Del sat on the worn, imitation-leather chair in Doctor Bloom’s waiting room and watched the mother sitting across from him comfort her five-year-old little girl, whose bout with the flu was making her very uncomfortable. Her throat ached, she was feverish, and her face was flushed. Despite that, the child occasionally glanced at him curiously from time to time, her gaze filled with some interest. Del realized that in her eyes he looked out of place. He evinced no symptoms of any illness and had no sick child or sick spouse with him. He carried a briefcase, wore a suit and tie, and smiled at her brightly. She could only stare numbly back.
“How’s she doing?” he asked the woman.
“She’s got a hundred and three and a pretty red throat,” the woman replied with what Del thought was a response more colored by anger than concern. “It’s her third cold this year.”
“Oh,” he said. He wasn’t sure what that meant, but he decided not to offer any empty words like I’m sure she’ll be fine. Instead, he asked if something wasn’t going around in the schools. “I don’t have any children, so I wouldn’t know,” he added.
The woman stroked her daughter’s hair and shifted her more comfortably in her lap.
“Nothin’s goin’ around. I’m sure it’s because we live in a basement,” she replied, sending her words at him through her clenched teeth.
“Basement?”
He looked over at the receptionist’s window. There wasn’t any other patient waiting. It was just he, the mother, and her child. Del couldn’t imagine what the doctor’s lobby was like when there were a number of patients. It was so small and narrow it was almost claustrophobic. The receptionist had her face buried in a gossip magazine and had no interest in the conversations or the people in the waiting room.
“We needed some place fast and somethin’ we could afford,” the mother explained. Then she tightened her lips until there were little white dots in the corners of her mouth and added, “We were evicted from our home.”
“Evicted?” Del turned back to her with new interest. “How did that happen?”
“My husband didn’t pay the rent for nearly five months and the landlord got the law on us. They practically threw us out in the street, but my husband had a friend who had a basement apartment he was willing to rent, so we moved in. It’s too damp. I keep telling Lester and he keeps sayin’ he’s lookin’ for somethin’ but he ain’t found it yet,” she continued. It was like Del had opened the floodgates by trying to make small talk and maybe cheer up the child.
“He don’t get as much work as he usta,” she continued. “He says it’s because those meditation people is buying up the old properties and gettin’ people to work for nothin’. Lester usta work regular at one or the other hotels. He built some bungalows, too. He’s a good carpenter, but lately he’s been drinkin’ too much.”
“Maybe you should move to a different area where there’s more work for your husband,” Del suggested.
“That’s what I keep tellin’ him.” She rocked her child. “Mary’s missed a lot of school. She goes to morning kindergarten. I ain’t one to be happy when someone has trouble, but the world’s sure better off since Anna got rid of Henry Deutch,” she added.
“Pardon me?” He actually held his breath a moment and waited. “I’m sorry, who?”
“Henry Deutch. He was our landlord and had us thrown out. It wasn’t all that long after he had thrown out Anna and her mother.” Her eyes grew small, dark. “I ain’t ashamed of what I did, but I’m sorry Anna’s bein’ persecuted for it.”
“Prosecuted,” he corrected.
“Wha’cha say?”
“She’s being prosecuted, indicted, accused of a crime. Persecution is something else.”
She shrugged.
“Seems the same to me,” she said.
He nodded, smiling. Maybe she was right.
“What do you mean, you’re not ashamed of what you did? What did you do?”
“I asked her to get him,” she admitted. “Even if you’re poor as we are, you got to give somethin’ that’s valuable to you to make it a proper request. That’s what Anna said, so I give her this cameo belonged to my mother. She didn’t want to take it. She said it was too much, but I said it meant more to me for her to be able to do somethin’ to that horrible man than keepin’ some old jewelry. He knew we didn’t have no place to go and how hard up Lester was for work, but he tells the court he ain’t the welfare department. The rent was too high anyway for that place. We had roaches into everything and it wasn’t cause I didn’t keep it clean.”
“So you asked Anna to do what?”
