The Locked Door, page 6
“Will you get out of here?” I snap at him.
Philip rolls his eyes, but he goes on back to his office, although not before taking his coffee. Harper reaches for a tissue to dab at her own eyes. Fortunately, she wasn’t wearing any mascara. I’m not sure how she gets her eyes to look so beautiful without any mascara.
“I’m okay, Dr. Davis,” she sniffles. “I promise, I’m fine.”
I look at her doubtfully. She does not look fine at all. But everyone is right. Harper was too good for Sonny. This is the best thing that could’ve happened to her. Even if she doesn’t know it yet.
“Listen,” I say. “On your lunch break, I want you to take the business credit card, and I want you to buy yourself a great lunch, and also… buy yourself a present. Something decadent.”
Harper laughs through her tears. “I can’t do that.”
“You can and you will.”
At least I’ve gotten a smile out of her now. She takes the coffee I bought for her and so does Sheila. I grab my own cup, then I head for my office. I thought I’d have a leisurely fifteen minutes to drink this, but now I’ve got less than five minutes to gulp it down before Sheila comes to grab me.
I log into my computer to check labs, but the computer is being slow booting up. While I’m waiting, I grab my phone and browse a local news website. I scroll down the screen, looking at the headlines. I pause when one catches my attention:
Local Man in Critical Condition After High-Speed Motor Vehicle Collision
I quickly skim the article. Although it doesn’t mention him by name, they confirm the location of the accident. It was definitely Callahan. He was clearly seriously hurt when he smashed into that tree.
A lump rises in my throat. It’s entirely my fault. Of course, if he hadn’t been following me and trying to scare me…
Maybe I should go check on him. The article mentions he was brought to the hospital where I work. I could bring him some flowers. Of course, if he’s in the ICU with a tube down his throat, he probably won’t appreciate it.
I hear a knock at the door and nearly jump out of my seat. I look down at my watch and curse under my breath. How is the first patient in a room already? The waiting room was empty just a few minutes ago.
“I’ll be right out!” I call.
Then I hear another knock. “Dr. Davis?” It’s Harper’s voice. “Can I come in?”
I take another long swig of coffee. “Yes, come on in.”
Harper cracks open the door just a bit and peeks in before she slides through the crack. “Um, Dr. Davis… the, um… the police are here to see you.”
I almost comically spit out the coffee in my mouth. “The what?”
“There’s a policeman.” Harper wrings her fists together. “He said he needs to talk to you right away.”
“About what?”
She just shakes her head.
My thoughts are racing a mile a minute. Why are the police here? What could they possibly want to talk to me about? Does this have to do with Henry Callahan? Did they trace my 911 call and want to blame me for the collision?
But I know one thing. I can’t say no.
“Send him in,” I say.
Chapter 11
The policeman who comes into my office is in plain clothes—a dress shirt and tie under his jacket—which makes me think he must be some sort of detective. He’s also significantly older than the cops I see pounding the pavement outside. Maybe late fifties or early sixties—almost the age my father is right now. His close-cropped hair is mostly gray and his shirt buttons strain slightly to hold in his gut.
All I can do is sit there, too petrified to speak.
“Dr. Davis?” The officer smiles, but it’s a halfhearted smile. It doesn’t even get halfway to his dark eyes. “I’m Detective Ed Barber.”
“Hello,” I manage.
Police officers terrify me. Ever since that day my entire life changed when I was eleven years old. But for the most part, since that time, I haven’t had any bad interactions with police officers. Especially since I changed my last name. After my grandmother took me in, she insisted I change my last name to hers. I was eager to oblige. The last thing I wanted was for people to know I was that monster’s daughter. And it’s not like Nierling is a common surname.
“Do you have a minute to chat, Dr. Davis?” the detective asks.
“Not really.” My laugh comes out sounding strangled. “But have a seat.”
Barber doesn’t hesitate to sit down in one of the chairs in front of my desk. As he studies my diploma on the wall, I try my best to talk myself down from the ledge. I had nothing to do with the car accident last night. That was entirely Callahan’s fault. Whatever he’s here about, I haven’t done anything wrong.
Maybe he’s here to get my medical opinion for another case. That’s entirely possible. I’m probably working myself up over nothing.
“Dr. Davis,” he says. “Do you have a patient named Amber Swanson?”
I freeze. That’s the last thing I expected him to say. “What?”
“Amber Swanson. Did you perform surgery on her?”
I pick up a pencil on my desk and tap it against the surface. I don’t understand. Am I being sued? Why would a detective be here about that? “The name sounds familiar.”
“She had an appendectomy.”
Now it’s coming back to me. I was on call for the emergency room a couple of months ago and she came in with right lower quadrant pain. I remember walking into the examining room and finding poor Amber in a fetal position. Fortunately, we got her to the OR before her appendix ruptured. The surgery was entirely successful, and she was in good spirits during her postop appointment.
“Yes,” I say carefully. “I remember her.”
The crease between Barber’s eyebrows deepens. “Unfortunately, Ms. Swanson was found murdered at around three in the morning.”
“Oh!” I clasp a hand over my mouth. “Oh my God. That’s awful. She was only… She was very young.”
