Fractured Eden Read online

  “So you’re the new doc. Welcome.”

  Aaron nodded.

  “I’m your constable. I try to keep the peace around here.”

  “I’m sure that can be a tough job,” Aaron said as they shook hands.

  “Some days are tougher than others, just like your job.”

  “So there is crime in these parts.”

  “Sure, like everywhere else. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have a job now, would I?”

  Keller turned to Stella. “Have you seen Forrester?”

  “No. He hasn’t come around here.”

  “He can be a hothead. I wouldn’t be surprised if he comes in here with some kind of injury.” Keller returned to the front door. “See y’all later.”

  “Who’s Forrester?” Aaron said to Stella.

  “Marley’s husband, the creep that ran off with the pretty young thing.”

  Aaron joined Stella and Juliana at the table in the lounge for lunch.

  “I’ve been on the phone all morning,” Juliana said. “Patients are calling for appointments. The word is out about you.”

  “You can thank me for that,” Stella said. “I told the whole town you were coming.”

  Aaron smiled. “I appreciate that. Word of mouth still works, doesn’t it. We’re certainly off to a good start.”

  “You don’t need to worry. You’ll do well here,” Stella said.

  “How can you know that?”

  Stella raised an eyebrow. “Trust me. I can tell.”

  “The voice of an experienced nurse. That’s reassuring.” He looked down. I hope you’re right.

  “Here, you two, have some black people’s soul fruit.” Stella held out a plate piled high with watermelon slices.

  Aaron laughed and scooped some on a napkin. “I now have a new appreciation for watermelon.” He swallowed the last bite of his tuna salad sandwich. “How long was the previous doctor here?”

  “Less than a year,” Stella said.

  “That’s not long.”

  “He was smart but a little odd, if you ask me. His interactions with patients were awkward sometimes. He wasn’t always comfortable around people.”

  Aaron chuckled. “Maybe he’d be better suited for pathology or laboratory medicine. In those specialties, a doctor can usually avoid direct patient contact.”

  Stella nodded. “You may be right. Patients grumbled to us about him. ‘He doesn’t listen to me’ was a common complaint.”

  “Thanks for the reminder. I’ll try to always be a good listener.”

  “We’ll let you know of any significant patient complaints.”

  Aaron coughed and his face flushed. A vision of the chief of the medical staff and that last meeting in Connecticut flashed into his mind.

  “Is anything wrong?” Stella said.

  “No, I’m fine.” Aaron took several deep breaths. “By the way, is that why the last doctor left? Patient complaints?”

  “I’m not sure. He seemed anxious about something the last few weeks he was here, but he didn’t talk to me about it. I had the impression that something scared him. One day he said he was leaving, and the next day he was gone.”

  After work, Aaron followed Stella’s car to a boot store in nearby Beaumont. Along the way, he dialed the radio to a station he hadn’t heard yet. The DJ said he was playing some of his favorite Cajun music.

  “Here’s Johnny Janot with ‘I’m Proud to Be a Cajun.’ ”

  Aaron smiled as he bobbed his head to the beat. Interesting sound, he thought.

  Aaron noticed a strong scent of leather as he stepped inside the boot store.

  Stella walked up to a sales person with Aaron in tow. “This man needs a good pair of boots,” she said. “Can you show us some Lucchese?”

  “You got it, ma’am. Sir, just have a seat there, and we’ll fix you up real good.” He measured Aaron’s foot. “I’ll be right back.”

  Aaron and Stella sat down in adjoining chairs. “How do you know so much about boots?” Aaron said.

  “Number one, I live in Texas. And two, I used to help my husband buy them. I have boots of my own that I wear sometimes.”

  After several minutes, the salesman returned with a few pairs of boots. “He might look good in these Lucchese Destroyed Leather Boots. This here is the 1883 Antique Buffalo.”

  “Lucchese. Isn’t that a foreign name?” Aaron said.

  “It’s Italian, but Lucchese boots are handmade right here in good ol’ Texas, since 1883. So if you called ‘em Texas boots, you’d be speakin’ God’s honest truth.”

