Michael Crichton - A Case of Need

Randall stood back from the door. “Come in,” he said. He didn’t ask who I was. He had taken one look and smelled doctor. You get so you can do it, when you’ve been around them long enough.

I came into the room and sat down.

“Is it about Karen?” He seemed more preoccupied than sad, as if he had just returned from something important or were about to leave.

“Yes,” I said. “I know this is a bad time…”

“No, go ahead.”

I lit a cigarette and dropped the match into a gilded Venetian-glass ashtray. It was ugly but expensive.

“I wanted to talk to you about her.”

“Sure.”

I kept waiting for him to ask who I was, but he didn’t really seem to care. He sat down in an arm-chair across from me, crossed his legs, and said, “What do you want to know?”

“When did you see her last?”

“Saturday. She came in from Northampton on the bus, and I picked her up at the terminal after lunch. I had a couple of hours free. I drove her out to the house.”

“How did she seem?”

He shrugged. “Fine. There was nothing wrong with her, she seemed very happy. Talked all about Smith and her roommate. Apparently she had this wild roommate. And she talked about clothes, that sort of thing.”

“Was she depressed? Nervous?”

“No. Not at all. She acted the same as always. Maybe a little excited about coming home after being away. I think she was a little worried about Smith. My parents treat her as the baby of the family, and she thought they didn’t have confidence in her ability to make it. She was a little…defiant, I guess you’d say.”

“When did you see her before last Saturday?”

“I don’t know. Not since late August, I guess.”

“So this was a reunion.”

“Yes,” he said. “I was always glad to see her. She was very bubbly, with a lot of energy, and she was a good mimic. She could give you an imitation of a professor or a boyfriend and she was hysterical. In fact, that was how she got the car.”

“The car?”

“Saturday night,” he said. “We were all at dinner. Karen, myself, Ev, and Uncle Peter.”

“Ev?”

“My stepmother,” he said. “We all call her Ev.”

“So there were five of you?”

“No, four.”

“What about your father?”

“He was busy at the hospital.”

He said it very matter-of-factly, and I let it drop.

“Anyway,” William said, “Karen wanted a car for the weekend and Ev refused, saying she didn’t want her to be out all night. So Karen turned to Uncle Peter, who is a softer touch, and asked if she could borrow his car. He was reluctant, so she threatened to imitate him, and he immediately loaned her the car.

“What did Peter do for transportation?”

“I dropped him off at his place that night, on my way back here.”

“So you spent several hours with Karen on Saturday.”

“Yes. From around one o’clock to nine or ten.”

“Then you left with your uncle?”

“Yes.”

“And Karen?”

“She stayed with Ev.”

“Did she go out that night?”

“I imagine so. That was why she wanted the car.”

“Did she say where she was going?”

“Over to Harvard. She had some friends in the college.”

“Did you see her Sunday?”

“No. Just Saturday.”

“Tell me,” I said, “when you were with her—did she look any different to you?”

He shook his head. “No. Just the same. Of course, she’d put on a little weight, but I guess all girls do that when they go to college. She was very active in the summer, playing tennis and swimming. She stopped that when she got to school, and I guess she put on a few pounds.” He smiled slowly. “We kidded her about it. She complained about the lousy food, and we kidded her about eating so much of it that she still gained weight.”

“Had she always had a weight problem?”

“Karen? No. She was always a skinny little kid, a real tomboy. Then she filled out in a real hurry. It was like a caterpillar, you know, and the cocoon.”

“Then this was the first time she’d ever been overweight?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. To tell you the truth, I never paid that much attention.”

“Was there anything else you noticed?”

“No, nothing else.”

I looked around the room. On his desk, next to copies of Robbins’ Pathology and Surgical Anatomy, was a photograph of the two of them. They both looked tanned and healthy. He saw me looking and said, “That was last spring, in the Bahamas. For once the whole family managed to get a week off together. We had a great time.”

I got up and took a closer look. It was a flattering picture of her. Her skin was darkly tanned, contrasting nicely with her blue eyes and blonde hair.

“I know it’s a peculiar question,” I said, “but has your sister always had dark hair on her lips and arms?”

“That was funny,” he said, in a slow voice. “Now that you mention it. She had just a little bit there, on Saturday, Peter told her she’d better bleach it or wax it. She got mad for a couple of minutes, and then she laughed.”

“So it was new?”

“I guess so. She might have had it all along, but I never noticed it until then. Why?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

He stood and came over to the picture. “You’d never think she would be the type for an abortion,” he said. “She was such a great girl, funny and happy and full of energy. She had a real heart of gold. I know that sounds stupid, but she did. She was kind of the family mascot, being the youngest. Everybody loved her.”

I said, “Where was she this summer?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“Well, not exactly. In theory, Karen was on the Cape, working in an art gallery in Provincetown.” He paused. “But I don’t think she was there much. I think she spent most of her time on the Hill. She had some kooky friends there; she collected oddball types.”

“Men friends? Women friends?”

“Both.” He shrugged. “But I don’t really know. She only mentioned it to me once or twice, in casual references. Whenever I tried to ask her about it, she’d laugh and change the subject. She was very clever about discussing only what she wanted to.”

“Did she mention any names?”

“Probably, but I don’t remember. She could be maddening about names, talking about people casually as if you knew them intimately. Using just their first names. It was no good reminding her that you’d never heard of Herbie and Su-su and Allie before.” He laughed. “I do remember she once did an imitation of a girl who blew bubbles.”

“But you can’t remember any names?”

He shook his head. “Sorry.”

I stood to go. “Well,” I said, “you must be very tired. What are you on these days?”

“Surgery. We just finished OB-GYN.”

“Like it?”

“It’s O.K.,” he said blandly.

As I was leaving, I said, “Where did you do your OB?”

“At the BLI.” He looked at me for a moment and frowned. “And to answer your question, I assisted on several. I know how to do one. But I was on duty at the hospital Sunday night. All night long. So there it is.”

“Thanks for your time,” I said.

“Sure,” he said.

AS I LEFT THE DORMITORY, I saw a tall, lean, silver-haired man walking toward me. Of course I recognized him, even from a distance.

J. D. Randall was, if nothing else, distinctive.

THE SUN WAS SETTING, and the light on the quadrangle was turning yellow-gold. I lit a cigarette and walked up to Randall. His eyes widened slightly as he saw me, and then he smiled.

“Dr. Berry.”