“Just a flesh wound, as they say in the movies.” A small smile played around his lips.
“What is it, Seth? You look like the cat that ate the canary.”
“Damnedest thing, Jessica,” he said. “A man spends most of his life in a small town taking care of its citizens, builds a practice, has what you could consider moderate success—”
“I’d say it’s more like a great deal of success.”
“Mebbe. But then it all falls apart. Patients begin to think he’s an old fogey, accuse him of not keepin’ up with the times. All the experience and knowledge he’s built up over the years count for little, and patients start dropping away.”
“Is that what you think has been happening?”
“Ayuh. I do.”
I knew he had more to say, so I waited.
Seth cleared his throat, and straightened in his chair. “Then you get in a case like Allcott. Everyone here thought he had the flu.” He waved a hand around, indicating the emergency room staff. “They didn’t stop to think it’s not quite the right time of year for flu. Usually pops up in the fall and later. They wanted to send him back to Blueberry Hill and let him sweat it out. Not much you can do for the flu once someone gets it. Give ’em a pill for the aches, tell ’em to gargle with salt water—it’s an old remedy, but it works. And lots of rest.” He paused. “Seeing as it’s contagious, however, don’t imagine Mrs. Thomas would’ve been too happy to have Allcott staying at her place with the flu.”
“She wasn’t.”
“Don’t blame her. Same symptoms, you know—chills, fever, headache, muscle aches.”
“But you suspected it might be something else?”
“I did. Sounds funny, but after the EMTs brought him in and I had a chance to examine him, I kind of had a hunch it wasn’t flu.”
I smiled, thinking of Dr. Boyle. “But your hunches are based on a depth of knowledge of medicine, on years of taking care of people.”
Seth nodded, his eyebrows raised.
“So how did you determine it was malaria?”
“Simple, really. I asked him if he’d ever had malaria before.”
I laughed. “No one else had thought of that?”
“Oh, they might have got around to it at some point. Also did a blood smear and told the lab to look for it.” He glanced at his watch. “We’ll need another one in six hours, just to confirm it. But in the meantime, we have him on quinine and tetracycline. And I’ve got a new drug on order. Should be here by tomorrow.”
“So if you’ve had malaria once, you can get it again?”
“You can treat some kinds of malaria and it goes away and never returns. With other types, you may get long periods between relapses, sometimes years and years,” Seth said. “His is the kind that doesn’t usually relapse, but it does recrudesce.”
“That’s a new word to me,” I said.
“It simply means the symptoms can reappear several weeks after the initial treatment.”
“And if it wasn’t for your hunch, what would have happened?”
“If we’d sent him back to Blueberry Hill, he mighta gone downhill real fast. Could’ve died. Malaria is deadly, especially for the weak—it kills three thousand children a day in Africa.”
“A day?”
“Outrageous, isn’t it? With all the modern medicines we have. Don’t get me started on that.”
“I won’t. Is Rick in danger of dying?”
“I doubt it. Allcott seemed relatively healthy before, so he should do well, but you never can tell. Treating malaria is tricky. Can’t even trust the drugs used for it. Whether they work or not depends on where in the world he contracted the disease. In some places the bacteria has developed resistance to chloroquine, the usual treatment. If he picked up the disease in the Caribbean, say, then it might work. But if he first got sick after visiting a country in sub-Saharan Africa, it would be another story.”
“He was in Zimbabwe three weeks ago,” I said.
“He tell you that?”
“No. I found his passport when I looked for his wallet.”
“Three weeks sounds about right. He could have gotten sick there, been treated, and thought he was cured. But once we get him properly medicated and on the road to recovery, he should be fine. Thanks to you bringing in his insurance card, he’s now resting comfortably upstairs.”
“Thanks to your diagnosis, you mean.”
He smiled. Evidently, the identification of a disease rarely seen in Cabot Cove had given his ego a much-needed boost. He was feeling more assured, more confident in his medical skills, and more like the old Seth I was happy to call my friend. I didn’t say it—at least not yet—but I was hoping this experience would help him see he wasn’t ready to sell his practice and retire.
“When do you think Rick will be up for a visitor?” I asked.
“I’d wait a day. The nurses gave him something to help him sleep. Like with the flu, rest is what he needs most now.”
“I brought his toiletry kit,” I said. “Perhaps you could have someone take it up to him.”
“Do it myself,” he said, taking the black leather bag from me. “I’d like to check on him before I get back to the office. If you can wait a bit more, I can drop you off at home.”
“I can wait.” It was what I’d been doing a lot of today.
