Behind The Pines

by Lauren Brown

  “Doctor Livingston.” He stood abruptly from the table and came nose-to-nose with me. I gagged at the smell of cigarettes. “You’re making a huge mistake,” he said.

  “No, I’m not. I’ve had enough of this. I have other patients to tend to. Go home and sober up.”

  He reached into his pocket with shaky hands and shoved the cash into my chest.

  I was about to say I would see him in two months but hesitated. I didn’t know if I would actually see him again in two months. The thought of ending the deal with the Bear had become a daily theme. The encounter with Martin had agitated me to the point that I considered this even more.

  I opened the door without saying goodbye.

  “You can change your mind,” he whispered before leaving the room.

  I didn’t respond.

  By afternoon, I was more than ready to leave the office. The day had been a long one, and I wanted nothing more than to go home and be with Hope. Just as I was about to leave the office, my phone rang.

  The phone number displayed on the screen was foreign to me, so I decided to answer.

  “This is Dr. Livingston.”

  “Hi, John.”

  It was his voice. I glanced at the door, afraid that the nurses would hear. I turned into the phone and whispered, “What is it?”

  “Well, first, I wanted to congratulate you on your success. I just got off the phone with my guy in Rio, and they are quite impressed with your efforts. And trust me, this is great news.” His voice was canny. He went on, “Secondly, I would like to ask you for a favor. Now, I know you’re a busy man and Hope will be waiting for you, but this is a one-time favor, nothing more.”

  “Before you start asking me to do you favors, I just want to say that I had a patient, Martin Murray, come in today begging me for Adderall. He told me you were demanding I write a script for it. I didn’t sign up for amphetamines. I said I’d sign for pain pills and that’s it.”

  “Ugh, Martin Murray. Yes. I know him. He’s really a nasty guy, like a rat in the sewers. He’s cracked out on so much stuff that it’s almost hard to believe.”

  “Did you send him in?”

  “No, no. He’s just using you. That’s what he does.”

  “Well, it pissed me off. I agreed to pain killers and that’s it. Either Martin Murray is out of this business all together or I’m pulling out early.” My tone was fierce.

  “Okay, okay. I can’t have my best doctor backing out. Look, Martin and Rick know each other. I’ll tell Rick to tell him to cut it out. Now, please, I need you to help me on something.”

  “What kind of favor?” I asked, leery of his tone.

  “Normally, I would deal with the matter at hand myself, but I have a very important dinner party at the club to attend with my wife, and, as you know, doing business behind the wife’s back is a complex one. I just need you to retrieve an envelope with money from a mailbox. I don’t trust anyone else to pick it up for me.”

  “Trust me to do what? Retrieve money for you from someone I don’t know?” The irritation from my encounter with Mr. Murray was apparent in my words.

  “Yes, exactly. I’ll need you to go to his house. Don’t worry, he’s a dependable guy, and he’ll be expecting you. But you won’t even have to see him, you’ll just simply open his mailbox and obtain an envelope addressed to me. I’ll have Rick pick it up from you tomorrow. I would have Rick do it, but he’s busy tonight.”

  “You want me to go to this guy’s house?”

  “Yes. It would help me out greatly. It’s not far from yours.”

  “How do you know where I live?”

  “I know where everyone lives,” he said. “Look,” he continued, “I’m on a timeline and desperate for your help. How about I add ten thousand dollars to the deal if you do this for me?”

  The money, as always, was tempting. “Ten thousand dollars?” I questioned. That was a lot of money.

  “Yes. Ten thousand. That’s how serious this envelope is. Look, John, you’re a good man. I know it’s hard for you to say no. I really need your help on this.”

  I thought back to my encounter with Mr. Murray earlier. I had been able to tell him no. I was just about to tell the Bear no when he interrupted me.

  “It’s 608 Dodd Lane. Past the power lines. The house sits at the end of a long road, and there aren’t many lights, but you shouldn’t have a problem finding it.”

