Out Cold

by William G. Tapply

  Evie shook her head. “Don’t you dare try to tell me this isn’t my fault.”

  “I understand,” I said. “I feel the same way. Did you see the martini I left on the bathroom sink for you?”

  She nodded. “I drank it. I’m ready for another one. Don’t change the subject.”

  I went to the counter, found another martini glass, poured it three-quarters full, dropped in two olives. I put the glass in front of Evie. “Just sip it,” I said.

  She looked up at me. “You think I’m drunk?”

  “No,” I said. “I think you’re upset.”

  “You said she was pregnant?”

  I nodded. “She had a miscarriage.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  I shrugged. “She was a teenage girl. Those things seem to keep happening.”

  “Not Dana,” said Evie. “I don’t believe it. It’s totally out of character.”

  “You knew her how long ago?”

  She shrugged. “About three years.”

  “Big difference,” I said, “thirteen and sixteen.”

  “I know what you’re saying,” she said. “Still, if you knew Dana…”

  “Well,” I said, “according to the medical people who examined her, this girl was definitely pregnant. No question about it.”

  “She had a miscarriage? That’s why she died?”

  “Yes. She bled to death.”

  “So Dana was in trouble. She needed help. She came here looking for me. And I wasn’t here for her.” Evie took a gulp of her martini.

  “Sip it, honey,” I said.

  “I am.” She took another gulp.

  “Tell me about Dana,” I said.

  She reached across the table and grabbed my hand. “The thing is, I abandoned her. I took my new job, my better pay, my more prestige, my week in Arizona, my moving on up the ladder of success, my chasing the good old American Dream. When I left Emerson Hospital, I left Dana behind. Do you see?”

  I gave her hand a squeeze and said nothing.

  “There were five or six of them,” said Evie. “Girls. Early teens. It just sort of evolved from one day in the cafeteria. It was a weekend afternoon. A Sunday. The place was practically empty. It was in the fall, I remember. October sometime. The sun was coming in through the windows, that beautiful orangey it can be on a late fall afternoon, and outside, the maple trees were all crimson and golden in the sun. I went in to clean up some desk work. Figured I’d get a lot done with nobody around, no phones ringing. So I took a break, went down to get something to eat, and this bunch of girls were sitting at one of the tables. They were eating and talking, and I asked if they’d mind if I sat with them. They sort of shrugged, the way teenagers will, like, okay, whatever. So I joined them. Turned out they all had sick mothers, and they’d kind of found each other. Had their own little support group going, mostly pretending to be strong and brave, but usually one of them wasn’t doing so well, and then the others would hug her and tell her how much it sucked and how everything was going to be all right. They asked me a few questions, and I answered them as honestly as I could, and they had a few questions I couldn’t answer, and I told them I’d try to get answers for them. Questions about diseases and medications, about prognoses and predictions. Doctors don’t say much anyway, and they’re even worse with the children of terminal parents. Anyway, the girls, they seemed to appreciate the fact that I was trying to be candid, not holding anything back.”

  “So you met with them again,” I said.

  “It wasn’t anything formal,” she said. “Not like a scheduled meeting. Not a commitment. It sort of evolved. Sunday afternoons some of the girls, at least, would be there, in the cafeteria. I made it a point to be there, that’s all. To sit with them, talk with them, and if they had questions, to try to get answers for them. That’s all it was.”

  “These girls all had terminal parents?”

  “Mothers,” said Evie. “Not necessarily terminal, but seriously ill. Dana’s mother, for example, she was in renal failure. She was a severe diabetic. She’d been sick for as long as Dana could remember, in and out of hospitals, dialysis, on the transplant list, the whole sad deal.” Evie sighed. “When I left Emerson and took the job at Beth Israel, Verna Wetherbee was still alive. I asked one of the nurses to keep an eye on Dana and the other girls.” She shook her head. “I don’t know if she did. If she did, I don’t know if the girls responded to her. I meant to keep in touch with them, see how they were doing, offer them my support, you know? But…” She looked at me. “But I didn’t.” She was crying silently.

