Mortal Remains (7 page)

“To you as well,” Melanie said, returning the gesture with a warm squeeze.

Out of nowhere an insolent little question popped into Bessie’s mind. How come such a good-looking woman had never married?

Once she’d left, Tanya walked over to a stand where a small, multidose bottle of heparin and packets of needles were kept.

Low molecular weight heparin was another anticoagulant, this one used in small injected doses to prevent blood clots from forming in the limbs of patients who were bedridden. She wouldn’t normally have needed it, being on warfarin and the baby aspirin already, but having thrown two emboli from her heart so far, the doctors were taking no chances.

Which was fine with Bessie. No way did she intend to be waylaid again and miss the Big Sur, she thought, watching Tanya, who stood with her back turned as she drew up the injection. Her annoyance with the girl vanished. After all, she’d just been doing her job. “Don’t worry, Tanya,” she said with a chuckle, wanting to make amends for her nasty glance of a moment ago. “I won’t faint if I catch sight of the needle.”

The nurse laughed, but continued to shield the syringe from Bessie’s view as any thoughtful nurse or doctor does when preparing a hypodermic for a patient. “I know, Bessie. It’s force of habit. You’d probably do the same with me if the situation were reversed.” She dropped the bottle in a plastic container for medical waste, pivoted around, and walked to the bedside. “Where do you want it?”

“Actually, in the mornings I’ve started giving them to myself.”

“Oh?”

“Yep. In case they want to keep me on the stuff when I go to my son’s. I don’t want to be totally dependent. Just leave the syringe on my nightstand.”

Tanya frowned. “You’re sure?”

“Yep.”

Tanya hesitated, the capped syringe in her hand, then shrugged. “Okay. You’re the doctor,” she said with a grin, and placed it on Bessie’s side table along with an alcohol swab. “But I can’t stay to talk. We’re short-staffed again.”

Time to sleep, Bessie decided.

She rolled over and reached for the syringe and swab. “Might as well be at the good old belly button,” she muttered, whipping up her nightdress and exposing what looked like a horseshoe of pinpricks around her umbilicus. She wiped the skin with an alcohol swab, then managed to bunch up a roll of flesh using the limited movements of her right forearm. With a quick thrust, she sank the needle in to its hilt, and slowly pushed in the plunger.

That same evening, Tuesday, November 6, 9:30 P.M.

Hampton Junction

M
ark brushed aside a cobweb and sent a nest of spiders scurrying for cover. From a wall of cardboard cartons, he pulled out the third box he’d been through that evening. He was in the basement of his house, the home where he grew up and now lived and worked, rummaging in the inactive files that his father, Dr. Cam Roper, had stored here for as long as he could recall. The voice of his mother complaining about it ran as clear as a recording through his head.

“Honestly, dear, you’ve got lots of space in that office of yours in the village. Why clutter us up with this junk? We could make a workshop down here.”

“That’s why I’m filling it up with this stuff,” his dad had whispered to him, then winked. “To make sure I don’t have to spend our Saturdays down here building stupid shelves.”

Our Saturdays.
Mark smiled at the resonance those words could still evoke.

That was before he’d lost them both.

First his mother. Pricked her finger on a needle, he’d been told. Then she fell sick and died in a matter of days. To a five-year-old boy it sounded like something out of a fairy tale, an evil spell cast by a wicked dwarf involving a spinning wheel. But no magic kiss brought her back. Later he’d learned the needle had been a syringe, and the evil had been meningococcus bacteria from a patient with meningitis. She’d infected herself while helping out at his father’s office drawing blood samples.

Two years later his father died, killed in a freak explosion.

Aunt Margaret, his mother’s older sister, already widowed at fifty-five and childless, had insisted on moving in and taking care of him. “For a while,” the crusty old woman told him at first.

She’d stayed for good.

Even when he’d come back from medical school, she continued to live here. At the time he sensed she wasn’t finished watching over him. Since they were each other’s only family, he didn’t mind.

Initially he’d set up his own office in town, finding one with a spacious apartment above it. But when Margaret died, he moved in here, practice and all. Just until he had time to dispose of the estate, he told himself. That was two years ago.

Outside the wind had come up, moaning and whistling against the wooden slat door that led to the yard. The beams above his head creaked and groaned as if the whole structure threatened to lift off the stone foundation, but it never had and, Mark guessed, never would. He easily ignored the sounds, having snuggled under blankets and fallen asleep to them throughout his life. Instead he concentrated on going through the
Mc
s.

