“The Paoli Local?”
She nodded.
“And then you took a cab here?”
She nodded again.
“Just to thank me?”
Another nod.
“I appreciate your coming down,” he said. “How is Charlie doing?”
She closed her eyes and shook her head mutely.
“I’m going to drive you home.”
“Oh no.” She was suddenly alert. “You have to limit your activity.”
Ignoring this, he looked down at the paper on his desk. “But before we go, I want to tell you about Chuck’s lab report—”
“No!” With a sudden burst of energy, she stood up. “I don’t want to hear about it.”
“But . . .”Fenimore rose too.
“I’m glad you’ve recovered.” She produced a grim replica of a smile. “We’d better be going.”
As Fenimore escorted her through the office, he told his nurse, a trifle defiantly, “I’m driving Mrs. Ashburn home.”
She sent him a disapproving look.
CHAPTER 32
When Fenimore returned to his office, it was blessedly empty, except for Sal, who deigned to drop from the windowsill and wrap herself around his ankles. This unusual gesture conveyed the message that she had been worried about him. He reached down and scratched between her ears, to reassure her. If only humans could communicate so easily.
The phone rang.
“Hi, Fenimore.”
A voice—vaguely familiar.
“Burton here. Heard about your accident. Bad luck.”
Fenimore frowned at the phone. Luck had absolutely nothing to do with it.
“I had an idea. How about coming up to my place for a few days to recupe? I know we’ve just met, but I feel we’re compatible. We both respect the old medical values. And, hey, we’re brothers!” he said, referring to their membership in the same fraternity. “If you have a significant other, bring her along too.”
Fenimore hated that term.
“It’s nice up here this time of year. You’ll recover a lot quicker if you get your lungs out of that smog factory.”
“Nice of you to think of it, Burton, but I’m way behind, and—”
“Why don’t you run it by your girlfriend? Maybe she’ll change your mind.”
Girlfriend. Another term he disliked.
“I have a hunting lodge in the woods, not far from my place. Very cozy and private. Charlie and I go there every fall.”
Fenimore was getting irritated. “Thanks. Maybe some other time.”
“Well okay, Fenimore.”
Fenimore hung up. And why do you falsify your reports and recommend unnecessary operations, Burton? he thought savagely.
He had barely finished this thought when the phone rang again. This time it was Myra Henderson. Fenimore thanked her for the flowers she had sent him at the hospital. A beautiful arrangement of lilacs—lavender, pink, and white. When he had finished, she shocked him with the words “Maybe we should let the boathouses go.”
“What?” Fenimore thought he had misheard her.
“If rowing is such a dangerous sport, maybe it should be outlawed.”
“It’s not the sport that’s dangerous, it’s the people,” Fenimore objected hotly.
“I suppose. But a tragedy like that of the Ashburn boy, and your near drowning, makes one think. Puts everything in perspective. What is losing a few old buildings compared to losing lives?”
Had he been right about Myra? Did she want to get rid of the boathouses? “But we have to go on,” he heard himself utter the banal refrain.
“That’s what people always say.” She sighed. “But no one has ever given me a good reason.”
For the first time, Myra’s voice sounded old and weary to Fenimore. He felt compelled to cheer her up. “How would you like to meet me for a martini tomorrow at one of your Bryn Mawr watering holes?”
“Do you mean it, Doctor?” She instantly revived.
“Of course.”
“Then let’s do it right and I’ll come into town. We’ll go to the Barchester.” The Barchester was one of Philadelphia’s most elegant residential hotels, located on Rittenhouse Square. Mrs. Henderson had lived there for forty years before a hip operation had forced her into a retirement home in the suburbs. “I’ve been put out to pasture, Doctor,” she told him mournfully. “It will be a treat to get back to the city.”
It seemed to Fenimore that she got back to the city fairly frequently—the regatta, the hearing at City Hall. “But that’s a trip for you,” he said, envisioning the elderly woman staggering onto the Paoli Local after two martinis.
“Pish posh. I still have Charles, you know. Not Charlie Ashburn—Charles, my chauffeur.”
