Tess Gerritsen: Bloodstream

“Gonna be a mean wind blowing in today.”

“It’s already freezing outside.”

“Coming out of the northwest. Could have snow tonight.”

“Cup of coffee, Doc?” asked Nadine.

“Thank you.”

Ned turned back to the other Dinosaurs, who’d variously acknowledged her entrance, and were now back in conversation. She knew only two of them by name; the others were merely familiar faces. Claire sat alone at her end of the counter, as befitted her outsider status. Oh, people were cordial enough to her.

They smiled, they were polite. But to these natives, her eight months in Tranquility was but a temporary sojourn, a city girl’s fling with the simple life. Winter, they all seemed to agree, would be the test. Four months of snowstorms and black ice would drive her back to the city, as it had driven off the last two doctors from away.

Nadine slid a steaming cup of coffee in front of Claire. “Guess you know all about it, don’t you?” she said.

“All about what?”

“That bone.” Nadine stood watching her, patiently waiting for her contribution to the community pool of knowledge. Like most Maine women, Nadine did a lot of listening. It was the men who seemed to do all the talking. Claire heard them when she walked through the local hardware store or the five-and-dime or the post office. They stood around and gabbed while their wives waited, silent and watchful.

“I hear it’s a kid’s bone,” said Joe Bartlett, swiveling on the stool to look at Claire. “A thigh bone.”

“That right, Doc?” another one asked.

The other Dinosaurs turned and looked at Claire.

She said, with a smile, “You already seem to know everything about it.”

“Heard it was whacked up good. Maybe a knife. Maybe an ax. Then the animals got at it.”

“You boys sure are cheerful today,” snorted Nadine.

“Three days in those woods, raccoons and coyotes clean your bones straight off.

Then Elwyn’s dogs come along. Hardly ever feeds ‘em, y’know. Bone like that’s a tasty snack. Maybe his dogs’ve been chewing on it for weeks. Elwyn, he wouldn’t think to give it a second look”

Joe laughed. “That Elwyn, he just plain doesn’t think.”

“Maybe he shot the kid himself Mistook it for a deer.”

Claire said, “It looked like a very old bone.”

Joe Bartlett waved at Nadine. “I made up my mind. I’ll have the Monte Cristo sandwich.”

“Whooee! Joe’s goin’ fancy on us today!” said Ned Tibbetts.

“What about you, Doc?” asked Nadine.

“A tuna sandwich and a bowl of mushroom soup, please.”

As Claire ate her lunch, she listened to the men talk about whom the bone might belong to. It was impossible not to listen in; three of them wore hearing aids.

Most of them could remember as far back as sixty years ago, and they batted the possibilities around like a birdie in play Maybe it was that young girl who’d fallen off Bald Rock Cliff. No, they’d found her body, remember? Maybe it was the Jewett girl- hadn’t she run off when she was sixteen? Ned said no, he’d heard from his mother that she was living in Hartford; the girl’d have to be in her sixties now, probably a grandmother. Fred Moody said his wife Florida said the dead girl had to be from away-one of the summer people. Tranquility kept track of its own, and wouldn’t someone remember if a local kid had vanished?

Nadine refilled Claire’s cup of coffee. “Don’t they just go on and on?” she said. “You’d think they was planning world peace.”

“How do they know so much about it, anyway?”

“Joe’s second cousin to Floyd Spear, over at the police department.” Nadine began to wipe down the counter, long, brisk strokes that left behind a faintly chlorinated smell. “They say some bone expert’s driving up from Bangor today Way I figure, it’s gotta be one of those summer people.”

That, of course, was the obvious answer-one of the summer people. Whether it was an unsolved crime or an unidentified body, the all-purpose answer served. Every June, Tranquility’s population quadrupled when wealthy families from Boston and New York began arriving for their lakeside vacations. Here, in this peaceful summertime colony, they would linger on the porches of their shorefront cottages while their children splashed in the water. In the shops of Tranquility, cash registers would ring merrily as the summer folk Pumped dollars into the local economy. Someone had to clean their Cottages, repair their fancy cars, bag their groceries. The business from those few short months was enough to keep the local population fed through the winter.

It was the money that made the visitors tolerable. That and the fact that every September, with the falling of the leaves, they would once again vanish, leaving the town to the people who belonged here.

Claire finished her lunch and walked back to her office.

Tranquility’s main street followed the curve of the lake. At the top of Elm Street was Joe Bartlett’s gas and garage, which he’d run for forty-two years until he retired; now his daughter’s two girls pumped gas and changed oil. A sign above the garage proudly proclaimed: Owned and Operated by Joe Bartlett and Granddaughters. Claire had always liked that sign; she thought it said a lot for Joe Bartlett.

At the post office, Elm Street curved north. Already that northwest wind was starting to blow in across the lake. It blasted through the narrow alleys between buildings, and walking along the sidewalk was like passing through a series of icy wind tunnels. In the window above the five-and-dime, a black cat gazed down at her, as though pondering the stupidity of creatures out in such weather.

Next to the five-and-dime was the yellow Victorian where Claire had her medical practice.

The building had once served as Dr. Pomeroy’s business and residence. The door still had the old frosted glass with the lettering: MEDICAL OFFICE. Although the name James Pomeroy, M.D., had been replaced by Claire Elliot, M.D., Family Practice, she sometimes imagined she could see the shadow of the old name lingering like a ghost in the pebbled glass, refusing to yield to the new occupant.

Inside, her receptionist, Vera, was yakking on the phone, her bracelets clattering as she flipped through the appointment book. Vera’s hairstyle was like her personality: wild and woolly and a little frazzled. She cupped her hand over the receiver and said to Claire, “Mairead Temple’s in the exam room. Sore throat.”

“How’s the rest of the afternoon look?”

“Two more coming in, and that’s it.”

Which added up to only six patients all day, worried Claire. Since the summer tourists departed, Claire’s practice had contracted. She was the only doctor with an office right in Tranquility, yet most of the locals drove the twenty miles to Two Hills for medical care. She knew why; not many in town believed she’d last through one hard winter, and they saw no point getting attached to a doctor who’d be gone by the following autumn.

Mairead Temple was one of the few patients Claire had managed to attract, but it was only because Mairead owned no car. She’d walked a mile into town, and now she sat on the exam table, still wheezing slightly from the cold weather.

Mairead was eighty-one and she had no teeth or tonsils. Nor did she have much deference for authority.

Examining Mairead’s throat, Claire said, “It does look pretty red.”

“I coulda told you that myself,” Mairead answered.

“But you don’t have a fever. And your lymph nodes aren’t swollen.”

“Hurts wicked bad. Can’t hardly swallow.”

“I’ll take a throat culture. By tomorrow we’ll know if it’s strep. But I think it’s just a virus.”

Mairead, her eyes small and suspicious, watched Claire peel open a throat swab.