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Ryan stood out on the sidewalk with Orin Kerby. The man wasn’t being as forthcoming as he’d hoped. “Answering my question isn’t going to get you in trouble with the law. Unless you killed your brother.”
“I didn’t and I’m gettin’ frustrated that you keep insinuating that.” He glanced back into the diner.
“Are you afraid your niece will start having the same thoughts?”
“Yeah. She’s all I have left of Donald and I don’t want to lose her.”
“Then why, if you’ve been out of jail for ten years, didn’t you contact your niece sooner? Why did you show up the same weekend as her father?” Ryan’s mind jumped to a thought. “Did Donald contact you and tell you he’d be here?”
Orin stared at his feet. “Donald sent a letter to the prison, they forwarded it to a friend of mine. I gave his address when I left prison since I didn’t have anywhere to go back to. I check in with him every so often to see if he knows of any work. He gave me the letter that said Donald was thinking of coming back to Huckleberry to see Ruthie. I moved in with Zelda, thinking he’d come by there. He didn’t.”
The man sounded sincere. “Then tell me what Donald wrote to you in the letters you received while in prison.”
“He was worried about Ruthie and Chea,” Orin finally said.
“What was he worried about?”
“You know. That Zelda wouldn’t be able to care for Ruthie proper and that Chea wouldn’t move on and get married waiting for him to come back.”
“He thought she would wait for him?”
“Yeah. She was younger than him and I never saw a woman so crazy for a man. She came to the prison once a week the first three months, begging me to tell her where Donald was. I told her, I didn’t know and couldn’t help her.”
“What happened after the three months?” Ryan asked.
“She only came back once a year on Donald’s birthday, asking if I’d heard from him.” Orin rubbed his hands together.
“Did she tell you she’d received the letters for Ruthie?” Ryan was still trying to figure out who had the biggest grievance with the deceased.
“Yeah. She wanted to open them and see if he mentioned where he was. I told her he hadn’t said a word in my letters so I doubted he would tell his daughter.” Orin blew on his hands. “Can I go in? I’m not used to this cold anymore.”
“Yes.” Ryan put a hand on Orin’s shoulder. “If you can think of anyone other than Narvel and Barsotti who would want your brother dead, I’d like to hear it.”
Orin nodded. He headed back in and turned at the door. “You might look into Chea’s husband. He visited me once. Wanted to know if Donald was out of her life for good.”
“What did you tell him?”
“As far as I knew, he was.”
Ryan nodded. He caught Shandra’s attention through the glass door and waved.
She nodded and waved back.
He walked to the Huckleberry Police Station, printed out the warrant for Chea’s medical records, and walked across the street to the clinic.
Shyanne was at the reception desk. “May I help you, Detective Greer?” Her infectious smile had to be the reason Dr. Porter made her the first person a patient saw when they walked in.
“I have a warrant for Chea Timms’s medical files.” He presented the warrant.
She barely looked at it and picked up the phone. “Doctor. Detective Greer is here with a warrant for a patient’s records.” She listened. “Yes. I know the protocol but there isn’t anyone else in the waiting room.” The young woman rolled her eyes. “I’ll send him right back.”
Replacing the phone, she motioned to the door leading to the examination rooms and Dr. Porter’s office. “Dr. Porter will see you in his office.”
Ryan nodded and walked through the door and down the hallway.
Dr. Porter stood beside a door. “In here, Ryan.”
Since marrying Miranda, a good friend of Shandra’s, the four did more things together and Dr. Porter, Alex, had become not so stiff and formal.
“Thank you for seeing me.” Ryan took a seat in front of the doctor’s desk.
“Which patient do you need records on?” Alex had his hands poised over the computer keyboard.
“Chea Timms.”
His white eyebrows rose. “Chea? Whatever for?” He coughed. “I guess that’s your privileged information like I have to keep the health of my patients confidential.”
“Yes. It is.” Ryan had a thought. “Have you ever had to administer to injuries on Chea that might have been inflicted by someone?”
“You mean like spousal abuse? No. She’s had a few bruises when she comes for other ailments, but she told me there were from practicing their sword fighting.” He peered at Ryan. “Do you think she is being abused?”
The printer in the corner of the room whirred to life and papers started slipping out.
“I’ve had some conflicting information about Clarence Timms. Just thought I’d see what you had to say.”
Alex nodded once and stood. He reached over to the papers that had printed and handed them to Ryan.
He glanced through them. They didn’t go back as far as he needed. “Do you have any records before these? Like nineteen-ninety-two?”
He shook his head. “The clinic wasn’t in existence until ten years ago and there wasn’t a doctor in town before that. Everyone went to Warner for medical care.”
Ryan stood. “Thank you. I guess I’ll have to find out what doctor she went to before coming here.”
“What are you looking for? Is it a condition that might have come up in an exam?” Alex sat down and folded his hands together on the desk.
