“Clo, I’m sorry.” Quickly he explained. Now he was frantic to get away.
She was clearly disappointed. “Oh, of course I understand, but I was counting on seeing you. It’s been a couple of weeks—you do know that. All right. Go, but let’s have dinner tomorrow night. Promise?”
Richard temporized. “Well, very soon.” He started to leave, but she caught him by the arm and pulled his face down for a kiss.
“Tomorrow night,” she told him firmly.
♦25♦
On the way home from the restaurant, Katie turned over in her mind the conversation she’d had with Edna Burns on her first visit to Dr. Highley. Edna was a born listener. Katie was not given to discussing her personal affairs, but when Edna took the preliminary information, she had clucked sympathetically. Not quite believing her own ears, Katie had heard herself telling Edna all about John.
How much had Vangie told Edna? She’d been going to Westlake since last summer. How much did Edna know about Dr. Fukhito? There was something oddly intimidating about his nervousness. Why should he be nervous?
Katie pulled up in front of her house and decided not to put the car away yet. It was Wednesday and Mrs. Hodges had been here. The house smelled faintly of lemon wax. The mirror over the antique marble table in the hall was shining. Katie knew her bed had been made with fresh linen; the ceramic kitchen tile would be gleaming; the furniture and rugs had been vacuumed; her laundry would be back in the drawers or closet.
Mrs. Hodges had worked full time when John was alive. Now pensioned off, she’d begged for the chance to come in one day a week and take care of “my house.”
It wouldn’t last much longer. It couldn’t. Mrs. Hodges was past seventy now.
Whom would she get when Mrs. Hodges no longer came in? Who would exercise the same care with the valuable bric-a-brac, the antiques, the English furniture, the lovely old Orientals?
“It’s time to sell,” Katie thought. “I know it.”
Taking off her coat, she tossed it on a chair. It was only a quarter of eight. The night loomed long ahead of her. Edna had told her that she lived in Edgeriver. That was less than twenty minutes’ drive away. Suppose she phoned Edna now? Suppose she suggested driving down to see her? Mrs. Fitzgerald had said that Edna was expected at work tomorrow, so she couldn’t be too sick. If Katie was any judge, Edna would love a chance to gossip about Vangie Lewis.
Mrs. Hodges always left a freshly baked cake or pie or muffins in the bread box for Katie. She’d take whatever was there now down to Edna and have a cup of tea with her. A lot of gossip could be exchanged over a teapot.
Edna was listed in the telephone book. Quickly Katie dialed her number. It rang once and the receiver was picked up. She formed the words “Hello, Miss Burns,” but never got to speak them.
A man’s voice said, “Yes.” The short word was delivered in a clipped, not-unfamiliar voice.
“Is Miss Burns there?” Katie asked. “This is Mrs. DeMaio from the Prosecutor’s office.”
“Katie!”
Now she recognized the voice. It was Charley Nugent, and he was saying, “Glad Scott got in touch with you. Can you come right down?”
“Come down?” Afraid of what she’d hear, Katie asked the question: “What are you doing at Edna Burns’s apartment?”
“Don’t you know? She’s dead, Katie. Fell—or was pushed—into the radiator. Split her head open.” His voice lowered. “Get this, Katie. She was last seen alive around eight o’clock last night. A neighbor was with her.” His voice became a whisper. “The neighbor heard her on the phone with Vangie Lewis’ husband. Edna Burns told Chris Lewis that she was going to talk to the police about Vangie’s death.”
♦26♦
After he finished the second Scotch he went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. He had told Hilda not to prepare anything for him tonight, but had given her a long shopping list. He nodded in approval at the new items in the meat drawer: the boneless breasts of chicken, the filet mignon, the double loin lamb chops. Fresh asparagus, tomatoes and watercress were in the vegetable bin. Brie and Jarlsberg were in the cheesebox. Tonight he’d have the lamb chops, asparagus and a watercress salad.
