On the way to the car, Lydia told Fenimore not to worry.
“If anything comes up, promise to call me immediately,” he said.
She agreed. But as Fenimore drove away, he felt uneasy.
Taking advantage of his employer’s preoccupation, Horatio neglected to switch to the Mozart tape.
CHAPTER 10
Back in the city, Fenimore dropped Horatio at the office. Then he went to the hospital. After checking on his more critical patients, he stopped by the lab to leave the blood sample he had taken from Lydia’s trough. By the time he returned to his town house on Spruce Street, it was late afternoon. He found a parking space a few blocks away.
The sidewalks leading to Fenimore’s house were made of rust-colored bricks set in a herringbone pattern. That’s probably where his liking for bricks had begun—walking on them since he was a child. So much of Philadelphia was made of brick, at one time it was called “Brickadelphia.”
But when he was a child, the bricks had been a nuisance. Too uneven and bumpy for roller-skating or biking. For those pleasures he had had to seek out smoother, cement sidewalks many blocks away. But today he loved the worn, pockmarked bricks that turned a deep purple in the shade. And there was plenty of shade. One of the charms of Philadelphia streets was the old shade trees that lined them—maples, sycamores, and lindens. At dusk, when the shadows deepened, hiding the litter and graffiti, you could imagine what the city had been like in its heyday.
Each house on Spruce Street had a set of marble steps, a wrought-iron railing, and a foot-scraper-that relic from a time before streets were paved, and muddy boots were the bane of every housekeeper. The neighborhood was fashionable then. But as people moved to the suburbs, it had gradually begun to slide. In the eighties it hit rock bottom. By then most of the private residences had been converted to apartments, and some had disintegrated into shabby rooming houses. But Fenimore had stayed on in the house where he grew up—living and working.
He began his practice as an internist/cardiologist. His father had practiced general medicine there before him, and when he died, Fenimore had inherited many of his father’s patients. Now most of them had either passed away or moved to the suburbs to be near their children. But when they became sick, some of them still badgered their children to bring them back to see him—out of loyalty to his father, and to him. Although only forty-five, Fenimore was famous for his image as an old-fashioned doctor. He insisted on remaining in solo practice like his father. And he still made house calls. But it was becoming harder and harder. With most patients joining HMOs, his private practice was shrinking. The patients who remained, though, were loyal, and he had never had a malpractice suit.
As he climbed his marble steps he noticed that the sign in his front window—ANDREW B. FENIMORE, M.D.—was crooked. For the hundredth time, he made a mental note to fix it, and for the hundredth time, forgot it the minute he stepped inside.
The walk had warmed him. The coolness of the dim hall was welcome. Sal, his marmalade cat, sidled out of a dark doorway, acting nonchalant—as if she had not been anxiously waiting for him for the past hour. Suddenly, dropping all pretence, she rubbed up against his ankle. He reached down and scratched between her ears. Continuing down the narrow hall, he passed his waiting room, and entered his outer office.
“Oh, hello, Doctor.” His nurse looked up from her desk with the same hypocritical nonchalance as his cat.
“What are you doing here, Mrs. Doyle?” He removed his jacket and began picking through his mail. “ … on such a beautiful, spring Saturday.”
“Beautiful, my eye. It’s hotter than Hades. Everyone knows Philadelphia doesn’t believe in spring. Jumps from winter to summer.
“You could get an air conditioner,” he said. They had had this discussion before.
“You know how I hate those things. Work of the devil. Gets my arthritis going and my sinuses besides.”
“If you’re such a physical wreck, you should come see me sometime.”
Mrs. Doyle never went to doctors. No insult intended. She preferred treating herself with old-fashioned home remedies, usually with amazingly good results, to Fenimore’s chagrin. But then, he reassured himself, she was one of those hardy types who never had anything more serious the matter with her than the common cold.
“Hey, Doc!” Horatio emerged from the waiting room.
“You still here?”
“Look what just came.” Horatio held out a brown box.
“What’s that?”
“Your new pager. You’re finally wired.” Horatio raised a thumb in approval.
