by Nick Trout
Next up, Peter Greer. Oh, he seemed nice enough, but he’s an editor in chief, he’s all about selling newspapers. Greer has the incentive and wherewithal to uncover my past, and if he’s really a two-faced, ungrateful, stonehearted journalist hoping to trade his silence for money then he’s going to be sorely disappointed.
My third suspect has to be Crystal Haggerty. She was here this morning and could have easily dropped off the package, misdirecting me with the story about her inquisitive friend from Charleston. Try as I might to assume that her only motivation must be free veterinary care for life, I fear her desire for leverage might be driven by her desire for sexual favors. Can’t she get the hint that I am not the least bit interested? Is this her way of saying, I’ll do whatever it takes to satisfy my lust?
This leaves me with my pick of the bunch. Brendon Small. Here’s a guy who knows he’s in the wrong on so many levels. He has to be playing for a Mexican standoff—my silence for his silence—and my showing up at his home last night must have totally rattled his cage. Mom was always a fan of Occam’s razor, and I’d bet that the simplest answer is the correct one this time. Brendon Small is behind the packages, and that’s why I dial his number.
Anne Small picks up on the third ring, thwarting my momentum. “Ah … hello, Mrs. Small, it’s Dr. Mills again … did your dog turn up?”
“No.” There’s a flatness in her voice that tells me she’s moved beyond hope, from rescue to recovery.
The phrase “no news is good news” pops into my head but I can’t say it. “I wonder if I might have a word with your husband?”
There’s silence on the line. “He’s out of town at a job fair. He’ll be back late tomorrow. Can I ask what it’s about?”
I’ve got nothing.
“Dr. Mills, you still there?”
“Yes. Tell him it’s about something I noticed the other night. Something important. He can call me whenever he gets a chance. Sorry to disturb you.” My finger is hovering over the end button, but I think about little Emily and stop myself. “Frieda’s going to be fine,” I say before hanging up.
Two o’clock. Doris, pacing outside, takes her last slow drag and holds it in deep, giving herself enough nicotine to get through the next few minutes as she wipes the snow off her shoes and opens the front door.
“Any news?”
Doris shakes her head. “Looks like you’re flying solo.” She points at the phone on her desk. “Did you listen to your messages?”
Before I can answer Doris presses a button on an answering machine below a digital number “2.”
Message one was received at 1:35 p.m. today.
Dr. Mills, this is Ginny Weidmeyer. Chelsea seems much worse to me today and I’m not sure she’s strong enough to come out to your clinic. Could you please make a house call at your earliest convenience? I’ll be in for the rest of the day. Thank you.
Doris scratches something on a scrap of paper. “This is her address.”
She slides it toward me like a croupier. I make no move to pick it up.
Message two was received at 1:42 p.m. today.
I hate to be a pest, Dr. Mills, a sheepish Crystal Haggerty draws out my name for dramatic effect. But Puck is still not right. You really must see him in his natural environment. By the way, my friend Stephanie got back to me … aren’t you the dark horse? And then, emphatically, I’ll expect you no later than five thirty.
Doris writes another note on a second scrap, slaps it down on the first.
“And these are the directions to the Eden Falls Academy. Assuming you don’t already know the way? Don’t look so worried,” says Doris. “If anyone shows up while you’re out, I’ll tell them you’ll be right back. That should keep them in their seats, don’t you think?”
I can ignore the innuendo, the professional emasculation, but the pleasure she derives, the wickedness worming its way through the creases of those sticky orange lips, finally makes me snap.
“What is it, Doris? What makes you ride me so hard? What have you wanted to say since the moment you laid eyes on me?”
Doris takes her time, straightens up, waiting for the animosity to rise, spread, and harden her features. “You have no idea what that man did for you. And I don’t care what he told folks, because it was a lie and you know it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The funeral, what else? What kind of a son doesn’t show up at his own mother’s funeral? I’ll tell you what kind … the kind who only thinks about himself. And what does Doc Cobb do? He does what he’s always done, makes excuses, telling everyone you’re doing some sort of volunteer work, somewhere foreign, middle of nowhere, no way to reach you. And everyone believed him, except me, because less than two hours after your mother is lying in her grave, he’s back there, talking to you on the phone, and all I can hear are poor Doc Cobb’s tears and screams. Don’t shake your head at me. I checked the phone records. I saw them with my own eyes. He called your dorm at college. You never went anywhere. You just wanted to be a thousand miles away from the one man in the world who needed you by his side.”
