Broken Hope, page 15
His chest flails. An alarm beeps beside his bed. Dr. Lombardi stands next to him, holding what looks like an oxygen bag, as if ready to resuscitate him but not until forced to.
The last thing Michael sees, the last thing he will ever see, is the door bursting open and Dr. Lombardi quickly putting an oxygen mask over his face.
He gives in to the darkness.
27
The elevator pings open on the internal medicine ward, and I run toward the central desk, its lighting a beacon against the darkened hallway. My overnight bag thumps my shoulder, and the strings of my hoodie flap against my torso.
I wish I’d left earlier. Wish I hadn’t taken the time to pack an extra change of clothes. My intuition warns me time is not to be wasted. At least the Uber arrived promptly. It seemed unsafe to walk to the hospital in the middle of the night, and I didn’t want to have to park my car since I’m not sure how long I’ll be here.
When I reach the counter, I find no one. From the far corner of the ward, voices converse in a low tone.
Tightening my mask around my nose (Boston General still encourages them for inpatient units), I head in that direction, passing darkened rooms with blipping monitors and humming infusion pumps. As a resident, I enjoyed the quiet of the hospital after midnight, at least when the number of admissions were few, but right now I feel nothing but a rumbling dread.
I spot Kim Lombardi talking to Polly inside a patient’s room, the door wide open and the lights bright. Instinct tells me it’s Michael’s room. Just as quickly, common sense tells me I’m being dramatic. It could be anyone’s room.
As I approach the door, the two masked women turn to me. Kim’s eyebrows are furrowed, while Polly’s are raised in surprise.
“Dr. Sullivan,” the nurse says. “What are you doing here so early? Did we admit one of your patients last night?”
“I’m here to see Michael Yerli.”
“Why is that?” Kim asks.
It might be my drama again, but I swear there is a challenge in the hospitalist’s tone.
“I’m…he’s a patient of mine.”
“Really,” Kim says flatly. She eyes the carryall over my shoulder but says nothing.
“Really,” I reply.
Polly makes a sound of sympathy. “I’m so sorry, Dr. Sullivan, but…”
Her gaze travels from me to the bed behind her, and when she steps away to let me enter the room, I inhale a sharp rush of air.
Michael is lying there, eyes staring up at the ceiling, gown pulled down, boxers exposed. Burn marks on his hastily shaved chest form two pink rectangles in an otherwise dark forest of hair. Aside from the beard he now sports from his prolonged hospitalization, he is the same man I saw in his basement apartment—except now he doesn’t blink. His chest doesn’t rise. His muscles don’t twitch.
The bed’s top sheet and blanket have been yanked all the way down to the foot of the mattress, and a defibrillator and crash cart stand nearby. Although a pulse oximeter probe still hugs his finger and his IV line still dangles from the crook of his elbow, his infusion pump and cardiac monitor have been turned off.
I struggle to process the scene.
“We tried everything.” Polly seems shy to make eye contact with me. “The whole team was here.”
Stepping up to the bed, I let my overnight bag drop to the floor. I take Michael’s still-warm hand and squeeze it, as if expecting him to squeeze back. How is it I feel such sudden and unexpected sorrow for a man who could have killed Bo and might have done the same to me had I not fought back?
“What happened?” I whisper. I’m not sure the other two women hear me, so I raise my voice and repeat the question.
Kim approaches the other side of the bed. I struggle not to glare at her. I don’t know anything yet. Michael was badly injured. He was in a coma. Kim might not have had anything to do with his death. Most likely didn’t have anything to do with his death.
Of course, that means I’m the one who killed him then. Maybe not this morning, but my actions are what landed him in the hospital.
I steel my jaw, determined to show as little emotion as Kim. Usually that would be easy for me. Right now, it feels impossible.
“He went into sudden cardiac arrest,” Kim says. “A fatal arrhythmia. I was finishing an assessment on him, so I was luckily close by, but we couldn’t bring him back. He’s been throwing strange rhythms for the past week, so it’s not a complete surprise.” Kim glances at Polly. “Would you mind grabbing my tablet from the counter? I’ll show Dr. Sullivan some of Mr. Yerli’s tracings.”
