by Joan Hess
“Damn husband’s fault.” He pulled out yet another cigarette, fumbled in his pocket, and said, “Be back in a minute; Bobbi’s probably got some matches in her purse. Her boyfriend smokes more than I do, if you can buy that.”
When he opened the door, the music roared out like the sweeping fiery wind that leveled Hiroshima. I was still reeling when the door again opened briefly, then closed, mercifully cutting off the music. Jody rejoined me, and when he’d lit the cigarette, said, “Those two girls of yours are sitting on the floor, fanning themselves and looking miserable. They might do well to start in a low-level class, like the one you came to at four-thirty with Maribeth several weeks ago. You’re welcome to come with them.”
“Thanks; I’ll keep it in mind,” I lied smoothly.
“If you want, I can give you a deal on a family package that’ll entitle you to use the toning machines. I got to make some calls now and stuff, but I’ll look forward to seeing you.”
I made a vague noise. As he opened the door, I heard Bobbi yelling, “Go for it! Higher! Harder!”
Caron and Inez staggered out half an hour later and collapsed into the car. “I wanna go home,” Caron said in a hollow voice. Inez repeated the sentiment in a mumble.
“Did we have fun?” I asked as we drove across the parking lot. The car at the far end was still there; as we passed it, I noticed it was the red sports car I’d seen earlier and that the surly man, most likely Bobbi’s boyfriend, was still surly. He did not smile. I did not wave.
“Yeah, it was real fun,” Caron said. “It was like we’d been dropped into a boot camp for Marine cheerleaders. Everyone else thought it was so much fun to do hundreds of sit-ups and jog in place for hours. You should have heard the shrieks and squeals. It was disgusting.”
“You’ll get used to it after a few months of classes,” I said with an evil smile. Neither responded, but I’d had enough fun and allowed them to subside into muffled groans and sighs.
My two days of mandatory bed rest were over the following day, and the Book Depot looked very good, although the overall decor was dustier and my office more chaotic than I remembered. I waltzed around with a feather duster, thumbed through a bunch of boring correspondence, and had a futile telephone conversation with a woman in the distributor’s office who insisted I was in Arizona, which coincidentally was where the shipment of books was.
All the while, however, I kept thinking about Maribeth and her untimely heart attack. She was overweight and therefore at risk, but supposedly she’d had an EKG and blood work before she began the Ultima program. After the fainting episode she’d said she didn’t have a local doctor anymore. Had she lied to Candice and Bobbi—or had she lied to Peter and me?
The previous evening I was certain she wasn’t able to have the tests for financial reasons, but now I began to wonder if there might be another reason, one that involved the unspecified problem in college that forced her to drop out of school. I doubted I could ring up the college infirmary and ask about medical records from seven or eight years ago, especially since I didn’t know the name of the college and was bereft of credentials. Gerald didn’t seem to know, or at least didn’t seem inclined to tell me.
Maribeth had mentioned a pediatrician, although she’d said he was ancient when she was a child. It occurred to me that he might have been aware of some medical condition that might have led to the college problem and even the heart attack. Children tend to view all adults over forty as ancient, over fifty as senile, and over sixty as ambulatory dead. If I could find the pediatrician, I might be able to persuade him to discuss any conditions from her childhood. A big if.
I took out the telephone book and ascertained there were only ten pediatricians in Farberville, the majority of them divided between two clinics. I contemplated the wisdom of calling each and demanding to know how old he or she was, but I decided the approach was less than tactful and waited impatiently until Caron and Inez dragged themselves into the store after school. It was their least dramatic entrance to date; I usually clutched the nearest inanimate object to steady myself when they exploded into my presence.
“Feeling a little sore?” I asked.
“Not at all,” Caron said with a telltale wince. She came around the counter to the stool and climbed on to it with a muted moan. “I lost three pounds and I feel great. Don’t you feel great, Inez?”
“Me, too, and I feel great,” Inez echoed obediently.
