Rx murder, p.10
Rx Murder, page 10
As soon as we adjourned the meeting Ken gave me a quick, angry look, then made a beeline for his consultation room and closed the door behind him.
My foot ached from the hole I’d just shot through it.
7
The rain was still falling as I headed home. I stopped at the Everything Store to buy some cleaning supplies. While there I passed a cage full of not-quite-baby chicks, probably left over from Easter. I stopped and listened to them go cheep-cheep-cheep.
How about that? They were talking about Ken.
I’d called the insurance company and they’d said they’d have an adjustor out this afternoon. Sure enough, when I returned to the condo, he was waiting by the door. It felt like a swamp inside. My feet squished on the carpet. I hung around till he’d taken his photos and made his notes. He said the company would get back to me soon.
When he was gone I looked around and knew I couldn’t stay here. I hated to do it, but I hit 3 on my speed dial. I told my mother the story and she was delighted to have me stay. She’d get my old room ready for me right away.
“Thanks, Mum. And I’m going to fix you and Timmy dinner tonight. Steaks on the grill.”
After turning down Donna’s invitation to Morton’s Steakhouse yesterday, I’d developed this huge craving for red meat.
“Oh, you don’t have to do that. You’ve enough to deal with as it is.”
“I want to do it. I’ll bring all the fixings, you just save your appetites.”
“Well… all right, if you really want to… but I’ll do dessert.”
“You’ve got a deal.”
I packed a bag of basics and essentials from my closet that I hoped would hold me. Tom showed up with the wet vac as I was leaving. That would help some.
At the Safeway I picked out a big London broil—I had a new marinade I wanted to try and a new way of cooking it I’d seen it on the Cooking Channel—I watch it like some men watch porn—that had looked delicious.
This was going to be good. When someone hands you a lemon, make lemonade, right?
8
The rain had stopped but I stayed in my warm-up and arrived with my suitcase and a full grocery bag. Timmy was there and took the suitcase to my old room at the rear of the first floor. I found my way to the kitchen, set the bag on the counter, and pulled out the steak to oohs and ahs from Mum. Steak had never been my father’s thing. Not a lot of steak in Italian cooking.
His name had been Rocco and everyone called him Rocky. Except me. I called him Babbo. A big, barrel-chested guy, with thick black hair, thick eyebrows, and a thick waist.
I remember a time when I was about ten years old: We were all at a funeral at St. Catherine’s and Dad was outside, wearing his only suit and his dark glasses, standing with his arms crossed across his chest as he scanned the street. He looked like a bodyguard. One of the kids at the funeral asked me in a hushed tone if my dad was “connected.”
As a member of the Baltimore City Fire Department, mostly working the day shift, he got home around six every night and had to eat my mother’s cooking. I don’t know how he did it, because Dad was a super cook. I guess that’s what love is about.
But on weekends, once the odd jobs and yard work were taken care of—and you’ve gotta know our lawn was perfect—he’d hit the kitchen.
I remember coming home Saturday afternoons to a house redolent of sautéing garlic and onions, bubbling tomato sauce, and frying meat. I’d go to the kitchen and there would be Dad, this big man wearing a tomato-stained apron, hovering over huge, steaming pots of spaghetti sauce—he called it gravy—that he’d pour into quart containers and freeze for later.
His stints in the kitchen were always peppered with Italian curses. He emigrated from Italy as a child and grew up in a bilingual house, so he often broke into Italian when he was mad or had cut himself.
Sometimes now, when I visit, I can stand in the kitchen and still hear him yell Stunad! at himself.
Dad’s meatballs were his pièce de résistance. He must have shown me half a million times how he made them—double-ground beef, a little ground veal, a little ground pork, an egg, a pinch of oregano, a smidgen of garlic, breadcrumbs, a dusting of salt and fresh-ground pepper—the man wouldn’t know a teaspoon or a measuring cup if it hit him in the head—and bada-bing, bada-boom, there you’d have it.
