Life Support

by Tess Gerritsen

  She looked back.

  The driver was scrambling up the hill in pursuit.

  Fresh panic sent Molly scrambling faster. She turned left, then right, worming deeper into the maze of Beacon Hill. She didn’t stop to look back; she knew he was there.

  By now her feet were bruised from the shoes and stinging with fresh blisters. I can’t outrun him.

  Rounding another corner, she spotted a taxi idling at the curb. She made a dash for it.

  The driver glanced up in surprise as Molly threw herself into the backseat and pulled the door shut.

  “Hey! I’m not available,” he snapped.

  “Just go. Go!”

  “I’m waiting for a fare. Get out of my cab.” “Someone’s after me. Please, can’t you drive around the block?”

  “I’m not driving nowhere. Get out or I radio for a cop.”

  Cautiously Molly lifted her head and peered out the window.

  Her pursuer was standing only a few yards away, his gaze scanning the street.

  At once she dropped back down to the floor. “It’s him,” she whispered.

  “I don’t give a shit who it is. I’m calling a cop.”

  “Okay. Go ahead! For once in my life I could use a fucking cop.”

  She heard him reach for the radio mike, then heard him mutter “Shit!” as he racked it again.

  “You gonna call one or what?”

  “I don’t want to talk to no cops. Why can’t you just get out like I’m telling you?”

  “Why can’t you drive around the block?”

  “Okay, okay.” With a grunt of resignation he let out the parking brake and pulled away from the curb. “So who’s the guy?”

  “He was driving me someplace I didn’t want to go. So I bailed out.”

  “Driving you where?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You know what? I don’t want to know either. I don’t want to know nothing ’bout your messed-up life. I just want you outta my cab.” He swerved to a stop. “Now get out.”

  “Is the guy around?”

  “We’re on Cambridge Street. I brought you a few blocks over. He’s way the other side.”

  She lifted her head and took a quick look. There were plenty of people around, but no sign of her pursuer. “Maybe I’ll pay you sometime,” she said and stepped out of the cab.

  “Maybe I’ll fly to the moon.”

  Quickly she walked, first down Cambridge, then onto Sudbury. She didn’t stop until she was deep in the maze of streets in the North End.

  There she found a cemetery with a public bench in front. COPP’S BURRYING GROUND, the sign said. She sat down and took off her shoes. Her blisters were raw, her toes bruised purple. She was too tired to walk even another block, so she just sat there in her bare feet watching tourists wander by with their Freedom Trail brochures, all of them enjoying a surprisingly mild October afternoon.

  I can’t go back to my room. I can’t go back for my clothes. Romy sees me, he’ll kill me.

  It was almost four o’clock, and she was hungry; she hadn’t eaten anything except grapefruit juice and two strawberry doughnuts for breakfast. The delicious smells from an Italian restaurant across the street were driving her crazy. She looked in her purse but saw only a few dollars inside. She’d hidden more money back in her room; somehow she’d have to get it without Romy seeing her.

  She put her shoes back on, wincing at the pain. Then she hobbled up the street to a pay phone. Please do this for me, Sophie, she thought. For once, please be nice to me.

  Sophie answered, her voice low and cautious. “Yeah?”

  “It’s me. I need you to go into my room—”

  “No way. Romy’s going fucking nuts around here.”

  “I need my money. Please get it for me, and I’ll be outta there. You won’t have to see me again.”

  “I’m not going anywhere near your room. Romy’s in there right now, tearing things apart. There’s not gonna be nothing left.”

  Molly sagged against the phone booth.

  “Look, just stay away. Don’t come back here.”

  “But I don’t know where to go!” Molly’s voice suddenly shattered into sobs. In despair, she curled up against the booth, her hair falling over her eyes, the strands wet with tears. “I don’t have anyplace to go. . .”

  There was a silence. Then Sophie said, “Hey, Titless? Listen to me. I think I know someone who might help you out. It’d have to be for just a few nights. Then you’re on your own again. Hey, are you listening?”

  Molly took a deep breath. “Yeah.”