“Put a curse on him,” she confessed proudly. She smiled. “And it worked.”
He stared at her. The little girl moaned and she rocked her again. Finally, the door opened and the elderly lady who had been in with Doctor Bloom emerged. She started out looking sick and tired, but when she saw him sitting there, she looked interested and suddenly revived. He smiled at her.
“Don’t get old,” she warned him.
“I’ll try not to, but the alternative isn’t so good either,” he said.
She nodded and left.
The receptionist opened the window.
“Mrs. Dixon, you can take Mary in now,” she said. She glanced at Del and then went back to her magazine.
He sat back just as his cellular phone vibrated in his pocket.
“Pearson,” he declared after he flipped it open.
“Del, Mark,” Mark Carlson said quickly. Mark was another lawyer in the legal aid office. “Bill Marvin just called me from the sheriff’s office. When they searched Anna Young’s shop this morning, they found a sock they believe belonged to Henry Deutch. They’ve matched it with one at his house.”
“A sock? What’s that prove?”
“Could prove she was in his house and stole it. There’s something about her telling people she has to have something of his in order to put a curse on him.”
“Yeah, I just found out about that. Looks like I better read up on witchcraft.”
“Someone’s going to leak it to the press, I’m sure. Thought you oughta know.”
“I’ll get over to her place right after I speak with the doctor,” he said. “Exactly where was this sock found?”
“On the floor in the back at the center of a circle drawn in what looks like someone’s blood. Hope it’s not Deutch’s.”
“This is really getting out of hand.”
“Maybe. Maybe it’s a way they can put her in his house. Maybe at the scene of the death.”
“That’s absolutely ridiculous,” Del muttered. “What’s Paula Richards going to claim anyway, the rat was the murder weapon? Jeezes.”
“Just remember, if she went into his house to steal his sock, she lied when she told the police she’d never been in there. Thought you’d want to know.”
“Yeah, right. Thanks. I’m about to speak to Deutch’s physician. In an hour it’ll all be over,” he declared.
“You should have been brought up on a farm. Then you’d know what it means to be counting your chickens, partner,” Mark kidded.
“Thanks for the age old rural wisdom. See you soon.”
He closed the phone and looked toward the receptionist’s window. She wasn’t in sight now and the phone was ringing. Finally, it stopped.
Henry Deutch’s sock in a circle? What the hell did it mean? He wondered. She had said she didn’t put the rat there, but she hadn’t exactly told him she had never been in that house, no matter what the police claim she told them. He realized he didn’t ask her that question and she hadn’t volunteered any more information than he had requested. He needed a more extensive interview with her, he decided, just to avoid any possible little surprises. Of course, if he didn’t get this case aborted, he’d have to have more than one extensive interview.
A tiny feeling in his stomach, something akin to the trickle of ice water, began. What if he wasn’t approaching this with a serious enough attitude? What if Mark was right: he was counting his chickens before they hatched? What if he was missing something that would cause it all to blow up in his face and make him look very foolish? Go get a good position with a private firm after that, he told himself.
A wave of heavy worry passed over him like a dark cloud. He sat back, pensive. Could Paula Richards have a reasonable case, an indictment that would hold up against the test of reasonable assumptions and logic after all? This defense might be a lot more involved than he first considered and he had to wonder on his client’s behalf if he was capable of presenting an adequate defense against a charge of premeditated murder. After all, the risk was very serious.
He could be responsible for her death.
He shook off these doubts and laughed at himself for even thinking of them. Then he looked up at the door, hoping for Mrs. Dixon and her sick daughter to emerge soon. He was impatient now, anxious. Insecurity was the worst of all weaknesses for a lawyer. If you didn’t speak with confidence, you permitted doubt to enter the mind of judges and juries. Maybe that was why so many attorneys he knew came off being so arrogant. They wore their self-confidence like badges bestowed on them at the passing of their law exams.
