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Grabbing a towel, Trudy runs it over the top of her client’s hair. “The closer the date came to their anniversary, the more stubborn she became about it, and naturally, the whinier Anton got. He even came to me in private to ask me to help him make it happen. Like I was some grouchy boss, not allowing her employee to take time off. I’m not Mel’s boss, Detectives. I’m just the woman who owns the building she conducts business inside.”
“Alright.” Fletch bounces his foot on his knee. “What happened with the anniversary thing?”
“Well, the morning they were supposed to leave, Anton thought to surprise her. Offer to drive her to work, secretly pack a suitcase for her. Whisk her away, assuming she’d eventually thank him for it. And because of his sudden change of mood, she thought maybe he was coming around and accepting her answer, so she said yes to the ride and got in the car. The moment he turned toward the edge of the city, though, and not this way, she knew she’d been duped.”
Is Anton Creed an abusive ex, or merely a pathetic, whiny one?“What did she do about it?”
“She got out of the damn car and caught a bus to work. Arrived late, but apologized profusely to her client and comped the cost of her service. Course, she didn’t say a whole lot to me about what had happened. Not that day. But she waspissed. Called her last two clients of the day and asked to reschedule. Said she wasn’t feeling well.”
“She was sick?” Fletch asks.
Trudy taps her own client’s shoulder again to get her up and moving. “My guess is she made an appointment with a lawyer, because a couple of days later, she told me she’d asked Anton for a divorce. That’s also when she told me about the surprise car ride. Then she asked if I thought she was overreacting; she was beginning to doubt herself. I asked what she was scared of, and she only said she didn’t want to break his heart.”
“What was your answer?” I ask. “To whether she was overreacting.”
“I said she had to follow her heart and do whatever brought her peace. If working things out with Anton is what she wanted long-term, then that’s what they should focus on. And if so, then I could help her search for, like, a marriage counselor or something. However, if she felt that getting space from him is what she needed, then I would support that too.”
Helping her client back into her chair, Trudy steps back and takes the small towel in her hands once more. “You know what she chose, considering their marriage is now over. In the end, she told me he was all she had ever known, so she wasn’t sure if what she was experiencing was truly the best that life had to offer her. She said he’s a good guy, and he’ll make someone happy. But not her. So she walked.”
MINKA
“Could you look at this?” Stiff-legged and still pissed at me, Aubree stops at my office door holding a manila folder in her hands. Her jaw is tight. Her eyes laser-focused.
When I set my pen down and sit back in my chair to give her my attention, she starts forward, but presses her lips together when her shoes squeak on the tile.
Yesterday, she made that sound on purpose, then right after, giggled about farting shoes.
Today, she’s mad and unwilling to smile.
I know. I was a jerk.
“What is it?” I extend my hand when Aubree offers the folder, and setting it on my desk while she lowers into the visitor chair—as opposed to sitting her ass on the corner of my desk, like she usually does—I open the file and spy a scan of a brain.
“I ran her by CT before slicing her open.” Sitting entirely too stiffly, Aubree Emeri is the astute professional when she’s been slighted.I wonder, is this the Doctor Emeri that my predecessor worked with?“I haven’t labeled the scans,” she continues. “One is Melissa, and one is randomly selected, purely so we can compare. Once you’ve studied them, I’ll tell you who is who.”
“Okay.”
Taking out the pictures and holding them side by side, one in each hand, I focus on the one in my left. Then in my right.
I already know whose is whose.
“Patient on the left suffered an intraventricular hemorrhage.” Setting the images on my desk, I grab my pen again and move it around the edges of the bleed. “Quite a big one. The scan on the right suffered no such bleed. Left scan shows damage to the frontal horn and sylvian cistern. The right does not. Both show symmetry, though the scan on the left shows a shift. Unilateral effacement. Fracture in the bone. No such fracture on the right.”
Picking up the image on the right, I offer it back to Aubree. “This is Melissa. And this,” I pick up the other, “makes me think a guy rammed his head into an oncoming train. What else are you showing me?”
“There’s a shadow here.” Offering back Melissa’s scan, she leans over my desk and points with the very tip of her little finger. “It’s so freakin’ light, I didn’t see it for ages. It’s possible it’s nothing at all and there was a screwup with the CT. But for right now, onthisscan, it’s there. I can’t unsee it, Doctor Mayet.”
I roll my eyes at her formal use of my name. “Good spotting. Now what do you think this is? And how the hell does it play into our homicide?”
“I don’t know.” She drops back again with a huff. “But check out the roadrunner’s scan.” She picks it up. “He has the same shadow. The rest is different, but the shadow remains, which means either our CT is going to hell and you need to squeeze a new one out of the budget—”
“That’s half a million dollars,” I drawl. “Not sure the mayor likes usthatmuch.”
“Or,” she continues. “These two patients have something in common. They’re not related, they have no connection, as far as I can tell; they likely don’t know each other. But maybe they both have a genetic… something. Same medication taken. Same illness. Same exposure to lead paint, for all I can guess.”
“Well…” Sitting back in my chair and linking my fingers together, I study Aubree’s sad eyes. Her expression, not at all like her typical joyful self.
I hurt her today, and now I need to fix it.
