Dying to Remember

by Glen Apseloff

  He opened the envelope and took out a folded sheet of typing paper. Something about it sent a shiver down his spine.

  He unfolded it, and bold, black letters jumped off the page. Capital letters—the same handwriting as the address.

  YOU STILL OWE ME $10,000. DEPOSIT IT BY NOON SATURDAY.

  Unsigned.

  The implications of the letter were clear. He owed somebody a chunk of money, and that person expected to be paid. But who, and why? Had he lost a bet on the New England Patriots? It wouldn’t be the first time, but nobody had ever notified him via an anonymous letter. Burt, the bookie from the gym, would never do something like that. Any reasonable bookie would just call him. Besides, they always dealt with cash in hand, not bank deposits. And his bets were never that large. At least, almost never. The World Series—once—and last year’s Super Bowl. But those were exceptions.

  What debt could be worth more than $10,000? Nothing that Barnes could recall. Obviously whoever wrote the letter didn’t want to be implicated in the transaction. Yet that person had assumed Barnes would know what the note pertained to.

  He had no clue.

  He tried to concentrate, to summon memories buried in his subconscious from the days before his trip to Toronto. Some people claim to be able to remember events from a previous life, from hundreds of years ago. If they can do that, it shouldn’t be asking too much for him to remember back one or two months.

  He concentrated on recalling events that must have taken place. Saying good-bye to Elizabeth. Packing for the conference. Thinking about packing for the conference. Nothing registered.

  Then another thought dawned on him. He got out his checkbooks—four, counting a joint money market account—and looked for large withdrawals. If he still owed someone $10,000, that meant he’d made some sort of previous payment.

  He flipped through all the pages. Nothing unusual. Nothing that could explain the anonymous note.

  He tried to remember sporting events, games he may have bet on in the past couple of months—football, hockey, even golf. Instead, his mind formed the image of a cup of urine and, beside it, Elizabeth’s positive pregnancy test.

  He’d been furious about that. Why, he wasn’t sure. Nor could he recall what had happened next. He’d never wanted children, but now the thought of having a baby with her seemed not only acceptable but appealing. A child would be a part of her. A part of both of them. It didn’t make sense that he would react with rage.

  At that moment the doorbell rang, interrupting his thoughts. He walked to the foyer and peered through the peephole. Two middle-aged men in overcoats stood outside, one stocky, the other tall. Both strangers.

  “Open the door, Dr. Barnes,” the stocky one ordered. “We see you looking through the hole.”

  Why were they demanding that? Did he owe them money? “Who are you?”

  “Detectives Wright and Gould,” said the other one, taking out a badge and holding it up to the peephole. “We interviewed you when you came off the plane from Toronto. We’d like to ask you a few more questions about your wife.”

  Elizabeth? In his confusion over the uninvited visitors, he’d forgotten everything about her. He also forgot about the note in his hand. He opened the door. “Come in.”

  They quickly stepped inside, and he closed the door behind them.

  “You don’t mind if we sit down for a few minutes,” the taller one said, stamping his feet and unbuttoning his coat.

  “Is Elizabeth all right?”

  The two officers exchanged glances; then the taller one said, “Let’s sit down.”

  Barnes suddenly noticed the letter in his hand—some sort of threat or maybe a ransom note. He folded it quickly and shoved it into his back pocket. Leading the men into the house, he glanced at his watch and noticed the inscription—Examinez votre poche droite. He reached into his right front pants pocket and retrieved a folded-up sheet of paper, but before he could open it, they’d entered the family room where he was taking them. The stocky policeman plopped down on the couch with his partner, while Barnes sat in a chair.

  “Dr. Barnes,” said the stocky one, “what do you remember about your wife?”

  What kind of question was that? “She’s an orthopedic surgeon,” he said. “Has something happened to her?” He finished unfolding the paper.

  “Is that a list of things to do?” asked the tall officer.