There was so much about this profession he hated, and yet so much about it he loved. Speaking for those who couldn’t speak adequately for themselves was a privilege, and guaranteeing someone his or her protection under the law was a patriotic duty. Corny? Maybe, but it was what made his professional life comfortable. At least for now, he thought.
The door finally opened and Lois Dixon appeared, her daughter Mary now walking and holding her hand. Doctor Bloom stood behind them gazing out at him.
“I hope she feels better soon,” he told Lois Dixon as they started by him.
She paused and looked at Del with the most intent expression in her eyes, an expression filled with determination and assurance.
“She will be,” she said. “Everything will be better now.”
He watched her walk her daughter out and then turned back to the doctor.
“Mr. Pearson?” he asked. He had Del’s card in his hand and looked at it again.
The doctor was a stout, six footer with balding very light brown and gray hair, thinned to the point where his freckles and age spots were clearly visible on his scalp. His face was soft, his cheeks blown out a bit so that his mouth looked small. He focused his hazel eyes on Del just the way a doctor should look at someone, Del thought, scrutinizing, evaluating, searching for symptoms.
“Yes.”
“You are Anna Young’s attorney?”
“The court assigned an attorney. I’m with the public defender’s office and she is my client, yes,” Del said. “But I’d like to speak to you about Henry Deutch.”
Doctor Bloom nodded and backed up a bit.
“Sophie, call Cohen’s pharmacy and tell Howard it’s all right to renew Mrs. Feinstein’s prescription,” he ordered.
Sophie put down her magazine and started to dial without comment.
“Come in,” Doctor Bloom said.
He led him to a small office just past the examination room. It was cluttered with pharmaceutical samples and the desk was inundated with paperwork. There was another desk chair to the right. Doctor Bloom sat in his and indicated Del should take the other chair. He did so quickly.
“How can I help you?” he asked.
“I’m preparing a motion for a pretrial hearing. I know you’ve already been contacted by the district attorney concerning the death of Henry Deutch?”
“Yes, an assistant named Mr. Rosen was here and had a subpoena for Mr. Deutch’s records.”
“You know why they’re charging Miss Young with murder?”
“I understand they’re accusing her of driving him into a coronary, although I haven’t been privy to the medical examiner’s report. Was that the cause of death on the death certificate?”
Del opened his briefcase and pulled out some documents. He handed the medical examiner’s report to the doctor who put on his thick framed reading glasses and read.
“Myocardial infarction. Heart attack,” he said, nodding.
“You were treating him for angina, I understand,” Del said.
“Yes, that’s correct. He was initially diagnosed with what is called stable angina pectoris, to be more accurate,” he continued. “In layman’s terms that simply means chest pain caused by lack of oxygen to the heart muscle, usually a result of poor blood supply.”
“And the cause of that is?”
“Normally, atherosclerosis, fat deposits on the walls of the arteries.”
“You said you diagnosed him with stable angina. Was this still his condition last you knew?” Del asked.
The doctor raised his eyebrows.
“I’m not clear on what information I’m to reveal to you at this point, Mr. Pearson, although I’m sure for your defense, you can request a copy of Henry Deutch’s records.”
“The patient is dead, doctor. What difference will it make what you tell me now?”
“I’m aware of that, but there are so many legal issues these days, especially as regards to medicine, that I think I might have to confer with my attorney first.”
“Doctor,” Del said, not hiding his frustration. “I’m trying to cut this off at the start with a pretrial motion. The prosecution is claiming Anna Young, through a consistent and persistent design of activities, brought about the heart attack and subsequent death of Henry Deutch. There is something in criminal law known as the but for causation. But for the defendant’s actions, the result would not have occurred. This is why I think I have a good opportunity to stop this insanity before it starts. In essence, how can someone cause another person’s death by frightening him or her to death?”
The doctor took off his glasses and wiped the lenses.
“Well,” he began, after he put them on again, “I’m not going to get into the legal arena. I have enough to do in the medical, but you should know that stress is a factor and anything that causes a jolt of adrenalin into the body can be the cause of trouble. Now, as to whether or not what your client did was in effect like a bullet, and Henry Deutch would have had a heart attack that day at that time, I’m certainly not prepared to say, but I can see someone arguing it’s a little like slow arsenic poison, building it up until it proves fatal.”
