I shrugged. “Did I ever tell you how much I miss Amos Tupper?” I asked him, referring to his predecessor as Cabot Cove sheriff.
“Every time I point something out you don’t like.”
“There’s nothing like that this time, Mort.”
But that wasn’t true, at least not entirely. Something was plaguing me about the moments before Mimi had collapsed. It was there, then it wasn’t, and I just couldn’t put my finger on what my memory was toying with. Something out of place, something that didn’t quite fit, like a missing piece of a puzzle.
“Nothing,” I repeated, but I could tell Mort wasn’t buying it.
* * *
• • •
We went to the cafeteria, while Seth pursued an update on Mimi’s condition and worked to arrange a spot for her in the hospital’s intensive care unit.
Mort had his usual black coffee, while I stuck to tea.
“I saw Charles Clifton walk into the waiting room when we were leaving, Mort.”
“Uh-oh . . .”
“What’s the ‘uh-oh’ for?”
“Because whenever you mention seeing somebody, Mrs. Fletcher, there’s always something that follows, usually beginning with ‘Maybe I should have—’”
“A talk with him,” I completed.
“See, you’ve proven my point.”
“What do you know about the Clifton Clinic?” I asked him.
“Pretty much the same thing everybody in town does. Private hospital that caters to a different crowd.”
“What kind of crowd would that be?”
“Only those who have full-service health plans or don’t mind paying out of pocket for services. They specialize in treating serious diseases with serious drugs, and they’ve got patients flying in from all over the country. I’ve seen Clifton Care Partners compared to the Mayo Clinic in one respect and to those shady European hospitals in another.”
“Runs quite the gamut, then.”
“With the actual truth likely to reside somewhere in the middle.”
“That multiple sclerosis trial drug bought Jean O’Neil nine extra months, Mort.”
“I wouldn’t mention that in front of Seth. He’s been the doctor of choice in Cabot Cove for so long, he tends to take such things personally. But nobody’s perfect and neither is medicine itself. I don’t have to remind you of that.”
I knew he was referring to the death of my husband, Frank, from heart disease and an autoimmune disorder that had left him especially susceptible to the kind of infection that ultimately killed him. Cabot Cove Hospital hadn’t been able to save him all those years ago, and neither had any of the elite places in Boston. His one chance, we were told, was an experimental procedure not yet available in the United States. We’d have had to go all the way to Sweden, and neither my private insurance nor the care provided by the Veterans Administration would cover that. Strange, ironic even, how I became a published writer only in the wake of Frank’s death and only now had the means to perhaps have prevented his passing.
“I need to be getting back to the office,” Mort said, his coffee just about drained.
“And I think I’ll see if Charles Clifton is still about somewhere.”
Mort’s gaze narrowed on me. “Jessica . . .”
“What?”
“Never mind. You wouldn’t listen anyway.”
* * *
• • •
I found Clifton in the hospital’s reception area in the main lobby. I’d caught up first with Seth, who was still in the process of working out the next phase of Mimi’s treatment. Her condition hadn’t changed, something I took as a positive, because not getting worse provided reason for hope. Seth had canceled his afternoon appointments so he could attend Jean O’Neil’s funeral and all that came after, leaving him free to devote all of his attention to Mimi.
“Dr. Clifton,” I said, rousing him from the magazine he was reading.
He rose from his seat in a rare gesture of chivalry. “Mrs. Fletcher, I didn’t notice you there.”
He had a stately demeanor about him that would’ve looked even more dignified if the skin didn’t look stretched across his face to mask age’s wrinkles and lines. He had the tanned coloring of a weekend golfer, though I suspected it was from cosmetics instead of the sun. His white hair, sprinkled with flecks of gray, papered his scalp without a single strand out of place, adding to my sense that his appearance had been chiseled over the aging skeletal structure beneath. He looked even thinner than I’d noticed back at the library, bordering on gaunt, which I supposed passed for healthy-looking in the minds of some these days.
“I thought I saw you entering the emergency room, Doctor.”
“Yes, to check on Ms. Van Dorn. I’m sure you’ve received the same update.”
He sat back down in his chair and I took the one next to it. “I was wondering if you had any idea what caused her seizure.”
“Most obvious would be something related to her diabetes.”
“Even though she’d sworn off gluten and sugar?” I said, recalling Mimi’s comment to that effect back at the library.
“Only recently. Her type two was dangerously close to type one, according to some standards, and I didn’t expect the changes in her diet to work overnight.”
“What do you know about endocarditis, Doctor?”
“You mean, besides the fact that your husband died of it?”
His comment threw me for a moment, the surprise obviously clear on my features.
“Ms. Van Dorn told me the whole story. She told me quite a lot of things, Mrs. Fletcher. You should know she holds you in great esteem.”
“That means a lot to me, Dr. Clifton. We’ve grown very close over the years.”
“She envies your penchant for physical activity. All that biking around town. And Ms. Van Dorn also told me you were once a runner.”
