23-The Tenth Life

by Lockridge, Richard

  The one vial without a red aluminum cap had a stopper in it.

  “One he was using,” Marvin said. “Rubber plug, see? Special kind of rubber. You push the needle through it and get out what you want. Pull the needle out and the rubber seals itself.”

  He held the vial up to the light and looked at it.

  “About four c.c.’s left, at a guess,” Dr. Marvin said.

  He put the little vial back in its appointed place in the rack. He looked at, without touching, the other small bottles and vials in the refrigerator.

  “Pretty much what you’d expect,” Marvin said. “Barbiturates in solution. Sodium pentothal, of course. Knocks them out in seconds. Out for good, if that’s what’s wanted. A good many things we don’t use on human patients. A few’ve been tried and didn’t work. Or worked too damn well, sometimes. Where are these photographers of yours, if you’re still going to treat it as homicide?”

  “Waiting for us to get out of the way,” Heimrich told him.

  They got out of the way into the waiting room.

  The police photographer went into the narrow operating room, and the bulbs flashed. The photographer came out and the fingerprint men began dusting, and lifting prints and taking pictures of what they found.

  Dr. Marvin looked at his watch. He said, “No point in my sticking around that I can see. Autopsy report’ll be along in the morning sometime.”

  “And lab findings,” Heimrich said.

  “If I can get the lab boys on it,” Marvin told him. “After all, it’s a weekend, Inspector.”

  Heimrich knew it was a weekend. He also knew that hospitals run short-staffed on weekends. (And that Sunday was supposed to be his own day off. It was a tattered supposition.)

  He said, “When you can, Doctor.”

  Dr. Marvin flipped a hand in a gesture which might mean anything. He went out toward his car. Heimrich continued to wait. It was twenty minutes, it was almost nine thirty, before the fingerprint men came out of the office. One of them said, “All through, sir. Way it looks, the prints on the syringe are his, all right. Same type, anyway. We’ll check them out and send the report along. Monday be all right?”

  Heimrich supposed it would have to be. He also supposed there would be a good many prints in the operating room and that not all of them would be those of Adrian Barton, DVM. To that, the fingerprint man said, “Sure are, sir.”

  Forniss had been outside, looking around. He came in as the fingerprint men went out. He said, “Tell them to come and get it, M. L.? They want the ambulance for live ones.”

  Heimrich said, “Yes, Charles.”

  One of the fingerprint men said, “Want we should tell them, Inspector?”

  Heimrich said “Yes” again. He and Forniss sat on the green sofa.

  Forniss said, “Onto something, M. L.?”

  “Doesn’t look much like it,” Heimrich said. “Find anything outside, Charley?”

  Forniss had not. After the blacktop of Barton Lane ended, there was only gravel, loose gravel. Cars had roughed it up without leaving behind any tire marks. Oh, there was one thing. “Around back somebody drove up on the grass. Light car, looks like. Maybe a Volks.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “A Mrs. Cummins. Came to pick up her cat.”

  “So?” Purvis said. “We just wait for reports.”

  That was about it, Heimrich told him—for reports that probably would show that Barton had died of heart failure; that the residue in the syringe would be residue of insulin, 40 U, with which Dr. Barton had injected himself half an hour before dinnertime. Or, of course, thereabouts.

  “There’s a girl works here,” Heimrich said, “Studying to be a vet, and getting practical experience during vacation. Very pretty girl named Carol—Carol Arnold. The kind, Dr. Marvin says, any man might make a pass at. Man named Rorke’s probably making a pass at her now. Several passes, from the time they’re taking over dinner at the Tavern.”

  “The one in Cold Harbor?” Forniss said. “Hamburger and pizza joint, mostly. Shouldn’t take them long. She know you want to talk to her, M. L.?”

  “I asked her to come back, Charley. She was here this afternoon. Almost certainly when Barton died. She’d been told not to disturb him, because he was operating on a cat.”

  Forniss merely raised inquiring eyebrows.

  “Nothing,” Heimrich said. “Just what went on during the afternoon. If she has a record of who brought animals in for treatment. If anything unusual happened. Whether pet owners were allowed inside Barton’s examining room. That sort of thing. Probably all a waste of time, because Barton probably—just died.”