He rose from the chair, straightened his shoulders, and headed for the ER’s double doors.
I jumped up. “Oh! Wait. I almost forgot.” I opened my bag, pulled out a bottle of the supplements Dr. Boyle’s nurse had charged me over a hundred dollars for, and handed it to him. “This is my treatment for ‘fatigue and forgetfulness.’”
Seth held up his glasses so he could read the ingredients on the label. “Don’t see much of anything here. Won’t hurt, but don’t know if it’ll help you, either. You’ll have to let me know.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Seth. How would I know? I don’t have fatigue to begin with.”
He chuckled. “What about forgetfulness?”
“If you’re going to give me a hard time, I’m going to forget I was planning to invite you to dinner next Friday.”
Chapter Fifteen
“It’s stuffed steak pinwheels in curry sauce with rosemary mashed potatoes. I kind of combined two recipes I saw a lady make on TV.” Maureen proudly placed a big platter on the table next to the salad bowl. She slid a steak pinwheel onto my plate, together with a scoop of the potatoes, and passed me a pitcher of curry sauce.
“Wow,” said Amos when she handed him his plate. “This looks terrific. I didn’t know you were a gourmet cook.”
Maureen beamed. “Not exactly gourmet, but I do play around with the recipes like the fine chefs do. You have to know how to substitute if you want to be a really good cook.”
Mort took his plate and set it down in front of him. He glanced at me with a pained expression and ran a finger inside the collar of his shirt. “Well, here goes,” he said, taking up his fork and starting on the potatoes.
“How are they?” Maureen asked.
“I never had mashed potatoes that crunched before,” he said. “What’s in them?”
“It’s rosemary,” his wife replied. “I didn’t have a sprig of fresh rosemary, so I had to use the dry instead. You’re supposed to take it out, but I figured it would be okay if I left it in.”
“It’s a very interesting flavor,” I said, pushing aside the little spikes of rosemary to get to the potato.
“Kind of like getting splinters in your mouth,” Mort said.
Maureen frowned.
“I’m sure the meat will be better, hon.”
Amos was wolfing down his dinner. “I haven’t had a good home-cooked meal like this in a long time. What’s in the curry sauce?”
“It’s a secret ingredient,” Maureen said.
“No secrets in this house, please,” Mort said.
“Oh, all right. It’s a combination of curry sauce mix, chicken broth, and apple sauce. It also call
s for coconut milk, but I didn’t have that, so I improvised and substituted piña colada mix.”
“Are you sure it goes with the steak and garlic stuffing?” Mort asked.
“It’s the combination of sweet and savory that gives it its piquant essence,” Maureen said.
I pushed the sauce to the side with my fork, and concentrated on the salad. I’d brought cookies from Sassi’s Bakery and hoped Maureen hadn’t planned an elaborate dessert like the Kwanzaa cake recipe she’d tried from a television show last January.
“Got the ballistics report back today after you left, Mrs. F,” Mort said when we’d finished eating and had cups of coffee in front of us.
“Oh?”
Amos nodded at me. “The ten-millimeter pistol we took from Chester’s car was the gun used in the murder, Miz Fletcher. The bullet they took out of Joseph Lennon was fired from that gun.”
“That may be,” I said, “but it doesn’t mean Chester fired that gun.”
“It was found in his car, Miz Fletcher. The tooth fairy didn’t leave it there.”
“Probably not, but someone else might have. His fingerprints weren’t on it, were they?”
“No, but he could have wiped them off, Mrs. F.”
“He could have, Mort, but if he went to all the trouble to wipe off his fingerprints, why would he leave the weapon in his car for the police to find?”
“Mebbe he wasn’t thinkin’ that far ahead,” Amos said.
“The circumstantial evidence does point in his direction. I’ll grant you that,” I said. “But don’t you find it a little convenient that the murder weapon was right there for all to see? And that Chester’s T-shirt was found with the body? It seems to me someone went to a great deal of trouble to frame Chester Carlisle.”
“Do you have an alternate theory, Mrs. F?” Mort asked.
“No, not yet,” I had to admit. “Still, there are too many little pieces that don’t add up.”
“What else, Miz Fletcher?”
I wasn’t prepared to point a finger at anyone else, but there were some people whose actions would bear investigation. If I mentioned the secretiveness of the Lennon-Diversified staff, they would think I was grasping at straws. Was I? I wanted to speak with Joseph Lennon’s wife and children, and perhaps the flight crew. And where did Dr. Warren Boyle spring from? And was Rick Allcott missing his gun? Amos had said the gun was a 10 mm pistol; I hadn’t seen it, of course, but a pistol of that size is the type of gun issued by the FBI to its agents. “There are just too many unanswered questions,” I said.
