possible, mostly for the company. Following her meeting with Boldt at the hbrary, Daphne was going to spend the evening at The Shelter and then ride home with Sharon.
Crossing the colorful Freemont Bridge toward town, Daphne strained to see her marina but couldn't. With Lake Union to their left, they drove along Westlake, cluttered marinas gradually evolving into condos and corporate headquarters as they drew closer to town. Ninth Avenue was a no-man's land of struggling small businesses. Then it was the fast-food and franchised commercialism of Denny Way.
A ferry horn sounded, dull and low, like the groan of a huge animal. Daphne's watch read three twenty-eight. The ferries represented a kind of freedom-island life. Isolation, escape.
'Judging by yesterday's weather,' Daphne said, 'I'd say the groundhog drowned,''We're halfway through the rinse cycle,' Sharon agreed. 'Four more weeks of this at least.'
'Makes you really love the place, doesn't it?'
'You look a little tired,' Sharon said. 'I spent the day poring over some autopsy files the medical examiner wanted me to see. It's exhausting.'
'Sounds disgusting.'
'I made some headway. I'm not sure Cindy Chapman is all alone in this.'
'Meaning?'
'I need to run it all by a friend and see what he thinks,' Daphne explained. 'I don't like the sound of your voice.'
'I'm a little scared, that's all.'
'I don't think I could ever be a cop,' Sharon said. She ruminated on this for a moment. 'Three years ago, if someone had tried to tell me that someday one of my best friends would be a cop, and a forensic psychologist at that, I would have tagged them for the bird house-the loony bin. It's weird how things work out.'
'In your case, they've worked out rather nicely.'
'It'll happen to you,' Sharon encouraged. 'It's all in your attitude, and your attitude is improving. Something's working.'
'It's the therapy.'
'Whatever it is, it's good to see.'
'Have you ever worked with someone after you've had a thing with him?'
Astonished, Sharon cried, 'Did, you sleep with your therapist?
'I 'Not my therapist, dummy. just answer the question.' Sharon stopped at a light and said, 'On the street I slept with everyone. You'd sleep with someone because they had the coke that week. Coke whores. We were all coke whores.' She drifted off for a moment. When she spoke again, the pain was gone from her voice. 'But I know what you're asking about, and it did happen to me once. I slept a couple of times with a guy I met in A.A. Then it fizzled out. I'm not sure why. But we kept running into each other at all the meetings. It worked out okay, except that no matter what we talked about on the surface, there was always this sexual tension-at least for me-going on underneath, you know? I wasn't after him-nothing like that-but you don't forget the really good ones, and this guy was really tuned in, really good for me.'
'But you don't forget, do you?' Daphne asked, repeating her friend's comment. 'I sure don't.'
'And it worked out?'
'Depending on who you ask. He's got a woman now. I have The Shelter. But,' and she laughed, 'it's hard to curl up with The Shelter. And there are times … Well, you know. But you can't project. 'One day at a time/ girl.
'An attitude of gratitude.'
'Yeah, yeah. Don't preach,' Daphne chided. 'Sometimes I think I'm lucky I got so messed up on the streets. Without A.A. Well, you've heard all of this.'
'A number of times.' Even three years into the program, Sharon was still on a sort of honeymoon. Sometimes it was all she could find to talk about. 'Who's the guy?' Sharon asked. 'Just that: a guy.'
'Don't give me that.' She laughed. 'If you slept with him, he's not just a guy, he's an endangered species.'
'Once.
Only once. And I didn't even spend the night. It isn't the sex.'
'Those are the dangerous ones,' Sharon said, turning the corner and pulling over to the curb. 'Yeah, I know,' agreed Daphne. She looked at her watch. Thirty minutes in which to do her research. 'You're meeting someone here, aren't you?' Sharon asked. 'Him,' she stated. 'I'll catch up with you later,' Daphne reminded. She climbed out of the car, wondering why she felt so damned nervous.
The Lakeview Animal Clinic veterinarian offices occupied the ground floor of a relatively new business complex facing Madison. The reception area had vinyl flooring in a brick pattern and long benches against each wall. In huge letters a sign read: Keep Animals Caged or Leashed At All Times. Dogs, to the left benches. Cats to the right. There were a few of each in the small room, the air electric with possible conflict.
Pamela Chase, short and overweight, wore a yellow crew shirt with the words
'Lakeview Animal Clinic' embroidered on her breast pocket. She inspected the form that belonged to the cat she was carrying. Camile hadn't eaten in three days. When she had managed to get food down, she vomited it back up. Camile, like so much of their work, was a referral-Dr. Elden Tegg was the one vet to whom the other vets turned.
The examination room had a chart on the wall that diagramed the nerves, lenses, and muscles in a cat's eye. There was a large, framed color photograph of Puget Sound at dawn, a nuclear submarine just barely visible alongside a pod of surfacing Orca whales. The room had no window but did possess a large air grate in the ceiling. It smelled of rubbing alcohol and disinfectant.
Camile wrestled to be free but lacked the energy for a prolonged struggle. She resigned herself to Pamela's hold.
A moment later the door swung open and the veterinarian stepped inside. Dr. Elden Tegg, D.V.M., as his name plaque introduced him, stood close to six feet tall, in a wiry frame, with a dark complexion, brown eyes, and a black beard carefully trimmed. He wore a white lab coat, khaki pants, and brown leather walking shoes with rawhide trim. He had a protruding Adam's apple that bobbed as he spoke in a grating voice. His attention fixed immediately upon his patient.
Pamela Chase passed him the cat as he nodded. He had exceptionally long fingers, immaculately clean hands, perfectly manicured nails, and he wore a gold wedding ring.
He studied the cat thoughtfully, squeezing, probing. He looked into her eyes and glanced quickly into her ears. 'Loss of appetite and vomiting,' Pamela Chase informed him. He grunted an acknowledgment. 'They sent pictures along.' Tegg returned the cat to his assistant and approached the light board, turning it on and studying the X-rays. 'Well,' he asked in a professorial tone, 'did you have a look at these?'
She answered, 'I was thinking we should try a milk shake,' referring to a barium upper G.I. 'Have I told you how fortunate I am to have you?' he asked She glowed with the compliment.
'Let's sedate her,' he said, 'shall we?'
Fifteen minutes later, she reentered carrying both the cat and the new X-rays. Tegg slapped the large negatives into the clamps on the light box, studied them carefully, and signaled Pamela over to him. She responded without thought. 'Here's what the others missed,' he said confidently, running one of his clean fingernails over a section of the X-ray. 'See here, and here?' he asked. 'It's not what you see,' he advised, 'it's what you don't see, which might explain how it was missed so easily. just a ghost, see?'
'Yes, now I do.'
'There's some kind of obstruction in the stomach. Maybe a fur-ball, but I doubt it. Let's try an endoscopy and have a look.' Pamela Chase prepared all the necessary equipment for the procedure and stood alongside him like a corporal at the side of a general. He inserted the black eel of plastic tubing down the cat's throat. The tiny fiber optic camera inside the animal's stomach sent back black-and-white pictures to the small SONY television that Tegg studied. 'The problem with something plastic like this is that the veterinarian cannot feel it in the exam, cannot see it clearly in an X-ray, and yet to this poor creature it feels like her tummy is full all the time. She tries to crap, but the stomach rejects it. Probably picked it up off the floor,' On the screen, under his direction, a small set of pinchers moved like jaws. Tegg deftly maneuvered them to apprehend the foreign object. A moment later he extruded the endoscopy tube from the cat.
A small piece of soft plastic-a swimmer's ear plug-fell into the stainless steel dish that Pamela held.
