He halted mid-stairs, his expression grim. “I’m too old?”
“Heavens, no,” she said quickly. “But you’re not in shape.”
A glint came into his eye.
“Andrew?” She stared up at him from the crook of his arm. “You haven’t been working out?”
Suddenly shy, he nodded.
“What’s come over you?”
“What would you do, if you were suddenly surrounded by two fitness freaks and a bunch of Olympic octogenarians?”
“The karate class?”
He nodded.
“Poor Andy.” She reached up and patted his cheek.
“Enough.” He strode up the rest of the stairs, carried her down the hall to his bedroom, and dumped her unceremoniously on the bed.
“What have you been doing while I was away? Reading Gone With the Wind?”
He grinned evilly and sat down on the bed. “I may not look like Clark Gable, but …” He caught her up in a smothering embrace.
Jennifer laughed.
He drew back abruptly. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. It’s just … you’re so different.”
He held out his arm and flexed his biceps.
“Good grief.” She touched the sinewy bulge gingerly.
“You like it?”
“Well—”
“You don’t. You prefer the wimpy type.” He looked crestfallen.
She laughed again. “You were never wimpy. It’s just that I have to get used to—”
“The new me?”
She nodded.
“Let’s begin.” He drew her close. He could feel her heart beating against his chest. And the beats were not the normal seventy-two beats of a human. Nor even the hundred and thirty beats of a small mammal. They were the one hundred and sixty-six beats … of a bird.
CHAPTER 39
They had moved to Fenimore’s living and dining area. Situated between the office and the kitchen, it was a pleasant, unpretentious space, furnished with an old couch, a worn oriental rug, a couple of nondescript lamps, and shelves of books. They had lit a fire in the fireplace. Although it was May, spring was late and there was a chill in the air. They had finished the steak. Their dirty dishes and empty wineglasses rested in the sink. The remains of the fire glowed in the grate. Sal, her jealous rage forgotten, dozed on the hearth. Their coffee cups were nearly empty when Jennifer asked, “What’s new with the Pancoast case?”
If she had turned into a witch, doused the fire, and poured gall into his cup, she could not have destroyed Fenimore’s mood more completely. For a few blissful hours he had forgotten Seacrest, the Pancoast family, the murderer who lurked in their midst, and the sorry part he was playing in the whole affair. Jennifer’s unexpected return had erased all that completely from his mind. Now it came roaring back, like an angry tidal wave, full of sound and fury.
“I don’t want to discuss it.”
“Andrew!”
“It’s hopeless. The police are bungling idiots. Even Doyle has failed me. And here I am stuck in Philadelphia, forced to wait for the next phone call to tell me about the next murder.” He was pacing now.
“Can’t you get someone to cover for you?”
“No.” He stopped and stared down at her. “I’m a doctor first. Detecting is a hobby. I have no right to dabble in it. I’m no expert. They’d be better off without me.”
“Then all they’d have is the ‘bungling’ police. At least with Doyle on the scene and you within call, there’s a chance—”
He sat down again, his head in his hands.
“How many are left?” she asked.
He glanced up. “Emily, Judith, Mildred, Susanne.” He ticked them off on one hand.
“And the children?”
“Oh my God …”
Jennifer was silent. After a moment she said, “What about Rafferty?”
“What about him?”
“Can’t he help?”
“He’s in the wrong state. All he can do is give advice.”
“Have you talked to him?”
“Yes.” His voice was weary.
“What did he say?”
“The usual. Mind your own business. Oh yes, and he thinks I’m too close to the Pancoast sisters to see them objectively.”
“Are you?”
He frowned. “I don’t know.”
They were silent.
Suddenly he said, “Do you know what ‘karate’ means in Japanese?”
“No.”
“‘Empty hand.’ In self-defense, it means—‘without a weapon.’ With me, it sums up my role in this case. I dove in—and came up empty-handed.” He held out both hands, palms up.
She grabbed his hands.
