And I didn’t like it one bit.
Chapter Four
“Jessica Fletcher?”
“Yes.”
“I hope you’ll remember me. Rick Allcott? Washington, D.C.?”
“Of course I remember you, Special Agent Allcott,” I said.
I’d met him while in Washington two years earlier. I was there to attend a series of lectures given by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on new forensic and investigative techniques that the bureau had developed. The series had been mounted as part of a continuing campaign to encourage writers of murder mysteries and thrillers to present the FBI in a favorable light, highlighting the advances it had made in the use of technology to solve crimes. Special Agent Allcott had helped host the confab for the twenty writers in attendance, and we’d struck up a long and pleasant conversation at a reception at the conclusion of the program.
“Former special agent,” he said with a laugh. “Now happily retired.”
I, too, laughed. “You looked far too young to be nearing retirement age,” I said. “I’m delighted to hear from you. Are you still living in Washington?”
“The Eastern Shore. More peaceful there. But I’m calling from Cabot Cove.”
“You are? What brings you here?”
“Well, let’s see. You might remember from our conversations that I’m a baseball fan. No, make that fanatic.”
“I do recall that, and if I remember correctly, you were determined to attend a game at every major-league stadium in the country.”
“Right you are. I haven’t achieved that yet, but I’m working on it. I just left Boston. Saw a terrific game yesterday. What a great stadium Fenway Park is. A real throw-back to another era. Anyway, you had told me about your idyllic Cabot Cove and the wonderful Fourth of July celebrations you enjoy, so I figured that as long as I was in New England, I’d stop by and see for myself.”
“That’s splendid,” I said. “You’ll be here through the weekend?”
“Right. It wasn’t easy finding a place to stay, but I managed. Nice little bed-and-breakfast a few miles outside of town. Blueberry Hill. You know it?”
“Yes, I do. The owners, Craig and Jill Thomas, are friends. Lovely people.”
“They certainly are. I have a terrific room overlooking a stream at the rear of the property, and I’ve already put my name on one of the rocking chairs on the porch. Charming, absolutely charming.”
“Well, welcome to Cabot Cove,” I said. “I’d love to catch up with you in person.”
“I insist upon it. Free for lunch?”
“Afraid not. Actually, I don’t know where I’ll find time to eat at all today. I have a one o’clock doctor’s appointment and a series of meetings and errands right after that.”
“Maybe dinner, then?”
“Hmmm. Yes, that would be nice.”
“Bring along any of your friends. Love to meet them.”
“I may just do that.”
“You’ll have to recommend a place.”
“Of course. How about Peppino’s? It’s right in the middle of town, the old railroad depot building. It has very good Italian food.”
“Sounds fine with me. Time?”
“Six?”
“See you there.”
It was good to hear from Richard Allcott out of the blue. I’d taken a liking to him while in Washington. A short, slim man with large horn-rimmed glasses, he had a gentle manner and an easy, sincere laugh. His wardrobe matched his low-key personality—gray or tan corduroy jackets, blue button-down shirts, muted ties, and loafers, which didn’t match up with the stereotypical impression too many people have of federal law enforcement agents. Perhaps his assignment with the bureau didn’t call for a more macho appearance. He’d spent most of his FBI career, he’d told me, pursuing white-collar criminals, fraud, embezzlement, violations of the postal code, and other nonviolent crimes. Whatever his law enforcement experience was, however, I’d found him to be a thoroughly likable, charming man. I hadn’t noticed a wedding ring, which didn’t mean he wasn’t married. Was he traveling with a wife, or did his love of baseball and baseball stadiums preclude her accompanying him on his jaunts to different cities? I called my friend Joe DiScala, who owns Peppino’s along with his son, Joe Jr., and reserved a prime table for four at six that evening. Might as well have extra seating in the event his wife was with him, and in case any of my Cabot Cove chums would enjoy meeting him.
