Snapshot (6 page)

“Disorientation,” he corrected.

“Right. What's she on?”

“Um. I don't know that I should—”

“I can ask her. You don't have to tell me if it violates any professional standards.”

“What's going on here?” he said, his eyes narrowing.

“An investigation.”

“You take your work seriously.”

“Don't you?”

“I only meant to say that Mrs. Woodrow's suspicions are not uncommon among those who've experienced an unexpected loss.”

“You can bring anybody else who wants an unexpected loss investigated over to visit, if you'd like,” I said.

“Look, I just felt I should warn you there's a good chance you might be dealing with delusional behavior here. I certainly haven't ruled that out. I think it's highly likely.”

“What do you mean by delusional?” I asked. Oh, this was fun. I could sit and ask “what do you mean by that?” questions all day.

“Mrs. Woodrow is certainly suspicious and hostile. Something terrible did happen. Her daughter did die. But I have no way of knowing whether Mrs. Woodrow was already suspicious and hostile before this event set her off. I came in on this case as a fireman. I wasn't seeing her before the crisis. I just want you to understand that.”

“You toss around words like
suspicious
and
hostile
. How about
paranoid
?” I asked. I once knew a private eye who did regular business with a psychiatrist. Whenever the shrink requested it, the PI would pass his electronic debugging equipment over the dental fillings of extremely paranoid patients. The shrink swore it reassured them tremendously.

Donovan blew out a breath. “
Paranoid
has definite clinical overtones,” he said slowly.

“Would you use it to describe Emily Woodrow?”

“Not as a one-word label, no.”

“You sound like you regret introducing me to your client,” I said into silence.

“My patient,” he corrected me. “I only want to reinforce that the patient is seeking closure.”

“Or possibly truth.”

“Her daughter died of leukemia. That's truth.”

“When I was a cop, I got into the habit of treating every death as a suspicious death. Otherwise I found myself tromping all over the evidence before I'd decided to check it out.”

“I didn't know you'd been, um, with the police.”

“A cop. Would that have kept you away?”

He tried the smile again. “I'd have to think about it. But, no, I don't think so. I find it extremely interesting.”

“What?”

He shrugged. “A woman. In your line of work. I hope I don't offend you by mentioning that.”

I shrugged in return. “Anything else you'd like to tell me about Mrs. Woodrow?”

“Just this: If you speak to Dr. Muir, I'd prefer you didn't use my name.”

“Aha,” I said, arching one eyebrow.

“Is that your first clue?”

“Could be helpful. What can you tell me about this Jerome Muir? Aside from his international reputation?”

He thought about the question for a while, opening his mouth to speak, then reconsidering, shifting in his chair, frowning.

“Well?” I prompted.

“I never knew him in his prime.”

I wondered what years Donovan considered “prime” ones. Teens? Twenties?

He crossed his arms over his chest and went on. “Muir's a genius. It's that simple and that complicated. The amount he's accomplished, the amount he accomplishes … I don't know if he never sleeps, or what. He's the guiding spirit behind Helping Hand, the CEO, the Chief of Staff, and he still manages to see the occasional patient.”

“Does he pick and choose patients?”

“If some oil sheikh's kid got leukemia, yeah, Muir would probably see him. But he keeps his hand in, takes a few regular cases. He's part of a practice.”

“What practice?”

“The Muir Group.”

“And modest, too,” I said.

“He is. I mean, if he'd wanted it, they'd probably have named the whole damn hospital after him. He put the deal together that saved the place. You ever hear of MedCare, Inc.? They buy up hospitals—in poor areas, a lot of the time. It's a for-profit chain, mainly in the South, and they can stay there for all I care. If it weren't for Muir, MedCare would have eaten the old Hand place. The merger with the Helping Institute kept it alive and vital, and that combo would never have come together without Jerome Muir. He held MedCare at bay almost single-handedly, and did some smooth financial dealing to arrange funding for the merger. Brought people together, bankers, politicians, doctors, neighborhood activists. As far as the Muir Group goes, the other docs probably begged him to let them use his name.”