Not knowing much about woman things, even though he had two sisters with children, he asked, “Do you know if Chea had an abortion?”
Alex wiggled his fingers for Ryan to hand him the papers. He handed them over and the doctor flipped through the pages. He placed one, titled History, on the desk and tapped the line: Gyn: G1 P0 TAb1.
“What does that mean?” Ryan asked, staring at the letters and numbers.
“G one means she was pregnant once. The P zero means she didn’t have a child. The TAb one means she had one therapeutic abortion.”
Ryan scrubbed a hand over his face. “What does therapeutic abortion mean?”
“That it was done for a medical reason. There was a chance either the mother or child wouldn’t live through the pregnancy.” Alex had a blank expression.
“Was that the case? One of them wouldn’t have lived?” Ryan wondered if that was why Chea hadn’t had another child.
“It’s hard to say. There have been doctors who will perform this whether or not it has therapeutic reasons and write that in the records.” Alex held his hands out in front of him as if apologizing for the doctors who did such practices.
“Has she ever said anything to you about not being able to have children?” Ryan wondered if perhaps she blamed Donald and seeing him caused her to bring up anger she harbored over his getting her pregnant and leaving.
“She has never said a word to me. I think she’s resigned herself to only having her students.” As an afterthought, he said, “I’ve not prescribed any contraceptives to her.”
“Thank you.” Ryan got as far as the door and stopped. “How is her mother, Nattie? I saw her come in here this morning.”
Alex studied him a minute. “I guess her condition has nothing to do with your investigation. She has an allergy to cedar. A different person brought her fire wood that must have had a couple pieces in it. She said she brought wood in on Sunday and her hands started itching that night. She came back in today because some blisters had grown. After scrubbing and using a magnifying glass I discovered some slivers of wood still embedded in her hands. That’s why she was having such a severe reaction.”
~*~
Shandra left the diner and walked back to her Jeep parked near Maxi’s. She was curious about the things Ruthie and Maxwell had said about Chea’s husband. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel of her vehicle, trying to figure out how to meet up with him by chance.
The idea hit her. She’d drive over to the Warner High School and offer her services for a class on pottery. She put the Jeep in drive and headed out of Huckleberry and down Hwy 90.
At the high school, she walked into the main building. She found the office to the left of the entrance.
A woman stood up behind a small counter. “May I help you?”
“Yes. I’m Shandra Higheagle. I’m a local potter and I wondered if I might speak with the head of the art department?”
The woman picked up the phone.
“Shandra? Is that you?” Cathleen, Ryan’s oldest sister, walked toward her down the hall.
“Hi Cathleen.” She wasn’t sure how much to let the other woman know.
“What are you doing here?” The woman was several years older than her and Ryan, but she had her mother’s youthful complexion and short, slender body making her look as young or younger. Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail adding to her youthfulness.
“Ryan was telling me about the Art Quad here and I thought I’d volunteer to help with a sculpting class.”
Cathleen gave her a hug. Shandra had to lean down slightly to reciprocate.
“Ms. Tierney is in her office in the quad,” the receptionist said.
“Rachel, give me a visitor sticker for Shandra and I’ll take her over.” Cathleen took the sticker from the woman and slapped it on Shandra’s coat. “Now you’re official. Come on. Bobby loves the Art Quad. He’d do art for every class if they’d let him.”
Shandra followed Ryan’s sister out of the main building and across the dead grass to the newer, more statuesque building.
“Who funded the art building?” she asked, when she really wanted to ask what Cathleen knew about Mr. Timms.
“A local husband and wife who didn’t have any children but loved to come to the music presentations and art shows the school put on.” Cathleen stopped just short of opening the doors. “Why are you really here?”
Shandra stared at the woman. “What do you mean?”
“Ryan would have had me bring you here if he knew you were volunteering.” The woman had taken on the persona of a mother waiting out a child to crack and tell everything they’d done.
She sighed. “I do want to volunteer and I did mention it to Ryan when we were here the other night—”
“What were you doing here the other night? No, don’t answer. I don’t want to know my brother’s odd courtship rituals.”
Shandra laughed. “It was business. Anyway. I was wondering what Mr. Timms was like. I thought I’d ask while offering to volunteer.”
Cathleen did a body shake. “Mr. Timms is every child’s nightmare teacher. He wants perfection in everything. Be it their name perfectly spaced on the top of a page to the exact spacing of numbers in their equations. My boys refuse to take a class with him. They all have to take at least one class with Mr. Timms because he teaches a required math class.”
“Teachers? How do his fellow teachers feel about him?” Shandra was getting a pretty good idea of what poor Chea’s life must be like.
“They all make fun of him. To his face and behind his back which doesn’t help him gain respect from the students.” Cathleen shook her head. “He is brilliant with numbers but he should be teaching at the college level not high school.”
“Why isn’t he?”
“I don’t know.” Cathleen opened the door. “You’ll like Ms. Tierney. She’s very bohemian.”