  “It’s over on Charter Street. There’s this bakery on the corner with a boarding house next door. She’s got a room on the second floor.”

  “Who?”

  “Just ask for Annie.”

  “You’re one of Romy’s girls. Aren’t you?”

  The woman stared out over the door chain, and through the narrow opening, Molly could make out only half her face—curlicue bangs of brilliant red hair, a blue eye smudged with a dark circle of fatigue.

  “Sophie told me to come,” said Molly. “She said you might have room for me—”

  “Sophie should’ve asked me first.”

  “Please—can’t I sleep here—just for tonight?” Shivering, Molly wrapped her arms around her shoulders and glanced up and down the dark hallway. “I don’t have anywhere to go. I’ll be real quiet. You won’t even know I’m here.”

  “What’d you do to piss off Romy?”

  “Nothin’.”

  The woman started to shut the door.

  “Wait!” cried Molly. “Okay, okay. I guess I did piss him off. I didn’t want to see that doctor again. . .”

  Slowly the door cracked open. The red-haired woman’s gaze shifted downward, to Molly’s waist. She said nothing.

  “I’m so tired,” whispered Molly. “Can I just sleep on your floor? Please, just for tonight.”

  The door swung shut.

  Molly gave a soft whimper of despair. Then she heard the chain rattle free and the door swung open again. The woman stood in full view, her belly swollen under a flowered print dress. “Come in,” she said.

  Molly entered the apartment. At once the woman shut the door and refastened the chain.

  For a moment they looked at each other. Then Molly’s gaze dropped to the other woman’s belly.

  The woman saw Molly staring, and she gave a shrug. “I’m not fat. It’s a baby.”

  Molly nodded and placed her hands on her own gently rounded abdomen. “I’ve got one too.”

  “I spent twenty-two years looking after old people. Worked at four boarding homes in New Jersey. So I know ’bout how to keep them out of trouble.” The woman pointed to the résumé lying on Toby’s kitchen table. “I been at this a long time.”

  “Yes, I can see you have,” said Toby, scanning the work history of Mrs. Ida Bogart. The pages reeked of cigarette smoke. So did the woman, who had carried the stench in on her baggy clothes and infected the whole kitchen with the smell. Why am I going through the motions? Toby wondered. I don’t want this woman in my house. I don’t want her anywhere near my mother.

  She lay the pages down on the table and forced herself to smile at Ida Bogart. “I’ll keep your résumé on file until I make a decision.”

  “You need someone right away, don’t you? That’s what the ad said.”

  “I’m still looking at applicants.”

  “Mind my asking if you got many?”

  “Several.”

  “Not many people want to work nights. I never had a problem with it.”

  Toby stood up, a clear signal that the interview was over. She herded the woman out of the kitchen and down the hallway. “I’ll keep your name under consideration. Thank you for coming, Mrs. Bogart.” She practically pushed the woman out of the house and closed the front door. Then she stood with her back propped against it, as though to barricade her home from any more Mrs. Bogarts. Six more days, she thought. How will I find someon
e in six days?

  In the kitchen, the phone rang.

  It was her sister calling. “So how are the interviews going?” Vickie asked.

  “They’re not going anywhere.”

  “I thought you got responses to the ad.”

  “One who’s a chain-smoker, two who barely understand English, and one who made me want to lock up the liquor. Vickie, this isn’t working. I can’t leave Mom with any of these people. You’re going to have to keep her at your house at night until we can find someone.”

  “She wanders, Toby. She might turn on the stove while we’re sleeping. I have my kids to think of.”

  “She never turns on the stove. And she usually sleeps all night.”

  “What about the temp agency?”

  “It would only be a short-term solution. I can’t have new faces coming in and out all the time. It would confuse Mom.”

  “At least it’d be some sort of solution. It’s gotten to the point where it’s either that or a nursing home.”

  “No way. No nursing home.”

  Vickie sighed. “It was just a suggestion. I’m thinking of you, too. I wish there was more I could do. . .”