“In that case, it’s a deal,” Fenimore said. “What time?”
“Five o’clock, of course—the cocktail hour.”
“I’ll be there.”
Plenty of phone calls—all except the one I wanted, Fenimore thought. Jennifer hadn’t called to welcome him home. Where was she? Off in South Jersey picking cranberries with her Indian chief? That morose Montezuma!
“Doctor!” A voice roused him from his gloomy musings. It came from the kitchen. He followed it.
Doyle, Rat, and Tanya were seated cozily around the kitchen table having dinner.
“Hey, Doc. Have a seat.” Horatio pointed to the remaining empty chair and a place set with a plate of spaghetti and sauce, tossed salad, garlic bread, and a Coke.
“It’s about time.” Mrs. Doyle rolled her eyes. “I called you.”
“Sorry.” He told her he’d been tied up on the phone. He sat down and dug in, without a single thought about cholesterol. After satisfying his appetite, he turned to Tanya. “How are you feeling?”
“Good.” Her smile sparkled.
She certainly looked better. He challenged Mrs. Doyle. “What are you doing here?”
“Meet your new live-in cook, maid, and baby-sitter,” she said cheerfully.
Since Jennifer seemed temporarily unavailable for any of these roles, Fenimore gave her a grateful smile.
“And you?” He turned to Horatio.
He shrugged.
“He keeps me company,” Tanya said sweetly.
The boy flushed.
“Horatio has a surprise for you, Doctor,” said Mrs. Doyle.
He looked at Rat. The boy bent and rolled up his cargo pant leg to his knee, exposing a pale, thin, naked calf.
“It’s gone!”
Horatio smiled. “Yep! Came off today.”
“This calls for a celebration! What have we got for dessert, Mrs. Doyle?”
“That’s all taken care of.” She nodded to Tanya.
The girl jumped up and ran to the refrigerator. Beaming, she came back bearing a huge chocolate cake decorated with a pink stick figure of Rat waving his cast in the air. “I made it myself,” she said shyly.
Predictably, Horatio—the man of few words—said, “Cool.”
Later that evening—after Horatio had gone home, Mrs. Doyle had gone to bed and Tanya was watching a favorite TV show—Fenimore pulled out his PPI list and studied it. This time he checked each person on the list for their medical expertise.
Henry Walsh: Hadn’t Charlie told him that Hank’s father had started out at medical school and then switched to law school? You could learn enough in the first year to master an IV line.
Hank Walsh: He was going to go to medical school, “and finish what my father started,” he had told Jennifer. He was taking a year out to give Henley a try. With his interest in medicine, he had probably learned enough from reading and occasional visits to friends in the hospital to handle a simple IV.
Frank O’Brien: Every coach had to take courses in CPR and advanced life support. Surely he had a working knowledge of IVs.
William Ott: He had designed a number of hospitals and probably absorbed enough knowledge through osmosis to do a simple injection into an IV line.
Charlie was
a surgeon, of course, and Caroline Ashburn had plenty of opportunity to absorb knowledge from her husband. And, it wouldn’t be hard to look up the lethal dose of potassium in Charlie’s Physicians’ Desk Reference.
Jack Newborn: No medical connections that I know of. But he had plenty of dough to hire someone who did.
Myra Henderson: She had been a hospital patient often enough to observe how IV lines worked. And with her acute intelligence, she’d have no problem putting her knowledge to work.
Geoffrey Hunter-Powell: I know nothing about him. I’ll have to look into his background.
Fenimore had just begun another list, headed “Alibis” when the phone interrupted him
“Hi.”
Jennifer.
“Well, it’s about time!” Fenimore said.
“Did you miss me?”
(Not “How are you feeling?” or “I’m so sorry, I was kidnapped and they taped my mouth shut.”) “I suppose . . .”
“Good. How are you feeling?”
(Better late than never.) “Okay.” He attempted a feeble tone.
“I have so much to tell you.” They had not really talked since his accident because there were always two or three others in the room during visiting hours at the hospital. “Roaring Wings was wonderful. He’s a fount of information. My book will throw a whole new light on the Native American.” She bubbled over with enthusiasm.
