Sisterhood (24 page)

“It’s a bitch of a cycle to break out of,” Ben said.

“Alone it is. That’s for sure. Well, one morning I woke up in a cage. My last friend couldn’t stand it anymore. Actually, it was a hospital he brought me to. Briggs Institute?” Ben nodded that he knew the place. “It turned out to be a great place for me, but not those first few weeks. No handle on the door. Bars on the windows. The whole scene … Are you still awake?”

Ben managed a short laugh. “I got snatches of your story from Lauren and Dockerty,” he said, shaking his
head, “but not like this. Getting locked up last night like you did …”

David shuddered. “I don’t have classic claustrophobia. At least, I don’t think I do. It’s just that ever since those early weeks at Briggs the thought of being locked up or trapped in a small place gives me this awful, gnawing sensation in my gut, and sometimes a chill that …” He stopped and managed a smile. “It really does sound like claustrophobia, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t like labels,” Ben said.

“Well, no matter.” David swallowed against the dusty dryness in his mouth, then drank half a glass of water. “Let’s see.… There’s not much left to tell. Several months at the institute and I was ready to go back to medicine. But not to surgery. I spent almost three years as a G.P. in one of the inner-city clinics, then went back and repeated the last two years of my surgical residency. I made the staff at Boston Doctors nearly two years ago. It hasn’t been easy, but things have been picking up. At least until a week ago they were.”

“David, this is much more than I ever hoped you would be able to tell me at this point,” Ben said. “I’m grateful to you for doing it. Makes my job much easier.”

David looked at him quizzically. “I’m curious,” he said. “Why is it you haven’t asked me whether or not I’m guilty of murder?”

Ben grinned and set his chin in his hands. “I have, my friend. A dozen different times in a dozen different ways. You’ve hauled yourself too far for me not to move hell and earth to keep you from getting bloodied anymore.”

“Thank you.” David whispered the words. “Ben, when you talked to Lauren, did she …? Well, what I mean is we had a fight and …”

“David, I don’t want to get in the middle of anything like this, but I do have something to say. I’ve known Lauren Nichols for years. She’s a bright, incredibly
beautiful woman who, by choice or circumstance, has not had to face too much adversity in her life. She … ah … she asked me to give you this.” He pulled out a pink envelope—Lauren’s stationery—and handed it to David.

“Not much doubt what it says, is there?” David folded the envelope and stuffed it in his pocket as he spoke.

“No, I guess not,” Ben answered softly. “Are you all right to go home? I mean, if you need a place to stay for the night …”

“No thanks, Ben. I’ll be okay. Really.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Ben said.

“Tomorrow,” David echoed.

The steely afternoon sky was threatening, but the steady rain of the past several days had let up. The walk from Paddy O’Brien’s to his apartment was about two miles and, with nothing to hurry home for,. David forced a leisurely pace, stopping once to wander through the old cemetery where Paul Revere was buried. He reasoned that the graveyard would be an appropriate place to read Lauren’s letter.

He needn’t, he decided afterward, have bothered. The note was what he expected—semiformal—one-third thank-you-for-everything and two-thirds just-doesn’t-seem-like-things-will-work-out-for-us. “I guess she took me for better or for better,” David said as he tore the note into tiny pieces and ceremoniously tossed the pink petals over an ancient grave. He was surprised at how little hurt he felt. Perhaps it was because the loss of the relationship was just another brick in the wall that was closing him off from life. Then, as he trudged toward Boston Common, he began to realize that he had rarely been totally at ease around Lauren. It was largely his fault for trying to force her into the spaces Ginny had filled in his life. Even before it had started, he had doomed the relationship with his hopes.

The advance unit of the rush home had begun filling the walkways of the Common. Haggard businessmen, giggling groups of secretaries, and stylish career women—all crossing the grassy park on the way from their day to their evening. For a while David amused himself by trying to make eye contact with each person who passed. In the first few minutes the score was zero connections for twenty-five or thirty tries. He looked down at the pavement wondering if perhaps there was something there he was simply missing. Finally he bet himself that if one absolute, unquestionable eye contact could be made before he arrived home, the nightmare that followed the death of Charlotte Thomas would soon end.

