Killing Cassidy (18 page)

We didn't wait lunch for Doc. He arrived, somewhat breathless and red-faced, just as we were thinking about dessert.

“Decided it was easier to leave the car where it was and walk over,” he explained. “Managed to get rid of the last patient half an hour ago. Kid with measles. They're bad this year; I just hope he didn't give them to everybody else in the office. Oh, and Dorothy, I took a look at Jim's diplomas for you, since you were so het up about his background. He got his B.S. at the University of Virginia and his M.D. at Johns Hopkins. Don't know where he interned.”

He gave his attention to his belated meal while I thought about that. Johns Hopkins was a very fine medical school with a very fine reputation. What was one of their graduates doing in a little backwater like Hillsburg?

I worried at the idea like a dog with a bone, so preoccupied that I don't remember finding our seats in the stadium. The band played, the game began, the crowd grew boisterous. It was only background noise.

Why had he come here? I loved Hillsburg myself, but it was not an obviously attractive place to live, not for a stranger. The standard of living was nothing like as high as in bigger cities. Salaries were moderate. The climate was fairly pleasant, but distinctly chilly for someone from the South.

Did Boland have such a poor academic record that he had to take what he could get? Did Johns Hopkins let students with poor records graduate? And if so, why would Doc turn patients over to him, even occasionally? Or would Doc check the academic record? Wouldn't he just go by the kind of doctor Boland seemed to be?

The crowd stood up and roared, and I stood and roared with them, waving my hat. “Wow! Look at him go!
Touchdown
!”

The crowd quieted. Peggy looked at me and touched her head meaningfully. “Yeah. Touchdown. Pity it was Notre Dame's. Either pay attention or keep your mouth shut, or you'll get lynched. And put your hat on.”

“Oh.” I sat back down and lost myself in thought again.

Maybe Boland had gotten into some kind of trouble while he was in medical school. Something that wouldn't get into his record, but would make it a good idea for him to seek work far afield. Or maybe it had been during his internship. Interns made a lot of mistakes, working on too little sleep and too much caffeine. Or other drugs. At least, that used to be the case. I'd read that conditions had improved somewhat in recent years. When would Boland have been an intern, though? Quite a while ago. Let's see. Suppose he was forty-five. He'd looked about that. Twenty-one when he finished his pre-med, twenty-five when he got his M.D. Twenty years ago, then, he'd been an intern. At least twenty years. He could well be older than forty-five.

The crowd groaned. At least those around me did. I looked up and perceived that the ball soaring past someone's out-stretched hands was a pass that our side had been meant to catch, and hadn't.

“Doc!” I had to shout; he was three seats away. “Doc, when did Dr. Boland finish his internship?”

“Idiot! Butterfingers! What did you say, Dorothy?”

I repeated the question.

“How should I know?”

“Well, I meant, when did he come to Hillsburg? I never heard of him before, but then I never really knew any doctor but you.”

“Oh, he's after your time. Only been here two or three—did you see that? Peg, did you see that? Snatched it away just in the nick of—RUN, you nincompoop!”

The crowd surged to its feet again. The runner, who had apparently gotten the ball from the hands of the enemy, was tackled shortly before he reached the goal line—ours, this time, I was pretty sure. Alan looked at me with raised eyebrows.

“First down. That means Randolph has four tries to make another ten yards. And they're only a little farther than that from the goal line, so if they don't quite make it, they'll probably try for a field goal on the fourth.”

“I see.” He didn't sound sure. I dutifully watched the next play, a depressing one. Randolph was pushed back a good five yards.

“I thought they were moving in that direction.” Alan pointed to our goal.

“They're trying to. That Notre Dame line has some awfully big guys.”

The next two plays accomplished nothing. Randolph kicked and didn't make it. I lost interest again.

So Boland had been in town only a couple of years. That made the matter much more interesting. There were a lot of years of practice to account for in there, a lot of years when something disastrous could have happened. Whatever it was, it must have been a lulu, to make a man leave an established practice and come to a little town in southern Indiana.

