The Purrfect Murder

there is more time, you might go over the codes. I know the insurance companies send updated discs, if I remember what Will said. Used to make him mad every time they’d jack up a procedural cost…well, anyway.” She paused because she didn’t want to cry again. “Things can get confusing. You might just check from the last updated disc forward to make sure nothing has been misbilled. Is that a real word?”
    “Is now.” Sophie, glad she was a nurse, had no patience for the bookkeeping aspect of medicine.
    Kylie replied, “I’m not the coder. I’m trying to learn it, though.”
    “Ah, well, you do what you’re doing, then,” Benita replied. Margaret punched buttons on the computer, then handed Benita the two sheets that printed out.
    “Mmm.” Benita was surprised at some of the names. “Carla Paulson.” She shook her head. “Two hundred one dollars and twenty-nine cents. Margaret, I think best not to bill second notice. I have some idea of what Jurgen is going through.”
    “That marriage wasn’t quite what yours was, Benita.”
    “I’d heard that.” Benita noted that Carla’s bill was a simple checkup as well as a mammogram. “Why is the mammogram on our bill?” She touched her forehead. “Forgot. That machine cost more than our house, but it’s about paid for itself, hasn’t it?”
    “People don’t want to go to the hospital or even hospital adjuncts. Here they’re with their personal physician, trusting him and Sophie. It’s faster, more pleasant. He can read the mammogram right in front of them. If something needs to be done, it can be scheduled right then and there. You know Dr. Wylde never dallied if he thought there was any possibility of—how did he always put it—‘ugly cells.’” Margaret felt a knot in her voice. “He knew just how to put things so a woman felt confident no matter what.”
    “He was a sensitive man.” Benita put her hand over Margaret’s. “We’ll get through this. And I will make a decision about this office within a month. You all don’t have to worry about anything.”
    “I know.” Margaret cast her eyes down, then up, and looked out the glass partition. “If we stay here, if another doctor buys the practice, we’ll work with him, but it will never be the same. Dr. Wylde kept us laughing the whole day. He was the only doctor I know who could tell a woman she had breast cancer or cervical cancer and make her laugh. Very few women left here in tears, and you know how adamant he was about counseling if a woman was going to get a termination.”
    “Yes, I do.”
    Will did not discuss his patients’ illnesses with his wife, as he was scrupulous about all things pertaining to confidentiality, but they talked about everything else.
    Laughter had drawn her to Will in the first place. Both of them came from working-class families, very good families; both were working their way through college with the help of scholarships. Will wasn’t the handsomest man, but he was the funniest, kindest man she had ever met. Benita, being beautiful, had college boys running out of every frat house on campus when she’d walk by. But Will won her.
    After they completed undergraduate school, she worked to put him through med school. He never once cheated on her, even if he was inclined, because he remembered the sacrifices, her staying up with him when he needed coffee or extra help to study. This struggle brought them so close to each other. It also made Harvey Tillach’s accusation all the more unpalatable. They accepted each other’s foibles—her blind passion for golf, his irritating habit of thinking he could fix either of the cars if something went wrong. Mostly, they laughed. When the children came, all four of them would be laughing.
    She tried to remember the laughter.
    “Do you want me to send out a second notice?” Margaret returned to the list.
    “Yes. These two patients are way past a second notice.”
    “Money troubles.” Margaret had seen and heard it all.
    “Perhaps they could pay over time.” Benita’s eyebrows lifted a little.
    “Worth a try. This one”—she pointed to Star Gurdrun—“is seventeen, and her parents—who agreed, mind you—are punishing us.”
    “Well, give it a try. You know, with a name like Star, that kid doesn’t have a chance.”
    “I know.” Margaret grinned.
    Kylie came back in. “What is this? Found it on an examining table.”
    Margaret slipped on her glasses, which hung from a chain around her