The Second Mouse

by Archer Mayor

  Because of a general backlog—along with the body’s condition—the autopsy was delayed for two days, creating the possibility that the pregnancy’s existence could have reached Medwed’s ear before she’d been opened up. The victim and her husband, after all, had been political allies of the medical examiner. A discreet phone call might have been made.

  But Joe could find no record of any contact between widower and chief.

  He extracted the autopsy report and pushed the rest of the file off to a far corner of the desk. It was typed and anointed with arcane language he could only just follow. He tried his best to accompany the narrator on this specialized tour of a human body, but when he finally did come upon the mention of a fetus in the first stage of development, he felt no particular elation. For while there was no allusion to Hillstrom’s connection with this case until a day later, the fact remained that her signature adorned the bottom of the autopsy report.

  On paper, regardless of where he looked, it seemed that his friend Beverly had been the first to know of Judy Morgenthau’s impending motherhood.

  Joe sat back in his chair to rub the bridge of his nose, letting his hands drop into his lap afterward. He stared sightlessly at what he couldn’t prove was a forged document.

  And then he leaned forward, his eyes narrowing, not only seeing something he’d been staring at all along, but recalling, too, his own experiences visiting the Vermont ME’s office. Almost always in those situations, there had been at least one other person in the room with the doctor and the body, and sometimes more. In his myopic efforts to distinguish Medwed from Hillstrom, Joe had completely overlooked the documented presence of a third person: Susan Bedell, here listed as “lab assistant.”

  Joe rose to his feet and pushed the button by the door. Barely two minutes later his exotic handler appeared, her eyebrows raised inquiringly. “You all set?”

  “Almost. I need a favor. There’s someone mentioned as a lab assistant in the medical examiner’s office, named Susan Bedell. Is there any chance you could make your computer cough up anything on her? Like where she might be now?”

  Jennifer Joyce looked thoughtful for a couple of seconds, and then conspiratorial. Her voice dropped as she said, “Come with me. We’ll make it happen.”

  He followed her back to her special fishbowl and joined her as she dragged her guest chair around so that it nestled next to hers before the computer screen.

  “Okay,” she said, settling down and wiggling her fingers as if preparing to play the piano. “Let’s see what we can find out. What’s this person’s name?”

  “Susan Bedell.” He spelled it out.

  “No birth date, I guess?”

  “Sorry.”

  Joyce was already typing. “Not to worry. It’s an unusual name and you know where she worked. What date, by the way?”

  He gave it to her.

  She straightened slightly in her chair, looking pleased. “Okay, got her. Now I copy down her PID, since names don’t count for diddly in this system, and . . .” She paused dramatically as they both waited for a new screen image to appear. “There you go. She retired four years ago.”

  Joe squinted at the document before them. “Any idea where she might be now? I’d sure love to talk to her.”

  The fingers resumed their skittering across the keyboard. Once again Joyce allowed for a triumphant smile, even adding, “Darn, too easy. I thought I’d be able to show off a little more than this.” She tapped the screen with a remarkably long crimson fingernail. “This is where they mail her checks. Suffield. Nice town.”

  Suffield, Connecticut, is a curious mix of a town, a spread-out collection of odds and ends that forms only fragments of a suburb, some farmland, a small shopping center, the tiniest of business districts, and a couple of rows of huge old mansions, all floating around a private school campus of pristine perfection. It’s picturesque, fashionable, and has several signs attesting to its antiquity. But for all the colonial and Victorian architecture, ancient trees, and several churches boasting graveyards filled with black-clad, austere people fond of wool and buckle shoes, the entire town has a scrubbed, fresh-out-of-the-box feel. Joe wasn’t sure whether it was his own background or the general condition of his home state, but he found he preferred a little grittiness in his surroundings. From what he could see of it, this place was so clean, he felt he might bounce off it.

  The street address he’d been given was on the far end of town, past the school and the churches and the Playmobil downtown mall, just beyond what looked to be the place’s only gas station. He approached at a snail’s pace, searching for the right number, confused by every building’s looking exactly like its neighbors. In fact, if it hadn’t been for those numbers, he couldn’t have distinguished the address.

  He pulled up at last opposite 346 and sat quietly for a moment, enjoying the warm breeze wafting through the open window. Joe, a Vermonter by birth, had a northerner’s innate sense of weather, and an appreciation for those few months every year when the ambient temperature wasn’t life threatening.

  He got out and stretched, surveying the scene. The buildings all appeared to be narrow two-story apartments, their height supposedly compensating for what he imagined was tiny overall square footage. He walked up this one’s immaculate path and rang a doorbell labeled “Bedell.”

  “Are you looking for me?” a voice asked him.

  He stared at the still-closed door and turned to look at the empty street.

  “Up here.”

  He stepped back off the stoop and looked up. Directly above him was an open window framing the face and torso of a thin, white-haired woman with a pleasant expression.

  “I am if you’re Susan Bedell,” he said, smiling. “I feel like I’m in a play.”

  She laughed. “Right—Romeo, my Romeo, turn up your hearing aid.”

