Jennings looked tense. “I … have a hard time just thinking about it,” she said.

Again, Stone cut in. “Bobbi, Dr. Welcome, here, is looking to ask some real simple questions. He’s promised that if anything he says upsets you too much, he’ll skip it.”

“Dr. Meacham yelled at me,” Jennings said, her voice breaking. “It’s as simple as that. Right out of the blue, he yelled at me.”

“Besides that,” Lou asked, “did he say or do anything unusual? It could have been something minor. A tic perhaps, or an odd movement. Some sort of warning that he was going to erupt. Was he at all unsteady on his feet? Did his speech become slurred or thickened?”

Jennings shook her head. “No. Nothing of the sort. He was lucid, calm, and reasonable, and then he just … went … crazy.”

“And nothing specific that you remember set him off—something you said or did?”

“He weighed me, if that’s what you mean.”

“Can you tell me about that?”

“He had me coming in every month. One visit he would just check my weight and blood pressure with my clothes on and talk to me about the dietician and whatever program I was trying. The next visit one of his nurses, poor women, would be there after I got undressed to weigh me with a johnny on. Then Dr. Meacham would examine me and order blood if he thought that was necessary.”

“And how was your weight this time?”

“I don’t really remember,” Jennings said, probably quicker than she had intended.

Dead end.

Lou’s med school had spent hours teaching the students to avoid the pitfalls of asking leading questions—questions with the answers built in. Does your chest pain ever go down your left arm and up into your jaw? He knew he was dangerously close to descending into that approach now.

He flashed on what Cap had said: Not just crazy, Lou … Redonkulously crazy.

John Meacham had taken a situation every doctor regularly encountered—a patient unable or unwilling to take the measures necessary to get healthy or even to stay alive—and had blown his response far beyond what would be expected or acceptable. It was the same sort of reaction his wife had exhibited when confronting the car with one taillight out.

Don’t give up! he urged himself.

“Tell me, Mrs. Jennings, did you have any interactions with Dr. Meacham outside of the clinic? Were you involved in any clubs together? Community organizations? Church groups? Anything like that?”

“Not that I can think of,” Jennings said, looking disappointed at being disappointing. “Unless you count him giving me dirty looks when he saw what I was eating at Millie’s.”

“Millie’s?”

“World-famous Millie’s Diner,” Stone answered. “I can’t believe you haven’t eaten there, or at least heard of it. If comfort food needed comfort, it would eat what Millie was serving up. Best burgers in the state. Mac and cheese that tastes like what your mama used to make. Chicken wings spicier than Cinemax After Dark. If you haven’t eaten at Millie’s—hell, son—you haven’t eaten. It’s about four miles outside of the town center on Highway 82.”