The Secret Lives of Dentists

by W. A. Winter

  He will say nothing about the case to her tonight and hope there will be reason to arrest Bud Montgomery in the morning.

  Responding to a sudden inclination that he attributes to self-preservation, the driver decides to skip the Palace and proceed instead across the river and onto the University of Minnesota’s East Bank campus. School is still in session, which means there will be a lot of girls around, strolling down the streets in twos or threes or on the arms of boyfriends, or lounging in front of one of the bookstores or at the soda fountain in Gray’s drugstore in Dinkytown.

  He finds a parking spot a few doors down from the drugstore and grabs the last free stool at the lunch counter. He picks up the Star’s first evening edition, orders a cup of coffee and a slice of devil’s-food cake, and reads about the young woman found murdered early this morning in south Minneapolis.

  Besides the woman’s name, age, and address, the brief article at the top of the front page has little information. Teresa Marie Hickman was the wife of Army Private Harold V. Hickman, who is reportedly en route to Minneapolis on emergency furlough from West Germany, and the mother of an eighteen-month-old child, Harold Hickman Junior. She was a graduate of Dollar High School, in Dollar, North Dakota, was living with her sister and brother-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Montgomery, until she could find permanent lodging, and worked part-time at the Palace Luncheonette on Nicollet Avenue.

  Teresa Marie Hickman. He’d guessed the girl’s name was either Susan or Sally—who knows why? Unlike most girls who catch his fancy, this one didn’t remind him of anyone else, say one of the neighborhood girls he’d followed around or stared at during Mass at Holy Name, or one of the nubile teens Margaret has once in a while hired to watch their younger kids. A couple of them have been Susans and at least one was a Sally.

  According to the paper, the police are saying nothing about the investigation, other than that all available personnel have been assigned to the case. An MPD bigwig, Inspector Edwin Evangelist (speaking of names!), is quoted as saying, “This heinous crime will be promptly solved, and its perpetrator will be apprehended. The citizens of Minneapolis can count on us.”

  An even shorter story, enclosed in a box alongside the main story and carrying a United Press byline, describes the “shock, bewilderment, and outrage” of the “sleepy” Linden Hills neighborhood where the victim’s body was found. Gerald Bergen, who lives on West Forty-fourth Street, found the body alongside the streetcar tracks behind an apartment building while walking his dog, a six-year-old Dalmatian named Jocko, shortly after dawn this morning. Bergen told the reporter that he at first mistook the body for an “armload of old clothes.” A traveling pharmaceuticals salesman, Bergen says he saw no one else out and about at the time, approximately six-fifteen a.m.

  Other residents said they couldn’t recall the last homicide in the neighborhood, although there’d been a couple of suicides and at least one accidental drowning in Lake Harriet during the past few summers.

  For want of anything better to do, other than cruise the campus for a while, the driver will stop at the company’s garage near Seven Corners and get the cab washed inside and out. It hasn’t been a week yet, but the construction sites he’s driven through left enough dust and grime on the Plymouth’s canary finish to justify another hose-down. When he inspected the interior earlier today, he found only a used lipstick tube, a couple of Juicy Fruit gum wrappers, an unwrapped Ramses-brand condom (which he tucked away in his billfold), and a man’s monogrammed (JDM) handkerchief. Still, a thorough cleaning seems a good idea.

  His brother-in-law, Fat Jack O’Shaughnessy, who owns the company with a couple of downtown businessmen, gives him the stink eye when he pulls in. If a driver gives him the opportunity, O’Shaughnessy will bug the guy about how few fares he’s been carrying and how the guy’s got to put in more time on the street, as though any of his twenty drivers could keep up with the bigger outfits nowadays. Before O’Shaughnessy can collar him—“Hey, Juice! Let’s talk about your numbers!”—the driver slides back behind the wheel and exits the garage.

  Even if he picks up a fare or two, he’ll be home in time for supper, though too late to join Margaret at five o’clock Mass.

  It’s almost three p.m. before the small group of policemen, a single civilian, and a department stenographer assemble in the office of Detective Captain August Fuller on the third floor of the courthouse.

