Free Diagnosis Murder 5 - The Past Tense by Lee Goldberg Page B

me in.
    The house was not much larger than our apartment and decorated with contemporary furniture. I could see across the living room into the kitchen, where Mrs. Pruitt was ironing clothes, pausing every so often to wipe away tears. She wore a flowered apron over a skirt and a bright pink blouse.
    "I'm deeply sorry for your loss," I said, loud enough for his wife to hear as well.
    "It was my understanding that my daughter was already dead by the time she was brought to the hospital," Mr. Pruitt said. "That she had been dead for some time."
    I heard Mrs. Pruitt sniffle and attack her ironing with renewed fervor. I stalled for a moment, trying to think of what to say.
    "Yes," I said, "but at the time she was still unidentified, so we didn't have the necessary information to fill out her forms."
    "You mean like her name, address, date of birth, the names of her nearest relatives," he replied.
    "Exactly," I said. "That's why I'm here."
    I realized how lame the lie was the instant it escaped from my mouth. And so did he.
    "If you're here," Mr. Pruitt said, "you must already have that information."
    I swallowed hard and felt myself flushing with guilt. I had no legitimate reason to be intruding on their grief except my own curiosity. And the more I tried to obfuscate the facts, the deeper trouble I was going to get into.
    "The truth is, Mr. Pruitt, I wasn't convinced your daughter drowned in the river, so I started investigating and discovered that she didn't," I said. "Now I don't think I can stop."
    "Stop what?" he asked.
    "Thinking about her," I said. "I need to know what really happened to her and who is responsible for it. I won't be at peace until I do."
    I surprised myself with that answer. I must have surprised him, too, because he finally motioned me to a seat.
    "What would you like to know, Dr. Sloan?"
    "Anything," I said. "Everything. I really don't know what I'm looking for."
    "I'll tell you what I told the police," Mr. Pruitt said. "She didn't come home Thursday night. I wish I could say that was unusual, but it wasn't. She's a woman now. She has her own life and makes her own choices."
    I noticed he was still using the present tense. I wondered how long it took after people died before they became part of the past.
    "Did she tell you where she was going?"
    He replied by shaking his head.
    "How did she get around?" I asked. "Did she have a car?"
    "She gets rides from friends or takes the bus," he said. "Sometimes I'll drop her off places if it's on my way."
    "Did she have a boyfriend or anyone special she was seeing?"
    "Sally and I don't talk about her love life," he said. "It only leads to arguments. I don't believe in sex before marriage."
    "So if her lifestyle didn't meet with your approval, why was she still living at home?" I asked. "It couldn't have been easy for either one of you."
    "She's saving up for nursing school," he said. "It costs five hundred dollars a semester, and with the paycheck I get working out at the GM plant, we can't afford it."
    "What was she doing to earn money?"
    "Waitressing, babysitting, doing some laundry and housecleaning around the neighborhood."
    Mrs. Pruitt came out of the kitchen, carrying a basket full of freshly folded and ironed clothes. I loved the smell of warm linen.
    "Sounds like she was working hard," I said.
    "Every little bit helps," Mr. Pruitt said. "She was determined to get that degree. She didn't want to work an assembly line like her parents."
    "Sally never crawled," Mrs. Pruitt said softly. "Not once."
    I turned to look at her. She set the basket down on the coffee table and took a seat beside me.
    "She went straight to walking," she said. "Of course she couldn't do it on her own right away, we had to hold her hand. She didn't like that. She'd fight for us to let go and then she'd fall. We'd pick her up, she'd take a few steps, then shake her hand free and fall all over again."
    Her pain was palpable. Feeling uncomfortable, I shifted my gaze to her laundry basket.