By the time he reached Commonwealth Avenue, a light, misty rain had started falling again. He squinted upward and picked up his pace.

A block ahead of him a thin, elderly gentleman sat on a bench reading the early evening edition of the
Boston Globe
. He gauged the rain with an outstretched palm, and decided there was time to finish the last paragraphs of the article about the mercy killing at Doctors Hospital.

It was on page three, a two column spread describing in some detail David’s arrest and arraignment. Unable to find a picture of him in time, the court reporter had resurrected one of Ben Glass from the newspaper’s morgue.

The dapper little man finished the article, folded his paper beneath his arm, and started his walk home. Lost in thoughts of the story he had just read, the man failed to notice David’s attempt at eye contact.

“C
hrissy, check the bathroom out. Does it look okay?” Lisa called out as she pulled on a skirt and zipped it up the side.

“Lisa, the bathroom looks fine. I told you, don’t worry about the place. I’ve got an hour before she’s due. That’s plenty of time to clean up.” Christine dropped a record into its jacket and replaced it on the shelf, taking a moment to straighten the row of albums. She had felt increasingly jittery and apprehensive since Dotty Dalrymple’s late-afternoon call and now wished her roommates would head off for the evening so she could have some time to herself before the woman arrived.

The nursing director had given no hint as to why she wanted to stop over, but it was hard for Christine to believe the visit related to anything other than the death of Charlotte Thomas. She had given thought to calling the Regional Screening Committee for advice on how to handle the situation, but decided it was foolish when she wasn’t at all certain of what, exactly, the situation was.

Lisa popped into the living room naked from the waist up. “Carole, bra or no bra for this guy?”

“He’s a
blind
date, Lisa,” Carole shouted from her room. “Just don’t let him touch you and he’ll never be able to tell whether you have one on or not.”

“What do you think, Chrissy? Bra or no bra?”

Christine appraised her for a moment. “It’s been a dull season,” she said. “I think you should go for it.” Her voice held far less cheer than she intended.

Lisa shrugged and slipped on a blouse. “You seem tight as a drum. Anything you want to talk about?”

“Believe me,” Christine said, “if I had something to talk about, I would. I’ve never had Miss Dalrymple visit like this, that’s all. She could want to promote me, she could want to fire me. I just have no idea. Listen, you guys have fun. I hope he’s nice. And thanks for helping me tidy up the place.”

“Ooh, wait a minute!” Lisa snapped her fingers and dashed to her room, talking as she ran. “These came earlier this afternoon. I guess while you were out.” She returned with a vase of flowers. “I think they’ll be the perfect touch over here by the window … no, on the table … no, I think perhaps over the …”

“Lisa, those are lovely. Who sent them?”

“The mantel. Yes. They’re perfect for the mantel.”

“Lisa,
who?
”

“Oh, they’re from Arnold. Arnold Ringer, the office heartthrob. The fool believes these are a shortcut to my body. And you know what?”

“He’s right!” The two of them said the words in unison, then laughed.

Christine was straightening the kitchen when the doorbell rang. Moments later, Carole and Lisa called their good-byes and she was alone.

Her solitude lasted a sigh and one pace to the living room and back. With a purely symbolic knock Ida Fine slipped in the back door. Folded under her arm was a copy of the evening
Globe
. She started talking before Christine could explain that her visit was ill-timed.

“So where are my other two? Gone for the evening? So why not you?” Ida seldom asked a question without answering it herself or at least following it with another, often unrelated query.

“They’ve got dates, Ida,” Christine said, hoping that the flatness in her voice would get the message across without being offensive.

“And you, the prettiest of the three, have none? You’re sick, is that it? You’re not feeling well. I have some soup upstairs. I know you nurses are too sophisticated to believe in such things, but …”

“No, Ida, I’m fine.” There was no stopping the woman short of a frontal assault. “I’m just busy tonight. My nursing supervisor is coming over soon, so I’ve got to get ready. Maybe tomorrow or even later tonight we can talk, okay?”