After a moment Jennifer murmured, “I must go. Dad will think I’ve been mugged.”
Fenimore let her go.
Jennifer went upstairs and exchanged the tent-size T-shirt Fenimore had lent her for her own blouse and skirt, and slipped her bare feet into her sandals.
When she came downstairs, Fenimore was waiting in the hall. “I’ll walk you home,” he said.
Although the intense glow of the early evening had faded with the fire, a small ember remained. The yellow disk of the city hall clock, the tiny white lights that decorated the trees along Broad Street, and the flickering gaslights in front of the Academy of Music all contributed to rekindling that ember. When he left her at her apartment door, his good-night embrace was unusually fervent and he mumbled into her collarbone, “Glad you’re back.”
CHAPTER 40
It was Memorial Day weekend. Seacrest was officially open for the summer season. The main street was decked with flags and clogged with creeping cars.
Fenimore was in one of them.
The sidewalks were packed with people in various stages of undress, tank tops and jeans, halters and shorts, swimsuits and T-shirts—or just swimsuits.
How he wished he were one of them—here on a holiday—with nothing more important to worry about than whether to have a hotdog or a cheeseburger—whether to swim or to sunbathe. Instead, he was here to investigate the murders of five people and the cause of insanity in another. Of course, he had no one to blame but himself. He didn’t have to play detective. For that matter he didn’t have to work as hard as he did as a physician—not in these days of HMOs and group practice. If he played the game, he could have every other weekend off. Take trips. Play golf. No one was stopping him. It was his choice. If only he didn’t value his freedom so damned much. Unfortunately, like that “hardy race of barbarians” he had been reading about in Gibbon’s Decline and Fall (Fenimore’s idea of light, summer reading), he too “despised life when it was separated from freedom.” So why don’t you shut up, Fenimore? He pressed the accelerator and actually moved three inches without hitting the car in front of him.
Unfortunately, he knew of no shortcut to the Pancoast house. To while away the time, he studied the stream of humanity on either side of the car. The quantity of exposed skin was predominantly pale. By the end of the weekend most of it would be varying shades of pink, scarlet, and vermilion. The odor of suntan lotion, popcorn, and hot asphalt filtered to him through his inefficient air conditioning system. (He never had it repaired until it conked out entirely.) Like a magic carpet, the smell of the sea carried him back to childhood summers he had spent at the seashore. Long, limitless lazy days that all ran into each other. Whoops! Almost ran into that young woman. She had been about to edge her way between his car and the one in front, dragging two small blond boys behind her.
He rolled down the window. “Carrie!”
Her frown was instantly replaced by an incredible smile. “Doctor?” She came up to the window. “What are you doing here?”
“Decided to drive down to see the Pancoasts. Forgot it was the Big Weekend.” He shrugged at the crowd.
She opened the back door, and pushing her small brothers ahead of her, got in. “I’ll give you a hand,” she said. “See that little side street?” She pointed a
few yards in front of the car.
He nodded.
“When you get there, turn right.”
Ten minutes later, he obeyed.
“Okay. Now make a left at the next corner … . Now a right … That’s it. Now another left. Now look straight ahead.”
There was the hill, and at the top, the rambling back of the Pancoast house.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
“We’ll get out now,” she said, shepherding her brothers out the door.
“I’m sure glad I ran into you,” Fenimore said, with feeling.
“You almost ran over me,” she said, with a laugh.
In his rearview mirror, he watched them continue to wave as he made his way up the hill.
He hadn’t told Carrie his real reasons for coming to Seacrest. The primary one was the investigation, of course. But there was a secondary one: to relieve Doyle of her nurse/companion duties and take her back to Philadelphia. Emily’s hip had mended and her “spells” had disappeared as soon as he had reset her pacemaker. Doyle seemed unable to shed any further light on the Pancoast murders. Now he needed her back at the office desperately, before the Medicare authorities arrived with a warrant for his arrest.