“So he's a genius,” I said.

“He's … I don't know how to put it … engaging. He has a great manner. He's a force. He gets behind something and it moves, it happens.”

“Is he a good doctor?”

“There are doctors who go through the motions, and then there are healers. Genuine committed healers. Muir's a healer.” He stuck out his chin defiantly, as if daring me to say something bad about his idol. Defiance sat on him awkwardly, made him look vulnerable.

“Do I sense a bit of hero worship here?” I asked.

“Chalk it up to my youth,” he said dryly.

“If you happen to be on staff at Helping Hand, you could tell me things about the place. If you want to cooperate.”

“I'm all for cooperation,” he said, “provided it's a two-way street.”

“Well, I'm taking the case,” I said. “Isn't that what you want?”

“If Mrs. Woodrow wants it. If she decides to go ahead.”

“Have you met her husband? Harold?”

“No. I've certainly heard about him. But nothing I'd want to share. Anything else?”

“Yeah. Now that you mention it,” I said. “I would like to ask another question.”

“Shoot.”

“How old are you?”

I caught a momentary flash of annoyance in his eyes before the grin reasserted itself. “Thirty,” he said. “Why?”

“Honest?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“That's kind of young to—”

“I graduated high school at sixteen and then I took an accelerated six-year med school program.”

“What was the rush?”

“I don't know. And you?”

“Me?”

“How old are you?”

“Older than you.”

“Want to tell me the story of your life?”

“No. But if I wanted to look at your notes on Mrs. Woodrow, what would you say?”

“My clinical notes?”

“Yeah.”

“I'd say that after you check out Emily's story, maybe even talk with Dr. Muir, we should have a drink.”

It seemed like an interesting possibility.

“Maybe,” I said.

“I'll let you get back to work,” he said.

“Good-bye.”

As soon as I heard the door latch, I dialed JHHI and confirmed my hunch. Dr. Keith Donovan was indeed a member of the staff.

And, I thought, tapping a pencil against the phone, I'd bet good hard cash that someone at the hospital, possibly even the great Muir himself, had referred Emily Woodrow.

7

After Donovan departed, I righteously typed, filed, and tied up loose ends, intermittently dialing Patsy until I was informed by a cheerful voice that she'd left for the day. I hoped she hadn't been fired.

Friday afternoon is no time to begin an investigation. Of course, since all I'd been instructed to do was wait, I could honestly say I was fulfilling my end of the deal. My eyes kept veering toward the photo on the mantel as I considered the looming weekend. For the past four years my Saturday mornings have belonged to Paolina. And dammit, there's absolutely no reason they shouldn't still belong to Paolina.

Except her mother.

Marta Fuentes is someone I'd never go out of my way to befriend, but since she is the mother of my little sister, we have—in the past—been tolerant of each other's behavior. In certain ways I admire her. She had the sense to figure out that her lone girl child might have the need for another female in her life, somebody who wasn't burdened—as Mama was and is—with rheumatoid arthritis, the tendency to take up with rotten men, and three younger kids, all boys. Someone who'd act as a role model, sure, but more important, someone who'd listen to Paolina, care about her.

When I first met my little sister, she was barely seven years old—older than Rebecca Woodrow would ever be—with a hand-shaped bruise splayed across her face where Mom's latest flame had left his imprint. One thing I can never figure about Marta is that she doesn't seem to mind playing punching bag for the current man in her life. On the other hand, she unfailingly protects her kids. The guy who'd smacked Paolina was history before the bruise purpled.

I ran my fingers over the telephone, thought about calling Marta and asking for another chance.

It's too easy to hang up a phone. Too simple to leave it off the hook. So I tidied my desk by shoving all unfinished business into the top drawer, got into my car, and banged the door, imagining that I was slamming it on Malta's stubborn head.