  “Unaided, you mean?”

  “Unaided, Charley. And a nosy cop just happened to be here. As a pet owner, Charley.”

  He told Forniss about Colonel. Forniss offered sympathy. He said old Colonel was quite a dog, and was agreed with. And so they just waited the return of Carol Arnold and a man named Rorke?

  “A doctor,” Heimrich said. “Also, apparently, a boy friend. Yes.”

  But then he stood up. “Could be,” he said, “they’ve already come back and gone up to the house instead of coming here. Suppose I go see, Charley. If they show up, you can go to the back door and semaphore or something. You can semaphore?”

  “Sure,” Forniss, who is an ex-marine, told his longtime superior and longtime friend.

  “Good,” Heimrich said. “Not that I can read it, of course.”

  Inspector Heimrich went out the back door and across the smooth lawn toward the white house.

  4

  Only the larger of the black cars was in the garage. Which meant, presumably, that Carol and Latham Rorke were still ingesting pizza, or hamburgers, at the Tavern. Or were doing something else, not necessarily at the Tavern. Which reminded Merton Heimrich that he had not had dinner, although it was getting on for ten. He hoped that Colonel had got out of the Buick under his own power and that Susan had eaten dinner, not waited fruitlessly for him.

  He went to the white house. He could express sympathy and regret to Louise Barton, who would know from Carol Arnold that there was a policeman bumbling around. Needlessly and to no result. He rang the doorbell. The door was opened almost at once by the compact, middle-aged woman he had seen going into the house earlier. The sister, presumably. Mary Something. Heimrich told her who he was and that he would like to see Mrs. Barton, if she was up to it.

  “I don’t think she is,” the sister said. “Isn’t it enough that her husband’s dead? And that the police are messing around? Though why I don’t know.”

  “Sudden death, with no physician there,” Heimrich said. “Sort of thing we always have to look into, Miss—”

  “Mrs. Mrs. Evans.”

  “Mrs. Evans. It’s the law.”

  “Well, she’s lying down. That young doctor gave her something. My sister’s terribly upset, Inspector. Who wouldn’t be?”

  Heimrich agreed that anyone would be upset. He would like a few words with Mrs. Barton. He would try not to upset her further.

  Well, Mary Evans supposed so. She couldn’t see why, but she supposed so.

  Louise Barton was lying on a sofa in the living room of the big house. The sofa was very large and the woman on it was very small. She was short and thin. Distressingly thin, and gray-haired. She appeared to be older than the strong, handsome man Heimrich had looked down on on the operating-room floor.

  Mrs. Barton’s eyes were closed when Mary Evans led Heimrich into the room. She opened them and looked up at the tall police inspector. She closed them again.

  “A policeman, dear,” Mrs. Evans said. “An Inspector something. Do you feel up to talking to him, Lou?”

  Louise Barton moved her head from side to side. She did not open her eyes. “You see?” Mary Evans said. “It’s like I told you. That young man who was with Carol gave her something. Said he was a doctor, she told me. I’ve called Dr. Reynolds, but it always takes him forever. If he comes at all.”

  “Dr. Rorke probably ga
ve her a sedative,” Heimrich said. “That right, Mrs. Barton?”

  She turned her head toward him. She opened her eyes. She said, “There’s no need to shout, whoever you are.

  Heimrich had not shouted. He said again who he was, and spoke in a lowered voice.

  “What he said it was,” Louise Barton said. “Said it would relax me. Make things easier for me. But my husband’s dead, Inspector. Dead!”

  “Yes, Mrs. Barton, I’m afraid he is. Did he have any trouble with his heart, do you know?”

  “Never. He was always so healthy. For all he was older. Than I am, I mean. And vigorous always. He played tennis whenever he got a chance. We’d talked about having a court put in. Oh. And now—now.”

  “You see,” Mary Evans said, “you are upsetting her. I’ll make him go away, Lou. Quit bothering you.”

