by Harry Kraus
Lena turned around and blushed. “You’re not married, are you?”
Claire shook her head.
“You want to know what it’s like, is that it?” Lena couldn’t suppress an immature giggle. “I’ve read a lot of novels that tell about love. Billy Ray was never into romance. I don’t think you should ask me for advice.” Her eyes met Claire’s. “John is your boyfriend, huh? He’s hot. I’ll bet he’s romantic.”
This wasn’t going where Claire intended. She shrugged. “I guess.”
Suddenly Lena looked away. “There was one time . . .” She trailed off.
“What?”
“Billy Ray wore a mask once. The time he almost killed me.”
“A mask? What kind of mask?”
“You know, a mask like a doctor wears.” She lifted her hands up over her mouth to illustrate. “Billy Ray said he always wanted to be a doctor.
He joked with me about wanting to ‘play doctor.’ I think the mask was just his way of pretending to be something he wasn’t. He was drunk. It was a game.”
The information hit Claire in the gut. Billy Ray had used a surgical mask just like Brittany’s attacker. Her mind began to race. Billy Ray had become increasingly violent. Now, since his wife was gone, was he looking for other targets?
Claire tried to focus. How much could she reveal and not be betraying a patient confidence? She couldn’t share the details of Brittany’s assault. But I’d better tell the police about my thoughts about Billy Ray.
“Lena, maybe it’s best if you stay out of sight for a while. Billy Ray knows you’re in Brighton.”
“What! How’d he find out?”
“He called me this afternoon, Lena. He mentioned some guy named Eddie—”
Lena slapped her hand on the back of an orange chair. “I told him not to say anything! I should have known.”
“Have you been able to find work?”
“I applied for a job at the university cafeteria. I haven’t heard back yet.”
Claire blew her breath out through pursed lips. “I know he wants to see you. He told me that much.”
“You didn’t tell him where I was, did you?”
“Of course not, Lena. And the shelter won’t give any information out about you on the phone. This is a safe place.”
“I can’t just stay inside all the time.”
“If you get a job, just keep your eyes open for his truck. I doubt he’ll ever find you. Besides, why would he come after you?”
“If Billy Ray’s got it in his mind that I’ve done him wrong, he might.”
“He told me that Eddie told him that you have a new boyfriend.” She hesitated, then continued. “He said you admitted it to Eddie.”
“I just said that to make him jealous. I don’t have a boyfriend. Eddie’s a jerk. He shouldn’t have told Billy Ray where I was.”
Claire finished by taking Lena’s blood pressure and asking her about her vitamins. Lena acted irritated and restated the futility of caring for a baby she wanted to abort. Claire nodded and was pleased that Lena was finally calling it a baby rather than a pregnancy.
As she left, Claire mused about what would make Lena lie. She was obviously lying to someone, either Eddie or herself. Why would Lena lie and tell Eddie she had a boyfriend when she knew that would infuriate her violent husband? That made no sense. On the other hand, if she was telling the truth to Eddie, then what she was telling Claire must be false. But why would Lena lie to Claire about having a boyfriend?
Unless she was involved with aman she didn’t want me to know about.
Her mind flashed back to the conversation she’d had with Billy Ray. She had been in such a fog, waking up so abruptly in the middle of the night. Didn’t he say something about me being with Lena and her boyfriend when they ran away? The thought struck her. That’s crazy! Does he think Lena and John ...?She shook her head. That’s ridiculous.
Claire walked down the steps from the porch, seeing John’s Mustang approaching. She was about to say something to John about the whole thing when she saw the pizza box on the seat beside him.
“Sausage and mushroom,” he said with a smile. “Your favorite.”
I told you anything but pizza. Where was your concentration, John? “I’m not hungry.”
“Are you okay?”
“Fine.”
“Could you drive then? This smell is driving me crazy.”
After John dropped her back off at the Stoney Creek Family Medical Center, Claire went in and retrieved a small business card from the top drawer of her desk. She dialed the number for the county sheriff ’s department and thought about Randy Jensen.