“Well, let us know when you suspect someone else,” Mort said.
“I’ll do that,” I said.
Maureen sang out from the kitchen, “I hope you saved some room for my wonton surprise with cherry pie filling and wasabi peas.”
The European-style house was on the outskirts of town. Custom-built for its wealthy original owners, it was an imposing building, very different from the narrow Victorians, like mine, that lined the streets leading to Cabot Cove’s harbor. This house was built in three sections; the middle part was a rectangular block with three windows on the second floor overlooking the arched loggia that formed the entrance. Two pairs of French doors topped with fanlights flanked the recessed portico. A multicar garage with a steep roofline jutted out to form one end of the building, matched by a smaller, steep-roofed structure on the other end. I climbed the front steps and rang the bell. Inside the loggia, a glass transom and sidelights framed the paneled door, but it was impossible to see into the house, thanks to the wavy hand-blown cut glass used in the long windows.
Josie Lennon answered the door, looking more like a model in Vogue than a daughter in mourning. She was clothed dramatically, head to toe in black, with a butterfly-sleeved sheath, fishnet stockings, and patent leather high heels. She wore a jet necklace with matching bracelet and earrings. Her makeup was pale with the exception of her eyes, which were lined in black with dark brown shadow on her lids. It must have taken hours in front of a mirror to achieve this precise vision of gothic misery.
“Hello, Josie,” I said. “I don’t know if you remember, but we met at the middle school last week during rehearsals for the Independence Day events. I’m so sorry about your father.”
She didn’t say a word, but held the door open wider so I could enter. The house was kept very cold, even though outside the weather was pleasant, if not cool. I understood why Josie had selected a long-sleeved dress to wear, and regretted not bringing along a lightweight sweater for myself.
“I’d like to see your mother, if I may, to extend my condolences.”
Josie drew in a long breath and let it out. “The last time I saw her, she was in the library,” she said, and pointed to my left. “It’s through the living room.”
“Thank you.”
Josie faded into the back of the house, and I followed the direction she had indicated, making my way past modern Asian-inspired furniture upholstered in beige brocade and arranged around a glass-and-steel cocktail table in front of a white marble fireplace. Floor-to-ceiling drapes in a bronze watered silk set off the French doors. When closed in the evening, as I was sure they would be, the drapes must have created a wall of shimmering fabric. Since they were open, however, morning sunlight poured in, making bright oblongs on the Persian carpet, like stepping-stones. It was an elegantly appointed room, with obviously expensive furniture and artwork, that must have been designed to create a serene atmosphere. Nevertheless, it appeared to my eyes to be a bit cold and unwelcoming. I wondered if Mrs. Lennon would be the same.
I didn’t notice her at first when I walked through the archway from the living room. I was too fascinated by the surroundings. The library must have been Joseph Lennon’s retreat from the soulless beige behind me. In this room, everything was decisively masculine, almost ironically so. Dark polished wood paneling, bookcases filled with leather-bound volumes, tufted chesterfield sofas, a stone hearth flanked with matching deep wing chairs, over which hung trophy heads of wild animals looking out on the room as if eavesdropping on the conversation, the faint aroma of tobacco—a pipe perhaps, not a cigar. All conspired to make a macho statement, and an excessive one at that.
Mrs. Lennon must not have had a hand in decorating this room, I thought. Or if she did, she may have intended to give her husband an extreme version of what he wanted.
“When you’re finished gawking, you might introduce yourself.”
“Good heavens!” I said. “Where are you?”
“I’m right here.”
A face peered around the side of a chair, the wings of which had blocked her from my view. However, the brass fish-eye mirror on the opposite wall must have allowed her to see me enter. Mrs. Lennon was dark-haired and dark-eyed, and even though, unlike her daughter, she was without makeup, I could see where Josie got her exotic looks. She was dressed in a knit pantsuit in a color that would have blended well with her living room, and she had drawn a fringed scarf around her shoulders, probably to counter the frigid effects of the air-conditioning. Her hair was pulled back in an elaborate twist at the base of her neck.
“Have a seat,” she said, and waved me to the wing chair opposite her. Between the chairs was a low leather table and a tray holding a china tea service, a carafe of water, a glass, a bottle of pills, and a little silver bell.
Murder, She Wrote: Murder on Parade: Murder on Parade Page 19