By halftime the score was fifteen to nothing, the crowd was despondent, and I had considered every possible iniquity from drug dealing to murder. I tried to ask Doc a couple of questions, but he was too irate over the sins of the Randolph coach to pay much attention, and the band was playing too loudly for us to hear each other, anyway.

I used to enjoy the halftime shows, but either the performance standard had slipped, or I was too preoccupied. Certainly the seat had become very hard. I got up in the middle of a rousing jazz number and shouted in Alan's ear. “I'm getting stiff. I'm going for a walk.”

“Shall I come with you?”

“Not unless you want to.”

“Sure?”

“Sure.”

“I'll stay, then. I'm rather enjoying the show.”

I wasn't sure if he meant the game, or the band, or the crowd, or the whole experience, but it didn't matter, so long as he was having a good time. I squeezed past a long row of fans and made my way to the vast concourse under the stadium seats.

It was crowded with people seeking food or drink or the rest rooms. I found a ladies' room, made a prudent stop, and then resumed pacing. What was Boland's guilty secret? Why had he left town? Where was he?

“Why, Dorothy Martin, as I live and breathe!”

It took me a moment to identify the man who was blocking my way and beaming. Bald as an egg and running to fat, he looked vaguely familiar. …

“Bet you don't recognize me! I've changed a little, I guess, but you haven't. Still the same Polka Dot.”

Now I knew. “Zeke Jasinski! No, I hadn't forgotten, my brain just doesn't work as fast as it used to. You're looking fine!”

“Now, don't try to butter me up. I'm old and bald, and too fat to polka much anymore.”

“I'll bet you still dance at Polish weddings! We used to be pretty good, didn't we?”

“That we did. It was my luck your husband didn't like to dance any more than my wife did.”

“Yes, well …” They were both gone now. It was a subject to avoid. “What are you doing here? I thought you moved away.”

“And so did you. Yeah, I live in Florida now. But I still get season tickets every year. Once a Randolph fan, always a Randolph fan, you know. Not sure why I keep coming, as lousy as the team's been these past few years, but they've got to get better eventually, don't they?”

“I hope so. That first half was pretty dismal.”

An air horn shrieked, cutting through the noise in the concourse.

“Woops! Second half's starting, gotta go. You going anyplace afterward?”

“I'm with some people; I'm not sure.”

“Well, then—great to see you!”

He vanished in the great swirl of people heading for the gangways. Thank goodness he hadn't tried to exchange addresses and insincere promises to stay in touch. I'd enjoyed the Polish weddings Frank and I had attended with the Jasinskis and the boisterous polkas I'd danced with Zeke, but I had no desire to renew our acquaintance.

I shouldn't, I mused as I struggled toward my seat, have been surprised to see him there. Even when one's life changes drastically, when one loses a spouse, or moves far away from home, one tends to keep to the old patterns as much as possible. The habits of a lifetime don't change easily, and there is vast comfort in the familiar. Even after Frank died and I moved to England, I went on reading mysteries, and cooking, and looking after the cats, and going to church, and doing crossword puzzles—the things I'd enjoyed for a lifetime.

An idea began to glimmer. By the time I reached my row, it was shining brightly.

“Doc,” I said, stopping in front of him on my way to my seat, “what did Dr. Boland enjoy doing? What were his hobbies?”

Doc looked up from the program he was scanning in an attempt to find some ray of hope in the lineup. “Hobbies? Don't know. He didn't like sports, I know that. Never went to a football game in his life.”

“Opera, Doc,” put in Peggy. “Good heavens, don't you remember the time he dragged us to that performance of some modern thing? We were bored to tears, but he loved it. Oh, look, here they come.”

The crowd on our side of the stands loyally cheered our outmatched team as they took the field. I cheered right along with them. I'd struck gold.

S
UNDAY
morning, as soon as Alan and I got back from church, I asked Peggy about her plans for the day.

“No plans. I'm going to lie around the house and do as close to nothing as I can manage. Meals of leftovers whenever anyone wants to raid the refrigerator. Why, did you have something in mind?”

