Stephen White - Critical Conditions

“Were you going to say something else?”

“She…she had thought about going to live with her dad. Thought she could travel with him, help him out, be like his assistant or something. Oh, God, I shouldn’t have told you that. Now she’ll really be ticked.”

“Why? Why will she be ticked?” When I ask “why” questions in situations like this, I know I’m lost.

She appraised me as though she couldn’t believe what a dullard I was. She said, “Work on it.”

“Nothing else?”

“That’s all I know.”

With what I hoped was a deft move, I changed direction. “The day you found her after she took the drugs, she was upstairs in her bathroom, right?”

Madison nodded as she fished around in the frappucino foam with her straw, hoping to discover a pool of untouched slush. She knew something I didn’t know, and she knew that in this match she had me on points.

“See anything else, anything unusual, when you were in the house that day?”

The straw stopped in mid-swipe.

“Like what?”

It was my turn to shrug and act indifferent. I’d been paying attention to the technique, and I thought I did a pretty good job. “Like anything.”

“What do you mean, ‘Like anything’?”

I leaned forward, closing the space between us. “Merritt’s in a lot of trouble right now, Madison. I’m wondering whether you saw anything when you were there that might explain any of it.”

“Trouble? What kind of trouble?”

“What did you see?”

“Why is she in trouble?”

I sat back on my chair and drained my coffee. “She screwed up.”

Her voice betrayed some anxiety. “Screwed up how? I don’t know what you’re talking about. All I can tell you is that it was all too weird. Finding her like that. I don’t remember anything but how dead she seemed. I thought she was dead.” She shivered.

I thought the shiver might be an act, but I wasn’t really sure. Madison was pretty good. I asked, “You didn’t wait for the ambulance to come? Is that what I heard? Do I have that right?”

“I freaked. Totally freaked.”

“You freaked?”

“You see someone you think is dead, you freak, you panic, you do stuff you shouldn’t do. Ever done that, just walked in on somebody and thought they were history?”

“Yes, I have. Earlier this week, as a matter of fact.”

She wasn’t really interested in my experience with dead people. Her question had been rhetorical, and my answer, to her, irrelevant.

“Maybe I should have stayed. I don’t know what difference it would have made. Tell you what, next time it happens, next time I walk in and find a dead person, I’ll try and do better. How’s that?”

Few things in life are more unpleasant than an irritated adolescent. Maybe aggravated cobras and perturbed grizzly bears would offer a good approximation.

I used my confrontation voice from the office, firm but burrowing. “But you thought she was already dead when you got there?”

She was staring at the dregs of foam in her cup. She said, “Yes, I think I said that. I thought she was already dead. She was laying there all unnatural, like one of those rubber dolls you can bend any way you want. And I didn’t think she was breathing. I thought I was way too late.”

“But you called the ambulance anyway?”

“I called 911. The ambulance was their idea.”

“Why did you call 911?”

“It’s what you do when something messy happens. Don’t you watch TV?” The sarcasm was inflated.

“Why did you go to the house that day? Did you and Merritt have plans to do something? Or maybe, had she told you she was going to take the pills and you went over to talk her out of it? Was that it?”

“What?”

“Why did you go to Merritt’s house? Why that day? Why that time? Why did you go inside and walk upstairs and go into her bathroom even though no one answered the door?”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

I tried silence. It didn’t faze her; she seemed to regroup before my eyes and I feared that my recent advantage was slipping away. I said, “Why did you decide to visit Merritt that afternoon?”

“We’re friends. Okay?”

“Do you have a key to the house?”

“The house wasn’t locked. She left it open for me.”

“So she was expecting you? You had already talked to her, right?”

“No, I mean, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t know anything about any drugs she was going to take. Nothing, all right?”

“What about a gun? Did you know anything about a gun?”

Her eyes opened wide, and I saw the light reflect off her contact lenses. So that’s where that incredible blue tint came from.

“A gun? What? What gun? What…what do you mean, a gun?”

“Were you afraid the police were going to come when you called 911? Not just an ambulance? Is that why you didn’t stick around after you found her?”

“Why would I be afraid of that?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure. Why would you be afraid of that? Why are you worried that Merritt’s in trouble? Maybe it has something to do with that gun?”

She tugged at one of her earrings and sipped from her straw noisily, as though there were actually still some liquid in her glass.

I felt I was close to something, and I wanted to keep the pressure on. My voice as soft as I could make it, I said, “Madison?”

Incongruously, the warm smile I’d seen earlier again graced her face and she slid off the stool in one graceful motion. A young man in black jeans and a too-tight T-shirt appeared next to her and placed a long arm around her waist.

He was the kind of boy I was envious of in high school and college. He was as comfortable around pretty girls as Wynton Marsalis is around a horn. The fact that I was sitting with Madison didn’t interfere with his advance for a second.

I said, “Hello, I’m Alan Gregory.” I offered my hand.

His was firmly around Madison and he left it there. He said, “Brad.”

Madison said, “Listen, lunch is over and I have a class now. I have to go. Thanks for the coffee. Say hi to Merritt for me. Bye.”

She and Brad made for the door without looking back.

I watched them exit. Her smile dissolved into anger the second they were out the door. I watched her fumble for a cigarette and fail twice to get it lit with a little plastic lighter.

Finally, she got the thing ignited and started walking, inhaling, and scolding Brad simultaneously.

He seemed amused.

I guessed that Brad’s arrival at Starbucks had been choreographed by Madison in advance.

And that he had been late.

I called Sam Purdy at the police department when I returned to my office to see my next patient. He answered, it seemed to me, before the phone even rang.

“I met with Merritt’s friend Madison.”

“Anything?”

“She’s a clever kid, Sam. You know the type. Slippery.”

“Does she know anything?”

“Maybe. She didn’t tell me anything, but I got the feeling that she knows something. But just when I got some pressure going, she had some guy come in and rescue her. Maybe you’ll get more than I did.”

“I should probably keep my distance from witnesses. Officially speaking, anyway. I’ll talk to Luce.” Detective Lucy Tanner was Sam’s partner in criminal investigation, and occasionally in crime.

“After she hears that Merritt’s under investigation, I think she’ll clam up and get real stupid, Sam.”

“Happens all the time. You moved Merritt to Denver all right?”

“Signed, sealed, and delivered. Will she be arrested today?”

“Barring a confession by somebody else, probably. Blood on her clothing types like Dead Ed’s. Gun is definitely Dead Ed’s. Two rounds are missing. Get your arguments ready about why she needs to stay at Children’s and not get moved to the Fort. You’ll need them.”