Obsession (2 page)

Patty Bigelow, dead at fifty-four. She’d always seemed so sturdy.

Parking in a visitors lot, I walked toward the E.R. entrance, trying to recall the last time I’d spoken to Rick professionally since he’d sent Patty and Tanya my way.

Never.

My best friend was a gay homicide detective but that didn’t translate to frequent contact with the man he lived with. In the course of a year, I might chat with Rick half a dozen times when he picked up the phone at their house, the tone always light, neither of us wanting to prolong. Toss in a few dinners at celebratory times—Robin and I laughing and toasting with the two of them—and that was it.

When I reached the sliding glass doors, I put on my best doctor swagger. I’d dressed for court in a blue pin-striped suit, white shirt, yellow tie, shiny shoes. The receptionist barely looked up.

The E.R. was quiet, a few elderly patients languishing on gurneys, no electricity or tragedy in the air. As I approached the triage bay, I spotted Rick walking toward me, flanked by a couple of residents. All three of them wore blood-speckled scrubs, and Rick had on a long white coat. The residents wore badges. Rick didn’t; everyone knows who he is.

When he saw me, he said something to the others that made them depart.

Detouring to a sink, he scrubbed with Betadine, dried off, extended a hand. “Alex.”

I’m always careful not to exert too much pressure on fingers that suture blood vessels. Rick’s grip was the usual combination of firm and tentative.

His long, lean face was capped by tight gray curls. His military mustache held on to some brown but the tips had faded. Smart enough to know better, he still frequents tanning salons. Today’s bronze veneer looked fresh—maybe a noontime bake instead of lunch.

Milo stands between six two and three, depending on how his mood affects his posture. His weight fluctuates between two forty and way too high. Rick’s six feet even but sometimes he appears just as tall as “the Big Guy” because his back’s straight and he never tops one seventy.

Today, I noticed a stoop I’d never seen before.

He said, “What brings you here?”

“I dropped in to see you.”

“Me? What’s up?”

“Patty Bigelow.”

“Patty,” he said, eyeing the exit sign. “I could use some coffee.”

We poured from the doctors’ urn and walked to an empty examining room that smelled of alcohol and methane. Rick sat in the doctor’s chair and I perched on the table.

He noticed that the paper roll on the table needed changing, said, “Scoot up for a sec,” and ripped it free. Wadding and tossing, he washed his hands again. “So Tanya did call you. The last time I saw her was a few days after Patty died. She needed some help getting hold of Patty’s effects, was running into hospital bureaucracy, but even after I helped with that I got the feeling she wanted to talk about something. I asked her if there was anything else, she said no. Then about a week after that, she phoned, asked if you were still in practice or were you doing police work exclusively. I said from what I understood, you were always available to former patients. She thanked me but once again, I got the feeling she was holding back. I didn’t say anything to you in case she didn’t follow through. I’m glad she did. Poor kid.”

I said, “What kind of cancer got Patty?”

“Pancreatic. By the time she was diagnosed, it had eaten her liver. A couple of weeks before, I noticed her looking worn down, but Patty on two cylinders was better than most people on full-burn.”

He blinked. “When I saw she was jaundiced, I insisted she get it checked out. Three weeks later she was gone.”

“Oh, man.”

“Nazi war criminals make it to ninety, she dies.” He massaged one hand with the other. “I always thought of Patty as one of those intrepid settler women who could hunt bison or whatever, skin, butcher, cook, turn the leftovers into useful objects.”

He pulled at one eyelid. “All those years working with her and I couldn’t do a damn thing to change the outcome. I got her the best oncologist I know and made sure Joe Michelle—our chief of anesthesiology—managed her pain personally.”

“Did you spend much time with her at the end?”

“Not as much as I should’ve,” he said. “I’d show up, we’d make a little small talk, she’d kick me out. I’d argue to make sure she meant it. She meant it.”

He plucked at his mustache. “All those years she was my main RN, but apart from occasional coffee in the cafeteria, we never socialized, Alex. When I took over, I was an all-work, no-play jerk. My staff managed to show me the error of my ways and I got more socially oriented. Holiday parties, keeping a list of people’s birthdays, making sure there were cakes and flowers, all that morale-boosting stuff.” He smiled. “One year, at the Christmas party, Big Guy agreed to be Santa.”