  “You can’t blame yourself for this,” I said.

  “Of course I can.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist. “Dana had a little brother. I can’t remember his name. I just have this picture of him sitting in a chair in the corner of Verna’s room, reading a book, ignoring everything around him. He was always reading a book. I don’t remember ever hearing him say a word. Dana took care of him. Like she was his mother. Dana was like that, you know?”

  I didn’t know, of course, but I nodded.

  “I heard Verna died a few months after I left,” Evie said. “I tried to call Dana, but I couldn’t reach her. I left a message, said if she wanted to talk just give me a call, but she never called back. I sent her a card, told her I was there for her, gave her my office and home numbers, our new address.” She shook her head. “I never heard from her.”

  “You tried, then.”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t try very hard.”

  “You gave her our address?”

  She nodded. “Why?”

  “I told you the other night. She had a scrap of paper in her pocket with our address on it.”

  Evie nodded. Her eyes were brimming. “See? She needed me.” She pushed her empty martini glass across the table to me. “Refill.”

  “You sure?”

  “I was up this morning at six-thirty,” Evie said. “I started my day in Scottsdale, Arizona, where it was seventy-seven degrees at nine o’clock in the morning. I ended up the day in Boston, Massachusetts, two time zones away, where it was twenty-two degrees at five-thirty in the afternoon. A little girl I used to love bled to death in the snow in my backyard while I was gone. It’s been a long fucking day, and, yes, I want another martini. You got a problem with that?”

  I smiled. “No problem. You gonna be good for shrimp scampi and risotto?”

  “I am going to take this martini upstairs,” she said, “and I am going to finish drying my hair, and I will get dressed, and by then I will be starved, I promise.”

  I took her glass to the counter where the pitcher of martinis sat. “Do you remember the names of Dana Wetherbee’s parents?” I said as I refilled her glass.

  “Her mother was Verna,” she said. “It means springtime. Her father…he was a truck driver. I remember Dana saying how he was on the road for long periods of time. Wait a minute.” She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them. “Ben was his name. Ben Wetherbee. I only met him a couple times. A nice man, from what I could see, but fairly clueless. He just seemed baffled by all of it. His wife’s illness, his daughter’s…her girl-ness.”

  “Where’d they live?”

  “The town, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  Evie was frowning at me from the kitchen table, where she was still sitting in her white terrycloth robe with a blue towel wrapped around her hair. “I don’t know,” she said. “I did send her that note, but now I don’t remember where. Maybe I’ve got it written down someplace. I’ll look. It was someplace fairly near the hospital, I think. Dana used to come and visit Verna after school.”

  I put Evie’s third martini on the table. She picked it up, took a sip, then stood up. “I want to see her.”

  “Dana?”

  “Yes. Her body.”

  “Why?”

  “To be sure. Do you understand?”

  I nodded. “I guess I do. I’ll see if I can arrange it.”

  She put h
er hand on my shoulder and peered into my eyes. “My sweet man,” she murmured. She went up on tiptoes, stuck out her tongue, and gave the side of my face a long wet lick.

  Then she turned and headed for the stairs.

  Evie was a little drunk. She was entitled.

  I went into my office, found Saundra Mendoza’s cell-phone number, and tried it.

  Her voice mail answered, asked me to leave a message.

  “It’s Brady Coyne,” I said after the beep. “I think I have an ID on our dead girl.”

  I went back to the kitchen, got the risotto started, poured myself another martini, and sliced up some portabella mushrooms for the salad.

  It took Saundra Mendoza about ten minutes to get back to me. “What’ve you got?” she said when I answered.

  “Her name was Dana Wetherbee. She’d be about sixteen now. Father’s name Ben. Benjamin, I guess. Mother, name of Verna, now deceased, was a patient at Emerson Hospital in Concord about three years ago.”

  “You got an address for me?”

  “No,” I said, “but the hospital records should help you.”

