Perfect

by Harry Kraus

  “Now, Honey,” the major said. “That’s a pretty outrageous thing to say. You’ve only just met her.”

  “You saw how she kissed Jack just now. She probably saw her chance to cut in.”

  Chris raised his eyebrows. She was kissing Jack?

  Mrs. Pate shook her head. “I know what I saw. And I know what I sensed. That woman’s — ”

  “She’s the wife of the man who saved Jack’s life, dearest. Don’t forget that.”

  She glared at him. “You’re gullible, William. You’d believe any pretty face.”

  Obviously, the major was used to dealing with the silver bullet’s fury. “I believe you, Buttercup.” Mr. Pate rolled his eyes and looked back at Chris. “We haven’t even heard why you wanted to question us.”

  “It’s routine, actually. We investigate all unexpected deaths. Many apparent suicides prove to be just that.”

  “You must not have heard me,” Mrs. Pate snapped. “Our daughter wouldn’t have — ” She dissolved into tears, and her voice closed around a sob.

  “Easy, dearest,” the major soothed. “Let the man do his job.”

  “Did Yolanda ever speak of depression? Of wanting to die?”

  The major nodded. “She was pretty upset by Jack’s accident. You know about that, I guess.” He paused, his lips trembling.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The major was silent for a moment, collecting himself before speaking again. “She called home every night, crying about how Jack didn’t remember her or their wedding plans.” He spoke slowly, as if trudging through the snow of his daughter’s pain. “It was horrible for her. She had her heart set on a life with him.”

  Mrs. Pate sniffed and unwound herself from her husband’s arm in search of a tissue. When she found it, she emptied her nose loudly.

  Chris looked away.

  Mrs. Pate tucked the Kleenex away and pointed at the detective. “You need to check out that woman in there. Mrs. Stratford. Outside, she may be all innocent, but I think it’s a skin over some rottenness, I’ll tell you.”

  “Of course.” He made a note. “Did Yolanda ever actually mention Wendi, uh Mrs. Stratford?”

  “She went on and on about her and her husband,” Mr. Pate said. “She was so impressed at their kindness.”

  “She said Jack mistook her for Wendi,” Mrs. Pate added.

  The major shifted in his vinyl chair. “She said Dr. and Mrs. Stratford were the perfect couple.”

  Mrs. Pate cleared her throat. “What she said was that Mrs. Stratford didn’t know the gem she had in her hand.”

  “I see. Could I have a number where I could reach you?”

  The major handed him a card and pointed to a number at the bottom. “I can be reached at this number. Leave a voice mail.”

  Chris took the card and stood. “Thanks. I’ll certainly keep you informed.”

  The couple thanked him and walked to the elevator.

  The detective looked at the notes in his hand. What was up with Wendi? Why was she in the center swirl of so many problems?

  He walked to a quiet place and called the chief of police, Mosby.

  After two rings, the chief picked up. “Mosby,” he barked.

  “Chief, it’s Black. Look, I just talked to Yolanda Pate’s parents.” He chuckled. “Boy is her mother a piece of work.”

  “Get to the point, Black. I’ve got work to do.”

  “She’s completely convinced that something fishy is going on here. She claims her daughter would never have committed suicide.”

  The chief sighed. “All mothers would say that.”

  “She’s convinced Wendi Stratford is involved.”

  “Evidence?”

  “Only a grieving mother’s suspicions.” Chris paced in the lobby talking softly into his cell. “She thinks Wendi Stratford was having an affair with Jack Renner, Yolanda’s fiancé.”

  “It’s only a suspicion unless you can give me something solid.”

  “I’ve got to watch my bias.”

  “Trust your gut, Black. You’ve always had good instincts. Just make sure you have real evidence, not just your disdain for a woman who embarrassed us.”

  Chris nodded into the phone. “Sure, boss.”

  “Talk to anyone who might have seen them together. See if there is anything in it. Have you talked to the ME?”

  “Just the prelim exam is in. She definitely died of an overdose, but it looks like she may have been forced to take the pills. What Sig has doesn’t sound conclusive.”