Well, there he’d have it. No matter how many times I’ve tried to duplicate Dad’s recipe, I can never get my meatballs to taste like his.
Maybe that was because he’d fry them in lard. Yes, lard. I think that was a big part of the secret. He’d cook them until they were just a tad crispy on the outside and soft and juicy on the inside. On Sundays he’d add a couple to a plate of capellini topped off with his homemade gravy and fresh-ground Romano… mama mia.
Is it any wonder I wound up a balena?
I’m sure those meatballs were a big part of why Dad’s heart quit pumping at age sixty. Might as well inject fat directly into the coronary arteries.
But God they were good.
I looked up and found Timmy staring at me.
“Thinking about your dad?”
I nodded, suddenly tight in the throat. “I wish he was here.”
Timmy nodded as he went to work pulling the cork on the big bottle of cabernet I’d brought along. “A good man, Rocky. We got into such a row when I learned he’d asked Kate to marry him. I wasn’t going to allow some guinea bastard to marry my cousin. We almost came to blows.” He shook his head. “What a dumb-ass I was. He was the best thing ever happened to her. What laughs he and I used to have together. A shame he’s gone.”
Laughs… yeah, I remember my babbo being such a happy man. He had his wife, his kids, his house, and Corrado, his best friend from the old country who was also my godfather. But somewhere around when I was twelve or thirteen or so, he changed. His buddy Corrado ran off without a word, abandoning his sick wife and his daughter and it crushed dad. He felt betrayed that his best friend would do such a thing. He never forgave Corrado. Wouldn’t even speak his name after that.
I still have dreams of my father. I still hear my mother’s voice telling me how he cried the day I left for New York… cried for a week, she said.
I remember how she got on my case about how I could have had a scholarship to any college, how I could have gone to Johns Hopkins right there in Baltimore. But I couldn’t have. They’d have expected me home every weekend, and I’d have felt guilty if I didn’t go. I’d have no breakaway, and I’d needed the break.
Then he wasn’t there anymore…
I didn’t trust myself to speak—what was going on with me?—so I grabbed a bottle of olive oil and poured some over the steak.
“What are you doing?” Mum cried. “That’s a steak, not a salad!”
“Just trust me, Mum. This’ll be great.”
I then took the wine bottle and poured about half a cup onto the meat.
“Wine! Will you look at this, Timmy. My little girl’s gone daft! She’s drowning the meat in wine!”
“I wouldn’t mind drowning in wine myself,” Timmy said, then wandered back to the TV to watch Business Center on CNBC.
I added pepper and rosemary and salt, then turned the steak over and did the same. I covered the dish with aluminum foil and put it aside.
I had some wine, then lit the grill outside. I helped Mum make a chopped salad, then took the steak to the fire. After searing it on both sides, I caused more consternation in the kitchen by putting it in the oven for a few minutes. But it turned out delicious. Everyone thought I was a genius.
Dessert was Mum’s traditional bananas and sugar, followed by coffee generously laced with Bailey’s.
I wasn’t driving, so why not?
9
After dinner I felt a bit tipsy, so I decided to turn in early.
My old room… I never thought I’d be back here. The dresser was the same mahogany monstrosity I’d used from the time I could remember till the time I moved out.
The memory of Marge’s pale dead face had receded during dinner, but it sidled back while I was getting undressed, leaving me chin deep in melancholy. On my way to the bathroom I stopped by the family’s old upright piano in the living room—right next to the never-straight landscape painting. I remembered all those hours of lessons and Marge sitting beside me, coaching me.
I sat down and played a few soft chords, then played very sloppy versions of “Fur Elise” and “Au Clair de la Lune” from pure muscle memory. I appreciated more than ever how she’d touched my life… was continuing to touch me through the music I could still play.
I crawled into bed and pulled the covers up to my chin. Tears began rolling down my cheeks and I had myself a good cry.
