Doctor Perry

by Kirsten McKenzie

  “I can only think of one family on that list with a baby young enough to be in a pushchair who would walk to school, everyone else drives,” Griffin said, pulling the paper from Emily’s hands. Tearing off the bottom section, he wrote two names followed by an address, and handed it back to Emily before standing up with a finality signalling their meeting was over.

  “Thank you,” said Emily, slipping the paper into her notebook.

  “You’ll let me know if the boys need our help? And Detective Jesmond, I look forward to receiving the appropriate paperwork from you. Good luck with your enquiries.”

  Still perplexed at the disconnect between the external image of the principal and his speech and insistence on protocols being followed, Emily couldn’t help but suspect there was a con going on somewhere.

  With her prejudices sated, she left Griffin’s office, and avoiding the archaic receptionist she checked the note Trivelle Griffin gave her. The address was within walking distance of the school if you walked past the Rose Haven Retirement Resort. But the paper didn’t list just one child, it had the names of two boys, twins. And she had an inkling where to find a set of twins.

  49

  Ricky Donovan’s pupils filled his eyes as he inhaled the fumes bubbling inside the thin walled glass pipe. As he drifted into a drug-induced utopia, he smiled at the food weighing down his grubby kitchen counter. He’d lucked in this time. It was amazing the strings one’s family could pull when they wanted too.

  Ricky inflated his cheeks, giggling at his resemblance to the chipmunks he used to see as a child. Laying his pipe carefully on the coffee table, he held his hands up like little tiny claws and mimed a crude impression of a chipmunk, “Hehehe, set for winter are we? We’ve got our winter supplies in haven’t we? Thanks Aunty Tracey. It’s good to have family support. Hehehe.” Taking another deep breath, he puffed out his cheeks again. “Yummy nuts, nuts, nuts, nuts. And sugar. Oohh, Momma would be proud of me taking all the things, eating all the food. Clever little boy aren’t I?”

  A cockroach scampered across the coffee table, and Ricky’s addled brain trawled through his memory reserves. Bugs! Chipmunks liked eating bugs too, not just nuts. He clamped his hand down over the prehistoric insect. It probed his hand looking for an escape route, and Ricky fancied he could feel its tiny little hands trying to force its way out. Sucker, he had it cornered. Lifting his hand an inch, he picked it up with his other hand, watching it squirming before dropping it into his open mouth and crunching. As he chewed the cockroach’s crisp outer shell, he pondered what he should do next. What would a chipmunk do?

  Scurrying around his lounge the way he imagined a chipmunk moved, he touched the trinkets he’d arrayed in an order of importance known only to him. A Lladro statue of a dog crouched at the feet of a young boy; an alabaster statue of the Egyptian deity Anubis; a brass stag — his antlers threatening to impale anyone who came too close. There were other smaller statues laid out like a trail of breadcrumbs leading to the door of his apartment. Ricky picked at the scabs on his arms, blood bubbling up like sulphuric mud. Selling these things would stop the bugs from burrowing into his skin when he slept. He knew that. Mind you, eating them could stop that too. He cackled. Going to work cramped his style, but he’d made a promise or they’d lock him up again. He couldn’t handle that, there were so many bugs in prison, too many to eat, they crawled over him every night. He wasn’t going back. The doorbell rang. The Black Man! he always came at the right time. Like a chipmunk, Ricky was preparing for winter and people came when he needed them, because he was special.

  Before opening the door, he was lucid enough to hide his special pipe. He didn’t do sharing, and he’d been no good at sharing as a child. It wasn’t his Momma’s fault — other children never gave things back. He’d always been surprised when other parents or teachers told him off for not sharing. It was self preservation, they were idiots for not figuring that out for themselves. Chipmunks didn’t share their nuts. Neither did squirrels. Why then should he share his toys? They were his toys, and his alone. Satisfied he’d hidden his pipe, he checked his teeth in the mirror for any wayward cockroach legs and opened the door.

  “Hello Ricky,” said Nate Blackwell. “What have you got for me today?”

  “It’s the Black Man,” Ricky cackled. “Come in!”

