All Things Considered

by A B Plum

“My lips are sealed.” She sipped the chilled liquid, surprised by the decrease of the cotton sensation in her mouth. Suddenly teary-eyed, she tilted the bottle toward Elijah. “This was a good idea. Thank you, Elijah.”

  Dr. Alicia Sanchez’s nurse ushered Ryn to an exam room as soon as Elijah gave her name to the receptionist. He took a seat, speaking to one of the waiting women. A few seconds later, Ryn climbed onto an exam table and squeezed her eyes shut against a sudden image of Stone on the medical examiner’s autopsy table. Voice tinny and weak, she confirmed the information Susan had forwarded. She opened her eyes. No image of Stone. She reported the nightmares and hallucinations as if talking about someone else.

  Alicia spoke in a soft, reassuring voice influenced by a Mexican sing-song cadence. “You have, in addition to the fibroids, at least one uterine lesion. It is aggravated by the fibroids.” She kept her hand on Ryn’s leg as she talked, maintaining eye contact as if they were best friends. “The lesion does not heal because your increased estrogen output is causing the fibroids to grow. Which, in turn, causes your heavy bleeding. And, I suspect, contributes to the hallucinations.”

  “I had a D and C about six months ago.” Three months after Lavender died and Stone insisted Ryn take better care of herself. Obsessed she might have a car accident like his mother, he ordered her to go to Esperanza house each morning in one of the limos. Depressed from their arguing, she capitulated on the car and on the D and C with Stone accompanying her.

  “This will hurt,” Alicia Sanchez said, jerking Ryn back to the exam room. The diminutive doctor faced Ryn with a syringe that looked four feet long.

  “Anyone ever tell you that you look like Nurse Ratchett?” Ryn lay on the hard examining table, staring at the ceiling photo of a fuzzy white cat and wishing she’d never seen the needle. Was Alicia right about the hallucinations? Could the super heavy bleeding—along with the extra stress—be their cause? Could a few vitamins make her feel like a human being again?

  “You can scream if you want.” Alicia rolled Ryn to her left side and pinched Ryn’s butt. “The Provera by mouth ought to slow the bleeding by this afternoon. The Vitamin B12 injection will give you a little energy, and paradoxically, help you sleep.”

  The sharp needle bit Ryn’s skin with the force of a sledge hammer. Hot tears ran down her cheeks as Alicia’s strong fingers rubbed the spot .

  “Sure you don’t want to cuss—or something?” Alicia slapped a Band-Aid over the injection site. “Call me if the bleeding’s no better tomorrow morning. I’ll save my breath prescribing as much rest as possible.”

  Ryn nodded and winced as she slid off the table. “Since I have the energy of a throw rug, I may take that advice.”

  When Ryn entered the waiting room, Elijah rose and smiled. For a second, she fantasized asking him to carry her to the elevator. Her hip throbbed with each step she took.

  In the hall, he asked, “Why are you limping?”

  “I had a Vitamin B shot. Think I should get my teeth cleaned tomorrow?”

  Elijah looked as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to share an elevator with her.

  “You know? In case I end up in jail the next couple of days? You’ve got to take care of your teeth no matter what, right?”

  “What kind of vitamin shot did you say you had?” He punched the button for the parking garage.

  Chapter 19

  Ryn woke at three-ten Monday morning, went to the bathroom, and fought tears. Finally. Finally. Finally. No blood stains on the sheets. She dabbed at the tears trickling down her cheeks. Should she call Susan and tell her good news?

  At three in the morning? She snickered, sitting there a few seconds longer enjoying the moment but still wishing she could share her good news.

  She’ll enjoy the news more if she’s awake. Smiling, Ryn padded back to bed and celebrated feeling so good with a kiss on Maj’s head. Maj grumbled, but they both snuggled under the blankets and went back to sleep. When Ryn opened her eyes again three hours later, sunshine filtered through a slit in the blinds.

  Ryn rolled over. Yesss. The sheets were clean. She didn’t skip out of the bedroom, but she had a spring in her step walking to the kitchen to fix Maj’s breakfast. Aware she could set the cat food on the floor without her head or the room spinning, she said, “Damn, Maj, maybe I need another Vitamin B12 shot.”