It was a relief to leave the overcrowded village behind. To catch a glimpse of the sea—unimpeded, and a whiff of the sea—unpolluted. He pulled up to the back door.
Mrs. Doyle came out to meet him. “I was expecting you to come from the other direction,” she said.
He explained about Carrie’s shortcut. “If it weren’t for running into that child,” he said, “I’d still be down there frying like a sardine.”
The aunts were waiting inside. They greeted him warmly, welcoming him as their longtime physician and friend. He wished he could return their greetings with the same enthusiasm. But now, in his mind, an ugly question mark hung over both of them.
During lunch, he was caught up on all the latest news.
The good news: Susanne had made a remarkable recovery. Once she had determined to stop the sedatives, Susanne had devoted herself to caring for her children and was also helping to care for Mildred’s. She had started a small day care center in a wing of the aunts’ house. The aunts were more than happy to have the wasted space put to good use. A few children from the neighborhood were attending too. But not nearly as many as Susanne would have liked. Unfortunately, the Pancoast house had acquired a taint. Some parents were afraid to send their children to the “Death House” as it was sometimes now called—in hushed tones.
The bad news: Mildred was not progressing. She spent most of her time babbling about baths—and refusing to take one. It required a nurse and two attendants to get her into the shower. They only attempted it once a week. They simply couldn’t afford the extra staff required to do it more often.
Emily was crocheting an afghan.
Judith was experimenting with some new recipes. Someone had given her a wok and a wok cookbook for her birthday. On April 5 she had quietly celebrated her eightieth year.
“She’s tried out every Asian dish on us,” Mrs. Doyle said.
“It’s a wonder we aren’t all speaking Chinese,” Emily said.
Judith laughed. “It keeps me busy. And my mind off …”
There was a painful pause. Fenimore filled it by describing an episode featuring the Red Umbrella Brigade. It seems Mrs. Dunwoody discovered that the umbrellas she had ordered for graduation were black instead of red!
“Oh no,” gasped Mrs. Doyle, the only one present who fully appreciated the gravity of the situation. “What did she do?”
Fenimore smiled. “The only thing a gracious, elderly lady proficient in the martial arts could do.” He paused, letting them hang. “She called the mail order house and told them to get their butts moving or she would beat them black and blue.”
Mrs. Doyle breathed more easily. “But,” she said, “Mrs. Dunwoody shouldn’t have said ‘black and blue.’ One of the miracles of karate is—it leaves no mark.”
“Details, details, Doyle,” replied Fenimore. “Whatever she said, the red umbrellas arrived early the next morning by Federal Express.”
After lunch Fenimore excused himself and hurried down to the police station to catch up on the most recent developments.
The ladies passed the afternoon more pleasantly, playing gin rummy, sipping iced tea, and dozing on the big screened porch. (Judith and Emily had both skipped their naps in order not to miss a moment with Mrs. Doyle.) But their determinedly cheerful conversation was occasionally marred by references to the nurse’s imminent departure.
“How will we ever manage without you?” Emily said.
“We’ll miss you so much,” Judith added.
Mrs. Doyle tried to soften her leave-taking with fervent promises of return visits.
About four o’clock, Judith excused herself to prepare yet another Asian feast.
Fenimore arrived back at the house deeply discouraged. He had learned that all the experts’ tests for fingerprints and DNA had been dismal failures. The murderer had eluded the most modern laboratory techniques. The solution to this case, as he had predicted, would not be found in the laboratory, but elsewhere.
Fenimore had no trouble praising Judith’s dinner. It was superb. He had second helpings of everything—including two cups of sake (provided by the teetotaling aunts as a sign of their high regard for him).
After dinner, while the ladies were washing up (Fenimore had offered to help, but they had shooed him out of the kitchen), he decided to take a walk. Maybe if he gave the Pancoast case a rest, a new idea would come to him. Sometimes when you are too uptight, he rationalized, the obvious solution escapes you. Maybe if he relaxed awhile he would be more successful. He ducked under the mammoth American flag, which hung like a curtain from the porch roof, and ambled down the hill toward the town.