Before falling off to sleep, I saw this faint, misty glow, maybe three feet high and a foot wide, hovering beside my bed. And I thought I heard a voice speaking to me.
Norrie… don’t you recognize your Babbo?
Babbo? That was the name I called my father as a child.
It’s the wine and the Bailey’s, I thought, and then I was gone.
FRIDAY
1
I began the day with an achy, foggy head. I have a fairly efficient liver, but I challenged it last night. I’d hallucinated a glow in my room, and all through the night I kept thinking I heard a voice whispering my name.
I forced myself into a quick jog to clear my head, then headed for the hospital in a black pantsuit with a white blouse. Mum had yet to show by the time I left.
I have Friday mornings off, so I could have stayed in bed, but I wanted to check on Amelia Henderson myself.
I’d much prefer to work the morning session on Friday and have the afternoon and evening off, but that wasn’t going to happen for the one with least seniority.
The size of the LFPA office is such that only two doctors can work at once. We divide each day into two sessions: an early—eight to one—and a late—two to whenever. Ken and I each work seven sessions a week and alternate Saturday mornings. Sam works five sessions a week and no Saturdays. All three of us rotate weekend call. The only time we don’t have two doctors working is Friday’s late session. That’s mine alone.
Of course, when one of us gets sick or goes on vacation, we shift around and work extra sessions to keep everything covered.
I found little old Amelia Henderson sitting bedside, dressed in her pink frilly robe and pink slippers, but she still needed her oxygen
Beth perched on the edge of one of the chairs, her purse clutched with both hands atop her locked knees.
Both Amelia and Beth were looking better. The former had more color in her cheeks and the latter more color in her hair. Beth looked more rested, and better dressed. She’d traded the house dress for tan slacks and a checkered blouse. And she’d had her nails done—something I desperately needed. I guessed she’d taken advantage of having no one to care for to get a little care for herself.
Even the most devoted daughter needs a break now and then.
“You’re here early,” I said to Beth.
“I was hoping to take Mom home.”
Now here was an optimistic lady.
I turned to Amelia. “You’re looking better this morning, but as long as you need that oxygen, I can’t let you go.”
Her face fell. “Oh.”
Always quick with the platitude I said, “Better safe than sorry.”
“Yes, Mom,” Beth said. “Another day or two won’t hurt.”
As I was typing the progress note into the hospital tablet, Beth said, “Terrible about poor Marge Harris.”
My fingers stopped on their own. Yes, poor Marge. I’d done some heavy thinking about her during my jog. I still didn’t understand how she’d had a second major reaction in the space of forty-eight hours.
“Tragic,” I said.
Beth lifted her chin. “Well, at least she was spared the humiliation of learning that her husband has been making a fool of her.”
So there it was, right out in the open. Or was it? Stan had asked me out to dinner, but…
“Do you know that for a fact, Beth, or is it just something you heard?”
She sniffed. “I assure you, I am not in the habit of spreading gossip.”
Like hell. Beth was the town crier.
“Then how—?”
“When you see a married man driving out of the parking lot of the Starlight Motel with a woman beside him, and that woman is not his wife, I think it’s a safe assumption that he’s up to no good. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes, I would. Did you recognize the woman?”
She shook her head. “No, it happened too quickly.”
That probably meant someone from out of town. Not many people in Lebanon on whom Beth didn’t have the proverbial skinny.
“What I can tell you,” she added, “is that she most definitely was not Marge Harris.” She sighed. “I’m just glad the poor woman never knew. But it would have been only a matter of time before she did.”
She was right about that. The Starlight was a small single-level motel a ways south of town on 206. If Stan had been driving in and out of nearby motels with his paramour, Beth Henderson certainly wasn’t the only one to know.
But I think Beth was wrong about Marge not knowing. I was pretty sure she knew something. Maybe not who, maybe not when and where, but she must have had strong suspicions. That would explain her frosty attitude toward Stan.