  I wanted to say, “Isn’t writing fake prescriptions for you enough?” but I didn’t. For some reason, I felt like I had to do whatever he asked of me and, as much as I despised the idea of doing any more favors for him, I wasn’t in the mood to argue.

  “Fine, but only this one time,” I groaned, grabbing a notepad to write down the address.

  I sensed a smile on the other end of the line.

  “John, this is such a help, it’ll all pay off. I sincerely thank you.”

  I hung up the phone. I was angry with myself for giving into him yet again, but I reasoned that if someone owed him money, in a way they owed me too. I finished packing up my things and walked to my truck. Dodd Lane was about twenty minutes from the office, and if I was just picking up an envelope then I knew I would be home in time so as to not raise any questions from Hope; questions that had answers but lacked logical explanation.

  As the sun was setting, I turned behind a rundown strip mall. I was only vaguely familiar with this area of town.

  I drove around the back of the building then down a street, passing a few rundown mobile homes. The streets lacked lights, so seeing the names grew harder as the evening sky grew darker. Eventually, I saw a small gravel road with a street sign labeled Dodd Lane.

  The road was long and went farther back into the woods than I expected. I had never known that these roads behind the strip mall existed. I was beginning to wonder if I was on the right road when I made out a dim light coming from what looked like a house in the distance. I assumed the mailbox had to be close.

  I pulled up to the metal mailbox, trying to ignore the unnerving looking house in the distance. There was one large window next to a small landing or porch. I could make out a person in the window sitting in a chair. I opened the mailbox to retrieve the envelope but didn’t see one. It was completely dark now. I felt around to the back of the box with my hand and felt nothing, and I can remember thinking, I must be at the wrong address, right as I heard yelling from the house. I looked up and saw that another person had joined the room. He was towering over the person in the chair. I strained my eyes to see when suddenly there was another shout of something I couldn’t make out followed by a loud gunshot. I immediately panicked and threw my truck into reverse, spewing gravel in all directions. There was another gunshot from what sounded like a revolver.

  My first thought was that I had gone to the wrong house and the owner was trying to warn me to get off his property. But in that brief moment I was reversing, I had looked at the window of the house and saw that half of it was completely covered in blood. A square man had come into view in a mask that I couldn’t clearly see since the sun had completely disappeared. But from a distance, it looked like the man had the head of an animal. There was another blistering gunshot.

  My window was still down from looking in the mailbox, and I could have sworn I heard the man in the mask yell something. But by that point, I was already speeding down the road away from the house.

  I pulled into the strip mall and parked under the lights. I closed my eyes. My body juddered vigorously as sweat poured down my back. The body does strange things when it encounters something horrible like that. When you witness a murder, your brain goes into a state of shock, and you sort of lose the details. Maybe it’s the way the human brain copes, like a brief amnesia. Because in the parking lot that night, and I tell you the complete truth, I could not remember what I had just seen. I closed my eyes and couldn’t recall any of the facts but could only feel that something terrible had just happened. It felt as if I had been in a nightmare, a terribly frighten
ing dream in which I had just seen a wild, vicious animal and had run for my life to escape it.

  That night I laid in Hope’s arms breathing heavily. I couldn’t sleep, and she knew this.

  “I love you,” she said through a yawn, turning over. “Try to get some sleep.”

  But I couldn’t. I wanted to tell her my secrets, that I had seen something terrible but couldn’t quite explain exactly what I had seen, that I was scared and confused, but I couldn’t bring myself to wake her.

  I thought about our wedding. How it had been a small but special event with her immediate family and a few of my friends. I kissed her beside the Tennessee River and promised to take care of her through sickness and health. But I had lied. I wasn’t taking care of her.

  The crack of the gunshot rang in my ears all night. I tossed and turned for hours, debating with myself whether I should end the deal and get out before Christmas. I only had four more weeks, but everything had become overbearing, too stressful. I mean, yes, the Bear had offered to pay me a great sum of money, but in the end was it even worth it?

