by G. H. Ephron
“Someone … tried … to … kill … you,” she repeated, I hoped she was writing it down. “And your name, sir?”
I wanted to scream, “Stop reading from that stupid script!” but instead I spelled my name.
She painstakingly repeated each letter. “And where are you now? And are you in any danger right now, sir? And sir, do you need medical attention?”
“No, I don’t need medical attention.”
“An officer will be with you shortly.” Pause. “Sir, are you sure you don’t need a doctor?”
“Not unless I have a stroke from talking to you!” I screamed. I slammed down the phone.
Next, I called the Pearce.
First thing Gloria says is, “Did you know you had an eight o’clock?”
Fireworks started going off again in my head. “Yes, I know I had an eight o’clock appointment. And guess what? I’m not there. Instead, I’m here at the boathouse trying to figure out who’s trying to kill me.”
“Whoa, calm down. Someone’s trying to kill you?”
I recognized the tone. It’s the one she uses with patients who think they’re Jesus Christ.
“Gloria, it’s not paranoia when you’re surrounded by assassins,” I said, exhausted.
“Peter, are you all right?”
I gave a weak laugh. “Right as rain.”
“Hang on a sec, someone wants to talk to you.”
Annie’s voice came on, deadly serious. “Who’s trying to kill you?”
The words rushed out. “Some asshole in a motorboat ran into me. First he buzzes me from one side, then from the other. Then he runs me over. Then he comes back and smashes the boat to smithereens for good measure.”
“Any witnesses?”
“I don’t think so. I called the cops and they’re sending someone over.”
“Peter —” Annie started. I sneezed. “The nurse here says you’re okay. Are you?”
I sneezed again.
“You don’t sound okay. You sound miserable.”
“I’m soaked to the bone, freezing cold. I smell like something that took a swim in a cesspool. And my foot looks like a chew toy. I desperately need a hot shower but I have to wait for the police to get here.”
“Would coffee help?”
I felt a rush of gratitude. A cup of coffee at that very moment would have been a healing balm. The phantom aroma of French roast tickled the back of my nose. “It certainly would.”
“It’s on the way.”
“You’re an angel. Make it an extra large. Light, no sugar. And Annie, there’s an old pair of sweats in my office. Would you mind bringing those over, too, with the pair of glasses that should be in my top desk drawer? Ask Gloria to let you in.”
“You lost your glasses?”
I sneezed.
“Just sit tight. I’m on my way.”
11
I DRAGGED a moldy blanket from a corner of the boathouse. With my teeth chattering, I shook it out and wrapped it around me. On my way out to the dock, the blanket caught on the doorjamb. I ripped a hole in it yanking it loose. Cursing, I stomped outside and got my sneakers.
By the time I got back up to street level, two cars had pulled up. One was a police cruiser, its lights flashing. The other was a dark sedan. A redhead in a rumpled suit jumped out of the sedan and sauntered over to the window of the cop car and chatted with the officer at the wheel. After a minute, the cruiser doused its lights and pulled away. I waited at the door to greet Detective Sergeant Joseph MacRae. He looked me up and down, took a whiff, and recoiled. I was not amused.
I took him down to the dock, and while I’m pointing out where I’d been run down and he’s writing notes in his little book, he comments, “Yesterday, Sylvia Jackson OD’s with you at her side. Today, some person wearing a hood over his face runs down your boat.” He shook his head. “You accident-prone?”
The fury that I’d had more or less under control snapped at the smart-ass bait. “Fuck you, too. I get run over and practically killed and you’re playing the comic. And in answer to your question, no, I’m not accident-prone and I don’t go in for recreational swimming in the Charles. What about you? You much of a boater?”
He stiffened and slapped his book down on a bench. “What’s your point?” he said, poking an index finger into my chest.
I batted it away. “My point is that maybe I’m not the only one involved in two accidents in two days.”
