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A sharp, horrified gasp, followed by, “Oh no!” made me glance up as a glass jar of something sped toward the ground. I snatched it out of the air before it smashed into the pavement.
“Grace.” Katrine Dixon set her perfectly manicured hand against her great big breasts. “You always were the quickest gal in these mountains.”
I handed her the jar, which appeared to be a jelly container full of swirling liquid the shade of skim milk. I glanced at the nearest storefront. Ian’s clinic.
“Have you met him?” she asked. “I think he might be able to help me.”
Lake Bluff being what it was, I already knew that Katrine didn’t need any help. There wasn’t a thing wrong with her that a good, swift kick in the ass wouldn’t cure. Katrine liked attention, hence the balloon breasts and itty-bitty skirt.
“What did he give you?”
“A natural cure. Suzanne Somers used natural cures on her breast cancer, and it went all away.”
“You don’t have breast cancer, Katrine.” What Katrine had was a raging case of hypochondria.
She sniffed and stuck her suddenly pert nose in the air. Had she had that fixed, too?
“Ian takes me seriously. He gave me a complete physical.” She drew one blood red nail over her left breast. I half-expected the pointy tip to pop the silicone like a balloon. I took a step back just in case. An explosion like that could put out an eye.
“He gives great physical,” she purred.
I could imagine.
Katrine had once been a knobby-kneed, flat-chested, stringy-haired whiner. But she’d left Lake Bluff after high school—no one knew for where—and come home a completely different person, except for the whining.
I eyed the short white skirt and the tight red top, which showed off the body she’d returned with to perfection. I wondered how many plastic surgeons she’d had to blow to get those breasts. I wondered how she planned on paying Dr. Walker for his exam. Despite the shiny new exterior, Katrine was poor white trash— emphasis on “poor,” double emphasis on “trash”—and she always would be.
She worked at the Watering Hole—a local tavern, located as far away from Center Street as it could get and still be in town—as a bartender. The place was rough. I’d been there half a dozen times in the last month on disturbance calls, and I usually worked the day shift.
The door to Ian’s clinic opened and another woman stepped out, in her hand a similar jar, although the liquid inside held a greenish tint. I recognized Merry Gray, and I left Katrine behind without so much as a good-bye.
“Well, ain’t that just like you, Grace McDaniel,” Katrine shouted after me. “You always did have the manners of a savage.”
Since I didn’t particularly care if I did or I didn’t, and I certainly didn’t care if Katrine thought so, I kept walking.
The clinic had improved since I’d been there last. The lower floor had been cleaned and painted a calming pale blue. Someone had thrown up drywall, creating a separation between the waiting room and the receptionist’s desk, although there wasn’t any receptionist. Past that, three exam rooms had been roughed in. A fourth appeared to be done, since Ian walked out of it wearing the traditional white coat over a pair of khaki slacks, a mint green shirt, and a tan tie.
“How did you get all this done?” I blurted. He’d only been in town a few days, and a lot of that time had been spent with me.
“You’d be amazed at what you can accomplish if you’re willing to pay for it.”
“What did you give Mrs. Gray?”
He stiffened as if I’d jabbed him in the butt with a stick, which wasn’t a half-bad idea. “That’s none of your business, Sheriff.”
“It is if you’re selling her lime-flavored water and calling it a miracle. She’s dying.”
“Then I doubt lime-flavored water would hurt her.” His voice and posture gentled.
The entire town knew Merry Gray had endured every cure available to modern science in an attempt to kill the tumors raging inside of her. Instead of growing smaller, the cancer seemed to feed on the chemo and the radiation, multiplying out of control and making her sicker and sicker.
“I don’t want her hopes up,” I said.
“Why not?”
“You give her green water and tell her it’ll heal her, then it doesn’t? That’s criminal, Doctor.”
“I’d say what’s happening to her is criminal. I’ve given her nothing that will hurt, and I have every reason to believe it could help. She’s exhausted all other avenues of treatment.”