In the end I had to walk away, into the work area, preferring the curses of a rabid terrier to the wrath of a rabid receptionist.
People are prepared to baby you ’cause that’s what Doc Cobb wanted. Well, I’m telling you, I ain’t one of them anymore.
What did she mean by this? And that word anymore? Up until now Doris has been babying me?
I should have tried to explain, to tell her that this was how my fourteen-year estrangement began. Though Cobb’s failure to share my mother’s passing was the final straw, the camel’s back had been ready to break for years. For my mother, work became the man’s mistress; for me, work became the man’s favorite son. With each passing year of my childhood, Cobb became increasingly consumed by his veterinary life, increasingly removed from his family life. Long before boarding school, Mom and I eventually stopped asking if he would join us on our road trips to visit her sister in the Carolinas. Neither of us could bear to hear the same old excuse, someone’s got to stay and man the fort.
Cobb made that fateful phone call from this very room. Up until then, the distance in our relationship was a letdown, but he was who he was. Bottom line, Cobb simply cared for his patients too much. I learned to acquiesce. What choice did I have? Then came the call that changed everything. By the time I hung up, my desire to renounce my name and never speak to him again was final. Time may have softened the impact and provided some sort of perspective, but with Cobb’s passing, any chance for reconciliation disappeared. Doris will always be an unapologetic Cobb groupie. How do I get my side of the story across? Here, in this town, my ugly past seems determined to reach out and snag me. I am the man who chose to run, and now I’ve been wrenched to a dead stop. If I’m being honest, worse than the prying eyes and the slanderous chatter, there’s the fear of having to finally face myself and what I have done.
Toby’s growl maintains the slow and steady beat of a metronome with every pass in front of his cage as, for the umpteenth time, I read the words from the statutes. Without first having obtained a license from the board. I look up and make the mistake of catching the terrier’s eye. He stares at me with such evil intent it’s like he’s pointing a paw in my face before drawing it across his furry throat in the manner of a knife. I guess he’s feeling better. Time to give Greer an update and a chance to come clean. I dial his number, but it goes straight to voice mail. Damn. I leave a message that hits the highlights—macadamia nuts, road to recovery, call back later.
With Tina busy breast-feeding her kitten and Clint resting comfortably after I gave her an injection of an antibiotic and an anti-inflammatory (Lewis’s “can’t hurt” suggestion), I succumb to guilt and a wayward sense of duty by making those annoying house calls, starting with the home of Ginny Weidmeyer.
Even from the bottom of a plowed driveway that has to be a quarter of a mile long, the word home feels impotent for this acropolis. Amid acres
of reclaimed woodland, open fields roll into a massive frozen lake, with an unencumbered view of a craggy mountain range tossed in for good measure.
I park on the circular driveway. No need for reverse. Check. There’s a huge outdoor fountain in the middle, looking like it was stolen from the Piazza Navona. Most striking is the fact that it’s still working, babbling away even in this weather. Obviously Ginny would rather pay to heat the steaming water flowing through the mouth of Triton, or whoever it is, than be deprived of its soothing sounds.
I step down from the truck. To one side of the main house there’s a massive four-season porch, positioned to take in the vistas, and on the other, a four-car garage, outside of which lurks a brand-new black Range Rover bearing the license plate ONFYA.
I press the doorbell, and I’m treated to Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.
“Dr. Mills, thank you so much for coming out to see us.”
Ginny wears a pink polo shirt, skin-tight riding breeches, and leather riding boots. I’m sure there’s plenty of room for a barn and indoor arena out back, unless she’s simply playing dress-up for … enter the man himself, clad in white bathrobe and flip-flops, clopping across the marble floor of the foyer. Why do I have the uncomfortable feeling that he is naked underneath?