  “Yeah,” she said, “thanks. Never would’ve thought of that.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “What else’ve you got for me, Mr. Coyne?”

  “That’s it,” I said. “Evie identified her from the photo. Evie knew her when she worked at Emerson.”

  “Evie being your girlfriend.”

  “She’s way more than a girlfriend.”

  “She lives with you.”

  “Right.”

  “So the girl…”

  “We assume Dana came here that night looking for Evie. She was away at a conference in Scottsdale, Arizona.”

  “And Evie’s blaming herself, I bet.”

  “We’re both blaming ourselves.”

  “She okay?”

  “I made martinis.”

  “Good idea,” said Mendoza. “How definite is she?”

  “Quite definite.” I hesitated. “She wants to see the body.”

  There was a pause. Then Saundra said, “Sure. Good idea. I can arrange that. How’s tomorrow morning, say ten?”

  “I’ll check with Evie,” I said, “but if I don’t get back to you, let’s call it a date.”

  “At the Medical Examiner’s office. Know where it is?”

  “Albany Street,” I said.

  “I’ll meet you there at ten.”

  “Okay,” I said. “So have you learned anything?”

  “Not a thing, Mr. Coyne. I’m doing my best. Don’t forget, this isn’t a homicide. It’s an unidentified body.”

  “A young girl’s unidentified body,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. “You don’t need to keep reminding me.”

  “Any news on Sunshine?”

  “No,” she said. “Not a thing. Gotta run. Thanks for calling. See you tomorrow.” And she disconnected.

  Twelve

  Monday morning was sunny and, for the first time in the new year, there was a hint of January thaw in the air. When we left for our appointment at the Medical Examiner’s office, we let Henry stay outside in our walled-in backyard. Henry always wanted to be outdoors. In the winter, he loved to lie on the back stoop where the morning sun warmed the wood.

  Evie and I debated walking over to Albany Street, but in the end we took my car. She’d been away from her desk for a week and was feeling anxious about all the paperwork and phone messages she’d find waiting for her.

  OCME—the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner—is an unimposing three-story brick building on Albany Street, surrounded by the more imposing campuses of Boston City Hospital, the Boston University Medical Center, and the B. U. schools of Medicine, Dentistry, and Public Health. OCME is where victims of homicide and unattended and suspicious deaths go to be autopsied.

  We got there a little before ten. When we walked into the lobby, we spotted Detective Saundra Mendoza leaning against the wall on the other side of the room talking on her cell phone.

  When she saw us, she waved us over. By the time we got there, she was stuffing the phone into her pocket.

  I introduced her to Evie.

  She shook Evie’s hand and said, “I really appreciate this. I know it’s hard.”

  “I want to be sure,” said Evie.

  Mendoza nodded. “They’re waiting for us. This way.”

  We followed her down a corridor and then into a small room. The back wall of the room was dominated by a big window with a white curtain drawn over it from the other side. Four wooden chairs were lined up facing the window.

  Mendoza gestured at the chairs. Evie and I sat. Mendoza remained standing behind us. “Ready?” she said.

  Evie groped for my hand and gripped it hard. “I’m ready,” she said.

  Mendoza, apparently speaking into a microphone, said, “Okay. We’re all set here.”

  A moment later the curtain slid away from the window. A gurney had been wheeled up to the other side of the glass. A pale blue body bag lay on it. A young Asian man in a green lab coat stood there looking solemn. He peered at us through the window for a moment, then partially unzipped the bag and pulled it open, revealing the girl’s face and bare shoulders.

  She looked smaller and paler and more lifeless than I remembered from when I’d last seen her lying on my living room sofa. More lifeless, even, than she looked in the photo I’d been carrying around. She was absolutely still.

  I noticed that they hadn’t removed the jade stud from her nose.

  Evie’s hand was squeezing mine so hard it hurt. “It’s Dana,” she said.

  “You’re positive, Ms. Banyon?” said Saundra Mendoza.