Polly obliges, and when she returns with the tablet, Kim scrolls through Michael’s telemetry. “See? At first some bradycardia, then SVT throughout the week. Even some short runs of V-tach.”
When I lean in for a closer look at tonight’s arrhythmia pattern—the one that proved fatal—Kim hands the tablet back to Polly before I’m able to read much of it. With another timid glance in my direction, the petite nurse exits the room and patters off down the hallway. It’s unclear why she seems bashful in my presence, but I don’t have time to ponder it.
“Did you have him on a beta blocker?” I ask Kim, studying Michael’s lifeless face. “What do his labs show?”
I try to keep my tone clinical, non-accusatory, but despite the absurdity of my suspicion, what I want most to ask is if Kim injected something lethal and then held off resuscitating Michael until someone else came into the room. That would give the appearance she had been helping him all along. Something lethal like a potassium chloride overdose. That drug wouldn’t show up on autopsy. Both components are normal electrolytes in blood. Other medications come to mind too.
It’s critical I hide my mistrust, though. First, because my theory might be pure fantasy and I could lose all professional credibility. Second, because I don’t want to show my hand. If Michael flashed Kim his I-think-you-murdered-my-wife cards, a push of potassium chloride might have very well been the next card she flashed.
Kim answers my question about Michael’s lab tests. “They’re still pending, but they’ll probably be normal.” She stares hard at me. “He was badly injured. Beaten up. The police tried to get him to write out what happened to him, but all he did was scribble that he was drunk and fell. The police didn’t believe him”—she points to Michael’s battered body—“there’s no way he could have done this to himself, but he refused to admit to any assault, and without a name, what can they do?” Here she pauses and raises an eyebrow. “Seems he’s protecting someone.”
Yeah, me, but why? Especially after what I did to him.
I realize I’m still gripping Michael’s hand. I drop it, but my body burns, and I want to lash out at something. Not wanting Kim to see my growing emotion, I shift away and move to the window. Near it, I spot Michael’s phone on the chair—a phone that probably contains his emails to me. Or worse.
“What are you really doing here?” Kim asks, interrupting my thoughts.
She eyes my overnight bag near Michael’s bed and nudges the fabric with her loafer. With her attention diverted, I swipe Michael’s phone off the chair and slip it into my hoodie pocket.
“And how did you know Mr. Yerli was in the hospital?” Kim eyes me again. “None of us called you. We didn’t know he was…your patient. You haven’t stopped by the entire time he’s been here.”
Her tone is always impossible to read, but I sense she is trying to trap me in a lie. What can I say? No doctor would bring an overnight bag to stay with his or her hospitalized patient. I step forward and pick up the carryall.
“Michael and I…” I pause, forming my thoughts. “We’ve been seeing each other.” Although this lie could land me in deeper trouble with the Medical Board, Kim can’t dispute it. “I’m not proud of it, and I hope you’ll be discreet, but I only saw him once as a patient.”
“Oh,” Kim says, leaving me unsure as to whether she believes me or not. “Was it you on the phone tonight?” She glances at the clock hanging near the wall-mounted TV. “Guess I should say this morning, huh?”
Again, I feel like she’s setting a trap. Does she already know I’m the one who called him? Was she the one who ended our conversation? If I lie, it will only add to her suspicion.
“Yes,” I finally say. I pray she doesn’t notice that the chair next to me no longer holds Michael’s phone.
“Why?”
“He was lonely. Maybe even scared.”
“What did he have to be scared of?”
The two of us stare at each other. If Kim is playing games with me, it’s impossible to tell. She has always been impassive, and her surgical mask makes the guessing game harder. Sometimes, back when we were residents, her passivity—her sloth-like indifference, even—annoyed the heck out of me. But mostly she was just…there. Bland, predictable, forgettable.
