To Obey

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  Kendall swallowed, the implications of Susan’s point obvious. “So…the police…lied?” He looked squarely at her, his dark eyes more serious than she could ever remember. The previous year, he had never seemed serious, even at the most urgent and critical moments. Now she could scarcely remember the last time he had cracked a joke.

  “I don’t know.” Susan drooped in resignation. In the past few months, nothing made a lot of sense. “Maybe?”

  “Why would the police lie about something like that?”

  “Because there’s something they don’t want me to know.”

  Kendall huffed out a sigh. “Duh, Susan. That’s the purpose of a lie. But why would there be anything the police wouldn’t want the deceased’s closest family member to know? You hear about cases solved because the police kept the details a secret, hoping to trip up a suspect who reveals something only the killer could know. But I’ve always believed the family is given the truth.” He added carefully, “And what possible purpose could there be to lying about the location of the body to anyone?” He stiffened suddenly. “You don’t think you’re a suspect, do you?”

  Susan supposed, at the moment, everyone was a suspect. However, she doubted the police would consider her for long. She had an airtight alibi and a long history of a close, loving relationship with her father, and she doubted anyone would believe a young woman would have the intestinal fortitude to carry out such a brutal crime. “No,” she said firmly. “I can’t imagine so. Besides, if I had stolen the body myself, I certainly wouldn’t have called them about it.”

  Kendall muttered thoughtfully, “Murderers have done stranger things.” Apparently realizing the implications of what he had just said aloud, Kendall amended, “Not that I’m suggesting you’re the murderer. Obviously, that would be impossible.”

  “Obviously.” Susan wondered if Kendall could dig himself a deeper hole.

  Kendall changed tactics. “I’m guessing they don’t want to admit you surprised them. They don’t want you to lose confidence in their ability to solve this case, so they tell you something to appease you until they have a real answer.”

  That made more sense than any of the other ideas they had raised between them. Susan said, out of the blue, “I’m going with you in the morning.”

  Kendall looked up suddenly. “What?”

  “I’m going with you. To work.”

  Kendall ran his tongue around his mouth before speaking. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? I mean, you’ve just suffered a horrible catastrophe. Shouldn’t you take at least a week or two to work through it emotionally?”

  Susan did not bother to shift her head. She merely flicked her eyes toward Kendall. “What for? So I can wallow in my own grief? So I can think about how awful my life has become, how I’ve lost all my closest loved ones and would be better off joining them?”

  Clearly growing ever more uncomfortable, Kendall bit at his lower lip. “Susan, a few sessions with a grief counselor might do you good.”

  “Call me Calvin.”

  “What?”

  Susan leaned forward. “You’ve always called me Calvin, then cracked some usually offensive joke. I like you better as yourself than as my mother.”

  Kendall sat up straight. “I hardly think I can be mistaken for anyone’s mother. I just think you’ve suffered a ridiculous number of catastrophes in a one-year span, more than the entire population of most small cities do in a lifetime. You should see…someone.” He avoided the title that had bothered her a few moments earlier.

  “Like a psychiatrist?”

  “Not a bad thought.”

  Susan sat back, arms crossed. “I see two every day, and that’s enough.”

  “Funny.”

  Susan tried to explain, “Look, Kendall, that’s not going to help me. I know all of our tricks, and I’m just going to spend my time trying to counteranalyze my analyst.”

  “Call me Stevens.”

  That derailed Susan’s thoughts. “What?”

  “If I have to call you Calvin, you have to call me Stevens. Oddly enough, both first names in their own right.”

  Susan finally managed a chuckle. “Nowadays, everything is a first name in its own right.” Not wishing to get sidetracked, she returned to her explanation. “In the past year, I’ve come to realize, for me, wallowing in small problems is harmless venting, but wallowing in large ones paralyzes me. I do better when I’m busy, distracted. I want to go back to work, and tomorrow seems the perfect time. It’s Saturday, so it’ll be slow, and we get to leave at noon if our work’s finished. I can grieve without toppling into a bottomless pit of despair, and I won’t awaken from this nightmare to find myself impossibly far behind in my training.”