  He told her his name, showing his badge.

  “Come on in,” she said with no apparent surprise. “I’ll meet you downstairs. And don’t walk too fast or you’ll find yourself out back.”

  He had been worried about the kind of person he’d be relying on for old memories. This, he thought hopefully, held some promise. He showed himself inside.

  She hadn’t exaggerated by much. The place was minute. It was also tidy, wonderfully decorated, and smelled of the best that a summer day has to offer.

  “Sorry about that,” said the woman, coming downstairs. “I was working on my computer and was too lazy to come down, in case you were a Bible thumper. I get a lot of them for some reason.”

  She gave him a firm handshake and introduced herself. “I’m Susan Bedell.”

  “Joe Gunther,” he repeated. “I really appreciate your seeing me.”

  She slipped by him and headed into what was more a galley than a kitchen. “Believe me, I get so few guests that I’m even reconsidering the Bible folks. Coffee?”

  He accepted and leaned against the doorjamb as she set about making two mugs’ worth.

  “You said you were from Vermont,” she said, not looking up. “You hot on the trail of someone?”

  He hadn’t been sure how to broach the subject. He’d gotten no idea from Hillstrom of the general mood of her old office, and had certainly never heard of Bedell before today. For all he knew, this woman and Hillstrom had hated each other.

  “Something that dates way back,” he began carefully. “To when you worked with Medwed.”

  She paused in midmotion to glance at him. “Wow, you’re not kidding. What are you working on?”

  He hesitated, which was clearly all she needed. “Don’t worry about confidentialities. I have no one to tell. Of course, that might work both ways, depending on what you want.”

  He nodded several times. “I realize that. I’m hoping the passage of time will make some of those issues moot.”

  She’d gone back to fixing the coffee, pouring hot water into the mugs. “Either that or make me the most useless interview you’ve had in a long time. Go ahead. Shoot.”
>
  “Do you remember someone named Beverly Hillstrom?”

  To his relief, her face lit up. “Beverly? Good Lord, yes. Such a serious young woman, but one of the truly decent souls. I never saw such focus, before or since.” Her expression darkened. “Is she all right?”

  “Fine, fine. At least physically. I’m actually trying to help her through some political trouble.”

  Bedell looked relieved. “I had to ask. All those years hanging around the dead. It kind of gets under the skin—makes you morbid.”

  She handed him his coffee, squeezed by again, and led the way through a perfectly appointed, if child-size, living room and out into a backyard just a little larger than a Ping-Pong table. They sat around a white-painted wrought-iron table and admired a carefully nurtured array of flowers and plants.

  Bedell took a sip before resuming. “I always worried a little about Beverly. She never took half measures and never let herself off the hook. Actually, to be honest, I’m not surprised she’s in some political trouble. What’s she doing nowadays?”

  “She heads up the OCME in Vermont.”

  “Really? Good for her. I’m not surprised. Not surprised she’s a chief, and not surprised it’s in a little place like that. No offense.”

  “None taken.” It was very good coffee. “How did she get along with Howard Medwed?”

  “That was your classic master-student relationship. I sometimes felt that had it been with anyone else, it might have ended up wrong, but Medwed had no idea what power he held over her. He just duffed around, doing his thing, being a brilliant mess and letting us clean up after him.”

  “I think that’s why I’m here, to be honest.”

  “One of Medwed’s screwups? Which one?”

  Gunther laughed at her attitude. “Flat-footed” was one word for it. He wondered if Medwed had ever fully appreciated her.

  “I think it was actually a pretty big deal, at least locally. Hillstrom told me people got all worked up over it.”

  Bedell’s eyes had grown big. “You’re not talking about the Morgenthau case, are you?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Good golly. Talk about an old ghost. That was a big deal. Almost got Medwed fired, and it did force Beverly out the door. I guess you already know that.”

  “But not much more, I don’t. That’s what I’m looking for—the gory details.”

  She laughed. “You would use that word.”

  He shook his head apologetically. “Oh, right—sorry . . .”

  “No, no,” she interrupted. “If I’m used to anything, it’s stuff like that. We got so good sounding respectful outside the office, while we were so completely not that way behind closed doors . . .” She waved it off. “Brings back memories, that’s all. Good ones, I might add. Okay, what did you want to know?”

  “It’s not that difficult,” he admitted, “but a lot hangs on it: I need to know when Medwed found out Morgenthau was pregnant.”

  “Right off the bat,” Susan said immediately. “He’s the one who did the autopsy. I was there when he made the discovery.” She saw the question forming on his face and answered, “And no, Beverly wasn’t in the room. I have an absolute memory of it, not only because of how it all ended up, but because I kept a daily journal and I put it all down.”

  Joe couldn’t believe his luck. “You still have that?”

  She smiled at him. “God knows why, but that’s what we diarists do—like we were Eudora Welty or somebody. I don’t even have kids to pass them on to. No,” she added after a brief pause, “Medwed and I were alone. I saw him straighten suddenly as he reached Judy’s lower abdomen, and he said something like ‘Oh, my dear,’ with real sadness, which was unusual for him. He was pretty much all business when he was working. And that’s when he told me.”