  Blackwell sidled into Ricky’s lounge. The almond tang of the crystal meth in the air gave Blackwell’s step an extra lift. Buying off addicts was as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. As long as Ricky had half decent stuff, he’d be laughing all the way to the bank, again.

  “What you got for me Ricky?”

  “Lots of goodies, really valuable things. From my Gramma, she left it all to me. Sad, sad, sad days. But she was old. You know, a better place and all that. Lots of good stuff she had, I still don’t know if I wanna part with it. It’s hard, memories, family. Have you got family Black Man?”

  Nate didn’t believe Ricky’s story. He’d been buying off him long enough that Ricky had lost various ‘family’ members twice over now. It’s hard to keep the stories straight when you’re in the clutches of the latest chemical offering. Ricky should stick to alcohol and gambling. “We’ve all got family, Ricky. It’s a nice story, but keep those for your parole officer. I’ve got places to be, so what have you got?”

  Ricky laughed again, puffing his cheeks out as he made his way around his elaborate display of wares on the floor. “It’s all here, man. Laid it out for you. Gotta be worth a bundle. What do you reckon?”

  Nate put on his game face, jotting notes on the stub of his check book. Whatever Nate offered, Ricky would accept. Happened the same way every time, and Nate kept it sweet by throwing Ricky a juicy little bone now and then.

  “That’s a nice statue, Ricky,” he said, referring to the Lladro statue. “Are you sure you want to sell it? It’s more high end than I normally handle. Not sure I’m the right person to buy it?”

  Ricky twisted his head so fast, he risked twisting it right off. “Which one?” he asked, wild eyes scanning the assorted statuary.

  “The boy with the dog. Market can’t get enough of Lladro,” replied Nate, throwing Ricky his bone.

  Ricky had no idea who Lladro was, but he knew where more of them were. The Rose Haven was littered with them. “I’ve got more of them, but not here, they’re at the… at my Gramma’s house,” Ricky stuttered as the twitching restarted. The bugs under his skin were telling him to get rid of Nate and to get back to his pipe. “How much then?” he asked, hopping about like a child on Christmas Day, eager to open his presents but also in desperate need of a toilet.

  “Look, I can spring for two hundred for the lot,” Nate hedged. He’d go higher if Ricky pushed him, but he recognised the behaviour in front of him, and knew he’d timed it right.

  Ricky looked like a wide eyed Disney cartoon rendition of himself. Two hundred dollars would see him through a whole week especially with his pay from the old folks home. He nodded seriously, or what he thought was seriously. To Nate Blackwell, it looked like Ricky’s head would fall off, he was nodding so fast.

  Nate wrote out a cash check and packaged up the treasures from the floor. He’d make his money back from this stuff at least four times over. A great day.

  “Hey, Ricky, if you find any more of your Gran’s Lladro, call me. And if you’ve got any silver you want to get rid of? With Christmas coming up, those things are easiest to sell. Just putting it out there.” Nate smiled. He knew the stuff Ricky sold him was hot. He didn’t know where Ricky sourced it from but it wasn’t from his twice dead Gramma.

  Ricky smiled, scratching at his hand, unknowingly smearing blood up his arm, a grotesque tattoo. He needed Nate to go now. Go, go. go, his pipe was calling him.

  50

  Patting the earth with the flat of the spade, Myra stood up and wiped the tears from her cheeks. With old Tom dead, her last link to life before marriage had gone too. Now nothing remained to bind her to the life before she became Myra Perr
y.

  She hung the spade in its spot in the immaculate garden shed - everything had a place, and she kept nothing which wasn’t useful. She didn’t want to assume the twins had murdered old Tom, but it was the only explanation. Fiddling with the boxes of plant food and rust killer, Myra adjusted them so their labels lined up. If she could stay here and hide from reality, she would but life continued outside her little tin shed. Myra didn’t have the strength to ask the boys if they’d killed Tom. What if they said yes? She didn’t trust her reaction. They were only little boys. Maybe a fox or a coyote killed Tom?