  Realizing she had left something else unaddressed, Susan added, “And you don’t really have to call me Calvin. I was just hoping you’d find it funny and get back your sense of humor.”

  Kendall turned her a crooked expression nearly approximating a smile. “Really? You should probably leave the jokes to me; that one went right over my head. And I’d kind of hoped calling you Susan would remind you our relationship has…changed a bit.”

  Without thinking, Susan repeated, “Changed a bit?”

  Kendall could not resist. “Was the nookie that memorable?”

  “I remember,” Susan said quickly, not wanting to go into a rehash of it. At the moment, she felt a bit embarrassed by the whole thing, and the euphemism only heightened her discomfort. “Best I’ve ever had.”

  This time, Kendall laughed. “I’d take that as a compliment if I didn’t know you were a virgin.” He sighed. “The truth is, I was anxious and distracted.”

  “Same,” Susan admitted. To her relief, Kendall returned to the original subject.

  “You’re sure you want to come to Winter Wine tomorrow?”

  “Definitely.”

  Kendall shook his head. “Reefes is still there, you know. And he hasn’t gotten any less…lazy. Or irritating. Are you sure he’s something you want to deal with right now? You’re well within your rights to skip the rest of the rotation. You can make it up someplace else and not have to deal with him at all.”

  Susan had never run from her problems and did not intend to do so now. “I’m going with you tomorrow, Kendall,” she said with what she hoped was finality. “Geez, I’ve never met a resident more selfish about sharing patients.”

  Again, Kendall chuckled. Although the attendings suggested having call every other night meant missing half the good cases, most residents still preferred quiet nights and small caseloads. “Fine. You’re coming, you’re coming.”

  Appetite returning, Kendall dug into his food. Even Susan managed to eat.

  Although Susan had missed only a day and a half of work, Winter Wine Dementia Facility already seemed strange and she had to adjust to the odor of it again. The first hour dragged. Loath to bother Susan, the nurses took most of their concerns directly to Kendall, and she found herself shadowing him to keep the entire staff, including Kendall, from tiptoeing around her. Chuck Tripler was gone, recovering in the Neurosurgical Intensive Care Unit, and Thomas Heaton had gotten transferred to a therapy facility with specialists assigned to help him relearn written language by equating it with musical notes. Barbara Callahan remained on Unit 1 as the cannabis slowly left her system. The drug normally had a long half-life, and her age further delayed its secretion. Discharge planning was already in the works, and Susan doubted the frequent bounce-back patient would ever return to the facility.

  Left mostly to her own devices, Susan focused on discovering other patients with treatable forms of dementia. After several false leads, she finally discovered Kado Matsuo. His age attracted her attention first. At forty-three, he fell into the early-onset category, although Susan quickly noted he did not carry the diagnosis of actual dementia but of post-traumatic psychosis, which fit his symptoms of sudden-onset delusions and hallucinations after a divorce. Reading through his chart, Susan noted other clues: night terrors in
which he would wake up screaming and agitated, then return to sleep with no memory of the event, insomnia, and generalized odd behavior, including extreme hyperactivity, irritability, and even aggression. The latter symptom had kept him in Winter Wine Dementia Facility for about two months.

  Kado was a thin, disheveled man of Japanese descent who fought Susan, forcing her to do a quick and abbreviated examination. She noted no obvious abnormalities. His senses seemed acute, he moved all his limbs fully, and his heart and lung sounds were normal. His only abnormal finding was hyperactive bowel sounds, which led her to check on his eating and toilet habits.

  Over the months, the nurses had noted persistent vomiting, though not in excessive amounts. He also had bouts of diarrhea. He drank water and refused juice. When offered a veritable smorgasbord, he demonstrated a strong preference for fatty meats. He appeared unnaturally slender but not skeletal, and Susan noted no signs of dehydration. Anorexia was not an uncommon finding in confused individuals; they sometimes forgot to eat or whether they had eaten, which could result in under- or overnourishment. However, Susan did not think she would see anyone malnourished in a fully staffed facility like Winter Wine.