  I had to convince myself that he was nothing but a man, that he had no control over me, yet for some reason I just couldn’t believe it. My confidence had slowly been diminished. I felt as if he commanded me to breathe, to work, to live.

  I had agreed to work for him through December, and then I would be able to go back to living my life if I chose to do so. But why should I wait? I hadn’t signed my name in blood. In all honesty, I owed the man nothing.

  Early the next morning, I groggily walked into the office. I could feel the bags under my eyes weighing down my face. I had fallen asleep for maybe one hour and awoken soon after in a cold sweat. I was running behind and was in desperate need of coffee. Two patients were already waiting in the lobby when I walked in.

  Everyone was staring at the TV. On the clinic side, I poured a cup of coffee and walked behind the check-in counter to obtain a copy of the day’s schedule.

  “Dr. Livingston,” Marty whispered, “have you heard?”

  I strained my burning, heavy-lidded eyes to look up to the TV. “No, what?”

  Breaking News ran across the top of the TV in bold letters. A man in a raincoat stood in front of a house; a house that looked extremely familiar.

  I watched the man point to the house behind him. “We’re not quite sure what happened here, but investigators believe it to be associated with drugs. An investigation report should reveal more information soon. Laura, back to you.”

  “Thank you, Keith. So yes, as he said, investigators believe it to be a drug deal gone wrong. Again, the victim, identified now to be that of Martin Murray, were found in his home off South Seminole on Dodd Lane late last night. Murray had an extensive record. The local police would like your help in solving the case. They have asked that if anyone has any information pertaining to the homicide to please call.”

  I suddenly closed my eyes, the details running vividly through my mind.

  “Dr. Livingston, Dr. Livingston?”

  I came to and looked at Marty and Beth wide-eyed.

  “You spilled your coffee.”

  I couldn’t say anything. Nausea engulfed me.

  “I know, it’s such a sad situation. He was just in here yesterday,” Beth said, beginning to wipe up the coffee. Marty shook her head, returning to her computer.

  “Beth, the day is canceled. Apologize to the patients for me.”

  “But—”

  “I said we’re closing for the day,” I snapped.

  I didn’t walk to my office but walked straight outside to my truck.

  I thought about Mr. Murray’s plea, the desperation in his voice. I had refused him drugs, and he was murdered for it. I sat in my car, staring at the trees in front of me. It all made sense. I felt the blood begin to leave my face as I realized that the Bear was responsible. It had all been a set-up. He had wanted me to prescribe Adderall, and when I wouldn’t, he brutally killed Martin Murray for it. He had wanted me to see the shooting, to witness his seriousness. They called him the Bear for a reason and, just like my patients, just like Martin, I was more than shocked, I was truly terrified. The darkness that I had sensed in him but had refused to accept was true.

  Chapter 13

  November 20, 2004

  The sun was breaking through the clouds not tranquilly, but desperately, as if it was reaching out for me to hold onto it. I looked up at its light periodically as I drove to Mayflower Road. I didn’t need motivation to push me further. The news report had been enough.

  I thought about Hope. The light gleaming from her aquamarine eyes was the light I wanted to light my world. Not this dark and mangled perception of what earthly life had become. The guilt had drained me dry. The painful thoughts haunted me. The shame grew thicker with each waking moment. I had grown tired of living a lie, of the corruption. There was no cure for the mistakes I had made but to redeem myself. I would tell her that night and fix everything. I was a doctor, that’s what I did.

  Hope hadn’t married me for the money and she hadn’t married me for the lies. The reality was, the money I was fighting so hard for was putting me further in debt. A debt that, if I stewed in it too long, would break my life up into such little particles that Hope and my son would simply float away. I knew Hope would be saddened when I told her the truth, when I told her everything I had done, when I told her the money she used to buy her paints was drug money. I wasn’t even sure my practice would sustain itself, but at that point, I didn’t care. I didn’t care about losing my practice. I only cared about moving on and living the truth with Hope and our son. I would move us far from there, to the west, and rebuild our home. Yes, I knew Hope would be disappointed, but she would love me and understand. I knew she would. It was the only truth I could hold onto.