Fenimore groaned.
“Don’t worry,” Horatio said. “I’ve read the booklet. I’ll have it up and running in no time.”
Fenimore peered into the box as if fearing the contents would jump out and bite him.
“Look.” Horatio drew the small object from its wrappings and showed the doctor the tiny screen with the row of buttons on top. “Mrs. Doyle,” the boy looked over at the nurse, “call this number on the outside line.” He gave her the pager number. She dialed. Instantaneously, the screen lit up displaying the office number, and the room was filled with a series of short, sharp bleats.
“Now you can leave town with a free mind,” Mrs. Doyle said, nodding approvingly.
Fenimore eyed it suspiciously. Why was everyone conspiring to push him into the electronic age? Even Doyle, who wouldn’t hear of having a word processor. She hung onto her vintage ’50s typewriter like a drowning person to a life raft.
Sal began examining the empty box and its wrappings. Poking her head inside, her tail switched madly.
“See, even Sal is suspicious of it,” Fenimore said with satisfaction.
The cat re-emerged with bits of white Styrofoam clinging to her whiskers. They all laughed. Fenimore hastily brushed the bits off. Turning her back on them, the cat left in high dudgeon.
“I’ll set it up for you, Doc.” Horatio disappeared into Fenimore’s inner office with the pager.
“You’ll get used to it, Doctor,” Mrs. Doyle said, and moved on to more important matters. “Mrs. Haggerty needs a prescription. How that woman goes on. Kept me on the phone with her symptoms for ten minutes. And Mrs. Weinberg called. Her father had another dizzy spell. Oh, and Detective Rafferty wants to know if you’re free for dinner.”
Fenimore took the handful of pink slips from her and began returning his calls. When he came to Rafferty, his good friend and Chief of the Detective Division, he said, “Glad you called. Something’s come up I want to talk to you about.”
Mrs. Doyle was instantly alert. But no further elucidation was forthcoming, other than that he would meet Rafferty at seven at the Raven.
Fenimore kicked off his shoes and stretched out in his battered armchair. Mrs. Doyle noticed that his socks didn’t match—one black, one brown—but decided not to mention it. It never did any good. Besides, mismatched socks was the least of his failings. His suits were always wrinkled, his jacket pockets bulging with prescription pads and leaky ballpoint pens. And Mrs. Doyle couldn’t remember when she had last been able to close the briefcase that had replaced his traditional doctor’s bag. Something was always hanging outside—usually his stethoscope.
No longer able to contain herself, Mrs. Doyle blurted, “How was it?”
He stared, wondering if she were psychic.
“Your land,” she prodded. “What’s it look like?”
“Oh, that.” He had almost forgotten the reason for his trip to south Jersey. “About what you’d expect.” He shrugged. “Flat, wet, muddy.”
She looked crestfallen.
“You can explore it better by boat than on foot,” he said. “I’m going to borrow a boat from Lydia Ashley next Saturday.”
“You saw Mrs. Ashley?” Mrs. Doyle knew Lydia from her office visits.
“Her farm’s near the Smith tract, so we dropped by.” He flipped the warning note that Lydia had received onto Mrs. Doyle’s desk.
When h
er face registered a suitable expression of shock, he went on to tell her the whole story: Lydia’s distracted behavior on the house tour. The sealed windows. The “practical joke.” The photograph with the ugly message scrawled on the back. And, finally, his interview with Lydia in her study.
When he had finished, she asked, “Are you taking the case, Doctor?” The minute the words were out, she regretted them.
“Case, Mrs. Doyle?” He looked askance. “This is just an opportunity for a little mental exercise.”
Whenever he embarked on a new case, Fenimore treated it like a child’s riddle or puzzle. It was as if he were ashamed of his avocation, even though he had successfully solved half a dozen cases (with her help) in the Philadelphia area. But Mrs. Doyle knew how to handle him. “Very well, I’ll leave it to you, then. You know how I hate ‘exercise.’” She pulled a pile of insurance forms toward her.
