Blindsighted (8 page)

Looking back, Sara wondered if she had decided in this room to become a doctor. Unlike Tessa, the prospect of going to Dr. Barney never frightened Sara, probably because Sara was rarely sick as a child. She liked the part when they were called back and got to go into the places that only the doctors were allowed to go. In seventh grade, when Sara had shown an interest in science, Eddie had found a biology professor at the college who needed his main water line replaced. The professor tutored Sara in exchange for the work. Two years later, a chemistry professor needed his whole house replumbed, and Sara was performing experiments alongside college students.

The lights came on and Sara blinked to adjust her eyes. Nelly opened the door separating the exam rooms from the waiting room.

"Good morning, Dr. Linton," Nelly said, handing Sara a stack of pink messages, taking Sara's briefcase. "I got your message this morning about the meeting at the station. I've already moved around your appointments. You don't mind working a little late?"

Sara shook her head, going through the messages.

"The Powells will be here in about five minutes, and there's a fax on your desk."

Sara looked up to thank her, but she was already off, probably running down Elliot Felteau's schedule. Sara had hired Elliot straight out of his residency at Augusta Hospital. He was eager to learn what he could and eventually buy a partnership in the practice. While Sara wasn't sure how she felt about having a partner, she also knew Elliot was at least ten years away from being in a position to make an offer.

Molly Stoddard, Sara's nurse, met her in the hallway. "Ninety-five percent blast on the Powell kid," she said, citing the lab results.

Sara nodded. "They'll be here any minute."

Molly offered Sara a smile that said she did not envy Sara the task ahead of her. The Powells were good people. They had divorced a couple of years ago but shown surprising solidarity where their children were concerned.

Sara said, "Can you pull a phone number for me? I want to send them to a man I know at Emory. He's doing some interesting trials with early-stage AML."

Sara gave the name as she slid open her office door. Nelly had put Sara's briefcase by her chair and a cup of coffee on her desk. Beside this was the fax she had mentioned. It was the GBI report on Sibyl Adams's blood work. Nick had scribbled an apology at the top, saying he would be in meetings most of the day and knew Sara would want to know the results as soon as possible. Sara read the report twice, feeling a cold ache in her stomach as she digested it.

She sat back in her chair, looking around her office. Her first month on the job had been hectic, but nothing like Grady. Maybe three months passed before Sara got used to the slower pace. Earaches and sore throats were plentiful, but not many kids came in with critical cases. Those went to the hospital over in Augusta.

Darryl Harp's mother was the first parent to give Sara a picture of her child. More parents followed suit, and pretty soon she started taping them to the walls of her office. Twelve years had passed since that first picture, and photographs of lads wallpapered her office wall and spilled into the bathroom. She could glance at any one of them and remember the kid's name and most of the time his or her medical history. Already she was seeing them come back to the clinic as young adults, telling them at nineteen years old they should probably consider seeing a general practitioner. Some of them actually cried. Sara had gotten choked up on a couple of occasions. Since she wasn't able to have children, she often found she developed strong attachments to her patients.

Sara opened her briefcase to find a chart, stopping at the sight of the postcard she had gotten in the mail. She stared at the photograph of Emory University's entrance gates. Sara remembered the day the acceptance letter had come from Emory. She had been offered scholarships to schools up north with more recognizable names, but Emory had always been a dream of hers. Real medicine took place there, and Sara could not imagine herself living anywhere else but the South.

She flipped the card over, tracing her finger along the neatly typed address. Every year since Sara had left Atlanta, around the middle of April, she got a postcard like this one. Last year's had been from The World of Coke, the message stating, "He's got the whole world in His hands."

She started when Nelly's voice came through the speaker on the phone.

"Dr. Linton?" Nelly said. "The Powells are here."

Sara let her finger rest just above the red reply button. She dropped the card back in her briefcase, saying, "I'll be right out to get them."

Chapter Eight

WHEN Sibyl and Lena were in the seventh grade, an older boy named Boyd Little thought it was funny to sneak up on Sibyl and snap his fingers in her ear. Lena followed him off the school bus one day and jumped on his back. Lena was small and quick, but Boyd was one year older and about fifty pounds heavier. He beat her to a pulp before the bus driver could break them up.