  “She wasn’t far along, from what I hear,” Joe commented.

  “Eight to ten weeks. You know she was fifty years old, right? They’d given up years ago.”

  “So I heard.”

  “It was a big emotional deal. Medwed was close friends with the Morgenthaus—that’s why he was doing the autopsy, in fact, as a favor to Mr. Morgenthau, which probably wasn’t appropriate. And then to find this out. Medwed just stood there for a while, staring down at the body, shaking his head and muttering to himself.”

  “He’d just lost his own wife, hadn’t he?”

  “Yes,” Bedell answered. “And been diagnosed with cancer. Loss was pretty much all he was thinking about in those days.”

  “Including losing his job,” Joe said softly.

  Susan raised her eyebrows. “Yes, that was the crux of the whole thing later. At the time, when we were both together in the autopsy room, he swore me to secrecy—said that Judy’s death was bad enough, but that news of her being pregnant would put the last nail in her husband’s coffin.”

  “He was ill, too?” Joe asked.

  Susan laughed. “No, but you have to consider Medwed’s state of mind. He could be very sentimental. Anyhow, whatever his reasons, that was the end of Mrs. Morgenthau’s pregnancy, at least officially.”

  “But it got out,” Joe reminded her.

  “Well, that was just stupid. I was going to type up the report from his taped narrative. It wasn’t really one of my jobs. I just did it now and then, to fill in for the secretary when she was out or on vacation. After I’d finished, though—avoiding all mention of the pregnancy—I left the original tape to be destroyed. Incredibly stupid. I even offered to resign over it later, except Medwed wouldn’t hear of it, nor would Beverly.”

  “What happened?” Joe was confused, having read the autopsy report just that day. The pregnancy was quite clearly stated.

  “I had the following day off,” she admitted sadly. “Like I said, I didn’t often do the reports. The regular girl came in, found the original tape, typed it up all neat and tidy, and only then discovered my doctored transcription, which hadn’t been filed according to her own system. Now she had a decision to make, and she went with her own report as the more complete one. She never even asked around. Surely, she must have been curious. But she just filed it. I never could prove it, but I always wondered if she was paid off by someone. Anyhow, that’s when the heat got turned onto Medwed, and when Beverly stepped up to sign the report in his place. In those days the notes were just that—they didn’t reflect the actual physician until they’d been typed and formalized. Not even the secretary knew at that point.” She took a meditative sip of her coffee and added, “I never liked that woman.”

  “And Medwed died a few months later?” Joe asked.

  “Yes,” she said sadly. “After Beverly had landed a new job elsewhere—I don’t remember where now. That’s why I never told anyone. There was no point to it, except to get me fired. I never got over it, though, since I held myself responsible for the truth getting out. I felt so guilty for years.”

  She suddenly brightened. “Which is why I’ll do whatever I can to help Beverly any way I can. Would you like that diary?”

  “A copy would do, along with a sworn statement. You could mail it to me.”

  “No, no,” she said, rising and heading back inside. “It won’t take me a second. I’ll do the statement whenever and with whomever, but take the journal now. You can mail it back. It’s not only got the day of that autopsy, but everything else, too. It’s a real smoking gun. And they can test it for when it was written and anything else they want, too, if it comes to that. Like I said, if I can help Beverly all these years later, maybe I’ll get to rest easier when my time comes.”

  She vanished into the house and went upstairs. Joe finished his coffee and returned to the front hallway to await her, pleased with how things had turned out. With the diary in hand and Bedell’s testimony available if needed, Floyd Freeman back in Vermont would suddenly discover he had no ammunition against Hillstrom.

  That was probably enough to get Hillstrom back in fighting trim, not to mention have her run those additional tests on Michelle Fisher.
But knowing, as he did, about Hillstrom’s marital and job security concerns, Joe began thinking that something more than just neutering Freeman might be a nice touch—perhaps even a little role reversal, giving Hillstrom his previous advantage.

  And Joe had a good notion of just where to find it.

  Susan Bedell returned downstairs and handed him a battered fake-leather notebook, labeled with the relevant year. “Here you go. Use it to good effect and tell Beverly I was tickled pink that I could help her out. No way is the ledger balanced. I’ll always feel bad about what happened. But maybe this’ll count for something.”

  Gunther flipped through the pages of tight, careful handwriting. “Not to worry, Susan. I’ll make sure this makes her day.”

  Bedell opened the front door to show him out. “You know the final irony?” she asked him as he stepped out onto the walkway.

  “What’s that?”

  “Morgenthau, the grieving widower. For all the pain that Medwed thought he’d feel by losing a wife and child both, he went out and married a young thirty-something within six months and had two kids just like that.” She snapped her fingers. “We could’ve ducked the whole mess just by being honest from the start.”

  Joe nodded and thanked her again, pondering the truth of her last assumption. He’d simply gotten too old to believe that honesty would set you free. He’d seen too many people destroyed as a result, at least politically.

  He was a fatalist nowadays, more burdened by what people did than by how and why they did it.

  Chapter 10