The Last Clinic (6 page)

Darla held her arms out, palms up as if to say “the floor is all yours, girl.”

“Well, to start off, he’s…”

“A Yankee?”

“You’ve been talking to Kendall. She likes to go on about how we all think everybody who isn’t from here is a Yankee. I love Kendall, bless her heart, but she’s got some serious Southern guilt. Come to think of it, I guess most Southerners do. The good ones, at least.”

“About Dr. Nicoletti?”

“I was going to say ‘he’s Eyetalian,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Italian, I mean. Listen to me. I sound like some red hills redneck. I had a speech coach for a while too. Warren didn’t want me embarrassing him during his Congressional run. His real problem was all that negative advertising he and his campaign put out. Running those ads that implied his opponent liked to take up with boys. You can thank Bobby Goodhew for that one. Everybody in the state knew it was a lie. That’s what cost Warren the election, not my North Mississippi twang.”

“But Dr. Nicoletti, when you say he’s Italian do you mean he’s actually from Italy?”

“Somewhere in Tuscany. Still got that little tiny bit of an accent. Talks and acts in a sort of European formal way. But he’s blond. Italian accent and blond. That’s part of what makes him so, I don’t know, exotic. Blond, but not like a Southerner.”

Darla nodded, without explaining what she was thinking. Hugh had seemed exotic to her, a football player with courtly manners, and a voice a million miles from Philadelphia.

“When was the last time you saw him?” Darla asked, once they’d finished off the meat from the shank.

“Six months ago. My yearly exam. But I keep looking for a reason to make another appointment. Did I mention his eyes are blue? But his skin is olive. He reminds me of that Italian (she said without the accent this time) actor from the sixties, Marcello something or another. The one that was in those old movies with Sophia Loren. He was always tired and worldly wise and sexy at the same time.”

“Mastroianni. Marcello Mastroianni. He was in all those old Fellini pics. Sorry, you know I’m a movie nut.”

“But Dr. Nic, he’s taller than old Marcello. He’s even taller than you by three or four inches at least.”

Darla picturing him in her mind was even more curious.

“His hands, that is what is most surprising. He has soft hands, but not soft like a woman’s. I met a man once who sheared sheep for a living, when Warren and I went to New Zealand. It was supposed to be our ‘fall in love all over again’ vacation, but it didn’t work out that way. He left me two weeks after we got back. But this sheep shearer man, I shook hands with him. He had the same kind of hands as Dr. Nic, soft but masculine. He said it was the lanolin from the sheep’s wool. I wonder if Dr. Nic uses lanolin. It’s something like that, I’ll just bet you.”

“Does he have large hands?” Darla said without thinking, remembering how big Hugh’s hands were, those hands that never seemed to drop a football or anything else.”

“Large, yes, but never clumsy. Long fingers. Delicate, like a surgeon, which I guess he is, sort of, or like someone who plays the violin. More sweet tea?”

Darla blinked, returning from her memory. “Yes, please.”

Lulu poured into tall slender glasses for both of them and wiped her forehead with her glass.

“The mesmerizing part though—and this is just between us. You ain’t never heard me say this—it's the way he touches me during the exam. I mean, it’s gentle but it’s more than just gentle. It’s, I don’t know, it seems like he knows just what I’m feeling. I don’t mean he understands. I mean he senses the physical sensations I’m having, like I’m an instrument, and he’s in tune with me. I all but quivered a couple of times. Okay, maybe I did actually quiver, but just once.”

There was a pause, and both women were uncomfortable. Lulu started blushing, red around the ears, setting off her short crop of boyish honey-colored hair.

“Listen, I’m just his patient. I mean, we’ve never…He’s always very, very professional.” Then she added, “I’m sorry to say.”

Lulu began to fan herself, making fun of her sexual appetite. This set both women off.

“He is a nice man though, really. A real Christian. Oh well, you know what I mean. I’m not Catholic so I don’t know about his church-going habits, but he acts the way a Christian is supposed to. He does all this charitable work, health education up in the Delta with all those young black girls. It’s hard to imagine him performing an abortion, being Catholic the way he is. I’d be interested to know what that’s about. Me personally, I could never have an abortion. Maybe if it was a rape. Something like that. I might feel different then. I think I would. What about you? I guess I just assumed you were on women’s rights side. How do you see the issue?”