“That’s an image.”

“Ho, ho, ho, grumble, grumble. Thank God there were no kids to sit in his lap. What I was getting at, Alex, is that Patty wasn’t at that party or any other. Always straight home when she finished charting. When I tried to convince her otherwise it was ‘I love you, Richard, but I am needed at home.’”

“Single-parent responsibilities?”

“Guess so. Tanya was the one person Patty tolerated in her hospital room. Kid seems sweet. Premed, she told me she’s thinking psychiatry or neurology. Maybe you made a good impression.”

He got up, stretched his arms over his head. Sat back down.

“Alex, the poor kid’s not even twenty years old and she’s alone.” He reached for his coffee, stared into the cup, didn’t drink. “Any particular reason you took the time to come over here?”

“I was wondering if there was anything about Patty I should know.”

“She got sick, she died, it stinks,” he said. “Why am I thinking that’s not what you’re after?”

I considered how much to tell him. Technically, he could be thought of as the referring physician. Or not.

I said, “Tanya’s wanting to see me has nothing to do with grief. She wants to talk about a ‘terrible thing’ Patty confessed on her deathbed.”

His head shot forward. “What?”

“That’s as much as she’d say over the phone. Make any sense to you?”

“Sounds
ridiculous
to me. Patty was the most moral person I’ve met. Tanya’s stressed out. People say all kinds of things when they’re under pressure.”

“That could be it.”

He thought for a while. “Maybe this ‘terrible thing’ was Patty’s guilt about leaving Tanya. Or she was just talking nonsense because of how sick she was.”

“Did the disease affect her cognition?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me, but it’s not my field. Talk to her oncologist. Tziporah Ganz.” His beeper sounded and he read the text message. “Beverly Hills EMTs, infarc arriving momentarily…gotta go try to save someone, Alex.”

He walked me through the glass doors, and I thanked him for his time.

“For what it was worth. I’m sure all this melodrama will fizzle to nothing.” He rolled his shoulders. “Thought you and Big Guy were stuck in court for the rest of the century.”

“The case closed this morning. Surprise guilty plea.”

His beeper went off again. “Maybe that’s Himself giving me the good news…nope, more data from the ambulance…eighty-six-year-old male with subterranean pulse…at least we’re talking a full life span.”

He stashed the beeper. “Not that anyone makes those value judgments, of course.”

“Of course.”

We shook hands again.

He said, “The primary ‘terrible thing’ is Patty’s gone. I’m certain it’ll all boil down to Tanya being stressed out. You’ll help her come to grips with that.”

As I turned to leave, he said, “Patty was a great nurse. She should have attended some of those parties.”

My house sits high above Beverly Glen, paper-white and sharp-edged, a pale wound in the green. Sometimes as I approach, it seems a foreign place, fashioned for someone with cold sensibilities. Inside, it’s high walls, big windows, hard floors, soft furniture to gentle the edges. An assertive silence I can live with because Robin’s back.

This week she was away, at a luthiers’ convention up in Healdsburg, showing two guitars and a mandolin. But for the trial, I might’ve gone with her.

We’re back together after two breakups, seem to be getting it right. When I start wondering about the future, I stop myself. If you want to get fancy, that’s cognitive behavior therapy.

Along with her clothes and her books and her drawing pencils, she brought a ten-week-old, fawn-colored French bulldog pup and offered me naming honors. The dog flourished in the company of strangers so I christened her Blanche.

She’s six months old now, a wrinkly, soft-bellied, flat-faced ball of serenity who spends most of her day sleeping. Her predecessor, a feisty brindle stud named Spike, had died peacefully at a mature age. I’d rescued him but he’d chosen Robin as his love object. So far, Blanche didn’t discriminate.

The first time Milo saw her, he said, “This one you could think of as almost kinda pretty.”

Blanche made a little purring sound, rubbed her knobby head against his shin, and turned up her lips.

“Is it smiling at me or is it gas?”

“Smiling,” I said. “She does that.”

He got down and took a closer look. Blanche licked his hand, moved in for the cuddle. “This is the same species as Spike?”

I said, “Think of you and Robin.”