Now though, as we blink at each other, Michael growing cold by our sides with no one but me to grieve for him, I wonder if Kim has fooled us all.
I told myself that after my revenge on the barista, I would put a halt to my tune-ups. That I was crossing a line that might turn me into a monster.
But now?
I tear my gaze from Kim and lower it to Michael. His bearded face wears the ugly grimace of death, and in it I see fear and uncertainty. His rage is gone.
That’s okay. I’ll carry it for him.
I close his eyelids and bend down to kiss his forehead. Feelings I don’t understand stab my heart.
If Kim did this to you, I silently promise him, if she killed Jasmine, others too, I will find out. And I will make her pay.
28
At nearly 5:00 a.m., I stumble out of Boston General’s main entrance and spill into the Uber I summoned. The area is still dark and mostly deserted, but instead of wondering about the trustworthiness of the hirsute driver behind the wheel, my mind struggles to process Michael Yerli’s death. Was it truly natural? An arrhythmia as Kim said? Or did she play a role in his cardiac arrest?
Either way, had I not fought him so aggressively in his basement apartment, he’d still be alive. That thought is a kick to my own throat. No new-agey affirmation in the world will bring me peace knowing that.
I rest my head against the backseat of the Nissan and try to breathe away my guilt. Sleep is what I want. It’s what I need. But I’m not going home to sleep. I’m going home to retrieve my car and drive to Michael’s place. I want to learn more about him, not only because of our perverse connection but because he might have incriminating evidence against me. If I’m arrested for my extracurricular activities, I won’t be able to avenge anyone, let alone him.
Although I am relieved to have his phone in my pocket, I hope no one looked through it before I snatched it off the chair in his room. If they did, they might have found the video he claimed he took of me while I tuned up the wife beater. I haven’t had the chance to check yet, and I’ll need his face or passcode to open it.
Kim mentioned the police haven’t yet done an investigation, that Michael refused to name any attacker or press charges, but now that he’s dead, that changes things, doesn’t it? Overworked police department or not, the assault on Michael could be upgraded to a homicide. Once the detectives start detecting, how hard will it be to follow the breadcrumbs back to me? I need to get to his apartment before they do.
If I’m lucky, his door will still be unlocked, the paramedics not taking the time to secure it after wheeling him into the ambulance. If it isn’t, or if the landlord got wind of what happened to Michael and stopped by to lock the door, I’ll have to create a plan B.
On the other hand, it’s possible Kim won’t call the police. If she killed Michael, she won’t want them sniffing around any more than I do. She’ll simply go through the usual channels for a patient death. Polly might call them, though, and I still have zero proof Kim murdered Michael. Until I do, I have to assume Michael’s death will be investigated.
The Uber driver drops me off at my building. I hurry inside and speed walk through the lobby, relieved the door attendant isn’t behind the desk at the moment. I’m not in the mood for small talk. I also don’t want to risk an encounter with Nathan, so I enter the parking garage directly instead of going up to my loft. It wouldn’t be the first time my hypochondriac neighbor caught me at dawn on a Saturday.
Antsy with adrenaline, I climb into my SUV and input Michael’s address into the GPS. Twice I have to retype the street name because my fingers are so jittery I keep punching the wrong letters. Finally, with the address correctly entered, I back out of my too-tight parking space and weave my way to the exit. Anxious to get there, I drive to South Boston where Michael lives—lived—in a neighborhood that is probably safe for a daytime stroll but no place I’d want to be caught alone after dark.
It’s almost five thirty now, and the sun is starting its ascent. By the time I reach the brownstone that houses Michael’s basement apartment, the traffic has picked up, and there’s enough daylight to feel more secure.
I drive around a two-block radius in search of a parking spot. In this residential neighborhood, all seem to be taken. Each pass reveals treeless, shabby sidewalks and porches with terracotta pots housing wilted plants. On the fourth drive-around, a pickup truck vacates a spot, and I pull into it.
