Tight Lines (8 page)

“Me, too,” he said. “I was hoping you needed some cosmetic work.”

“I probably could use some,” I said. “Guess I’ll try to get by without it.”

I hung up and glanced at my notebook. Warren, the third McAllister doctor, was a psychiatrist. Somebody had prescribed the antidepressant drug Pertofrane for Mary Ellen. Sounded like the shrink to me. If he prescribed drugs for her, it meant he treated her. Psychiatric patients met with their shrinks several times a week, I knew. If anyone was going to know where Mary Ellen had gone, it would be her shrink.

I tried the number for Warren McAllister and got his answering machine. My message simply stated my name and phone number and asked the doctor to return my call at his earliest convenience. I didn’t know if gynecologists prescribed drugs like Pertofrane. If I struck out with Dr. Warren, and if Dr. Arline didn’t return my call, I’d give her another try.

I thought of calling Sherif Rahmanan. He had lied to me, and it pissed me off. He knew Mary Ellen’s phone number. Probably knew a lot more about her, too.

But if he knew where she was, he wouldn’t have tried to reach her at home. I decided I had enough to do without making Professor Rahmanan sweat over his wife finding out that he had maintained a relationship with Mary Ellen all these years. I just wanted to know where she was. I just wanted to tell her that Susan was going to die.

I fooled around with paperwork for the rest of the afternoon, trying to get caught up. I’d spent a lot of time on Susan recently—billable time, theoretically, although Julie always accused me of being slipshod about keeping track of billable time.

Around four Julie buzzed me. “Line two,” she said. “It’s your wife.”

“Gloria?”

“Of course.”

“She’s not my wife,” I said gently. Gloria hasn’t been my wife for a decade. Julie refuses to acknowledge that fact. She assumes that our divorce is merely a temporary hiatus in a lifelong partnership. I poked the flashing button on my phone and said, “Hi, hon.”

“Brady,” said Gloria without preamble, “do you know what William has done?”

“Drilled a hole in his ear?” I said. “Wild guess.”

She hesitated for just an instant. “He told you?”

“I saw him last week.”

“You visited him?”

“No, he was in town for an interview. He sponged lunch off me.”

“Hm,” she said. “He didn’t tell me he was going to be in town.”

“It was just a quick trip. He’s trying for an internship at the Aquarium.”

“Well, what did you do?”

“Do?”

“About his ear.”

“Well, I asked him where it came from. He said he was drunk when it happened. I guess he figures that absolves him of responsibility.”

“Yes,” she muttered, “he would think that way. So would you.” She paused. “Reason I called…”

“Hmm?”

“Wanna do lunch?”

“Do?”

“Meet for. Eat.”

“Sure. When? Where?”

“How’s Friday?”

“Fine. You coming in town?”

“Yes.”

“Remember Marie’s?”

“That little Italian place in Kenmore Square?”

“That’s the one. Say twelve-thirty?”

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll be there.”

“Um, hey, Gloria?”

“Yes, Brady?”

“What’s up?”

“Oh, nothing much. It’s been a while, that’s all. I thought it would be nice to get together.”

“It would be nice,” I said.

After we exchanged good-byes, I swiveled around and stared out the window. Nothing much, she had said. My ex-wife was going to announce to me that she was getting remarried. To a lawyer. Ten years younger than her. A wuss. A dweeb. I wondered why she felt she had to tell me.

I returned to the papers on my desk, and at five Julie poked her head into my office. “I’m off,” she said.

I waved to her without looking up. The very model of the hard-working attorney.

“Brady?” she said.

I sighed and lifted my head. “Yes?”

“What are you doing?”

I moved the back of my hand across the papers scattered over my desk. “My job. I’m a lawyer, see.”

“No, I mean on the Susan Ames thing?”

“Still trying to catch up with Mary Ellen.”

“And already you’re way behind in your real work.”

“Susan is my client. It’s real work.”

“Playing detective?”

“I’m not playing detective. I’m trying to do my job.”

She shrugged. “It’s your law practice.”

“Precisely.”

“Well,” she said, “just have all that stuff on my desk in the morning.”

I snapped her a salute. “Aye, aye, Captain.”

After she left I slid the new Orvis catalog out from under a stack of manila folders. They had just brought out a great new line of fly rods. I really needed a couple of new rods. I swiveled around to face the window while I studied the catalog.

