23-The Tenth Life

by Lockridge, Richard

  “Yes, Miss Arnold. How did you happen to come here, by the way?”

  “I wrote and applied,” she said. “For several years, Dr. Barton has been having students from the school come down in the summers. To get practical experience. The dean thinks it’s a good idea. A boy who was here last year told me about it, so I wrote the doctor. And he—I suppose he checked me out. At the school, I mean. Anyway, he said to come down and we’d talk it over. So, I came down and we worked things out. Not that there was much to work out. I was to live with them, Dr. and Mrs. Barton and—well, watch and help out when I could. As I said, a sort of internship. Dean Smedley was all for it. Dr. Barton was a Cornell man himself, you know. He came up for guest lectures now and then.”

  Heimrich said he saw. “And you’ve found Dr. Barton an easy man to work with?”

  She said, “Oh, yes.”

  Latham Rorke appeared to have withdrawn. He was looking at the wall opposite. He seemed to be looking at it rather fixedly. It was, Heimrich thought, as if he wanted to make his detachment evident. Disapproving? Perhaps even jealous? With cause for jealousy?

  A detective gets involved with things which do not concern him; things which are no business of his. This happens in all cases. It can even happen when, as now, there is not really a case.

  Merton Heimrich stood up. Forniss, who had been sitting at the other end of the room and been reading a magazine, stood too. He put the small magazine—how small most magazines had got in recent years!—into his jacket pocket. A magazine he had brought with him, apparently.

  They went out to the police car. “Sent young Purvis back with the lab boys,” Forniss said. “Didn’t figure you’d need him.”

  “No,” Heimrich said. “I’m not too sure we need anybody.”

  “Want to stop somewhere for a sandwich, M. L.?”

  Heimrich did not. Forniss drove him home. No, he guessed he wouldn’t come in for a drink.

  He had started the engine and was shifting into drive when he took the small magazine out of his pocket. He held it out to Heimrich. “Afraid I walked off with this,” he said. “Maybe you’ll want to take it back, if you go to the hospital again. Or I can go around and put it back, on my way to the barracks. I’ve got the duty tonight.”

  Heimrich doubted he would be going back to the small animal hospital of the late Adrian Barton, DVM. But he took the magazine. It had a simple title. The title was The American Cat Fancy. Only inside was the title amplified. It became “The Fanciers Journal.” At the foot of the Contents page, “Published monthly” caught his eye, and a Philadelphia address.

  5

  The Buick was in the garage. Colonel was not in the Buick. Which was something of a relief.

  It was cool in the long, low house. Usually, they could turn the air conditioner off after sunset, even in weather as hot as this. But now it was still running. Of course, for Colonel’s benefit. Susan had, he guessed, diagnosed heat exhaustion.

  Colonel was lying, on his side and in apparent comfort, in front of the fireplace, with summer logs stacked neatly in it. Mite was lying, also extended, between Colonel’s forepaws. Animals get habit fixations. If it is a sound idea to lie in front of a fire in cold weather, it remains a good idea to lie in front of the same fireplace in summer.

  Colonel lifted his big head and looked at Heimrich. He did not say anything, but he has never been a talkative dog. Susan said “Hi” from the kitchen. “Have you had anything to eat?” Merton had not, and said he hoped she had.

  “A sandwich,” Susan said and came out of the kitchen. “Toasted cheese be all right? Or cold cuts, only the beef is well done. Gray done. And shall we have our other drink, or is it too late for a martini?” She looked at the animals in front of the nonfire.

  “He got out of the car all right,” she said. “I wouldn’t say with alacrity, but he got out. And he ate dinner. Part of it, anyway. And he doesn’t smell sick to Mite, obviously. Sometimes other animals seem to be able to tell better than vets. Speaking of vets?” Heimrich sat down and stretched his legs out. He also sat in front of the fireplace. An animal doesn’t have to have four legs to become fixated. Susan stood and looked at him. Then she said she’d get the ice and turned back toward the kitchen. Heimrich raised his voice a little to answer her question. His answer was they didn’t know yet. He heard ice rattle into the glass mixer. He waited until Susan came back, carrying a tray with bottles on it, and the ice-filled mixing glass, and the properly chilled stemmed glasses. And, of course, the lemon and the bar knife. It was after ten, and a hell of a time for before-dinner drinks.

