Sleepless Nights (32 page)

“I’m glad for you, Jeanie,” Dave said. His voice was sincere. “And I’m glad you don’t mind about me and Ellen. You and me—well, we weren’t really right for each other, were we? Whereas Ellen…she’s suggested I pick up carpentry again, Jeanie, she found this little stool I built as a kid, and—she thinks maybe I can sell them, earn a bit of cash. I know it’s just been a few days but—it’s
so nice
to be with Ellen. I’m really happy, Jeanie! And I did want you to know…”

Then we talked about Una and Lolly—who was, apparently, the enormous basketball player my flatemate got her paws on just before I flew to America. Apparently, he more or less moved into her bedroom that night, and never moved out. Dukey was his enormous German shepherd, and since I’m allergic to dogs, the whole thing worked out quite well. “Would you like me to help you move
your stuff, Jeanie?” Dave asked earnestly. “I think I can get Badger to help, as long as you rent a hybrid van to move across town.” I laughed, and promised him I’d think about it.

56

Q

D
riscoll was about to tell us that Emmie called Reid out to see Angela more than once, but he stopped himself in time,” Tom remarked after dinner Monday night. He’d just spoken to Paul, who apparently wanted advice on a property conflict he’d run into, involving a Brooklyn-based judge. Jeanie was snoozing on the sofa, half-listening to music on her iPod. My husband poured two glasses of cognac, a small one for me, a large one for him. “For some reason, Driscoll’s gone along with Reid—he filled in the report just as Reid asked him to do, and he’s protecting Reid now.”

Of course we’d checked in on Kent once more after seeing the lieutenant, but he claimed he couldn’t see us “because I—uh—got some important file—uh—arranging to do.”

“How are we going to prove anything?” I asked gloomily, resting my head on Tom’s shoulder. “We could try to subpoena Driscoll’s notes, I suppose—”

“Good luck,” Tom retorted. “I’m sure he’s doctored them by now.”

High up in the sky a plane cruised by in the darkness, a steady receding drone.

“Q, we need to think of a different way into this,” Tom said at last. “Let’s go over it again—what we know, what we don’t know.” He walked over to the table and opened his laptop.

We talked through the case, through our conversations with Driscoll, Reid, Kent, and Emmie, while Tom tapped out notes. Noticing the clicking keys, Jeanie looked up. “What are you doing?” she asked curiously, and when we explained, she pulled out her earplugs, swung down her legs, and came over. “Ooh, this is just like an Agatha Christie,” she said comfortably, pulling out a chair. She watched the timeline unfold on Tom’s screen, her head tilted to one side. I caught the expression of disapproval in Tom’s green eyes as he glanced sideways at her; we could just hear the faint tinny thump of her music still going full-blast.

“So what are the gaps?” he asked finally, when we’d filled in every detail we could think of. “I don’t just mean about Driscoll and Reid’s relationship, I mean about the circumstances surrounding Angela’s death. We’ve got to find something to help us shake Reid’s credibility, Q.” He rubbed his dark head. “This is serious. Unless we can call the medical examiner’s report into question, Emmie will go into court against Ryan looking criminally negligent. Ryan’ll clean up.”

“This Reye’s syndrome, where does it come from?” my sister asked, gazing attentively at the screen, hands resting on her jean-clad hips. “I mean, is it a virus? Can anyone get it? Or just kids? I’ve never even heard of it. It can’t be that common, can it?”

Tom and I looked at each other. “We don’t know much about that, actually,” I replied, considering. “I thought about that when you were talking to Emmie, Tom. You described the symptoms, then you said no one knows exactly what causes it. Is there a suggestion in the research that some children have a genetic predisposition to it, maybe? Is
that
something Reid missed?”

Tom shrugged. “No harm in asking Ian, I guess.”

