The Northbury Papers

by Joanne Dobson

“You’re on your second already?” Piotrowski’s tone was sharp.

  I looked at the glass in confusion. “No,” I said. “I didn’t order that.”

  The brown eyes were skeptical. Right. The lieutenant beckoned the waitress back to our table, then pointed at the beer.

  “Yeah?” she queried. “Ya want another beer?”

  “Another beer?” I responded. “No. And we didn’t order that one.”

  “Oh, yeah, ya did.”

  “I did not—”

  “Not you. Him. He ordered it for you.” Lucy pointed a two-inch-long blue fingernail at Piotrowski. “He said, the same for her. I wrote it down.” She yanked the green order pad from her apron band and consulted it. “Burger, fries, coffee for him. Beer for you. The same. The same as before.”

  “No, I meant …” Piotrowski straightened out the order—burger, fries and coffee for me, as well as for him. “Leave the beer,” he said. “I’ll drink it.” The waitress departed, then returned almost immediately with a third mug of beer, which she placed in front of me.

  “What’s that for?”

  “Well—if he drinks that beer, then you don’t have your second one.”

  “Jeez,” I said, when Lucy walked away carrying the third beer, shaking her head, still confused. “No tip for this one.”

  “Come on, Doctor.” Piotrowski’s words were indulgent. “She’s a single mother with three kids, just trying to keep off welfare.”

  “You know her?”

  Again he didn’t answer my question. Instead, he said, “You, of all people, should be sympathetic.”

  The lieutenant knew all about my years of hustling burgers in truck stops as I’d struggled to support Amanda and put together a college education for myself. As a matter of fact, he knew far too much about me. He’d investigated my background a little over a year before when I was a suspect in the “unpleasant incidents” at Enfield College—i.e., the homicides. Thank God, I thought, that I wasn’t involved in any way in Edith Hart’s death—and that Enfield College was also free and clear.

  “At least I was competent,” I retorted. “When someone ordered a burger and coffee from me, they got a burger and coffee—not beer.”

  “Yeah, well, and now you’re a college professor.…” His voice trailed off. He seemed preoccupied with his thoughts. “You know anything about medicine?” The question was abrupt.

  “Medicine? Me? No. Amanda’s taking some premed courses, and she talks about what she’s studying. But that’s all I know.”

  “Would you be able to give an injection?”

  “No! Of course not! Why?”

  “I shouldn’t be telling you this, so keep it to yourself, will ya? That’s maybe how your friend Dr. Hart died. By injection. Overdose of insulin.”

  “That could have been an accident—”

  “Could of. But the Medical Examiner doesn’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “A lotta reasons. But mostly because she handled her own medication and she was so knowledgeable—a medical doctor and all.”

  “Suicide?” I hated to think of the possibility, but, being a physician, maybe she was all too aware of the physical deterioration ahead—the pain, the humiliation, the dependency.

  The lieutenant raised his eyebrows. “No note. She seems like the kinda lady that would of left a note.”

  “Do you have any hard evidence of,” I hesitated to say the word, “of—murder?”

  “So far, just an injection mark in her arm, where there shouldn’t been one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The M.E. says her usual injection site was the abdomen, which he tells me is preferred for insulin shots ’cause absorption’s faster. They don’t do it in the arm anymore. In the M.E.’s preliminary opinion—and mine, too—we’re dealing with a homicide here.”

  I was horrified. “And you think I might have given her an overdose?”

  “No, not really.” His voice was rueful. “You know I gotta ask these questions. But I gotta tell you, Doctor, it was a real shock when I heard you on the phone. My first reaction was, oh, for God’s sake, not again. When I think about how …” he searched for a word, “how—embroiled—you were in those homicides at the college … But I can’t see anything here that would connect you. What motive could you possibly have? You say you only knew her a little while? Tell me about that.”

  The waitress slapped our burgers and fries on the Formica tabletop. “Anyone want another beer?” she asked.

  Piotrowski carefully thanked her and said no. Lucy favored the lieutenant with a long, slow smile, before she turned on her heel and walked away. He noticed. Then he noticed me notice. A deep pink suffused his complexion. He became extremely businesslike, asking brusque questions, taking detailed notes, both on my acquaintance with Edith Hart, and on my observations about the members of her household.