“A jogger, actually. And I’ve taken it up again, thanks to the treadmill in the Hill House hotel’s fitness center.”
Clifton nodded, a slight grimace stretched over his expression. “Ms. Van Dorn also told me about the fire that claimed your house and almost claimed you.”
“It’s being rebuilt as we speak. Tell me, have you ever dealt with contractors?”
“As little as possible. I hear they’re even harder to talk to than doctors. As much as I’d like to believe otherwise, we can’t save everyone, Mrs. Fletcher, just like your late husband’s doctors couldn’t save him. Our success rate at treating cases of endocarditis as advanced as his is quite low.”
I studied his features, trying to get a better sense of him, but it was like trying to get a fix on a reflection in a cracked mirror. “Did Ms. Van Dorn tell you that, too?”
He shifted, the magazine sliding from his lap to the floor. “She must have.”
“Strange, since I don’t recall ever being that specific with her. Makes me wonder how exactly you came by the information, without a detailed study of my husband Frank’s medical records, of course.”
Clifton didn’t flinch. “I’m quite sure it was Ms. Van Dorn who told me.”
“Very kind of you to take the time out of your busy day to come check in on her.”
“Actually, I’m here to meet a new patient who’s arriving from out of town.”
I watched Clifton’s eyes drift across the hospital lobby toward the main entrance, narrowing as he rose from his chair again.
“And here he is, an old friend of yours, I believe.”
I turned to follow his gaze and saw George Sutherland striding toward us.
Chapter Four
We hadn’t seen each other in . . . I couldn’t even calculate how many years it had been, but at least one since we’d last even spoken.
“Jessica!” He beamed, smiling broadly. “What a wonderful surprise!”
I put aside for the moment the fact that Clifton had referred to him as a patient, and strode across the polished floor, meeting George halfway from the door, hugging him as tightly as I could recall ever hugging anyone. I didn’t want the embrace to end, but it had to, as all things do.
He held me by the shoulders at arm’s length. “Look at you, lovely lady, not a single day older,” he said in the accent that made the words feel like silk.
“We’re both older, George, and by plenty more than a single day. Welcome back to Cabot Cove.”
He swept his gaze about the hospital lobby, as if seeing the entire town beyond it. “Yes, well,” he started, features sinking.
Still, I didn’t want to press him on what had brought him here as another of Charles Clifton’s patients, not if it meant spoiling this moment. Sometimes you ignore things; other times you put them off. I honestly wasn’t sure which category my willful avoidance fell into.
“We’ll have plenty of time to talk, Jessica,” George said, as if reading my mind.
I hope so, I thought.
* * *
• • •
I’d met George Sutherland for the first time in his hometown in England while visiting the manor house that belonged to a fellow mystery writer. Unfortunately, Marjorie Ainsworth, her generation’s version of Agatha Christie, fell victim to the very subject she’d become famous for writing about:
Murder.
Normally, the case would have gone to the local constable. Given Marjorie Ainsworth’s fame, though, Chief Inspector George Sutherland of Scotland Yard was dispatched to take charge of the investigation. Amos Tupper was sheriff of Cabot Cove back then, and I imagine if George had called him, he’d have known to expect my involvement. As it was, we solved the case together from among the varied guests present for that weekend at Marjorie’s manor house, after nearly killing each other several times, as I recall.
Nothing bonds better than murder, especially solving one, and George Sutherland became the first man I’d found myself romantically attracted to since my husband Frank’s passing. I respected his investigative skills and we’d found our common ground in discussions of our various experiences with murder.
To make up for imposing myself on his investigation, George returned the favor while visiting me in Cabot Cove over Thanksgiving. Mort Metzger hadn’t seemed to like him at all, unable to stomach interference from yet another civilian, given that the chief inspector was well out of his Scotland Yard jurisdiction. But we’d managed to solve that case, too, the experience tightening our bond even more, and I worried whether we’d have anything in common outside of murder.
* * *
• • •
“Don’t tell me you’re here on a case, Jessica,” George picked up, breaking the silence that had settled between us.
“If I was, I’d enlist your help immediately. But I’m just here because a good friend was rushed in after suffering a seizure.” I realized Charles Clifton was approaching us as I resumed. “A patient of Dr. Clifton’s as well.”
“Then it’s good to see the two of you acquainted.”
“We met formally only today,” I said as Clifton drew even.
“I’m sorry to break up this reunion,” he said, already steering George. “But we’re running late as it is.”
I didn’t ask why he’d instructed George Sutherland to meet him here instead of the Clifton Clinic. Perhaps because Cabot Cove Hospital boasted state-of-the-art scanning devices that a smaller private hospital would never have gotten enough use out of to justify the expense. I didn’t want to raise that, though, because it would open a dark door I was desperately afraid to peer through. A man like George Sutherland wouldn’t traverse the Atlantic for something as simple as a second opinion. No, it could only be something more in the treatment area that had drawn him here.
Treatment for what, though?