I've tried everything. I've apologized. I've begged. I've attempted bribery.

Time to try again.

Marta lives in a Cambridge project that's not the worst housing in town. Close, but not in the same league as the city-owned high rises. Her development runs to a series of look-alike four-families with scraggly patches of lawn and a concrete playground flanked by a pair of broken, netless basketball hoops.

It's always a struggle to find a nearby parking place, but I persisted and jammed the Toyota into three quarters of a space that other drivers shunned.

The front door to Paolina's building was wedged open by half a cement block. I wondered whether someone was moving in or out, or if the security system had been trashed again. Maybe the door was ajar as shorthand to the neighborhood gangs: nothing left worth stealing.

I buzzed Malta's apartment and hiked up the stairs. Possibly some tenant cursed with a sensitive nose had opened the door to air the stairwell, which smelled like it did double duty as a urinal.

I wondered what Emily Woodrow's Winchester house looked like, if her daughter had been happy in its imagined splendor.

The door to Marta's flat was closed. I knocked once, then again, pressed my ear to the wood, listening for the blare of the TV, usually a constant. Nothing. I knocked louder. I thought I could hear someone fumbling with the lock.

Little Alvaro is only three. I was surprised he could turn the door handle. He looked up at me from under dark curls, gave a shy smile, and ran inside. I said “Hi!” to no one in particular, entered, and closed the door behind me.

Marta's no great housekeeper, but I'd never seen the place so filthy. Dishes were heaped on the table, smelly and coated with food. Bedding lay in piles on the floor, as if the whole family were camping out. Two boys stretched out on their stomachs in front of the TV, which was on, but silent. They stared at the moving images as if they were more real than I was.

“Is your mother home?”

The oldest nodded toward the single bedroom.

“
¿Quién es?
” The voice was definitely Malta's. “Paolina?”

I leaned in the bedroom doorway.

“I tell them no to open the door,” she said. “I tell the boys. Do they listen? No.”

“Marta, are you okay?”

“It looks maybe like I'm okay?”

“What's wrong?”

“
Nada
. Only my stomach. I can't keep the food down.
Me duele
. It hurts.” Her last words came out through clenched teeth.

“You taking your medicine?”

“What there is.
No puedo caminar
. I no walk to the store like this.”

“You can have it delivered.”

“Don' you tell me what I do. What you doin' here is what I ask.”

“Marta, is the phone working?”

“No. No está trabajando.”

“Why?”

“No es su problema.”
None of your business. That was clear enough.

“Money?”

She turned her face to the wall.

Her middle boy, asleep on another bed, hadn't stirred during the entire discussion. I placed a cautious hand on his forehead. It seemed cool enough, but I wondered if a four-year-old should be asleep at dinnertime.

I wondered if the kids still ate dinner.

But mostly I wondered where Paolina was. Marta always slept on the fold-out couch in the living room. Why was she resting on Paolina's bed?

I checked the brick-and-board makeshift shelves that lined the room. Paolina's clothes were there, neatly folded, along with her meager collection of books.

Marta kept her face stubbornly to the wall. I went back into the living room.

“Hi.”

I couldn't remember the name of Alvaro's oldest brother. It made me feel bad. “How are you?”

“Hungry. You cook?”

I picked up the phone. Dead.

“Can you lock the door and then open it when I knock?” I asked. There's a pay phone on the corner.

“I'm not supposed to.”

“I might bring something to eat.”

“I'll open it.”

The pay phone worked, an unexpected blessing. I hit 411 because there was no phone book, and got the number of the nearest Pizza Delite. I ordered two large—one with cheese, one with the works—hung up, and fumed.

I couldn't remember the name of the social worker assigned to Marta's case. Probably she couldn't remember Marta's name either. Most likely, she was the last person Marta would want me to call, a rule-bound bureaucrat who'd take one look at the place and start talking about moving the boys to a more “child-centered environment.”

Roz picked up on the third ring.