  We’d finished the burgers, and the lieutenant was making his way through a slice of apple pie and his third coffee, when, uncannily, an echo of Edith’s voice encroached upon my memory: Gerry knows just what to do for me. And then, immediately, I recalled an intriguing piece of information that had, at the time, almost glanced off my brain. “Lieutenant, two things I just remembered. Gerry Novak must have been able to give injections.” No visible response from Piotrowski. So I recited Edith’s words, Gerry knows just what to do for me, and then continued, “And Dr. Thorpe said something about Novak that surprised me. He said Dr. Hart had put Novak through college, and that she supported his ‘work,’ whatever that might be. Poetry, I think. He said it in that solemn tone of voice people use when they talk about—um—starving artist kind of stuff. You know what I mean—woorrk.”

  “Yeah? This old lady had cash, huh, a lotta dough?”

  “Dr. Hart seemed to be a well-to-do woman.” I told him about Serena Northbury’s best-sellers and the obviously well invested Northbury fortune.

  “Money’s good.” Piotrowski looked up from his note-taking. “It’s as good a motive for murder as anything. Along with family squabbles, sex, revenge, money’s right up there on the top of the list. I guess I gotta look into this lady’s financial situation, huh? And that stuff about Novak’s interesting. What’s the Thorpe guy’s relationship to the victim? Aside from being her former partner, I mean.”

  I thought carefully about what I’d observed between Edith and Will. “He was in love with her. I think he always had been. For decades.”

  “Oh, yeah? At their age, huh? That’s nice. Real nice.” The lieutenant’s expression grew sentimental. Then his beeper sounded, and he jumped up, all business again. When he came back from the phone, he threw some cash on the table. “Gotta get back there, Doctor. Thanks for the info. It was real helpful. Listen, don’t let me worry you. In my opinion, you’re completely clear here.”

  “Well, of course, Piotrowski!”

  He grinned his rare thousand-megawatt grin. “Of course, of course.” He slipped his wallet into his back pocket. “Ya know—it’s been good seeing you again, Doctor. Talking to you is always, ah—different. Interesting, like.”

  “Yeah, you, too.” I smiled back at him.

  He stood in the narrow aisle, turning his Red Sox cap in his hands. The lieutenant seemed to be in no hurry to leave. “So, ya ever see Miss Warzek?” Sophia Warzek was a student I’d taken under my wing the previous year after a suicide attempt motivated by the death of a professor with whom she’d had an affair.

  “I see her once in a while—mostly when Amanda’s around. They’ve gotten to be really good friends. Sophia’s doing okay. You knew she dropped out of school to take care of her mother?”

  “Yeah. Too bad.”

  “Well, I know she’ll finish. She’s working full-time at the Bread and Roses Bakery, but she manages to schedule a course each semester. She’ll graduate next year.”

  “Good. And how’s Amanda?” The lieutenant had run into my daughter on several occasions the previous year. “You said she’s planning on medic
al school? She’d be good at that. Coolheaded. Smart.”

  “Yeah—well—she’s thinking about other things, too.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Like—criminal justice …” My voice trailed off. I was not thrilled about this possibility.

  “I knew it!” He slapped his hand down on the table. “I just knew it! She was so interested last year. Kept asking questions. And she’d be damn good.”

  “Yeah. I’m afraid she would.”

  He gazed at me, knowingly. “You’ve had enough of living with cops, huh?” When I didn’t respond, he continued. “So—how is Captain Gorman? If ya don’t mind my asking?”

  “Tony’s getting married.” My curt tone put a twist on the statement I hadn’t intended. The lieutenant instantly picked up on it.

  “Oh, yeah? Whaddya know?” He knew not to take the discussion any further. “Well, if we don’t run into each other again—hope things go real well for you, Doctor.”

  “Yeah, you, too, Lieutenant. Real well.” I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for big lugs like Piotrowski. Especially when they’re as good at their work as he is—as single-minded, effective, and inescapable as a smart bomb.

  And especially when I don’t have to take them home with me.