Emotional exhaustion always compelled him to eat. The night Claire died, he’d left the hospital, to all outward appearances a husband benumbed with grief, and had gone to a quiet restaurant a dozen blocks away and eaten heavily. Then he’d trudged home masking an acute sense of well-being with the weary posture of the grief-stricken. The friends who were gathered waiting to greet him, to commiserate with him had been deceived.
“Where were you, Edgar? We were worried about you.”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember. I’ve just been walking.”
It had been the same after Winifred’s death. He’d left her relatives and friends at the grave site, refused invitations to join them for dinner. “No. No. I need to be alone.” He’d come back to the house, waited long enough to answer a few phone calls, then contacted the answering service. “If anyone phones, please explain that I’m resting and that I’ll return all calls later.”
Then he’d gotten into the car and driven to the Carlyle in New York. There he had requested a quiet table and ordered dinner. Halfway through the meal he looked up and saw Winifred’s cousin, Glenn Nickerson, across the room—Glenn, the high school athletic coach who had been Winifred’s heir until he came along. Glenn was dressed in the dark blue suit and black tie he’d worn to the funeral, a bargain-priced, ill-fitting suit obviously bought specially for the occasion. His normal garb was a sports jacket, slacks and loafers.
Nickerson was obviously watching him. He’d lifted his glass in a toast, a mocking smile on his face. He might as well have shouted his thoughts: “To the grieving widower.”
He’d done what was necessary: walked over to him without the slightest sign of distress and spoken pleasantly. “Glenn, why didn’t you join me when you saw I was here? I didn’t realize you came to the Carlyle. This was a favorite dining spot of ours. We became engaged here—or did Winifred ever tell you that? I’m not Jewish, but I think that one of the most beautiful customs in this bewildering world is that of the Jewish faith, where after a death the family eats eggs to symbolize the continuity of life. I am here to quietly celebrate the continuity of love.”
Glenn had stared at him, his expression stony. Then he’d stood up and signaled for his check. “I admire your ability to philosophize, Edgar,” he said. “No. I don’t consider the Carlyle one of my regular eating spots. I simply followed you here because I had decided to visit you and reached your block just as your car pulled out. I had the feeling it might be interesting to keep an eye on you. How right I was.”
He’d turned his back on Glenn, walked with dignity back to his own table and not glanced in his direction again. A few minutes later he’d seen Glenn at the door of the dining room on his way out.
The next week, Alan Levine, the doctor who’d treated Winifred, indignantly told him that Glenn had asked to see Winifred’s medical records.
“I threw him out of my office,” Alan said heatedly. “I told him that Winifred had developed classic angina symptoms and that he would do himself a favor if he studied the current statistics on women in their early fifties’ having heart attacks. Even so, he had the gall to speak to the police. I had a call from the Prosecutor’s office asking in so many words if a heart ailment could be induced. I told them that being alive today was enough to induce heart trouble. They backed off immediately, said it was obviously a disinherited relative trying to cause trouble.”
But you can induce heart trouble, Dr. Levine. You can prepare intimate little dinners for your dear wife. You can use her susceptibility to gastroenteritis to bring on attacks so strong that they register as heart seizures on her cardiogram. After enough of these the lady apparently has a fatal seizure. She dies in the presence of her own physician, who arrives to find the physician husband applying mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. No one suggests an
autopsy. And even if someone had, there would have been little risk.
The only risk would have occurred if they had thought to delve into Claire’s death.
The chops were nearly cooked. He expertly seasoned the watercress, removed the asparagus from the steamer and took a half-bottle of Beaujolais from the wine rack in the pantry.
He had just begun to eat when the phone rang. He debated ignoring it, then decided that at this time it was dangerous to miss any calls. Slapping his napkin on the table, he hurried to the extension in the kitchen. “Dr. Highley” he said curtly.
A sob sounded over the phone. “Doctor—oh, Dr. Highley. It’s Gertrude, Gertrude Fitzgerald. Doctor, I decided to go see Edna on my way home.”
He tightened his grip on the receiver.
