Not a Sound

by Heather Gudenkauf

  Dr. Huntley opens the file and his forehead creases as he flips through the pages. “That’s odd,” he says, handing the file back to me. “Maybe they were accidentally placed in another patient’s file.”

  “I’ll keep an eye out for them, but there are a few other files that seem incomplete too. I’ve been jotting down notes.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing we’re getting a handle on all these paper files now. Once we go to a fully digitized system, we won’t have these errors. Thanks for catching them,” he says and rubs Stitch’s head. He pulls a small dog treat from his white coat pocket and looks for my permission before giving it to him. I nod. I know that Lori has a stash of treats in her desk drawer just for Stitch and several times a day someone stops by to give him one. I’m going to end up having a very spoiled dog on my hands from working here.

  I watch through the doorway as one of the nurses leads a patient to one of the examining rooms. The pale, drawn face trudging forward hoping, praying for a little good news, a little relief. I remember this from when I worked with patients: the gratitude they felt when I was able to ease their pain or listened to them, or was just there for them. Of course there were also those patients who threw up on me or tried to grab my ass. I try not to focus on those patients so much.

  I miss my old life and the hectic craziness of the ER. I can’t imagine spending the next twenty years—let alone the next six months—sitting in this windowless room going through files. But here I am. I know that Lori offered to have me come and work in the reception area, but interacting with others is exhausting and this dark, little room is, in its own way, comforting. I pull another file from the cabinet and begin to read. Simon Burger. Sixty-nine years old. Testicular cancer.

  * * *

  After work, Stitch and I spend the afternoon killing time before heading over to my speech therapy appointment. We drive to the Mathias river walk and Stitch and I sit on a bench in the covered pavilion that looks over the choppy water that is the same color as the iron-gray sky. The biting, clean scent of snow is in the air. I wonder if this is another Iowa weather fake out. I’ve thought it was going to snow for days now.

  Once again, I can’t believe how much my hometown has transformed over the past twenty-odd years. Downtown Mathias, once grimy and neglected, is now a tourist attraction where people come to shop and dine. Today the cool weather has kept people away and Stitch and I are the only visitors. Stout herring gulls spiral above us in loops, scavenging for scraps of food.

  The cold prods us onward and we start to walk again until we come upon the old train bridge where Sadie leaped into the water. Why, why, would she want so badly to die? To leave someone who loved her as much as Jake did? I’ll never understand it. I wonder if Jake ever comes down here and walks this path thinking the same thing. Probably not. I still find it painful to drive past David’s clinic, and he’s still alive.

  The forecasted snow finally begins to fall but still a fisherman braves the cold and slowly steers his small boat through the choppy water. I think of Gwen. How did her killer transport her to the curve of the river where I discovered her? Knowing Gwen, there was no possible way someone could have forced her to walk the trails to her own death. She would have fought, and according to Jake there didn’t appear to be any defensive injuries on her body.

  I’m convinced that the only way the killer could have gotten her to the river was to incapacitate her first, then take her by boat to the spot where I found her. But why would he strangle her, revive her, and strangle her again? Was her killer some sicko who got off on squeezing the breath out of her or was he trying to force her to tell him something he wanted to know? What could be so important?

  I think of Gwen’s email and the phone message she left me. What would possess her to reach out to me again after so much time? Maybe Marty will know. If I could talk to him for just a few minutes maybe, in the very least, he could tell me why Gwen was so eager to reconnect with me? Was it because she missed our friendship or because of something else?

  I look at my watch. I still have an hour and a half before I have to be at my speech rehab appointment. Do I really stop over at Marty’s house? Is it too soon? Too intrusive? But what if he holds the answers needed to bring her killer to justice? I know he would want to help.

  The snow is falling more heavily now, so Stitch and I walk back to the car. Once back on the road, we stop off at a local take-and-bake shop and pick up a pan of lasagna and garlic bread to bring to Marty. After my accident, droves of people showed up at the house with meals for us. I know that David and Nora really appreciated it. As for me I didn’t eat much, I was too busy drinking my meals.