I wait a few minutes in my SUV to steady my nerves. At 6:00 a.m., just after the first dog-walker and one other person exit their brownstones, I put on my sunglasses, climb out of the Highlander, and stroll the block and half toward Michael’s place. Thinking it might be better to disguise myself, I slip my hood over my head but then remove it again. It will only make me look more suspicious.
As I approach the side stairwell leading down to Michael’s place, my heart rate climbs higher. I’ve performed far riskier and illegal tasks than this during my tune-ups, so why am I suddenly a quaking Cathy?
Keeping my head up as if I belong there, I trot down the concrete stairs. I have no idea who lives above Michael or in the unit on the other side, but hopefully they’re not nosy.
With the carryall over my shoulder, its contents (save for two bobby pins from my makeup bag) unloaded in my vehicle in case I need an empty bag, I wonder if I’ll have to pick the lock. I’ve only done it once, back in college when I had to help a drunk friend get into her apartment after she’d left her keys at the bar. It took a while, but two bobby pins and some jimmying later, we were in. Judging by the old doorknob on Michael’s entrance, I might be able to do the same here.
I slip on a pair of gloves and turn the knob. It opens easily. My earlier assumption about the paramedics rushing out with their injured party and not taking the time to find Michael’s key to lock the place back up was correct. I inhale deeply and step inside the mildew-scented cave, locking the door behind me.
To my left lies the kitchen. The empty beer bottles and takeout containers remain scattered on the laminate countertop. The beige appliances must be at least forty years old, and the cheap table is scuffed, but nothing seems out of place. The sagging sofa appears the same, as does the desk in the corner with the computer equipment. Everything suggests the police haven’t been here yet. Why would they? Michael gave them nothing to pursue.
Until now, anyway. Now his death might give them plenty to pursue.
That thought gets me moving. The apartment is small, and I act quickly. Even though all I’m interested in is the desk with the computer equipment, I want to make sure the place shows no other evidence of me. When I pull open the kitchen drawers, one falls off its slider and takes three attempts to right again. Wooden spoons, mismatched silverware, and a few warped lids lay inside. There’s nothing of interest in the cabinets either.
I move on to the bedroom, but the sadness of it makes me slow my pace. There’s a twin bed with no headboard, a plastic dresser—most likely from a big-box store, and a closet with a broken sliding door. Inside hang jeans, sweatshirts, and one suit.
Was that the suit he wore to Jasmine’s funeral? Did he have to sell their nicer belongings because he couldn’t hold a steady job?
A search of his clothing pockets, the plastic dresser drawers, and his tiny bathroom nets me nothing but a knot of sympathy in my gut. In different circumstances, I could have been him. He didn’t inherit money. He couldn’t throw himself into his work as a doctor. He couldn’t disguise his grief from those in his circle because, unlike me, he didn’t find an outlet to unleash it.
Yes, I could have been Michael. Could still be Michael if I’m not careful.
The living room remains the last place to search, and in here the desk is the only thing of interest. The couch and the empty television stand hide nothing.
The desk is really just a sturdy plastic table, the computer equipment the only thing of value. It sits near a hopper window and catches a thin ray of sunlight that squeezes its way in. A portion of the sidewalk and street are visible, and when a couple in shorts and T-shirts pass by, perhaps on an early morning stroll, their voices come through remarkably well. Traffic, too, rolls by, and something thumps from the unit above me, a tenant maybe getting up.
The table holds both a desktop computer and a laptop, as well as a printer, a speaker, and a microphone headset. Michael mentioned something about working in IT at one time, but then he’d been forced to freelance because he couldn’t keep a job. Judging by his feeble apartment, decent-paying work didn’t come often.
I study the desktop computer. There’s no way I can lug it out without looking suspicious. Instead, I power it on and pull over one of the table chairs.
Footsteps stomp above me now, and I picture the tenant getting ready for work. One person? Two? Would they think it suspicious to find me here?
I double down on my efforts to be quiet, but an audible groan escapes me when a password box pops up on the computer screen.
Crap.