“Doctor, Edna is dead. The police are here. She fell. Doctor, could you come here right away? They’re talking about performing an autopsy. She always hated autopsies. She used to say how terrible it was to cut up dead people. Doctor, you know how Edna was when she drank. I told them that you’ve been here in her apartment; that you’ve caught her drinking. Doctor, come here and tell them how you would find her sometimes. Oh, please come here and convince them that she fell and that they don’t have to cut her up.”
♦27♦
Before she left the house, Katie made a cup of tea and carried it to the car. Driving with one hand, she held the bubbling liquid to her lips with the other. She’d planned to bring cake down to Edna and have tea with her. And now Edna was dead.
How could a person she’d met only once have made such an impression on her? Was it simply that Edna was such a good person, so truly concerned with the patients? So many people were so indifferent, so non-caring. In that one conversation with Edna last month, it had been so easy to talk about John.
And Edna had understood. She’d said, “I know what it is to watch someone die. On the one hand, you want the misery to be over for them. On the other hand you don’t want to let them go.” She’d shared the aftermath of loss. “When both Mom and Dad died, all my friends said, ‘Now you’re free, Edna.’ And I said, ‘Free for what?’ And I bet you felt that way too.”
Edna reassured her about Dr. Highley. “You couldn’t find a better doctor for any GYN problem. That’s why it makes me so mad when I hear him criticized. And all those people who file malpractice suits! Let me tell you, I could shoot them myself. That’s the trouble when people think you’re God. They think you can do the impossible. I tell you when a doctor loses a patient today, he has to worry. And I don’t just mean obstetricians. I mean geriatric doctors too. I guess nobody’s supposed to die anymore.”
What had Charley meant by telling her that Edna had phoned Chris Lewis last night? In practically the same breath Charley had suggested the possibility of foul play.
“I don’t believe it,” Katie said aloud as she turned off Route 4 onto Edgeriver. It would be like Edna to call Chris Lewis to express her sympathy. Was Charley suggesting Edna might have in some way threatened Chris Lewis?
She had a vague idea of where the apartment development was and was able to find it easily. She mused that as garden apartments went, this one was getting somewhat rundown. When she sold the house she’d probably move into a high-rise for a while. There were some buildings overlooking the Hudson that had lovely apartments with terraces. And it would be interesting to be near New York. She’d be more likely to go to the theater and museums. When I sell the house, she thought. At what point did if become when?
Charley had told her that Edna’s apartment was the last one in units 41 through 60. He’d said to drive behind that row and park. She slowed down, realizing that a car had entered the development from another road and was pulling into that same area ahead of her. It was a black medium-sized car. For a moment the driver hesitated, then chose the first parking spot available on the right. Katie pulled around him. If Edna’s apartment was the end one on the left, she’d try to get closer to it. She found a spot directly behind that building and parked. She got out of the car, realizing that she must be looking at the back window of Edna’s apartment. The window was raised an inch. The shade was pulled down to the top of a plant. A faint light could be seen from inside the apartment.
Katie thought of the view from her bedroom windows. They looked over the little pond in the woods behind the house. Edna had gazed out at a parking area and a rusting chain-link fence. Yet she had told Katie how much she enjoyed her apartment, how cozy it was.
Katie heard footsteps behind her and turned quickly. In the lonely parking area, any sound seemed menacing. A figure loomed near her, a silhouette accentuated by the dim light from the solitary lamppost. A sense of familiarity struck her.
“Excuse me. I hope I didn’t startle you.” The cultured voice had a faint English accent.
“Dr. Highley!”
“Mrs. DeMaio. We didn’t expect to see each other so soon and under such tragic circumstances.”
“Then you’ve heard. Did my office call you, Doctor?”
“It’s chilly. Here. Let’s take this footpath around the building.” Barely touching her elbow with his hand, he followed her on the path. “Mrs. Fitzgerald called me. She substituted for Miss Burns today and evidently she was the one to find her. She sounded terribly upset and begged me to come. I don’t have any details of what happened as yet.”
