Carla came to stand over me and hitched a thumb toward the departing tanker truck. “Different driver from usual, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I said from the ground. “Doug’s off taking his daughter to a softball deal in Jersey. His sister Patty’s driving today. She runs the place from the office, usually.”
“Was there a kid with her?”
“Iris. Just got her from China.”
“Nice.”
“Yeah. She’s pretty cute. So I guess the doc let you out?”
“Just now. Thought I’d stop by and let you know.”
I glanced at Bryan, then back to Carla. “You’re feeling okay?”
“Feel great. They told me I’m supposed to take it easy, but I’m not on house arrest.” She grinned.
“Food?”
She made a face. “Told me to take it easy there, too.”
“Hey!”
We turned to see Zach coming from the barn, Randy slouching behind him. Zach smiled at Carla. “You come to see Barnabas?”
“Well, no, but I’d be glad to take a look at him.”
Bryan and I both made noises, and she shushed us with an impatient gesture. “I’m not going to
do
anything. Geez. Come on guys, let’s go see.”
And like the pied piper—although I wasn’t sure who was leading whom—Carla and the boys started toward the barn.
Bryan gave one look in my direction and took off after Carla.
Chicken.
When everyone had finally left my farm except for those who were supposed to be there—Lucy, Zach, and me—I went into the house, struggled to the front room, and collapsed onto the sofa. It didn’t take me long to fall asleep.
I woke about an hour later, hot and tangled in an afghan, thinking about Nick. This wasn’t surprising. I often think about him, and it often leaves me hot and tangled in the sheets. But this time it was a little different.
When Nick had come back into my life the past December after several months of not knowing what the hell had happened or whether or not I’d ever see him again, that sofa—the one where I lay at the moment—was where he had slept. We’d met the summer before when I’d hired him to paint my barn. I’d developed an enormous crush on him, been hit with all sorts of personal tragedy not related to him, and discovered he made his living as a developer. Not the kind of person I normally associate with, especially after one of his kind had tried to send me into bankruptcy so he could have my farm. Nick had taken off, my reaction to his career anything but calm, and I’d done nothing to look him up.
But there he was, at Christmas. Showing up on my doorstep like the little doggie in the window. Against my instincts I’d let him in, and while it had been anything but easy the past six months, I couldn’t imagine being without him again. Ever.
But I
was
without him. A majority of the time. He had his life in Virginia, while mine took place here, a couple hundred miles north. His family was in Harrisonburg, with his house, and his job. And mine was in PA.
I shoved my face into the afghan and inhaled the scent of it. It smelled like home. I pushed myself up, rubbed my temples, and took a deep breath before struggling upright onto my crutches. If armpits could talk, mine would’ve sounded like a sailor.
Biting my lips against the pain, I stomped out to the barn, left a note for Lucy, and crawled into my truck. Queenie whined pathetically at my feet, and I leaned over the seat to open the passenger door. She changed instantly from pouty girl to happy-go-lucky canine and ran around the truck, jumping into the passenger seat with much more agility than I had at the moment. Or ever did.
We drove uptown to the medical supply store, where I closed the windows halfway and told Queenie to stay. Ten minutes later I had traded Dr. Peterson’s prescription note for a pair of new crutches. The luxury model. Padded tops and hand grips, easily adjustable height, and rubber tips with no cracks. I felt ready to take on the world. Well, no. Not really.
The clerk from the store followed me out and tossed the old crutches into the bed of the truck. I thanked him and got into the cab, where Queenie had made more than her share of smeary nose lines on the passenger window. “So,” I said to her. “Let’s take these old crutches back to Dr. Peterson.”
She panted happily.
We drove across town toward the doctor’s office, and when it came into view I slammed on the brakes and swerved to the curb, causing a chorus of horns behind me. I waved them past, not bothering to see how many middle fingers were aimed my way, and stared at the scene in front of the brick building, where hordes of vehicles, lights flashing, blocked the drive and parking lot. My stomach hatched an immediate and ferocious batch of butterflies.
Had that crazy, outraged patient from the other day come back to mess with Dr. Peterson?
I checked my mirror and eased back onto the road to get as close as possible to the scene. I found a spot away from the cop cars, in front of another office building, and sat for a moment more, wondering what I should do.
“Well, I have to know, don’t I?” I asked Queenie.
Telling her again to stay, I slid down from the seat, got balanced on my new crutches, and trundled along, up to the police tape stretching in front of the drive. Amidst the crowd of cops and who knows who all, I somehow managed to catch the eye of an officer I’d been acquainted with since the past summer, when she’d helped gather up my younger cows when my heifer barn burned down. Her face was tight, her mouth a thin line.