Ida slapped the newspaper on the table. “I’ll bet it’s about that doctor who murdered the woman at your hospital,” she said. “A doctor yet. My mother always wanted me to marry a doctor, but no, I had to be pigheaded and marry my husband, God rest his soul …”

Christine’s eyes widened and fixed on Ida, who just kept talking. “…  not that Harry was a bad man, mind you. He was a very good man. But sometimes—”

“Ida, what are you talking about?”

“The murder. David somebody. Must be Jewish. No, he can’t be Jewish. A Jewish boy murdering a patient? I can’t—”

“Ida, please!” Christine’s shout produced instant silence. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“It’s right here. In the
Globe
. I thought you knew. Here, keep the paper. Just leave me the TV section. I forgot to get a
TV Guide
while I was at the market.”

She talked on, but Christine no longer heard her. The newspaper rustled in her hands even after she had folded back the page.
“SURGEON CHARGED WITH MERCY KILLING; RELEASED ON BAIL,”
she read.

Color flashed in her cheeks, then drained. “Oh, my God,” she said softly as she read the account of David’s arrest and arraignment. “Oh, my God …”

Ida’s verbal onslaught continued for another minute, then slowed and finally stopped. Christine read the article one word at a time, unaware that her landlady’s gaze was now riveted on her.

Ida brought a chair from the kitchen table and Christine sank down numbly as she read the last few lines.

Ida rushed to the sink, wet a washcloth, and rubbed the cold compress over Christine’s forehead. For almost a minute Christine made no move to stop her. Finally she nodded and gently pushed Ida’s hand away.

“I guess you hadn’t heard?” Ida said. “You know this David?” Miraculously, she stopped at two questions.

“Yes. I … know him,” Christine said. David Shelton had been in and out of her thoughts since the day they’d first met on Four South. Nothing persistent or overwhelming—or even well defined—but he was there. Dockerty’s inquiry had given her reason to talk about him with other nurses without seeming too obvious or interested.

Ida Fine rubbed her hands together anxiously. “Chrissy, your face is the color of my Swedish ivy. You want me to help you to bed or … or to call a doctor?”

Christine shook her head. “Ida, I’m all right. Really. But I have got to be alone for a while. Please?”

“Okay, I’m going. I’m going,” Ida said. The pout invaded her voice more by reflex than by intention. “If you need me, I’m right upstairs. Also food, if you need food … keep the paper …” She was still talking as she backed out the door.

Christine read the article a second time, then wrote Ben Glass’s name and law firm in her address book. Why had David purchased so much morphine? And on the day Charlotte died. A coincidence? Perhaps, but certainly not an easy one to accept. Maybe the hospital rumors were true this time. Maybe he does use drugs. Or deal them. Possibly both. But her sense of the man, however hazy, would not permit her to believe that was true.

She pressed her fingers against her temples as a dull, pulsing ache began accompanying each heartbeat. It really made no difference, she realized, why David had purchased morphine. She knew what she had done with the vials left her by The Sisterhood, and there was simply no way she could allow him to suffer for that. It had seemed so right, she thought. Damn it, it
was
right. Charlotte wanted it. The Committee approved. She hadn’t acted alone. She closed her eyes tightly against the pulses, which had become hammers. Every tiny movement of her head made the pounding worse.

“Lie down,” she told herself. “Find some aspirin, some Valium—something—and lie down.” She blinked at the kitchen light, which had suddenly grown sun bright, then pulled herself to her feet. At that instant the doorbell rang.

She moved awkwardly to the stove. Tea, must make her some tea, she thought. The bell sounded again, more insistently.

With a groan Christine turned and raced through the hallway to the front door.

Dotty Dalrymple, wearing a purple overcoat, looked more imposing than usual. She smiled warmly from beneath a broad-brimmed purple rainhat and stepped inside. “This is wet,” she said, holding her black umbrella like a baton. “Is there somewhere I can store it?” She seemed totally at ease.

The pounding in Christine’s head began to recede as she set the umbrella by the door and hung up the tent-sized coat. “Tea,” she said, forgetting to invite the woman in. “Would you like some tea?”