  But there isn’t, thought Toby. Vickie already had two children greedily vying for attention. To force Ellen on their family would be one more burden on an already overwhelmed Vickie.

  Toby crossed to the kitchen window and looked out at the garden. Her mother was standing by the toolshed, holding a leaf rake. Ellen didn’t seem to remember what to do with a rake, and she kept scraping the teeth across the brick path.

  “How many other applicants are you interviewing?” asked Vickie.

  “Two.”

  “Do their résumés look okay?”

  “They look fine. But they all look fine on paper. It’s only when you meet them face-to-face that you smell the booze.”

  “Oh, it can’t be that bad, Toby. You’re too negative about the whole process.”

  “You come and interview them. The next one should be here any minute—” She turned at the sound of the doorbell. “That must be him.”

  “I’m coming over right now.”

  Toby hung up and went to answer the front door.

  On the porch stood an elderly man, face drawn and gray, shoulders slumped forward. “I’m here about the job,” was all he managed to get out before he was seized by a fit of coughing.

  Toby hurried him inside and sat him down on the sofa. She brought him a glass of water and watched while he hacked, cleared his throat, and hacked some more. Just a leftover cold, he told her in fits and starts. Over the worst of it now, only this bronchitis hanging on. Didn’t interfere with his ability to do a job, no sir. He’d worked while much sicker than this, had worked all his life, since he was sixteen years old.

  Toby listened, more out of pity than interest, her gaze fixed on the résumé lying on the coffee table. Wallace Dugan, sixty-one years old. She knew she was not going to hire him, had known it from the instant she’d seen him, but she didn’t have the heart to cut him short. So she sat in passive silence, listening to how he had come to this sad point in his life. How badly he needed the job. How hard it was for a man his age.

  He was still sitting on her sofa when Vickie arrived. She walked into the living room, saw the man, and halted.

  “This is my sister,” said Toby. “And this is Wallace Dugan. He’s applying for the job.”

  Wallace stood up to shake Vickie’s hand but quickly sank back down again, seized by a new fit of coughing.

  “Toby, can I talk to you for a minute?” said Vickie, and she turned and walked into the kitchen.

  Toby followed her, closing the door behind her.

  “What’s wrong with that man?” whispered Vickie. “He looks like he’s got cancer. Or TB.”

  “Bronchitis, he says.”

  “You’re not thinking of hiring him, are you?”

  “He’s the best applicant so far.”

  “You’re kidding. Please tell me you’re kidding.”

  Toby sighed. “Unfortunately, I’m not. You didn’t see the others.”

  “They were worse than him?”

  “At least he seems like a nice man.”

  “Oh, sure. And when he keels over, Mom’s going to do CPR?”

  “Vickie, I’m not going to hire him.”

  “Then why don’t we send him on his way, before he croaks in your living room?”

  The doorbell rang.

  “Jesus,” said Toby, and she pushed out of the kitchen. She shot an apologetic glance at Wallace Dugan as she walked past him, but he had his head bent over a handkerchief, coughing again. She opened the front door.

  A petite woman smiled at her. She was in her midthirties, with trim brown hair in a Princess Di cut. Her blouse and slacks appeared neatly pressed. “Dr. Harper? I’m sorry if I’m early. I wanted to make sure I could find your house.” She extended her hand. “I’m Jane Nolan.”

  “Come in. I’m still talking to another applicant, but—”

  “I can interview her,” cut in Vickie, pushing forward to shake Jane Nolan’s hand. “I’m Dr. Harper’s sister. Why don’t we go talk in the kitchen?” Vickie looked at Toby. “In the meantime, why don’t you finish up with Mr. Dugan?” In a whisper, she added: “Just get rid of him.”

  Wallace Dugan already knew the verdict. When Toby walked back into the living room, she found him gazing down at the coffee table with a look of defeat. His résumé lay before him, three pages chronicling forty-five years of labor. A chronicle that had most likely reached its end.

  They chatted a moment longer, more out of politeness than necessity. They would never meet again; they both knew it. When at last he walked out of her house, Toby closed the door with a sense of relief. Pity, after all, did not get the job done.

