Now You See Her by Cecelia Tishy Read Free Book Online Page A

jut-jawed, chiseled look and a penetrating gaze. I search his eyes for the deep sorrow of a parent who’s lost a child. Maybe
     the TV image quality just isn’t vivid enough. Both men look like they’ve had their teeth whitened. I gaze in vain for a background
     glimpse of an interracial couple who might own the “haunted” Marlborough house. Surely, the wind caused that front door to
     slam. Or maybe the door hinges are off-balance. Or a pressurized closing mechanism pushed it shut. Meg and I were just too
     rattled to talk about it driving back in the thick fog.
    I take Biscuit out, feed her, make coffee. It’s cool with thin sunlight. Over cereal with a banana, I scan the Globe Metro
     section, which is also filled with feature stories on the late Sylvia Dempsey. No bodies have been reported found in the city
     or surrounding towns.
    I move to the study and e-mail the final version of “Ticked Off,” then shower and dress, rejecting a tweed wool two-piece
     from my Mrs. Martin Baynes days. My new closet rallying cry is “Down with heather!”
    Down, in fact, with the whole palette of fade-away colors. The emerald jacket that Meg Givens admired? It hangs beside a new
     bolero pantsuit of indigo. I am molting, by choice, out of muted colors. It’s not easy. Old habits die hard, even when you
     try to kill them. Today’s choice is the indigo.
    I’m due in Roxbury at ten. On the sidewalk approaching my Beetle, I hear—
    “Good morning, neighbor.”
    “Trudy Pfaeltz, hi.”
    She crosses Barlow Square toward me in green scrubs and a trench coat, a small box under one arm. In her later thirties, Trudy
     has a pug nose, pale freckles, and dark blond hair pinned back. Her face has the pallor of someone who seldom sees the sun.
    “Just home from work?” I ask. “God, were we busy. Night shift is run, run, run. The hospital should issue every nurse a skateboard.
     The surgical floor’s a zoo.” Trudy shifts the small box. “I stopped at Pets Galore in Allston. This seed is supposed to promote
     a vocabulary in talking birds.”
    “Your parakeet?”
    “If Kingpin doesn’t get past ‘pretty bird,’ I’m going to wring his chartreuse-feathered neck. But, you know, this box of seed
     is a test. If it works, I might handle a line of pet products. It’s a multibillion-dollar industry.”
    “Along with the vending machines. Trudy, with your schedule, how do you do it? You must never sleep.”
    “Like Ben Franklin said, Reggie, time is money. My six vending machines are going to buy me a new minivan. Milky Ways will
     make my down payment. You might look into something like it. You could trade in your little car.”
    We both gaze at my black Beetle with its red silk rose in full flower in the dashboard bud vase. Now is not the moment to
     discuss automotive upsizing. I have something else in mind. “Trudy, let me ask, do you treat homeless patients?”
    “When they’re brought in unconscious or injured. Boston City gets most of them, but I treated a few when I worked in the ER
     years ago. Why?”
    “Yesterday I talked to a homeless woman, probably in her late sixties. She seemed lucid but partly confused. Does street life
     cause hallucinations?”
    “Dementia. It’s a contributing factor. Street people tend to be unstable to begin with, and then a trauma pushes them over
     the edge. They can develop remarkable survival skills, but malnutrition takes a toll. Plus alcohol and drugs are a factor,
     sometimes abuse. It’s hard to know, Reggie, because these people don’t get regular workups. We don’t have good records. But
     if the woman didn’t make sense, it’s par for the course. You’re not hearing-impaired.”
    “Thanks, Trudy. I’d better let you get some sleep.”
    “Not till I turn the birdcage into a language lab. By the way, I’m going to start representing Cutco cutlery. How about a
     free demonstration? No obligation.”
    “Knives?”
    “Cutco is premium cutlery for every