Kate White - Hush

“This must be such an overwhelming time,” Lake said, keeping her voice easy. “You must feel so confused about what to do.”

“I do,” Maggie said, shaking her head. Her dark curls bounced.

“So Dr. Keaton wanted you to water his plants while he was in California?” Lake asked. Maybe she would have luck, she thought, getting Maggie to start at the beginning.

“Yes, the trees on his terrace,” she said. “And he wanted me to bring in his mail so his mailbox wouldn’t get stuffed.”

At that, Maggie’s eyes brimmed with tears and she dabbed at them with a paper napkin.

“But why give you the keys so far in advance?” Lake said.

“He had his spare set on him when he asked me, so he said he might as well give them to me then. I should have kept them in my purse, but the one I use in summer is really tiny and I didn’t want to lug the keys around all week-so I just stuck them in my desk drawer.”

As Maggie spoke, her eyes fell to her purse on the Formica table. It was small-a tiny white bag of quilted leather.

“Do you think anyone saw him give you the keys?” Lake asked.

“I’m not sure,” Maggie said. “We were in the hall down by the lab when he asked me. Someone might have seen us, I guess-or maybe overheard us from the lab.”

“How about when you put the keys in your drawer?”

“There were probably people around, but I don’t remember who.”

Maggie’s desk was in an open area that people walked by all through the day. It would have been easy for anyone to sneak the keys out of the drawer-especially during the busy hours of the day when most of the staff were engaged in the exam rooms or in the OR. Or at the end of the day, when staff had begun to leave.

“Did you ever have the sense that the keys had been moved in your drawer?”

“No,” Maggie said, almost as a moan. “I almost never use that drawer. I don’t think I even looked in there once after he gave me the keys. Oh God, what if I’m responsible for his death?”

“But you’re not, Maggie.”

The waiter approached and asked for their orders.

“Were you surprised that Dr. Keaton asked you to do such a big favor?” Lake inquired after he’d walked away.

“It wasn’t that big a deal. I live in Brooklyn and his place is right off the same subway line I take home. Plus I was getting paid. The last time he gave me a hundred dollars.”

“The last time?” Lake asked, perplexed.

“In March. I did this in March, too.”

“I’m not following,” Lake said.

“Dr. Keaton consulted with us once before, back in March, for about a month. Toward the end he went to the Bahamas for a long weekend and I checked on his place for him.”

“Got it,” Lake said. It seemed odd she hadn’t heard about Keaton’s earlier stint, and yet she realized there would have been no reason for anyone to bring it up. When she redirected her attention to Maggie, she saw that tears were now streaming down her face.

“Maggie?”

“That’s when it happened,” Maggie said in another whisper.

“The thing you mentioned before?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you tell me about it.”

“It was Friday night-the weekend in March that he went away. A friend and I were going to meet in SoHo after I stopped by Dr. Keaton’s. I was running late so I called her from the apartment, and later, at the restaurant, I realized I’d left my cell phone on his counter. I felt so stupid. My friend said she’d go with me to get it and when we went back there after dinner, I had this-I don’t know-this creepy feeling someone had been in the apartment. There was a light on in the bathroom but I know I never turned it on.”

Lake felt her stomach twist. She remembered the light she had seen in Keaton’s bathroom-and her fear that the killer might be hiding in there.

“Do you think someone was there?” Lake asked.

Maggie’s eyes widened in alarm.

“Omigod, I don’t know,” she said. “I mean at the time I just thought someone had come in after I’d been there and then left. I even thought Dr. Keaton might have come back early and gone out. But when I called him, he was still at the Ocean Club.”

This could mean that someone had been after Keaton long before last week, Lake thought.

“So you told him? Was he concerned?”

“At first he did sound concerned. He asked me some questions-like what time had I been there and when did I go back-and then he said not to worry. He’d been having a problem with the bathroom drain and he said the super had probably checked on it. That’s why I forgot all about the whole thing. Because Dr. Keaton had just dismissed it. But now I wonder if it might mean something.”

“It would be easy enough to check-the police could ask the super. You told them about this?”

“Not yet. I just thought of it on the way over here. But I will, I swear. I feel so dumb. When I told them about the keys, I could tell they thought I was a total idiot.”

“Had you just forgotten about the keys when you first talked to them?” It did seem like a stupid oversight to Lake.

“ Forget ’s not really the right word. When we were being called into the conference room that day to hear the news about Dr. Keaton, Brie whispered to me that he had been murdered. Dr. Levin had told her right before we walked in. She said someone had broken into his apartment. I knew he had a terrace so I figured the burglar had gotten in that way. It was only later, when I was talking to my brother and he said that Dr. Keaton had either let the person in or the murderer had used a key, that I remembered.”

“Do you think someone from the clinic could have done it?” Lake asked, her voice a whisper now, too.

Maggie’s elbows were on the table and she rested her face onto her fists, squashing both cheeks. Then she wiggled her head back and forth in a no.

“I just can’t believe that’s possible,” she said mournfully. “What would the reason be? People seemed happy that Dr. Keaton was joining the clinic.

“Maybe it’s all a coincidence, then,” Maggie added, lifting her head. “I mean, me having the keys and someone getting into the apartment. If you add it up, Dr. Keaton was only at the clinic for about seven weeks total. How could anyone get to hate him in such a short time?”

“Yes, it’s probably just a coincidence,” Lake said, smiling wanly. Despite her reassurance, there was every chance someone from the clinic had swiped the keys. Seven weeks wasn’t a very long time, but it was long enough for Keaton to have stumbled onto unscrupulous doings and confronted the person responsible. And that would have given the person reason enough to silence him.

They ate their sandwiches without enthusiasm, though Lake forced herself to ask Maggie a few benign questions about her background and how she’d ended up in reproductive medicine. She listened to the answers without hearing them. When Maggie said she didn’t have time for coffee Lake asked for the check.

“You know, I can never look at one of these without thinking of a story a patient once told me,” Maggie said, gesturing toward the untouched pickle on her plate. “The day after her transfer, she developed this incredible craving for pickles. She ate an entire jar one night. And then half of another jar. She thought it meant she must really be pregnant. But it turned out it was all in her mind. And now she says the sight of them makes her sick.”

Lake imagined the woman forking spear after spear from the jar and devouring them. That’s like me now, she thought. Half crazy in desperation.

They paid the bill and walked out of the restaurant. Lake glanced quickly around, making sure no one from the clinic was in sight.