The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell(36)

I nodded. “I just want you to know that if you suspect that your daughter is having too many accidents when she is in your husband’s care—”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about. She fell off her bike. It was an accident. I came here because I was told you could help Daniela.”

“I hope I can.”

She stepped past me into the examination room. When she reemerged, she held Daniela by the wrist. She pulled the candy from her little girl’s mouth by the stick and slapped it in my palm as they left.





2

I retreated to my office, shut the door, and sat staring at the framed photograph of the Three Stooges hanging on the wall. Moe stood in the middle. He held a clump of Larry’s hair with one hand and had two fingers of his other hand stuck up Curly’s nostrils. Since I wasn’t invited to birthday parties or to other children’s homes, except for Ernie’s, I spent much of my youth watching the Three Stooges, and they had brought me endless hours of laughter. Ernie had found the poster in a novelty shop and gave it to me, framed, as a gift when Mickie and I opened our practice.

My desk faced east, with a window that allowed me to consider the rooftops of the other businesses on Broadway. The view reminded me of one of those re-created Old West towns in the tourist theme parks with false fronts hiding flat, tar, and gravel roofs, except these roofs were cluttered with crisscrossing pipes and equipment to heat and cool the buildings. I looked to the picture of Eva framed on my desk. She lay on her side, elbow bent, head propped on her hand, hair cascading nearly to the floor. Her green eyes beckoned to me, as did the flesh of her exposed shoulder from which her white knit sweater had slipped. The sweater also revealed a flat, toned stomach that Eva worked hard to maintain and was proud to show off.

I checked my watch, but it was unlikely she was at her Boston hotel yet. The flight crew usually had dinner together and a few cocktails. Besides, Eva would not want to discuss my work problems. I thought of Mickie, the most fearless person I’d ever met, but she was stretching through hot yoga. Faced with the same circumstances, Mickie would not have hesitated to call Child Protective Services and tell them what I suspected, that Daniela was being abused by her father. Unfortunately, Trina Crouch was correct. I had no real evidence to prove it. The police report indicated the little girl had a bike accident. What I had in rebuttal was an emergency room doctor’s report intimating Daniela’s other injuries did not comport with a bike accident, as well as my personal experience of being pummeled by David Bateman. Without Trina and Daniela’s cooperation, it was unlikely I could help them, and I could end up making the abuse worse.

I decided to call the emergency room doctor, Pat LeBaron. Given the hour of the day, I intended to leave a message with his call service. On the third ring, I was surprised that Dr. LeBaron answered and that he was actually a she.

I introduced myself and said I was the ophthalmologist to whom she had referred Trina Crouch and that I had seen Daniela that afternoon.

“Nice kid,” LeBaron said, “but awfully shy. She didn’t say two words. The mother did all the talking.”

“I read your report,” I said. “I wanted to ask if, well, Daniela had much in the way of other injuries?” Maybe I should have just hit LeBaron over the head with a hammer like the Three Stooges used to do.

“You mean other injuries such as scrapes and bruises consistent with a fall from a bike that would result in the type of head trauma reported?” Dr. LeBaron was not as dense as the Stooges. She exhaled a long breath through the phone. “No, I didn’t find such injuries.”

“I sensed from your report that you might have considered that odd?”

She picked her words carefully. “It seemed . . . unusual to me.”

“I asked the mother—”

“Yeah? How’d that go?”

“I suspect about as well as it went for you.”

“She denied anything happened. I asked her point-blank if she suspected her ex-husband had struck her daughter. She gave me a song and dance about ‘how dare I,’ and ‘the police issued a report,’ ‘what gave me the right,’ and ‘what kind of mother did I think she was.’”

“I got a candy slapped in my palm.”

“Huh?”

“I got the same song. So I assume you didn’t report it to CPS?”

“Report what? She denies it, and the police report says it was a bike accident. I got nothing to say it wasn’t. Do you have something more?”

“No, nothing,” I said, except a history with the husband.

“Do you think you can help the girl?” LeBaron asked.

“I’m going to need to run a series of tests,” I said, “if they come back to see me. I think Daniela has a detached retina.”

“I hope you can,” she said, ending our conversation.

I stared out the window. In the near distance, rising above the eucalyptus trees along the El Camino Real, stood the steeple to the OLM church. Not wanting to go straight home to an empty house, I made another call. Ernie Cantwell answered his direct line, a number that only I, his wife, and his parents possessed.

“I’ll be home in half an hour,” he said.

“I hope you don’t expect a big sloppy kiss,” I said.

“Hell.”