“But you did say he had stable angina,” Del pursued.
Bloom didn’t smile as much as he smirked.
“Serves me right for being so damn pedantic. Yes, that was the initial diagnosis, but recently that condition degenerated to unstable angina. Before you ask, I’ll tell you that as far as I could tell, Henry Deutch wasn’t a smoker and he took his medication when he needed it. He never called to say it wasn’t working. If a patient with angina experiences chest pain for more than fifteen minutes after taking at least three tablets, he needs immediate medical attention.”
“What distinguishes stable from unstable?” Del asked.
“In unstable angina the chest pain may occur at rest, or there may be an increase in the severity, frequency, or duration of the pain, with chest pain occurring at lower levels of activity.”
“And Henry Deutch had those symptoms?”
Doctor Bloom hesitated again and then straightened up in his chair and put on his glasses.
“I suppose it’s your nature, but you make me feel as if I’m already on the witness stand.”
“How recent was his last visit?” Del pursued, ignoring the doctor’s feelings. “That’s not much for you to reveal without the presence of an attorney,” Del added a little angrily.
“Just a moment,” the doctor said, rising.
Del sat there, feeling more frustrated. He was hoping the doctor would laugh at the murder one indictment and give him statements that would clearly undermine Paula Richards’ case, but everyone was so worried about covering his legal rear end these days, and now he was learning that Deutch’s condition had recently degenerated. What would that mean for the case? Would Paula Richards be able to tie the degeneration to Anna Young’s behavior, coordinate medical evaluations with incidents?
After a minute, Doctor Bloom returned with his appointment book in hand. “Three weeks before he passed away,” he replied to Del’s question.
“What was your evaluation then?”
The doctor hesitated.
“I will get it all from the D.A.’s office, and if they don’t subpoena you as a witness, I will. We can avoid so much if you’ll help me now,” he added, practically pleading.
“I saw no dramatic change on this last visit,” the doctor replied, “one way or the other. I’d still diagnose him with unstable angina.”
“Does that mean he could have had a heart attack at any time?” Del asked.
“I suppose any cardiologist would agree. You want a black and white answer and it’s not possible. Medicine isn’t that exact.”
That was still not quite the response Del hoped for. He wanted to hear a clear and unequivocal declaration that Henry’s condition was stable enough not to be fatally influenced by the sight of a dead rat in his bed. It would support a more natural cause for events.
“The district attorney thinks it is.” Del thought a moment. “After your preliminary diagnosis, Henry Deutch never went to a cardiologist?”
“Henry wasn’t a cooperative patient. He told me specialists are only regular doctors who want to charge more. He was a piece of work,” he said, shaking his head.
“So then how can you be sure he didn’t do things to aggravate his condition and took his medicine properly?” Del pounced.
The doctor nodded.
This is why I think I’d better wait before talking about it any further, Mr. Pearson.”
“Henry Deutch wasn’t on Viagra by any chance, was he?” Del asked, half in jest. There was good evidence that taking it with nitroglycerin could be fatal.
“Hardly. I don’t think that aspect of his life interested him anymore. If ever,” the doctor muttered.
“Did he have any other physical problems? Hypertension perhaps?” Del asked, ignoring him.
“If he did,” Doctor Bloom said, “you don’t help your client. Deliberately doing something that will raise the blood pressure of someone who already has a blood pressure problem is not very nice.”
“Did he?” Del pursued.
“I’d better check with my attorney before I say any more or show you anything I have,” the doctor replied.
Del nodded. He had the impression hypertension was also in the mix.
“I’ll have to talk to you again after I see your complete medical records. I’ll give you notice so you can have your attorney present if you wish,” he told him and rose. He thought a moment and then glanced toward the lobby before turning back to Doctor Bloom.
“Your receptionist work for you long?”
