“Did she find out?”
“No. At least he didn’t think she did.” A deep breath followed. “Look, if she did, I wasn’t the first. I seriously doubt his wife would kill him. Hit him with a frying pan, yes, but kill him, no.”
“Did you love him? All the times we talked about covering your tracks, I never asked.”
Annalise looked directly into Toni’s eyes. “I loved him, but I wasn’t in love with him. We shared a passion—more for medicine than each other—but it was good. We pushed each other to learn more, look more deeply. And we were both always figuring out how to invest, utilize our resources. That doesn’t sound romantic, but it drew us closer. Everyone thinks doctors are rich. Well, I make a much better living than someone in a computer pool, but the expenses are considerable, and there’s all those school loans to repay. We talked about everything. I will miss him.”
Toni looked through the large glass window in the door. “Your assistant is washing up. You don’t know what kind of emotions will well up, so do your best: Repress.” She squeezed Annalise’s shoulder. “Pull it together. Bad as it is, it would be much worse if you had been in love with him.”
Annalise rose to walk with Toni to the outside door. “Maybe. He was my friend before he was my lover. Lovers come and go, Toni; a friend is forever.”
“You might be right.” Toni hugged her, then slipped out the door.
• • •
Izzy Wineberg fielded calls, soothed some shaken staff members, and was grateful when he had a moment to himself in his private bathroom in his large office. He washed his face, then held a washrag, wrung out, to his face.
Rising like a comet in the medical world, Central Virginia Medical Complex wouldn’t be brought down by what now appeared to be connected deaths. Ten years ago at the old hospital, there had been murders, related, as they usually are, to money. It’s always love or money. He patted his face dry with a fluffy towel, courtesy of his wife of forty-six years. She filled his life with all manner of thoughtful objects and events.
On the subject of wives, he knew Cory had cut a wide swath through the hospital nursing staff, and probably outside, as well. He was that kind of guy.
Izzy faced two immediate conundrums. The first was: If he told Sheriff Shaw about Cory’s conquests, would the sheriff raise the issue with Cory’s wife, Rachel? What a wretched time for a woman to learn her husband suffered from chronic infidelity. Then again, maybe she knew. But Izzy doubted it. He’d seen them together many times, been a guest at their home. But people can be marvelous actors, he reminded himself.
The second problem—thornier—would need a deft touch. Paula and Cory had worked together. Thadia had not, but one could hardly miss the fact that the woman was besotted with the surgeon. Physicians solve mysteries. You can’t cure a patient until you know what ails him or her. Using all the skills that had served him well in his profession, Izzy discarded extraneous information, concentrating on symptoms. His conclusion: Cory Schaeffer was central to this string of murders.
The fruit-bearing trees dropped their blossoms, and tiny little bumps of peaches, pears, and apples gave hope for a good crop. The dogwoods, too, lost their beautiful white or pink blossoms. Trees began to fill out, the light spring green already turning a shade darker.
Daffodils and tulips faded in their place while, like blaring trumpets, irises opened. There were small, intense Japanese irises, bearded irises in lavender, a maroon iris with a peach interior. There was every shade of purple imaginable. Along with the early irises, the azaleas created luxurious oceans of color. It’s a rare Virginia residence lacking in azaleas or irises. People will haul in sand to give those azalea bushes the right soil.
Some years the azaleas and irises did not bloom in sync, but this year they did, and Harry marveled at the color around her house and in the big wooden half buckets in front of the barn. Eventually those buckets would give way to the ever-hardy geraniums and petunias.
Kneeling, she weeded out her flower bed by the back door. She’d have another radiation treatment at the end of the week, so it’d be better to get this task done now. She knew she’d be even more tired than she was the last time.
In her support group, she learned not only about what cancer does to the body but also what the treatments do. A combination of chemo and radiation seems designed to kill cancer cells and very nearly the patient. Grateful that she had to face only radiation, she joked with those sisters about losing their hair, their appetite, and their energy. Thankfully, nobody lost their sense of humor.
One of the girls quipped, “God made hair to cover imperfect heads.”
Some invested in good wigs, and those without funds were helped out by an organization that makes wigs for indigent cancer patients. Others wore baseball caps and said, “The hell with it.”
Harry didn’t know how she’d handle that. She knew what she faced wasn’t nearly as bad as what so many of the others had. Still, she felt it: the slide in energy; the gusts of irritability, which she took pains to hide; and sometimes the sorrow of it. Yes, she was doing great, in good shape, but the idea that her body had fooled her troubled her.
She’d repeat over and over to herself the mantra of her support group: I have cancer; cancer doesn’t have me.
The long rays of late-afternoon sun brushed the barn, the fields, the old handblown glass in the windowpanes. Harry thought of this as soft light, almost liquid light, and like most country people, she felt one of the compensations for winter’s harshness was the magical quality of the light, no matter what the time. But now, mid-spring, one waited for late afternoon.
“Coop,” Tucker barked, for she heard Coop’s truck turn off the road far away, onto the gravel farm drive.
Coop pulled up next to the barn.
Harry stood up, dropping a handful of persistent weeds into the blue muck bucket. Dusting off her knees, she walked toward the tall blonde just stepping out of her truck.
“Hey, neighbor.”
Coop smiled. “The place looks great.”
“Thank you. I couldn’t stand looking at those weeds one more minute.”
“You’re much better about weeding than I am.” Coop sighed. “Got a minute?”
“Of course. Come on in and let me wash up.” Harry peeled off her gardening gloves, putting them on a high shelf inside the screened-in porch, because if Tucker could reach them, she ran off with them.
In the kitchen, as clean as possible, given that she’d been gardening, Harry asked, “Your pleasure, madam?”
“Iced tea, if you have it.”
“Sounds like just the thing.”
Harry reached into the big double-door fridge and grabbed the handle of a full jar of unsweetened tea. Heavier than she thought, for she was weaker than she realized, she had to use both hands to get it to the counter.
Coop noticed, rose, and poured the tea. “You’ll come back.”
Frustrated, Harry plucked out a lemon from a bowl on the counter and sliced it. “I know. If I weren’t going to Heavy Metal, it would be even worse. It comes, then goes. I don’t mean it comes out of nowhere. I’ve noticed a definite schedule. Exhaustion after radiation. That turns into tiredness the next day, and each day away from the treatment, I improve. And it’s the same way for, I don’t know, strength. But the effects last longer. One last treatment. Really, Coop, I’ve been lucky.”
Coop put the jar back in the fridge, and they both walked to the rough-hewn kitchen table.
The cats jumped up on the counter to eat from their large crunchie bowl. Harry filled it once a day, doing the same for Tucker.
“Brought you this.” Coop plucked a small jar of potassium tablets out of her back jeans pocket.
“Good you did before you sat down.” Harry opened the jar, for Coop had slit the plastic covering. She knew Harry’s grip hadn’t been as strong since the treatments.