“Hey, Doc,” says Steven, mussing his slick wet hair with a towel.
“Please,” says Ginny, gesturing for me to come through. “She’s in the great room.”
Bag o’ tricks in hand, I follow them into what appears to be a private country club. Besides the vaulted ceilings and the French doors that open onto a bluestone terrace with a covered swimming pool, I see two fireplaces, three antique Persian rugs, and enough sofas, love seats, and armchairs to furnish four good-size living rooms.
“Here’s my baby.”
Ginny kneels into a sheepskin rug on which Chelsea luxuriates in the golden glow of burning embers.
“What has you worried, Ms. Weidmeyer?”
I want to be empathetic, really I do, but my dispassionate cadence reveals a man with more pressing problems on his mind.
“I’ve not seen her drink or pee today. And she feels a little dehydrated to me.”
I catch the whites of Steven’s eyes and the inconspicuous shake of his head.
I join Ginny on the rug, as if the two of us are in prayer, carefully pinch Chelsea’s skin around the scruff of her neck, and watch as innate elasticity slowly sucks it back down. Too slowly. I lift the cat’s lip, run my finger across the gum line, blanch it out, and time the capillary refill. Three seconds. Too long. Despite my skepticism, Ginny is correct. Chelsea is becoming clinically dehydrated.
I get to my feet and step away from the heat of the fire. I see the familiar plaques and awards for golf that I saw at Greer’s house and, angled toward Chelsea, what appears to be a security camera.
“You worried she might get kidnapped?” There’s no humor in my question as I point into the optical eye.
“It’s a webcam,” says Ginny. “I have four of them set up in her favorite spots around the house, recording her every move. Gives me peace of mind. I can check up on her whenever I’m out and about. What d’you think?”
“She’s fine,” Steven says, sidling in close to Ginny. Real close.
I guess I’m already on a short fuse. Maybe, since I seem to be going down in flames, I feel like embracing an uncharacteristic, “all guns blazing” attitude. My revulsion at the sight of Steven pressing the palm of one hand across Ginny’s buttock, thrumming out a rhythm with his impatient fingers, doesn’t help matters. If I have to blame what I am about to say on a single catalyst, I choose the brazen presumption in Steven’s flashing eyebrows, as if they broadcast a secret message of: “You and I are on the same page, right, Doc?”
“No, she’s not fine, Steven, if that really is your name. She’s actually five to seven percent dehydrated, hardly ideal for a cat with a kidney stone.”
Ginny looks like I may as well have just smacked her across the face. Instantly, the set of Steven’s jaw switches up from cordiality to hostility.
For a moment I flounder and clear my throat. “My apologies for my candor, Ms. Weidmeyer, but yesterday evening I bumped into your fiancé at the local convenience store where he was purchasing, among other items, nonprescription cat food. Assuming Chelsea to be your only cat, and that you yourself are not a fan of canned beef and giblets, I have to conclude that the food has been maliciously administered to sabotage your attempts to control her kidney disorder.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Steven is in my face, pupils dilated, no doubt some of that Dutch beer on his breath.
I turn to face Ginny. “Steven is an alias; his real name’s Stuart. According to his driver’s license he’s from somewhere in Florida, not Manhattan. What you two do together is absolutely none of my business, but what is my business is assuring the well-being of this little cat.”
Chelsea raises her head, ever so slightly, as if to request we keep it down, before settling back into her white pelt and closing her eyes.
“You told me yourself, you’re not the one getting Chelsea her breakfast in the morning. That’s when I suspected she’s eating a diet high in salt and protein. Hold back on her access to water and, for a cat with her kidneys, subclinical dehydration quickly sets in.”
Ginny still looks more alarmed than interested.
“If you’re the one who feeds her in the evening, you’ve probably noticed how she’s hardly touching her food. That’s because those high-salt diets are highly addictive, just the way the pet food company designs them.”
Ginny’s blank stare neither confirms nor denies my supposition.
“Get your stuff and get the hell out of here,” says Steven, shoving a flat hand into my sternum. “How dare you come into our house, making these ridiculous accusations.”