“Ms. Crown?” She glanced at my crutches, momentarily distracted. “Why—”
“Pregnant cow, broken foot.”
She nodded, unimpressed.
“What happened?” I asked.
Stern glanced toward the building and I followed her gaze, stopping on the receptionist, who stood alongside the front steps with her arms wrapped tightly around her stomach. Her face looked even paler than the other day after dealing with the mad guy. Another female cop stood next to her, posture straight, eyes darting around the scene, her face as hard as Officer Stern’s. The butterflies in my stomach changed into hornets.
“Where’s Dr. Peterson?” I asked. “Is she okay?”
Officer Stern turned back to me, her eyes softening. “She’s…she’s gone, Ms. Crown.”
A gush of air escaped me, my relief almost enough to topple me over. I took a firmer hold on my crutches. “Where did she go?”
Stern’s mouth twitched. “I don’t mean she left, Ms. Crown. Stella.”
But of course I knew what she meant. I closed my eyes for a moment, fighting dizziness. “What happened?”
Stern opened her mouth, then shut it. “I’m not sure what I should say. You’ll have to wait for the detective, or someone else. I’m sorry.” She glanced down at my foot. “Did you have an appointment?”
I shook my head. “No. No, I didn’t. I just…I came by to return my old crutches. She loaned me some. Asked me to be sure she got them back.” I looked at the building, not really seeing it. “I guess she doesn’t need them now.”
Stern looked at me sharply. “Ms. Crown, why don’t you sit down?”
And the next thing I knew I was on the ground. Stern squatted beside me, one arm around my shoulders, one hand under my arm, holding me in a sitting position. She must’ve broken my fall, but I wasn’t really sure.
She let go of my upper arm. “Can I call someone for you?”
I blinked a few times. “No. No, don’t. I’ll be okay.”
I pulled my crutches toward me from where they’d fallen, then rested my head on my good knee. “I’ll just sit for a minute.”
“Okay. If you’re sure.”
She left me to go back to her duties, and I sat. I’m not sure how much time passed before I felt another presence beside me. Willard. He knelt on the sidewalk.
“She was your doctor?”
I nodded, turning my head to see him. “Since last summer.” Only a year ago. “What happened?”
He looked at his shoe, blowing up his cheeks, and letting the air out. “You know I can’t say much. But Dr. Peterson is—”
“I know. She’s dead.”
“Yes. I’m sorry.” He was quiet, while a breeze came along, cooling my face, which felt wet. I reached up. I was crying.
I wiped my cheeks on the sleeves of my shirt. “Can you tell me anything?”
He shifted, kneeling on his other leg. “Somebody broke in. Messed the place up pretty good. There are patient files all over the place, must be thousands of papers…” His face tightened. “It looks like she’d been working late. Or really early. I’m not sure which. But when they broke in, she was there…”
I sniffed and wiped my face again. “How? How did she die?”
He looked at me, then down at his shoes. “It’s hard to know for sure, but if I had to guess, I’d say she hit her head hard enough it killed her.”
“She hit her head? Or someone hit it for her?”
His lips formed a thin line. “I can’t answer that yet. But I assume from the way she’s lying that she was pushed, and she fell on something sharp. Meadows is testing the corner of a sink in the examining room where we found her. I expect it will match the wound on her temple.”
I tried not to think of how she must have suffered. “Was it for drugs?”
He nodded shortly. “Probably. There were some stolen. And other supplies. Hypodermic needles. Scales for measuring medicines. In fact, that’s what I was…where I was going. I need to put out a message to all the police within a hundred mile radius, telling them what was taken.” He sighed again, this one lifting his shoulders up and down.
I waved toward the building. “But isn’t there an alarm system on this place? I’d think a doctor’s office—”
“Sure. But alarm systems don’t help all that much, a lot of times. Too easy to defeat.”
“How?”
“They cut the phone line. It’s not rocket science, unfortunately.”
I opened my mouth to ask more, but he cut me off. “I have to go, Stella.” He pushed himself up from the ground. “You’ll be okay getting home? You need me to call Lucy?”
“No. I mean, yes, I’ll be fine. Willard?”
“Yeah?”
I looked up at him. “Help me up?”
He reached down and pulled me to my feet, bending over to get my crutches and hand them to me.
We stood for a moment, side by side, watching people go in and out of the parking lot and the building itself. Cops, medical folks, people in plainclothes. Officer Meadows made an appearance at one point, a camera in his hands, and I didn’t have it in me to complain about him. I just hoped he knew what he was doing, so he could help nail the bastard who did this.
“I have to go, Stella.”
“Sure. Do what you need to.”
He left, and I stood for a while longer, watching the receptionist, who still stood huddled beside the building. And who hadn’t yet been able to stop her tears.