Darla was thinking about not answering, but knew Lulu would want a response. “Right now, I guess I see it as an investigator. The issue may have played a role in the crime. I’m trying to find out what kind of a role, if any.”

“Darla Cavannah, lady of mystery.”

Darla shrugged. “I’m from a family of cops. We were taught to keep things to ourselves.”

“It’s working good for you. I think that’s why all the guys in Northeast Jackson are after you.”

“Are they?”

This was news to Darla. Most men she met seemed intimidated by her. A combination of her height and her natural aggressiveness, traits most Southern men didn’t care for.

“This is Jackson. A girl hears things. I know for a fact a lot of men have got you hot listed. Even some that are unmarried.” She cackled and touched Darla on the arm. “Just waiting for you to take off the widow’s weeds.”

“Must be after my money,” Darla said, joking. Lulu knew she was broke.

“You know what they say. If it ain’t the money in the pot, it’s the honey in the pot.” Lulu winked.

“About the right-to-life issue,” Darla said, “I’m trying to keep my personal views out of things.”

“Listen Lamb Pie, women’s rights, right-to-life. It don’t matter to me.”

Darla felt the muscles in her stomach relax. Lulu wasn’t going to pry. Rare in this part of the world, where people told all there was to tell and expected to be told as much in return.

Lulu offered dessert, a peach trifle. When Darla begged off, saying she had to get back to work, Lulu lifted her glass for the last few drops of tea mixed with the melting ice.

“Here’s to Sisterhood Of The Swamp. For as long as it takes.”

“For as long as it takes,” said Darla. The phrase was the group’s official slogan. Kendall had T-shirts made up with the words printed across the chest. They wore the shirts when they went hunting. They never discussed the exact meaning of the phrase, but they knew it meant something slightly different to each of them.

“God I hope he’s innocent,” said Lulu. “Those hands of his, I’d hate to have to find another ob-gyn.”

She fanned herself again and laughed.

7

A Lesson in Italian.

On Tommy’s orders, the crime scene had been shut down. The media, the gawkers, and ambulance chasers had moved on. So had Tommy and his pink Caddy. Probably out in Madison at the nursing home doing one of his endless encores, Darla guessed.

 The security officer Darla had requested hadn’t shown up yet. A group of nearly two-dozen protestors was parading around on the sidewalk, sent, no doubt, by The National Rights of the Unborn. One of the protestors, a middle-aged man, was carrying a makeshift imitation of Reverend Aldridge’s cross, sans the photo of the fetus. In its place was a poster with the words, MURDERER! A second poster, this one carried by a young woman, read, ARREST NICOLETTI. Another protestor pulled out a digital camera and snapped Darla’s picture when she crossed the picket line. She ignored him.

A fourth protestor stepped in front of her. He looked like one of the clean-cut kids in cheap suits that knocked on her front door Saturday mornings and wanted to read the Bible to her. He extended his arms to the side.

“Halt in the name of God,” he said and then saw she was with the Sheriff’s Department.

“I’m sorry, Officer. I didn’t mean you.”

“If I catch you again trying to impede someone from entering this building, I’ll have you thrown in jail. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Ma’am. I’m just trying to do God’s work.”

“Get back to your picket line.”

“Have a blessed day,” he said in a practiced way as she pushed past him.

How long before the other side, the woman’s right’s people, showed up?
Darla wondered.
And how long before the ugly scene turned violent? And how long before somebody took a shot at Dr. Nicoletti or one of his nurses?

Darla called headquarters and let the desk sergeant know the officer hadn’t arrived yet, letting him hear how peeved she was.

The clinic hadn’t closed for the day. There were even patients in the waiting room, three of them: a black, very pregnant teenager; a white lady of maybe forty, in a long dress and sandals, no make-up, hair down to her waist; and her daughter, a preschool girl dressed similar to the mother. They looked anxious. Who wouldn’t?

Darla showed her identification to the receptionist and was told to take seat.

“Is Dr. Nicoletti your regular doctor?” the lady in the long dress asked.

“No,” said Darla, and didn’t explain.

“Don’t pay them outside no attention. He’s not…what I mean is, he’s real nice, Doctor Nicoletti. He’s a very good doctor, very conscientious.”

The black girl overheard the remark and nodded agreement.