I stepped out onto my rear porch to determine whether it felt as hot as my outdoor thermometer read: 96 degrees. More like a hundred and ninety-six, I thought as I retreated back into the house and puttered around the cool kitchen. I had a one o’clock appointment to see Seth Hazlitt, not a friendly visit but a medical one. I’d developed a sinus infection that he’d been treating. It was virtually gone, but he wanted a follow-up examination to be certain I didn’t need another round of antibiotics. Call a taxi, or ride my bike? I decided I couldn’t constantly succumb to the heat, so opted to ride my trusty bicycle to Seth’s office at his house, a short trip but long enough to generate plenty of perspiration that pasted my shirt to my body and ran down into my eyes, stinging them.
“You look as though you just stepped out of a sauna,” Seth’s nurse, Harriet, said as I came through the door.
“It’s hotter out there than a sauna,” I replied. “Ah, the air in here feels wonderful.” I plucked the front of my blouse.
“What did we ever do without AC?”
“I remember when there was no air-conditioning,” I said, going to a mirror and trying to rearrange my limp hair into something vaguely resembling respectable style. “I used to go to the movies as a child when the theaters bragged about their ‘air-cooled’ system, nothing more than a fan blowing over blocks of ice. But it did feel good.”
Harriet laughed and said, “Imagine what places like Miami and Houston would be like without air-conditioning. They certainly wouldn’t be the thriving cities they are today, that’s for sure.”
“Is he running late?” I asked. Seth always tries not to keep patients waiting, but sometimes it’s unavoidable.
“No, he should be free in a few minutes.” She lowered her voice. “You know Doc as well as anyone, Mrs. Fletcher—better than most.”
“We do go back a ways.”
“Have you noticed anything strange about him lately?”
“Strange? How so?”
“Oh, I don’t know, he seems—he seems sad these days, withdrawn.”
I nodded. “Yes, I have observed that, Harriet. It’s probably nothing. Maybe the heat. It makes everyone cranky.”
Her expression said she didn’t buy what I’d said, and knew furthermore that I didn’t mean it. I smiled. “He isn’t his old self,” I agreed.
“I worry about him,” she said.
Harriet had been Seth’s nurse for at least thirty years. She ran the office with all the precision of a Prussian officer, sometimes to Seth’s chagrin when she chastised him for his lack of external organization. Though he wasn’t the most orderly of men, he possessed an internal sense of order that served him well enough. He needed someone like Harriet, and her impending retirement might well be contributing to his recent bouts of melancholy. She’d been encouraging him to start the process of hiring her replacement, but he’d dragged his feet, probably because he didn’t want to face the reality of her leaving. Call it denial.
“We all worry about Seth,” I said, taking a chair next to her desk.
She spoke even more softly now. “Dr. Jenny says she thinks he’s concerned about losing some of his patients. And I think she’s worried about that herself.”
My eyebrows went up. “Has that been happening very much?” I asked.
She nodded, her expression serious. “Too much,” she said for emphasis. “It’s like people who’ve been patients for years have suddenly decided he’s too—how shall I say it, Jessica?—that he’s too old-fashioned, out of touch with what’s new in medicine.”
I came forw
ard in my chair. “That’s simply not true,” I said. “Seth keeps up with medical advances as well as any other physician.”
“You and I know that, Mrs. Fletcher, but try telling it to someone who’s made up his or her mind. Patients can be so stubborn.”
Doctors, too, I thought, including Seth Hazlitt. His stubbornness came to the fore more in his personal life than in his medical practice. But he could be hardheaded, too, at times, when challenged by a patient who was more interested in talking than listening.
“Like Mrs. Kalisch,” Harriet continued, obviously eager to vent her feelings to someone with whom she felt comfortable. “She’s been a patient of Dr. Hazlitt’s for years. He’s treated her entire family. She arrived for an appointment the other day and informed him that she was going to switch to Dr. Boyle out at the industrial park, and wanted us to transmit her entire medical file to his office.”
“I saw her arrive there this morning. I was at the park for the fireworks demonstration.”
“I felt so sorry for Doc,” she said. “When he told me to arrange to transfer her records to Dr. Boyle, I thought he might start crying.”
I decided that Harriet was overstating things, but didn’t voice my feeling. Instead, I said, “Well, people do change doctors now and then.”
“For good reasons, I’m sure, Mrs. Fletcher, but Agnes Kalisch doesn’t have a good reason. It’s like she’s infatuated with Dr. Boyle’s high-tech equipment and his ads in the newspaper. I told Doc that maybe he should start advertising.”