  She went into the kitchen.

  Vickie was alone in the room, gazing out the doorway. “Look,” she said.

  Outside, in the garden, Ellen shuffled along the brick path. At her side was Jane Nolan, nodding as Ellen pointed to one plant, than another. Jane was like a small, swift bird, alert to every move her companion made. Ellen halted and frowned at something near her feet. She bent down to pick it up—a garden claw. Now she turned it around in her hands, as though searching for some clue to its purpose.

  “Now what did you find there?” asked Jane.

  Ellen held up the claw. “This thing. A brush.” At once Ellen seemed to know that was the wrong word and she shook her head. “No, it’s not a brush. It’s—you know—you know.”

  “For the flowers, right?” prompted Jane. “A claw, to loosen up the dirt.”

  “Yes.” Ellen beamed. “A claw.”

  “Let’s put it in a safe place, where it won’t get lost. And you won’t accidentally step on it.” Jane took the claw and set it in the wheelbarrow. She looked up and, seeing Toby, smiled and waved. Then she took Ellen’s arm, and the two of them continued along the path and vanished around the corner of the house.

  Toby felt an invisible burden seem to tumble from her shoulders. She looked at her sister. “What do you think?”

  “Her résumé looks good. And she has excellent references from three different nursing homes. We’ll have to go up on the hourly rate, since she’s an LPN. But I’d say she’s worth it.”

  “Mom seems to like her. That’s the most important thing.”

  Vickie gave a sigh of satisfaction. Mission accomplished. Vickie the efficient. “There,” she said, shutting the back door. “That wasn’t so hard.”

  Another day, another dollar. Another corpse.

  Daniel Dvorak stepped back from the autopsy table and stripped off his gloves. “There you have it, Roy. Penetrating wound to the left upper quadrant, laceration of the spleen resulting in massive hemorrhage. Definitely not natural causes. No surprises.” He tossed the gloves into the contaminated rubbish bin and looked at Detective Sheehan.

  Sheehan was still standing by the table, but his gaze wasn’t on the hollowed-
out body cavity. No, Sheehan was making moo eyes at Dvorak’s assistant, Lisa. How romantic. Romeo and Juliet meeting over a corpse.

  Dvorak shook his head and went to wash his hands in the sink. In the mirror he glimpsed the progress of the incipient romance. Detective Sheehan standing a little straighter, tucking in his gut. Lisa laughing, flicking back her blond bangs. Even in the autopsy room, nature will have its way.

  Even when one of the parties is a married, middle-aged, overweight cop.

  If Sheehan wants to play lover boy to a pair of blue eyes, it’s none of my business, thought Dvorak as he calmly dried off his hands. But I should warn him he’s not the first cop whose hormones got tweaked down here. Autopsies had become surprisingly popular events lately, and it wasn’t because of the corpses.

  “I’ll be in my office,” Dvorak said, and he walked out of the lab.

  Twenty minutes later Sheehan knocked at Dvorak’s office door and came in, wearing the sheepishly happy face of a man who’s been acting foolish, knows it, knows everyone else knows it, but doesn’t care.

  Dvorak decided he didn’t care, either. He went to his file cabinet, took out a folder, and handed it to Sheehan. “There’s that final tox report you wanted. You need anything else?”

  “Uh, yeah. The prelim on that baby.”

  “Consistent with SIDS.”

  Sheehan pulled out a cigarette and lit up. “That’s what I thought.”

  “Mind putting that out?”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s a smoke-free building.”

  “Your office too?”

  “The smell hangs around.”

  Sheehan laughed. “In your line of work, Doc, you can hardly complain about smells.” But he put out the cigarette, crushing it on the coffee saucer that Dvorak slid across to him. “You know, that Lisa’s a nice girl.”

  Dvorak said nothing, figuring that silence was safer.

  “She got a boyfriend?” asked Sheehan.

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “You mean you never asked?”

  “No.”

  “Not even curious?”

  “I’m curious about a lot of things. But that’s not one of them.” Dvorak paused. “By the way, how’re the wife and kids?”