“I thought Alan and I might drive up to Bloomington. It's a beautiful day and I'd like him to see the IU campus. IU is Indiana University, Alan. But, Peggy, I'm embarrassed about treating your house like a hotel. I don't suppose you and Doc would like to come with us?”

“Thanks, but no thanks. I'm pooped, and Doc is still crabby about the game. Go and enjoy yourselves, and don't come back till you feel like it. You've got the key.”

It was a pretty drive. I took the back roads through the rolling southern Indiana hills I love so much. We saw tobacco hung up to dry in barns; I pointed it out to Alan.

“I had no idea it grew this far north,” he commented.

“This part of Indiana's pretty southern in many ways. I feel sorry for the Indiana tobacco farmers, though. They didn't make a lot of money at the best of times, and with the demand for tobacco falling off, the little guys are the first to be hurt. The stuff's a scourge, of course, but it seems like someone ought to think of some way to help the farmers whose livelihood depends on it.”

Alan sighed. He still missed the pipe he'd given up only a few months before. “It would be a boon, not only to them, but to mankind, if they could render the wretched stuff harmless.”

I smiled. “I think it was one of Elizabeth Peters's characters who decided that heaven was a place where you could smoke and not get lung cancer.”

“Or emphysema, or congestive heart failure, or any of the other ills that tobacco-poisoned flesh is heir to. Dorothy, what are you up to?”

I guess I jumped at that; the car swerved a little on the steep hill. I slowed and brought it back under control.

“What do you mean, up to?”

“Yesterday you were panting to follow the trail of the bolted Dr. Boland. You resented every moment you had to spend at that remarkable exercise in sport. Today you decide to leave town on an ostensible pleasure jaunt. I agree the drive is pleasant, but you are up to something.”

“You know me too well, that's the trouble. All right, if you must know, I discovered yesterday a trail I could follow, and I'm following it.”

“And what sort of trail is that?”

“I'm not going to tell you until it works. If it does. Look at the corn shocks in that field! You sure don't see those much anymore.”

Alan smiled appreciatively, though I wasn't certain whether it was at the cornfield or at my attempt at diversion.

We arrived in Bloomington just before noon and, after a quick lunch, drove to campus. “There's no point trying to drive around the university, even on a Sunday,” I told Alan. “Too crowded. We'll just go straight to the MAC and see if we can park on the street near there.”

“What's the MAC?”

“The Musical Arts Center. A big opera house founded, in part, by Hoagie Carmichael.”

I looked at him, checking for recognition. He smiled in delighted surprise.” ‘Stardust'? ‘Up a Lazy River'? ‘Old Man Moon'?

“That's the guy. I didn't know you liked that kind of music.”

“I grew up on it. Especially ‘Stardust.' I fell in love once to ‘Stardust.' The romance didn't last long, but my love for the music did. What did Hoagie Carmichael have to do with the University of Indiana?”

“Indiana University. He's one of their most famous sons. He was a student here. Not a music student; he never learned to read music. I think he studied law or something. But he's supposed to have written ‘Stardust' in the Book Nook, a student hangout, and his name is forever associated with this campus. That's why he gave a lot of money to help build the MAC. His funeral was even held in the lobby.”

We parked easily. “Good. There isn't a performance this afternoon.”

“But what an enormous building! Surely a university performance couldn't draw a big enough audience to fill a place this size.”

“We're not talking amateur hour here,” I said patiently. “The Indiana University Opera Theatre is famous. Eileen Farrell used to teach here, you know, and the students are so good the Met holds auditions for new talent, right here on campus, every year.”

“Good heavens.” We had gotten out of the car and wandered up to the front of the building. The place was shut up tight, but there were posters listing the operas scheduled for the season. Alan read them off.
“The Rake's Progress. Rigoletto. L'Elisir d'amore. The Magic Flute. Tosca
. That's a demanding season.”

“
The Rake's Progress
. Excellent! And it opens on Thursday. We're going to that performance, Alan.”

“Stravinsky? Now, Dorothy, I'm not sure I—”