Merry Jones - Elle Harrison 02 - Elective Procedures (39 page)

As they struggled, I managed to sit up, felt a bump on the back of my head. Inez turned and twisted, still wielding her knife. The light was on, so I could see pretty well. And as closely as I studied her face, I couldn’t see the slightest trace of a scar.

Susan and Alain finally pinned her down. Inez panted and muttered in Spanish, spat when Alain spoke to her. But, finally, she stopped resisting and seemed to quiet down.

“Where’s the knife?” Susan looked around.

She sat on Inez’s knees; Alain’s torso covered her shoulders.

Alain shifted his weight, peeking under the dresser. When he did, Inez wriggled her arm out from under him, raised her fist, stuck the blade into his side. Alain slumped on top of her. Air rushed out of his lungs. Susan screamed my name, telling me to do something. I grabbed hold of the bed, pulled myself up. Saw Inez pulling the knife up, ready to stab him again. I lunged at her
wrist, took hold of it, and yanked. She spouted torrents of Spanish, fighting to get free, but I held on, squeezing and rotating it.

“Inez,” Alain breathed. “What have you done?”

Inez ranted.

“What the fuck?” Jen stood in the doorway, gaping. She must have heard the struggle and come to investigate. Her nose was covered with a wide gauze patch, her robe hanging open, revealing other patches on her breasts and belly. “Holy fucking crap.”

“Call,” Susan was out of breath. She struggled to hold Inez down with her legs and grab a t-shirt from Becky’s open suitcase. “Call for help.” She pressed the shirt onto Alain’s open wound.

“Jesus God,” Jen stood frozen, gaping.

“Use the hotel phone,” Susan barked. “Now!”

Jen left.

“Inez. You’ve killed me,” Alain wheezed.

“No, she hasn’t,” Susan told him. “You’re going to be fine.” She looked at me with eyes full of shock and the heightened strength of adrenaline. And doubt.

My whole body hurt. I was tired of twisting Inez’s wrist. I was just tired. With a final effort, I tugged her arm back and landed my full weight on it with the knee of my good leg. I heard a crack. She howled, dropping the knife to the floor. I pushed it out of reach, even though Inez wouldn’t be able to pick it up. Then I grabbed a towel and helped Susan put pressure on Alain’s still gushing wound. Everyone was making noise—Alain moaning. Susan soothing him. Jen calling that help was on the way. Inez ranting in Spanish.

“
Por favor, Señora.”
She moaned, looking at me.

Was she talking to me?

“I don’t want them to see me.”

She was looking at me. Urgently. Must be talking to me.

I pressed on Alain’s ribcage. Wondered if he would die.

“Señora?” Inez persisted. “Please. When they come. Cover me?”

“What?”

“Can I have a scarf? A shawl? Even a towel? Something. Please. I can’t let people see.”

See what? “You’re fine.” My head hurt. I touched the place where she’d slammed my head. It was tender and lumpy.

She wouldn’t stop. “I beg you, señora. If you have any humanity, a shred of kindness, understand my shame.”

The shame of stabbing her husband? “You mean you’re sorry?” I could understand that.

“Don’t mock me, señora.”

Mock her? Alain’s moans were getting fainter. Susan grunted, pressing on his torso with bloodied hands, sitting on Inez’s thighs.

“Don’t make me show my face,” Inez was still talking. “The scars. Please. Let me cover them.”

“Mrs. Du Bois, honestly,” my voice was flat, “I don’t see any scars.”

She kept talking. “Of course, you don’t believe it, but I was once beautiful. My husband—he did this.” She turned her head to show me a cheek. “Please don’t make me display my disfigurement in public.”

I stared at her cheek. It was smooth. Soft. The skin was unmarred.

“Please, out of pity. Lend me a towel. Anything.”

I met her eyes. This woman had murdered both Greta and Claudia. She’d attacked others, including Jen and me, and she’d stabbed Alain. But her pleas were so despairing, her tone so mournful, that I stood up and went to my suitcase and took out a shawl I’d bought as a souvenir.

“
Gracias
.” She smiled, then grimaced in pain, trying to move her arm. “Please—tie it. Hide my face.”

Susan watched me. Alain was silent. Was he dead? Unconscious?

Jen kept repeating, “Help’s coming,” until she looked at me,
draping my shawl around Inez’s head. “WTF, Elle? What are you doing?”

I shook my head, shrugging. I wasn’t sure why I was doing it, but I draped the shawl around her face. As I did, I noticed a white mark the width of a hair and the length of a fingernail on the side of her chin.

Or did I? Maybe it was just a flicker of light.

I was wary of knives. Done with them. When Susan began slicing limes, my leg, cheek, and collarbone tingled. I thought of Inez and Greta, and I couldn’t watch. Couldn’t be in the same room as the splitting of skin, the squirting of juice.

I backed away, but she stopped me.

“Don’t be so queasy.” She handed me three shot glasses and the tequila bottle.

It was late at night. Or, no, early in the morning, sometime before dawn. Alain had been taken to the clinic. Sergeant Perez’s officers had taken Inez. Jen was sprawled on the living room sofa under compresses, no longer in pain. I’d been examined by one of Alain’s colleagues, who said I had a bump on my head but no serious damage.

Susan, Jen, and I passed around the bottle and lime slices, downing shots.

“Take another.” Susan commanded. We took tequila as if it were medicine.