He picked up his phone; after a brief conversation with his father’s colleague, he closed the cell again with a frustrated snap. “Nothing to do with genetics. Nothing at all, or at least that’s the current state of research. It’s a strange disease: Ian says it’s only been identified in the last few decades, and it’s not much understood. As happened with Angela, it often follows a fairly minor respiratory illness, and leads to serious chemical imbalances in the body’s major organs. But it can be misidentified because the symptoms are sort of nonspecific.” Tom topped up his glass, and then—after a second’s hesitation—splashed a drink out for Jeanie. “It’s also unusual; Angela was unlucky. It’s become rare since aspirin was contraindicated for children and teenagers a decade or so ago. Apparently there seems to be some causal connection, although no one quite understands…”

My last sip of cognac rose into my nose; I felt it burning up the tubes from the back of my throat into my head as the meaning of Tom’s words hit my brain. I inhaled and choked, and choked again.
“Aspirin?”
There seemed to be fire in my eyeballs.

Tom and Jeanie began frantically thumping my back. “What’s wrong, Q?”

I stood up coughing, gasping for air, and knocked over the chair. It fell with a tremendous bang that seemed to shake the house.
“Reid prescribed Angela aspirin!”
I panted, wiping my streaming face and nose on my shirt sleeve. “He did, he did!”

“What? He
did
?”

“How do you know?”

“Emmie told us,” I explained, gaining breath. “I only remember because I was surprised to hear of a child’s taking something other than acetaminophen—Tylenol, you know. That’s what we were told to use when Samuel had his vaccines, don’t you remember, Tom? I remember thinking, maybe different states suggest different painkillers for infants, I meant to ask Alison what parents use
in England, and then I forgot all about it. But I know—I just know-that Emmie said Reid told her to give Angela aspirin.”

“My God. I wonder, I wonder,” Tom began slowly, “I wonder if she still has the box! I wonder if it was on prescription…”

“Phone her, phone her!” yelped Jeanie, virtually throwing the phone at me. She was jumping up and down, eyes brightly delighted, ponytail jiggling. “Phone her
right now
!”

“Emmie,” I began nervously, when the young mother picked up the phone a few moments later, “I need to ask you a question, and it’s going to sound pretty weird…”

“Oh, it’s you.” Emmie’s voice was flat. “I can’t talk now, I’ve got my Bible study group here. Call again when we’re done. In about half an hour.” The phone went dead.

I called back immediately. “Emmie, I’m sorry to bother you, but I need to ask you a really important question,” I began carefully, before she could speak. “It’s about old medicines you may have in your cupboard. Well, one in particular…” I heard her talking to someone else at the other end; it was a few moments before she came on the line again. “Medicines? Are you collecting for developing countries too?” she asked interestedly; and then she added, “you’re too late. Elizabeth Summers took all that old stuff. At the beginning of the meeting, as a matter of fact. First come, first served, you know? And it’s all in a good cause. Listen, like I said, I’ll call you when I’m done. Thanks.”

She hung up again, and this time, when I redialed, she didn’t pick up.

A knot seemed to be tying itself in my intestines. “Someone called Elizabeth Summers just collected the medicines. Something about needing them for developing countries, apparently,” I explained, and Tom’s face paled.

“Elizabeth Summers—Elizabeth Summers…wait, Q, wasn’t that
Dr. Reid’s assistant?
The woman Kent was sweet-talking the other day?”

“Tom, do you think—”

“What’s going on? What are you talking about? Who on earth is Elizabeth Summers?” Jeanie screeched, but we ignored her. “I don’t know,” Tom mused, “it could be a coincidence, but maybe…maybe Reid realized we were onto something the other day, in his office. Maybe he remembers the aspirin, maybe he’d hoped no one would ever realize—it’s certainly possible. Let’s drive over to Emmie’s house now. We’ll see if we can catch this Summers woman before she leaves the house with the medicines. There just
might
be time. Jeanie,” (touching her awkwardly on the shoulder) “um—Jeanie, will you babysit, please?”