  Aaron pulled on the dark brown boots with tan side scrolls and wingtips and pranced around the store.

  He stood in front of Stella. “I like the way these feel. What do you think?”

  “They look good. You should get ‘em.”

  “So, 1883,” he drawled. “I could be right at home in the Old West wearing these.” He clomped out of the store in his new pair of boots.

  “Now you look like you rode in from the range for supper,” Stella said. “You’ve just gone up a few notches in the eyes of Texans.”

  “That’s great to hear.” Aaron walked in a circle. “These boots are really comfortable. I feel taller and stronger, like I could kick some butt. How about a beer? Let’s you and I raise some hell in the nearest saloon.”

  Stella laughed. “Now don’t get carried away. I have to get home.”

  “Okay, see you tomorrow, Annie Oakley.”

  Stella shook her head and smiled. “No, I’m more like Calamity Jane.”

  Later that evening, Aaron stretched out on his bed wearing only his boxer shorts and boots, his hands behind his head. It was the first time he’d thought about his previous house and restaurants and routine.

  I haven’t missed my old digs. That’s got to be a good sign.

  ****

  Constable Keller Greevy braked his patrol car to a stop in his driveway. On his way home from the police station, he’d been thinking about a missing person report. A sixteen-year-old girl from a nearby town … no one had seen her for two weeks.

  That’s the second girl gone missing in this area in the last few months, he thought.

  He walked through the front door and saw that the kitchen light was on. “Hello, I’m home.”

  As he sat down in a chair at the dining table, his wife, Valerie, slammed down a plate of grilled chicken and green beans in front of him.

  Keller lurched back. “What’s the matter?”

  “I can’t take it. Everyone knows you like that hairdresser, Marley Brighton.”

  “It’s nothing. Don’t you worry about it. Your friends gossip too much.”

  Valerie stomped her foot. “You’re my husband. I won’t let another woman take you away from me.”

  “You’re all upset about nothing. I have to watch her. Her husband, Forrester, is a loose cannon. No telling when he’ll show up again.”

  Valerie’s thin lips twitched. “You’d better stop following her, or I might have to do something to make you stop.”

  Keller stood up as she wheeled around and stormed out of the kitchen.

  “Do what? You’re crazy,” he said. “Stop talking like that.”

  Chapter 4

  Aaron strutted into the clinic the next morning, his arms held wide.

  Juliana stood from her chair, looked over the registration counter at Aaron, and nodded. “Bueno. The boots make the man. Good choice. They look just right on you.”

  “Thanks. I’m walking tall this morning.”

  He clomped away snapping his fingers to the beat of a country song he’d just heard on his car radio.

  Later in the morning, Stella stopped Aaron before he entered the patient room. “You’ll get to know this guy well. He’s the town drunk and lives in the trailer home just down the road. He’s got some kind of bite on his arm, so he probably fell asleep again in the Big Thicket.”

  “The Big Thicket. That’s our local forest?”

  “It’s more than a forest. T
here’s nothing else like it. Lots of different animals and insects live in there, not to mention all kinds of snakes and even alligators.”

  Aaron opened the door and winced at the smell of cigarettes. A man in a dirty T-shirt and tattered jeans thrust his hand out. “I’m Rocky Donnigan,” he said with a gravelly voice. “Glad we have a new doctor in town.”

  “Thanks. How can I help you today?”

  Rocky pointed to his right forearm. “Something bit me here a few days ago, and it’s a lot more sore and swollen today.”

  Aaron examined the skin lesion. “It looks like an infected insect bite. We need to get you on an antibiotic.”

  “That’s what I figured.”

  Aaron continued with a general physical exam and spotted healed insect bite lesions over his arms and lower legs.

  “I hope you stay, Doc.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “There’s a lot of weirdness in this town. The last doc got spooked, I think.”

  “Weirdness, what kind of weirdness?”

  “Evil people. Strange things happening. But, you know, I’ve lived here my whole life. Maybe all towns are like this one. Was your last town weird, too?”

