Double Shot

brought in the scent of lilacs. With every muscle aching, I surveyed the spotless floor. It was almost six o’clock, and I was exhausted. I stood up slowly, washed my hands, and slid the defrosted casserole into the oven.

There was a knock at the back door. Again wary of reporters, I peeked through the shade, only to see one of Trudy’s freckled kids holding a covered casserole dish and a plastic bag.

“My mom made this for you, Mrs. Schulz,” the kid—ten-year-old Eddie—said. “She said it’s called Mediterranean Chicken.”

“Thanks for bringing it over, Eddie.”

“Well, my mom said I had to. Oh yeah, she put your mail in this bag.”

“Want to come in for some pie, Eddie?”

“No thanks. My mom says if I want to go fishing tomorrow, I’ve gotta clean up my room. All these jobs, it’s worse than school! Sometimes I hate summer.”

I thanked him again, but he was already trudging back toward his house. I stowed the chicken in the refrigerator. Then I turned my attention to the mail.

It was the usual assortment of bills and ads. A manila envelope from the Mountain Journal, with my name and address hand-lettered, took me aback. It had been postmarked the previous day. But the contents provided a much greater surprise.

I pulled out two pieces of paper. One was a note with the printed superscription: “From the Desk of Cecelia Brisbane.” The scribbled words were in the same handwriting as was on the envelope:

Here’s what I was talking about at the bake sale. Do you know if the authorities ever followed up on this? I got it a couple of years ago, but your ex was already incarcerated. With him getting out unexpectedly, I thought maybe it would bear looking into. Would you please call me? C.B.

Clipped to this was a piece of faded paper, frayed at the edges. A short, typed message, with no greeting, read as follows:

Dr. John Richard Korman raped a teenage girl when she was a patient at Southwest Hospital. It was a long time ago. Are you afraid to research this? Are you afraid to write about it? You could start by asking his ex-wife Goldy if he did it to her, too. Once you get the facts, it’s your JOB to expose him….

Whoa. I read the typed note two more times, then reread Cecelia’s short message. She’d had this typed note for two years and hadn’t done anything about it? That was not like Cecelia. On the other hand, this was an explosive allegation.

Cecelia certainly hadn’t done what the writer recommended: Start by asking his ex-wife Goldy…

I reread the note. This was an allegation of something so awful that it was hard to process. John Richard Korman raped a teenage girl when she was a patient at Southwest Hospital…a long time ago. I closed my eyes.

Did I believe it was possible that John Richard had done such a thing? I did. He had forced himself on me more than once. But I’d never heard of him being interested in teenage girls.

And yet now this note, which alleged he had raped a very young woman a long time ago, was surfacing. Why would this story emerge right after John Richard had been murdered? Why had Cecelia sent the note to me instead of to the cops?

I was skeptical about the whole thing. Someone was, or had been, trying to frame me. And now suddenly Cecelia Brisbane was throwing suspicion elsewhere.

In any event, this note cast no light on anything I knew about John Richard being killed. Yes, I was going to phone Cecelia.

But my first call went in to Detective Blackridge at the Furman County Sheriff’s Department. He said he’d drive right up to get the note. And doggone it, he told me not to try to contact Cecelia Brisbane.

But he didn’t order me not to call Marla. Using my new cell, I punched the buttons for her home phone. As usual, I got the machine, to which I posed the first questions I’d written down: Did she know the timing and rationale for John Richard’s breakup with Courtney? What was the cause or even the correlation between the dumping of Courtney and the subsequent involvement with Sandee? And then I dropped the bombshell: Did her list of the Jerk’s sexual conquests include a teenager whom he’d raped? She’d been a Southwest Hospital patient when it had supposedly happened.

If there was anyone who could dig up dirt on the Jerk, it was Marla.

I closed the phone, filled my deepest sink with hot suds, and carefully washed the bowls and beaters from the pie making. Would anyone else know about this allegation against John Richard? Other physicians, possibly, but they were notoriously closemouthed when it came to criticizing their own, even when a crime was involved. I read the typed note again.

A patient in Southwest Hospital would not necessarily have been a patient from the Aspen Meadow practice. The note written—pointedly, it seemed to me—hadn’t said “while I was a patient of his.” And even if the teenager had been one of John Richard’s patients, I knew I’d never get any records out of the doc who’d bought the Jerk’s practice. Nor was Southwest Hospital in the habit of being forthcoming about patient records. On the other hand, would a young woman who’d been raped want this kind of thing in her records?

I set the table and tried to think. Who else would have an inkling about this? John Richard had employed a number of nurses in the Aspen Meadow office he’d shared with his father, but none of them had stayed more than a year. Wait: the deliveries. There was one other person who’d known and worked with John Richard over the past decade and a half: the longtime head nurse of ob-gyn at Southwest Hospital. I was doing the retirement picnic for her the next day.

Would Nan Watkins remember the specifics of any wrongdoings on John Richard’s part? If she did, would she tell me about them? Maybe the cops would have already questioned her. Somehow, I doubted it.

I placed the risen rolls for the committee breakfast into the oven. Then I picked up the phone and punched the buttons to reach Nan Watkins, R.N.

She was not home. Would she talk to me about this allegation at her retirement picnic? I would just have to find out.

I set about cleaning up the kitchen. My stomach growled, so I allowed myself a few bites of Trudy’s Mediterranean Chicken. The meat was tender and juicy, the sauce a delectable melange of garlic, onion, sherry, and tomato. Yum!

I stowed the chicken and took the hot, puffed citrus rolls out of the oven. They looked as light as clouds, and perfumed the kitchen with a heavenly scent. I turned on all the fans, which meant I almost didn’t hear the doorbell when Detective Blackridge rang. I invited him in and offered him a therapeutically sized piece of cream pie. He declined. I might be able to snow reporters, but cops were another thing altogether.

“I’ll just see the two notes, please.”

I’d put them into two zipped plastic bags. He read them both, his face impassive.

“And you just happened to receive these today?”

I bristled. “Here’s what they came in.” I handed him the manila envelope.

He squinted at me. “So did he?”

“Did who?”

“Did your ex-husband ever force himself on you?”

I exhaled. “Yes. I always just…went along with it. I mean, we were married.”

“It’s all very convenient for you, isn’t it?” Blackridge asked, a ghost of a smile curling his lips. “He’s killed, then an allegation of rape magically surfaces, and so it looks as if—”

“Why don’t you ask Cecelia Brisbane about it?” I retorted.

Detective Blackridge turned toward the door, clutching the plastic bags and the manila envelope. “We tried. She’s not at her office and not at her house. That’s convenient for you, too. Isn’t it?”

He shot a questioning look back at me. I said nothing. But I resolved that I would be