Miss Me When I'm Gone

chapter 46



Dorothy’s house was my first stop, once I’d checked into the motel. She’d had me promise I’d come for dinner, and I had agreed, provided she let me bring the food this time: pizza and salad and root beer.

“Did Judy tell you I had something for you?” Dorothy asked, after we’d eaten.

“Yeah, she mentioned that.”

“I figured. Judy can’t keep her mouth shut. It was supposed to be a surprise,” Dorothy said, handing me a small shirt box. “Open it.”

I did. There, laid out in tissue paper, was a tiny blue-and-white sweater, with white elephant buttons.

“Oh, wow,” I said. “It’s gorgeous. I can’t believe you did this in just the last couple of weeks.”

“I like to keep my hands busy. I do it while I watch TV.”

“What about the hats for the African babies?” I asked.

“I got sick of doing the same boring hat over and over. I finally boxed them up and had Diane send them off.”

“Well, thank you so much.”

“I love knitting baby things. It was my pleasure.”

As she said this, there was a knock on the door, and then a singsong “Hel-looo?” echoing into the kitchen.

I expected the stout, chipper Judy to appear, but to my surprise, Diane stepped into the room, a tin canister in hand.

“Hello, dear,” Dorothy said. “Jamie’s here.”

“I can see that,” Diane replied, giving me a little wave. “Good to see you again, Jamie.”

“You, too.”

“I heard you were going to be here this evening.” She took a seat and folded her thin hands on the tin. “And I heard you had a couple of questions for me.”

“Oh,” I said, remembering my questions to Judy about the pediatricians. “Yeah, that’s right.”

Diane opened her tin, showing the contents to Dorothy.

“Hermits,” she said proudly. “Your favorite, right?”

“One of them,” Dorothy said, taking the tin from her. She took one and then offered the tin to me. I took one reluctantly. I’d been eating too much sugar since Gretchen died. True to his nickname, Charlie Bucket was probably having a Willy Wonka sort of experience in the womb lately.

“So,” Diane said, “I can’t stick around for long, but Judy told me you were asking about some notes Gretchen made, about the pediatricians in town? Particularly Dr. Platt, right?”

“Yeah. And the name seemed to come up when Gretchen was learning about Shelly’s last job. At the pharmacy. There was maybe some problem with her job, and certain prescriptions.”

Diane looked puzzled and clicked her tongue against her teeth while she considered this.

“Ohhhh,” she said softly, after a moment. “I remember now.”

She nodded as if in recognition of the memory. “You know what that probably was about? I don’t know if Shelly would have told Judy this, but she made a pretty serious mistake at that job. The switching around of young patients to different doctors—I mean, when Dr. Platt died . . . I think that confused Shelly, and it caused her to mix up a kid’s prescription with someone else’s—an adult with a similar name. I don’t remember the details, but it was something that could’ve been a real disaster. The kid had a lot of serious health problems.”

“How’d they catch the mistake?”

“Um, I think the kid’s mom caught it. The kid had taken maybe one dose, not enough to do anything serious yet, but . . . you know, it was scary.”

“Was Shelly shaken by that?”

Diane nodded gravely. “Very.”

“Do you remember the kid’s name?”

“No. I think the last name was Johnson, something like that. A common last name, so it was easy to mix up.”

“Was your dad by any chance the prescribing doctor? Dorothy and I were chatting about it earlier, and she said there was a time, after Dr. Platt died, when some of the kids went to him.”

Dorothy nodded. “That’s right, isn’t it, Diane?”

“Yeah, that’s true. But no, he wasn’t the prescribing doctor. I don’t recall who that would have been. I guess it would have had to have been Dr. Copalman or Dr. Silver. I think those were the only other two general practitioners in Emerson at the time. Maybe Schreiner was here, too. I don’t remember. Do you, Dorothy?”

“No, I really don’t,” Dorothy said. “Sorry.”

“So . . . but Shelly was a little fearful for her job after that?” I asked.

“Oh, yes. She was really scared.”

“I don’t remember this,” Dorothy admitted.

“But you remember when Dr. Platt died suddenly, right?” Diane turned to her.

“Yes. That was sad. All the kids loved him.”

“Well, all of his patients had to use other doctors in town for a bit, while the pediatric group found a replacement. Which took a while.”

“I see.” Dorothy nodded. “I got that.”

“And that was about the same time Shelly was working at the pharmacy. It was the switching of doctors, I think, that made it easy to make a mistake. Before that, you’d never mix up a kid’s prescription with an adult’s, partly because Shelly—like everyone in town—knew who the kids’ doctors were versus the adult ones. But, anyway. It worked out. It blew over. She kept her job.”

“Huh,” said Dorothy, rising from her chair. “She must’ve not told her mother about it. Because I’ve never heard that story.”

Dorothy excused herself to go to the bathroom, and I used the opportunity to ask Diane a more sensitive question.

“But do you think her relationship with her boss . . . I mean, with Phil Coleman, may have protected her a little?”

Diane studied me before answering. I studied her back, noticing that the perfect ivory quality of her skin was partly an illusion. Beneath her eyes, purple-brown pouches shone under powdery makeup.

“Maybe,” she said, biting her lip regretfully. “There may have been some truth to that. I think Melanie Rittel was a bit of a drama queen, but I don’t think she was as off base as Judy sometimes makes it sound. As I’ve said, Judy is very protective of Shelly’s reputation—I mean, where it’s possible to be. And I think sometimes she didn’t want to believe some of the things people said about Shelly. Like, I believe Shelly and Judy’s brother had a little thing going, for a time, and Judy just didn’t want to see it . . .”

Diane stopped talking for a moment, her eyes widening. “Is there any mention of that in your recordings?”

“What recordings?” I said, surprised.

“I mean, Gretchen’s recorded interviews. Judy mentioned them to me. I hadn’t realized till after she talked to you earlier this week—that Gretchen had recorded some of her interviews. Judy hadn’t either.”

“Oh. Um . . . no. I haven’t heard anything like that. I haven’t listened to all of them yet. They can be kind of hard to hear.”

“I see.” Diane nodded and reached into her tin for another hermit. “That makes sense. But on the question of Coleman . . . I’m not sure. Knowing Shelly, it was definitely possible. I didn’t feel it had a place in Grippo’s trial. It wasn’t fair. It was a distraction.”

“And Coleman never admitted to it.”

“No. Certainly not. It’s possible it happened and he didn’t want to own up to it, though, even under oath. He had a fiancée at the time. Now his wife.”

“And he’s still a pharmacist in town. The rumors didn’t hurt his business?”

“Not so much. People didn’t like to see Shelly maligned so badly at trial. It was really hurtful to her mother, who people really loved and supported. People sort of saw Phil Coleman as yet another person hurt by all the gossip, when it was Grippo who really should have suffered. So, no. People left Phil Coleman alone.”

Diane sighed and broke her hermit into four even pieces, then ate one reluctantly.

Dorothy returned, and Diane asked me if I had any other questions. I said no, for now. Diane left soon after that. After a cup of tea with Dorothy, and a few more cookies, I thanked Dorothy and retired to my motel.