  The chief chuckled and talked with his voice quiet. “Be as objective as you can, but for my sake, find something concrete. Nothing would be sweeter than to nail her to the wall.”

  “Right.”

  “Keep me informed.”

  “I’m on it.”

  Once I was in the comfort of my Mercedes, I inhaled the smell of leather and dialed Chris Black. Although he’d seemed distant since our court clash, I still counted him an ally, one of the few I had within the force. If anyone could be counted on to be fair, I thought it was Chris.

  “Detective Black.”

  “Chris, it’s me, Wendi.”

  “Wendi, Wendi, what is it, dear?”

  “Cut the crap, Chris. I need to know what’s happening.”

  “That’s something I’d like to know. Maybe you should tell me.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? I want to know if you’ve talked to Jesse Anders. Find out why he’s lying to you.”

  “What am I supposed to do? As far as I know, he hasn’t committed a crime.”

  “He’s defrauding an insurance company.”

  “So let them fight it out in court. Bring your evidence in your little leather satchel and have at ’em, Baby. That’s what you do best, isn’t it?”

  “Sarcasm doesn’t work for you. I’d like it better if you just told me how you felt.”

  He forced his breath out into the phone, a sharp distorted sigh. “Why are you calling me?”

  “Look, I just wondered if you’d found out anything. Jack is my friend. I’m concerned about this Anders guy and wondered if you might have found out anything that could link him to the hit-and-run.”

  “Jack is your friend. I’ve been meaning to ask you about your relationship with him.”

  “He’s — ” I halted. I’d made a new commitment to stop covering up. But my relationship with Jack doesn’t have anything to do with this. Does it? “A friend,” I said. “Only a friend.” My heart stung with an attack of conscience. I half expected to hear a rooster crow or something.

  “A friend?”

  Chris was torturing me. Sure, I’d thrown myself at Jack, confessed my adulterous feelings toward him. But nobody knew that, not even brain-damaged Jack. So it isn’t really a lie. He is only a friend now. But we had an affair once. For five minutes. “We’re friends, OK? You’ve heard of them, right? I used to think you were one of them. Share coffee. Share a laugh. Maybe even a misery or two.”

  “Friends are loyal.”

  “Friends tell the truth.”

  I was getting mad at Chris and getting nowhere.

  “Tell me you weren’t having an affair with him.”

  “Tell me what that has to do with anything.”

  “His fiancée is dead. Love triangles can cause normal people to act in strange ways.”

  “Are you accusing me of something?”

  “I’m just asking questions.”

  “Get off it, Chris. Why don’t you just admit you’re out to embarrass me and settle an old score? I thought you were bigger than that.”

  The silence on the other end of the line told me I’d hit the mark. When he spoke again, it was with forced control, but I could hear the irritation just under the surface. “Answer my question. Were you having an affair with Mr. Renner?”

  My sin was buried. Yes, I’ d blown it. But no one else knew. Not even Jack could counter my testimony. “Of course not. He was my piano teacher. A friend. Nothing more.” I winced and list
ened for roosters.

  He sighed. “OK.”

  He didn’t believe me. Chris always said “OK” at the end of our arguments, but not because he believed anything I said. He was just done arguing.

  I tried to sound upbeat. “Call me if you hear anything about Anders.” I paused. “I still think that Yolanda may have had some link to him. Why else would she have erased my camera?”

  “You’re assuming she did.”

  I knew she did. I just couldn’t convince the evidence-prone detective. “Chris, you know me. I’m not a criminal. And you’re in the center of the department. Evidence is swirling all around. I have a right to be in the loop.”

  “OK.”

  He was putting me off again. I knew when I was in trouble. Chris was the only real inside source I had for information in the PD. If he turned against me, I wouldn’t have a prayer. I frowned at my thought. I’m not sure I believe in praying anymore anyway. What’s the point? God — if he cares — sees right through my skin.

  I hesitated, unable to resurrect a positive feeling about ending a conversation on such a downturn.