Keeping this episode in mind, Lena Adams could honestly say that she had never felt so physically ravaged as she did the morning after her sister's death. She finally understood why they called it "hung over" because her entire body felt hung over her bones, and it took a good half hour under a hot shower before she could stand up straight. Her head felt ready to crack open from the stress in her brain. No amount of toothpaste could take the horrendous taste out of her mouth, and her stomach felt as if someone had wrapped it tightly into a ball and tied a couple of strings of dental floss around it.

She sat at the back of the briefing room of the station house, willing herself not to throw up again. Not that there was much left she could vomit. Her insides felt so vacant that her stomach was actually concave.

Jeffrey walked over to her, offering a cup of coffee. "Drink some of this," he ordered.

She didn't argue. At the house this morning, Hank had told her the same thing. She had been too embarrassed to take anything from him, let alone advice, so she had suggested a different place for him to put the coffee.

As soon as she put the cup down, Jeffrey said, "It's not too late, Lena."

"I want to be here," she countered. "I have to know."

He held her gaze for what seemed like an eternity. Despite the fact that any source of light was like needles in her eyes, she was not the first to break contact. Lena waited until he had left the room to sit back in her chair. She leaned the bottom of the cup on her knee as she closed her eyes.

Lena did not remember how she got home last night. The thirty-minute trip from Reece was still a blur. She did know that Hank had driven her car, because when she got into it this morning to drive to the station, the seat was pushed all the way back and the mirror was adjusted at an odd angle. The last thing Lena remembered was looking at her reflection in the plate glass window of the Stop 'n' Save. The next memory was the blaring ring of the telephone when Jeffrey had called to tell her about the briefing, practically begging her not to come. Everything else was lost to her.

Getting dressed this morning had been the hardest part. After the long shower, Lena wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed, tucked into a ball. She would have been perfectly happy doing this for the rest of the day, but she couldn't give in to that weakness. Last night had been a mistake, but a necessary one. Obviously, she had needed to let herself go, to grieve as much as she could without falling apart.

This morning was a different story. Lena had forced herself to put on slacks and a nice jacket, the kind of outfit she wore every day on the job. Strapping on her holster, checking her gun, Lena had felt herself slipping back into being a cop instead of the victim's sister. Still, her head ached and her thoughts seemed to be stuck like glue on the inside of her brain. With an unprecedented sympathy, she understood how alcoholics got started. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she couldn't help thinking that a stiff drink would do her a world of good.

The door to the briefing room squeaked open, and Lena looked up in time to see Sara Linton standing in the hallway, her back to Lena. Sara was saying something to Jeffrey, and it did not look polite. Lena felt a pang of guilt for the way she treated Sara the night before. Despite what Lena had said, she knew that Sara was a good doctor. From all accounts, Linton had given up a very promising career in Atlanta to come back to Grant. She was owed an apology, something Lena did not even want to think about at this point in time. If records had been kept on the matter, Lena 's outburst-to-apology ratio would be heavily weighted in the outburst department.

" Lena," Sara said. "Come on back with me."

Lena blinked, wondering when Sara had crossed the room. She was standing at the door to the supply closet.

Lena scooted up in her chair to stand, forgetting about the coffee. Some of it spilled on her pants, but she didn't care. She set the cup on the floor and followed Sara's orders. The supply closet was large enough to be called a room, but the sign on the door had given it this designation years ago, and nobody had bothered to make a clarification. Among other things stored here were evidence, dummies for the CPR classes the police gave in the fall, and the emergency supply kit.

"Here," Sara said, pulling up a chair. "Sit."

Again, Lena did as she was told. She watched as Sara rolled out a tank of oxygen.

Sara hooked up a mask to the tank, saying, "Your head is hurting because the alcohol depletes oxygen in your blood." She flexed the rubber band around the mask, holding it out to Lena. "Take slow, deep breaths and it should start to feel better."

Lena took the mask, not actually trusting Sara, but at this point she would have sucked the ass end of a skunk if someone had told her it would make her head stop pounding.

After a few more breaths, Sara asked, "Better?"

Lena nodded, because it was better. She wasn't feeling up to her usual self, but at least she could open her eyes all the way.

" Lena," Sara said, taking the mask back. "I wanted to ask you about something I found."