“You actually got him to talk?”
“Oh yes. No problem. Once you touch what is closest to his heart . . .”
(He has a heart?)
“. . . the history of the Lenape people—the stories just flow from him.”
“Hmm.” Fenimore called up a picture of the stoic, monosyllabic Lenape chief he knew and found Jennifer’s description hard to swallow.
“And he made me a bona fide Lenape dinner!”
“Cracked corn and muskrat pie?”
“Don’t be silly. Fresh catfish from the river and the most delicious corn bread you ever tasted.”
Fenimore felt an alarm go off inside him. “Well, I’m glad you’ve finished your research. Now you can start writing.”
“Oh, no. I’ve barely begun my research. I’ve scheduled another interview next weekend.”
Fenimore was silent.
“Sorry for running on so,” Jennifer misinterpreted his silence. “I should have asked about the Ashburns. Have there been any new developments?”
“Caroline was here.”
“How is she?”
“About as you’d expect. But there was an aspect to her grief that worried me.”
“Oh?”
“She seemed distracted, in a daze. Non compos mentis. I wondered if she was taking something.”
“Tranquilizers?”
“I asked her that, but she was very vague. Her whole manner was disturbing.”
“Well, I’m sure you’ll figure it out. I have to run and finish typing my notes before I forget everything.”
“He didn’t go for the tape recorder, then?”
“No way. He almost threw me out when he saw it. But I convinced him to let me stay.” She gave a conspiratorial giggle that Fenimore found disconcerting.
After she hung up, Fenimore stared at the phone for a long time. While he was still staring, it rang again. He picked up.
“Yo, Doc.” Rafferty. “You’re not holding out on me, are you?”
“What do you mean?” Fenimore’s guilty conscience kicked in.
“This Ashburn case is heating up. I need all the information I can get.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Let’s get together tomorrow at my office and I’ll pick your brains—say, eleven o’clock?”
“All right,” Fenimore agreed reluctantly.
The case must be hot if Raff was willing to work on Sunday. Fenimore sighed. Suddenly he felt very tired. Almost too tired to climb the stairs to bed. He was half dozing in his chair, when he heard a noise. He looked up. Tanya was in the doorway.
“I was worried about you.” She smiled.
“You were?”
“Uh-huh. Rat told me how sick you were, and . . .”
“Nice of you to worry,” he said gruffly. “How is your cough?” He retreated into his physician role.
“Better. I wanna thank—”
“None of that. We’re all happy to help you, Tanya. I’m glad Rat found you.”
“Me too,” she murmured.
“If you’re tired of TV, there’s a library full of books in there.”
“Yeah, I saw them.”
“Do you like to read?”
“Not much. I mean, I don’t read much except for school.”
“Let me show you.” He led her back to the library. His hand automatically reached for the little green book, Robinson Crusoe. “Try that.”
She held the little book a moment before opening it.
“You two may have something in common.”
She gave him a quizzical look.
“Well, Crusoe was stranded on an island—and you were stranded in a cellar.”
She curled up on the sofa with the book.
“But don’t stay up too late,” he warned, “It’s important that you get your sleep.”
She didn’t answer; she was reading.
As Fenimore made his way slowly up the stairs, he wondered if he was missing something, not having a family.
CHAPTER 33
The next morning, Fenimore was awakened by chest pain. But the pain wasn’t acute and it didn’t radiate down his arm. Just a dull ache. The doctor in the ICU had warned him that near-drowning victims sometimes suffered symptoms days, even weeks after the event.
“Oh hell,” he groaned. Accustomed to perfect health, he found any illness—even a common cold—exasperating. He reached for the phone, then remembered it was Sunday. He hated to disturb a doctor on Sunday. He decided to wait it out.
He was suddenly aware of unfamiliar noises floating up the stairwell. “What the . . . ?” He shoved his feet into his old slippers and shuffled out into the hall. Peering over the bannister, he saw an unusual sight. Mrs. Doyle and two teenagers playing cards at her desk. It was a game of slapjack and it had grown quite rough.