My phone rang around five-thirty. I picked it up. “Brady Coyne,” I said.

“This is Doctor McAllister,” said a deep male voice. “Returning your call.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I was hoping you might have some time…”

“Did you have a referral?”

“Pardon me?”

“Did someone refer you to me?”

“Oh.” I laughed quickly. “No, it’s not that. I don’t need—well, maybe I could use it. Probably could. But I’m not looking for treatment, Doctor. I’m a lawyer.”

I paused, and I could hear the hesitation in his voice before he said, “Yes?” Why is it that everybody assumes a lawyer is out to screw them?

“Doctor McAllister,” I said, “is Mary Ellen Ames your patient?”

There was a long pause. “Sir, I’m sorry, but…” His voice trailed off.

“I don’t want you to violate confidentiality,” I said. “I know all about the privileged status of our patients and clients. But I’m Mary Ellen’s mother’s lawyer. I’ve been trying to find her. Susan Ames is dying, and—”

“She’s my patient, yes.”

“You prescribed Pertofrane for her?”

“What exactly do you want?” he said.

“I just need to talk with her.”

Another pause. “I see.”

“So do you know how I can get ahold of her?”

“You’d appear to be doing very well, Mr. Coyne. You know I treat Miz Ames, you know her medication.”

“Well, I can’t find her.”

“Mr. Coyne,” he said after a moment, “you asked me for some time. I can do that. But not now. If you’d like to get together…?”

“Sure,” I said. “That would be good.”

“Let’s see,” he said. “Today’s Tuesday. I’ve got my seminar tonight. How would nine be? Too late for you?”

“Tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Nine is fine. Where?”

He gave me directions to his place in Brookline. His office was in his house. It sounded like a large house in a nice neighborhood.

D
R. WARREN MCALLISTER’S BIG
Victorian was exactly where he said it would be in Brookline, and I got there ten minutes early. A giant elm tree, apparently immune to the Dutch elm disease that has virtually extinguished that elegant old tree from New England, grew on the lawn. Its swooping limbs still clung stubbornly to a few clumps of leaves. Foundation plantings of rhododendrons had been allowed to sprawl unchecked across the front of the house, almost obscuring the porch that appeared to completely encircle it.

I parked on the street and sat in my car, smoking a cigarette and waiting for nine o’clock to arrive. I hate to be early. I also hate to be late. I like to get to my appointments just a few minutes ahead of time and then wait. I don’t always make it, but it’s how I like to do it.

Floodlights under the high eaves illuminated the driveway along the side of the house. The doctor had instructed me to go around to the back. At precisely nine I got out of my car, stomped on my cigarette butt, and followed the driveway around the house.

I climbed the wide steps onto the back porch and found two doors there, side by side, under a bright overhead light. One of the doors was heavy and solid-looking with no windows. In the center of it was a small brass plate on which “Dr. Warren McAllister” was etched in fancy lettering. The other door had a window in it with a curtain drawn across from the inside. Beside each door was a bell. Over the doctor’s bell was a neatly hand-lettered sign that said “Ring and then come in.”

I pressed the bell beside Dr. Warren’s door, but I decided to wait rather than enter, and a minute or so later the door opened.

“Mr. Coyne?” he said.

He was a couple inches taller than my six feet, angular and a little stoop shouldered, with a bushy thatch of silvery hair that flopped over the tops of his ears. His eyes were deep-set and sharp blue. His face was seamed with what are called wrinkles on women, but on men are known as “character lines.” I guessed he was in his late fifties.

He was wearing a Harris tweed jacket, with earth colors predominating, a blue oxford shirt that matched his eyes, a dark green tie, and tan trousers. He held a pair of steel-rimmed reading glasses in one hand.

He extended the other hand to me. I shook it and said, “Dr. McAllister. I appreciate your seeing me.”

“No problem, Mr. Coyne. Glad you could make it. Well, why don’t you come on up.” He turned and I followed him up a flight of stairs that corkscrewed its way to the third floor. At the top was another door that opened into a small sitting room, the place where his patients waited until their fifty-minute hour session began, I assumed. It was furnished with an oxblood leather sofa and two matching easy chairs, a coffee table stacked with
New Yorker
and
Yankee
magazines, an aluminum coffee urn, and a large, densely populated tropical fish tank. Several cheerfully amateurish watercolors in cheap frames adorned the walls.

