Michael Crichton - A Case of Need

“Did you ever believe her?”

“After a couple of months, I was beginning to.”

“Did you ever have reason to think she was pregnant?”

“While she was here? At school? No.”

“You’re sure?”

“She never said anything. Besides, she was on the pill.”

“Are you certain of that?”

“Yeah, I think so. At least, she made this big ceremony of it every morning. The pills are right there.”

“Where?”

Ginnie pointed. “Right there on her desk. In that little bottle.”

I got up and went to the desk, and picked up the plastic bottle. The label was from Beacon Pharmacy; there were no typed directions. I took out my notebook and wrote down the prescription number and the name of the doctor. Then I opened the bottle and shook out a pill. There were four left.

“She took these every day?”

“Every single day,” Ginnie said.

I was no gynecologist and no pharmacologist, but I knew several things. First, that most birth-control pills were now sold in a dispenser to help a woman keep track of the days. Second, that the initial hormone dosage had been cut from ten milligrams a day to two milligrams. That meant the pills were small.

These pills were huge in comparison. There were no surface markings of any kind; they were chalky white and rather crumbly to the touch. I slipped one into my pocket and replaced the others in the bottle. Even without checking, I had a pretty good idea what the pills were.

“Did you ever meet any of Karen’s boyfriends?” I asked.

Ginnie shook her head.

“Did Karen ever talk about them? Talk about her dates?”

“Not really. Not personally, if you know what I mean. She’d talk about how they’d been in bed, but it was usually just gross stuff. She was always trying to gross you out. You know, the earthy bit. Wait a minute.”

She got up and went to Karen’s dresser. There was a mirror over the dresser; stuck into the frame were several pictures of boys. She plucked out two and handed them to me.

“This guy was one she talked about, but I don’t think she was seeing him anymore. She used to date him over the summer or something. He goes to Harvard.”

The picture was a standard publicity pose of a boy in a football uniform. He had the number 71, and was crouched down in a three-point stance, snarling into the camera.

“What’s his name?”

“I don’t know.”

I picked up a Harvard-Columbia football program and looked up the roster. Number 71 was a right guard, Alan Zenner. I wrote the name in my notebook and gave the picture back to Ginnie.

“This other one,” she said, handing me the second picture, “is a newer guy. I think she was seeing him. Some nights, she’d come back and kiss the picture before she went to bed. His name was Ralph, I think. Ralph or Roger.”

The picture showed a young Negro standing in a tight, shiny suit with an electric guitar in one hand. He was smiling rather stiffly.

“You think she was seeing him?”

“Yes, I think so. He’s part of a group that plays in Boston.”

“And you think his name is Ralph?”

“Something like that.”

“You know the name of the group?”

Ginnie frowned. “She told me once. Probably more than once, but I don’t remember. Karen sort of liked to keep her boys a mystery. It wasn’t like some girl sitting down and telling you every little thing about her boyfriend. Karen never did that, it was always bits and snatches.”

“You think she was meeting this fellow when she went away for weekends?”

Ginnie nodded.

“Where did she go on weekends? Boston?”

“I imagine. Boston or New Haven.”

I turned the picture over in my hands. On the back it said, “Photo by Curzin, Washington Street.”

“Can I take this picture with me?”

“Sure,” she said. “I don’t care.”

I slipped it into my pocket, then sat down again.

“Did you ever meet any of these people? Any of the boys?”

“No. I never met any of her friends. Oh—wait a minute. I did, once. A girl.”

“A girl?”

“Yes. Karen told me one day that this good friend of hers was coming up for a day. She told me all about how cool this girl was, how wild. This big build-up. I was really waiting for something spectacular. Then when she showed up…”

“Yes?”

“Really strange,” Ginnie said. “Very tall, with real long legs, and all the time Karen kept saying how she wished she had long legs like that, and the girl just sort of sat there and didn’t say anything. She was pretty, I guess. But really strange. She acted like she was asleep. Maybe she was up on something; I don’t know. Finally she began to talk, after about an hour of just sitting there, and she said these weird things.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Weird things. ‘The rain in Spain is mainly down the drain.’ And she made up poetry about people running in spaghetti fields. It was pretty dull, I mean, not what you’d call good.”

“What was this girl’s name?”

“I don’t remember. Angie, I think.”

“Was she in college?”

“No. She was young, but she wasn’t in college. She worked. I think Karen said she was a nurse.”

“Try to remember her name,” I said.

Ginnie frowned and stared at the floor, then shook her head. “I can’t,” she said. “I didn’t pay that much attention.”

I didn’t want to let it go, but it was getting late. I said, “What else can you tell me about Karen? Was she nervous? Jittery?”

“No. She was always very calm. Everybody else in the house was nervous, especially around hourly time, when we have our exams, but she didn’t seem to care,”

“Did she have a lot of energy? Was she bouncy and talkative?”

“Karen? Are you kidding? Listen, she was always half dead, except for her dates, when she’d perk up, but otherwise she was always tired and always complaining about how tired she was.”

“She slept a lot?”

“Yes. She slept through most of her classes.”

“Did she eat a lot?”

“Not particularly. She slept through most of her meals, too.”

“She must have lost weight, then.”

“Actually, it went up,” Ginnie said. “Not too much, but enough. She couldn’t get into most of her dresses, after six weeks. She had to buy some more.”

“Did you notice any other changes?”

“Well, only one, but I’m not sure it really matters. I mean, it mattered to Karen, but nobody else cared.”

“What was that?”

“Well, she had the idea that she was getting hairy. You know, arms and legs and on her lip. She complained that she was shaving her legs all the time.”

I looked at my watch and saw that it was nearly noon. “Well, I don’t want to keep you from your classes.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Ginnie said. “This is interesting.”

“How do you mean?”

“Watching you work, and all.”

“You must have talked with a doctor before.”

She sighed. “You must think I’m stupid,” she said, in a petulant voice “I wasn’t born yesterday.”

“I think you’re very intelligent,” I said.

“Will you want me to testify?”

“Testify? Why?”

“In court, at the trial.”

Looking at her, I had the feeling she was practicing before the mirror once again. Her face had a secretly wise expression, like a movie heroine.

“I’m not sure I follow you.”

“You can admit it to me,” she said. “I know you’re a lawyer.”

“Oh.”

“I figured it out ten minutes after you arrived. You want to know how?”

“How?”

“When you picked up those pills and looked at them. You did it very carefully, not like a doctor at all. Frankly, I think you’d make a terrible doctor.”