  As Myra straightened the last box, she spied a gap on the white peg board and ran her fingers over the space. There was no need to draw around her tools; she was the only one who used the shed and put things away. Tracing her fingers over the other tools she ran through her list of tools trying to remember what was missing. The clippers. She hadn’t used the garden clippers for days, so who… Blood rushed to her ears, the pounding deafening and she fought off a wave of nausea. Someone had used her clippers on old Tom, the clippers she had sharpened every winter. Someone had used them to mutilate her cat. What if this had happened to other pets in the neighbourhood? She should ask her neighbours, her husband didn’t need to know she’d gone out. He’d only need to know if the boys… if they were responsible.

  She closed the shed door and paused at the sight of two heads at the kitchen window — so innocent, so little, it couldn’t have been them. Myra took a deep breath and made her way slowly to the house, each foot as heavy as lead.

  “Are you okay, Myra?” asked Jesse, eyes big with concern.

  Myra opened her mouth to answer but closed it again, the words choking her. She shook her head and rinsed her hands in the basin.

  “We can make you a coffee? We used to for Mom,” said James.

  “She likes coffee, has to have one before breakfast or she won’t get up,” said Jesse.

  Again Myra went to answer but nothing made it past her tongue. Even being in the same room as them, and thinking about what they… what they might have done, turned her stomach.

  Like an automaton she flicked the switch of the kettle and steam licked at the cream walls as the water boiled.

  “We’ll do it, Myra,” said James.

  An outsider might think them the most beautifully raised children with impeccable manners and an abundance of empathy. Myra however could not separate her suspicions from the scene.

  She steadied her features and turned to face the twins.

  “Thank you, but I don’t think a coffee will fix today,” she said.

  “Why are you sad?” asked one.

  Myra still couldn’t tell them apart and had no desire to learn now, but her heart hoped they were good kids, and they were being so kind. Other than the tonic her husband prepared for her a few times a month, she did everything in the house. There was no one else to do any cooking or cleaning or gardening or laundry. Her husband was barely at home, and when he was, it was to sleep and eat. His life was one of routine and predictability, a precise man who bristled at the hint of change. Which was why fostering baby after baby was such an anomaly in his regimented life, a life she facilitated with every waking breath.

  “Because my cat is dead,” Myra explained, her mothering instincts overcoming her reservations. They were just children, little boys who’d lost their mother and father and baby brother. They had no one else.

  The boys blinked at her, long lashes sweeping over their innocent blur eyes. They couldn’t have killed Tom, she’d be able to tell, wouldn’t she?

  “We don’t want you to be sad,” said one, wrapping his arms around her legs. The second twin came in behind his brother, adding his arms to the tangle.

  “We’ll make you a coffee,” said one. “And we’ll bring it to you in the lounge,” said the other. “Yes, sit down and relax,” said the first boy, a smile adorning his cherub-like cheeks.

  Myra nodded, leaving them to their good intentions. If they made any mess, she’d clean it up later. Their offer was a rare moment in a lonely life.

  The boys walked into the lounge, huge smiles illuminating their angelic faces, and Myra smiled at the mess of jam spread across a slab of bread, which no doubt they’d helped themselves to, judging by the smear of jam on one boy’s cheek.

  “We made you a coffee,” said James.

  “And an afternoon snack,” said Jesse.

  The coffee had splashed over the rim of the mug forming a muddy puddle on the wooden tray but still enough left in the mug to satisfy. The sight of the rustic jam sandwich made her stomach rumble, she hadn’t realised how hungry she was.

  “Thank you, boys,” Myra replied with absolute honesty.

  The boys giggled, their high pitched falsetto voices more at home in a church choir than her suburban home.

  “Can we go outside to play now please, Myra?” asked James, his hand on his brother’s shoulder.

  “Yes but don’t pick the flowers in the garden,” she said. As they vanished from the room she followed with, “Because some of them are poisonous,” but whether they heard, she couldn’t be sure.