  “Yes,” said Evie. “I’m sure.” She let go of my hand and stood up. “I want to leave now.”

  Back out in the lobby, Mendoza touched Evie’s arm and said, “Thank you. It was a big help.”

  “Now what happens?”

  “I’ll pass the information along to the Medical Examiner. What happens is up to him.”

  “That’s it?” said Evie.

  Mendoza nodded. “How it works.”

  We got into my car and headed over to Evie’s office at Beth Israel Hospital. She sat there huddled against the door, staring out at the window. She told me she didn’t want to talk about it, and I didn’t argue with her. I could only imagine what she was feeling.

  After I dropped Evie off, I swung around to our house on Mt. Vernon Street to let Henry in. It was a warm, almost springlike day, but you could never be sure what the New England weather would decide to do, and as much as he’d like it, I didn’t want him staying outside all day.

  I left the car parked on the street, went in the front door, checked the kitchen phone for messages, then opened the back door. Henry was curled on the deck. When he saw me, he pushed himself to his feet, yawned, and came sauntering inside.

  He sat and looked at me expectantly. I always gave him a miniature Milk-Bone when he came inside, to reinforce his good behavior. That’s when I noticed that something had gotten stuck under his collar.

  It was a plastic sandwich bag. When I tried to take it off, I saw that it had been stapled around his collar. I yanked it off. There was something in the bag. Through the transparent plastic, I saw that it was a photo.

  It was the morgue photo of Dana Wetherbee.

  On the back, in red ink and in my handwriting, were my name and phone numbers.

  I had to think for a minute. I always used a pen with black ink. This was red. Then I remembered. I’d borrowed a red pen from Sunshine that night at Skeeter’s.

  This was the photo that I’d given to Sunshine. The photo that disappeared the night she was murdered. The photo that her killer had taken from her.

  And now it was stapled onto Henry’s collar. This was a message, and neither a subtle nor a friendly one. A message to me from whoever had ripped Sunshine’s throat open.

  His message was: “I killed Sunshine because I don’t want you snooping around trying to
figure out what happened to Dana Wetherbee.”

  His other plain message was: “I could have killed your dog. I can kill anybody. I can kill you.”

  My legs suddenly felt weak, and my hands, I noticed, were trembling.

  Anger. Well, okay. A little fear, too.

  I sat on one of the kitchen chairs. My pulse was pounding behind my eyes. I wasn’t thinking about me. I was thinking about Evie. And Henry.

  Bastard!

  Henry came over, put his chin on my leg, and rolled up his eyes, looking into mine, checking to see how I was feeling.

  I patted his head and told him not to worry about me.

  I took a few deep breaths, then went to the phone and called Saundra Mendoza.

  When she answered, I said, “I just got a message from Maureen Quinlan’s murderer.”

  “What did you say?”

  I repeated what I’d said.

  “Explain,” she said.

  I explained.

  Mendoza was quiet for a minute. Then she said, “Okay, good. This is good.”

  “Good? This murderer comes into my backyard and sticks a message on my dog’s collar, and you’re saying this is good? You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t see it the same way.”

  “It’s a stupid, desperate thing to do,” she said. “He’s panicking. Something you’ve done has scared him. He’ll do something else stupid and we’ll nail him. So, yeah. It’s good.”

  “Jesus. He could’ve killed Henry.”

  “Point is, he didn’t. He could have and he didn’t. He wants you to back off. Which, as a matter of fact, is a good idea. It’s what I want, too. You back off. Okay?”

  “This sonofabitch comes into my backyard, lays his hands on my dog, and you expect me to back off?”

  Saundra Mendoza sighed. “Last thing I want is your girlfriend or your dog finding you bleeding in the snow in your backyard, Mr. Coyne.”

  “Well, me neither.”

  “Or you finding one of them.”

  “Jesus, Saundra.”

  “So just leave the detecting up to us detectives from now on, okay? Do you hear me?”

  “I hear you,” I said. “So do you want this photo?”

  “Did you take it out of the plastic bag?”