“Dr. Stackhouse would prefer to talk to you first,” she said. “Would you like to follow me, please?”
I didn’t like it. Her manner was entirely too kindly and benign. She could have made any one of a number of responses. Maybe she’d been advised not to discuss medical matters. Maybe she’d been chastised for offering her opinion before the doctor could offer his. Maybe hospital policy forbade her to editorialize about the patient’s condition for complicated reasons of liability. Or maybe Agnes Grey was dead. The woman glanced at me. “Your daughter’s welcome to come with you …”
“You want me to come?” I asked.
“Yes, please,” Irene said to me. Then to the receptionist, “My husband’s parking the car. Will you tell him where we are?”
Dietz spoke up. “I’ll let him know. You two go on back. We’ll be right there.”
Irene murmured a thank-you. Dietz and I exchanged a look.
The receptionist stood by the open door while we passed through. She led the way while we followed along a corridor with high-gloss white flooring. She showed us into an office evidently used by any doctor on duty. “It won’t be long. Can I get you anything? Coffee? A cup of tea?”
Irene shook her head. “This is fine.”
We sat down in blue tweed chairs with upholstered seats. There were no exterior windows. The Formica shelf-desk was bare. There was a gray leather couch showing doctor-size indentations in the cushions. As an impromptu daybed, it was slightly too short and I could see where his shoes had scraped against the arm at one end. A white Formica bookcase was filled with standard medical texts. The potted plant was fake, a Swedish ivy made of paper with curling vines as stiff as florist’s wire. The only pictures on the wall looked like reproductions from Gray’s Anatomy. Personally, I can do without all the skinless arms and legs. The saphenous vein and its branches looked like an overview of the Los Angeles freeway system.
Irene shrugged her coat off and smoothed the lap of her skirt. “I can’t believe there weren’t any papers to fill out. They must have admitted her.”
“You know hospitals. They have their own way of doing things.”
“Clyde has the insurance information in his wallet. Blue Cross, I think, though I’m not sure she’s covered.”
“Bill the nursing home,” I said. “It’s their responsibility.”
We sat for a moment saying nothing. I wondered if this was what it felt like to have family. Geriatric crises, accompanied by homely discussions about what should be done with Granny. We heard footsteps in the hall and the doctor came into the room. I was half-expecting the receptionist with Clyde and Dietz in tow, so it took me a second to compute the expression on this guy’s face. He was in his early thirties, with carrot-colored curly hair and a ruddy complexion. He was wearing an unstructured cotton shirt in a hospital green, V-neck, short sleeves, matching cotton pants, soft-soled baggy shoes. He had a stethoscope around his neck and a white plastic name tag that read, “Warren Stackhouse, MD.” With his red hair and freckles, the surgical greens gave him a certain Technicolor vibrancy, like a cartoon character. He smelled like adhesive tape and breath mints and his hands looked freshly scrubbed. He was holding a manila folder, which contained only one sheet. He placed that on the desk, lining up the edges.
“Mrs. Gersh? I’m Dr. Stackhouse.” He and Irene shook hands and then he leaned against the desk. “I’m afraid we lost her.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Irene snapped. “Can’t anybody keep track of her?”
Uh-oh, I thought, Irene wasn’t getting it. “I don’t think he means it that way,” I murmured.
“Mrs. Grey went into cardiac arrest,” he said. “I’m sorry. We did everything we could, but we weren’t able to revive her.”
Irene grew still, her face blank, her tone of voice nearly petulant. “Are you saying she’s dead? But that’s impossible. She couldn’t be. You’ve made some mistake. Clyde said her injuries were minor. Cuts and bruises. I thought he talked to you.”
I was watching the doctor and I could see him pick his words with care. “When she was first brought in, she was already showing symptoms of cardiac arrhythmia. She was confused and disoriented, suffering from exposure and stress. In a woman her age, given her fragile state of health …”
Irene let out a sigh, finally taking it in. “Oh, the poor thing.” Her eyes filled with sudden tears, which spilled down her cheeks. Blotches of color had come up in her face and neck. She began to tremble uncontrollably, quivering like a wet dog in the midst of a bath. I grabbed her hand.
Clyde appeared in the doorway. From the look in his eyes, he’d been told what was going on. The receptionist had probably informed him as soon as he came in.
Irene turned beseechingly. “Clyde . . . Mother’s gone” she said. She reached for him, coming out of the chair and into his arms. He seemed to fold her in against him. For the first time, I realized how tiny she was. I looked away, not wanting to intrude on their intimacy.
I saw Dietz through the open doorway, leaning against the wall. His posture was identical to my first sight of him. Cowboy boots, his tweed coat. The hospital down in Brawley. All he needed was the toothbrush in his pocket, sticking up like a fountain pen. His gaze moved casually to mine, moved to Irene, came back to mine and held. The look in his eyes was quizzical, perplexed. His expression shifted from self-assurance to uncertainty. I felt an unexpected flash of heat. I broke off eye contact, feeling flushed. My gaze drifted back. He was still looking at me, with a wistfulness I hadn’t seen before.
We all waited uncomfortably for Irene’s tears to pass. Finally, Dr. Stackhouse moved toward the door and I followed. The two of us withdrew, moving out into the corridor. As we walked back to the emergency room,
Dietz fell into step with us, placing his hand on the back of my neck in a way that made me feel curious and alert. It was a gesture of possession and the physical connection was charged with a sudden current that made the air between us hum.
Dr. Stackhouse shook his head. “God, I’m sorry. It was a lousy break. Are you her granddaughter? Someone’s going to have to talk to the police officer.”
I focused on the situation as if coming up for air. “I’m a friend of Mrs. Gersh’s. Kinsey Millhone,” I said.
He glanced at me. “The one she was asking for.”
“So I’m told,” I said. “Do you have any idea what it was?”
“Well, I can tell you what she said, but I don’t think it means much. She kept saying it was summer. ‘Tell her it used to be summer . . .’ Is that significant?”
“Not to me,” I said. In her mind, it was probably connected to the long rambling tale she’d told me down at the desert. Emily and the earthquake, the Harpster girls and Arthur James. “That’s all she said?”
“That’s the only thing I heard.”
“Will there be an autopsy?”
“Probably. We put a call through to the coroner’s office and a deputy’s on the way. He’ll talk to the pathologist and decide if it’s warranted.”
“Which pathologist? Dr. Yee or Dr. Palchak?”
“Dr. Palchak,” he said. “Of course, the deputy may just go ahead and authorize us to sign the death certificate.”
“What about Agnes? Can we see her?”
He nodded. “Of course. She’s just down the hall here. Whenever Mrs. Gersh is ready, the nurse will take you in.”
Agnes had been moved temporarily to a little-used examining room at the end of the hall. Once we were gone, she’d be wheeled down to the basement and left in the refrigerated darkness of the morgue. Dietz waited in the hall with Clyde while Irene and I stood silently beside the gurney on which her mother lay. Death had smoothed many of the lines from her face. Under the white sheeting, she seemed small and frail, her beaky nose protruding prominently from the peaceful folds of her face.
There was a discreet knock at the door. A young uniformed police officer came into the room and introduced himself. He’d brought Agnes in and he talked to Irene briefly about his encounter with her mother. “She seemed like a very nice person, ma’am. I just thought you might like to know she didn’t give me any trouble …”
Irene’s eyes brimmed. “Thank you. I appreciate that. Was she in pain? I can’t stand to think about what she must have gone through.”
“No, ma’am. I wouldn’t say so. She might have been confused, but she didn’t seem to be in pain or anything like that.”