It was dusk. The village of Seacrest, which on a winter’s night boasted only a few street lamps, was ablaze—as if charged by some super electric battery. The streets and boardwalk surged with light from shop windows, restaurants, and movie marquees. At the far end of town, where a visiting carnival had parked itself, the colorful lights of a Ferris wheel spun against the night sky. Fenimore paused to listen to the faint tinkle of the carousel. The sake had produced a light of its own inside him. Deciding to postpone any further investigations until the next morning, he headed for the inn.
The Tale of ----- ----- *
*Guess the name of the murderer and fill in the blanks.
CHAPTER 41
Serving drinks, Frank greeted Fenimore like a long-lost brother. In a few minutes, the doctor was seated comfortably at the bar, surrounded by congenial villagers. Ever since that first day, when Fenimore had been forthright with them about Pamela’s death, they had accepted him. Tourists didn’t frequent the inn. It was too far from the boardwalk. At one time, it was a coach stop on the old turnpike and the center of all social activity. Now the inn was off the beaten track and depended mainly on local trade.
Fenimore ordered Scotch, fearing an order of sake would seem too effete for the locals. He had another. And another. For the first time in months, he felt strangely carefree. Another doctor was covering for him this weekend. He didn’t have to drive home tonight. Mrs. Doyle was coming back with him on Sunday to take care of the mess at the office. And Jennifer was home. He had to admit he had missed her and was inordinately happy over her return. Of course, he still hadn’t solved the Pancoast case. But there hadn’t been a murder for several weeks. Maybe the murderer was going through a midlife crisis and had decided on a career change. He allowed himself a laugh at his own black humor, drank deeply from his drink, and forgot what time it was. At some point, he lifted his glass and offered a toast to the assembled company à la Ben Jonson: “In short measures, life may perfect be … .”
“Here! Here!” His companions agreed.
Sometime later, as he walked up the hill (wove would be a better description) in the dark, he whistled a favorite Bohem
ian air which his mother had taught him. It was a merry melody she used to sing to him while supervising his bath. In translation it went:
Don’t forget your nose,
my dear,
And don’t forget your neck.
Be sure to wash your toes,
my dear …
What was that rosy glow in the sky? Could dawn be breaking already?
And don’t forget your ears,
my dear,
A son with dirty ears,
is what every mother fears,
—a sign of Great Neglect.
He focused on his watch. The hands and digits glowed a fuzzy green. Everything was glowing. Twelve o’clock. He’d better get home before he turned into a pumpkin. What was dawn doing out at midnight? “Midnight Dawn.” Was that a title to a poem? If not, he would write one … .
Halfway up the hill, he halted. The rosy glow was flickering.
Dawn doesn’t flicker.
He took a deep breath to replenish his oxygen. Mixed with the smell of the sea was the acrid smell of something burning.
CHAPTER 42
Ever since his days as an intern, Fenimore had been able to throw off the effects of sleep or alcohol at a moment’s notice. He could receive an urgent call in the middle of the night from a sick patient, and answer the phone without a trace of grogginess. The few times he had become thoroughly soused and his help was needed, he had sobered up instantly. By the time Fenimore reached the brow of the hill, all outward and inward signs of inebriation had left him.
The flames were concentrated on the right side of the house. They were coming from a second-floor bedroom. Fire sirens could be heard in the distance. Someone else must have seen the glow. He was running for the front door when he collided with Judith. Barefoot, in a long nightgown, she was holding a sweater wrapped around her head. He grabbed her arm. “Where are Doyle and Emily?”
She turned toward the house and pointed to the widow’s walk, which hung suspended from the burning bedroom. Through the smoke, he could just make out two figures—a portly one, supporting a longer, slender one in her arms.
The Doctor Makes a Dollhouse Call Page 16