“You have a dad who’s a great doctor, you know,” Kelly had said to him on many occasions, puffing him up with pride. “He saw me first when I was a little girl and was very sick. Now I’m healthy, but he’s still the one I talk with. Lucky you to have him all the time.”

Not for long.

The summer she disappeared, he lost his father in the autumn.

Funny about sound memories. Recalling a person’s voice seemed far more vivid than conjuring up a face. It was as if the dead spoke to him.

He moved on to checking the
B
s.

Whenever Kelly came up from New York, she’d always made it a point to come over. As a little boy Mark assumed it was to play with him, especially since she had been his baby-sitter for most summers up until medical school kept her in the city. She always made such a big deal out of seeing him, scooping him up in her arms for a hug and a big smooch. He smiled, remembering how her skin smelled like cinnamon. She made him feel important, the first adult outside his mom and dad or aunt to do so, and he loved the way she fussed over him on account of she liked him, not simply because they were related.

But the truth was she’d also been there to see his dad. An hour became a slow, unendurably long torture whenever he had to wait outside the study, listening for the two of them to finish talking so she’d be all his again.

Kelly might have told his father about her troubles. And if he acted as her physician, even if only as a sounding board, he might have kept a file documenting whatever they discussed. If such a record existed, Mark figured he might find an adult’s point of view as to what was going on in Kelly’s life just prior to her death.

His own youthful recollections of that time came to him filtered through love. When his mother died, Kelly became so much more to him, even though she was in medical school by then, and her visits were less frequent. For a year he felt safe only when she hugged him, said everything would be all right, and softly sang to him. “Puff the Magic Dragon,” “Yellow Submarine,” “To Every Season” – no matter what the lyrics, her voice in his ear made them both invincible. Eventually his mother’s death started to seem long ago, and at times he could again be a carefree kid in endless sunny days. She’d given his childhood a reprieve, resurrecting it before the world grew dark again.

He flicked over voluminous sets of labeled manila tabs before
Braden-McShane, Kelly
popped up.
Looks promising,
he thought. the folder being thicker than the rest. Pulling it out of the box, he carried it over to a workbench, snapped on a lightbulb that dangled from the ceiling, and opened the front cover.

The first page contained a faded clinical entry dated
July 13, 1951
.

His father’s first year in practice. He began to read.

Kelly is six years old. Mother states she’s had a long-standing stomach disorder that no doctors in New York have managed to help her with. Complaints, according to her mother, range from intermittent abdominal pain, nausea, loss of appetite, irregular bowel movements, and diarrhea alternating with constipation. The problem has been episodic since infancy. No history of fevers. No history of tarry stool or blood by rectum. No discoloration of urine, nor jaundiced skin or eyes. Recurrent nonspecific rashes. Repeated investigations, including X rays of her upper and lower intestinal tracts using barium, have been negative.

Rest of Functional Inquiry: Negative.

Immunizations: Complete to date.

Surgical History: Appendectomy at age four, subsequently reported to be normal. Laparotomy at age five, for abdominal pain NYD, results negative.

Family history: No siblings. No history of allergies, diabetes, arthritis, nervous or psychiatric disorders in either mother’s or father’s family (according to the mother’s account).

Social History: Father is founder and president of a brokerage company in New York. Mother active in some charities, but looks after Kelly herself. No nanny or nurse.

Kelly initially shy, but on careful questioning reports no abdominal symptoms of any kind today.

Physical Exam:

Appearance: Well-groomed. Blond hair, blue eyes, thin physique.

CVS: Normal heart sounds. BP 85/60; P 88

Chest: Clear

Abdomen: Non-tender, normal bowel sounds, no bruit, no masses, liver and spleen normal. Surgical scars RLQ and midline below the umbilicus consistent with history of appendectomy and laparotomy.

External genitalia: Normal

Limbs and extremities: Normal

Skin: No rashes at present.

EENT: Normal.

Head and Neck: Normal

Neurological Exam: Normal

Impression: Healthy young girl. Functional GI disorders and neurodermatitis, both secondary to stress.

Plan: Prescribed fun and sun. Good nutrition. Frank discussion with Mrs. McShane stressing the absence of any physical illness in her daughter. Follow up in one month to see how child is doing, or immediately if symptoms return (which isn’t likely).

Mark started to flip the page when he saw written faintly in pencil off to one side the word
Mother?
He smiled. His father had obviously nailed the problem, diagnosing Kelly’s symptoms as the result of a high-strung parent.

No further entries appeared on the other side of the paper. Clearly Kelly’s mother hadn’t brought her daughter back. Probably hadn’t liked the “frank discussion.”