“I need you to watch the store until closing,” I said. “I’m going to visit all the local pediatricians.” They were both gaping at me as I left, but I couldn’t think of a plausible lie and I didn’t have time for the truth.
At the first office I asked to speak to the resident physician and was told she was at the hospital. One down, nine to go. The second office was packed with runny-nosed toddlers, bawling babies, and devilish children beating on each other with wooden toys. As I approached the reception window, a young man with a stethoscope around his neck and dressed in a white coat splattered with vomit stomped into the inner office and snatched up a folder. Too young.
Four of the pediatricians were at the first clinic. I went to the window and politely inquired if any of them had been in practice twenty years ago. The receptionist looked at me as if I’d asked if any of them had orange and black striped tails.
“My child is ill,” I improvised blandly, “and I think she might be more comfortable with a grandfatherly type.”
“Where’s the sick child?”
“She’s … in the car, getting sicker by the second. Would you please tell me if any of the pediatricians are elderly?”
It was obvious she felt as though she was dealing with a demented psychotic stalking senior members of the medical profession. “We have a separate waiting room for sick children,” she said, then added loudly enough to be heard at the nearest SCAN office, “Do you really think a sick child ought to be left alone in the car?”
All the mothers in the waiting room turned to stare darkly at me, as did an eagle-beaked nurse armed with a clipboard. “Oh, she can’t reach the gas pedal,” I said with a gay laugh. “But little Beatrice goes wild with fear unless she has a doctor who reminds her of dear old Granddaddy. She screams like a banshee, wets her pants, and begins to throw up. However, if you want to risk it …”
The receptionist regarded me for a long minute, making it clear she didn’t believe a word of my story and was quite sure I had an ax in my purse. “Our physicians are all in their mid to late thirties,” she said at last, “and would feel dreadful if they were the cause of little Beatrice’s hysterics.”
A young doctor wearing Mickey Mouse ears appeared from a corner of the office and said, “There aren’t any older pediatricians in Farberville. Too bad my father’s not practicing; he was seventy-three when he retired.”
“Could I speak to you in private?” I said. “It’s rather complicated, but it’s important.”
“For a moment.” He beckoned to a nearby nurse. “The Kerossack child is waiting for inoculations in room four. Use the straps if necessary, but this time nail him and nail him good. Little darling bit me again.”
He escorted me to his office and sat down behind his desk. “You’ve got a semihysterical sick child in the car, but you want to speak to me, right?”
I fumbled around in my mind, then took a deep breath and gave him an accurate if abridged explanation for my purpose in hunting down elderly pediatricians. “If I could have a word with your father, it might clear up some of this muddle,” I concluded with a beguiling smile.
“My father was the only pediatrician in Farberville twenty years ago, although a lot of families preferred to use a general practitioner. As I said earlier, he retired when he was seventy-three. I failed to add that he died when he was seventy-five.”
“Damn,” I muttered, then hastily said, “Sorry, I thought I’d finally made some progress. The comatose girl’s only twenty-nine, and she was beginning to truly enjoy life when the accident occurred.�
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He made a pyramid with his fingers and studied me for a long while. “Dad’s records are stored in my garage. Give me the patient’s name and I’ll see if I can find her file.”
I scribbled Maribeth’s maiden name, my name, my home telephone number, and the number at the Book Depot. I thanked him profusely and went to my car, but as I drove home I realized I was clinging to a very thin thread. If I had found the right pediatrician, and if he’d saved Maribeth’s childhood records, and if there was anything significant in them, then … what?
I regret to say that nothing much came to mind, and I drove home in an increasingly glum mood. I collected my mail and started to go upstairs, then halted and knocked on Joanie’s door.
She waved me in and said, “I asked my daughter if she knew anything about Maribeth’s problem in college, but she didn’t. Betty Lou’s not scheduled to volunteer any time this week. I’m not much of a sleuth, I’m afraid, but I do have fresh coffee and homemade cookies.”
I shook my head and sank down on a love seat. “I may be on the track of Maribeth’s pediatrician, but I’m not sure that whatever information I get, presuming I get any, will be pertinent. What we need is motive and opportunity, not a dusty medical history.”