  Susan looked over Kado’s chart more critically. Previous physical examinations had noted nothing abnormal, no signs to indicate anything other than an internal brain disorder. Still, the persistent vomiting and dietary oddities stuck in her mind, sending Susan to her palm-pross for research.

  An hour later, Kendall found her in the charting room, hunched over her keyboard. He dropped to a crouch beside her and spoke softly, “Calvin, there’s an old friend to see you.”

  Susan glanced up, anxious despite Kendall’s bantering tone. She waited for him to explain.

  “One of your patients has returned.” Kendall batted his lashes at Susan. “I’ll give you three guesses which one.”

  Susan had sent out only a couple of patients, and only one of those had gone home. She sucked in a sudden breath, then groaned. “Jessica Aberdeen.” The news did not surprise either of them. A sudden flash of anger suffused her, an emotion she had not experienced since Lawrence Robertson had suggested she cower from her father’s killers. It felt bizarrely good to suffer a feeling strong enough to displace the grief that had colored her every moment since she had gotten the news of her father’s murder. “I can’t believe they brought her back here. I wouldn’t think her father would dare show his face here after the last conversation we had.”

  “He dared, and he did.” Kendall sucked air through his teeth, then shrugged. “He’s in there now, dictating feeding instructions, so he doesn’t seem to have learned anything from her relapse.”

  Susan’s hands balled to fists. She could handle anything medical, except dealing with Chase Aberdeen.

  Kendall seemed to read her mind. Still crouched, he balanced on his toes. “Would you like me to take her this time?”

  Though not unheard of, it violated one of the basic rules of residency. Bounce-backs to the same service returned to the resident of record, even if admitted by someone else on call. “No, Jessica’s mine.”

  “But under the circumstances…”

  Susan ignored him, rising suddenly and walking from the room. There was no hurry to examine the woman. The nurses would need time to settle her in, and Susan could wait until the father left before writing orders. Still, curiosity drove her, and the need to understand what had caused Jessica’s swift return loomed high on the list of priorities. Without knowing the interim history and without hearing Chase Aberdeen’s reasons, she could not provide the best possible medical care, but arguing with Jessica’s father served no positive purpose. Either Susan’s line of reasoning and the ensuing course of events had convinced him of the medical facts, a decision she quietly needed to support, or he remained rabidly adherent to his own point of view, in which case nothing she said would accomplish more than upsetting him.

  Susan could hear Kendall’s trailing footsteps, but she did not look behind her. She knew he worried for what her fragile emotional state might cause her to say. Even she was not wholly certain she could maintain her cool. Braced for the worst but prepared to remain calm and upbeat, Susan swept into Jessica Aberdeen’s room.

  Jessica sat up in the bed, silently studying her surroundings, glancing from walls to floor to ceiling. Her features were flat, revealing no thought or emotion. A nurse stood at the bedside, typing information into a palm-pross on the portable table. Seated in the only chair, Chase Aberdeen looked up at Susan’s entrance. His greeting was cold. “Oh, it’s you. I specifically asked for a different doctor.”

  Kendall came in behind Susan. “That would be me,” he said before Susan could do or say anything in reply. “Kendall Stevens, MD.” Though he introduced himself, he did not proffer a hand and remained at Susan’s side. “My first order of business is to examine the patient and elicit a confirmatory opinion from the most brilliant clinician I know.” He tipped his head toward Susan. “Dr. Calvin.”

  Susan turned a snort of suppressed laughter into a cough.

  Chase Aberdeen clamped his mouth into a line, obviously miffed. “Am I going to have to request a third doctor?”

  “Sorry,” Kendall said, moving toward the bedside. “All out of doctors.”

  The man fairly snarled. “Unless you prove a bit more…educated in nutritional matters than your colleague, I’ll have to move Jessica to another facility.”