I blink at the screen. It undulates back at me. All I can do is try the most obvious.
I type in the name Jasmine and hold my breath.
Nothing.
The last thing Michael sees, the last thing he will ever see, is the door bursting open and Dr. Lombardi quickly putting an oxygen mask over his face.
He gives in to the darkness.
27
The elevator pings open on the internal medicine ward, and I run toward the central desk, its lighting a beacon against the darkened hallway. My overnight bag thumps my shoulder, and the strings of my hoodie flap against my torso.
I wish I’d left earlier. Wish I hadn’t taken the time to pack an extra change of clothes. My intuition warns me time is not to be wasted. At least the Uber arrived promptly. It seemed unsafe to walk to the hospital in the middle of the night, and I didn’t want to have to park my car since I’m not sure how long I’ll be here.
When I reach the counter, I find no one. From the far corner of the ward, voices converse in a low tone.
Tightening my mask around my nose (Boston General still encourages them for inpatient units), I head in that direction, passing darkened rooms with blipping monitors and humming infusion pumps. As a resident, I enjoyed the quiet of the hospital after midnight, at least when the number of admissions were few, but right now I feel nothing but a rumbling dread.
I spot Kim Lombardi talking to Polly inside a patient’s room, the door wide open and the lights bright. Instinct tells me it’s Michael’s room. Just as quickly, common sense tells me I’m being dramatic. It could be anyone’s room.
As I approach the door, the two masked women turn to me. Kim’s eyebrows are furrowed, while Polly’s are raised in surprise.
“Dr. Sullivan,” the nurse says. “What are you doing here so early? Did we admit one of your patients last night?”
“I’m here to see Michael Yerli.”
“Why is that?” Kim asks.
It might be my drama again, but I swear there is a challenge in the hospitalist’s tone.
“I’m…he’s a patient of mine.”
“Really,” Kim says flatly. She eyes the carryall over my shoulder but says nothing.
“Really,” I reply.
Polly makes a sound of sympathy. “I’m so sorry, Dr. Sullivan, but…”
Her gaze travels from me to the bed behind her, and when she steps away to let me enter the room, I inhale a sharp rush of air.
Michael is lying there, eyes staring up at the ceiling, gown pulled down, boxers exposed. Burn marks on his hastily shaved chest form two pink rectangles in an otherwise dark forest of hair. Aside from the beard he now sports from his prolonged hospitalization, he is the same man I saw in his basement apartment—except now he doesn’t blink. His chest doesn’t rise. His muscles don’t twitch.
The bed’s top sheet and blanket have been yanked all the way down to the foot of the mattress, and a defibrillator and crash cart stand nearby. Although a pulse oximeter probe still hugs his finger and his IV line still dangles from the crook of his elbow, his infusion pump and cardiac monitor have been turned off.
I struggle to process the scene.
“We tried everything.” Polly seems shy to make eye contact with me. “The whole team was here.”
Stepping up to the bed, I let my overnight bag drop to the floor. I take Michael’s still-warm hand and squeeze it, as if expecting him to squeeze back. How is it I feel such sudden and unexpected sorrow for a man who could have killed Bo and might have done the same to me had I not fought back?
“What happened?” I whisper. I’m not sure the other two women hear me, so I raise my voice and repeat the question.
Kim approaches the other side of the bed. I struggle not to glare at her. I don’t know anything yet. Michael was badly injured. He was in a coma. Kim might not have had anything to do with his death. Most likely didn’t have anything to do with his death.
Of course, that means I’m the one who killed him then. Maybe not this morning, but my actions are what landed him in the hospital.
I steel my jaw, determined to show as little emotion as Kim. Usually that would be easy for me. Right now, it feels impossible.
“He went into sudden cardiac arrest,” Kim says. “A fatal arrhythmia. I was finishing an assessment on him, so I was luckily close by, but we couldn’t bring him back. He’s been throwing strange rhythms for the past week, so it’s not a complete surprise.” Kim glances at Polly. “Would you mind grabbing my tablet from the counter? I’ll show Dr. Sullivan some of Mr. Yerli’s tracings.”
