Allison opened the sliding glass door. The fog of the previous evening had thickened into a heavy mist that wet the patio bricks outside her condo. She could smell the river. She waited. Still no Hippocrates.
She had been unable to sleep for the second straight night. She was worried about Katie and disappointed not to have heard from Josh after the trip to Columbus. She had had no luck finding her x-ray patients. And there was still no sign of her missing cat. It was as if they had all been transported to some other world, a place maddeningly beyond her reach.
She arrived at the clinic just as Coretha was accepting a package from an overnight delivery service. “Good news,” she announced. “Replacement x-ray film. The supplier’s looking at the old stuff to see if it caused the problem. You’re early, even for you.”
“Any call-backs?”
“Only Wanda Faggart, the lady with the toe. She’s coming in later this morning. Pringle’s moved. No forwarding address. Cloninger listed a post office box for her address. She doesn’t have a land line, at least in her name. None of ’em are on Facebook.”
“Cloninger probably hangs with that abuser, Darryl, whoever he is.”
“Ricky Scruggs lives out in Blood Run. I left a message on his phone. I haven’t heard back but I also sent registered letters to everyone except Pringle. They should get them today.”
“If they’re around to receive them. Let me know as soon as you reach anyone else. Keep the afternoon clear.” Allison poured herself coffee. “Any word from Josh Gibbs?”
“Nothing from him either.”
Josh had arrived at the newspaper knowing he had to finish as much of the week’s edition as possible, given the uncertainties ahead. The chance to escape the torture of imagining every outcome for Katie had been a pleasant prospect, a much-needed distraction from worry.
But it was still work. He had ripped through the filings from the community stringers, each of whom earned ten dollars weekly for sending in reports from their hamlets—births, hospitalizations, even news of out-of-town visitors (weddings and deaths got separate treatment)—and hurriedly updated the Little League standings. He had dashed off an innocuous editorial urging readers to support the local farmer’s market and reluctantly selected a photo of the police department’s new rifle range for the front page. It wasn’t much of a news picture but Chief Holt was extremely proud of the facility and had been badgering Josh for coverage for days.
He had been about to finish page design when the phone interrupted. He was hoping for a call from Dr. Pepper with the results of Katie’s tests. But he had specified that the doctor call his cell phone, which he had kept at the ready 24/7 since leaving Columbus. This wasn’t that call and he didn’t need an interruption. But he could see on the caller ID that it was Allison.
“I was going to call you,” he said, before she could even ask the question. “No word yet. It’s frustrating.”
Allison could feel his tension through the phone. “How’s Katie?”
“Scared. But better than I am. How are you?”
“Frustrated,” Allison admitted. She was increasingly despondent about her cat but she decided against mentioning it. Hippocrates was the only family she had but he was trivial compared to what Josh was facing. Instead, she told him about the cases of unexplained tissue death and her difficulty reconnecting with any of her patients except Wanda Faggart who had come in that morning. And while it was still possible she might learn something from the lab work on Faggart’s blood and tissue samples, her second exam of the woman had so far only added to the puzzle. Faggart had recalled no cuts or other trauma to her toe that would have provided an entry for infection.
The one possible lead Faggart had provided was a stretch, at best, Allison told Josh. Newly employed at a commercial cleaning service, Faggart had previously worked at the Sternwheeler Hotel with a waitress named Candi or Candy who fit Allison’s description of Candi Cloninger. She hadn’t known the woman’s last name and she didn’t know if the woman wore a tongue stud since they were prohibited for on-duty Sternwheeler staffers, along with all facial piercings. But Allison told Josh it had gotten her thinking: perhaps her tissue death patients had been in contact with each other.
“What about interviewing the others?” Josh asked.
“Pringle’s a dead end. Left a voice mail for Ricky Scruggs.”
Josh thought back to his reporting techniques. “Why don’t you just drive out and see them? Nothing like just showing up.”
“Well, Scruggs’s address is the only one we have.”
“It’d be a start.”
Allison found the idea appealing. The tissue death mystery was gnawing at her—in the same obsessive way, she realized ruefully, that uncompleted tasks, even a puzzle, had gnawed at her father. More than once the man had declined to join his wife and daughter for Sunday dinner because he could not bring himself to abandon the crossword. Just like Horace Wright, Allison had to have answers before she could move on.
There was another upside to the trip. Josh needed a distraction. “Maybe you should come with me,” Allison suggested.
“I’ve got bigger things to worry about.”
“You’ve done all you can for Katie for now. Sometimes it’s good to get your mind off things.”
Josh considered the idea. With another hour of hard work, he’d be caught up. The prospect of gut-grinding waiting for Pepper’s call with nothing important to do was not attractive. “All bets are off if Pepper calls.”
“Fine. If he doesn’t, be at my place at 2:00.”