  I didn’t have to. He ended it for me. “I’ve got to run.”

  I sighed. “Ciao.”

  Click. The call had been terminated. I felt like crying. My only inside-PD source had just deserted me.

  I let loose a curse. It was heartfelt. And I was alone in my Mercedes. But I felt guilty. Funny how that worked. I only felt like God was watching when I messed up.

  The thought made me smile. Then he must be watching me all the time.

  At home, I was greeted by a Charlottesville PD forensics team sitting in my driveway. I begrudgingly let them in and showed them to my bedroom, where a yellow police tape still crossed the doorframe. I knew if I balked, they would bring back a warrant.

  Just what they wanted to do in there and why was mysterious to me. Perhaps there was something about Yolanda’s autopsy that had pricked their curiosity. I walked back down the hall listening to the clicking of the camera shutters, as the team seemed to be documenting their way into the room. What reason would they have to go over the room again? Whatever they know may be the reason Chris Black treated me like a criminal.

  I sat at the kitchen table tempted to open a bottle of Virginia wine, but decided to water the willow trees instead. I recognized the familiar emotion as I unwound the garden hose. Guilt. But why should I feel guilty for the death of a woman I didn’t kill?

  I sighed and pointed the hose at the base of the first tree. Now, with sudden clarity, I knew the answer to my own question. It was as if the hose in my hand had washed away some of the dirt that had obscured my understanding. It was something I called “spillover” for lack of a better word. Ever since my decision to hide my affair with Bob, I’d colored the world’s events in the same way as I’d colored that decision. I felt guilty. Guilt from one stupid affair and its consequences now spilled over into every situation. If there was any way I could feel responsible or guilty about someone’s problem, I’d default to feeling that way. I looked over my shoulder. The sun was too high in the sky to cast that condemning shadow at this time of day.

  I found myself wondering if I was responsible for the slow growth of the trees. Maybe I didn’t water enough. Maybe I needed to fertilize.

  I thought about visiting Mom. No. She’ll probably want to know why I left the way I did the other day, and I don’t feel like talking about it. I wonder if she even remembers my pregnancy.

  By indulging in a drink, stuffing in some comfort-carbs, visiting my mom, or watering the willows, I wasn’t doing so well at dealing with negative feelings. I shook my head and played with the water stream with my thumb. The more force I applied, the faster the water sprayed through the smaller opening. That’s what I felt like. God was pushing his thumb over my life, and everything was rushing forward out of my control.

  A few weeks ago, I’d gone to the hospital to deliver Henry’s favorite laser pointer. He didn’t feel just right talking to a group of medical students without his engraved silver laser pointer.

  I slipped into the back of a darkened lecture hall where my husband gave a presentation on the work-up of abdominal pain. He’d flash up a picture of some physical finding and ask the students what they should do next.

  “The abdomen is rigid,” Henry said.

  A woman on the front row raised her hand. “I’d order a CT scan.”

  The students around her nodded.

  “An ultrasound of the abdomen,” offered another.

  Henry listened patiently as the students offered suggestion after suggestion as to how to manage the problem. He just stayed quiet, shaking his head back and forth as if he and he alone held the keys to unlock the mystery. Finally, when he spoke, he cleared his throat, and smoothed the lapels of his white coat. He lifted his index finger in emphasis and proclaimed, “Never let the skin stand between you and a diagnosis.”

  The students didn’t get it. There was laughter at Henry’s antics, but they just didn’t catch his drift.

  My surgeon husband smiled as recognition dawned on the girl in the front row. He heard her whisper the answer. “Operate!” he said, his voice at a feverish pitch. “Open the skin. Look under the hood!”

  The students laughed again. I used the commotion to interrupt and hand Henry his pointer. I heard one of the students repeating the phrase under his breath as I left the room. “Never let the skin stand between you and a diagnosis.”

  I wasn’t sure if it was surgical dogma or if Henry was just making a point, but I took the saying to heart. I went directly from that medical school classroom over to my favorite travel agent and purchased two tickets to Jamaica, one for me and one for Jack. I was through showing the world a different skin from the inner me. I was determined not to let my skin stand in the way. I wanted to show my real colors.