  Aaron’s chest tightened as a vision popped into his head: idiot doctors sitting around a mahogany table demanding that Aaron resign. He nodded. “Yeah, I guess in a way it was.”

  On his way out, Rocky stopped at the door of the room and turned to Aaron.

  “I like you, Doc. I hope you’ll like us, too.”

  Aaron grinned. I’ve made some positive impressions so far.

  After Rocky left, Aaron stood at the registration desk.

  “I know it’s just your first week, but how do you like it here?” Juliana said.

  “So far, so good. One thing I like, no one ever seems to be in a hurry.”

  Stella laughed. “Only when you’re being chased by a bull or by somebody with a gun.”

  “You mentioned Calamity Jane yesterday,” Aaron said. “Are you a history buff?”

  “I like to read books about history. My high school history teacher turned me on to it. And then I learned I had an ancestor that died in the Civil War, fighting for one of the ‘colored’ infantries.”

  “You traced your family tree?”

  “Part of it. Some of my ancestors were slaves, and many slaves had no last names, so it’s difficult. I hit a lot of dead ends.”

  “I can’t imagine the whole slave thing. If I was given a slave, I wouldn’t know how to relate.”

  “It’s part of our American history, an ugly part of it. Even though slavery is over, the black-white relationship still has a ways to go.”

  Aaron cocked his head. “What do you mean? You and I are relating okay, aren’t we?”

  “You don’t believe me? Let’s go together to a restaurant and see what happens.”

  “You think something will happen? Blacks and whites together is common these days. What could happen?”

  “Chances are, we’ll get seated in the back or in a corner, away from the all-white groups.”

  Aaron snorted. “Are you sure you’re not exaggerating?”

  “One of these days, we’ll go together for a meal. You’ll see.”

  Later in the afternoon, Aaron walked up to Juliana at the copy machine.

  “Where did you move from?” Aaron said.

  “Not far away. Dallas.”

  “Ah, the southern tip of Tornado Alley.”

  Juliana looked off into the distance. “I saw a tornado once. Terrible.” She crossed her fingers. “But I’m lucky so far. I’ve never been hurt by one or lost anything.”

  “Does life seem much different out here for you?” Aaron said.

  “Well, it’s country life. More wilderness and wildlife.”

  Aaron nodded as he thought of the huge green turtle he almost hit with his car. “How about the people?”

  “I think country people are different in some ways from city people. For one thing, they seem more connected with each other.”

  “That’s got to be good.”

  Juliana smiled. “I believe it is.”

  Just before closing time, the waiting room was empty and the clinic was quiet.

  A man threw open the front door and ran back to the hallway in front of the patient rooms.

  “Sir,” Stella shouted after him. She stood from her chair and jogged toward him, then she stopped and gasped.

  The young man pointed his handgun at her. “Open your medicine cabinet, the one with narcs.” His hand was shaking and his pale face was sweaty.

  Stella held her hands up. “We don’t have any narcotics here.”

  “Open the cabinet, now.”

  Aaron ran around the corner. “What’s all the noise …” He stopped and his eyes widened as the gun barrel swerved over to his chest.

  Aaron’s legs turned to jelly and he fell to his knees with his hands up. “Don’t shoot.”

  “I need Vicodin. Give me your Vicodin.”

  Aaron’s throat tightened and his words squeaked out. “We don’t—”

  “You’ve got to help me. The last doc had Vicodin here. I’ll use this gun if I have to.”

  Everyone turned to look as the front door of the clinic banged open.

  A tall silhouette filled the doorway. “Son, lower the gun. Don’t do this.”

  The young man’s gun quivered as he stepped toward his father. “No one will help me. I need medicine. Can’t you see I’m sick?”

  Stella crept up behind the man and locked him in a tight bear hug, his gun hand trapped down by his side. He struggled, but he was no match for Stella.

  “Let me go. You’re hurting me.” He took a breath and screamed.

  Aaron flinched as the high-pitched shriek stung his ears.