Susan leaned back in her easy chair, let out a long breath. “You owe me, Jen.”

Jen didn’t move. “Fuck, I do.”

“If I hadn’t tossed your ass into the shower, you’d be a skinless wonder.”

“What was it?” I asked. “Some kind of acid?” I hadn’t been there for the explanation. I’d been in my bedroom, getting knocked out.

“Alain thought it was bleach or oven cleaner. She put it in
skin cream.” For the nine hundredth time, Jen picked up her robe, peeked under a gauze pad. “Damn. Who knew bleach could burn like that?”

“Well, you’re not supposed to rub it onto fresh wounds.”

Jen swallowed another shot.

Susan picked at her fingernails. “I feel like Lady Macbeth. I’ve got blood permanently under my nails. It soaked into my cuticles.”

“Bleach gets blood out,” Jen suggested. “Use some of my skin cream.”

“Maybe I’ll just paint my nails red.”

We sat silent for a while. Jen asked if it would be worth it to go to bed. Susan said no way. She wasn’t going to close her eyes until the plane landed in Philly. I said we wouldn’t be able to sleep anyhow with all the adrenaline in our blood.

We put on the television and watched programs in a language we didn’t understand. We talked about what we’d do when we got home. Susan cringed, dreading all the Christmas shopping she’d have to do. She asked Jen if she’d bought Norm’s gift yet.

“You bet I did. I got him a flat tummy and new boobs.”

“How very Neanderthal,” Susan said. “After all your years of marriage, you still think he loves you for your body?”

Oh, here we go, I thought. I poured another shot of tequila and curled into the cushions.

“Why are you such a bitch, Susan? Norm loves me for me, and part of me is my body—”

“But he’ll love you more if your boobs are perky?”

“I never said that he’ll love me more. But who knows? Maybe he will.”

Susan smirked, shook her head.

“Damn, Susan. What the hell’s wrong with you? Are you jealous? That’s it, isn’t it? You’re frickin’ jealous that I improved myself.”

“Improved yourself? Really? If you want to improve yourself, learn Italian. Or read a book—”

“You wish you had the guts to get your boobs done. Or some liposuction on your thighs and butt.”

“You’re saying my thighs and butt are fat?”

“I’m saying you’ve had three kids. And if you got your body back the way it was when he married you, Tim would love it.”

“Tim wouldn’t notice.”

“Of course he would. Don’t be embarrassed, Susan. There’s no shame in maintenance. We maintain our houses and cars, why not our bodies? I can hook you up with a great doctor.”

“Unless he dies,” I blurted.

They turned to me, startled, as if they’d forgotten I was there.

“He’s not going to die,” Jen said. “Is he?”

“Of course not.” Susan set her jaw.

For a long time, nobody said anything. The silence was full of worries and doubts, but at least no one was bickering. And soon it would be morning, and we would go home.

Sergeant Perez came by while we were having coffee. He’d stopped at the desk and retrieved our passports.

“Have a safe trip home, señoras.” He laid the passports on the kitchen table.

Susan offered him coffee. He accepted, took a seat beside Jen.

“It’s been a long night.” He sucked his coffee with a loud slurp.

“For all of us,” Jen flinched at the sound.

“You’ve had quite a difficult week here,” he noted. “I hope you won’t think badly of Nuevo. It’s generally a very peaceful place. I hope you will come back again.”

Really?

“Oh, we will,” Jen promised. “In fact, Susan’s thinking of getting some work done when Dr. Du Bois recovers.”

Susan glared. “Isn’t it time for your aloe treatment?”

“How is he?” I asked.

“He was sleeping when I was there. But I had a long talk with his wife.” Another loud slow slurp.

We sat watching him, waiting for him to say more. He didn’t.

“So did she tell you anything?” Susan prodded.

“It’s confidential, part of the investigation.”

Susan nodded, offered him a pastry.

“Gracias, Señora.” He eyed them, selected a large one with cheese. “You know, since you are leaving, I suppose there is no harm in me telling you just a little bit.” He took a bite, washed it down with a noisy swig of coffee. “Señora Du Bois was quite adamant. She denies having anything to do with the deaths of her husband’s patients. In fact, she insists the killer was the doctor himself, dressed as a woman, impersonating her.”

I swallowed. Saw the maid’s uniform hanging in her closet. A chill slithered up my back, encircled my skull.

“Obviously, the woman is
loca
—I mean she needs psychiatric care.”

“What else did she say?” My voice was unsteady.

Perez hesitated. He set his cup on the table, blinked at it. “
Tonterias
—it’s nonsense.”

We waited. My skin tingled.

“I try to make sense of it, señora. She says her husband caused her to be—
fea
—ugly. Disforme. Your word is ‘deformed’? But she is a beautiful woman. Truthfully, I see no deformity. But she insists that Dr. Du Bois ruined her and then became determined to re-create her as she’d been before her injuries—”

“So he did work on her,” Jen said. “That explains why she looks so good.”

“No, señora. The work wasn’t on his wife. He tried to recreate her beauty by making his patients into likenesses of her.”

Jen’s eyelashes flapped. She touched her nose.

Susan said, “That’s crazy.”

“
Sí
,” Perez chewed the sweet roll. “But, according to Señora
Du Bois, these patients were never exact re-creations. They never met his expectations. So, like an artist unsatisfied with his work, he destroyed them.”