Fenimore shuffled over to the small refrigerator in which he kept his blood and urine specimens. Despite the new OSHA regulations, he still saved one corner for a few cans of Coke. He popped the tab without offering any to his nurse. She disapproved of sodas. (Probably one of the reasons she was so damned healthy.) He took a deep draught. “Well, what d’ya think?” he said. She took her time, gnawing on her pencil.
He waited patiently. Mrs. Doyle had a knack for pouncing on the one significant detail that everyone else, including himself (although he would never admit it) tended to overlook.
“That trash disposal plant sounds fishy to me,” she said.
He nodded. Of course, the disposal plant was just a smoke screen (literally as well as figuratively).
“There must be some other reason why they want her land,” she continued. “No one would go to all that trouble and risk unless the stakes were pretty high. Whoever’s behind this must be desperate.” She was getting wound up. “Doctor, do you think it’s safe for those two women to be down there alone? What if someone tries to wipe them out!”
He winced at her TV vernacular. She spent entirely too much time in front of the tube. “Now, now, Mrs. Doyle, let’s not overdramatize.” Fenimore got up, walked around the room once, moved two piles of papers to new locations, and sat down again. “Of course it isn’t safe,” he said, “but I couldn’t persuade her to come back to town.”
Mrs. Doyle nodded. She was familiar with Lydia Ashley’s stubborn streak where her own welfare was concerned. “What are you going to do?”
He told her about the Strawberry Festival next Saturday. They both remained silent, thinking how much could go wrong in a week. “It’s the best I could do, Doyle,” he burst out. “Lydia Ashley is a mature adult, of sound mind, with constitutional rights. I couldn’t drag her back to town by the hair.”
His nurse smiled inwardly. When he called her “Doyle,” that was the signal they were on a case. They had just switched hats—from doctor and nurse to Sherlock and Watson. As soon as the case was solved she would become Mrs. Doyle again.
Sensing that the doctor wanted to be alone to think about the morning’s events, Mrs. Doyle gathered up her things. “See you, Monday,” she murmured, and quietly let herself out. So great was her exhilaration, she barely noticed the heat as she hurried to the bus stop.
After Mrs. Doyle left, the office took on the somnolence of a sultry Saturday in the city. A few muted traffic sounds and the footsteps of an occasional passerby were all that disturbed the tranquility. Fenimore sat pondering his nurse’s remarks. He valued her judgment, but this time, he decided, she was being melodramatic. He blamed this excess on her heavy diet of TV and those romance novels she insisted on reading. The comfortable chair and the warm afternoon combined to make him drowsy. His eyes closed.
“You’re all set!”
Fenimore jumped. He had completely forgotten Horatio. The boy had been sequestered in the doctor’s inner office all this time diligently working on his pager.
“All your patients’ phone numbers are stored in here.” He tapped the pager. Reaching over, he clipped it to his employer’s belt.
Fenimore looked at it ruefully. Next they’d insist that he buy a cell phone and he’d crack up the car listening to Mrs. Haggerty’s latest symptoms. Remembering his manners, however, he said, “Thanks, Rat.”
The boy left, glowing with his accomplishment.
CHAPTER 11
After Horatio left, Fenimore was restless. It was too early to meet Rafferty. He decided to take a walk. Whenever he was upset or frustrated, he gravitated toward Nicholson’s Bookstore. Its atmosphere was soothing. It also happened to be the home of Jennifer Nicholson, his frequent companion.
Nicholson’s was one of the last independent bookstores in Philadelphia. So far it had successfully fended off the mega-chains bent on gobbling it up. The entrance was two steps below street level. When he opened the door a small bell tinkled overhead. He scanned the scene before him with approval. Poor lighting, towering shelves of books divided by narrow aisles cluttered with more piles of books, and, snoozing on the window sill—a tortoiseshell cat. This bookstore met all his requirements for a sanctuary to get his nerves in order and plan his next move in the Ashley case—er—puzzle. The only jarring note was the unfamiliar figure sitting behind the counter. A sallow youth with long, lank locks.