  Myra closed her eyes, hands around the coffee mug. The aroma toyed with her senses and she took a sip. The boys had added too much cream in an attempt to cool the coffee, so it was more lukewarm than hot. She sighed, at least they’d tried. The horror of what had happened to Tom would never leave her, but sinking into the cushions of the couch, she tried to let go of the afternoon’s stress. So many nights she’d sat here on her own, a baby in her arms and a bottle in her hands, the soft scent of the baby filling the space left vacant by a husband never at home. But for now the space was hers. She took another sip and felt the caffeine kick in — the twins had made it stronger than she liked and the difference was noticeable, she felt her eyeballs popping open and her heartbeat increasing. She hadn’t realised how much she’d needed a fix until now.

  Myra tried closing her brown eyes but when she did, she imagined images of cats padding paw-less through her garden leaving smudges of blood on the grass, and fancied she could hear their exposed bones clicking on the tiles of the kitchen floor like a blind man with a cane tap, tap, tapping his way closer and closer. Myra swallowed the fear threatening to paralyse her. Shock, she was going into shock, and she gulped back the rest of the coffee, cold enough to knock it back in one long swallow. And then it hit her. It felt like she’d been pinned underneath a giant fan, the cyclonic air flattening her skin, forcing it into undulating waves over her tired cheekbones. Her eyebrows moved under their own volition, her jaw clenching. It felt as if hundreds of cats were stabbing at her with their crudely amputated bones as they clawed their way into her lap for blood-soaked cuddles. She tried screaming but couldn’t find her tongue, her pulsating skin made that an impossible task.

  The nightmarish vision of the cats vanished, leaving only the excruciating pain from their imagined amputations. Myra watched as her fingers shrank into themselves, leaving stumpy shadows of her formerly long tapered digits. Her wedding rings slipped off onto the tray, sending up a tiny splash as they landed on the polished wood — the gold circles an empty promise of something never delivered.

  Myra’s head bobbed forward as she sank into the cushions. No, she wasn’t sinking into the cushions, she was shrinking, the couch threatening to engulf her diminutive frame.

  Through a deep reserve of inner strength, she reached up to touch her face, her tiny fingers pressing into her rippling skin. It was as if she’d plunged her fingers into the breathing gills of a shark — her cheeks, jaw, teeth, bones, muscles, and tendons pulsated under her touch. Her face had taken on a life of its own. Then, it was as if someone had filled her head with Fourth of July crackers, and then lit the fuse. The pain so excruciating that she found her voice and as her adult-sized cranium shrank and compressed her brain at an inconsistent speed with the other changes to her body, Myra’s screams shook the house.

  The boys laughed as they climbed higher and higher u
p the tree in the garden, a pair of garden clippers tucked into the waistband of Jesse’s shorts. What fun they would have now! Two little boys doing what little boys did.

  51

  Doctor Perry stood in his office doorway and watched Molly stare at her phone. The girl was obsessed; she hadn’t moved from her seat all day, held captive by the glowing square screen in her hand. Then the front door opened, distracting them both from their thoughts.

  “Ah, Miss Swann, lovely to see you,” Doctor Perry said, his face brightening.

  Molly slipped her phone away and stood up with Clarita Swann’s folder — one of Doctor Perry’s late night clients.

  “Sorry I’m late. They closed the I-95 to Gateway, the radio said it was a hit and run, so I had to come the long way.”

  “The sounds terrible, did they say what happened?” Molly asked.

  “But at least you’re here now,” Doctor Perry interjected. “Thank you, Molly. That’s all for tonight, I’ll see you tomorrow. The folder?”

  Molly sniffed and handed Clarita’s file over before gathering up her things, checking her phone one last time. No missed calls and no messages.

  “Miss Swann, come through,” Doctor Perry smiled at his newest patient as he locked the clinic door behind his receptionist. He followed his patient into his consulting room and engaged the lock on that door too — it paid to be careful. Unexpected interruptions weren’t good for business.

  “How are you feeling, Miss Swann?” he asked, as he sat behind his desk. The large desk gave him an aura of respectability, and power. From here, his patients believed everything he said.

  “The lotion worked on my hands to begin with, but you’re right, the stress of being alone in a new town is affecting me,” Clarita replied, examining the eczema on her hands.