  Barnes glanced at it, and the first item jumped out at him: Elizabeth murdered on 11/26. He recalled that now, or at least he thought he did. How could he ever have forgotten? “Elizabeth was murdered,” he managed to say.

  “That’s right,” said the stocky cop.

  “You don’t remember us, do you, Dr. Barnes?” asked the other one.

  Elizabeth was murdered. “No.”

  “We met yesterday,” said the stocky one. “You remember anything from yesterday?”

  They must already know his mind was a sieve. “No,” he said. “I don’t remember much of anything since . . . maybe the end of November.” His Toronto conference had taken place then.

  “I’m Detective Wright,” said the taller cop, “and this is Detective Gould. We’re from homicide. What was that letter you put in your back pocket?”

  He had no clue what they were talking about, but he reached back and put his hand in the pocket. Sure enough—a folded sheet of paper. He unfolded it but not in a way that let the detectives see what had been written on it. Then he remembered—someone was demanding money from him. That couldn’t be good. He folded the paper again and put it back in his pocket. “It’s personal.”

  “People write letters to you in black magic marker?” asked Detective Gould.

  “I said it’s personal.” He looked at his notes but saw no mention of it there.

  “We’re here to help,” said Detective Wright. “If you don’t want to show it to us, you don’t have to.” Then he changed the subject and asked whether Barnes was having any problems settling in and adjusting under the circumstances.

  Barnes wondered whether the man was just biding time, waiting for him to forget about the letter so they could ask to see it again.

  In your back pocket is a letter demanding ten thousand dollars, he said to himself, hoping the silent words would help him remember. Keep it there until they leave.

  But remembering the note while carrying on an unrelated conversation was a lot to expect.

  “Are you getting any counseling?” asked Detective Wright.

  In your back pocket is a letter demanding ten thousand dollars. “I don’t know.” Barnes added a hasty note to his list: Letter in back pocket.

  “Why don’t you put that away and just talk to us?” Wright suggested.

  “I don’t think so.” As he read through his notes, Wright and Gould exchanged glances. “I keep notes on everything,” he said, “including my meeting now with you.” He jotted that down.

  “How about sharing that with us?” asked Gould. “It might help us solve your wife’s murder. You want to help with that, don’t you?”

  Barnes didn’t dignify the question with a response. He kept reading and came across an entry about Denny Houston’s place being broken into. That he could share with them. “Dr. Houston, a colleague, told me that his house in Weston was vandalized the night Elizabeth died.”

  Wright took out a notepad and jotted down the information. “Was anyone arrested?”

  “No, not that I’m aware of. I imagine you’ll want to call the Weston police.”

  “Obviously,” said Gould.

  “What’s your colleague’s address?” asked Wright.

  Barnes gave it to him.

  “I’m surprised we haven’t heard about this from the Weston police. Communications are usually better than that. Tell me, Dr. Barnes, what exactly is your connection with this Dr. Houston? Is he a surgeon, too?”

  “Yeah, the second best surgeon in the hospital. He and I also do research together.”

  “What kind of research?”
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br />   “We’re working on a way to make coronary-artery bypass grafts last longer.”

  Wright took more notes. “What do you mean ‘last longer’?”

  “They get clogged in about a tenth the time it takes to fill up your original arteries with plaque. If we can come up with a way to make them last as long as the original blood vessels, then people won’t need repeat surgery or angioplasty five or ten years down the road.”

  Wright nodded. “That makes sense. Can you think of any reason why someone wouldn’t want you to conduct this research?”

  “No. This is one of those things you’d think everyone would want. Like a cure for cancer. Who wouldn’t want that?”

  “Maybe the cancer doctors,” offered Gould, “if it cuts into their profits.”

  Barnes said nothing.

  “Who would benefit from stopping Elizabeth’s research?” asked Wright.

  “Nobody,” Barnes said. “It’s already done.”

  Wright and Gould looked at each other, as if deciding what to do next. Then Wright stood up. Gould followed suit.

