Chapter 62
Anna spotted Dr. Burdett as she was going past the cemetery and pulled the scooter over. It was rare they got time alone and she had questions she didn’t want to ask in front of Mom or Grandma. He waved as he saw her coming, and she joined him, standing in front of Lila’s grave.
“Your grandma’s sleeping, but your mother’s home,” he said. “I’m going to collect Caroline from school. Take her shopping and for a milkshake.”
“You’re going shopping with Caroline?” He smiled at her incredulous question, not seeing her unease. She didn’t like the idea of her little sister getting undressed near a man, even in the safety of a changing room.
“She’s still scared about this camping party. The way they’ve all made ghost stories out of the Farmhand. I told your mom I’ll talk to her about it.”
“Right.” In front of them, Lila kept on smiling from her tombstone photo, as if no one had a worry in the world.
“Jamie’s blood analysis came back,” the doc said.
“He’d taken a large dose of heroin. Not enough to kill him, but enough to make swimming difficult.
He’d been by the pool when he shot up, that was evident from the paraphernalia and cigarettes by the lounge chairs.
He was thin and not healthy. He probably decided to swim while high and it was too much for him.
Accidental death.” He was leaning on a stick, and with his face crinkling deeper in the glare, he looked older.
“His folks should have emptied that pool. No one there to use it apart from him. They were going to, and he persuaded them against it. He used to be a good swimmer, and I guess they thought it might encourage him to exercise. Foolish thinking, given how he was.”
Send in the clowns. She felt momentarily cooler thinking of Grandma’s humming. Maybe someone got Jamie high and threw him in the pool. There were too many coincidences. Too many strangenesses.
She looked over to the gravestone farther away. “Was Bonnie Buchanan pregnant when she died?”
Dr. Burdett had probably been waiting for her to refute his claim that Jamie’s death was an accident, but this was the question she’d stopped to ask him. “You’re the coroner, right? You must have seen her autopsy report.”
“Why would you think she was pregnant?” He looked shocked. Surprised.
“That’s not answering the question.”
“No.” He frowned. “No, she wasn’t. Why do you ask?”
“She had a secret boyfriend. She’d been unwell in the mornings. Moodier. I’m curious who that boyfriend was.”
“Still think the police didn’t get their man?”
“That’s a separate issue.” A hot breeze swirled dust around her feet.
Lila was only sixteen when she was murdered, and more time had passed.
It was harder to get to know her. Bonnie was different.
“I feel like Bonnie maybe left clues that weren’t followed because Michael Cairns was served up as guilty so quickly. ”
The doctor said nothing for a moment, then sniffed and sighed.
“You know, I delivered both those girls.” He took his hat off, a mark of quiet respect.
“Gave them their shots. I couldn’t say I knew them, not like their friends or family, but you can’t not know a person a little when you’re their doctor.
I know Lila was a tough athlete, hard as nails under that Barbie exterior.
Played through a fractured ankle once. Didn’t cry.
Bonnie was older, of course. She was one of the world’s quiet people.
Just wanted to get by and live a comfortable, happy life. ”
“Pastor Keene knew them both too,” Anna said. “They helped out with church stuff.”
“Everyone in town knew them, even if it was just by name,” he said wearily. “That’s the way of things around here. Everyone knows everyone. It’s why people don’t take kindly to these wounds being opened up again. Because they haven’t really healed.”
“Are you telling me to stop asking questions and shut up?” Anger flared, hot as the baking afternoon.
“I’m simply explaining, Anna.” He turned away from the grave to face her.
“I understand why you’re fired up about this.
You found a dead body and you want meaning for it.
No one gets over something like that quickly.
Not even me.” He paused, looking across to where Bonnie had been laid to rest. “Seeing those two girls’ bodies out in those fields as naked as when I’d brought them into this world, that was hard.
I’d attended car crashes and farm accidents.
And there was Gene Ardale. I got to that house only moments after he’d murdered his family and shot himself.
I’d been meaning to check in and see how his new meds were working out for a while.
I was busy and then I was too late.” He paused, paler.
“Their ruined bodies were still warm. That poor little boy. And Emily’s beautiful face destroyed.
” He trembled, leaning harder on his stick.
“But this was different. Those deaths were all awful, but I understood them. Accidents. A bad reaction to medication. Lila’s and Bonnie’s deaths were so clinical.
That’s not a feeling you can wash away. Not when you’re going home to an empty house with only your thoughts and the memory of their mothers’ tears for company.
So I understand how you feel. Especially after everything you’ve been through.
Your own trauma. PTSD. It can affect people in a lot of different ways. ”
So the doc knew about the thing too. It had been a tightly wound spool of secrecy and now someone had pulled the thread free and she couldn’t stop it getting away.
She felt sick, and took a step backward, wanting distance between them.
“This has got nothing to do with that. You don’t know anything about that. Or me.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” He raised one hand in supplication. “I was only suggesting that perhaps this maudlin interest isn’t doing you any good.”
“If I want a doctor’s appointment, I’ll book one.” She glared at him, chewing the inside of her cheek, needing the pain to stop any chance of tears. “And you should get going. School will be out in a minute.”
“I guess I should.” He put his hat back on over his wispy gray hair and turned toward the gates. “And once again, I’m sorry.”
She said nothing but watched as his slow walk led him back to his dusty truck.
He raised a hand in goodbye and got in, then started the engine.
There was a rough cough and sputter before it chugged and growled loudly as he drove away.
She watched him go, dust kicking up behind his tires before he turned onto the road.
She didn’t move until he’d completely disappeared into the distance, and then she turned to look back at Lila’s smiling face.
“What are you trying to tell Grandma?” she asked softly. “Were you killed in our house? Who killed you?”