  The man’s father bounded over and extracted the gun from his hand, slid the gun into his own pocket, and looked at Stella. “I’ll take him to a hospital now.”

  Stella squeezed the young man, who moaned and gasped for air. A few words escaped as his face turned blue. “I can’t breathe.”

  Tears streamed down Stella’s cheeks.

  “I said I’ll take him to a hospital now. You can let him go.” He gripped Stella’s wrists and forced her arms open.

  Stella fell back several steps, holding her hands out. Her eyes were wide and her face flushed.

  “Come with me,” the father said. He supported his son as they stumbled out of the clinic to their truck.

  Stella collapsed into a chair in the hallway. She was trembling and her hands were clenched. “I can’t handle … drug addicts,” she said between shallow breaths.

  Aaron stood up on shaky legs. “I have a hard time with addicts, too. Let’s go back to my office.” He turned and watched the truck drive out of the parking lot.

  Juliana helped Stella into Aaron’s office and they plopped into chairs.

  Stella laid her head and forearms on the desk and sobbed. “Two years ago, my son was killed during a drug deal.” Tears wet her forearms. “He was my only child.”

  Aaron sat up in his desk chair. “I’m so sorry.” He pushed a box of tissues to her.

  It was a struggle for Stella to get her words out between the sobs. “I think about him all the time … I try to forgive … I pray about it … I thought I was getting better, but it’s so hard to control myself around those people. They killed my son.”

  Aaron and Juliana were silent as Stella wept. After a short while, she raised her head and took several deep breaths. “I’m sorry. I just lose control.”

  “I know. I have the same feelings,” Aaron said.

  Stella raised her eyebrows. “You do?”

  “I was responsible for something.” Queasiness gripped his stomach as he thought of the woman who died from the Vicodin he’d prescribed. “Something I regret.”

  Stella blotted her eyelids with a tissue. Aaron stood and came around the desk to her. “I know it’s tough. Let’s both keep trying to heal those wounds,�
� he said.

  Stella covered her eyes with the tissue and nodded.

  No one spoke for several minutes.

  “You saved the day,” Aaron said to Stella.

  “It’s all a blur. The last thing I remember is looking at my hands and him walking out.”

  “Who were those people?”

  “Brad Benningham and his son, Preston. Brad’s a rich oilman. They live in the mansion on the hill,” Stella said.

  “That must be the big house I can see from my front door.”

  “That’s the one.”

  “How long has Preston had a problem?”

  “A long time, I think. He’s been through rehab before. Brad tried to fix things with money, like big birthday bashes for Preston in Vegas. But we all know just throwing money at a problem doesn’t do crap.”

  “Should we call the police?” Aaron said. “I guess that might mean our constable.”

  Stella shook her head. “No, I don’t think it would help. They know about Preston’s problem. They usually let Brad take care of it.”

  Aaron walked toward the office door. “In that case, let’s lock up and go home. I’m exhausted.”

  Aaron brought creamy tomato soup and a large chicken salad home for dinner. He sat in his office and picked at the food for a while, then walked out to the front yard. An owl hooted from a nearby tree.

  He looked up at the Benningham mansion. I’m not through my first damn week, and I’ve already run into a drug addict.

  Listening to the owl, he tried to imagine where it was in the trees.

  A shudder passed over him. I’ve never had a gun pointed at me before.

  His legs felt heavy as he meandered over and kicked at a rock in the driveway. Stella and Juliana saw me fall on my knees today. Am I that weak?

  Aaron sighed and walked back into the house.

  That woman’s overdose death and her father’s malpractice lawsuit against me … I should call my lawyer and find out about the status of the suit.

  He sat on his bed, searched the contact list on his smart phone, and found his lawyer’s number to leave a message.

  After staring at the number for several minutes, he threw the phone down on the bed. “Oh, to hell with it.”

  Aaron climbed into bed several hours later. He tossed and turned all night.

  Over and over, he saw in his mind the father of the dead girl with his raised machete, his bushy eyebrows scrunched together on his beet red face.