“Couple of years,” he said. “Nice girl, local girl. She got married recently. Her name is Sophie Potter, married Clark Potter. Potter real estate.” The doctor saw the way Del was looking toward the receptionist’s office and smirked. “She wouldn’t go gossiping about anyone’s medical problems,” he said firmly. “I made that clear when I hired her.”
Del nodded.
The doctor’s face softened.
“Of course, she knows who Anna Young is. Everyone in this town knows her. I’ve got a number of patients who go to her for one reason or another, and I must say,” he added, “most have had some significant improvement in their conditions.”
Del started to smile.
“I’ve been in this health business a long time, Mr. Pearson, too long to ridicule or discredit anything out of hand. That, I’m afraid, goes for what can cause heart attacks as well as prevent them,” he added.
Del said no more. The longer this conversation lasted, the worse the digressions and possibilities seemed to be.
He thanked him and left.
Anyone who saw him leave the doctors office and looked at his face would understandably conclude he had come as a patient.
Munsen sat awkwardly on the sofa in Lisa’s gynecologist’s office lobby. He twirled his hat in his hand nervously and stared down at the black and white checkered tiles. They were about an inch wide and he had spent the first fifteen minutes or so counting them to keep his mind from traveling along any dark roads. A woman in her late twenties at most sat across from him sifting through magazines, apparently not finding anything that grabbed her interest. Once in a while, she looked at him, but she seemed afraid of conversation. Finally, more for himself than for her, he smiled.
“How far along are you?” he asked.
“Six and a half months. I already know it’s a boy,” she said.
“You wanted to do that, find out?”
“Sure. We got to plan the room and tell people what to buy for gifts,” she replied as if he had asked the dumbest question on the face of the earth.
He nodded.
Someday, he thought, there won’t be any mysteries left, no surprises. We’ll all be psychics, Anna Youngs created by medical science.
“You guys want a boy?”
She smirked.
“Don’t all men want boys?”
“We have two girls,” he said. “As long as they’re healthy kids, feel blessed,” he advised.
“Billy wanted a boy,” she muttered, and looked at the magazine.
When the door to the examination room opened, he felt his heart do a flip in his chest. The doctor had his arm around Lisa’s shoulders. He smiled out at Munsen and nodded at her. Munsen nearly leaped to his feet as she crossed the lobby. His eyes were filled with questions, but she chose to leave the office before speaking. As they walked toward the elevator, he wondered if she would ever speak.
“Well, what did he tell you?” he finally asked.
“I took another Pap test and we’ll see,” she said. “Sometimes there are false positives.”
“Well, what were his feelings? I mean . . .”
“He just wants me to stay calm and wait and see. If there’s something there, he thinks we probably caught it in time anyway,” she replied.
“Oh.”
She looked at him when the elevator door opened.
“Probably,” she emphasized.
He tried to swallow, couldn’t, and just nodded.
“I need to stop at the supermarket on the way home,” she told him as soon as they got into the car.
“Right,” he said.
He glanced at her. She looked stronger, but cold as if all her emotions had been frozen for the time being. Keep life running as usual. Don’t assume the worst and don’t dwell on the tension, he heard himself advise himself.
“I don’t want the girls to know about this, Munsen,” she said suddenly. “They’ll make me more nervous worrying.”
“They’re going to want to know what’s going on,” he pointed out
“I’ll tell them something. Just don’t mope about and look like you look right now,” she ordered.
“Okay. It’s going to be all right,” he promised.
She was silent.
“I’ll get some chicken cutlets,” she said after a while. “I can do something fast with them.”
“We could go out to eat,” he suggested.
“I’d rather keep busy,” she said.
“Right.”
Fortunately, when they arrived at home the girls were bursting with school news. Brooke had been told she was being inducted in the honor society and Crystal had been asked to the spring dance by the boy she had hoped would ask her. The conversation at dinner was dominated by their new clothing needs. It was one time Munsen was glad to see them absorbed in themselves as teenagers were wont to be.
