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Authors: Robin Hathaway

BOOK: The Doctor and the Dead Man's Chest
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Fenimore shook his head.
“There was one joke that was so gruesome, it became a legend in Winston,” Lydia said. “He was courting a young woman in the town—Mary Freehold was her name. Quite a beauty, the story goes. One day Nathan caught her stepping out with a rival, and he became fiercely jealous. It was near Valentine's Day, so he sent her a Valentine present. When the young woman opened it, her screams could be heard across the county.”
“What was it?”
“A calf's heart with an arrow through it. And the arrow … was broken.”
“Whew!”
“Shortly afterwards, he went to sea and wasn't heard of for years. When he retired, he lived out his days, practically a hermit, in that cottage on our property.”
“Is this story well known?”
“Oh, yes, it's part of Winston's history, passed on from generation to generation. The locals still stay clear of that cottage—especially at night.”
Fenimore retrieved his pipe. “I want you and Susan to come back to the city. It isn't safe for you to stay down here.”
“Oh, but Andrew, that's impossible. There's the Strawberry Festival next week and …”
“Strawberry Festival?”
“Yes. It's the most important event of the year at Winston. I always supply the grounds, and this year I'm the chairperson.”
“Aren't you also working on the Colonial Society
Quarterly?
” He had noticed the galley proofs on her desk. “And you still have to prepare for their annual meeting. Lydia, you're doing entirely
too much. Don't you ever think of your health?” He was suddenly all physician.
“Now, Andrew, you dropped by today as my friend, not my doctor.”
“Are you taking your medicines?” he persisted. Although a paragon of organizational efficiency when it came to running the Colonial Society—or a Strawberry Festival—he was afraid remembering to take her medicine twice a day was beyond her. This was dangerous. The control of her heart condition depended on the careful, daily intake of two powerful medicines.
“Of course.”
There were certain common, cardiac medicines that were dangerous for Lydia to take. They might cause attacks of abnormal heartbeats. A year ago, while visiting Baltimore, a doctor unfamiliar with her medical history had innocently prescribed quinidine and triggered one such attack. Fenimore had been called in the nick of time to straighten things out. Lydia had almost died.
“I wish you'd prescribe a tonic for me instead,” Lydia pleaded. “One of those good old-fashioned kind like my grandmother used to take. Sulphur and molasses! That was it.”
“You don't need a tonic, Lydia. You need a slow cruise to a desert island where there's nothing to manage or organize.” He sighed. “But knowing you, in half a week you'd have founded a society for some endangered species or launched an exotic bird sanctuary.”
“I know, Andrew.” Her face lit up. “Why don't you come down for the Strawberry Festival? It's a wonderful old-fashioned party. You could keep an eye on Susan and me, and at the same time look for clues to the Ashley mystery.”
“Lydia!” He treated her to his fiercest look. Having gotten her fears off her chest, she seemed to feel she had also eliminated the danger.
“Bring a girlfriend,” she added playfully. For years she had been trying to marry him off.
Fenimore considered the invitation. It would be a good opportunity to examine her neighbors again. Everyone would be relaxed and off guard. And maybe he could borrow her motorboat and get a better look at his own property. “Well …”
“Fine. I'll expect you, then. It's next Saturday, from noon till sunset.” Lydia rose, and Fenimore realized their conversation had come to an end.
After a brief search, he found Horatio in the kitchen enjoying some cream puffs while Agatha Jenks looked on indulgently.
“I thought you were with Susan and Peter,” Fenimore said.
“I was,” he said, “but I can't dive. I can't even swim. I got bored just watching them and came in here.” He grinned winningly at Agatha.
Fenimore was reminded that Horatio lived in a project, euphemistically called “The Mifflin Estates,” and had not been swimming very often.
On the way to the car, Lydia told Fenimore not to worry.
“If anything comes up, promise to call me immediately,” he said.
She agreed. But as Fenimore drove away, he felt uneasy.
Taking advantage of his employer's preoccupation, Horatio neglected to switch to the Mozart tape.
B
ack in the city, Fenimore dropped Horatio at the office. Then he went to the hospital. After checking on his more critical patients, he stopped by the lab to leave the blood sample he had taken from Lydia's trough. By the time he returned to his town house on Spruce Street, it was late afternoon. He found a parking space a few blocks away.
The sidewalks leading to Fenimore's house were made of rust-colored bricks set in a herringbone pattern. That's probably where his liking for bricks had begun—walking on them since he was a child. So much of Philadelphia was made of brick, at one time it was called “Brickadelphia.”
But when he was a child, the bricks had been a nuisance. Too uneven and bumpy for roller-skating or biking. For those pleasures he had had to seek out smoother, cement sidewalks many blocks away. But today he loved the worn, pockmarked bricks that turned a deep purple in the shade. And there was plenty of shade. One of the charms of Philadelphia streets was the old shade trees that lined them—maples, sycamores, and lindens. At dusk, when the shadows deepened, hiding the litter and graffiti, you could imagine what the city had been like in its heyday.