“Sheriff ’s department.”
“May I speak to Deputy Jensen please.”
“Hold on, ma’am. I’ll see if he’s still in.”
A few moments later, he answered. Claire could imagine that he nodded his head to emphasize his words. “Deputy Jensen.”
She identified herself and told of her suspicions about Billy Ray.
He sounded like he knew of him. “Billy Ray Chisholm?”
“You know him?”
“I went to high school with him.”
Great. An old school bud. She was trying to decide whether that was good or bad information, when he continued. “He beat his first wife, too.”
“Doesn’t surprise me.”
“I warned him not to go after Lena.”
“You did? How’d you know she was gone?”
“Billy Ray told me. He was half-drunk, called to tell me his wife had been kidnapped.” He laughed. “We knew better.”
“The man is violent. We had to get Lena out of there.”
“I understand. I told him clearly that we wouldn’t look too kindly on hearing that he was stalking her.”
“What did he say?”
“The routine answer, I suppose, that he knew his rights and he had a right to see his wife and that unless there was a restraining order against him, he could look for her.” He chuckled. “I think he’ll think twice before he does, though.” He paused. “I don’t suppose you’d know what day this alleged attack took place on Lena Chisholm, would you?”
“Hmmm. Lena told me something . . . yes, could you hold on a minute? If I pull her chart, I can pinpoint it for you. She said it was the night following the day after I saw her here in the office for a bad sprained ankle and a cut on her eyebrow. She reported that she’d fallen down the stairs. I remember because she told me she hurt so bad she couldn’t have gotten away from him if she’d tried. Hold on.” She put down the phone and went to a long chart rack. She sorted through the “C’s.” There were too many “Chisholms” in the Apple Valley. In a minute, she found the record and returned to her conversation with the officer. “Okay, I’ve got it.”
She repeated the date a few times to be sure he heard.
“So what makes you think Billy Ray Chisholm is Brittany Lewis’s attacker?”
“Three things.” Didn’t I tell you this already? She held up a finger, knowing he couldn’t see. “One, his wife said he used a similar mask when he forced her to have relations with him. Two, he came straight into my office yesterday and could have seen Brittany’s chart on my desk. He would have known she would have a hard time fighting back if she’d just had surgery. And three, it just follows that now that Lena’s gone, Billy Ray will have to turn somewhere else to prove his manhood.”
She listened as the deputy tapped his pen against the phone. “I’ll check him out. My gut says you’re wrong. But I’ll check him out.” He made clicking sounds with his cheek and seemed to be musing to himself. “Ol’ Billy Ray, I can’t believe it.”
“Deputy Jensen, I do hope you will take this seriously. Billy Ray is a sick man. He could—”
“Dr. McCall, I said I will check him out.”
She took a deep breath. She wasn’t reassured. “Okay. Thank you. Can you call me if you find out anything?”
More tapping. “Sure.”
He ended the call
without saying good-bye. Claire headed home with her body and mind near exhaustion. It had been a long day since her rude awakening at 3:15 A.M. Thoughts of the day’s events assaulted her. Brittany’s rape, the patients she’d seen, the letter from Mr. Sugimoto, the trip to Brighton to see Lena, and John’s distracted behavior all came to her in a collage of images.
Ten minutes later, she found her mother asleep on the couch. She nudged her, then helped her to her feet. The house was in disarray. Claire knew better than to ask. It must have been another day fighting to change diarrhea diapers. They supported each other down the hall, both in balance leaning on the other.
Plodding forward into her room, Claire collapsed on her old bed and yielded to the solace of sleep. Driven by exhaustion and unaffected by routine Wally background noise, she slept until her mother shook her shoulder at seven the next morning.
Chapter Seventeen
Claire forced open her eyes. Slowly things came into focus. “It’s my day off.”