“Isn’t the husband always the most popular suspect?” Joanie said.
“He’s got opportunity. Maribeth most likely kept her vitamins in a kitchen cabinet or in the bathroom; he could have substituted something. He’s not fond of Maribeth, but he is exceedingly fond of her trust fund, and he wouldn’t want to murder her before she came into the money.”
“Lust can make people lose sight of more practical considerations. Could he have been so enamored of Candice that he was willing to do anything to rid himself of his wife?”
“Then all he had to do was divorce her,” I said, sinking further into both the upholstery and despair. “If he wouldn’t do so because of all the lovely money, Candice might have been motivated to take action, and she had ample opportunity to switch the potassium caplets for placebos of some kind. Damn, I wish the CID had run tests on the bottle of potassium.”
Joanie went into her kitchen and returned with a beer, a bottle of scotch, two glasses, and a glazed expression. “But,” she said pensively, “Candice met with Maribeth five afternoons a week for their consultation and weigh-in, and I’d imagine she was aware that Maribeth was developing a sense of independence as she gained control of her life. All she had to do was encourage Maribeth to continue with the program and then wait for her to dump Gerald.”
“Maribeth wasn’t making much progress the third week,” I said. I described the contents of the daily record, then added, “Maybe Candice panicked and decided to take matters into her own hands. Pretty feeble, huh?”
“No more than my son’s excuses for overdrawing his bank account,” Joanie said with a sniff. “It’s odd, though. Maribeth told me she was losing steadily, yet she must have known otherwise. I’m surprised that she would lie to either of us.”
“If she was lying, she was doing it well. After all the years with Caron, I’m not the most trusting person on the planet, but I believed Maribeth, too,” I admitted. “Candice knew otherwise, as did Jody Delano. Yesterday he told me Maribeth weighed herself on his scales at the fitness center, I suppose to confirm the figures from the Ultima Center.”
“Is there any way he could be involved?”
I shrugged. “I don’t see how. He was panting after Maribeth, not trying to get rid of her. He may be perfectly sincere, or, like Gerald, he may have his eye on the trust money, but in either case he has no motive. He could hardly fiddle with the bottles of potassium in the office, for that matter. Even if he did, he had no control over which bottle was given to Maribeth. The other Ultima clients don’t seem to have any of the symptoms we saw in Maribeth’s case; they have a predatory look about them, not unlike vultures, but they’re not snarling or fainting or entering the Ultima office through a drive-in window.”
“That leaves Sheldon Winder and Bobbi,” Joanie said morosely. “Neither has any reason to try to harm Maribeth.”
“Unless …” I stared at the wall above Joanie’s head. When she made an irritated rumble, I said, “Well, what if Shelly and Bobbi are having a mad affair? It isn’t all that unlikely. The evening I stopped by to talk to him, he was up to something with a mysterious client in one of the back rooms. He claimed it was someone who was embarrassed to come in during regular hours, but he was, as my grandmother used to say at every opportunity until the entire family wanted to throttle her, as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs. Maybe he made the crack about unnatural sex at the funeral to throw us off.”
“So they’re having an affair. So what?”
“If it had reached epic intensity, one or the other might decide to get rid of Maribeth in order to make Gerald available. Then Candice would sacrifice her interest in the Ultima Center to expedite a divorce in order to marry him. Then they could get married, too. For all we know, Bobbi may have nurtured a girlish dream of a double ceremony. I admit I’m stretching, but if we’re presuming someone wanted Maribeth out of the way, then we’re going to have to stretch like a pair of queen-sized panty hose.”
A tap at the door stopped further speculation. Caron stood in the hallway, her lower lip thrust forward and her eyes narrowed. “I came downstairs to give you a message,” she said to me accusingly. “I saw you drive up, but I presumed you’d come upstairs out of consideration for Other People, who might be tired of walking up and down the stairs all day long.”
“What’s the message?” I asked.