  On the way home, I pulled the car over by a roadside creek still swollen by melting mountain snow and scrambled down a rocky bank to the water’s edge. Perched on a broad, flat boulder, hugging my knees, I stared at the swiftly moving stream and pondered the dilemma of life and death. Our deepest feelings are animated clichés, I thought, as the icy water bore its transient burden of leaves and twigs to the ocean’s oblivion. The particular self that was Edith Hart was now gone. The elegant configuration of neural pathways that constituted a wise and well-lived life—gone. The experience, the memory, the compassion—gone. When another sudden spring shower sent me scuttling back to my car, I was no more enlightened than I’d been to begin with. Just a good deal wetter.

  Nine

  “You’ve got to swear” Jill said between sobs, “that you won’t tell another living soul what I’m going to tell you.”

  “Jesus, Jill. What is it?” A frantic call on my home answering machine when I’d returned from the visit with Piotrowski had brought me speeding recklessly from my way-out-in-the-country house to Jill’s Enfield apartment. “Karen, where are you?” was the message Jill had left in a high, quavering wail. “I’ve got to talk to someone. Call me. Ohmigod, Karen. Call me—right away.”

  “What is it, Jill?” I repeated, leaning back against the apartment door I’d just closed. I like Jill’s place, with its funky retro furniture. It suits her—as if her whimsical, carefree personality had materially reproduced itself in purple lava lamps, lime green fiberglass drapes, and orange amoeba-shaped ashtrays. But I didn’t notice any of that now.

  “Swear you won’t tell.”

  “Okay. I swear. I swear. What is it?”

  Jill’s eyes were huge and dark in a bone white, tear-streaked face. A firestorm of orange-gold curls fell across her shoulders, unrestrained by the usual flamboyant barrettes and ribbons. Even her normally crimsoned lips were bone-pale. She looked both terrified and sick. First I thought she must have suffered a death in the family. Then I wondered if maybe she’d contracted some horrific, life-threatening illness; she looked as if she might vomit at any moment, or faint.

  I took her arm to lead her to one of the overstuffed chairs. As soon as she felt my touch, Jill flung herself into my arms and broke out in a shrill, prolonged, penetrating wail. There were words to it, but the only one I could make out was father.

  “Your father, Jill? Something’s happened to your father? Your father’s dead?”

  “Nooooo.” She pulled away, collapsed into an aqua armchair, and dropped her head in her hands. Great racking sobs and another semiarticulate wail followed. This time I made out the word baby.

  “A baby’s dead?”

  “Nooooooo.” She was furious enough now at my stupidity to raise her head and shriek at me: “The father of my baby’s been arrested for murder!”

  “What!” Then, “Shhh!” As baffled as I was by Jill’s revelation, I was savvy enough about survival in Enfield to shut her up immediately. “Hush,” I instructed firmly, as if I were talking to my daughter. “Hush, Jill. The neighbors don’t need to hear this. You know what a gossip Kenny is.”

  Jill lives in what’s known as the faculty ghetto, the dense concentration of college-owned housing in the heart of residential Enfield. Her sprawling apartment is made up of half the first-floor rooms of a converted Victorian on Josepha Street, two blocks from campus. Kenny Halvorsen of Phys. Ed. lives in the other half.

  As I’d climbed the five steps to the spacious porch, I’d wondered, not for the first time, why I live where I do—in a small, characterless house on a nondescript road in a township that’s lost whatever sense of community it once had, twenty minutes drive from the town of Enfield. When my knock on Jill’s door instantaneously brought Kenny’s face to a window overlooking the shared entrance, I remembered why. That twenty-minute drive kept me out of the fishbowl that is Enfield’s social life. In my remote and charmless location I could do whatever I wanted without notice or comment. Too bad my life didn’t include anything that would warrant notice or comment.

  “Jill, let’s go in the kitchen and talk about this. We’ll have more privacy there, and I can make you a cup of tea.”

  Jill sat white and silent as I boiled water and brewed the tea. Sliding the yellow Fiesta ware mug across the royal blue enamel tabletop, I took her cold hand and commanded, “Tell me about it.”

  Jill began sobbing again, in great hiccupping gasps. “I’m four months pregnant,” she wailed, “and Gerry Novak is the baby’s father, and the cops have just arrested him for murder.” She ignored the mug of tea.