Her mother wiggled Claire’s shoulder again. “Your father is burnin’ up. He won’t talk.”
Claire groaned and rolled over, pushing herself from the comfort of her mattress. “What’s been going on?”
“Same stuff. Diarrhea all day yesterday. Some vomiting.”
Claire ran her fingers through her blond bangs. “You should have called me.”
“I called the office yesterday. Lucy told me what you were going through.”
Claire nodded. “A day to remember.” She plodded to her father’s room and began her assessment. Wally was her patient. She was in doctor-mode and the adrenaline started to pump from the first moment she saw him.
“Daddy. Daddy! Wally!” She touched his head. He was warm. Too warm. Her hands stilled his roving head to study his eyes, which were glassed over and looking beyond her. His mucus membranes were dry, his scalp moist with sweat. His lungs were clear, his abdomen soft, his diaper stained with yellow runny stool. She looked at Della. “He’s dehydrated. Has he been drinking anything?”
“Not much. Lucy suggested Gatorade.” She frowned. “I can’t blame him for not wanting it. Have you ever tasted thickened Gatorade?”
“He’ll need an IV. We’ve got to get him up to Carlisle to the hospital.”
Della shook her head. “I’ve had this conversation with him over and over. He doesn’t want to go to the hospital anymore. He doesn’t want special treatment.”
“Mom, this isn’t special treatment. He probably just has the stomach flu. He’ll be over it in a day or two. He just needs some fluid to help him pull through.”
“Wally said he didn’t want to go to the hospital for treatment if the only reason he was going was because he couldn’t swallow. He doesn’t want artificial feeding.”
“This isn’t feedings, Mom. It isn’t a feeding tube or anything. He just needs a little IV fluid to keep him hydrated.”
Della sighed. “I don’t know. Can you do it here?”
Claire weighed her options. Getting and maintaining an IV in Wally would be difficult in a hospital. It would need constant watching to prevent him from pulling it out as he flailed his arms around. She did have the day off, although this wasn’t exactly in her plans. She had hoped to spend a little time with John. She held up her hands. “We can try. We have to do something. He could go into renal failure if he doesn’t get some fluid. Has he been urinating?”
“I think,” Della hesitated. “It’s a little hard to tell with his stool being loose like it is.”
She checked her watch. “Lucy should be in by 7:30. I’ll call and see if she can bring by some supplies.”
Della agreed and tried in vain to get Wally to drink.
A few minutes later, mother and daughter sat down over a cup of coffee at the kitchen table. They talked about the weather, the Atlanta Braves, and the upcoming fire-engine parade at the Fishers Retreat Lawn Party. Anything but the obvious: Huntington’s disease in its final stages, and how it changed even the intestinal flu into a life-threatening situation.
As Claire drained the last of the French vanilla creamer into her cup, Della leaned forward. “How are things with John?”
Claire shrugged. “Who knows?”
Her mother answered only with a look of curiosity.
“There are days when I’m sure he’s the one.” She hesitated. “And others when I wonder if I really know him at all. Some days he is the most caring, nuturing, praying man . . .”
“But?”
“Maybe it’s nothing, but my intuition says something isn’t right.” Della shook her head. “John’s good with Wally.”
“I know. But something is up with him lately. I can’t explain it exactly. He’s distracted. Yet sometimes he seems so open with me.”
“Wally was never vulnerable with me. It’s as if his Navy days taught him how to be self-sufficient and he was afraid to show me he needed me after that.”
“John isn’t like that. But sometimes, I think he’s hiding something from me.” She took a sip from her cup. “I think down inside he’s as afraid of this HD thing as I am.”
“Wouldn’t it be normal to be afraid?”
Claire nodded, picking up the phone to call Lucy. When her nurse answered, Claire slipped naturally into medical-resident slang to explain her father’s situation. “Wally’s chipped out.”
“Gastrointeritis?”
“I think so. But he’s not taking any fluids. I need some IV supplies.”
“For home?” Lucy sounded incredulous.