But how did all that fit in with the mysterious 9-1-1 call Trav had mentioned? Or why Marge’s death had become a coroner’s case?
I guessed I’d have to wait and see.
2
I returned to the old place and my old room where I changed into a navy blue nylon warm-up for a tennis match. You didn’t think I’d wear white shorts or one of those cute little skirts, did you?
And that got me thinking again about Tezinex. Damn it, I was going to try it. I’d call Donna today and get some samples.
I was halfway into the pants when my cell phone rang. Giselle, calling from the office.
“Dr. Norrie? I have someone from the sheriff’s department on the line. He says he knows you and needs to speak to you.”
“Who is it?”
“Deputy Travis Lawton. He was here—”
“I know him, Giselle. Put him through.”
Travis came on the line and we exchanged the obligatory hellos and how-are-yous.
Then he said, “You know, I wanted to contact you and realized I had no idea where you live. Plus your phone is unlisted. I could have pulled the deputy sheriff thing on the phone company, but figured it’d be easier and quicker to call your office.”
I had a feeling this had something to do with Marge, but I kept it light.
“I’m speaking to you from my Fortress of Solitude—actually, the old family home.” I gave him a quick rundown of the flood and he was properly sympathetic. “What’s up?”
“It’s about Marge Harris.”
Knew it.
“What about her?”
“Can we meet someplace to talk?”
I had about thirty minutes before I was due to hook up with the other three women in the doubles group. I’m a sub—I didn’t want to commit to playing every Friday morning—and I fill in when one of the four regulars can’t make it. This was one of those mornings.
“How about at the tennis center?” I said. “I can be there in about ten minutes.”
“So can I. See you there.”
“What’s this about?”
“A couple of things. One’s about Marge, but the other’s about you.”
“Oh?”
“Talk to you at the tennis center.”
If he’d wanted to grab my attention, he’d succeeded. I hung up, pulled on the warm-up jacket, and hurried for my car.
3
When I arrived, Travis was already there, his sheriff’s department cruiser parked in a corner of the lot. The white bubble dome of the tennis center loomed behind him like a giant turkey breast. He stepped out as I pulled in next to him. We met between the two cars.
He looked good in his starched, pressed uniform. He asked me a few questions about playing tennis, none of which I cared to answer, but did. I wanted to get to the meat.
Finally I said, “What’s going on with Marge?”
He rubbed his jaw. “I’m not sure. But I wanted to ask you a sort of medical question.”
I figured I could answer a medical question. But a “sort of medical” question?
“Shoot.”
“The ME autopsied her and says he found only coffee and banana in her stomach.”
“Nothing that might have contained peanuts?”
He shook his head. “Coffee and banana—nothing else.”
“That’s weird.”
“Yeah, I know. So my question is, could the second reaction have been caused by or be a holdover from or somehow be related to the first?”
I’d been asking myself the same question. And now with no evidence that she’d ingested another peanut product, it loomed disturbingly larger.
“It’s unlikely, but not impossible.”
He made a face. “That’s not what I was looking for. I could use a clear yes or no.”
“There aren’t any absolutes in medicine, Trav. A body can react the same way nine-hundred-ninety-nine times in a row, and then do something different on the thousandth. Every doctor has seen it happen. You can prescribe, say, amoxicillin for someone who’s had it a hundred times in the past fifty years with no problem, and then on the hundred-and-first time he breaks out in a rash. The reason is that somewhere between the hundredth and hundred-and-first exposures his immune system became sensitized to something on the amoxicillin molecule. Why, we can’t say. Sometimes stuff just happens.”
His frowned deepened. “Then you’re telling me she could have had a reaction to coffee or the banana?”
“I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying that it’s unlikely—highly unlikely—that Marge would have a second reaction without exposure to peanuts while she was on the dose of prednisone and other meds I’d prescribed for her. But I can’t say it’s impossible.”