  Fuller, looking uncomfortable as usual, sits behind a large, nearly empty wooden desk. Dr. Rose sits in a straight-backed wooden chair directly in front of the desk. Detectives Anderson and Curry sit on either side of him, far enough away to dispel any impression that Rose is a prisoner, but close enough in case he forgets that he is. A petite spinster named May Grey sits off to one side of the desk, a steno pad resting on her bony knee. Inspector Ed Evangelist stands in the office doorway, his bloodshot eyes swimming in his bloated face, the elephant not quite in the room.

  “Dr. Rose,” Augie Fuller begins, “nobody here is accusing you of a crime. You may end this, uh, conversation at any time, and, of course, you are free to call an attorney.”

  Rose sits with one long leg crossed over the other, his large, white hands folded atop his right knee. Arne is quite sure the man hasn’t changed his expression since he left his dental office almost an hour ago.

  “I understand,” Rose says.

  Fuller, glancing down at the paper in front of him, leads Rose through the basic data while May Grey, the picture of fussy competence, takes her meticulous shorthand off to the side.

  “For the record, your full name, please.”

  “My name is H. David Rose. The H. is for Herschel.” He turns his head toward the stenographer and smiles slightly. “That’s H-E-R-S-C-H-E-L,” he says. “Herschel with a C.”

  May Grey casts him a glance, looking not especially grateful for the help.

  “Date and place of birth, please.”

  “June 18, 1908. Vincennes, Morrison County, Minnesota.”

  “Are you married?”

  “Yes. To Ruth Evelyn Rose. Maiden name Oshinsky. With a Y. We’ve been married for almost twenty years and have two daughters, Margot and Lael—L-A-E-L, Margot with a T— ages thirteen and eleven, respectively.”

  “And your home address?”

  “Thirty-nine-fourteen Zenith Avenue South. Minneapolis.”

  The detectives know exactly where he lives, of course—five blocks north of where Teresa Hickman’s body was found.

  “You’re a dentist.”

  “Yes. I maintain a practice at Fifteen-twenty-eight Nicollet Avenue South, second floor. I’ve had a solo practice at that address since I moved to the city in 1940.”

  “What did you do during the war, Doctor?”

  “I tried to enlist, but was rejected because of inherited arthritis in my shoulders and knees.”

  “Is yours a general practice, Doctor?”

  “Yes. Men, women, and children.”

  “But I understand the majority of your patients are women. Is that correct?”

  “Well, that’s possible, I suppose. I couldn’t give you an exact percentage.”

  “Is it kosher to call you ‘Doctor,’ Mr. Rose?” This is Big Ed butting in from the doorway.

  Rose turns his head in Evangelist’s direction, surprised, and perhaps for the first time in the past hour a bit annoyed.

  “My diploma from the University of Minnesota avers the fact that I’m a Doctor of Dental Surgery.”

  “But that doesn’t make you a real doctor, does it?” Evangelist says. “Not like the guy who listens to my ticker and every once in a while checks my plumbing.” He winks at the stenographer and grins. “My apologies, Miz Grey.”

  Rose looks back at Fuller, who momentarily shuts his eyes, a sign of either weariness or exasperation.

  “That individual,” Rose says, “would be an MD. A Doctor of Medicine.”

  “A physician,” Evangelist persists, pleased to have made the point.

  May Grey has
stopped writing. She looks at Fuller as though for a sign.

  Augie says, “Did you have a patient named Teresa Marie Hickman, Dr. Rose?”

  “Yes,” Rose replies. “But she’s listed in my office ledger as Mrs. Harold V. Hickman.”

  “How long was she your patient?”

  “Well, for a couple of months, or a little more. Since sometime in January or February. I know it was after Christmas.”

  “Christmas?” From the doorway Evangelist clears his throat, a loud, phlegmy hack. “So you celebrate our Savior’s birth?” he says.

  This time Rose doesn’t turn toward the inspector. Looking straight ahead, he says, “We put up a Christmas tree for our daughters, who have many Christian friends, and exchange gifts amongst ourselves. So, yes, we celebrate Christmas.”

  “But you are a Jew, aren’t you?”