Jeanie’s face was a comical mask of frustration. “I
knew
you were going to say that!” she said exasperatedly as we flew out of the house.

57

Jeanie

S
o when are you going to see your young gentleman next, honey?” Sue-Ellen asked me in the afternoon at Quiet Lanes, grinning. “The one you want, I mean. The one who keeps you up at night, thinking about him.”

I patted her hand gently. “You don’t understand,” I explained. “He’s not right for me.
Really.
”

Sue-Ellen shrugged, then heaved herself carefully out of her chair. “You know best, honey,” she said, with a sigh. “Of course in my day it was all about men, about getting a husband. Now you can make your own way. But I still think you’re pining for this man, yes I do!” I watched her walk back slowly to her bedroom for a nap. Already she was much less steady on her feet.

When I got back to the house, I phoned Alison to tell her to stop gossiping with Q about me; it’d been getting very irritating. Not surprisingly, she denied she’d been doing anything of the sort. “Really,” she said crossly, “the two of you seem to take it in turns to get annoyed with me. It’s very dysfunctional. Here I am, sitting all by myself in England, wondering how my two sisters are doing on the other side of the world, wishing I could be there helping them, and they—they badger me, one after the other. Really, I don’t think it’s fair. Now tell me,” she went on, without pausing,
“when
is that handsome American coming back to the house?”

“What—what handsome American?”

“Paul Dupont—isn’t that his name? The fabulously rich man who—yes, I Googled him—rowed for Oxford in the Boat Race, dated a film star for two years, and owns two quite important Gauguin sketches, not to mention an Audubon. And surfaces repeatedly in the
Tribune
and the
Times
as ‘one of the most brilliant legal minds of his generation.’
That
handsome American. Don’t worry, I haven’t said anything to Q about him,” she whispered. I could hear a purr of self-satisfaction in her voice. “You underestimate me,” she continued silkily. “Would I betray you to Q?”

“By which you mean,” I returned furiously, finding my voice, “that
you
like being the one in the know. Or am I underestimating you again, Alison?”

“Almost certainly, dear!” she replied, sounding utterly delighted.

“My love life isn’t just a source of amusement for you and Q,” I scolded. “What, are you living vicariously through me?”

“Jeanie, do you even know what that means?”

When I’m running half of Southwark, she won’t be able to speak to me like that anymore.

Later, much later, while I was waiting for my sister and Tom to return from their frantic trip to see Emmie, I reread the article that appeared about me today in the local newspaper. I carefully cut it out, put it in an envelope, and addressed it to my sister. Then I wrote AIR MAIL in big, confident pink marker all over it. Alison didn’t know that I was a “prominent British researcher.” She would soon!

BRITISH RESEARCHER COMPARES
SENIOR CARE IN UK AND US

by Julie Van Der Veeze,
Cheasford Times.
A CT exclusive!

I was rather proud of that bit about demographics. I was almost tempted to send a copy to Paul.

58

Q

W
e sprinted to the car—or, rather, Tom sprinted; I puffed ten paces behind, cursing the extra twenty pounds of baby weight I’d gained and somehow clung on to grimly these past months. “Do you actually remember the way?” I gasped, levering myself into the passenger seat as Tom revved the engine. “Sure. Of course. Er—maybe,” he finished, less confidently, peering into the darkness.

“Maybe” was right. “Tom, I think we’re heading toward the sea,” I offered at one point, and after much swearing and yelling he finally admitted that I was right, as we rounded a sharp bend at the bottom of a road and the ocean reared up in front of us. We turned around and began to crisscross lower Connecticut, shouting at each other, rip
ping at maps in our hasty efforts to read them, craning to read faded street signs in the moonlight, and generally making a complete hash of the twenty-minute drive to Emmie’s house. I threw us completely off course at one point by swearing that a disused mine we passed was the one near Emmie’s house (it wasn’t); we finally arrived at Emmie’s home a full forty minutes after the last Bible study guest had left.