A laugh erupted from me. “I can just imagine his reaction to that suggestion.”
She joined me with her own laugh. “He sputtered and complained about doctors advertising their services. I thought he might start swearing, but he never did. He never uses four-letter words.”
“To his credit.”
The door opened and Seth held it for the patient he’d just seen.
“Hello, Jessica,” he said. “Feeling better?”
“I feel good,” I said, “except for the heat. It bleeds some of the energy right out of you.”
“Ayuh, that it does. Had a good chat with Harriet?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose she’s been tellin’ you that I’m grumpy and grouchy these days.”
“I would never say that to anyone,” Harriet said, her hand to her bosom.
“Yes, you would. Come on in, Jess, and let me take a look at you.”
He rolled down a fresh paper covering for the examining table in his treatment room, and I perched on the edge of the table.
“How was the fireworks demo this morning?” he asked.
“Interesting,” I replied. “A little too technical for me, but interesting nonetheless. I’d never realized how much goes into putting on a fireworks show—the number of people, the equipment, and all the permissions and safety considerations.”
“A dangerous business. Now, let me see those sinuses of yours.”
After examining my nose, ears, and throat, and asking a series of questions, he said, “I’d say you’re well over your infection, Jessica. Good thing, too. Sinus infections can turn into something a lot more serious if they’re not treated properly.”
“I’m sure that’s true. Now, Doctor, tell me how you’re feeling.”
“Fair to middlin’.”
“No better than that?”
“Too busy for a man my age. Time I started to slow down and pack it in.”
“I thought Dr. Jenny was helping you cut back. Can she take over more of your patients for you?”
“She’s very good, and a lot of the mothers with young children have really taken to her. But truth to tell, some of the old-timers haven’t—” Seth hesitated. “Now I don’t want you jumping down my throat, but I think some of ’em are not quite comfortable with a woman.”
“Well, they’ll just have to wait to see you if they don’t want to see her,” I said. “I don’t have a lot of sympathy with that point of view. If a doctor is good, gender shouldn’t matter. But I’m old enough to understand that what’s right isn’t always what’s done.”
“True.” He fiddled with his stethoscope and looked suddenly embarrassed. “I’ve been talking to someone in Bangor who specializes in selling medical practices.”
“About selling your practice?”
“Ayuh. I’m tired of all the paperwork for these infernal insurance companies. They’ve all got some clerks deciding what medical procedures they’ll pay for. They love getting the premiums every month, but they fight like the dickens not to pay out any of it.”
“Sure you want to do that, Seth? Somehow, I can’t conceive of you not practicing medicine here in Cabot Cove. You’ll have lots of very unhappy people if you go through with selling the practice.”
“That may be, but the writing’s on the wall. Time to face reality.”
“How about if I change your reality, at least for one evening?” I said.
He looked at me quizzically.
I told him of my call from retired FBI special agent Allcott, and of our dinner plans that evening. “I want you to meet him, Seth. You’ll like him, and it will do you good to enjoy some delicious Italian food, a glass of Chianti, and interesting conversation about something other than medicine.”
“I don’t know, Jess, I—”
“I insist. I’m meeting him at Peppino’s at six. There will be a seat reserved for you.”
“Well, all right. Now that your sinus infection is cleared up, your powers of persuasion are operating at full strength.”
I laughed and patted his arm. “Bring your best appetite, ” I said on my way out the door. “There’ll be no doggie bags tonight.”
I rode into town despite the heat and stopped in Charlene Sassi’s bakery to pick up one of her to-die-for cinnamon buns to have for breakfast the next day. The shop was busy. I took a number and got in line behind Agnes Kalisch.
“Hello, Jessica,” Agnes said.
“Hello, Agnes. How are you?”
“Not well, I’m afraid.”
I knew what was coming. Agnes Kalisch was one of those people who insist upon discussing their various physical ailments with anyone who will listen.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.
“I’m always so tired these days, no energy at all. I can barely get out of bed in the morning and get on with the day.”
“Are you seeing the doctor?” I asked, knowing the answer.
“I’m seeing Dr. Boyle.”
Murder, She Wrote: Murder on Parade: Murder on Parade Page 6