  “Ruth and I describe ourselves as nonobservant Jews. We don’t attend services on a regular basis.”

  “You’re circumscribed, I presume,” Evangelist says.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “How would you describe your sex life?”

  Rose sighs, smiles slightly, and says, “Not what it used to be.” Making Big Ed laugh.

  Fuller, in high color now and eager to regain control of the conversation, says, “What brought Mrs. Hickman to your office in January, Doctor?”

  Rose says, “Her sister, Grace Montgomery, has been a patient of mine since last fall. She referred me to Terry—I mean Terry to me. Mrs. Hickman, I’m talking about.”

  Augie pauses, lifts the top sheet of papers on his desk, then pulls a well-used handkerchief out of a back pocket and blows his nose before pushing on.

  “You treated Mrs. Hickman last night, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I did. She had a seven-thirty appointment.”

  “How long would you say she was in your office?”

  Rose appears to be thinking. “Oh, I’d say she was in the chair for two and a half or three hours.”

  “Three hours?” Fuller and Anderson say at the same time. May Grey looks up from her notebook. Curry looks past Rose to make eye contact with Arne.

  “Permit me to explain,” Rose says. “I practice a technique, not uncommon in the profession, called sedation dentistry. For patients who need a significant amount of work, or for those who have a low tolerance for pain or a high level of anxiety, I make up a pill—a capsule—usually containing one and a half grams of Seconal, which is a barbiturate derivative, and the contents of a common headache remedy, such as Anacin. I provide the capsule instead of, or in addition to, an injection of novocaine.”

  “And this capsule puts them out?” Fuller asks.

  “It puts the patient in a deeply relaxed state.”

  “For three hours?”

  “Sometimes for even four hours or more. A procedure rarely takes that long, but the patient will be drowsy for a while afterward. If it’s late and I don’t feel they can safely navigate their way home, I will arrange for a taxi or, in some instances, escort the patient home myself.”

  “How did Mrs. Hickman leave your office last night?”

  “Well, I helped her down the stairs and walked her to the entrance of her apartment building around the corner. I thought the fresh air would pep her up.”

  “What time was that?”

  “I can’t say for certain. Probably about eleven. I don’t wear a watch”—Rose raises his left arm, exposing a bare wrist—“but that’s probably pretty close.”

  Anderson says, “You walked her to the entrance of the building where she’s staying with the Montgomerys?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what?”

  “I watched her go into the building and up the stairs to her sister’s apartment. I waited for about a minute—enough time for her to enter the apartment—and walked back to the office. I needed to catch up on my books. And then, probably because I hadn’t eaten all day and felt a little woozy, I sat down and dozed a while on the settee in my waiting room. I do that sometimes, before driving home.”

  “So the last time you saw Mrs. Hickman she was entering her sister’s apartment building at approximately eleven p.m.?” Fuller says.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember what she was wearing?”

  “Well, it was chilly last night, so I know she had a coat on. A short coat or a jacket. I believe it was either dark blue or dark green.”

  Fuller stares at Rose and clears his throat. Anderson knows his boss isn’t sure how to proceed. Augie has spent most of his police career investigating property crimes and has only since last fall been running the homicide unit. He’s sure as hell never overseen a case like this one.

  “Did you know that Mrs. Hickman was pregnant?” Augie says at last.

  Rose says, “I always ask my patients about their general health. Last night, Mrs. Hickman volunteered that she’d missed her period. She didn’t seem very concerned, even though her husband has been overseas for several months.”

  Fuller’s office is silent for a moment. The room is stuffy, and there’s a feeling of restlessness among its occupants. Augie says, “Well, that’s right. If Mrs. Hickman was pregnant—and according to her autopsy this morning she was—Private Hickman, over there in West Germany, could hardly have been the father.” He pauses, and then asks, “She didn’t happen to say who the father might be, did she?”

  “Well, she said she thought it might be me,” Rose says.

  The room is silent for another moment.

  “What did you say to that?” Fuller asks.

  Rose, his legs crossed, his immaculate hands sitting atop his knee, raises his eyebrows and says, “I told her I didn’t understand how that could be possible.”