  “We’ll check these things out,” offered Wright. “We don’t need any more of your time right now. You’ve been very helpful.” He took out a business card. “We gave you our cards yesterday, but here’s another in case you misplaced them. Give us a call if you think of anything else. Don’t just write it down on your list. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Barnes took the card, then walked them to the door.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” said Wright, his hand on the doorknob. He turned to face Barnes. “You were going to show us that letter.”

  “What letter?” He wouldn’t have been surprised if he had a pile of about a thousand of them.

  “In your back pocket. You said you wanted to show it to us.”

  He didn’t recall putting anything there. He reached inside. The detective was right—a folded sheet of paper. He began to open it. A single page with large black letters from a felt-tipped pen. When he saw the lettering, he visualized the note, and the memory of what it said returned in a flash.

  He refolded the page. “It’s personal.” Putting it back in his pocket, he opened the door for them. “Thanks for stopping by.”

  “Almost,” Wright said to Gould as they walked from Barnes’s house to their car.

  “We should’ve just taken it,” said Gould. “By the time he got around to filing a complaint, he wouldn’t have a clue what it was about.”

  Wright resisted telling his partner how much he’d wanted to do just that. “It would be thrown out of court,” he replied instead. “An illegal seizure isn’t going to do us any good.”

  “Then we should’ve just looked at it and gave it back. I’d bet my left foot it had something to do with the murder.”

  “Which one?”

  “Which murder?”

  “No. Which left foot?”

  “Very funny. I think there was a dollar figure on that letter.”

  “I didn’t see it.” They had reached the car, and Wright walked around to the driver’s side.

  “We’ll get him,” said Gould. “It’s just a matter of time.”

  “If he did it,” added Wright.

  They got into the car. Wright started the engine and pulled out into rush-hour traffic.

  “You think there’s any connection with his pal Houston?” asked Gould.

  “Most likely.” But Wright doubted it was anything direct or simple. High-profile murder cases are usually more complicated than they appear. “Or it’s possible somebody just wants us to think there is,” he said. “Hard to tell.”

  “Maybe we should lean on him, too.”

  “Yeah, we’ll do that. In the meantime, we’ll wait to see if the phone tap turns up anything. It’s just a matter of time before we know everything Dr. Barnes does. He’s always writing notes to himself. Sooner or later most of them will end up in the trash, and then they’ll be ours. We’ll figure things out soon enough.”

  “Yeah . . . Kinda spooky how he didn’t even recognize us. The guy must be really gorked out.”

  Wright stopped the car at a red light. “I don’t think that’s the medical term,” he said, “but Dr. Barnes has a real problem. For his sake I hope it isn’t permanent.”

  “That would suck big time.”

  Wright edged the car forward. “That’s an understatement.”

  Chapter 39

  Karen Wright’s last class ended at 3:30 p.m., leaving her plenty of time to prepare dinner for herself and Gordon. She liked to cook, even though friends teased her about being too domestic. The only thing she didn’t like was having to reach for things. Much of the kitchen wasn’t accessible to people who couldn’t stand up, and she needed to resort to a specially designed retriever to get items from all but a couple of the cabinets. The retriever was a metal pole with a pistol grip at one end and a clawlike hand at the other. Rubber covered the claw so that glass and other slippery objects would be less likely to fall through its grasp, but over the years, she’d dropped and shattered more than a few jars and bottles.

  Karen had just finished cooking—Italian—when Gordon walked through the door.

  “Something smells good,” he said, hanging his coat on the peg near the door and petting Lizzy, who had hobbled over to him and was wagging her stump. She’d survived her trip to the veterinarian and had returned with only one paw bandaged, wrapped in gauze and a rubber material that would protect it from being chewed. Fortunately the paw showed no signs of being infected, just a small cyst that needed time to heal.

  “Italian?” he guessed, entering the hot room redolent of garlic and oregano. Pots, pans, trays, and dishes covered much of the counter space.