  “It’s all right, Mary,” Louise said. “Probably he thinks he has to. What made him die, Inspector? He was all right at lunch. He seemed just fine. And we were very careful about his diet always. The one Dr. Chandler put him on. No sugar, of course. And very few of any other carbohydrates.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “I heard Dr. Barton was diabetic, Mrs. Barton. He always had his meals here? I mean, came here from the hospital for lunch and dinner?”

  “Of course.” She swung around to a sitting position on the sofa. Her eyes now were very wide open, staringly open. “You think I poisoned him? Poisoned Adrian?”

  “Of course not,” Heimrich said. “Why should I think a thing like that? Just lie back and rest, Mrs. Barton; try to, anyway. I know how you must be feeling.”

  She said, “How can you?” but she lay back on the sofa. She closed her eyes again. She said, “I don’t know whether you’re married, Inspector. But suppose it was your wife. All at once dead. And people poking around about it?”

  “I am married, Mrs. Barton. And I’d find it very —hard.”

  “Hard” wasn’t adequate; Heimrich felt the entire inadequacy of “hard.” If Susan—

  “Hard,” Louise said. “You’d find it hard!”

  “I’m sorry,” Heimrich said. “Very sorry. I’m afraid I am upsetting you, as your sister says.”

  She turned on her side, away from him. When she spoke, her voice was so low he could hardly hear her.

  “I had dinner all ready,” she said. “At seven, like always. I asked that girl—no, it was that young man, her friend—to tell him dinner was ready. He was late, you see. He’s almost never late.”

  Again, Heimrich said he was sorry he had had to bother her. He moved toward the door, and Mary Evans moved after him. Almost, he thought, as if she were a rear guard, vigilant against his return.

  At the door, she said, “I knew you’d upset her. And I can’t see what good it did you. Adrian’s just as dead as ever, and that’s all she cares about.”

  Heimrich didn’t see, either, that talking to Mrs. Barton had done him any good. But—

  “When your sister said, ‘that girl,’” he said. “I suppose she meant Miss Arnold?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you happen to know whether Miss Arnold has been living here with the Bartons, Mrs. Evans? Having her meals with them?”

  “Yes. Since June, I think. She’s been working with the doctor. She’s going to be a vet, according to what she told them. Studying to be, she says. Funny thing for a girl to want to be, seems to me. Messing around with animals.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “Vets have to do that. Go back and be with your sister, Mrs. Evans.”

  “Not supposed to call them ‘vets,’” she said. “They don’t like it. Only that’s what they call each other. Last summer it was a boy.”

  Heimrich said, “Sorry?”

  “Who came here to work with Adrian. To get practical experience, they call it. Nice enough boy, from what I saw.”

  “Well,” Heimrich said, “thank you, Mrs. Evans. And I’m sorry to have to bother you both at a time like this.”

  It was not much of an exit line, but exit was indicated. Also, Forniss was standing at the back door of the hospital, looking toward the house. He was not making semaphore gestures. He was merely beckoning.

  Heimrich crossed the lawn again. Forniss said, “Yep. They’ve showed up, M. L.”

  Roger King was still typing when they went past his room off the hallway. If it was a letter to his girl, it was a long one. Rorke and Carol Arnold were side by side on the sofa. They were not especially close together. Deliberately not? Heimrich wondered.

  He was sorry if he’d kept them waiting. He wouldn’t be long. He just wanted to ask Miss Arnold a few things about the afternoon. He wouldn’t need to keep Dr. Rorke.

  “If you want me to clear out?” Rorke said. “Evening’s shot anyway. That Tavern place you sent us to isn’t so hot, Inspector.”

  Heimrich said he was sorry about that. It was an evening he seemed to be sorry about a good many things, starting with Colonel’s apparent need for medical attention. And Dr. Rorke could stay around if he wanted to. His questions to Miss Arnold would be few and routine.

  Rorke looked at the girl beside him. Neither of them said anything. Rorke looked from the girl to Heimrich. “Then I guess I’ll stick around,” he said.

  Heimrich nodded. He said, “About this afternoon, Miss Arnold. Anything out of the way happen? Until we found Dr. Barton, of course.”