Each house on Spruce Street had a set of marble steps, a wrought-iron railing, and a foot-scraper-that relic from a time before streets were paved, and muddy boots were the bane of every housekeeper. The neighborhood was fashionable then. But as people moved to the suburbs, it had gradually begun to slide. In the eighties it hit rock bottom. By then most of the private residences had been converted to apartments, and some had disintegrated into shabby rooming houses. But Fenimore had stayed on in the house where he grew up—living and working.
He began his practice as an internist/cardiologist. His father had practiced general medicine there before him, and when he died, Fenimore had inherited many of his father's patients. Now most of them had either passed away or moved to the suburbs to be near their children. But when they became sick, some of them still badgered their children to bring them back to see him—out of loyalty to his father, and to him. Although only forty-five, Fenimore was famous for his image as an old-fashioned doctor. He insisted on remaining in solo practice like his father. And he still made house calls. But it was becoming harder and harder. With most patients joining HMOs, his private practice was shrinking. The patients who remained, though, were loyal, and he had never had a malpractice suit.
As he climbed his marble steps he noticed that the sign in his front window—ANDREW B. FENIMORE, M.D.—was crooked. For the hundredth time, he made a mental note to fix it, and for the hundredth time, forgot it the minute he stepped inside.
The walk had warmed him. The coolness of the dim hall was welcome. Sal, his marmalade cat, sidled out of a dark doorway, acting nonchalant—as if she had not been anxiously waiting for him for the past hour. Suddenly, dropping all pretence, she rubbed up against his ankle. He reached down and scratched between her ears. Continuing down the narrow hall, he passed his waiting room, and entered his outer office.
“Oh, hello, Doctor.” His nurse looked up from her desk with the same hypocritical nonchalance as his cat.
“What are you doing here, Mrs. Doyle?” He removed his jacket and began picking through his mail. “ … on such a beautiful, spring Saturday.”
“Beautiful, my eye. It's hotter than Hades. Everyone knows Philadelphia doesn't believe in spring. Jumps from winter to summer.
“You could get an air conditioner,” he said. They had had this discussion before.
“You know how I hate those things. Work of the devil. Gets my arthritis going and my sinuses besides.”
“If you're such a physical wreck, you should come see me sometime.”
Mrs. Doyle never went to doctors. No insult intended. She preferred treating herself with old-fashioned home remedies, usually with amazingly good results, to Fenimore's chagrin. But then, he reassured himself, she was one of those hardy types who never had anything more serious the matter with her than the common cold.
“Hey, Doc!” Horatio emerged from the waiting room.
“You still here?”
“Look what just came.” Horatio held out a brown box.
“What's that?”
“Your new pager. You're finally wired.” Horatio raised a thumb in approval.
Fenimore groaned.
“Don't worry,” Horatio said. “I've read the booklet. I'll have it up and running in no time.”
Fenimore peered into the box as if fearing the contents would jump out and bite him.
“Look.” Horatio drew the small object from its wrappings and showed the doctor the tiny screen with the row of buttons on top. “Mrs. Doyle,” the boy looked over at the nurse, “call this number on the outside line.” He gave her the pager number. She dialed. Instantaneously, the screen lit up displaying the office number, and the room was filled with a series of short, sharp bleats.
“Now you can leave town with a free mind,” Mrs. Doyle said, nodding approvingly.
Fenimore eyed it suspiciously. Why was everyone conspiring to push him into the electronic age? Even Doyle, who wouldn't hear of having a word processor. She hung onto her vintage '50s typewriter like a drowning person to a life raft.
Sal began examining the empty box and its wrappings. Poking her head inside, her tail switched madly.
“See, even Sal is suspicious of it,” Fenimore said with satisfaction.
The cat re-emerged with bits of white Styrofoam clinging to her whiskers. They all laughed. Fenimore hastily brushed the bits off. Turning her back on them, the cat left in high dudgeon.
“I'll set it up for you, Doc.” Horatio disappeared into Fenimore's inner office with the pager.
“You'll get used to it, Doctor,” Mrs. Doyle said, and moved on to more important matters. “Mrs. Haggerty needs a prescription. How that woman goes on. Kept me on the phone with her symptoms for ten minutes. And Mrs. Weinberg called. Her father had another dizzy spell. Oh, and Detective Rafferty wants to know if you're free for dinner.”
Fenimore took the handful of pink slips from her and began returning his calls. When he came to Rafferty, his good friend and Chief of the Detective Division, he said, “Glad you called. Something's come up I want to talk to you about.”
Mrs. Doyle was instantly alert. But no further elucidation was forthcoming, other than that he would meet Rafferty at seven at the Raven.