  “And why couldn’t that be possible?”

  “Because I’ve never had sexual relations with the woman.”

  Evangelist, after a few moments of quiet, can no longer restrain himself. “Dr. Rose,” he says, “did you murder Teresa Hickman?”

  “Of course not,” Rose says. “Why on earth would I murder one of my patients?”

  In the ensuing silence, all eyes stare at the dentist. Not even Big Ed says a word.

  Finally, Rose looks around the room at his interlocutors and says, “If that will be all, Captain, I should return to my office. I still have that paperwork to catch up on.”

  Augie sighs and says, “That will be all, Doctor. Your car is downstairs.”

  Grace Montgomery sits in the late afternoon gloom with the baby, who’s content for now to sleep in his aunt’s ample lap. Bud has not returned to the apartment. He is not, despite what she told the detectives, visiting his mother in South St. Paul; his mother lives with her latest boyfriend in Hudson, Wisconsin. Grace isn’t sure why she gave the policemen false information. But then she’s not sure of anything right now, including her husband’s actual whereabouts.

  Grace, always the “responsible” sister, has taken care of business since the detectives left. She called her widowed father in Dollar and tracked down Kenny Landa through his sister, one of Grace’s school chums, who now lives in Grand Forks. Grace gave her father the few details she had about Terry’s death as straightforwardly as she could manage, and, after a few moments of silence, he responded in kind. Hanging over her like a gravid cloud was the knowledge that her father had always doted on Terry while only tolerating her. A man of few words, he said little in response to Grace’s news and asked few questions, almost as though Grace’s bad news was not news at all, or anyway didn’t come as much of a shock. He thanked her for the call and hung up before she could.

  Kenny Landa, when she finally reached him in Fargo, where he’d recently taken a job at a used car lot, was, by contrast, thunderstruck. Kenny wasn’t the brightest boy in North Dakota, but Grace was surprised to have to explain and repeat the news as though she was describing a complicated world event to a third grader. When he didn’t reply for a few seconds, she realized that he was crying.

  “Kenny,” she said,
waiting for him to collect himself, “will you do me a favor and pick up my dad in Dollar and drive him to Minneapolis if he wants to come down? I don’t trust him driving by himself anymore.” Kenny, bless his heart, said that he would, though, as it turns out, she won’t see either Kenny or her father until Terry’s funeral in North Dakota.

  Someone at the Minneapolis Red Cross told her that the organization had begun the paperwork to fly Hal Senior home from West Germany. Apparently, the local authorities had alerted the organization. Factoring in logistics, the international time changes, and the vagaries of the weather, a kindly woman told Grace on the phone, Private Hickman should arrive in the Twin Cities no later than Tuesday evening.

  Grace turns on a lamp and spreads a blanket on the living-room rug. She checks Hal Junior’s diaper and puts him down on the blanket, then lights a cigarette and goes to the window. The cars on the street have switched on their lights, and the few people on the sidewalk are moving briskly in the gloaming, their coat collars turned up and their necks drawn into their collars. “April,” she remembers learning in school, “is the cruelest month.”

  For the first time today the tears roll freely down her cheeks. She loved Terry as much as she hated her, admired her as much as she envied and resented her and wished she was dead.

  As the oldest of the four Kubicek kids, Grace was the leader when they were little, but her authority had evaporated by the time they reached adolescence.

  The two boys, duplicitous Albert and oafish Lyman, either ridiculed or ignored Grace while celebrating “baby Terry.” Grace struggled with her weight, a difficulty telling the truth, and a temptation to take things that didn’t belong to her, which got her into trouble in town. Terry stole stuff, too—lipstick and movie magazines and Butterfinger candy bars from the Dollar Rexall—but Terry rarely got caught and, if she did, could usually wiggle her way out of the bind, especially if her accuser was a man. When Terry turned twelve and began attracting serious male attention, her brothers kept a protective eye on her. No one bothered about Grace until local ne’er-do-well Otto Garley knocked her up after the ’47 Harvest Whirl, quietly paid for an abortion in Mandan, and then moved to parts unknown under threat of death from her brothers.