Polly obliges, and when she returns with the tablet, Kim scrolls through Michael’s telemetry. “See? At first some bradycardia, then SVT throughout the week. Even some short runs of V-tach.”
When I lean in for a closer look at tonight’s arrhythmia pattern—the one that proved fatal—Kim hands the tablet back to Polly before I’m able to read much of it. With another timid glance in my direction, the petite nurse exits the room and patters off down the hallway. It’s unclear why she seems bashful in my presence, but I don’t have time to ponder it.
“Did you have him on a beta blocker?” I ask Kim, studying Michael’s lifeless face. “What do his labs show?”
I try to keep my tone clinical, non-accusatory, but despite the absurdity of my suspicion, what I want most to ask is if Kim injected something lethal and then held off resuscitating Michael until someone else came into the room. That would give the appearance she had been helping him all along. Something lethal like a potassium chloride overdose. That drug wouldn’t show up on autopsy. Both components are normal electrolytes in blood. Other medications come to mind too.
It’s critical I hide my mistrust, though. First, because my theory might be pure fantasy and I could lose all professional credibility. Second, because I don’t want to show my hand. If Michael flashed Kim his I-think-you-murdered-my-wife cards, a push of potassium chloride might have very well been the next card she flashed.
Kim answers my question about Michael’s lab tests. “They’re still pending, but they’ll probably be normal.” She stares hard at me. “He was badly injured. Beaten up. The police tried to get him to write out what happened to him, but all he did was scribble that he was drunk and fell. The police didn’t believe him”—she points to Michael’s battered body—“there’s no way he could have done this to himself, but he refused to admit to any assault, and without a name, what can they do?” Here she pauses and raises an eyebrow. “Seems he’s protecting someone.”
Yeah, me, but why? Especially after what I did to him.
I realize I’m still gripping Michael’s hand. I drop it, but my body burns, and I want to lash out at something. Not wanting Kim to see my growing emotion, I shift away and move to the window. Near it, I spot Michael’s phone on the chair—a phone that probably contains his emails to me. Or worse.
“What are you really doing here?” Kim asks, interrupting my thoughts.
She eyes my overnight bag near Michael’s bed and nudges the fabric with her loafer. With her attention diverted, I swipe Michael’s phone off the chair and slip it into my hoodie pocket.
“And how did you know Mr. Yerli was in the hospital?” Kim eyes me again. “None of us called you. We didn’t know he was…your patient. You haven’t stopped by the entire time he’s been here.”
Her tone is always impossible to read, but I sense she is trying to trap me in a lie. What can I say? No doctor would bring an overnight bag to stay with his or her hospitalized patient. I step forward and pick up the carryall.
“Michael and I…” I pause, forming my thoughts. “We’ve been seeing each other.” Although this lie could land me in deeper trouble with the Medical Board, Kim can’t dispute it. “I’m not proud of it, and I hope you’ll be discreet, but I only saw him once as a patient.”
“Oh,” Kim says, leaving me unsure as to whether she believes me or not. “Was it you on the phone tonight?” She glances at the clock hanging near the wall-mounted TV. “Guess I should say this morning, huh?”
Again, I feel like she’s setting a trap. Does she already know I’m the one who called him? Was she the one who ended our conversation? If I lie, it will only add to her suspicion.
“Yes,” I finally say. I pray she doesn’t notice that the chair next to me no longer holds Michael’s phone.
“Why?”
“He was lonely. Maybe even scared.”
“What did he have to be scared of?”
The two of us stare at each other. If Kim is playing games with me, it’s impossible to tell. She has always been impassive, and her surgical mask makes the guessing game harder. Sometimes, back when we were residents, her passivity—her sloth-like indifference, even—annoyed the heck out of me. But mostly she was just…there. Bland, predictable, forgettable.
Now though, as we blink at each other, Michael growing cold by our sides with no one but me to grieve for him, I wonder if Kim has fooled us all.
