Mourners: A Nameless Detective Novel (Nameless Detective Mystery) (21 page)

Now . . .

She couldn’t keep it from him any longer, of course. Or from Emily. Unfair to both of them if she tried even for a little while longer; unfair to herself. She would need their support to get through what lay ahead. She’d always believed that any sort of physical illness was affected, positively or negatively, by the person’s mental attitude—and her optimism wasn’t unshakable. It would require plenty of shoring up over the next few months. . . .

The door to the inner offices opened and the heavyset young nurse put her head out. “Ms. Wade? Will you come in, please?”

The tight-lipped woman shifted position on her chair and aimed a frown in Kerry’s direction. Waiting longer, so she believed it should be her turn. Kerry smiled at her, thinking:
You don’t know how lucky you are, lady. I wish all I was facing here was a little inconvenience and a sore butt
. It wasn’t much of a private joke, but it allowed her to hold the smile in place as she followed the nurse inside.

None of the usual routine today of being weighed and having her pulse rate and blood pressure taken; nor was she deposited in one of the examining rooms as per usual. Ushered straight into Dr. Pappas’s private office, where the doctor stood waiting behind her desk. The nurse closed the door behind Kerry as soon as she stepped through.

Audra Pappas had been her gynecologist for more than
fifteen years. Their relationship was strictly doctor-patient, pleasant enough but without any personal connection. That was fine with Kerry, now especially. No-nonsense, straightforward professionalism was what she wanted and needed in the present circumstances. So was the air of authoritative competence she projected. Competence and efficiency were the two words that best described Dr. Pappas. Midforties, tall, sandy-haired, brusque, with very little if any sense of humor—as if life and the practice of medicine were too important to her to be tempered with either levity or social niceties.

She seldom smiled, but she smiled now, a brief stretching of her closed lips, as she took Kerry’s hand—a firm handshaker, Dr. Pappas—and invited her to sit down. Professional, that smile, meant to be reassuring. If Kerry hadn’t known what was coming, the uncharacteristic smile would have told her.

Pappas sat behind her desk, folded her hands on top of a thick file folder. The Kerry Wade file, no doubt. Wherein the damning evidence lay. At length she said, “I imagine you know why I asked you to come in this afternoon.”

“The biopsy results. Bad news.”

“Well, the results are not what we hoped for. To begin with, the biopsy surgeon wasn’t able to remove the entire mass.”

“Large tumor, then.”

“Substantial, yes.”

“And not benign.”

“No. Malignant, I’m afraid.”

Despite the fact that she’d prepared herself for it, the confirmation still jolted her a little. Malignant. What a
nasty little word that was, one of those words that exactly fits and conveys its meaning. A
malignant
word.

She cleared her throat before she trusted herself to speak in a normal voice. “Do you think we caught it early enough?”

“I hope we have.”

“Meaning it’s too soon to tell?”

“Yes.”

“So. What’s the next step?”

“You’ll need to consult with a cancer surgeon. As soon as possible.”

“Is there one you recommend?”

“Dr. Emil Janek at UC Med Center is one of the best. I’ll make an appointment for you.”

“All right. And then what? Further tests, surgery?”

“Both.”

“What kind of surgery? Lumpectomy?”

“Dr. Janek will help you make that decision. It depends, first of all, on the grade and stage of the tumor and whether its borders seem fairly distinct or not. The more diffuse the cells, the more invasive the cancer and the more radical the necessary surgery.”

“Full or partial mastectomy.”

“Yes. Some women opt for that in any case.”

“Better chance of survival?”

“Actually,” Pappas said, “clinical studies have shown there’s a small difference in the survival rate between a lumpectory and either type of mastectomy. The reason some women make that choice is the need for a period of radiation therapy following a lumpectomy.”

“How long a period?”

“A minimum of six weeks, five days a week. Longer, if necessary, to make certain all the cancerous cells in the breast have been destroyed.”

She dreaded the thought of losing a breast, of the need for reconstructive surgery or worse, a prosthesis. It wouldn’t matter to Bill, would have no effect on their relationship, but it would matter to
her;
it was
her
breast, a part of Kerry Wade that would be lost forever. But the prospect of six weeks of radiation was no more appealing. Fatigue, all the other side effects . . . God.

“There are a number of other factors involved in the decision as to what’s best for you,” Pappas was saying. “Your age. The general state of your health, which is very good. The fact that you’re postmenopausal. Your family medical history.”

“There’s been no incidence of breast cancer in my family,” Kerry said.

“Any other type of cancer?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You’ll need to find out.”

“I know. How long before we know how invasive the cancer is and what type of surgery I should have?”

“I can’t give you an exact time line. You’ll have to discuss that with Dr. Janek.”

“Can my decision wait as long as two weeks?”

“Possibly. Why do you need that much time?”

Simple enough to explain. I might need that much time, doctor, because it may take that long to get the results of the DNA test. I don’t know who my biological father is, you see—I don’t know if I’m the daughter of the man who raised me or the child of a drunken rapist. And if I am the
child of a rapist, then that makes the situation all the worse because he’s dead and I don’t know anything about his background or any way to find out if there was a history of cancer in his family.

But she couldn’t say any of that to Dr. Pappas. And probably not to Dr. Janek until she found out one way or another. Her secret until then, hers and Cybil’s and Bill’s.

She cleared her throat again. “It’s a personal matter.”

“Having to do with your husband?” Pappas asked bluntly.

“No. Lord, no. He’ll be supportive no matter what.”

“Have you told him yet?”

“Not yet. I wanted to know the biopsy results first.”

“Don’t delay. This isn’t something that should be faced alone.”

“I know,” Kerry said, “and I won’t put it off. I’ll tell him tonight.”

