The language reminded Allan of the way Roman Catholics paid to have masses sung for the souls of the dead. In perpetuity.
“Well?”
“What?” he asked, feeling that she had caught out his secret thoughts again. “Do we have a deal?”
He thought of the upstairs room, the glass shattering, the rising and falling of her voice. He thought of his dad’s face when he came home and told them the mill was closing down. For good. He thought of his own name, Allan G. Rouse. M.D. Then the bratty boy in the waiting room coughed, hard, whining his misery, and he thought suddenly of four small coffins.
“Yes,” he said. “We have a deal.”
Chapter 28
Tuesday, March 28
Russ couldn’t settle on the worst part of having a broken leg. Was it being driven around town like a kid too young for a permit? Or struggling along sidewalks slick with muddy water and the last remnants of crumbling ice, praying he wasn’t going to fall on his ass? He had plenty of time to contemplate both while humping himself up the South Street sidewalk toward the free clinic.
He hadn’t started out the day in the best of moods, and the rapidly falling barometer didn’t help. His leg registered every change in the pressure with a new ache or twinge. The search at Debba Clow’s home yesterday had turned up a big fat nothing, and he was getting that feeling, the one he hated, of chasing his own tail.
“Isn’t this a great day, Chief?” Officer Kevin Flynn feinted side to side across the walk and up and down the stairs, dribbling and shooting an imaginary basketball. He had been detached to squire Russ around, on the grounds that shadowing the chief might be considered advancing his education in law enforcement. “I heard it’s gonna get over fifty!”
Russ paused for a moment to flex his aching hands. He looked up at the gray clouds coursing across the sky, the shafts of sunlight sweeping down the mountains and away to the east. “Forty-five degrees tops,” he said. “And it’s going to rain.” If there was one thing worse than hobbling around on crutches, it was hobbling around on crutches in the rain. He creaked his way up the walk and squared the crutches’ rubber tips on the lowest step.
“Hey, Chief, don’t you want to use the wheelchair ramp?” Kevin paused in front of the door, the imaginary basketball still held between his hands.
“No, I do not want to use the wheelchair ramp.” Russ gritted his teeth and teetered his way to the clinic entrance, where he was forced to let Kevin open the door for him.
The noise, even in the tiny foyer, was confounding. They pushed through the inner doors to a waiting room overflowing with kids, moms, babies, old folks-everyone except the family pet. “What the hell’s going on?” Russ asked.
“Maybe these are all the people who didn’t like to see Dr. Rouse,” Kevin said. “I think he could be kind of intimidating.”
A kid of maybe four broke from the room and dashed across the hall, nearly knocking into Russ. “You come right here this minute, Max!” his harried mother hissed.
Russ beckoned to Kevin with his head. “C’mon, let’s see if we can find Laura Rayfield.”
A strained-looking volunteer behind the reception desk let out a weak “Ha” when Russ told her he wanted to speak to Ms. Rayfield. “Sign the list,” she said. “But I warn you, your wait will likely be well over an hour and a half at this point.”
Of course. He looked like a civilian in his Dockers slit up to the knee and his bomber jacket zipped up over his uniform blouse. “I don’t think you understand,” Russ said. “This is official police business. I’m Chief Van Alstyne…” He forgot he couldn’t just unzip his jacket pocket and haul out his ID. One crutch clattered to the ground. He swore under his breath. “Kevin-,” he started, but the officer had already scooped it up and was holding it out to Russ, beaming like a Boy Scout.
“Thank. You.” Russ lifted his elbow and allowed Kevin to slide the crutch back home. He had retrieved his ID, but it was moot now that the receptionist had seen Kevin’s uniform.
“Oh!” She glanced back and forth between Russ and Kevin. “Is this about”-her voice dropped to a barely audible whisper-“Dr. Rouse’s disappearance?”
“That’s right,” Russ said.
“Oh. Well. That’s a different story, isn’t it?”
Russ allowed as how it was, and let her escort him and Kevin into the conference room, a square space whose elegant moldings and central chandelier gave evidence of its past as a dining room. “You wait right here, and I’ll send Laura to you as soon as she’s done with her current patient,” the receptionist said.
Kevin obediently sat down at the conference table and stared out the windows. Russ stumped around, examining the space. The door opposite the hallway turned out to be the old house’s kitchen, modernized with a cast-off green refrigerator, a microwave, and a coffeemaker. The door between the kitchen and the hallway opened onto the doctor’s office.
It was the size of a roomy closet, but comfortable, with a leather desk chair and a desk that would have been handsome if it hadn’t been covered with heaps and piles of papers. Interspersed among the medical books lining the walls were framed photos of Rouse and his family. There was one of the five of them in what looked like Cape Cod, and another, with the children much younger, taken in Disney World. There was one of a tanner and slimmer Allan with his arm around his tanner and happier wife. They were on the deck of a cruise ship, and the silver frame was engraved with the words OUR 30TH ANNIVERSARY.
“I’m sorry about the mess.” Laura Rayfield stood in the doorway, clipboard in hand, sections of her red hair escaping from her braid. “Your officer was searching for something that might provide a lead to what happened to Al, and I haven’t had time to put everything back to rights.”
“I apologize,” Russ said. “Officer Entwhistle should have done that for you.”
“No, no, I’d rather handle it myself. Doesn’t matter, really, unless and until Allan reemerges or we get a new doctor in here.” She tilted her head toward the conference room. “Mind if we sit down while we talk? I’m beat.”
She eyed him as he crutched out of the narrow office and lowered himself into a chair. “Your officer said you’d broken your leg. What happened?”
“Slipped on the ice. Greenstick fracture.”
“Any pins?”
“Two. I’m supposed to be out of this in another five weeks.”
“Who was your orthopedic surgeon?”
“Dr. Stillman.”
She collapsed into the chair opposite him. “He’s good.” She tossed the clipboard on the table. “What can I tell you, Chief? I already gave a statement to Officer Entwhistle last week.”
“I know. I read his report.” He matched up the crutches and laid them on the floor. “It looks like you’ve got half the population of Millers Kill back there in the waiting room. Are we in the middle of an epidemic I haven’t heard about?”
Her mouth twisted. “Yeah. It’s called the no-health-insurance epidemic. These folks are here because the volunteers and I have been calling all our current patients and letting them know we’re about to close up shop. Everyone’s coming out of the woodwork to get their prescriptions or to take care of problems they’ve been putting off. As of April first, their only recourse is going to be the ER.”
“Wow,” Kevin Flynn said. “That really sucks.”
“How come?” Russ asked.
“I’m a nurse practitioner. Do you know anything about nurse practitioners?”
“I know you can examine and treat patients. And write prescriptions.”