  Maj offered no opinion and Ryn didn’t press the point. She yawned. She hadn’t slept so well in recent memory. She glanced at the clock—not yet eight. She’d repay Elijah by waiting to call. In the meantime, she’d wash yesterday’s soiled sheets and clothes.

  The task took a while because, in Beverly Hills, Astrid made all the laundry and house cleaning assignments. God, I am spoiled.

  Back in the kitchen, Ryn opened the fridge, removed milk, eggs, butter, and English muffins. Surely, she could scramble eggs. If she created a gastronomical mess, she’d revert to cereal—not oatmeal, but cold cereal. No matter what, she wouldn’t starve. Her confidence spiked. I can do this.

  Her egg was rubbery, but the toasted English muffin was crisp. She washed both buttery sides down with a tall glass of milk—a drink Stone had abhorred.

  Why did I let his likes and dislikes dictate what I drank? She poured another glass of milk. Had Stone dictated his edicts to the wrong person? Had that person, unlike her, reacted violently? Entering the alarmed house meant the murderer must be someone who knew the security code?

  Not Rip and Repeat. They stood in awe of Stone. They credited him with their every financial success.

  Not Beau. First, he loved Stone. Never failed to swear Stone saved him from a life of drugs. Second, Beau wasn’t allowed to have the code.

  Ruling out the household staff left Amber. She also loved Stone and believed he’d one day ditch Ryn and beg Amber to take him back.

  He might’ve ditched me, but he’d never have gone back to her. Ryn finished the milk, took her dishes to the sink, and rinsed them under running water. Did Amber even have the security code? If she didn’t—and why would she have it?— did she know how to disarm the alarm? Did she have the balls to risk coming into the house with Ryn’s nocturnal comings and goings so well known?

  But … most important, why would she kill Stone?

  He was her meal ticket. And her ride to fame. She loved the fawning fans. The bright lights. As an integral part of The Stoned Gang, Amber viewed herself a Somebody. She’d come up from being a Nobody and preferred adulation to anonymity.

  Such an objective judgment. Ryn locked her jaw and stacked the dishes in the dishwasher with a lot of clatter to clear her thoughts. Under the best of circumstances, she disliked Amber. Detested, you mean.

  Present circumstances fell far below best. Ryn had to admit she hadn’t been thinking logically for a long time—certainly not since Lavender’s death. Now, she was barely holding on to believing in her own innocence. She was in no position to accuse Amber or anyone else of Stone’s murder.

  Normally, Ryn went for a run when she fell into her thinking hole as Stone used to say. She imagined Alicia Sanchez whispering, Rest. Take it easy.

  Feeling too wired to sit around waiting to call Elijah, she decided on a restful walk. Most of the village stores didn’t open until ten so she could even walk downtown.

  At the last minute, she drove to Palo Alto, making it less likely she’d bail on her appointment with Comfrey. She parked and started walking on California Avenue toward the train station. In the distance, the train’s lonely whistle warned of its approach. A guy with a briefcase and phone in hand hustled past her, and she turned a corner to explore a side street.

  An hour later, eyes squinted, Ryn stifled a yawn and looked at her reflection in the wall of mirrors opposite her. She now had about as much hair on her head as an onion.

  “You like?” The middle-aged Vietnamese barber didn’t know her from Eve.

  “Very much.” Stone had always told her she was too tall for short hair. Like she stood seven-feet tall at least.

 
“Pretty different,” the barber said.

  “I like it.” She’d wanted a different look and she got a different look. She tilted her head from side to side. In the wrong light, she might not recognize herself.

  “Hair grow very fast,” the barber stated, positioning a hand mirror so she could see her bare neck. “Not for couple of days, though.”

  As she stretched her neck, the barber whisked the soft, talcum-scented brush around her collar. When he unfastened the white cape, swinging it out away from her, Ryn had a sudden flash of her first haircut in Stockton.

  Fantasize something positive for a change. Like you’re not hemorrhaging.

  Ryn smiled at the little barber. The haircut was a good way to start the week. Five hours of uninterrupted sleep Sunday night, plus the three-hour nap this morning. The bleeding under control. Energy to burn.