McAllister paused inside the waiting room for me to catch up. Then he said, “We can talk in my office, if you don’t mind.”

“Fine,” I said.

He pulled open a door and we entered a room nearly as big as my entire apartment. I noticed that there was another door, this one opening into the office. A double check on his patients’ privacy, I deduced.

The floors were wide pine planks, with several braided rugs scattered about. Large windows on two walls looked out into the treetops. The other two walls were lined floor-to-ceiling with bookshelves. A wood stove stood in one corner. Two comfortable-looking armchairs sat facing each other in front of the wood stove. A big wooden desk, its top littered with papers and books, crouched under one of the windows. In another quadrant of the room was an upholstered chaise. A straight-backed chair sat by its head.

McAllister waved his hand. “Here’s where I work,” he said. “We can sit over here, if you want.”

He led me to the two armchairs by the stove. I took one. He sat across from me. He fitted his glasses onto his face, leaving them low on his nose so that he looked at me over the top of them. “About Mary Ellen Ames,” he said. “I’m sure it’s redundant for me to reiterate the constraints that we’ll have to place on this conversation. You must deal with matters of confidentiality now and then.”

I nodded. “Happens a lot. I place a lot of value on discretion in my practice.”

He nodded and smiled. “Yes, good. Both of us must be careful to protect our clients’ privileged status with us. So if I appear less than forthcoming with you, Mr. Coyne, I want you to know that it’s not because I don’t care or am not as concerned as you are.” He cleared his throat and arched his eyebrows at me.

“Sure,” I said. “I understand. You are concerned about Mary Ellen Ames, then?”

He nodded. “Yes. She’s my patient. I’m concerned about all my patients.”

“Do you have a particular reason to be concerned in Mary Ellen’s case?”

“Why don’t you tell me what you want, Mr. Coyne.”

So I did. I told him about Susan and my frustrated efforts to find Mary Ellen. He was a good listener. Those sharp eyes studied my face as I talked. He nodded frequently and murmured, “Certainly. Mm hm,” when I paused in my narration, or, “Yes. Of course.” When I mentioned going into her place and finding the prescription for Pertofrane with his name on it, he blinked but said nothing.

When I stopped, he said, “So you’re asking me if I know where she is.”

I shrugged. “Yes. That’s what I was hoping you could tell me.”

He slowly removed his glasses and gazed down at them as he held them in his lap. Then he looked up at me. “Perhaps you were wondering why I was so agreeable about meeting with you.”

I nodded. “Well, yes, as a matter of fact. I didn’t expect you to be so—cooperative.”

“I wouldn’t be normally. But Miz Ames has missed—let’s see—we meet four times a week, so counting today’s session, she has missed ten consecutive appointments. It is, quite frankly, a source of some concern to me, yes. She has not always been completely faithful about keeping her appointments, or informing me ahead of time if she’s unable to meet with me. Many patients are irresponsible about this, and when they fail to show I am unlikely to be particularly concerned, although it’s part of their therapy to keep the work going, even when it’s painful for them, and their failure to keep appointments—often a rather transparent form of passive aggressiveness directed at the analyst, you see—inevitably becomes the topic of their subsequent sessions. But Miz Ames, as I said, has missed two full weeks plus yesterday and today, and as far as I know there is no reason for it. She’s—”

“Has it been painful for Mary Ellen recently?” I interjected.

“Painful?”

“Your word, Doctor.”

He frowned for an instant, then smiled. “Oh, yes. I see. Well, I shouldn’t say it’s been unusually painful for Miz Ames lately. Difficult, of course. It always is. We’ve worked very hard together for a very long time now. She has been making slow but steady progress. There have, naturally, been some, as you say, painful times. But, no, not currently.” He cocked his head at me. “If you mean should I have anticipated her doing something, ah, desperate or destructive, no, I can’t honestly say there’s been anything particular.”

“Desperate or destructive?”

“Pardon?”

“Your words again.”

He shrugged. “She’s a psychiatric patient, Mr. Coyne.”

“Yeah, I see.” I paused. “The drug, that Pertofrane—?”