  Once back on the road I start second-guessing my impulsive decision to go see Marty. How would I feel if someone showed up on my doorstep without any notice soon after I lost someone I loved? In reality I know exactly how I would feel and what I would do. After I lost my hearing I didn’t want to see anyone. I avoided others at all costs, including Gwen and Jake. It was worse after David ordered me to leave. All I wanted to do was curl up into a ball and die. It wasn’t until Jake dragged me out of bed and practically forced me to go to an AA meeting did I begin to emerge from my self-imposed exile.

  I almost hope that Marty won’t be home as I turn down their street. Gwen and Marty’s house is the same as a dozen others that line their quiet street. All the homes are split-levels with either tan or gray siding. All have the same hipped and half-hipped rooflines and black shutters. I pull into the Lockes’ sloped driveway and before I even put the Jeep into Park the curtains that cover the front window sway open.

  There’s no going back now. The door opens and a haggard figure comes into view. Marty looks startlingly different than he did at the funeral. He is unshaven and his dark hair is greasy and lays in oily hanks around his face.

  I step from the Jeep, release Stitch and grab the pan of lasagna and bread before heading up the walk. “Hi, Marty,” I call, “it’s Amelia Winn.”

  Marty looks at me through dull, blue eyes that seem to have sunken into his skull. His lips are chapped and he holds on to the door frame as if to steady himself. “I knew Gwen. We worked together at Queen of Peace, and we were friends. Lane and my daughter, Nora, used to play together.”

  Marty licks his lips and I wonder if he’s been drinking. I take a step closer to try to see if I can smell any alcohol on his breath. I can’t. He pulls a pair of glasses out of his wrinkled front shirt pocket and puts them on. “Of course, I remember you, Amelia,” he says. “How are you? Please come in.”

  “I’m doing well, thanks. Do you mind if Stitch comes too?” I ask.

  Marty ruffles Stitch’s head. “No, the more the merrier.” He steps aside to let us enter. A pile of shoes sits by the front door and a jacket has been tossed carelessly on the floor. Marty self-consciously runs a hand through his hair. “Lane’s still at school. She wanted to stay home with me but her counselor at school thought it would be better for her to be with her classmates. Stick to a routine.” He looks around the room. “I haven’t had a chance to clean up yet today.” A laundry basket filled with clothes waiting to be folded sits on the floor, a thin layer of dust covers the coffee table, and a pillow and a blanket lay in a tangle on the couch. The space has the forlorn look of a once well-tended room that takes too much energy to care for anymore.

  Marty catches me looking at the pillow and blanket. “It’s hard to sleep in my bedroom without her,” he says. I want to tell him I understand. I still don’t sleep well without David at my side. I want to tell him that I sleep with the lights on and with one hand on Stitch so I know I’m not alone. But all I can do is nod.

  I follow him to the kitchen where a stack of unopened mail is scattered across the table, dirty dishes are piled in the sink and plastic bags half-filled with groceries sit on the counter as if forgotten. The smell of spoiled milk and fried eggs permeates the room
. “I brought you a lasagna and some garlic bread. You can freeze it until you want to eat it. The baking directions are right on top there.”

  “Thanks,” he says, accepting the pan from me and transferring it to the refrigerator. “Coffee?” he asks. I’m not thirsty, but I say yes just to be polite. He searches the cupboard for two mugs and pulls the carafe from the warming plate and pours. He hands me a cup and I take a sip.

  “Gwen told me you were in an accident and lost your hearing,” Marty says and takes a big gulp of his own coffee.

  “I’m getting the hang of it,” I say. “Most of the time I have to fill in the gaps to know what people are saying. I speech read and rely on gestures and facial expressions. If you use short sentences and I can see your face, I’ll get the gist.”

  “Kind of like Wheel of Fortune, huh?” he says, smiling at his own joke.

  “More like charades,” I say, “but I get along okay.” We busy ourselves with drinking coffee to fill the awkward silence that follows.

  “Marty, I am so sorry,” I finally say, my throat tight with tears. “Gwen and I lost touch over the past few years but she was always a good friend to me.”

