Dire Threads by Janet Bolin

Sounding quite jolly, Dr. Wrinklesides bellowed at his next patient, “ You’re still alive?”
    Maybe Dr. Eaversleigh could be my doctor if I ever needed one. All professional competence, she ushered me into an examination room and left me alone to wait for Dr. Wrinklesides.
    I heard the outer door open and the low murmur of new arrivals.
    Dr. Wrinklesides bounced into my room. He looked smaller without the long coat, earflapped fedora, and enormous hand-knit muffler, but he was still a huge man, and his face was red, as if he’d suffered an extreme case of frostbite early that morning in my backyard. His white lab coat barely met over his wide middle. He flipped a folder open to reveal a blank sheet of paper. “Okay, young lady,” he yelled. “What seems to be your problem?”
    I could almost hear the patients in the waiting room next door creaking forward in their seats to listen to my answer.
    Where was that printer when I needed it?
    I reminded Dr. Wrinklesides, “You were at my place last night—”
    “Sure,” he hollered. “I remember last night. We didn’t have the best time of it, did we?”
    What did the other patients think of that?
    “Well,” he went on, “I suppose you expect counseling.”
    “No, I—”
    He didn’t seem to notice that I’d shaken my head. He thundered, “The counseling I give people like you who believe they’ve endured trauma is, ‘Time heals all hurts.’ You just wait, young lady, and you’ll discover I’m right.” He unlooped his stethoscope from his neck.
    I warded him off with upraised palms. “I’m fine. I just wanted to ask you a question.”
    He cupped his hand behind his ear. “What’s that?”
    The last thing I wanted to do was shout the question. Hoping that printer would magically start its eejee weejee ing, I said loudly, “You were with . . . um . . . that man when he spoke last night.”
    It took several repetitions for him to get the gist of that. “Uncle Allen DeGlazier?” he asked. “The cop?”
    “No. The other one.”
    “Oh!” he shouted. “Mike Krawbach!”
    The printer remained stubbornly silent.
    I enunciated carefully, “What did he say?”
    “Something about a woman doing something?” Dr. Wrinklesides’s eyes shined with cheer.
    “Do you remember his exact words?” Having given up on both the printer and any sort of discretion, I was now yelling, too.
    “Uncle Allen’s?”
    “No! The other man’s.”
    “Mike’s? Nah. He mumbled something, but I couldn’t make heads nor tails of it. My hearing’s not what it used to be.” Benevolence beamed from his faded blue eyes.
    His revelation stunned me into silence. Maybe if I’d gotten enough sleep last night, I’d have figured out that Dr. Wrinklesides shouted so much because he didn’t hear well.
    The implications hit me.
    Only Uncle Allen and Dr. Wrinklesides had been close enough to make sense of Mike’s mumbling. Uncle Allen had to know about the doctor’s hearing problems and could have invented Mike’s last words.
    He would have done that for only one reason—to hide the real murderer by throwing suspicion on someone else. Unfortunately, I happened to be the most convenient scapegoat. Was Uncle Allen protecting himself? Or someone else?
    While all this flitted through my mind, Dr. Wrinklesides watched me as if he were considering which vile medications to prescribe for me. I squirmed out of my chair. He grabbed my hands and turned them over as if he couldn’t help checking for diseases. “How’d you get that bruise?” he hollered.
    Bruise? The slight, purplish stain on the heel of my hand looked more like a smudge. Rubbing at it only made it more noticeable. “I fell.” I didn’t want to admit that I’d hit the pavement after being frightened by ice cracking on Lake Erie. Dr. Wrinklesides would decide I was undergoing several types of trauma.
    He peered into my eyes for long, uncomfortable moments, and I couldn’t help worrying that he was planning to