Free Critical Judgment (1996) by Michael Palmer Page A

was quite sure Quinn knew that and had brought the matter up on purpose. He was displaying his resourcefulness and issuing a tacit warning at the same time. No doubt her undergraduate degree from Cal Berkeley and M.D. from Stanford had labeled her a leftist in his mind.
    “Who are these people?” she asked.
    “I’d rather not say. What I will say is that they are misguided and selfish individuals who are willing to put their own interests ahead of the community’s.”
    They had arrived back at the field, where Josh was still helping to set up the barbecue. The crowd had grown considerably, and several organized games and sports had begun. Abby felt an urge to grab her glove and play some softball, and an even stronger one to get away from Lyle Quinn.
    “Well, Mr. Quinn,” she said, leading him to the backpack where she had stored her medical bag and makeshift first-aid kit, and Josh had packed their other gear, “thanks for the walk and the information.”
    Another unsettling smile. His eyes were locked on hers.
    “A great many people are very pleased you’re here, Dr. Dolan. Good doctors are a critical part of this community.”
    “Just like Colstar.”
    Her retort brought a flicker of reaction. No more.
    “Exactly,” he said. “Just like Colstar. Well, it’s been very pleasant getting to know you. My wife and I look forward to entertaining you and Josh sometime in the near future. Perhaps you will allow us to propose you formembership in the Patience Country Club. I’m on the board there, too.”
    He shook her hand and turned to go.
    At that moment, from across the field, a woman began shrieking hysterically, again and again.
    The commotion was coming from the west end of the field, just in front of a dense pine grove. At the first shriek Quinn whirled catlike and sprinted across toward the gathering crowd. Abby, still clutching her baseball glove, trotted behind him. By the time she arrived at the grove, a hundred or more people were there. Others, especially those with children, were trying to move away quickly.
    “It’s just Angela,” Abby heard someone say.
    The terrible wailing continued.
    “Get back,” the woman screamed. “Get back or I’ll cut you, too! I swear I will!”
    “One side, please,” Quinn ordered. “Step aside.”
    Abby caught sight of Josh to one edge of the crowd and headed toward him.
    “Somebody do something!” a woman exclaimed. “Help her.”

C HAPTER S EVEN
    I t wasn’t until Abby was almost at Josh’s side that she saw the problem. A markedly overweight young woman was backed up against a tree, brandishing a ten-inch hunting knife and bleeding from a dozen or more shallow cuts that she had inflicted on her arms and thighs. Abby’s first impression was that none of the wounds was dangerous. But the woman’s beige shorts and white blouse were rapidly becoming soaked in crimson.
    Quinn, at the front of the crowd, was about thirty feet from her.
    “Angela, put the knife down,” he said with the firmness of a parent confronting a recalcitrant child.
    “Stay away from me!” she screamed. “Come any closer and I’ll kill myself! You know I will.”
    She pulled up her blouse and ran the blade across flesh that she had already sliced several times. People gasped.
    Abby could not see through the blood, but she strongly suspected that the woman’s body would be covered with scars from previous episodes such as this. A self-mutilator—the ultimate form of self-loathing and masochism. Angela was hardly the first case Abby hadseen. Such patients tended to be well-known to emergency wards and ER docs. The psychopathology was complicated and not always consistent from one patient to another. And all too often, despite intensive therapy, the end result was self-inflicted death.
    “Oh, God,” Abby said, moving past Josh.
    “Stay back here,” Josh ordered in a harsh whisper. “That woman worked on one of the production lines at the company. She still comes up to Colstar