I told myself that after my revenge on the barista, I would put a halt to my tune-ups. That I was crossing a line that might turn me into a monster.
But now?
I tear my gaze from Kim and lower it to Michael. His bearded face wears the ugly grimace of death, and in it I see fear and uncertainty. His rage is gone.
That’s okay. I’ll carry it for him.
I close his eyelids and bend down to kiss his forehead. Feelings I don’t understand stab my heart.
If Kim did this to you, I silently promise him, if she killed Jasmine, others too, I will find out. And I will make her pay.
28
At nearly 5:00 a.m., I stumble out of Boston General’s main entrance and spill into the Uber I summoned. The area is still dark and mostly deserted, but instead of wondering about the trustworthiness of the hirsute driver behind the wheel, my mind struggles to process Michael Yerli’s death. Was it truly natural? An arrhythmia as Kim said? Or did she play a role in his cardiac arrest?
Either way, had I not fought him so aggressively in his basement apartment, he’d still be alive. That thought is a kick to my own throat. No new-agey affirmation in the world will bring me peace knowing that.
I rest my head against the backseat of the Nissan and try to breathe away my guilt. Sleep is what I want. It’s what I need. But I’m not going home to sleep. I’m going home to retrieve my car and drive to Michael’s place. I want to learn more about him, not only because of our perverse connection but because he might have incriminating evidence against me. If I’m arrested for my extracurricular activities, I won’t be able to avenge anyone, let alone him.
Although I am relieved to have his phone in my pocket, I hope no one looked through it before I snatched it off the chair in his room. If they did, they might have found the video he claimed he took of me while I tuned up the wife beater. I haven’t had the chance to check yet, and I’ll need his face or passcode to open it.
Kim mentioned the police haven’t yet done an investigation, that Michael refused to name any attacker or press charges, but now that he’s dead, that changes things, doesn’t it? Overworked police department or not, the assault on Michael could be upgraded to a homicide. Once the detectives start detecting, how hard will it be to follow the breadcrumbs back to me? I need to get to his apartment before they do.
If I’m lucky, his door will still be unlocked, the paramedics not taking the time to secure it after wheeling him into the ambulance. If it isn’t, or if the landlord got wind of what happened to Michael and stopped by to lock the door, I’ll have to create a plan B.
On the other hand, it’s possible Kim won’t call the police. If she killed Michael, she won’t want them sniffing around any more than I do. She’ll simply go through the usual channels for a patient death. Polly might call them, though, and I still have zero proof Kim murdered Michael. Until I do, I have to assume Michael’s death will be investigated.
The Uber driver drops me off at my building. I hurry inside and speed walk through the lobby, relieved the door attendant isn’t behind the desk at the moment. I’m not in the mood for small talk. I also don’t want to risk an encounter with Nathan, so I enter the parking garage directly instead of going up to my loft. It wouldn’t be the first time my hypochondriac neighbor caught me at dawn on a Saturday.
Antsy with adrenaline, I climb into my SUV and input Michael’s address into the GPS. Twice I have to retype the street name because my fingers are so jittery I keep punching the wrong letters. Finally, with the address correctly entered, I back out of my too-tight parking space and weave my way to the exit. Anxious to get there, I drive to South Boston where Michael lives—lived—in a neighborhood that is probably safe for a daytime stroll but no place I’d want to be caught alone after dark.
It’s almost five thirty now, and the sun is starting its ascent. By the time I reach the brownstone that houses Michael’s basement apartment, the traffic has picked up, and there’s enough daylight to feel more secure.
I drive around a two-block radius in search of a parking spot. In this residential neighborhood, all seem to be taken. Each pass reveals treeless, shabby sidewalks and porches with terracotta pots housing wilted plants. On the fourth drive-around, a pickup truck vacates a spot, and I pull into it.
I wait a few minutes in my SUV to steady my nerves. At 6:00 a.m., just after the first dog-walker and one other person exit their brownstones, I put on my sunglasses, climb out of the Highlander, and stroll the block and half toward Michael’s place. Thinking it might be better to disguise myself, I slip my hood over my head but then remove it again. It will only make me look more suspicious.