  I turned onto the notorious gravel road and made my way to the brick house. He had no idea I was going to tell him I was finished. Really, I wasn’t sure why I was bothering to tell him face-to-face. I guess it was a way of proving to myself that I could do it. It was a solid, concrete final end and, afterwards, there was no going back, only forward.

  I drove through the pines and up to his house. The garage door was open, exposing only his black Mercedes. His family wasn’t home, so I made my way to his front door standing taller to readjust my tie. I knew he saw my car, but he didn’t come downstairs. It was as if he already knew what was about to happen and remained in his office just to question my intentions, to see if I would really open the door myself. I turned the knob, walked in, and began up the stairs. I saw that his back was to me as I walked down the hall. He was sitting in his leather chair, cigar in hand, looking out at the clouds beginning to cover his backyard. He was in a dark gray suit this time.

  “We need to talk,” I stated. He didn’t turn around to meet me.

  Silence hung in the room for a moment before he began talking to the glass in front of him. “I was a father’s boy. I really was, John. There is nothing quite like the relationship between a boy and his father.”

  He was talking slowly and methodically.

  “You know,” he continued, “people were disgusted when they first heard about my father. At the time I was only a child, but I soon grew to understand and hate him too. This hate lasted for a time. He died not long after my mother,” he paused briefly as if reliving the moment, “in a house fire actually. But it wasn’t until after his death that I credited all of my success to him. I realized that it was his mistakes that bore in me a desire to be different, to be in control.” He puffed his cigar.

  I didn’t say anything but grew more agitated. I was not here to discuss his past. I was here to start my future. But he left me no chance and continued.

  “It was a Saturday in July when the police showed up at our school. Our mother had reportedly killed herself and our aunt was there to take us to the station to meet our father. They interviewed us, despite my older sister’s hysterical sobbing, about our father. Had he ever hit us? Had he an
d my mother ever fought? I lied and told them no because that’s what a young boy does, a boy afraid of his father. He’d hit us for years and threatened our lives if we said anything to anyone. The lawyer stopped the interview and we went home with our father. A couple of days later they showed up again to arrest him. He didn’t even protest. He willingly, and sort of comically, stuck out his hands for the cuffs as if he already knew he would get away with what he had done. Do you know what the verdict was?”

  He turned around in his chair to face me.

  I remained silent.

  “Not guilty!”

  For a moment I thought he was going to jump the desk and hit me. Instead, he breathed deeply through his nose, closed his eyes, and repositioned himself. He shook his head and let out a laugh. “Anyway, enough of all that. Sometimes I get carried away, especially on the day she died.” He put out his cigar then clasped his hands on his desk.

  “You caught me just before I was going to my office. What brings you here this early in the morning?” He acted like everything was normal.

  “I came here to tell you that I’m not doing this anymore.”

  He didn’t respond as quickly as I had expected him to, so I continued.

  “I’m pulling out of the deal. I can’t do another month of this.”

  He snorted, stood, and turned around to his window again.

  “What is it John? Is it because your patient died last night?”

  “So you did kill him?”

  He shook his head as he turned around again. “John, absolutely not.”

  “Yes you did. I was there. You sent me there for a reason. It was you standing in the window and you were wearing that.” I could feel my blood pressure rising. I pointed to the bear head on the wall with a trembling finger.

  He let out a loud cackle as if this was the funniest thing he had ever heard. “You saw someone wearing what? The head of a bear?”

  “Yes. I know what I saw.”

  “John, have you had any sleep lately? You’re acting odd today. Here, let me get you something to drink. I’ve got coffee, water.”