“Good. And Kerry”—one of the few times Pappas had used her given name—“remember that breast cancer is not the devastating disease it once was. It can be treated, it can be cured in most instances of early discovery. Be optimistic.”

“I am, doctor. I am.”

So why did she feel, all of a sudden, as if she was going to burst into tears?

Jack Logan looked as Monday-morning tired as I Felt. Rough weekend for him, too, for whatever reason. Eye bags, deep lines bracketing his mouth and nose, a patch of gray shadow on one side of his jaw where he’d missed with his razor. When I noticed the shadow I rubbed a hand over my face, and sure enough, my fingers scraped over a stubbly patch of my own. Some pair we made. A couple of old horses still out running around the track when we should have been pastured or in our home stalls taking it easy. Whether that meant we were blooded stock or just stupid-stubborn plugs was anybody’s guess.

He’d gotten my message, but he didn’t know about James Troxell’s suicide until I told him. The wheels grind slow at SFPD these days. I gave him a verbal rundown, then handed over the extra copy of the client report to Lynn Troxell that I’d brought with me.

When he finished reading it he pinched his eyes between thumb and forefinger, sipped coffee, looked out his office
window at the stream of cars on the Bay Bridge approach. There was no point in trying to read his expression. I’d played poker with the man often enough to know it couldn’t be done.

“What gripes me most about suicides,” he said finally, “is all the damage they leave behind. Damage and loose ends.”

“Total self-involvement. They stop caring about anything but their own pain.”

“Yeah. So you’re convinced the reason Troxell blew himself away is this death obsession he had.”

“That, and the fact that he couldn’t go on facing his own cowardice.”

“No direct involvement in the Dumont homicide.”

“Just what he evidently witnessed.”

“You sure about that?”

“As sure as I can be without corroborating evidence.”

“You think we’ll find some among his effects?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“In that place he rented on Potrero Hill, maybe?”

“Could be.”

“Uh-huh. How’d you find out about him being a witness?”

“Does it matter, Jack?”

“Depends on how relevant it is.”

“Not very.”

“We’re not going to find anything else among his effects, are we? Any surprises?”

“I doubt it.”

Logan drank more coffee, looked out the window again.
The back end of the Hall of Justice practically abuts the 101 freeway approach; you could hear the steady thrum of traffic noise through the closed windows.

Pretty soon he said, “You should’ve come in with this as soon as you found out. Troxell might still be alive if you had.”

“I know it. What can I say, Jack? I screwed up.”

“Well, you’re not the only one. The wife, the lawyer.”

“We all made the same mistake. It looked like he was going to come in voluntarily. We wanted to believe it, so we believed it.”

“Suicides. Christ. You just can’t figure what goes on inside their heads.”

“Sometimes you can,” I said, “if you make the right connections.”

“Yeah, well, not this time.”

“No, not this time.”

“So all right,” he said, “it’s over and done with. End of story, if what you’ve told me is true. You sure there’s nothing else I should know?”

I hesitated before I said, “Not about Troxell.”

“The Dumont case?”

“Jake Runyon’s working on an angle he dug up, mostly on his own time.”

“Yeah? Why’s he so interested?”

“He feels sorry for the victim’s sister. So he’s doing it pro bono. Dog with a bone, you know how it is.”

“What’s the angle?”

I told him about Sean Ostrow.

“Sounds pretty circumstantial to me,” Logan said.

“So far,” I agreed. “No hard evidence of any kind. If there was, Jake would’ve turned it over by now.”

“I hope so. For both your sakes.”

“You want me to have him come in anyway, talk to you or the inspectors who caught the case?”

Logan thought about that. “Not much point. But if he does turn up anything definite, you send him in on the run. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Okay. Go on, get out of here. I’ve got a meeting in ten minutes.”

Bullet dodged. I didn’t waste any time taking myself out of the line of fire.

I caught up with Charles Kayabalian at Civic Center, in the City Hall lobby. He was defending the plaintiff in a civil suit, the judge had just called noon recess, and Kayabalian was on his way to lunch. He had no problem with me joining him. I wasn’t hungry, but you have to eat—had better eat when you’ve gotten little sleep the night before and a developing head cold from all the running around in that Ocean Beach chill. The last thing I needed right now was to wind up sick in bed.

Rough weekend for Kayabalian, too. He didn’t look as poorly used as Logan or me, maybe because he was several years younger, but the signs were plain enough on his thin, walnut-brown face. And in the fact that his usually impeccable attire was on the rumpled side today, the knot in his paisley tie just a bit off-center. He yawned more than once on our way to the restaurant on Van Ness.

Once we were seated with our lunches in front of us I
asked him when he’d last talked to Lynn Troxell. He said, “Just before eight o’clock, briefly. I called to see how she was bearing up.”

“And?”

“She sounded calm enough under the circumstances.”

“Casement still with her then?”

“Yes. He answered the phone.”

“Was he going to stay with her?”

“Until Lynn’s sister could get there from Marysville. Lynn asked her to come—she needs family at a time like this and they’re fairly close. Or Casement did the asking, I don’t know. He said he was going to notify Martin Hessen and anybody else that needed to be told. Better him than me, frankly.”

“The sister was coming right away?”

“As soon as she could. She may be there by now.”

We talked a little more while we finished our sandwiches. My ham and cheese was going to lie in my stomach all afternoon; I could feel it hardening up in there already as we got up from the table. On the way out of the restaurant Kayabalian allowed that he would probably go over and see Lynn Troxell in person later today. “I’m not relishing the visit,” he said. “A stranger’s grief is bad enough, but in a friend or loved one . . . well, you know what I mean.”

“All too well.”

“You won’t be seeing her again, will you?”

“Not right away, no.”

But eventually. Like it or not, sooner or later—I was pretty sure of that.