  Marty scrapes his bottom teeth against his top lip as if trying to bite back the emotions threatening to spill over. “I saw you at the funeral. Thanks for coming.”

  “You’re welcome,” I say, absentmindedly brushing toast crumbs that sprinkle the surface of the kitchen island into my hand. A butter knife tacky with congealed jelly sticks to the countertop and I pry it loose. The place is a mess. Lane shouldn’t be living in these conditions. I add the crumbs and the dirty knife to the overflowing sink.

  “For a while the police thought I might have killed her,” Marty says. “Can you believe it? Me kill Gwen.” He shakes his head at the inanity of the thought.

  “Do you have any idea who might have done it?” I ask.

  “The police asked me that too.” He rakes his fingers through his hair and when he pulls his hand away it’s standing in oily spikes. “I can’t think of anyone who would want to hurt Gwen. All she ever did was try to help people.”

  “Gwen tried to reach out to me after my accident, tried to help me. But I shut her out. I feel so bad about that.”

  Marty nods his head as if remembering. “She was sad about that. But understood.”

  “I got an email from Gwen a while back, wishing me a happy birthday. She also said she was having some kind of work dilemma. Do you have any idea what that might have been about?”

  Marty pauses, thinking before he speaks. His face slowly hardens, the dimming afternoon sunshine casting a harsh light on his features. “Once in a while she would get threats from some men.”

  “What men?” I prod when he doesn’t continue.

  “The rapists and men who beat their wives and girlfriends,” he says bitterly. “They would call the house or show up at the hospital and tell her to stay away.”

  I think of my hit-and-run and it makes sense that these men, who were most likely facing criminal charges, would try to intimidate Gwen so she would back off. “Did you tell the police this?” I ask.

  “Yeah, but I couldn’t tell them who the guys were. I really have no idea. Everyone she worked with loved Gwen.” Marty’s eyes shine with admiration as he remembers.

  “What about a Peter McNaughton?” I ask. “Did Gwen ever say anything about him?”

  To my surprise, Marty smiles wryly and shakes his head. “Peter McNaughton is harmless. He and Gwen were friends from way back when. Peter is a bit odd but Gwen was never scared of him. Why? Did something happen with Peter? Did he do something?”

  “No, no,” I backtrack. “I just saw him at the funeral and wondered. So you can’t think of anything work-related that worried Gwen?”

  “The only other thing I can think of is Gwen mentioned a patient she met at the hospital who she was worried about.”

  “Do you remember the patient’s name? What was wrong with her?”

  “All I can remember is she had a name that was a kind of a bug or insect. It was an odd name. I’ll think of it.”

  “Do you remember what department she was working in when she met the patient?” I ask. If Marty can tell me this, I might be able to narrow down what the problem could have been.

  “I think she said the woman was going to have a baby or had a baby maybe.” Marty shakes his head. “I’m not sure, but Gwen was pretty riled up.”

  “How long ago was this? Did you tell the police?”

  “Maybe a month ago.” He shakes his head. “I didn’t say anything. Gwen didn’t mention a hospital or doctor by name. Just said that she didn’t like it when people played God.” That sounded a lot like the Gwen I remembered. Feisty and looking out for the underdog. “All I could give them was her calendar where she kept track of all her appointments. Do you think I should call them back and tell them?”

  “It wouldn’t hurt,” I say. “So the police have Gwen’s calendar, then?” I ask, disappointed. How I would like to get a look at Gwen’s schedule over the past year.

  “They made a copy of it and gave it back.” Marty points to a calendar still opened to October hanging on the wall next to the refrigerator. I go over to get a closer look. The month of October features a picture of the Great Wall of China. I remember Gwen talking of always wanting to visit it. I wonder if she ever got there.

  I run my fingers over the small, tight script that fills nearly every date box. Gwen’s handwriting. I try to decipher the cryptic shorthand. L~GrScouts and G~QP/ER under October 5 must mean that Lane had Girl Scouts and that Gwen had a shift in the Queen of Peace emergency room. Under October 30, the night before I found her body, it reads L~cost, G~MR/Onc, M~oil change.