No welcoming bark as I passed through the kitchen and entered the laundry room. Blanche dozed in her crate, door open. My whispered “Good afternoon” caused her to open one huge brown eye. The natural stub that serves as a tail for Frenchies began bobbing frenetically but the rest of her remained inert.

“Hey, Sleeping Beauty.”

She lifted the other eyelid, yawned, considered her options. Finally padded out and shook herself awake. I picked her up and carried her into the kitchen. The liver snap I offered would’ve sent Spike into a feeding frenzy. Blanche allowed me to hold it as she nibbled daintily. I toted her into the bedroom and placed her on a chair. She sighed and went back to sleep.

“That’s because I’m such a fascinating guy.”

I searched the storage closet for Tanya Bigelow’s chart, found it at the bottom of a drawer, and skimmed. Initial treatment at age seven, one follow-up three years later.

Nothing relevant in my notes. No surprise.

At five twenty the bell rang.

A clear-skinned young blonde in a white oxford shirt and pressed jeans stood on the front landing. “You look exactly the same, Dr. Delaware.”

Undersized child had morphed to petite young woman. I searched for memory jags, came up with a few: the same triangular face, square chin, pale green eyes. The tremulous lips.

I wondered if I’d have picked her out on the street.

I said, “You’ve changed a bit,” and motioned her in.

“I sure hope so,” she said. “Last time I was a baby.”

Anthropologists say blond is attractive because so few towheads stay that way, it represents youth. Tanya’s yellow curls had relaxed to honey waves. She wore it long, gathered in a high knot held in place by black chopsticks.

No resemblance to Patty at all.

Why should there be?

We headed up the hallway. As we neared the office, Blanche stepped out. Shook herself, yawned, padded forward. I scooped her up.

“Now,
this
is different,” said Tanya. “The only livestock you had last time were those gorgeous fish.”

“They’re still here.”

She reached out to pet the dog, changed her mind.

“Her name is Blanche. She’s well beyond friendly and into gregarious.”

Tanya extended a cautious finger. “Hi, cutie.” A puppy shiver jelloed Blanche’s rotund little body. A moist black nose sniffed in Tanya’s direction. Meaty lips curled upward.

“Am I anthropomorphizing, Dr. Delaware, or is she smiling?”

“You’re not, she is.”

“
So
cute.”

“I’ll put her back in her crate and we can get started.”

“A crate? Is that necessary?”

“It makes her feel more secure.”

She looked doubtful.

I said, “Think of a baby in a crib as opposed to rolling around in open space.”

“I guess,” she said, “but don’t banish her on my account. I love dogs.” She rubbed the top of Blanche’s head.

“Want to hold her?”

“I…if she’s okay with it.”

Blanche went along with the transfer with nary a twitch. Someone should study her brain chemistry and package it.

“She’s so warm—hey, cutie. Is she a pug?”

“French bulldog. If she gets too heavy—”

“Don’t worry, I’m stronger than I look.”

We settled in facing chairs.

“Comfy leather,” she said, stroking an arm. “That’s the same…” Looking down at Blanche. “Am I holding her correctly?”

“Perfect.”

She looked around the room. “Nothing in here has changed but the rest of the house is totally different. It used to be smaller. With wood sides, right? At first I didn’t think I had the right address.”

“We rebuilt a few years ago.” A psychopath had made the decision for us, torching everything we owned.

Tanya said, “It came out extremely stylish.”

“Thank you.”

“So,” she said. “Here I am.”

“Good to see you, Tanya.”

“Same here.” She looked around. “You probably think I should talk about Mommy’s death.”

“If you want to.”

“I really
don’t
, Dr. Delaware. I’m not in denial, it’s been a nightmare, I never thought I’d experience anything this horrifying. But I’m handling my grief as well as can be expected—does that sound like denial?”

“You’re the best judge of that, Tanya.”

“Well,” she said, “I really feel I am. I don’t bottle up my feelings. On the contrary, I cry. Oh, boy, I cry plenty. I still wake up every morning expecting to see her, but…”

Her eyes misted.

“It hasn’t been long,” I said.

“Sometimes it seems like
yesterday
. Sometimes, it’s as if she’s been gone forever…I suspected she was sick before she did.”

“She wasn’t feeling well?”

“She just wasn’t herself for a couple of weeks.”