  Susan glanced at Jessica. A moment earlier, the woman had seemed entirely unfocused. Now a slight smile played over her lips, and her stillness suggested she was taking it all in. Susan played a hunch. “That decision isn’t up to you, Mr. Aberdeen.”

  Kendall shut his mouth abruptly. Apparently, he had been about to say something about changing facilities being the man’s prerogative.

  Chase Aberdeen’s brows shot up. “Excuse me? Jessica is my daughter.”

  “Your adult daughter,” Susan pointed out. “Old enough to make her own legal decisions.” She looked directly into Jessica’s eyes, exploring their depths. Deep inside a glaze of confusion, she saw something alive and burning. “Jessica, do you want Dr. Stevens and me to continue treating you?” She took the woman’s clammy hand in her own.

  Jessica wrapped her fingers around Susan’s. “Help me,” she managed to say, barely above a whisper.

  Kendall flicked his gaze to the father’s. “That’s clear enough.”

  “Clear as mud!” Chase almost shouted. “She’s addled. She doesn’t know what she’s agreeing to.”

  “She’s addled,” Susan pointed out, “because you keep her in that state. We’ve so far proceeded on the assumption it’s due to a misguided but well-meaning belief that you’re helping her.” Still allowing Jessica to clutch her hand, Susan turned her body slightly to confront Chase Aberdeen directly. “However, if you insist on unraveling and impeding her recovery, we’ll have to assume your intentions are deliberate and mean-spirited. And that’s a crime.” She added in a clipped tone that robbed the title of respect, “Mr. Aberdeen.”

  Fire flashed briefly through Chase Aberdeen’s eyes, then disappeared. For an instant, Susan thought he would leap bodily upon her and wrestle her to the floor. Instead, he slumped, all fight extinguished, at least for the moment. When he finally spoke, his voice was thin and reedy, almost pleading. “Why would I want to harm my daughter? I love Jessica more than anything in the world.”

  You’re not acting like it. Susan kept the thought to herself. People had widely different ways of showing love, not all of them healthy. “Prove it by allowing us to help her. If we’re wrong, a little bit of food you consider unwholesome won’t do her any long-term harm. However, if we’re right, and you continue fighting us, you’re risking losing your daughter.” She pinned him with her gaze. “Mind, heart, and spirit.”

  Once the choice was framed in that context, Chase Aberdeen could not refuse it and still stand by his assertion he loved and wanted the best for his daughter.

  Susan worried say
ing anything more might back the man into a corner, driving him to attack. Yet Kendall managed to add something quiet but laced with underlying threat. “Mr. Aberdeen, we will help Jessica, and we would like to do so in a therapeutic environment that includes her father as a willing, if skeptical, partner. I know you’re contemplating legal action—”

  Chase Aberdeen opened his mouth.

  Kendall spoke over him. “Don’t bother to protest; anyone would consider it. Before you waste your money on a lawyer, I want you to understand I know the legalities of this situation like the back of my hand.” Kendall stabbed a finger into his palm. Even at his most serious, Kendall could not always resist a pratfall. “Please don’t make us take emergency guardianship of your adult daughter or restrain you from visitation. It’s not in anyone’s best interests, but it’s better than the alternative.”

  Jessica’s grip on Susan’s hand loosened as she drifted into sleep. That suited Susan, who wanted to leave the room as soon as possible. She did so, and Kendall followed. They walked with silent decorum until they reached the security of the nearest charting room and pulled the door closed behind them.

  Both residents plopped into chairs simultaneously and turned to face one another. “Very impressive,” Susan said. “That’s the most forceful I’ve ever heard Dr. Kendall Stevens.” She could not help adding, “Though I thought I’d lose it when you misidentified the back of your hand.”

  Kendall smiled wearily. “You inspire me, my love.”

  A trickle of dread coursed through Susan. He had never called her that before.

  “Apparently, I’ve watched you perform enough emasculations, I’m becoming an expert in my own right.”

  Susan turned him a withering look. “Just don’t accidently do yourself.”

  Kendall clasped his hands under his chin, batting his eyes at her. “Oh, you care.”