As I approach the side stairwell leading down to Michael’s place, my heart rate climbs higher. I’ve performed far riskier and illegal tasks than this during my tune-ups, so why am I suddenly a quaking Cathy?
Keeping my head up as if I belong there, I trot down the concrete stairs. I have no idea who lives above Michael or in the unit on the other side, but hopefully they’re not nosy.
With the carryall over my shoulder, its contents (save for two bobby pins from my makeup bag) unloaded in my vehicle in case I need an empty bag, I wonder if I’ll have to pick the lock. I’ve only done it once, back in college when I had to help a drunk friend get into her apartment after she’d left her keys at the bar. It took a while, but two bobby pins and some jimmying later, we were in. Judging by the old doorknob on Michael’s entrance, I might be able to do the same here.
I slip on a pair of gloves and turn the knob. It opens easily. My earlier assumption about the paramedics rushing out with their injured party and not taking the time to find Michael’s key to lock the place back up was correct. I inhale deeply and step inside the mildew-scented cave, locking the door behind me.
To my left lies the kitchen. The empty beer bottles and takeout containers remain scattered on the laminate countertop. The beige appliances must be at least forty years old, and the cheap table is scuffed, but nothing seems out of place. The sagging sofa appears the same, as does the desk in the corner with the computer equipment. Everything suggests the police haven’t been here yet. Why would they? Michael gave them nothing to pursue.
Until now, anyway. Now his death might give them plenty to pursue.
That thought gets me moving. The apartment is small, and I act quickly. Even though all I’m interested in is the desk with the computer equipment, I want to make sure the place shows no other evidence of me. When I pull open the kitchen drawers, one falls off its slider and takes three attempts to right again. Wooden spoons, mismatched silverware, and a few warped lids lay inside. There’s nothing of interest in the cabinets either.
I move on to the bedroom, but the sadness of it makes me slow my pace. There’s a twin bed with no headboard, a plastic dresser—most likely from a big-box store, and a closet with a broken sliding door. Inside hang jeans, sweatshirts, and one suit.
Was that the suit he wore to Jasmine’s funeral? Did he have to sell their nicer belongings because he couldn’t hold a steady job?
A search of his clothing pockets, the plastic dresser drawers, and his tiny bathroom nets me nothing but a knot of sympathy in my gut. In different circumstances, I could have been him. He didn’t inherit money. He couldn’t throw himself into his work as a doctor. He couldn’t disguise his grief from those in his circle because, unlike me, he didn’t find an outlet to unleash it.
Yes, I could have been Michael. Could still be Michael if I’m not careful.
The living room remains the last place to search, and in here the desk is the only thing of interest. The couch and the empty television stand hide nothing.
The desk is really just a sturdy plastic table, the computer equipment the only thing of value. It sits near a hopper window and catches a thin ray of sunlight that squeezes its way in. A portion of the sidewalk and street are visible, and when a couple in shorts and T-shirts pass by, perhaps on an early morning stroll, their voices come through remarkably well. Traffic, too, rolls by, and something thumps from the unit above me, a tenant maybe getting up.
The table holds both a desktop computer and a laptop, as well as a printer, a speaker, and a microphone headset. Michael mentioned something about working in IT at one time, but then he’d been forced to freelance because he couldn’t keep a job. Judging by his feeble apartment, decent-paying work didn’t come often.
I study the desktop computer. There’s no way I can lug it out without looking suspicious. Instead, I power it on and pull over one of the table chairs.
Footsteps stomp above me now, and I picture the tenant getting ready for work. One person? Two? Would they think it suspicious to find me here?
I double down on my efforts to be quiet, but an audible groan escapes me when a password box pops up on the computer screen.
Crap.
I blink at the screen. It undulates back at me. All I can do is try the most obvious.
I type in the name Jasmine and hold my breath.
Nothing.
