Broken by Karin Slaughter Page B

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    She exchanged an outraged look with Tessa as she put the phone to her ear. “Hello?”
    “Dr. Linton?”
    “Speaking.” She opened the door on the cherry wall cabinet, marveling at the antique glass panels. There was no answer on the phone. She said, “Hello? This is Dr. Linton.”
    “Ma’am? I’m sorry. This is Julie Smith. Can you hear me okay?”
    The connection was bad, obviously a cell phone. It didn’t help matters that the girl was speaking barely above a whisper. Sara didn’t recognize the name, though she guessed from the twangy accent that Julie had grown up in one of the poorer areas of town. “What can I do for you?”
    “I’m sorry. I’m calling from work and I gotta be quiet.”
    Sara felt her brow furrow. “I can hear you fine. What do you need?”
    “I know you don’t know me, and I’m sorry to be calling you like this, but you have a patient named Tommy Braham. You know Tommy, don’t you?”
    Sara ran through all the Tommys she could think of, then came up not with a face, but with a disposition. He was just another young boy who’d had myriad office visits for the sorts of things you would expect: a bead shoved up his nose. A watermelon seed in his ear. Unspecified belly aches on important school days. He stuck out mostly because his father, not his mother, had always brought him to the clinic, an unusual occurrence in Sara’s experience.
    Sara told the girl, “I remember Tommy. How’s he doing?”
    “That’s the thing.” She went quiet, and Sara could hear waterrunning in the background. She waited it out until the girl continued, “Sorry. Like I was saying, he’s in trouble. I wouldn’t have called, but he told me to. He texted me from prison.”
    “Prison?” Sara felt her heart sink. She hated to hear when one of her kids turned out bad, even if she couldn’t quite recall what he looked like. “What did he do?”
    “He didn’t do anything, ma’am. That’s the point.”
    “Okay.” Sara rephrased the question. “What was he convicted of?”
    “Nothing as far as I know. He doesn’t even know if he’s arrested or what.”
    Sara assumed the girl had confused prison with jail. “He’s at the police station on Main Street?” Tessa shot her a look and Sara shrugged, helpless to explain.
    Julie told her, “Yes, ma’am. They got him downtown.”
    “Okay, what do they think he did?”
    “I guess they think he killed Allison, but there ain’t no way he—”
    “Murder.” Sara did not let her finish the sentence. “I’m not sure what he wants me to do.” She felt compelled to add, “For this sort of situation, he needs a lawyer, not a doctor.”
    “Yes, ma’am, I know the difference between a doctor and a lawyer.” Julie didn’t sound insulted by Sara’s clarification. “It’s just that he said he really needed someone who would listen to him, because they don’t believe that he was with Pippy all night, and he said that you were the only one who ever listened to him, and that one cop, she’s been really hard on him. She keeps staring at him like—”
    Sara put her hand to her throat. “What cop?”
    “I’m not sure. Some lady.”
    That narrowed things down enough. Sara tried not to sound cold. “I really can’t get involved in this, Julie. If Tommy has been arrested, then by law, they have to provide him with a lawyer. Tell him to ask for Buddy Conford. He’s very good at helping people in these sorts of situations. All right?”
    “Yes, ma’am.” She sounded disappointed, but not surprised. “Okay, then. I told him I’d try.”
    “Well …” Sara did not know what else to say. “Good luck. To both of you.”
    “Thank you, ma’am, and like I said, I’m sorry to bother you’uns over the holiday.”
    “It’s all right.” Sara waited for the girl to respond, but there was only the sound of a flushing toilet, then a dead line.
    Tessa asked, “What was that about?”
    Sara hung up the phone and sat down at the