He stuck out his chin and drew himself up, the effort to stay calm turning him pink. “Why don’t you just start over and tell me what happened.”
“Why the hell should I trust you?”
“Because it’s my job,” he said, clenching his fists. “How about you let me do it?”
“Let you do your job?” I laughed and took a step toward him, closing the gap between us to inches. “Now where have I heard that before? How about you let me do my job?”
He was up on the balls of his feet. The top of his head barely reached the tip of my nose. “Your job?” he sneered. “Is that what they teach you at Harvard? How to intimidate defenseless women who …”
“So what are you saying? Huh? Has Sylvia Jackson complained that I intimidate her?”
“Sylvia Jackson is extremely vulnerable.”
“And I suppose that’s why you’re hanging around all the time, to give her the protection she needs?”
He sputtered, reaching for a comeback. Then he narrowed his eyes and squinted up at me. “What I can’t figure out is why you’re involved in this case anyway, after what happened to you the last time —”
He didn’t get a chance to finish. A red flash of anger grew out of my chest and I rammed my fist into his face. He staggered and slowly toppled over backwards into the water. Time seemed to stop as I stood there, stunned. It’s out of character for me to get angry, never mind hit someone. My analytical side took over for an instant and I noted it felt damned good.
I didn’t get to savor the moment. A minute later he came up thrashing, screaming profanities at the top of his lungs. He hauled himself up and came lunging back at me. His right to the jaw missed but the knee he brought up hard into my stomach didn’t. I doubled over and he whacked his arm across my shoulder blades. I grunted and found myself spread-eagle on the dock. He yanked my arms back and handcuffed them together behind me.
“There, this is much better,” he said as he ground his heel into my butt.
“You bastard,” I wheezed, trying to catch my breath.
“Let’s see, assaulting an officer, resisting arrest —”
I heard a yell, footsteps coming hard down the stairs and across the dock.
“Mac, what the hell are you doing?” It was Annie. “Peter, you all right?” Then, “What on earth — you’re both soaked!”
“You know this bozo?” MacRae asked her.
“Yeah, I know him. He’s a friend of mine.”
“You’ve got strange taste in friends. Now I remember. You’re working for the public defender. That explains it. Never did know what was good for you.”
“And you did?” There was a long pause during which I assume Annie and MacRae engaged in a glaring contest while I tried to keep my face out of the duck shit that coated the dock. Annie finally broke the silence. “How’s your mother these days? Last time I saw her was at the wake.”
MacRae eased some of the pressure on my ass. “She’s holding up. She’s a strong woman. Misses my dad.” The anger was gone from his voice.
“Yeah, I miss my dad, too,” Annie said. “But then, we lost him long before his wake.”
“Annie —” MacRae started.
He’d loosened up on me enough so that I scrambled free. But I couldn’t get far on my knees with my hands cuffed behind me.
“Time-out!” Annie cried and stepped between us. MacRae had his legs apart, knees flexed like he was ready to spring. “Just a darned minute here. What happened anyway?”
“He assaulted me,” MacRae said, his voice petulant.
&
nbsp; “And what are you doing here anyway?” Annie asked. “Since when have you taken up sculling?”
“Yeah, how come you sent that other cop away?” I threw in.
MacRae eased his stance. “I happened to hear the call so I came to investigate.”
“Lucky me,” I muttered, struggling to my feet, wondering if luck had anything to do with it.
“So how the hell did you two end up like this?” Annie pressed. “Come on, Mac, what’s with the handcuffs? Put yourself in Peter’s position. He’s out on the river and someone tries to run him down. You’d be pretty ticked off, too.”
MacRae mumbled something.
“Come on, Mac. Just pretend Peter’s one of your buddies.”
“Annie, that’s not fair,” MacRae protested.
“You cops always did have one set of rules for your friends, another for the rest of humanity.” I had the distinct impression Annie was calling in some ancient chit.
Grudgingly, MacRae reached over and undid the cuffs, but not before yanking my arms back for good measure.