"Yeah?" Lena said, feeling put on her guard. She was expecting Sara to try to talk her out of being here during the briefing, so when the other woman spoke, Lena was surprised.

"When I was examining Sibyl," Sara began, storing the tank back against the wall, "I found some physical evidence that I wasn't exactly expecting."

"Like what?" Lena asked, her mind starting to work again.

"I don't think it has a bearing on the case, but I have to tell Jeffrey what I found. It's not up to me to make that kind of decision."

Despite the fact that Sara had helped her headache, Lena did not have patience for her games. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the fact that your sister's hymen was intact up until the rape."

Lena felt her stomach drop. She should have thought of this, but too much had happened in the last twenty-four hours for Lena to come to logical conclusions. Now the whole world would know her sister was gay.

"I don't care, Lena," Sara said. "Really. However she wanted to live her life is fine with me."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"It means what it means," Sara answered, obviously thinking that was enough. When Lena did not respond, she added, " Lena, I know about Nan Thomas. I put two and two together."

Lena leaned her head back against the wall, closing her eyes. "I guess you're giving me a heads up, huh? For telling everybody else my sister was gay?"

Sara was quiet, then, "I hadn't planned on putting that in my briefing."

"I'll tell him," Lena decided, opening her eyes. "Can you give me a minute?"

"Sure."

Lena waited until Sara had left the room, then put her head into her hands. She wanted to cry, but no tears would come. Her body was so dehydrated she was amazed she still had spit in her mouth. She took a deep breath to brace herself and stood.

Frank Wallace and Matt Hogan were in the briefing room when she came out of the supply closet. Frank gave her a nod, but Matt made himself busy putting cream in his coffee. Both detectives were in their fifties, both from a very different time than the one Lena had grown up in. Like the rest of the detectives on the senior squad, they operated by the old rules of the police fraternity, where justice at any cost was right. The force was their family, and anything that happened to one of their officers affected them as it would a brother. If Grant was a close-knit community, the detectives were even closer. As a matter of fact, Lena knew that every one of her fellow detectives were members at the local lodge. Except for the simple matter of her not having a penis, she imagined she would have been invited to join a long time ago, if not out of respect, then obligation.

She wondered what these two old men would think knowing they were working a case to find out who had raped a lesbian. Once, a long time ago, Lena had actually heard Matt start a sentence with the words, "Back when the Klan was doing some good…" Would they be as vigilant if they knew about Sibyl, or would their anger dissipate? Lena did not want to find out the hard way.

Jeffrey was reading a report when she knocked on his open office door.

"Sara get you straightened out?" he asked.

She did not like the way he phrased his question, but Lena said yes anyway as she closed the door.

Jeffrey was obviously surprised to see her close the door. He set aside the report and waited for her to sit down before asking, "What's up?"

Lena felt the best thing to do was blurt it out. "My sister was a lesbian."

Her words hung in the air over their heads like cartoons. Lena fought the urge to give a nervous laugh. She had never spoken them out loud before. Sibyl's sexuality was something Lena was not comfortable talking about, even with her sister. When Sibyl moved in with Nan Thomas a short year after moving to Grant, Lena had not pushed for details. She honestly had not wanted to know them.

"Well," Jeffrey said, his voice indicating surprise, "thank you for telling me that."

"Do you think it impacts the investigation?" Lena asked, wondering if this was all for nothing.

"I don't know," he answered, and she felt he was telling the truth. "Has anyone been sending her threatening mail? Making disparaging remarks?"

Lena wondered about this, too. Nan had said nothing new had happened in the last few weeks, but she also knew Lena was not open to discussing anything that might bring up the fact that Nan was fucking her sister. "I guess you should talk to Nan."

"Nan Thomas?"

"Yeah," Lena said. "They lived together. The address is on Cooper. Maybe we could go after the briefing?"

"Later today," he said. "Around four?"

Lena nodded her agreement. She couldn't stop herself from asking, "Are you going to tell the guys?"

He seemed surprised by her question. After giving her a long look, he said, "I don't think it's necessary at this stage. We'll talk to Nan tonight and go from there."

Lena felt an inordinate amount of relief.

Jeffrey glanced at his watch. "We'd better get to the briefing."