  With the best yet to come—a two-hour appointment with Comfrey.

  She pinched her nose to hold back her snort. Behind the old-fashioned barber chair, a mound of red ringlets lay on the black-and-white vinyl-tiled floor. She pushed the few curls left straight back from her forehead. She tipped the barber twelve dollars on the eight he charged.

  His black eyes rounded and he sucked in his breath. Stupid, stupid, Ryn cursed in silence. If she really wanted anonymity, she should’ve dyed her hair first and then come in for a haircut and left a five-dollar tip. The twelve dollars she gave the barber equaled a tenth of what she left for Jean Paul, her regular Beverly Hills stylist. She had pretty much guaranteed the barber would remember her till he was ninety.

  Or for the next week or month when he sees me on the TV news.

  Bowing and thanking her all the way to the door, the short, wiry man accompanied her to the sidewalk, waving as she sailed past the rental car and turned the corner. She had exactly seventeen minutes to reach Comfrey’s office three miles away, find a parking place, and sit in Comfrey’s hot seat.

  Being late, she rationalized, took its place behind the barber watching her get in the Camry. The logic part of her brain acknowledged her paranoia. The survival part knew it would only be a matter of time before some hot-shot reporter found the barber and got a good description of her short hair to the ten o’clock news.

  She waited five minutes and then retraced her steps to the car, baseball cap pulled low over her eyes. She slid across the front seat. If she whipped a U-turn—

  Too much traffic, logic warned.

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. With her luck, one of Palo Alto’s finest would materialize—blue and red light whirling around like giant gumballs while the sirens blared loud enough to bring the barber back into the street. One cop would run a computer check on her while the other told her to step out of the car. Jericho would have some cryptic code in the database which, to a cop, would mean she was a cold-blooded murderer with no redeeming social qualities. A roving TV reporter would drop out of the sky and start interviewing the citizens in the street. Her little barber would take in the whole scene like a sponge soaking up dirty water.

  In her head, Ryn listened to the noon news lead-in. Stone Wall’s Lover’s Lair Discovered.

  The rubber band across her chest tightened, and she loosened her white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel as she pulled out of the parking place. “For god’s sake,” she muttered, “you should write for the soaps.”

  No policeman lay in wait for her to screw up. Nor was the Vietnamese barber calling the nearest TV station with a scoop. Who did she think she was?

  OJ?

  The driver behind her tapped his horn, and she waved in apology—accelerating through the green light. She needed to focus on what to say to Comfrey. In some ways, sitting across from him was worse than sitting across from a media vampire.

  Today, Comfrey had wrapped a heather-gray scarf around his giraffe neck. His green spiral notebook lay open on his desk. A frame on Ryn’s mental TV flickered and faded. A little shiver crashed down her back as Comfrey stood.

  His leather chair sighed as he pushed it back from his desk. He bounced up and down on the balls of his feet. How much taller than him was she? She removed her baseball cap and shook her head. Comfrey opened and then closed his mouth.

  “I took time for a haircut. Do I get a black mark for being late?” she asked, aware her early-morning euphoria had turned hostile.

  “Not at all. You get charged the same as if you were on time.” Comfrey’s voice was still hoarse, and his black eyes averted glancing at her hair. He sat down and uncapped his burgundy pen without breaking eye contact.

  “I’m surprised you don’t charge me double.”

  “That would be unprofessional.”

  “Now that you mention being professional, I have a few questions.”

  Comfrey’s skinny black brows went up a fraction of an inch.

  Eyes steady, Ryn stared at him, aware of the tension coiled like a snake in the pit of her stomach. Did Provera increase your testosterone level? Or was its effects wearing off and foreshadowing a new round of bleeding? Why was she standing with hands clenched, teeth bared, itching for a fight?

  “Is smoke coming out my ears yet?” She sank into the wing chair opposite Comfrey’s desk.

  He chuckled. “Not yet. But a couple of those daggers in your eyes came pretty close to my heart.”

  “I—uh, I’m sorry.

  “How much did you sleep this weekend—Friday through last night?” Comfrey recapped his pen, holding it between the thumbs and forefingers of both hands.