The blow makes me grunt. There’s not a hint of a quaver to his voice. I’m guessing Steven is quite comfortable with confrontation.
“She needs fifty milliliters of normal saline injected subcutaneously.” I direct my treatment instructions to Ginny as the man formerly known as Steven begins dragging me toward the front door. I wonder if he senses that I still have one more bomb to drop from my apocalyptic payload.
“Just you wait ’til I contact the State Board, the Better Business Bureau, the attorney general,” he barks, and I feel the spittle land on my left ear. “After I’ve finished with you, you’ll be lucky to get a job as a butcher.”
I think about telling him to take a number and get in line but, over my shoulder, marching at double time, I shout, “Have a professional jeweler look at your diamond ring, Ms. Weidmeyer. It’s a fake. I noticed it on one of Chelsea’s X-rays. Probably cubic zirconium.”
With all the efficiency of an experienced bouncer, I’m tossed off their front stoop, forward momentum having fun with minimal friction at my expense as I slip on a patch of black ice and land hard on my coccyx.
I look back to find Steven delivering what I can best describe as a “withering farewell.” I’m not talking about the gritted teeth, the jabbing index finger, and the fire in his eyes when he insists, “You’re so dead.” Instead, I refer to the fact that the man safeguarding the threshold, despite the arctic chill, seems totally unaware that his bathrobe has fallen wide open.
My suspicions were correct.
17
I pull out of Ginny’s driveway, punch in the number, and it feels as though I’ve spent my whole life not making this type of phone call. When it came to my mother, I was unable. When it came to my father, I was unwilling. Self-preservation or selfish, I prefer the big decisions in life to impact only one person. Me. Now, thanks to Bedside Manor, I’m bound to a nicotine-addicted receptionist, a terminally ill woman I’ve never met, a kidnapped golden retriever, and a growing list of people and animals that constantly fill my head with worry and responsibility.
“It’s me, how’s Mrs. Lewis?”
“She’s good, just a s
econd.” I hear footsteps and imagine the old man leaving a hospital room to find a corridor where he can speak and not get into trouble with an officious nurse for interfering with the monitors.
“Thanks for checking in. She fainted. Or at least they think she fainted. They didn’t want to take a chance, you know?”
Lewis’s obvious gratitude leaves me with a heady sense of guilt for bugging him about my problems. “Of course.”
“Everything fine on your end?”
“Sure. No problems.”
There’s a pause. “I’m not deaf, what’s going on? And what was that package Doris gave you?”
The guy doesn’t miss a trick. I tell him everything and hope it helps justify my run-in with Steven.
“Trust me, it’s not Greer.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Why are you ignoring the phrase ‘trust me’? How’s Toby?”
“From what I can tell, back to his evil self.”
“Good. If I were you I’d discharge him this evening. I guarantee Greer’s focus will be on what you’ve done for his dog.”
“But what about Ginny Weidmeyer?”
“Leave Ginny to me. I don’t know about this fiancé of hers, but she’s a good person. I have a feeling I can talk her down.”
Again, there’s a clandestine certainty in Lewis’s tone.
“You think Brendon Small sent the article?”
“No idea,” says Lewis, “but maybe it’s no bad thing.”
“What? How can you say that?”
Somehow I know Lewis is smiling on the other end of the line. “Because you’re actually worried about what you stand to lose and that means you must be starting to care.”
He’s wrong. “Maybe I just don’t like losing is all.”
But Lewis has the last word.
“Or maybe you’re not the man you used to be.”
Eden Falls Academy bears no resemblance to my late Aunt Rachel’s private school in Beaufort, South Carolina. For starters, the campus signposts gratuitously steer visitors like me (and, presumably, the parents of prospective pupils) past what looks to be a brand-new Center for the Performing Arts. And for those who find themselves overwhelmed by the size of the nearby sports center, little white hands with pointy fingers are eager to show off the “Olympic pool,” “indoor track,” an ice hockey rink, and dance studio. Did I mention I passed the school’s private ski resort on the way in?