  “Probably natural causes,” Merton said, as he mixed drinks on the table between their chairs. “Probably a lot of fuss about nothing. Starting because Colonel’s an old dog and got to feeling the heat. The lab boys are on it, and the pathologist at Cold Harbor. Probably his heart just stopped. They do, sometimes.”

  They clicked glasses and sipped. Susan looked at their animals, basking in the heat that wasn’t. Then she turned to Merton Heimrich and for several seconds looked at him without speaking.

  “Only,” Susan Heimrich said, “you don’t think so, do you? This man York, you think?”

  “Rorke,” Heimrich said. “Latham Rorke, M.D. I don’t know what I think, dear. Nothing to go on.”

  She continued to look at him, her lips in a patient smile.

  “All right,” Heimrich said. “A policeman is always curious and usually suspicious. As enjoined to be in the textbooks. Why Rorke, Susan?”

  “Jealous,” Susan said. “In love with the pretty girl. Thinks she and the vet were playing around. Whether or not they were, it would be what he thought, wouldn’t it?”

  Heimrich said, “Intuition, dear?”

  “Observation,” Susan said.

  “And you think Carol and Dr. Barton were lovers?”

  “Merton, dear,” Susan said, “however would I know? I never saw them together. When they were both alive, that is.”

  She finished her drink and stood up. “I’ll do your sandwich,” she said. “While you have another.”

  She went back to the kitchen. Heimrich made himself another drink.

  The implication was, he thought, that had Susan seen Barton and Carol Arnold together, and both alive, Susan would have known whether they were lovers. Well, he thought, she probably would have. And so, possibly not quite so quickly, would I. Lovers give themselves away. Even if they are sitting across a room from each other. He looked toward the kitchen as he finished his drink.

  Of course, if Rorke had noticed, or thought he noticed, intimacy between Carol and her employer—for room and board, apparently—others might have noticed too. Mrs. Barton? She certainly would have had opportunity. To observe small movements, to hear intonations in voices. Assuming she was an observant woman.

  She would, almost certainly, know her way around the hospital. Better than Latham Rorke, M.D., who clearly knew his rather well. Almost as well as Carol Arnold had, in a couple of months, learned to know her way. If, say, she had loved Barton and been dropped by her lover? That certainly came within police experience, as it had in that of Oscar Wilde. Who had, perhaps, extended it beyond acceptance. But Wilde had been a poet.

  Heimrich was not. He was a cop waiting for his wife to bring him a toasted cheese sandwich. And for the telephone to ring, being fairly sure it wouldn’t, at least for hours. Things move slowly on summer weekends, even in hospitals and police labs.

  He leaned down and rubbed Colonel behind the ears. Colonel sighed a contented sigh. “You got us into something, old boy,” Heimrich told his dog. Colonel opened his eyes. They were sad, as they were always sad. But there was response in them.

  Then Colonel got up. He was no more laborious about it than usual—than, Heimrich realized, he had been about it for some months; perhaps for as much as a year. Age brings its changes slowly; one is apt to take them for granted. Except, of course, as regards oneself.

  Mite, bereft, arched his back. Then he jumped to Hei
mrich’s lap, circled and curled. He also purred. Heimrich scratched behind Mite’s ears, and Mite made sounds of appreciation.

  Susan brought the sandwich. She had toasted bacon in it. After Heimrich had eaten it, and after Colonel had returned from the kitchen, they had mild Scotches and water. After all, it was Saturday night. Sunday was Merton’s day off, as befitted inspectorship. And susan faye fabrics was never open on Sundays. It was not, for that matter, open in July, although Susan often went to the shop on Van Brunt Avenue to do designs in the back room.

  They sat silently. Mite, who had not got any of Heimrich’s sandwich, although not for want of trying, went off after his dog. When they had finished their drinks, Susan and Merton Heimrich went to bed.

  The telephone did not ring. It had not rung at a little before midnight, when Merton left Susan’s bed and occupied his own. It had not rung at a little after seven, when the summer sun awakened them both. The sun was assisted by Colonel, who woofed his readiness for breakfast, and to go out. Mite, as usual, let the big dog speak for both of them. Mite does not waste meows.