Afterward, he left to make his rounds and check on any messages at the office. There weren’t any. The village looked as quiet as usual, despite the heavy publicity that had begun. He hesitated when he drove up to Kayfields. He could see from the parked cars that there were more people there than usual, probably to discuss the big events. He drove by and cruised slowly past Anna’s shop. He saw there was some light inside and from the way it flickered, he knew it was coming from a candle.
Slowly, he turned the vehicle and drove up to the front of the shop. For a long moment, he sat there staring at the dark entryway and the flickering illumination on the glass. Was Benny Sklar in there speaking to his dead wife again? he wondered.
As if it took form from the very shadows lying in the entryway, Anna’s silhouette appeared in the door window. His first impulse was to drive off quickly because he was a little embarrassed about spying on her, but she opened the door and stepped out. It was too late. She knew he was there. She looked like she was beckoning him. He turned off the engine and got out of the car.
The street was so quiet tonight, he thought as he went around the front of the vehicle. The air seemed so still. It was truly as if the small village was in the eye of a storm.
“Evening, Anna,” he said. “I’m just doing a routine check of store fronts,” he said.
She stepped toward him. Without streetlights, it was nearly impossible to see the detail in her face, but there was enough dim illumination from the night sky to reveal something of a skeptical smile on her lips.
“You’re troubled,” she declared.
“It’s a nasty business all around,” he offered. “The village is going to get a lot of undesired attention.”
“It’s not the village, Mr. Donald. What is it that troubles you?”
How could she know that?
He hesitated, looked around and then took a deep breath. This was insane. What if someone overheard him?
“My wife got a bad scare today,” he said. “A test didn’t come out good. We have to wait on more tests.”
She nodded.
“They were angry at you,” she said.
“Who?”
“The spirits who lived within Mr. Deutch. You didn’t do what he hoped you would. Their anger spilled over you and it entered your home.”
She reached behind her neck. She wore a chain with a tiny tube on it. The tube had a silvery top.
“Give her this to wear,” she said.
“Huh?”
“It will protect her,” Anna said. “It is filled with salt my mother prepared for me many years ago. Salt like this will ward off the evil eye, Mr. Donald. Salt is the symbol of life and purification.”
She held it out, but he didn’t take it.
“It’s my gift to you, Mr. Donald. You are caught in a whirlwind not of your own making. Take it and protect your loved one,” she said. It sounded like an official order from the chief of police.
He took it in his hand and turned it around in his thick fingers. Lisa would never wear this, he thought.
“Tell your wife it’s a gift from me,” Anna said, “and she will wear it,” she added with confidence. He looked up quickly. Can she actually read my thoughts? he had to wonder.
“This will all end soon, Mr. Donald,” she promised him. “But it will not be over.”
“Huh?”
“It’s only one battle in an everlasting war,” she explained. “Good fortune,” she said, and went back into her shop.
He looked through the door window and watched her return to her table and her candle.
Would Lisa wear this?
Would it help?
He glanced around like a thief afraid someone had seen him take something. Then he shoved the chain and the tube into his pocket and returned to his car. He looked back at the shop before pulling away. The candle had gone out.
When he reached the center of the village, he hesitated. If he went into Kayfields, he would be there for hours, he thought
The chain seemed to grow warm in his pocket. Was that his imagination?
He accelerated, turning up the hill and toward home.
What harm can it do to wear it? No one has to know. Who knows about these things?
Lisa was cleaning out the food pantry when he arrived. The girls were upstairs on their telephones. He knew Lisa was just trying to make work now. She looked a bit wild when she gazed up at him, her head disheveled, her eyes glassy, and her face flushed. Maybe not a good time to bring this up, he thought.
“You’re back early,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said.
“What is it, Munsen?” she asked. They had lived too long as one for her not to sense when something raged within him.
“I was doing my rounds,” he began. She stood up to listen and he told her what had happened.
Then he took out the chain and held it out. She plucked it from his palm, gazed into his face, and without hesitation put it around her neck.
If it worked, he thought, he’d make sure no harm came to that woman.
Somehow.
He’d make sure.