  Marty comes up behind me. I can smell the sour odors of clothing worn too long and unwashed skin. I turn so I can see his lips. “Lane needed to bring a costume to school for Halloween,” he says, translating the code for me. “Gwen had a shift at Mathias Regional and I had an appointment to take the car in for an oil change.”

  “It looks like she was working a lot,” I observe.

  “Yeah, she was trying to take on as many shifts as she could. We were trying to save a little extra money.”

  “Would you mind if I took the calendar for a few days?” I ask, expecting Marty to balk at such a strange request.

  “Go ahead,” he says, taking it down from the wall for me. “It makes me sad to look at the damn thing.”

  “I should probably get going,” I say as he hands me the calendar. “I’m so sorry about Gwen.”

  Marty glances around the room helplessly and takes in the brimming sink and sticky counters. “It’s all so overwhelming,” he says, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and index finger. “At least Gwen’s mom is in town, that helps.”

  “You can call me if you need anything at all,” I say. “Help with Lane or to run some errands. Just let me know.” I write down my cell number on a scrap of paper, give Marty a quick hug and we say our goodbyes.

  It’s still snowing when I load Stitch into the Jeep and we drive along the slick roads to my speech rehab appointment and make it just in time. I spend the next forty-five minutes working with the therapist on correctly saying my s, sh, r, f and th sounds.

  When we step back outside at least another inch of snow has already blanketed the ground and it’s still coming down. Stitch leaps into the air, snapping at the spiraling filaments. I close my eyes, open my mouth and extend my tongue to catch a few flakes of my own, momentarily transported back in time to when I was a child wearing mismatched winter gloves and hand-me-down snow boots from my brother. This is the comforting hush that I remember from my childhood—the quiet that comes with snowfall, when the entire world is muffled beneath a downy quilt of snow. For the first time in a very long time, the silence and the dark do not frighten me.


  I stand with my arms outstretched, face uplifted to the darkening sky until my skin is damp with moisture and my cheeks burn with the cold. I bend down and scoop up a handful of snow into a ball and throw it across the parking lot. Stitch sprints after it, his back legs slipping momentarily before gaining traction. He loses sight of the snowball and his eyes dart around in confusion. I pack another and toss the ball lightly into the air and Stitch, graceful as any ballerina, leaps through the air and catches the sphere in his teeth where it explodes into a thousand tiny bits.

  Again and again I pat the snow into balls and throw them for Stitch to catch. He has worked himself into a frenzy, darting first toward me and then away, his tail wagging furiously. He tries his best to retrieve the slushy orbs I throw but much to his bewilderment they melt before he can bring it back to me. The streetlights pop on, giving the snowfall a fairy tale–like quality.

  It takes me a moment to realize that I’m laughing. Not just smiling, not giggling or chuckling, I’m full-out laughing. Stitch pauses in his play, his chest rising and falling rapidly, his tongue lolling heavily from his mouth, to stare at me. I don’t think Stitch has ever heard me laugh before. He’s heard me give stern commands, he’s heard me whisper softly in his ear. He’s even heard me cry, but never laugh. Not like this.

  Stitch doesn’t quite know what to make of this; he steps tentatively closer and regards me with newfound interest. I scrape up another fistful of snow and launch it as far as I can. Stitch goes out long, his powerful legs churning up the snow, as he crosses the deserted parking lot. I try to remember what my laugh sounds like, but I can’t. It’s like trying to remember the face of a long-dead relative or a long-lost love—just out of reach.

  When my fingers are red and raw and my shoes and socks are wet from the snow, I call Stitch back to me. It’s time to go home. I brush the snow from the Jeep’s windows, open the door, pull the lever that makes the front seat tilt forward and urge Stitch inside. “Ke mne,” I tell him, hoping that he and his wet paws will stay in the backseat. I shut Stitch inside and am just reaching for the door handle when I feel a presence behind me. I want it to be Corrine, my speech therapist, but I know it’s not. I quickly turn around, heart pounding. Instead of Corrine I find Peter McNaughton not more than twenty feet away. He’s bounding toward me.