After standing on the sidewalk for several minutes I summoned up the energy to walk back to my truck, and I drove home, my mind spinning. What was it Nick had joked about just the night before? That it sounded scary to be a woman up here in Pennsylvania? Or had he said dangerous? Either way, he was right. And it was obvious now that it certainly wasn’t a joke.
Dr. Peterson was dead. Carla had been attacked, Katherine’s church struck by vandals, and now… My cow Wendy obviously wasn’t after me because I was a woman, so I wouldn’t count my own broken foot in the mix of events, even though I fit the gender of the victims.
The more I thought about Nick’s words, the more I realized they were true. I swung into a driveway and turned around, heading back into town. I might not be able to give Willard the answers he needed, but I needed to tell him what I was thinking.
Gladys looked up as I lurched into the police station. “He’s really busy right now, Stella.”
“I know. But it’s about that. About Dr. Peterson, I mean.”
She studied my face, which was probably red from crying. “All right. Okay. Come on back.”
She buzzed me in, and this time when I got to his office Willard wasn’t staring out the window. He wasn’t bouncing his pencil up and down, either. He was holding it still, one hand on each end, as if he was going to break it in half.
“Willard?” I asked. “Got a minute?”
He jerked his head up, his eyes taking a moment to focus on me. “One.”
I went in and sat down. “I think they’re all connected.”
He stared at me. “What are?”
“Carla’s car-jacking. The vandalism at the church. And now Dr. Peterson.”
“What church?”
“Remember? Kulpsville Mennonite?”
His face cleared. “That’s right. I’d forgotten about it. Never got around to calling over there.” He looked at me. “But I don’t get it. What’s the connection? Drugs? Were there drugs taken from the church?”
“Willard…” Wasn’t he supposed to be the smart one? “They’re all
women
. Women in positions men usually hold. A large-animal vet. A pastor. A doctor. See?”
He sat for a moment, thinking. At least I thought he was thinking. Maybe he was just waiting for me to make more sense.
I studied him. “Was there anything…anything at the office that might make you think it was about that? I mean, I know people were angry about Dr. Peterson taking over her dad’s practice.”
He looked at me sharply. “Why do you say that?”
I described the encounter at the office the day before, with the comb-over guy who knocked the pens all over the waiting room. “Dr. Peterson—and the receptionist, too—said it wasn’t the first time. People are really upset at her dad. And at her. They don’t…didn’t…want her to take care of them. They wanted the man they were used to.”
Willard bit his lips together. I had his interest.
I continued. “And there was a sign.”
“A sign?”
The abruptness of his question made me jump. The idea of a sign had struck a nerve.
“There was a sign at the church,” I said, “that made it pretty clear the attack was about Katherine, the minister, being a woman. They spray painted the words, GO HOME SINNER on her office wall.”
He looked at me more intently, but I wasn’t sure he was seeing me.
“Willard, what is it?”
He let go of his death grip on the pencil and began tapping the eraser on his desk. “There wasn’t anything for Dr. Beaumont. No sign.”
“No. Just a concussion. And a swollen face. Willard, what is it? Did Dr. Peterson get a message, too?”
He looked at his pencil, now stilled, and rubbed his chin.
I sat forward. “
Willard
?”
He dropped his hand from his face and released a drawn out breath. “The attacker went into one of the rooms, Stella. Tore a paper sheet off an examining table. It’s now across Dr. Peterson’s desk.” He looked me in the eye. “It says, ‘Women should be the patients. Not the doctors.’”
A chill settled over me, and I could tell Willard felt it, too.
My voice reflected the feeling. “It’s the same guy.”
“It could be.”
“Oh, come on, Willard. It has to be.”
“Maybe Dr. Peterson and the church are connected. Dr. Beaumont’s car-jacking is a little different.”
“Maybe.” But I didn’t think so. “Do you have anything new on Carla’s truck?”
“Actually, yes. We’ve received a few calls about a man seen walking along Route 63 in Green Lane on Sunday, close to where her truck was found.”
“And?”
“We’re checking into it. There’s not a clear description of him, and there’s no way of knowing if he had anything to do with the attack. But it’s the only lead we have at the moment.”
Better than nothing. I guessed. “And these other two things?”
He carefully set his pencil on the desk, lining it up with his computer keyboard. “I guess I need to be in touch with the police in Kulpsville. There could be a connection between the two. And Stella? Don’t tell anybody about the sign, okay? It’s best to keep it under wraps for now, just in case.”
“Okay.”
I wanted to push him. Get him to say he was sure. That he’d take care of it and nothing else would happen to any other women.
But of course he couldn’t.
I left him and his pencil and went out to my truck, where I grabbed onto Queenie and tried to keep my hands from shaking.