  “What!” Edith Hart’s Gerry Novak? I was stunned by each element of Jill’s bombshell revelation: that she even knew Novak, let alone had had an affair with him; that she was pregnant; that Novak had been arrested. “Gerry Novak! How the hell do you know him?” And, oh, my God, I was the one who had sicced Piotrowski on him!

  “I met him at the Iron Horse. He gives readings there sometimes. He’s a poet. He’s very good.” This last assertion was made with defiance. “I’ve been seeing him since December—just before the holidays.”

  “Gerry Novak!” I couldn’t get my mind around it; this vibrant, vital, young woman and that … difficult, I remembered Will Thorpe saying with a hint of asperity … difficult and dour man. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Gerry didn’t want anyone to know.” She dabbed at her eyes. “He’s a very private person. He told me he’d met you, but—Well—I wasn’t supposed to say anything to you. Gerry hasn’t had an easy life, Karen. He …” Then she seemingly thought better about saying anything more.

  Sitting across the table from Jill, I realized I’d seen very little of her lately; the day she’d given me the copy of Jane Eyre was the last time we’d talked at any length. Other than that, there were just the usual public encounters—Women’s Studies meetings, Curriculum Committee meetings. Come to think of it, I’d called her a couple of times, but she’d always had some reason not to get together, and the end-of-semester craziness had kept me so preoccupied I hadn’t thought about her at all.

  “What—are you going to do, Jill?” It was a delicate question, and I asked it delicately.

  She stopped sobbing, gave me a straight, serious look. “I’m going to keep the baby, if that’s what you’re asking, Karen. I’m not so sure what to do about Gerry. He doesn’t want a child. Said something about another unwanted brat and history just repeating itself. I love him, but he’s …” She struggled for a word.

  “Difficult?”

  “Yes—he’s difficult—very complex and pained.” She wiped at her eyes. “But he’s not a killer. He wouldn’t have killed Dr. Hart; she was his—” This time she shut her mouth firmly, protecting Gerry Novak’s
privacy. Her eyes teared up.

  “Drink your tea, Jill.” Anything to keep her busy; I didn’t want to have to deal with another attack of hysteria.

  But she rubbed the tears away with a knuckle, and concentrated on tugging cotton threads from her fluffy pink bathrobe. When she spoke again, she was calmer. “Karen, to tell you the truth, I don’t know if I want to spend my whole life with Gerry; that may be more of a challenge than I want to take on. But I will have his—our—child; I can certainly raise it by myself. And my baby’s father is not a killer.”

  “What did he mean, Jill, when he said that about another unwanted brat?”

  “It’s not unwanted; I want it. I’ve been carrying this baby for four months; I love it—him, her—already.”

  “But what I mean is, he said another …”

  But Jill wasn’t answering any questions about Gerry; her mind was set on convincing me of his innocence. I wondered if perhaps she wasn’t working on convincing herself.

  I spent the night at Jill’s place; she needed someone with her, and she refused to call her parents or her brother. And certainly, no one needed me at home—or was even expecting me. It was two years now since Tony and I had separated, and Amanda had gone off to Georgetown, but I still wasn’t used to not having to report in. It should feel liberating to be that free, but, instead, it felt—incomplete. No partner, no daughter—just bumping around all by myself. Nothing wrong with that, I guess; I just wasn’t used to it.

  Jill did call someone—her shrink. She spent an hour and fifteen minutes on the phone with him, while I made scrambled eggs and toast, and she swallowed them down with the cordless phone tucked between her shoulder and her ear. She slept after that, and so did I—she in her big water bed and me on a lumpy gold plush sofa that hit me in awkward places with its small, hard upholstered buttons. I woke shortly after three A.M. with all my nerves jangling. Everything struck me at once: Edith was dead, probably murdered; Jill was romantically involved with Gerry Novak; Jill was pregnant with Gerry’s child; Gerry had been arrested for killing the elderly physician—and possibly because of what I’d told Piotrowski. I was such a witless blabbermouth. I lay awake on the uncomfortable couch until dawn, fighting grief and anxiety. In the very short time I had known Edith, I had come to admire and respect her. Now she was dead. Jill was my friend, and I had unwittingly betrayed her. At dawn, I sat up on my unyielding bed and watched five programs of Headline News in a row.