I sat on a wooden bench and rubbed my wrists. I coughed up some brackish water and grimaced. My ribs already ached and my back felt as if I’d been hit with a two-by-four. It was some consolation to see MacRae rubbing his jaw.
Annie passed me an extra large cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. I peeled back the lid and inhaled. I took a sip. It had been a long time since coffee tasted this good. “I’d have brought you a cup, too, if I’d known you were going to be here,” she told MacRae.
He reached for a foot and was hopping around, struggling to remove a shoe. I slid over to make room on the bench. He sat down and took off one shoe and then the other, draining each one onto the dock. Then he tilted his head one way, then the other, and banged on the opposite side to get the water out of his ears. He lifted an arm to his nose and sniffed. “And they say one day we’re going to swim in this muck?”
He retrieved his pad, flipped it open, and started to write. “Okay,” the word came out through gritted teeth, “so you went out rowing like you do every morning —”
“Yeah, like I do every morning, but you know that.” I wondered what else Mac knew about my daily routine.
“And then what happened?” MacRae waited. He was trying to keep his teeth from chattering. I almost felt sorry for the guy.
I sighed and picked up the story where I’d left off earlier. He stopped writing when I got to the part where the motorboat came around one last time to smash my racing shell to smithereens.
“Did you notice anything in particular about the boat?”
“White. Small. About a twelve-footer.”
“And the driver. Man or woman?”
I shrugged. “Beats me.”
“And nobody saw this happen?”
“Hell, I don’t know. It was still getting light. Between the traffic on Memorial Drive and the other rowers out on the river, somebody should have. But who, I don’t know. Anyone report anything to the police?”
“Nada. So let me get this straight. You’re telling me that someone in a motorboat takes a couple of practice runs and then mows you down and no one sees it. Then your boat gets blown away and there’s nothing left of that either.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m telling you. Do you have a problem with …” Just then I remembered. I unripped the pocket and pulled out my little keepsake.
“And this?”
“My boat.”
“Get outta here,” MacRae muttered, taking the shard of white and turning it over and looking up at me with what felt like newfound admiration.
“Listen, Doc, I’m going to write this up.” MacRae flipped the notebook closed, started to shove it into a wet pocket, and thought better of it. “Can you come by headquarters later this afternoon? Make a formal statement. In the meanwhile, we’ll see if we can find any witnesses.”
He picked up his shoes and padded up the stairs. Annie and I watched as he made little toeprints on each step and disappeared into the boathouse.
Now I was starting to shiver. The blanket had ended up on the deck. I went over, picked it up, and wrapped it around my body.
“Peter,” Annie asked, her voice serious, “do you think there’s a connection?”
“Between what happened yesterday and this?”
“Well?”
“You know what Freud says about coincidences — there ain’t no such animal.”
“Who’d have known they could find you out on the river?”
I pulled the blanket closer around myself. “Just about anyone who knows me.”
“Anyone connected with the Jackson case?”
I thought for a moment. “Shit. I mentioned it to Sylvia Jackson … and then she told Lovely. That’s probably how MacRae knew.”
“Lovely?”
“Great name for a nurse, don’t you think? Particularly appropriate for this one. She’s been less than helpful, to put it mildly.”
“She probably realizes you’re there to discredit her patient, even if Sylvia Jackson doesn’t get it.”
MacRae was right about one thing. Sylvia Jackson was very vulnerable. And she was doing a lousy job of picking whom to trust. But then, she didn’t have a lot of options. “How’s she doing?”
“Syl? She’s recovering. But you won’t be able to get back in there to finish testing for another week at least. She’s telling everyone you’re a hero. Saved her life.”
“Yeah, right, big hero. And if I hadn’t been there, she probably wouldn’t have needed to have her life saved.”
“What makes you think your being there had anything to do with what happened to her? I’d say it was just the opposite. If you hadn’t been there, she might have died. She seems to have become quite attached to you. Could be, someone resents that attachment.”
