Scott Turow - The Burden of Proof

Marta's quest-soulful, troubled, Yearning-was nowhere near its end.

Out the window in the lengthening evening, against a magnificent streaked sky, the BMW at last circled around the Cawleys' drive. Stern was out the door and halfway to the auto before he saw that Fiona was driving. He stopped in his tracks.

"Sandy." She smiled and stepped from the car, carrying a small bright sack from some shop.

Stern stood in the grass. He wore his suit pants and a handmade shirt, monogrammed over the pocket; he had removed his tie. Glancing down, 'he noticed he was still Carrying Marta's note. Stern explained to Fiona that he had mistaken her for Nate.

':"t took his car today. Mine's conking out whenever I use the air."

"Ah," said Stern, and rocked on his toes. With Fiona:and him, it was always awkward.

"Actually," she said, "there's something I've been meaning to show you.

Come in for a minute." Fiona set ioff for the front door, keys in hand, without allowing him the chance to refuse. Stern moved reluctanfiy in her wake Up the pea-gravel walk. What new treachery of Nate's did she wish to disclose? Fiona set her package down on a candle:table near the doorway and snapped on some lights.

Stern said he had an appointment shortly, a remark which Fiona, predictably, reigned not to hear.

'This is really the most curious thing," she said.

"Come upstairs. I want you to see this." Fiona stopped to release the collie from the kitchen. Stern declined her offer of a drink, but Fiona paused to pour a bourbon over ice, and quaffed half of it aonce, easy as water.*'It's so hot," she said. The dog, in the meantime, jumped all over them both, then, rebuked, followed placidly as they walked toward the staircase.

Upstairs, Fiona opened the door to the bedroom and passed down a hall into the bath. Stern hung back, hesitant to follow. There was a certain stimulating intimacy in being with a woman in her bedroom. It was not the bed so much as the privacy of the scene. The room was clearly Fiona's, finished to her taste in crepe de Chine and ambiguous pinkish shades. The strong scents of powders and colognes, too sweet American smells, rose here. A long umber negligee lay as a sort of inviting preconscious thought, discarded beside the bed on an upholstered chair arm, suggesting a languorous form.

"Here," said Fiona, "this is it. Come here." She was in the bathroom, the door partly closed. When Stern pushed it open, Fiona was studying a tiny paper bag. Her drink had been set down on the counter. "I saw this last week. I couldn't understand why Nate would keep something with Clara's name on it in his medicine cabinet."

In his surprise, he virtually snatched it from her-the small patterned bag from a local chain pharmacy. Two computer-generated prescription receipts, little tags that conveniently assembled all the information required by Medicare or insurers, were stapled to the lip of the bag, overlapping one another. On the top one, Clara's name, address, and phone number were printed. Stern could feel a large vial inside the sack. It was pointless to ask what Fiona was doing roaming in her husband's medicine chest.

Undoubtedly there had been many such expeditions: the pockets of his suits, his daily diary, his wastebasket.

Fiona would have no trouble with the kind of low tactics divorce-coui-t hostilities required.

"Indomethacin," Stern read the tag. "This is for Clara's arthritis, I believe. Nate told me he had brought some to her."

Fiona passed him an odd look.

"If he brought it to her, how come it's still in the bag?" .Stern made a sound. She was right about that. But the answer was obvious. Nate had had two prescriptions filled: that was why there were two tags. When Stern flipped to the lower one, he saw the word "Acyclovir" and his heart skipped. Quickly, he withdrew the clear brown container 'from the bag. What in the world would Nate Cawley need with this stuff?.

"What is it?" asked Fiona.

Stern was intent on the label on the bottle. In the blank ollowing the word "Patient,"

"Dr. Nathan Cawley, M.D.," was listed, and Nate's office address and phone were also printed there. 85 ACYCLOVlR 200 MG CAPSULES. ,%VO (2) CAPSULES FIVE TIMES DAILY FOR FIVE DAYS, REMAINDER ONE (1)

/hen the thought came to him, stem's face shot around o Fiona.

"Does Nate ake these pills?"

She shrugged. "I'd imagine. This is his medicine cabinet.

'What are they?"

"Acyclovir," answered Stern, pronouncing it just as Peter had when he explained that the drug was often successful in reducing the active period of the infection. The herpes iinfection. Dr. Nate had prescribed for himself.

She reached for the bottle, and Stern, without thinking, pulled it farther away. The prescription was dated two days before Clara's death He shook the container. Almost empty.

Wrenching off the cap, he spilled the contents onto a piece of tissue and counted six capsules remaining. Sev-enty-nine consumed. Stern contemplated'the numbers: Nate was taking these pills more than a week and a half after Clara's death. He stared down at the little yellow capsules 'with an unremitting intensity. The brand name of the drug was pnnted right on them.

Fiona spoke to him again, "Sandy, what is this for?" Oh yes, thought Stern. He had known this, had he not? It was all right here before him. Nate's lying, all his dodging and running-they were classic signs. There was clearly something Nate wanted neither discovered nor discussed. And it was here. Right here. Not simply what had ailed Clara." But the fact that Nate, who went on serenely consuming these capsules after she was laid to rest, had spread the disease. It had taken a real act of will, a high-minded deliberate obdurateness, not to recognize Nate's role.

After all, there had been obvious opportunities for initiation of this dalliance. 'Please remove your clothes and put on the smock. Doctor will be with you in a moment." A man aS. wrathfully henpecked as Nate would probably find Clara's quiet, inscrutable bearing irresistible.

Yes, and it still seemed, still-if he could claim he knew anything about this woman's nature-that anything of this character with Clara would have required time, exposure, trust, a gradual erosion. It was inevitably someone she knew well.

Oh, yes. Nate had visited Clara in the mornings, Fiona had said long ago.

"Sandy," said Fiona, "for Godsake. What are the pills' for?"

He continued to hold the bottle in his hand and he looked again at the label. The woman, he supposed, was entitled to know'.

"Herpes," he said.

"Her-pes," said Fiona. Her jaw flew open and she stepped six inches back. "Why, that son of a bitch." With a sudden snuffling sound, Fiona, as unpredictably as last time, began to cry.

"Let us sit down a moment." Stern swept up the pills. and replaced the bottle on a shelf within Nate's cabinet. Then Stern steered Fiona around the corner into the bedroom, and sat with her on the edge of the Cawleys' perfectly made bed. The milored spread was of a heavy mauve material, welted on the edges. Fiona was attempting to recover. She dabbed the backs of both hands at the heavy purple shadow over her eyes.

Stern extended an arm in comfort, and she laid her narrow body against him for a moment, bringing close the rosy odor of her various perfumes.

As soon as his hand was clapped across the thin cap of her shoulder, he had the first inkling. He had no notion from where the idea came. Some vicious instinct, he supposed, although it seemed that the plan had been present, unformed, for some time.

Fiona got up to find a tissue, but sat down again beside him on the bed.

"Herpes," she muttered to herself. Stern, from the corner of his eye, could see the barest trace of a smile as the clear thought crossed Fiona's mind: Served him right. Served the bastard right. Then she looked at Stern directly.