A nurse appeared at the doorway that separated the waiting room from the rear offices. “Detective Cavannah?” she said and escorted Darla to the doctor’s office, offering her a seat on a small couch.

The nurse paused as she was about to leave the room. “I got something I need to say, so I’m just going to say it.”

“Of course,” said Darla. Whoever it was, you let them talk. A cop was always interested in what someone had to say.

“Whatever you’re thinking, it wasn’t Dr. Nicoletti.”

“You sound pretty sure of that, Ms. Edwards?” Darla said reading the nurse’s name off her tag. “Were you with Dr. Nicoletti at the time of the murder?”

“Of course not,” she said, taken aback and then seemed to realize how defensive she’d sounded. “I was home getting my son ready for school, but I know he didn’t do it, just the same. That kind of thing isn’t in him.”

Darla nodded.
You’d be surprised who it’s in and who it isn’t
, she thought.

“Have you worked here long?”

“Not that long. A year. But a nurse can tell a lot about a doctor. The kind of person they are.”

“Is that the extent of your relationship with Dr. Nicoletti? Being his nurse?”

“Of course.” She flushed a little. “What are you trying to imply?”

Darla made a mental note.
Nurse Edwards has a crush on the good doctor
.

“Anything else you’d like to add?”

She looked at Darla kind of huffy. She hadn’t expected to be questioned. “Well, I can tell you who I think did it, not that I expect you to put any stock in my opinion.”

“Please. Say what’s on your mind.”

“It was one those right wing nut cases. They did it to rile up the legislature, so they’d pass that bill and shut this place down. They’ve been trying to close the clinic for a long time now. If you want my opinion, they killed one of their own to try and stir up sympathy for their cause. I wouldn’t put it past them. They’re the most hateful un-Christian-like group of people I’ve ever seen.”

Darla gave the woman a blank stare, refusing to acknowledge which political side she was on.

“They call him ‘the abortionist doctor,’” the nurse said. “That’s fine. He does abortions, but how many babies do you think he delivered last year? They don’t talk about that, do they, the right-to-life people? All the life he’s helped bring into the world? I’m not supposed to say how many D&Cs he did last year, but I can promise you he did more deliveries. “

“Thanks for enlightening me,” said Darla.

“Just think about what I said,” the nurse said, and then added, “please.”

Darla gave her a card.

“This has my cell number on it, if you can think of anything else you want to tell me. Also, you should know, I’m posting a guard out in front of the clinic so you won’t have anything in that area to concern yourself with. An officer should be here soon.”

The nurse left, still looking agitated. It was the kind of reaction Darla was used to. People were always annoyed at the police because they didn’t let everybody know everything that was on their mind.

A minute later, Dr. Nicoletti appeared at the door, nodding at her, indicating she was next. Darla rose to greet him. She let her eyes drift up, taking in his features, finally meeting his blue eyes looking down at her. He held her look longer than normal, like someone looking a painting, trying to decipher the artist’s intent.

“Darla Cavannah, from the Hinds County Sheriff’s Department.” She didn’t give her title or show him the badge.

He cocked his head and studied her for another ten seconds without speaking and then smiled as though something amused him.

He offered his hand, and she took it. It was a large hand, muscular, but somehow soft and smooth in a way that made Darla want to run her fingers across his palm.

She took her card out of her purse and handed it to him.

“You can keep it” she said and immediately felt awkward.

He took the card and slipped it into his breast pocket, the movement relaxed and graceful.

“
The Little Rascals,”
he said. “Your name. I used to see the reruns on television growing up in Italy, with subtitles. It was so long ago. The beautiful little dark-haired girl. Darla was her name. Alfalfa was in love with her. So were all my friends. Me too.” He offered a smile that could be interpreted a number of ways.

There’s a first
, she thought. It was her last name, Cavannah, which people usually commented on when they met her. “Cavannah. As in Hugh Cavannah?” “You Hugh’s wife?” “Ole Hugh the Glue?” She remembered how they’d start talking about Hugh’s football career. How proud as Mississippians they were of him. The times they had seen him play, a relative who knew him, a big play he had made, or the commercials on television for his family’s appliance business. The fans always spoke with an affection that suggested they were close friends with her husband. Darla knew most of them had never met Hugh, or if they had, it was just a handshake and some polite chitchat. She remembered that Hugh was good with small talk, much better than she.