Claire wanted to sound positive. “That’s the plan.”
She heard Lucy sigh.
“I’ll take care of him. All I need is the supplies. D–5 lactated ringers. Bring me at least four liters and a half-dozen angiocaths. He’ll be a hard stick.”
They said good-bye and Claire set the phone down. So much for a day off.
Randy Jensen frowned and tossed the empty donut box in the trash. Getting his fellow officers to clean up after taking the last pastry was a hopeless cause. He lifted a pizza box and was about to toss it, when he realized it was too heavy. He opened the lid and lifted out a slice of cheese pizza. He smelled it, then decided to nuke it in the microwave to kill anything that could have grown since the night shift concluded. Pizza and coffee wasn’t exactly the breakfast of champions, but in the absence of his normal chocolate donut, it would have to do.
Randy looked back over his police logs. Early in the morning after the alleged attack on Lena, Billy Ray had called the sheriff ’s department to complain about a trespasser. Randy himself had been out on patrol and had pulled John Cerelli because he matched the description of the red Mustang Billy Ray reported seeing fleeing from his property. Randy had let him go with a warning. He massaged his chin. Was it mere coincidence that John Cerelli was snooping around the Chisholm property the morning after an assault on Lena? Things didn’t add up. Maybe he should talk to this Cerelli.
He shoved the front of the pizza slice into his mouth and didn’t bite down until both edges touched the corners of his mouth. He tore it away, the pizza triangle half gone in one bite. He chewed the grease-slicked cheese as he pondered what he knew. He couldn’t shake his detective instincts. Things weren’t adding up. It was time to go visit Billy Ray.
He found him forty-five minutes later at a metal fabricator’s shop in Carlisle. They talked while standing in the summer sun outside a double-high garage door to the shop. Billy Ray wiped the sweat from his forehead with a dingy white hand towel. His face was dirty, almost black, except for a raccoonish mask where his goggles had been. Other than the workers inside the shop, they were alone. A metallic, almost acrid smell was thick, causing Randy to back away from the entrance.
“You mind telling me what this is all about?”
“I need to ask a few questions. That’s all.” Jensen tipped back the brim of his hat. “What were you doing last night, Billy Ray?”
He shuffled his feet. “Nothing special. Hangin’ out with Eddie.”
“What time did you get in?”
He shrugged. “I don’t remember.”
“Where’d you go?”
“I don’t know. Around.”
Jensen shook his head. “I think you’re going to have to do better than that. Do I need to talk to Eddie? Or won’t he remember either?”
“What’s this about? If Lena’s complaining about me, I haven’t even been—”
“This isn’t about Lena. Maybe you should come on down to the department and explain exactly where you were last night.”
“We didn’t do anything.”
“Can you verify your location early this morning?”
Billy Ray shielded his eyes to the morning sun. “Eddie and me were just cruising around.”
“How about between two and three o’clock?”
Billy Ray smiled. “I was sleeping. In my bed at home.”
“Listen, Billy, a young woman was raped in Stoney Creek in the early hours of the morning.”
“So why are you asking me? You can’t believe that I—”
“We have at least one person that thinks you may have been involved, so you’d better refresh your memory a little. ‘I don’t remember’ isn’t going to cut it.”
“Look, Eddie and me were just out. We had a few beers. That’s it.”
“Why can’t you remember where you were?”
Billy Ray picked at some black debris beneath his thumbnail. “Listen, we went to Brighton, okay?” He held up his hand. “But I didn’t see Lena. We just went to a bar.”
“What was the name? Will someone there remember you? What time did you leave?”
“Buffalo Wild Wings. It’s on North Boulevard. We left at midnight.”
Deputy Jensen made notes and grunted. “Who was your waitress?”
“Blond girl. Maybe twenty, twenty-two. She has a little space between her teeth that makes her whistle when she says, ‘Something for you, gentlemen?’” The memory brought a grin to Billy Ray’s face.