  “Just like most afternoons,” she said. She had a low-pitched voice, a soft voice. “A lot of dogs and cats. And people too, of course. One dog had been hit by a car, and Ad—Dr. Barton took him first. Jaw all smashed up, the poor little tike. Dr. Barton fixed him up. The owner took him home, although the doctor wanted to keep him overnight. The rest were—oh, shots, mostly. Rabies shots. Things like that. Distemper shots. Enteritis shots for the cats. And a cat with, Dr. Barton thought, perhaps viral pneumonia. Only it could be lung congestion, which they get sometimes. That one I held while the doctor gave him the anesthetic so he could X-ray him. There wasn’t any congestion.”

  A good deal about the animals; not very much about the people. He supposed she had a list of the people?

  “Of course. And the names of the animals. One of the dogs was actually named Rover, believe it or not. Do you want the list, Inspector?”

  “No,” Heimrich said. “Not now, anyway. Did any of the people who brought animals in go into the examining rooms, do you remember?”

  “Some did. Some owners want to hold their pets while the doctor treats them. People with cats, mostly. Somebody has to hold them, you know. Usually it’s me, but some cat people—well, they don’t want to trust anybody. Dr. Barton treats—treated—a lot of cats.”

  “Just small animals? I mean the animals Dr. Barton treated?”

  Heimrich had difficulty determining why he had asked that. He was already getting a good deal of information he didn’t particularly want. If, indeed, it turned out he wanted any information at all about Dr. Adrian Barton’s sudden death.

  “He treated horses and cows when he first came here, I think. Recently, it’s been just small animals. They can’t bring horses and cows in, you know. Or sheep. Not that there are many sheep around here. When I get my license, I plan to go in for horses mostly, I think. General practice, anyway.”

  “You’re not big enough for horses, baby,” Rorke said. “They’ll push you around.”

  “I like horses, Lathe,” the girl said. “Also, they don’t scratch.”

  “No,” Rorke said. “Just trample.”

  They’d much rather talk to each other than to me, Heimrich thought. Now and then I find myself calling Susan “baby.” So.

  “Just a routine afternoon, then,” he said. “No different from the ones you usually have here. How long have you been working with Dr. Barton, Miss Arnold?”

  “Since early June. When the term was over.”

  “And you probably got to know him fairly well since you’ve been here.”

  “We got along all right. He was an easy man to work wit
h.”

  Rorke turned and looked at her. Then he looked away again, but this time not at Heimrich. The way they were seated, Heimrich could not see the expression on the young man’s face.

  “Ever ask you to play tennis with him, Miss Arnold? His wife says he played every chance he got. And, well, she doesn’t really look like a tennis player.”

  “She was until a few years ago, Inspector. What he told me, anyway. Yes, I played with him a couple of times. Didn’t give him much of a game. He was a lot too good for me. Way out of my class.”

  More information which applied to nothing.

  “About when did Dr. Barton go to operate on Mrs. Cummins’s cat, Miss Arnold?”

  “Around six. Mrs. Cummins had brought her in a little after four. Wanted her operated on right then. But the doctor was working on the little dog with the smashed jaw. It was an emergency, of course. Mrs. Cummins was a little annoyed. She doesn’t think much of dogs. People are funny, Inspector.”

  Heimrich’s smile and nod agreed with the girl’s generalization.

  “So, she left the cat? The one she’s selling. The one they call Jenny?”

  “Took her out to the cages,” Carol said. “Wanted to do it herself. Pick the right cage, I guess. She knows her way around here pretty well. Adrian took care of all her cats. We still have another seal point of hers here. Mrs. Cummins’s a breeder, you know. We gave them their enteritis shots, that sort of thing.”

  “And neutered them, apparently?”

  “Not often. They’re show cats, Inspector. Show cats aren’t spayed or castrated, you know.”

  Heimrich hadn’t. He nodded his head again, this time to show he had.

  “About six, Dr. Barton went out to get Jenny to operate on her.”

  “About then.”

  “And about half an hour after that, my wife called about our dog and you told her the doctor could have a look at him in about half an hour. That’s right? It took him about an hour to do the operation?”

  “It varies. Some of them resist the anesthetic. Sometimes there are complications. I—well, I allowed plenty of time. Thought I did. It was after you and Mrs. Heimrich brought the Dane in that I thought— well, that it was taking him longer than usual. And—”