Whack! Rat slammed his hand on top of Tanya’s hand, which had just landed on a fat pile of cards topped by a Jack.
“Ouch!” she squealed. “They’re mine.” She threw his hand off and grabbed up all the cards.
Mrs. Doyle sat benignly by, waiting her turn.
“Erumph.” Fenimore cleared his throat. Three pairs of eyes turned upward.
“Oh, Doctor, we’re—” Doyle stopped in mid-sentence and lunged to her feet. One look at Fenimore and her keen nurse’s eye told her he was not well. She hurried to the bottom of the stairs. “Go back to bed. I’ll be right up,” she ordered. Turning to the young people she said, “Take your game into the other room.”
They quickly folded their cards and disappeared.
Unlike Fenimore, Mrs. Doyle had no qualms about disturbing a doctor on Sunday. Once she had tucked Fenimore safely back in his bed, she dialed the home of Dr. Randolph Larkin, chief of cardiology at Fenimore’s hospital. The doctor prescribed two aspirin and said he’d be right over. Although house calls were a thing of the past, when a colleague was sick, exceptions were made.
Twenty minutes later, Dr. Larkin rang the bell. Dressed for a lazy Sunday at home, he wore jeans, a sport shirt and Nikes. The fact that he had not taken time to change alarmed Mrs. Doyle. That probably meant it was urgent. She ushered him upstairs. As she mounted the stairs behind him, she caught a glimpse of Horatio and Tanya peering out of the library, their expressions anxious.
“Sorry to drag you out,” Fenimore whispered. The chest pains had increased and his voice was weak.
“You can cover for me for the next six weeks, Fenimore,” Larkin chuckled, as he took his stethoscope from his back hip pocket. Some of the old-school doctors still carried one with them all the time out of habit. “Did you
take your aspirin like a good boy?”
Fenimore nodded. It was becoming an effort to talk.
After listening to Fenimore’s chest for a moment, Larkin straightened up. “I think we’d better admit you, Andrew. You’ll get better care at the hospital where there’s a good staff and state-of-the-art equipment.”
Too weak to protest, Fenimore closed his eyes.
Taking this as consent, Doyle ordered an ambulance. In the hall, after muttering several Hail Marys, she asked the doctor, “Is he bad?”
Larkin looked uneasy. “These near-drowning cases are hard to evaluate. This could be a minor episode, but we have to keep an eye on him. Can you accompany him to the hospital?”
Doyle thought fast. What about the children? Then she decided: If Rat had taken care of Tanya for all those weeks in the cellar, he should be able to look after her for a few hours here. She nodded.
A half-hour later, Fenimore was admitted to the ICU for the second time in a week.
CHAPTER 34
Jennifer was trying to decipher the notes she had taken from Roaring Wings. She wished her handwriting were more legible. She knew she should have typed them the minute she got home, while they were still fresh in her mind, instead of waiting a week.
The phone.
She put the notes aside and answered it.
Mrs. Doyle.
Andrew was in the ICU again. She slammed down the receiver and hurried out to hail a cab.
Horatio was restless. Doyle had told him to stay and look after Tanya, but he wanted to know how the doctor was doing. They were playing gin rummy, but his mind kept wandering and Tanya had won two games in a row.
“Pay attention, Rat,” she said with a triumphant look as she won the third game.
“I’m tired,” Rat said, laying down his cards. “Let’s watch TV.”
“You just don’t like getting beat,” Tanya grumbled. But she reached for the remote.
The ICU physician watched Fenimore’s cardiogram on the monitor. Normal for three leads, then that disconcerting T wave. She took Fenimore’s pulse. Slow but strong. She replaced his hand on the sheet. The fingers were long and slender, like an artist’s or a musician’s. She knew about Fenimore. Not only an exceptional cardiologist, but he had an excellent reputation as an amateur detective. She hoped he would wake up soon so she could talk to him about his cases—his criminal cases, that is.
The Doctor Rocks the Boat Page 12