  Karen gazed up at him from her wheelchair. “That’s right. Is that why they made you detective—your incredible deductive skills?”

  He bent down and kissed her on the lips. Even spattered with spaghetti sauce and sweating from the kitchen heat, she looked beautiful. He wanted to pick her up and hold her, but that always irritated her, being treated like a child or, worse, an object, albeit the object of his affections. So he settled for a long kiss.

  “How was your day?” he asked.

  “The usual. Nothing exciting. How about yours?”

  “Interesting. The Barnes case is getting more complicated. Just when I think it’s going to stall, something else turns up. But it’s never anything that can break the case. Just bits and pieces that don’t seem to tie anything together.”

  Karen opened the oven and reached in with two pot holders, leaning forward in her chair. “Well, isn’t that usually the way these things work?” She picked up a pan of lasagna and put it on top of the stove, then closed the oven door and turned off the heat.

  “Yeah, you’ve got that right. You know, I’m pretty sure Barnes still believes he’s innocent, but I get the feeling he’s holding out.” Wright shoved his hands into pot-holder mittens and carried the lasagna to the table while Karen wheeled herself to the refrigerator to retrieve a salad.

  “Did he tell you anything?” asked Karen.

  “Well, he told us the house of a colleague of his was broken into. Turns out it was the same MO. Most likely the same perp, but I don’t know that it’ll lead us anywhere except further astray. I read the report from the Weston police. No fingerprints, footprints, or any other material. Nothing.”

  “But the report must tell you something.”

  “Yeah, that more than one house was broken into that night. Assuming it was the same perp, either there’s a connection between Dr. Barnes and Dr. Houston, or somebody wants us to think there is, in which case there really isn’t one at all. I’ll talk to Dr. Houston again tomorrow to see if he can tell us anything else. I wonder why he didn’t mention the break-in when we talked to him last month.”

  “Unless maybe he didn’t want you to know.”

  “Maybe. The fact is we should have known. It’s bizarre that this could happen just down the road and we’re not informed. Talk about
poor communication!” He went to the refrigerator for salad dressing. “And I get the feeling Dr. Barnes is more interested in trying to figure this out than in helping us. I don’t understand that.”

  “I do. He needs to do things for himself.”

  “You mean he really thinks he can solve this case on his own?”

  “It’s not a matter of thinking he can,” said Karen. “It’s a matter of needing to. He has to empower himself. He has to do something on his own that shows him he’s capable of overcoming this challenge. If he can’t do that, then he can’t begin to recover. It’s like when I went up the ramp to get into the apartment the day I came home from the hospital. I wouldn’t let you help me up the incline. It was a simple thing for you, but for me it was a challenge and I had to do it myself, for my own self-esteem. Dr. Barnes isn’t any different. He probably sees solving the case as a way of redeeming himself. If you do it, he’s going to feel impotent.” She wheeled herself up to the table and transferred herself to one of the dining-room chairs. “Doesn’t that make sense?” She put a napkin in her lap.

  “No.” Wright served salad to Karen and himself while she cut the lasagna. Lizzy stood nearby. Wright refrained from adding that whatever Barnes felt the need to do, clearly exceeded his ability to do it. Wright had sometimes felt that way about Karen. He didn’t understand why she wouldn’t let him help her more.

  “What do you mean ‘no’?” she said.

  “I mean his wife’s been murdered, and he should do whatever he can to help Marty and me crack the case. Anything else is counterproductive. Investigating homicides is what we do, and we’re damn good at it. Having a heart surgeon try to solve a murder doesn’t make any more sense than having a homicide detective put in one of those heartbeat-regulator things.”

  “A pacemaker?”

  “Yeah, a pacemaker. People should stick to what they know, and Barnes doesn’t know anything about investigative work.”

  “Does Marty have any ideas?”

  “Not really.” Gould wasn’t much of an idea man.