Murder On The Mind

Murder On The Mind - Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

I knew when I showed up for breakfast the next morning that it wasn’t the time to announce I’d made a couple of new friends. Brenda and Richard weren’t speaking, and I more than half suspected I was the cause.

Richard announced he’d made an appointment for me at UB Medical Center with an orthopedic specialist for that afternoon. I didn’t argue.

Plaster is old-fashioned. My new physician gave me the option of a fiberglass cast—in designer colors, no less—or a removable plastic-and-Velcro brace. I chose the latter, glad to be rid of the anchor-weight cast. An x-ray showed my ulna to be healing nicely.

No one mentioned sending me to a shrink.

Even so, I wasn’t feeling cocky as I left the doctor’s office. Something was definitely up with Richard.

We walked in silence back to the car. Richard had accompanied me to the clinic, and sat in the waiting room until I’d finished. He didn’t ask how things had gone.

He touched the button on his key fob and unlocked the car doors before walking around to the driver’s side, and climbing in. He turned the key in the ignition and cleared his throat.  “Anywhere you want to go?”

I shook my head. “Let’s just go home.”

Snowflakes began to fall, dancing on the windshield before being blown away, replaced by new ones. I gazed at the traffic whizzing by and remembered what Richard told Brenda days before: “He’s different.”

He was right, I was different. And I looked at everything in a new, harsher light—especially myself.

I didn’t like what I saw.

Minutes later we were home. Richard stopped the car in the driveway, letting me out before he parked the Lincoln in the garage. I started for the house, but paused. I couldn’t let this go on. Pulling up my collar, I waited for him. Although it was only three o’clock, the sky had darkened to the west—a storm was brewing.

The garage door closed and Richard came out the side door, shoulders slumped, head down. He looked as bad as I felt. He glanced up, surprised to see me.

“Wanna take a walk?”

He took in the sky. “In the snow?”

“Why not? Besides, I want to talk.”

He blinked at me. “You never want to talk.”

“I never had a crack in my skull before, either.”

“Do you think that makes a difference?”

“Yeah, I do.”

Richard shrugged. “What’s the point?”

The defeat in his voice scared me. “Are you giving up on me already?”

“No. It’s just—I don’t like things being so awkward.”

“That’s kind of what I wanted to talk about.”

We started down the driveway at a snail’s pace. Awkward was a good description for how I felt. And he was right. Expressing myself was something I’d never been good at.

I took a breath for courage.

“Back in New York I said something I’m not proud of. That you’re always rubbing my nose in the fact that you have a lot of money. It isn’t true. You’ve never treated me with anything other than kindness. In return—”

“Jeff, don’t—”

“Let me finish. In return, I’ve been an ungrateful son of a bitch, too proud to accept your generosity gracefully. I’m sorry.”