“Twenty-five years old,” he says. “Really a shame. She disappeared two days ago, and she turned up floating in the San Joaquin River.”
“Oh my God.” I close my eyes against the image of Amber Swanson’s lifeless body floating in the river. “It’s so terrible. But…” I swallow. “How can I help you, Detective?”
“Well,” he says, “I’m just wondering when the last time you saw Amber was?”
I shake my head. “At her postop appointment. It was probably a few weeks ago.”
“And you haven’t seen her since then?”
“No…”
This entire line of questioning is making me very uneasy. Why is he asking me this?
“Where were you two nights ago, Dr. Davis?”
I frown. “Two nights ago?”
“If you could give me an idea what you did that night…”
I glare at him. “Are you going to all of Amber Swanson’s doctors and questioning them this way?”
Detective Barber watches me for a moment with his dark, shrewd eyes that are much younger than the lines on his face. It’s making me incredibly uncomfortable but I don’t look away. Finally, he leans in closer.
“Here’s the thing, Dr. Davis,” he says. “When we found Amber, both her hands had been severed.”
He knows. Oh God, he knows who I am. He doesn’t even have to say it—there’s only one reason he could possibly be sniffing around me after a revelation like that.
My father had an M.O. All of the bodies of his victims that were found were missing their hands. He severed them and preserved the bones in a chest in our basement. That was why they called him the Handyman. Partially because he had been claiming the basement was his workshop, but also because of the missing hands.
Barber is old enough that he was probably already a cop when my father was apprehended. He probably remembers it, although I’m sure there are databases that would have flagged it even if he didn’t.
“Aaron Nierling is in prison,” I say carefully. “This has absolutely nothing to do with me.”
Barber tilts his head to the side. “Well, he’s your father. So I’d say it has a little something to do with you.”
I feel my face getting hot, but I’m careful not to react. That’s what he wants.
“If you want to question me further,” I say, “it will have to be with my attorney. I’m sure you know as well as I do how ridiculous this is.”
The detective just stares at me. It’s like we’re having a blinking contest. I was always very good at those.
“Dr. Davis,” he finally says, “a young woman has been mutilated and murdered. If you think there’s anything about this I’m not taking seriously, you are very mistaken.”
With those words, he gets up out of his seat with a grunt. He reaches deep into his coat pocket, and for one horrible moment, I’m certain he’s going to pull a weapon on me and tell me to put my hands on my head. But instead, he pulls out a business card. He places it on my desk.
“If you think of any information that might help us,” he says, “call me. Anytime, Doctor.”
I nod. “I’ll do that.”
I watch him amble out of my office, and it isn’t until he closes the door behind him that I feel like I can breathe normally again. But my head is still buzzing. Because there’s one other thing I remembered. One thing I wouldn’t dare say to this detective, but it’s hard not to think about it.
I pull my phone out of my pocket. I go to a search engine and type in the name Amber Swanson.
Yes, Aaron Nierling had an MO. But he also had a type. Women in their twenties, with dark hair and blue eyes. Almost always.
The search engine finds several Amber Swansons, but I know who I’m looking for. It’s been several weeks, but I remember her face. There’s just one detail I’m not certain about. But when I find a picture of her, it jogs my memory.
She’s just as I remember her. Mid-twenties. Beautiful, with flowing dark hair. I remembered all that perfectly. But what I wasn’t certain about is now staring me right in the face.
Her clear blue eyes.
Chapter 12
26 Years Earlier
During lunch, Tiffany gets the idea to wad up little white pieces of paper and turn them into spitballs. She sticks one into her straw, purses her little pink lips, and blows into the straw. The spitball flies into the air and lands square on the back of Marjorie Baker’s stringy brown hair.
Marjorie swats at the back of her head, where the spitball is wet and shiny between strands of hair. She knows something hit her, but she’s not sure what. Tiffany clasps a hand over her mouth and giggles. Tiffany is always the one leading the attacks on Marjorie lately. Tiffany has long blond hair that’s silky and beautiful, and every boy in the class has a secret crush on her. But she doesn’t care about boys—all she seems to care about is picking on Marjorie. It’s her favorite thing.
“Let me try!” Amanda Cutraro says. She takes her own straw and repeats the process. Soon enough, a second damp spitball has lodged itself in Marjorie’s hair. A third bounces off her hair and falls into her hoodie.
The worst part is Marjorie can’t seem to find the spitballs. We watch her feel around the back of her head, her fingers searching, but she’s nowhere close. She turns around to glare at us, and the table dissolves into giggles.
“Nora,” Tiffany says, “you want to try?”
I shake my head no.
“Why not?” Tiffany says.
I shrug. “I don’t feel like it.”
If I were someone else, Tiffany probably would’ve twisted my arm to get me to do it. But Tiffany doesn’t mess with me. She and I have an understanding.
By the end of the lunch period, when Marjorie brings her tray to the garbage, she’s got no less than a dozen spitballs still in her hair. She managed to get a few out, but most of them are stuck to the strands of her hair like glue. She’ll probably have them in there all day.