“Neither do I,” Katie replied. They were turning the corner to the front of the building when she heard rapid footsteps behind them.
“Katie.”
She felt the pressure of the doctor’s fingers on her elbow tighten and then release as she looked back. Richard was there. She turned, absurdly glad to see him. He grasped both her shoulders. In a gesture that ended even as it began, he pulled her to him. Then his hands dropped. “Scott reached you?”
“No. I happened to call Edna myself. Oh, Richard, this is Dr. Edgar Highley.” Quickly she introduced the two men, and they shook hands.
Katie thought, How absurd this is. I am making introductions and a few feet inside that door a woman is lying dead.
Charley let them in. He looked relieved to see them. “Your people should be here in a couple of minutes,” he told Richard. “We’ve got pictures, but I’d like you to have a look too.”
Katie was used to death. In the course of her job, she constantly held up vivid and gory pictures of crime victims. She was usually able to separate herself from the emotional aspect and concentrate on the legal ramifications of wrongful death.
But it was a different matter to see Edna crumpled against the radiator in the kind of flannel nightgown her own mother considered indispensable; to see the blue terry-cloth robe so like the ones her mother used to pick up on sale at Macy’s; to see the solid evidence of loneliness—the slices of canned ham, the empty cocktail glass.
Edna had been such a cheery person, who found some small measure of happiness in this shabbily furnished apartment, and even the apartment had betrayed her. It had become the scene of her violent death.
Gertrude Fitzgerald was sitting on the old-fashioned velour couch at the opposite end of the L-shaped room, out of sight of the body. She was sobbing softly. Richard went directly into the dinette to examine the dead woman. Katie walked over to Mrs. Fitzgerald and sat beside her on the couch. Dr. Highley followed her and pulled up a straightbacked chair.
Gertrude tried to talk to them. “Oh, Dr. Highley, Mrs. DeMaio, isn’t this terrible, just terrible?” The words brought a fresh burst of sobs. Katie gently put a hand on the trembling shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Fitzgerald. I know you were fond of Miss Burns.”
“She was always so nice. Such fun. She always made me laugh. And maybe she had that little weakness. Everybody has a little weakness, and she never bothered anyone with it. Oh, Dr. Highley, you’ll miss her too.”
Katie watched as the doctor bent over Gertrude, his face grave. “I surely will, Mrs. Fitzgerald. Edna was a marvelously efficient person. She took so much pride in her work. Dr. Fukhito
and I used to joke that she had our patients so relaxed by the time we saw them that she could have put Dr. Fukhito out of his job.”
“Doctor,” Gertrude blurted out, “I told them you’ve been here. I told them that. You knew Edna’s little problem. It’s just silly to say she didn’t fall. Why would anyone want to hurt her?”
Dr. Highley looked at Katie. “Edna suffered from sciatica, and when she was laid up I occasionally dropped off work for her to do at home. Certainly not more than three or four times. On one occasion when she was supposed to be ill, I came here unexpectedly and it was then I realized that she had a serious drinking problem.”
Katie looked past him and realized that Richard had completed examining the body. She got up, walked over to him and looked at Edna. Silently she prayed:
Eternal rest grant unto her, Oh Lord. May legions of angels greet her. May she be conducted to a place of refreshment, light and peace.
Swallowing over the sudden lump in her throat, she quietly asked Richard what he had found.
He shrugged. “Until I have had a chance to see how bad the fracture is, I’d say it could go either way. Certainly it was a hell of a smash, but if she was drunk—and it’s obvious she was—she might have stumbled when she tried to get up. She was a pretty heavy woman. On the other hand, there’s a big difference between being run over by a car and by a train. And that’s the kind of difference we have to evaluate.”
“Any sign of forced entry?” Katie asked Charley.
“None. But these locks are the kind you could spring with a credit card. And if she was as drunk as we think she was, anyone could have walked in on her.”
“Why would anyone walk in on her? What were you telling me about Captain Lewis?”