“That’s right.”
“Did the four of you spend much time together?” The answer seemed slow in coming so I offered a prompt. “You might as well be honest. I’ve heard it all by now. Nobody likes Selma.”
Vicky smiled. “We spent time together when we had to. There were occasions when we couldn’t avoid her so we made the best of it. Rafer didn’t want to make a scene, nor did I for that matter, I swear to god, she once said to me-these are her exact words-‘I’d have invited you over, but I thought you’d be more comfortable with your own kind.’ I had to bite my tongue. What I wanted to say is ‘I sure wouldn’t want to hang out with a bunch of white trash like you.’ And just to complicate matters, our daughter, Barrett, was going out with her son.”
“She must have loved that.”
“She could hardly object. She was always so busy acting like she wasn’t prejudiced. What a joke. If it wasn’t so pitiful it’d have cracked me up. The woman has no education and no intelligence to speak of. Rafer and I both graduated from U.C.L.A. He’s got a degree in criminology . . . this was before he applied for the position with the sheriff’s department. I’ve got a B.A. in nursing and an R.N. on top of that.”
“Selma knew the kids were dating?”
“Oh, sure. They went steady for years. Tom was crazy about Barrett. I know he felt she was a good influence on Brant.”
“Does Brant have a problem?”
“Basically, he’s a good person. He was just screwed up back then, like a lot of kids that age. I don’t think he ever did drugs, but he drank quite a bit and rebelled every chance he had.”
“Why’d they break up?”
“You’d have to ask Barrett. I try not to mess in her business. You want my assessment, I think Brant was too needy and dependent for someone like her. He tended to be all mopey and clinging. This was years ago, of course. He was twenty, at that point. She was just out of high school and didn’t seem that interested in getting serious.”
Her comments were cut short when the doctor came in. Dr. Price was in his late twenties, thin and boyish, with bright blue eyes, big ears, dark auburn hair, and a pale freckled complexion. I could still see the indentation on his cheek where he’d bunched up his pillow to sleep. I pictured the entire ER staff napping on little cots somewhere. He wore surgical greens and a white lab coat, stethoscope coiled in his pocket like a pet snake. I wondered how he’d ended up at a hospital as small as this. I hoped it wasn’t because he was at the bottom of his med school class. He took one look at my fingers and said, “Oh wow! Keen!” I liked his enthusiasm.
We had a chat about my assailant and the job he’d done. He studied my jaw. “He must have clipped you good,” he said.
“That’s right. I’d forgotten about that. How’s it look?”
“Like you put eye shadow in the wrong place. Any other abrasions or contusions? That’s doctor talk,” he said. “Means little hurt places on your body.”
“He kicked me twice in the ribs.”
“Let’s take a look,” he said, pulling up my shirt.
My ribcage on the right side was swiftly turning purple. He listened to my lungs to make sure a rib hadn’t been thrust into them on impact. He palpated my right arm, wrist, hand, and fingers, and then proceeded to deliver a quick course on joints, ligaments, tendons, and exactly what happens when someone wrenches them asunder. We trooped into the other room where a rumpled-looking technician took X-rays of both my chest and my hand. I returned to the table and lay down again, feeling thoroughly air-conditioned as the room spun.
When the film had been developed, he invited me into the corridor where he tucked the various views onto the lighted screen. Vicky joined us. We stood there, the three of us, and studied the results. I felt like a colleague called in for consultation on a troublesome case. My ribs were bruised, but not cracked, likely to be sore for days, but requiring no further medical attention. Roentgenographically speaking, the two pesky fingers were completely screwed. I could see that no bones were broken, though Dr. Price did point out two small chips he said my body would reabsorb.
I went back to the table where I reclined again with relief. My butt was still smarting from the sting of the tetanus, so I hardly noticed when the doctor, with a merry whistle, stuck me repeatedly in the joints on both fingers. I’d ceased to care by then. Whatever they did, I was too grossed out to notice. While I stared at the wall, the doctor maneuvered my digits back into their original upright position. He left the room briefly. When I finally dared to look at my hand, I saw that the injured fingers were now fat and reddened. While the fingers would now bend, the knuckles were swollen as though with sudden rheumatoid arthritis. I placed my mouth against the hot, numb flesh like a mother gauging a baby’s fever with her lips.
Dr. Price returned with (1) a roll of adhesive tape, (2) a packet of gauze, and (3) a metal splint that looked like a bent Popsicle stick, for which my insurance company would ultimately be charged somewhere in the neighborhood of five hundred dollars. He taped the two fingers together and then affixed them to the ring finger with another wrapping of tape, all supported by the splint. I could sense my premiums going up. Medical insurance is only valid if the benefits are never used. Otherwise, you’re rewarded with a cancellation notice or a hefty increase in rates.
I could hear another conference in the hallway and a deputy appeared outside the examining room door. He chatted with Dr. Price and then the doctor departed, leaving me alone with him. This was a fellow I hadn’t seen before; a tall skinny kid with a long face, dark hair, dark ragged eyebrows that met in the middle, and shiny metal braces on his teeth. Well, I was filled with confidence.
“Ms. Millhone, I’m Deputy Carey Badger. I understand you had a problem. Can you tell me what happened?”
I said, “Sure,” and went through my sad tale of woe again.
With his left hand, he jotted the information in a small spiral-bound notebook, his eyes never leaving my face. His pencil was the size you’d use on a bridge tally, small and thin, the point looking blunt. He might have been a waiter making a little memo to himself . . . tuna on wheat toast, hold the mayo. “Any idea who this fellow was?” he asked.
“Not a clue.”
“What about height and weight? Can you give me an estimate?”
“I’d say close to six feet and he must have outweighed me by a good sixty pounds. I’m one eighteen, which would put him at a hundred and seventy-five or one eighty minimum.”
“Anything else? Scars, moles, tattoos?”
“It was pitch black. He wore a ski mask and heavy clothing so I didn’t see much of anything. Night before, the same guy followed me out of Tiny’s parking lot. I couldn’t swear on a stack of Bibles, but I can’t believe two different fellows would come after me like that. The first time, he drove a black panel truck with no plate numbers visible. I reported it this morning to the Nota Lake Police.”
“Can you tell me anything else about him?”
“He smelled strongly of sweat.”
He turned the page, still writing, and then frowned at his notes. “What’d he do the first encounter? Did he accost you on that occasion?”
“He stared and did this,” I said, making a little shooting gesture with my left hand. “It doesn’t sound like much, but it was meant to intimidate me and it did.”
“He didn’t talk to you either time?”
“Not a word.”
“What about the vehicle he was driving? Was it the same one last night?”
“I didn’t see. He must have parked out by the road and walked back to the cabin where I was staying.”
“So he must have known which one it was, unless this was random breaking and entering.”
I looked at him with interest. “That’s true. I hadn’t thought of that. I wonder how he found out which cabin I was in. I woke while he was picking the lock.
When that didn’t work, he tried the window in the bathroom. After that, he went to work on the door again.”
“And after he dislocated your fingers, he took off?”
“Correct. I could hear a car start in the distance, but I have no idea what kind it was. At that point I was focused on pulling myself together to get help.”