“I’ll call you later, Jessica Beatrice Fletcher. Same number?”
“You always ask me that, George, every time you call.”
He flashed the smile that had attracted me to him from the first time we’d met in Crumpsworth, England. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Use my cell, though. I’ve been staying at Hill House while my house is undergoing some rather extensive renovations.”
“Someone try to blow you up?”
“Burned it down with me inside.”
He held his ground, resisting Clifton’s efforts to tug him away. “You’re not joking at all, are you?”
“What do you think?”
“That I’m glad I’m staying at Hill House as well. We can chat later, as soon as I’m done here.”
* * *
• • •
But George never called later that day or evening. I tried calling his room, but the receptionist informed me that he hadn’t checked in yet. At ten o’clock at night.
Only one thing is worse than waiting anxiously, expectantly, for a phone call, and that’s waiting for a call from someone whose health is at issue. Being a writer, a creature of my own imagination, left me conjuring up various worst-case scenarios, of both what had brought George Sutherland to Cabot Cove and what the tests he must have undergone had revealed.
“Actually, I’m here to meet a new patient who’s arriving from out of town. . . . An old friend of yours, I believe.”
How exactly had Charles Clifton learned that? I suspected he could have only from George himself.
Unable to distract myself with anything on the television, I fired up my computer and enlisted my favorite research partner, Google, in a search for the Clifton Clinic. I’d typed my early books on an old Royal manual typewriter and done all my research in the Cabot Cove Library with Jean O’Neil’s help. The Internet was speeding along by the time Doris Ann had succeeded her, but I still did the bulk of my research on the library’s computers instead of my own, because of the sense of familiarity. I was comfortable with the sights, smells, and sounds, the way the light streamed through the nineteenth-century window settings. I also found it healthy to write in a different setting from where I researched, though I couldn’t say why exactly.
Tonight was an exception in two ways, then, the second being that I had no idea what I was looking for. The Clifton Clinic, for starters, was chartered as the first of what was envisioned as a chain of private hospitals from coast to coast under the umbrella of Clifton Care Partners. Already ground had been broken at a half dozen other sites, with many more soon to follow. All the locations were chosen for their reasonable proximity to first-class medical institutions, like Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Anderson in Houston, or Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. With its proximity to Boston, of course, Cabot Cove boasted numerous facilities of that level.
The Clifton Clinic’s specialty, from what I could glean, was cutting-edge treatments . . .
And here’s where I choked up a bit.
. . . of diseases ranging from difficult to terminal, through a variety of experimental procedures often culled from clinical trials. I suspected some of these might be European in nature, that Charles Clifton may have found a way to game the system a bit by offering what larger hospitals couldn’t or wouldn’t. I wondered if he’d found a road map to bypass the difficult route imposed by the Food and Drug Administration. By all appearances, though, the FDA seemed to have granted the Clifton Clinic a rare exemption from their traditional procedures, a fact that pushed a shudder through me, since I’d never heard of such a thing before. I couldn’t be sure of this, but it’s what the anecdotal data suggested. Difficult to confirm, since the inaugural facility of Clifton Care Partners based here hadn’t been open long enough to leave much of a trail behind it.
I nearly jumped out of my chair when my cell phone rang just past midnight. I fumbled for it, expecting George Sutherland to be on the other end until I saw SETH light up in the caller ID.
“Just wan
ted to give you an update,” he said, his voice hoarse and weary with fatigue. “Mimi is still critical but stable. Her vitals are strong and she’s responsive to stimulus.”
“Has she woken up yet?”
“No, and it’s probably best that she hasn’t at this point. Easier for the body to heal itself this way, at least for a time.”
“What about the cause?”
“The tox screen didn’t reveal anything out of whack other than a spike in her A1c and her glucose level,” Seth explained, referring to the primary markers for diabetes. “So I suspect in this case the simplest explanation of all might account for her seizure.”
“But you’re not sure.”
“Maybe tomorrow, Jess. Right now, I’m going home.”
“You’ve been there through the night?”
“Where else would I be? Regardless of what that snake oil salesman Clifton thinks, I’m still Mimi’s doctor.”
“And she’s lucky to have you.”
I was about to say good night when he spoke up again.
“What’s wrong, Jess?”
“Nothing. I’m just tired, too.”
“I don’t think that’s it at all.”
“Am I that easy to read, Seth?”
“Your voice is. Want to meet at Mara’s Luncheonette?”
“It’s after midnight.”
“Oh, that’s right. Want me to come over so you can tell me all about it in person?”
“That’s not necessary.”
“Yes, it is,” Seth said, as firmly as his tired voice could manage. “I am still your doctor, unless I’ve lost you to Charles Clifton, too.”
“You haven’t lost me to Clifton,” I assured him.
“Is he the source of what’s plaguing you?”
“Partially.”
“And to what do I owe the remainder of my concern?”
“Something else for tomorrow, Seth.”
“Breakfast at Mara’s?”
Murder, She Wrote--Murder in Red Page 3