“The guy had to spell it out so I could write it down. It took me five minutes to find a pencil.” She handed the paper to Joanie and stomped upstairs, conveying disapproval with each thud.
Joanie frowned at the smudged note. “‘Acute rheumatic fever, carditis, antibiotic therapy. Age ten. Hope Beatrice is better.’ What does this mean, Claire? Who’s Beatrice?”
“Beatrice is a malevolent child inclined to tantrums. What’s important is that Maribeth had rheumatic fever as a child and most likely later developed heart problems that caused her to drop out of school.”
“And?” Joanie said, leaning forward in anticipation of my next astounding revelation.
“I don’t know,” I said helplessly.
TEN
The following morning, after Caron had wolfed down a large breakfast (in order to increase endurance and build muscle tissue, I was told huffily), and then filled her purse with cookies (quick energy and blood sugar, huff, huff) and left for school, I called the CID and asked for Lieutenant Rosen.
After we’d exchanged pleasantries, I said, “Are you aware that Maribeth Galleston had rheumatic fever as a child, and a relapse of some kind while in college?”
“I am. Are you aware you’re once again meddling in official police business?”
“I’m doing no such thing,” I said, offended at the very idea. “You’re the one who said the case was closed, that the CID was no longer interested in the so-called accident. You couldn’t be bothered to run tests on the potassium or find out who was having affairs with whom. You’re more interested in football players taking illegal substances to make their biceps bulge and their triceps triple.”
He grumbled for a moment, then said, “I told you that in confidence, and then asked you to butt out of the Galleston investigation. It is closed. Hold a vigil beside her bed at the hospital, send her flowers, read her one of those fanciful mystery novels in which the busybody amateur sleuth outwits the plodding policeman, or, if none of that appeals, mind your own business.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the rheumatic fever?” I inserted, tiring of the drift of his remarks. “Do you realize what I went through to get that bit of information? I’m apt to come down with chicken pox or diaper rash, all because you couldn’t bother to mention it to me.”
“Claire,” he said in a drawn-out sigh, “it’s against department policy to kee
p civilians informed of our every move. If we didn’t prefer a little privacy, we’d issue bulletins every evening on the six o’clock news.”
I blinked at the receiver. “You would?”
“I’m joking.”
“I know that. It’s just that …” I blinked once more, then told myself to stop being foolish. “Did you find out anything about Sheldon and Candice Winder?”
“Nothing of great interest. He went to medical school in Guadalajara, but a lot of Americans do, when they can’t get accepted anywhere else. He finagled an internship at a small hospital but was terminated during the first year. Shortly thereafter he proclaimed himself an expert in the field of nutrition and weight problems and opened the Ultima Center.”
“Why was he terminated?”
“It took some digging; the profession’s closed-mouthed about its malpractitioners. Winder was supposed to be on call one night, but he was occupied handily in the linen closet with a winsome nurse. There was an emergency; the patient requiring attention died. The director was irked enough to kick Winder out of the program, but not enough to disturb the licensing board.”
“The nurse being Candice?”
“Yes, and she received the same treatment. One of her more garrulous roommates said Candice was hot to marry a doctor, even one with uncertain earning power. She demanded Winder marry her to justify the grand passion that led to her termination and badgered him continually until he gave in.”
“And ended up in a diet center, fawning over obese women and shrieking with glee when one of them lost a pound.”
“So it seems.” Peter then said he had to go play with his police band radio and I said I needed to mind my own business: the bookstore. I replaced the receiver and tried to find a spot in the puzzle for the latest tidbits of information. Winder was a lousy doctor. Candice was not my choice of Nightingales. If she’d grown tired of her husband, she might have set her black-striped cap for Gerald. Who would refuse to divorce his heiress. Who was terrified she might divorce him. Who would prefer to have his heiress committed. Who might have mentioned as much to Candice, who obligingly suggested a plan. They couldn’t kill her, but they couldn’t arrange for her to become increasingly incapable of normal functioning. Once she was stashed for life, they could do almost everything except marry each other.