  Now, I sniffed back a tear. So much for my vacation plans. At least my willows are being watered this week.

  I must have stayed in the yard for a full hour, refusing to let go of that stupid hose, lost in my own thoughts as I let the water flow on each of the six trees. I’d bought them. Jack planted them. Watering them seemed like the decent thing to do, keeping the trees healthy while Jack was in the hospital.

  I sighed, not knowing what to do next. I didn’t exactly want to stay inside and appear overly interested in the forensics team. The reality was that even though I’d officially closed the book on Jack, I was afraid to move forward. Jack had made me feel alive. I hadn’t felt that way with Henry in years — until this week. Every time I watched Henry in action around the hospital, I remembered why he’d been able to sweep me away in the first place. But unlike Jack, Henry never wanted to poke much below the surface. Perhaps my skin scared him.

  I looked up as a trio of investigators filed out of my house, casting furtive glances my way and clutching a half dozen sealed plastic bags. I waved, but refused to smile. I was too weary to care if it made me look guilty.

  I looked at the stream coming from the garden hose and thought once about turning it on them, but my frontal lobes provided the appropriate override of my reptile notions, and I kept the hose pointed at the trees.

  When the ground was saturated, I turned the hose on the driveway, spraying the dirt back into my manicured lawn. If only my own sin were so easy to cleanse away, I thought. What had Jack said? “Forgive yourself.” I looked over at the steeple with the cross on top of the Baptist church and cringed. How could I forgive sin that I knew God despised?

  A man of about thirty with freckles and a red goatee approached. “I’ve taken down the police tape, Mrs. Stratford. You can do whatever you want in there,” he said, waving his hand. “Clean away.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Hooray.”

  I wanted to ask what precious evidence was hidden within the bags, but held my tongue. My curiosity wasn’t winning me any friends lately.

  I watched them leave, noting that the red-goateed leader signaled a left turn before leav
ing my driveway.

  I shook my head and pushed my thumb into the pathway of the cold water. Maybe Henry isn’t as weird as I thought.

  By seven-thirty, Henry was late for dinner and on his way to a confrontation with Cindy. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel of his Mercedes and sighed. He needed a concrete plan to reorder his life before it unraveled completely. How long had it been since he felt in control? He thought back to the first time that fate had brought Jesse and Linda Anders into his life. A humid summer night party had ended in tragedy when Jesse wrapped his car around a tree. Jesse, perhaps predictably, had escaped with a few bruises. His wife wasn’t so fortunate.

  Henry read her cervical spine film himself, missing a subtle finding of soft tissue swelling in front of C – 7. He’d taken Linda’s cervical collar off and told the resident to observe her until she was sober. When he rounded the next morning, she was alert, but paralyzed below the waist. The resident hadn’t even picked up on the tenderness over the patient’s upper back.

  It was a preventable mistake. He should never have trusted the exam of an intoxicated patient. The resident hadn’t ordered a T-spine film until he realized that the patient was no longer moving her legs.

  His error was the leverage Jesse needed to lure Henry into a web of deceit. It began simply enough. A narcotics prescription for Jesse’s poor wife. Then another. And another. “My friend sprained his shoulder, Doc.” “My sister has migraines.” “My neighbor threw out his back.”

  “My wife wouldn’t be in this wheelchair if it wasn’t for you.”

  What began as innocent favors had ended in hundreds of prescriptions for powerful narcotics and for phenylephrine-containing sinus drugs that could be modified to make crystal meth, the hottest party drug at UVa. Initially, the threat of a lawsuit kept Henry compliant. Later, it was the threat of exposure. Last week, Henry made some tough choices. He told Jesse it was over. Certainly Anders would have the sense not to risk incriminating himself by exposing Henry.

  But he’d underestimated Anders. When Henry tried to pull away, Anders threatened him. Now, everything seemed to be spiraling into a violence way beyond Henry’s control.