After lunch is recess. Marjorie has her book as always and I watch her walk (or waddle) to the far end of the playground to read alone. The other girls are going off to play hopscotch, but I don’t join them today. Instead, I walk over to where Marjorie is sitting. Without waiting for her to say anything, I sit down next to her.
“Hi,” I say.
Marjorie looks up at me. “Did the other girls send you over here to make fun of me?”
“No.”
She narrows her watery brown eyes at me. “Then what are you doing here, Nora?”
“You were all alone. I thought you might want somebody to talk to.”
Marjorie snorts. “If you talk to me, the other girls won’t be friends with you anymore. They’ll think you’re a loser, like me.”
“I’m not too worried about that,” I answer honestly.
For the first time since I sat down, I see a little seed of hopefulness on Marjorie’s face. In all the time I’ve known her, since we’ve been in first grade, she’s never had a real friend. And even though I have had groups of girls that I’ve hung out with, she knows I’ve never had a close friend either. She thinks maybe there’s something here.
That’s exactly what I want her to think.
“Listen,” I say. “I promised Tiffany I would play with them today, but I think we should hang out sometime. If you want.”
“Um…” Marjorie chews on her lower lip. “You really want to?”
I bob my head. “I think you’re nice. It’s so unfair that the other girls are mean to you.”
A teeny tiny smile blossoms on Marjorie’s lips. “Well, okay. We can hang out if you want. When?”
“How about after school today? We can walk home together.”
She makes a face. “My mom is picking me up right after school today. I’ve got a dentist appointment.”
I try not to let my disappointment show. “That’s okay. How about tomorrow after school?”
She’s smiling for real now. “Okay, sure!”
“Great!” I return the smile, which feels plastic on my lips. “But here’s the thing. You can’t tell anybody we’re going to hang out.”
She frowns. “I can’t?”
“Think about it,” I say. “Our friendship has got to be a secret. If you tell other people, Tiffany is going to find out, and then she’s going to try to convince me not to hang out with you. I don’t want that.” I raise my eyebrows. “Do you?”
Marjorie shakes her head slowly. “No…”
“You probably shouldn’t even tell your parents,” I say. “Because you know how all the parents talk to each other.”
“Right,” she says, although she doesn’t look entirely convinced.
I wish Marjorie had agreed to meet me after school today. That would make things so much simpler. I wouldn’t have to worry about her blabbing to the world. “If you tell anyone,” I say, “including your parents, then we can’t hang out tomorrow. Okay?”
“Okay,” she finally agrees.
I stare her in the eyes, wondering if I can trust her. I think I can. Marjorie Baker has never had a friend, and she wants one. Desperately. She wants to believe so badly that I want to hang out with her. She wants to believe that I’m doing this because I actually like her, and not because Tiffany put me up to it.
Well, Tiffany didn’t put me up to this.
It’s something much worse.
_____
“I’m going to be late coming home from school tomorrow,” I tell my parents during dinner.
“Oh?” Mom spoons a bite of casserole into her mouth. “What time?”
“Maybe an hour? I just need to look some stuff up at the library.”
“Okay,” Mom says. “Just give me a call if you need a ride home.”
“I will.” Except I won’t actually.
“Linda.” Dad is looking down at Mom’s plate. “You’re not really going to eat all that, are you?”
Mom frowns. “What do you mean?”
My father’s voice is calm and even, like it always is. But there’s an edge there. “Isn’t it bad enough that you’ve gotten fat like a house? Are you trying for a building?”
Mom’s cheeks turn red. “I’ve just been really hungry.”
“Still.” My father takes a long swig from his Old Fashioned. It’s his favorite drink—he has one every night with dinner. “It’s embarrassing, Linda. I don’t even want to take you out in public anymore.” He looks over at me. “Nora, this is an example of what you shouldn’t do after you get married.”
With those words, my mother stands up from the table and grabs her plate. She disappears into the kitchen, and the door swings shut behind her. This isn’t the first time they’ve argued like this. My mother is probably finishing her casserole in the kitchen where he can’t see her.
Now that my mother is gone, my father seems to have forgotten I’m at the table. He shovels his own food into his mouth and drains the last of his Old Fashioned. Once he’s done, he stands up so fast, the chair almost tips over. He takes his keys out of his pocket, unlocks the door to the basement, and disappears inside. I probably won’t see him the rest of the night. He always goes down there after they fight.
I’ve only finished about half my casserole, but I’m not really hungry. I quietly get out of my seat and creep over to the basement door. I reach out and gently try to turn the knob. Of course, he locked it.
I press my ear against the door. I hear a whirring noise. Some sort of a mechanical saw? I wish I could see what’s going on down there.
As I press my ear harder into the space between the door and the frame, the lavender scent becomes almost overpowering. But there’s something else. Some other smell intermingling with the lavender. It smells like…
Something rotting.
“Nora.”
I almost jump out of my skin. My mother is standing in front of me, holding a stack of three empty plates with a cup balanced on top. I quickly back away from the basement door, pretending I wasn’t trying to hear what was going on down there. My mother is probably going to tell me to stop being so nosy about the basement.
“Help me wash the dishes,” Mom says instead.