“Is Ms. Nicholson in?” Fenimore asked.
The youth looked up languidly from his book. “Jen’s out on an errand.”
Resenting his familiarity, Fenimore asked abruptly, “When will she be back?”
He shrugged. “I have to leave in half an hour.”
Fenimore decided to hang around until she returned.
Dr. Fenimore had met Jennifer Nicholson three years ago when he had dropped by to pick up a book he had ordered. There was a new clerk working the cash register. She had black, closely cropped hair, gray eyes, and the fair skin he usually associated with blondes. He asked for his book.
“Your name?”
“Fenimore—Andrew.”
“Just a minute, please.” He watched her slight figure disappear among the shelves as she made her way to the storeroom.
In less than a minute, she was back. “Your book is in, Doctor.” She held out a newly minted copy of Auden’s poems. Protruding from its pages was the store bookmark with “Dr. Fenimore” scrawled on it in Magic Marker. “Is Auden a favorite of yours?” she asked. Then, as if some explanation was needed, added, “I wrote a long paper on him once and I feel as if I knew him personally.”
“I did know him personally,” he heard himself say.
Her eyes fastened on his. Fortunately none of the other customers in the store needed immediate assistance. They would have been out of luck. “Where?”
“College. He was a visiting professor when I was there.”
“What was he like?”
“Rumpled, affable—a bit vague. He wore his bedroom slippers to class.”
“And … ?” She was lost.
“And he had martinis every night at the local rathskeller with the head of the English Department. My roommate and I used to take the booth behind theirs whenever possible and eavesdrop … .”
She simply waited for more.
“ … and they discussed whether the department meeting should be held in Schuster Hall or Butler House, and whether Digby Jones, the new instructor, should be allowed to lecture before Christmas or …”
“Don’t … tease.”
“They did discuss those things, but they also talked about Joyce, Yeats, and Eliot—all his buddies. Gossip on a high literary plane. I learned more in that pub than in all my English classes put together.”
At this point an impatient customer broke in. The clerk dragged her attention back to the cash register. The moment she finished she turned back to Fenimore. “Go on … .”
This was beginning to get sticky. He didn’t know much more. It was a long time ago. He had been in a lecture class with about a hundred other students and he had only spoken to the great man once. He had gone to see the poet about a p
aper he had written on which he’d received a B—a rare occurrence for Fenimore. He told her this.
She hesitated, then asked, “Was he pompous—or nice?”
Realizing his answer was important to her, he was glad the truth was what she wanted to hear. “Nice,” he said. “He didn’t treat my poor paper like the garbage it was. He made one or two helpful suggestions, then joked about it being time for tea. ‘Do you like tea?’ he asked, as if inviting me to join him. I said, ‘I prefer beer.’” He laughed heartily.
She was laughing too. A lovely laugh—soft, low, conspiratorial—exactly right for a bookstore. Suddenly she remembered where she was and began waiting on the line of disgruntled customers. Fenimore toyed with the idea of making up further anecdotes about Auden, but decided against it. When she was done, he asked, “Are you working here for the summer?”
“No. I’m permanent.” There was a twinkle in her eye. “I’m helping my father ward off the chain stores.” She held out her hand. “Jennifer. Jennifer Nicholson.”
“I see.” Her hand was cool and firm. “Good luck,” he said. “I’d hate to see Nicholson’s go under.” She was off again, ringing up sales.
He had gone several blocks before he realized he had left his book behind.
When he returned to retrieve it, the store was empty and she was putting things away. She looked up as he came in. “I thought you’d be back.”
“I’m getting absent-minded in my old age,” he said, only half in jest. He was suddenly aware of the difference in their ages—at least fifteen years, he calculated. Why, he was old enough to be her father.
“You aren’t old. You just act old.”
“What?”
“I mean—all young doctors do,” she added hastily. “They have to, to gain the confidence of their elderly patients. I knew a young doctor once who decided to grow a beard just so he would look older.”
“And did it work?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t wait around for it to grow.”
The Doctor and the Dead Man's Chest Page 5