  “About twelve, fourteen hours total. Five last night. Three this morning.” She shrugged. “Lack of sleep … that’s not the problem.”

  “What is the problem, Ryn? You’re extremely tense. And aggressive—”

  “How calm and docile would you be if you were the prime suspect in the murder of your lover?” Her voice rose too high. She swallowed before continuing, “Would you sleep like a baby?”

  “You informed me on Friday you hadn’t been sleeping well for six months before Stone was killed.”

  His slow, reasonable, logical tone hit a new nerve. She exploded. “That’s what I’m telling you, Doc. Four hours of continuous sleep a night is all I need. I’ve never slept more—except once when I was in my early thirties and got really sick with the flu.”

  “Do you know what sleep deprivation is?” Comfrey made a tent with his two index fingers.

  “Do I need more than a master’s degree in computer science from Cal to figure that out?” Ryn swung her crossed right leg back and forth in a wider and wider arc.

  “I’m not being condescending.” Comfrey laid his hands flat on the desk and held her gaze again. “Sleep isn’t like money in the bank. You can’t overdraw your account and then make it up with one or two big deposits. Contrary to popular belief, lost sleep can never really be replaced. Unless you’re a regular mid-day napper, it is highly unlikely you can function indefinitely on four hours of sleep a night.”

  “How do you define function?” She stared at an indecipherable ink drawing over his shoulder, sat up straighter, and planted her feet on his green Chinese carpet. “I can bathe, dress, and feed myself.” As if talking to a deaf man, she raised her voice. “I can also drive a car, find where I parked it in a shopping mall, and do arithmetic in my head.” She paused. “I can—as the cliché goes—even walk and chew gum at the same time.”

  “Yet you slept through two gunshots that killed your lover.”

  Ryn’s fingers twitched with the impulse to slap him—even though his bloodhound face didn’t look smug or triumphant.

  He waited through two exhales through her mouth before saying, “I’m not your adversary, Ryn. I don’t intend to put you on the rack and sift through the secrets in your mind.” He smiled and the skin crinkled around his dark eyes. “I’m interested in your brain.”

  “Stone used to tell me I was too damned smart for my own damned good.”

  Comfrey refused to take the bait. His hound-dog face remained serious. “Forget everything you’ve
ever heard about Franklin, Edison, and Einstein. Four hours of sleep each night is not normal. I think, in your case, we’ll find a neurological cause—if we can cooperate.”

  “What about a physical cause—specifically menstrual abnormalities?”

  “Many women report sleeping problems related to their periods or to menopause. But a sleeping problem is not the same as a sleeping disorder.”

  He sounds like a pissy professor. “How long will this take?”

  “I want to review all your medical records. Rule out underlying physical illnesses, review diet, prescription drugs, recreation—”

  “I don’t do drugs. Not even aspirin.” Does he know about the melatonin?

  “How about alcohol? Ever drink wine with lunch or dinner?”

  Ryn nodded. “Dinner. Two glasses max. Always with food.”

  “Recreational drugs like alcohol, specifically, can upset both the quantity and quality of sleep. I include nicotine and caffeine in the same category. Chocolate—”

  “I don’t eat choco—” Ryn stopped. Why in the hell was she lying? She’d come to Comfrey for help. Which she wouldn’t get if she lied. Pursing her lips, she said, “I don’t eat chocolate. I inhale it.”

  Comfrey grinned and his hound-dog face lit up. “That’s the kind of data I need.” He pushed his cuff up and looked at his Rolex. “We have enough time for me to take a sleep history. We’ll make an appointment for you to spend tomorrow night in the lab—unless you want to wait.”

  Ryn’s heart slammed against her ribs and then dropped like an elevator with broken cables. Sweat dotted her palms. Having someone monitor her sleep— What if she had her Black Beauty nightmare? Comfrey could change his mind about her mental state.

  “What about reviewing my records first?”

  “I’ll request your doctors email their records. I’ll review them tonight.”

  Check and checkmate. Outmaneuvered, Ryn wet her lips. “Okay. Ask your questions.”

  The next hour flew too fast for Ryn to manipulate the questions. When Comfrey finished, he took her to the front desk to make the appointment in the sleep lab.