“And that’s why they ran me down? Seems like a stretch. Was it a drug overdose?”
“Looks like it. They analyzed the food she had for breakfast. No poison. And they’ve ruled out the possibility that she got someone else’s meds by mistake. So that leaves accidental —” “— or deliberate overdose,” I finished the thought. “It wouldn’t be hard to engineer. All you’d have to do is leave pills lying around in her room. Eventually she’d notice and assume she’d forgotten to take them.”
“So what do you make of her explanation that a nurse left the pills for her?”
“I’d take it with a grain of salt. She has a tendency to make up what she can’t remember.”
After Annie left, I walked back into the boathouse. I stared up at the sling where my boat should have been hanging. Why was this happening to me? My insides tightened with sadness. But then, just as quickly, the self-pity turned into rage and I yelled at the top of my lungs while the pigeons nesting in the eaves flew back and forth in confusion. When my voice gave out, I just sat there.
Later, while I was showering with my clothes on, lathering away the slime, I realized MacRae took with him all that was left of my boat. I wished I’d at least asked for a receipt.
12
THAT AFTERNOON, I drove over to the Cambridge police station and gave my statement. MacRae wasn’t anywhere to be seen. An officious clerk promised that someone would call me if there were any developments.
Two days later, I hadn’t heard a peep. The only reminder was my still tender rib cage. That and a deepening sense of loss. Gliding across the river at daybreak with only my racing shell and my own body had been like a purification ritual. If only for a short time, it cleared the miasma from my brain.
After a day’s break, I was back rowing again. But in a borrowed shell and with the security of the crowd, it wasn’t the same. Adding injury to insult, with every stroke, my muscles ached. The pain was like an annoying insect, constantly buzzing, keeping me from finding a comfortable rhythm.
Since my mind wouldn’t let go, I chewed over the events of the past few days. Sylvia Jackson’s overdose and the destruction of my boat had to be not only deliberate but connected. By the
time I was showered, dressed, and back at work, my reluctance to get involved in this murder case had hardened into determination to see it through to the end.
As always, the routine at Pearce continued as if no outside world existed. Kwan gave me surprisingly little grief about my swim in the Charles. In fact, he was extremely solicitous. It was so out of character. So I decided to honor his birthday with a cake at staff meeting, reviving an old tradition. Traditions are good things — that’s what I tell my patients. Patterns of behavior have a way of normalizing the extraordinary, of giving us the illusion that we’re in control.
I drove over to Mike’s in the North End to get a rum cake. I had them write, in turquoise letters across the top of the cake, “40 and still kicking.” I had time to spare, or so I thought, until a truck driver who either couldn’t read or couldn’t measure got his truck wedged under a too low overpass. A trip that should have taken twenty minutes ended up taking an hour.
Kwan was ready for me. “Dr. Z! You’re here! We’re so glad you could find a moment in your busy schedule to grace us with your presence.” He took off his jacket and laid it across the threshold. “Let me assist you. We wouldn’t want you to get your feet dirty.”
Kwan reached for my hand and finally noticed the box I was holding. “You come bearing gifts?”
“Beats the heck out of me,” I said, looking at the box with surprise. “What could it be?” I pried open the cardboard and peeked inside. “Gadzooks! It is a cake. Now why do you suppose … ?”
As the light dawned, I had the pleasure of watching Kwan turn pink and then crimson as the color rose from the edge of his collar to his eyebrows, across his forehead to his hairline.
“‘Still kicking’ Well, that’s encouraging at least,” he said.
“Now, don’t you feel terrible?” Gloria asked him.
I couldn’t resist adding, “This is what happens to you, my old friend. At forty, senility sets in and you forget your own birthday.”
“I was trying to forget,” he insisted. “It’s a coping strategy, not a symptom.”
“Yeah — and sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,” I replied.