He shivered. The dampness down here had already penetrated his bones, but now he felt a draft around his legs. He got up and walked over to the slat door that was taking the brunt of the wind. A flow of cool air from where the bottom had warped out of the frame ran across his feet. He grabbed an old coat and stuffed it into the opening.

Seated again, he came to a sheet not so faded, but nevertheless aged. It had brief entries running from July 1, 1970, to July 3, 1974. Each one was identical. Three words: Psychiatric support therapy. Mark let out a solitary quiet chuckle. He’d been right about Kelly discussing her issues with his father. But the man had done what he, Mark, did when the material was so sensitive the patient wanted it to be kept absolutely secret, even from people authorized to look at the record – simply recorded that the session took place, not what was said.

Discouraged, he went on to the third document, a sheet of flowered stationery folded in thirds.

Opening it, he read:

July, 14, 1974

Dear Doctor R,

The salutation made him smile. Kelly had always called his father Dr. R.

You were right. I was not being candid with you when we met two weeks ago. There is a reason I’m so happy, and you are the first and only person I can tell.

I’ve met a man.

A wonderful, caring man who loves me, and I love him.

What a release to be cherished, respected, and liked. I feel as if all the other garbage has fallen away, and I’m free, with a new life ahead of me. Whether it will be with him or not, I don’t know, but I’m full of hope. I haven’t decided yet what to do about it all, and look forward to talking over possible strategies with you. But I am ecstatic!

Regarding the other two matters, we must discuss those. Whatever I plan for myself, I can’t leave and let them go unresolved.

Can we have lunch at the Plaza on Saturday, the twenty-seventh? I can’t bear to go to the estate on weekends anymore, and have pleaded hospital work as my excuse to stay in the city. Waiting to see you then.

Love,

Kelly

Mark’s pulse leapt.

The
man
could be the mystery person in the cab. If his father had kept the appointment with her, she’d probably told him who it was.

He quickly pulled out and unfolded the next two sets of documents in the file, hoping to see a note or follow-up letter about their meeting.

No such luck. In his hands he held photocopies of some New York City Hospital M and M reports, or Death Rounds, the conference that reviews patient morbidity and mortality.

What the hell were these doing here? Scanning through them, he saw that they were accounts of two separate cases involving digitalis toxicity. The first patient had lived, the second had died, but there were no names listed, only chart numbers, standard practice to preserve anonymity in such investigations. One was dated January 1974, the other June of the same year. They must be misfiled, he concluded, laying them aside.

The final contents were old newspaper clippings lauding the Braden family’s involvement in the community. A FAMILY AFFAIR read the headline of one. It praised the volunteer work of Mrs. Charles Braden and her daughter-in-law, Kelly McShane Braden, at a local home for unwed mothers called The Braden Foundation Clinic founded by Dr. Charles Braden III. LIKE FATHER LIKE SON ran the lead of another article featuring Chaz helping check out a newborn at another of Dad’s projects, an upscale maternity center in Saratoga Springs.

Nothing of use, Mark decided. The Bradens were renowned for lending their name to high-profile charities, as well as feeding the family fortune through commercial medical ventures such as high-priced private clinics. In fact Charles had pioneered the concept of combining the intimacy of home delivery with the latest in obstetrical technology in freestanding facilities, then franchised it through a well-known hospital chain. Mark returned the clippings to the file, having no idea why his father had stuck them here.

Still, he had Kelly’s letter. He’d contact Everett first thing in the morning and tell the detective he’d found proof that she had a lover. Chances were he might have been the mystery man in the taxi.

To which Everett would say, Who was he?

And he’d have to admit he didn’t know.

At that point Everett would probably hang up on him.

Shit!

He had another thought. Why hadn’t his father passed the letter on to the police? Obviously he kept it to himself even after she disappeared.

As Mark picked it up and read it again, it sank in just how abstract Kelly was to him. How different and tormented she must have been from his sunlit memories of her. He never caught so much as a hint of her unhappiness or that she needed to escape from it. Nor had he any specific recollection of her last days in Hampton Junction. He remembered only his father telling him that she’d had to leave without saying good-bye.

“Then I’ll say hello when she’s back,” Mark had said, accustomed to her comings and goings to medical school. But as days turned to weeks with no sign of Kelly, those few words with his dad became the landmark that stuck, not whatever laughing encounter with her that had been his last. Unlikely his take on her with the eyes of a seven-year-old would help explain anything about those final weeks anyway. Hell, he still had trouble reconciling his version of the woman he had known with the grisly remains lying in the mortuary.

He continued to stare at the letter. It at least pinned down one event in the countdown to her murder. The day Kelly and his father planned to have lunch together, presuming they met, she had little more than a week to live.