the mood to pamper bruised feelings or allow reelection worries to sidetrack going after Chaz. “ ‘Unsubstantiated allegations!’ You saw how the guy went toe-to-toe with me in your office.”

  “Any witnesses tonight?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Can you identify this figure you saw in the woods?”

  “Of course not. He was too far away. With his hood plus cap-”

  “So it could have been any drunk taking a potshot-”

  “But he came after me.”

  “Did you see him then? Maybe he realized he’d crossed the line, wanted to make sure you weren’t hurt?”

  “Jesus, Dan, can you hear yourself?”

  “It’s what Braden would say, or at least the army of lawyers he’ll hire would. What do you expect? I repeat, there’ll be no accusations against the likes of that family with nothing but your word against his. At least not by me!” Dan’s voice held rock steady despite the anger in it.

  “Okay, so what are you going to do?”

  “I’ll get two men out there tonight and make sure what’s left of your Jeep stays a secure crime scene. We’ll also take a look at the tracks you and he left, but just along the highway. I still have to consider the possibility it isn’t Chaz Braden we’re after, and won’t risk anyone else’s life by asking them to go into the woods after an armed drunken maniac who’s bored with deer and wants a crack at two-legged prey-”

  “You’re not telling me you really believe this could be anyone but Chaz-”

  “I’m telling you it’s my job to take into account every possible scenario just as you do when making a differential diagnosis as a doctor. What’s more, if you were thinking clearly, you wouldn’t want me to act rashly about Chaz Braden. I don’t know what it is between you and him, but you’re not exactly rational about the guy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re always on the edge of losing it around him. I thought you were nearly going to go at him in my office.”

  Mark said nothing, but felt his own face grow warm. He fought off the urge to tell him he was full of shit.

  “We nail him, it’s got to be done by the book, understand? It’s not fear that makes me more careful around the likes of him. It’s a fact of life you need a better case against Braden-type money. Otherwise, those lawyers will have Chaz free in a heartbeat, even if we do get evidence he’s the one. That’s American justice, bucko, so get used to it. Cool your jets, Mark, and let me do my job. You got no cause to think I won’t. And in the meantime, I suggest you take care of your own hangups about that family. They’re clouding your judgment.”

  The burn in Mark’s face increased. “I just want a crack at him, to tell the son of a bitch that I know it was him. That ought to make him think twice before any other anonymous ‘hunters’ take a shot at me.”

  “Will you listen to yourself? I’ve never seen you so readily jump to conclusions on a case before.”

  His cheeks felt on fire. He didn’t often have disagreements with Dan, but when he did, the man could be a frustrating, stubborn opponent, especially when what he said had the sting of truth. He had to admit, the Bradens brought out the worst in him. He couldn’t just pin it on their preoccupation with the business and political side of medicine, though that did grate. But similarly inclined doctors elsewhere didn’t skewer his professional objectivity and make him run around “half-cocked.” No, this ran deeper. Just being around them got him on edge, yet he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Nevertheless, he’d have to rein in those feelings if he was going to do his job as coroner. “Sorry, Dan. You’re right. I was out of line.”

  The man’s broad face relaxed a little, but the pained darkness in his gaze remained. “Hey, we all have our peccadilloes-”

  “Wow, you two look serious,” interrupted Lucy, sweeping into the kitchen dressed in jeans and a white shirt untucked at the waist. “Hope you’ve at least put the kettle on.” Before they could answer, she opened one of the cupboards and came up with a canister of tea leaves that Mark didn’t even know was there. In seconds she had them steeping, then continued to poke through the cupboards.

  Fifteen minutes later they were refilling their cups and sitting down to a late supper of omelettes that she had whipped up from remnants of food she’d found in his refrigerator. “Only a month past the best before date,” she said of the ingredients, eating with the quick efficiency most doctors learn from having to grab a meal between calls. “And whatever kind of cheese you once had, it’s turned to a Roquefort look-alike. But I think we’ll live.”

  “Mark keeps the take-out food industry going in this town,” Dan teased. “Even has his own table at The Four Aces.”

  “Four Aces? Sounds like fun.”

  “It’s Hampton Junction’s combination bar, home-cooking restaurant, and dance hall,” he added, giving Mark a wink. “I’m sure your host here will be glad to show you around.”

  Lucy flashed that brilliant smile again. “That’
d be fine. But my being here is bound to generate enough rumors as it is, so I’ll tell you right now, and everyone else in town, I’m strictly an aboveboard kind of woman. So you can assure folks their doctor will be safe with me. Besides, I’m engaged. My fiancé lives in New York.”

  Dan blushed, his forkful of eggs halfway into his mouth. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insinuate-”

  “No offense,” Lucy said, waving off his apology and never missing a bite.

  It didn’t make any difference to Mark. He’d no more think of dating a resident than his sister, if he had one.

  That same evening

  The Braden Country Home,

  South of Hampton Junction

  “What did I do to warrant such a moron of a son!”

  Chaz Braden felt his head spin. The scotch he’d been nursing all afternoon had hit him hard as soon as he came in from the cold to the warmth of the house. Outside he’d kept himself just nicely topped off. “I only meant to scare the son of a bitch,” he said, trying not to sway in front of his father, loathing himself for feeling so beholden to him.

  “Beware a father of spectacular ability,” Kelly had once told him in their early days together. “They never let you fail, always stepping in to take over, and that leaves you weak.”

  He’d scoffed at the warning, having always relished growing up in privilege and figuring he deserved an edge in life.

  He caught a glance of his hangdog face in a nearby gilded mirror. It reminded him of putty, and he immediately looked away. Yet he continued to stand there, fifty-five years old and pathetic as a fucking teenager being chewed out for screwing up again.

  “You idiot. A bonehead play like that is so obvious. Who else will he think did it but you?”

  It took all his concentration to come up with a reply. “Roper didn’t see me. And I had no car to spot. One of your men dropped me off – told him I just wanted to take a crack at the deer that hang around the ridge out there. On my way back to the highway afterward, I called him on my cellular to pick me up again, but closer to town. That way I made sure he didn’t see Roper’s wrecked Jeep.” Despite his best effort, he slurred his words.