Fenimore kicked off his shoes and stretched out in his battered armchair. Mrs. Doyle noticed that his socks didn't match—one black, one brown—but decided not to mention it. It never did any good. Besides, mismatched socks was the least of his failings. His suits were always wrinkled, his jacket pockets bulging with prescription pads and leaky ballpoint pens. And Mrs. Doyle couldn't remember when she had last been able to close the briefcase
that had replaced his traditional doctor's bag. Something was always hanging outside—usually his stethoscope.
No longer able to contain herself, Mrs. Doyle blurted, “How was it?”
He stared, wondering if she were psychic.
“Your land,” she prodded. “What's it look like?”
“Oh, that.” He had almost forgotten the reason for his trip to south Jersey. “About what you'd expect.” He shrugged. “Flat, wet, muddy.”
She looked crestfallen.
“You can explore it better by boat than on foot,” he said. “I'm going to borrow a boat from Lydia Ashley next Saturday.”
“You saw Mrs. Ashley?” Mrs. Doyle knew Lydia from her office visits.
“Her farm's near the Smith tract, so we dropped by.” He flipped the warning note that Lydia had received onto Mrs. Doyle's desk.
When her face registered a suitable expression of shock, he went on to tell her the whole story: Lydia's distracted behavior on the house tour. The sealed windows. The “practical joke.” The photograph with the ugly message scrawled on the back. And, finally, his interview with Lydia in her study.
When he had finished, she asked, “Are you taking the case, Doctor?” The minute the words were out, she regretted them.
“Case, Mrs. Doyle?” He looked askance. “This is just an opportunity for a little mental exercise.”
Whenever he embarked on a new case, Fenimore treated it like a child's riddle or puzzle. It was as if he were ashamed of his avocation, even though he had successfully solved half a dozen cases (with her help) in the Philadelphia area. But Mrs. Doyle knew how to handle him. “Very well, I'll leave it to you, then. You know how I hate ‘exercise.'” She pulled a pile of insurance forms toward her.
Fenimore shuffled over to the small refrigerator in which he kept his blood and urine specimens. Despite the new OSHA regulations, he still saved one corner for a few cans of Coke. He
popped the tab without offering any to his nurse. She disapproved of sodas. (Probably one of the reasons she was so damned healthy.) He took a deep draught. “Well, what d'ya think?” he said. She took her time, gnawing on her pencil.
He waited patiently. Mrs. Doyle had a knack for pouncing on the one significant detail that everyone else, including himself (although he would never admit it) tended to overlook.
“That trash disposal plant sounds fishy to me,” she said.
He nodded. Of course, the disposal plant was just a smoke screen (literally as well as figuratively).
“There must be some other reason why they want her land,” she continued. “No one would go to all that trouble and risk unless the stakes were pretty high. Whoever's behind this must be desperate.” She was getting wound up. “Doctor, do you think it's safe for those two women to be down there alone? What if someone tries to wipe them out!”
He winced at her TV vernacular. She spent entirely too much time in front of the tube. “Now, now, Mrs. Doyle, let's not overdramatize.” Fenimore got up, walked around the room once, moved two piles of papers to new locations, and sat down again. “Of course it isn't safe,” he said, “but I couldn't persuade her to come back to town.”
Mrs. Doyle nodded. She was familiar with Lydia Ashley's stubborn streak where her own welfare was concerned. “What are you going to do?”
He told her about the Strawberry Festival next Saturday. They both remained silent, thinking how much could go wrong in a week. “It's the best I could do, Doyle,” he burst out. “Lydia Ashley is a mature adult, of sound mind, with constitutional rights. I couldn't drag her back to town by the hair.”
His nurse smiled inwardly. When he called her “Doyle,” that was the signal they were on a case. They had just switched hats—from doctor and nurse to Sherlock and Watson. As soon as the case was solved she would become
Mrs.
Doyle again.
Sensing that the doctor wanted to be alone to think about the
morning's events, Mrs. Doyle gathered up her things. “See you, Monday,” she murmured, and quietly let herself out. So great was her exhilaration, she barely noticed the heat as she hurried to the bus stop.
After Mrs. Doyle left, the office took on the somnolence of a sultry Saturday in the city. A few muted traffic sounds and the footsteps of an occasional passerby were all that disturbed the tranquility. Fenimore sat pondering his nurse's remarks. He valued her judgment, but this time, he decided, she was being melodramatic. He blamed this excess on her heavy diet of TV and those romance novels she insisted on reading. The comfortable chair and the warm afternoon combined to make him drowsy. His eyes closed.
“You're all set!”
Fenimore jumped. He had completely forgotten Horatio. The boy had been sequestered in the doctor's inner office all this time diligently working on his pager.
“All your patients' phone numbers are stored in here.” He tapped the pager. Reaching over, he clipped it to his employer's belt.
Fenimore looked at it ruefully. Next they'd insist that he buy a cell phone and he'd crack up the car listening to Mrs. Haggerty's latest symptoms. Remembering his manners, however, he said, “Thanks, Rat.”
The boy left, glowing with his accomplishment.

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