  Susan and Merton had breakfast on the terrace. Distant church bells softly summoned them to mass at Saint Mary’s. They did not respond to the gentle suggestion. “Poor Father Maloney,” Susan said. “I hope some of his flock—well, flocks.”

  Heimrich said “Mmm.” He noted that this was Presbyterian country, Episcopalian in the higher echelons.

  “And we’re heathens,” Susan said. “Very restful things to be on Sunday mornings.”

  She poured Heimrich a third cup of coffee and took used dishes into the kitchen. Merton Heimrich smoked and sipped coffee and looked at the morning sun sparkling on the Hudson. And waited for the telephone to ring. He had heard it ring several times during the night. It had wakened him. And always it had rung only in a dream. In another hour or so he’d call the barracks and ask for Sergeant Kojian in the lab. And it would turn out to be Kojian’s day off. Kojian would be sleeping in.

  Susan came back to sit with him. She had, she said, turned the air conditioner on. They sat in restful silence. Heimrich said, “Thank you, darling. For everything. For last night.”

  She said, “Thank you, sir,” trying to make it sound prim.

  Colonel came across the field toward the terrace. He did not hurry. On the other hand, he moved steadily enough. He lay down in the shade, which was diminishing as the sun rose higher. Soon, now, they would all three have to go into the coolness of the house, in which Mite had remained, sleeping off his breakfast.

  The telephone rang. At its first exploring sound, Heimrich was on his feet and a long stride toward the door. There went their restful Sunday morning, Susan thought. She heard him say, “Heimrich,” a little hurriedly. But then he said, “Oh, good morning, Agnes. I don’t know. I’ll have to ask Susan.”

  He reappeared at the door. “Agnes Fielding,” he said. “They want us for brunch. I don’t—”

  “I’ll talk to her,” Susan said, and went to do it. Heimrich moved his chair back, hugging the lessening shade. Colonel raised his head to observe the activity. He decided it did not concern him, and put his head down again. They’d really have to take him to the vet in Cold Harbor, Heimrich thought. Have him checked out. Not that, now, he didn’t seem much as usual.

  Susan came to the door. “I told them how sorry we were,” she said. “And that we wanted a rain check. And I don’t really want bloody marys, do you? And it’s cooler inside and the Times has come. It doesn’t seem quite as heavy as usual. I could lift it.”

  It was cooler inside. And the Sunday New York Times does lose weight in midsummer. Heimrich was in the sports section and Susan in “Art and Leisure” and it was almost noon when the telephone rang again.

  Heimrich spoke his name into it.

  “Sergeant Kojian, sir. This syringe you sent us.”

  Heimrich said, “Morning, Mikel.”

  Mikel Kojian had his master’s degree in biological chemistry. He was working for his doctorate. The New York State Police was a stopover. Or a stepping stone.

  “Not much residue,” Kojian said. “But—you been invaded by South American Indians down there, Inspector?”

  “South Am—oh?”

  “Yes, sir. Curare. For arrowheads. An alkaloid. Several of them, in fact. Active principle curarine. And pretty damn active it is. What we got, after a lot of messing around, was d-tubocurarine. A little of which—well, goes a long way, Inspector. Resulting in death by asphyxiation. Because the breathing muscles quit working, you see.”

  “No insulin in the syringe, Mikel? Because that’s what was supposed to be in it.”

  “We didn’t find any. And whoever supposed it was insulin got—well, he got a nasty shock, M. L. First he couldn’t keep his eyes open. Then he couldn’t hold his head up. Then he couldn’t move his arms or legs. And couldn’t stand. And finally couldn’t breathe. Complete flaccidity of all skeletal muscles. Muscles attached to the skeleton, that is.”

  Heimrich had assumed that skeletal muscles would be those attached to the skeleton.

  “Would curare show up in a postmortem, Sergeant?”

  “Not very clearly. Body eliminates the stuff rapidly. Why the South American Indians could eat their kill with impunity. Destroyed in the digestive tract, anyway. The pathologist might miss it. Unless he knew what to look for. That helps with all poisons, of course.”

  Scientists do not, often, suppress their scientific knowledge.

  “O.K. Switch me to Lieutenant Forniss, will you, Mikel?”

  “Afraid he’s off duty, Inspector. Had the duty last night. Get him at home, of course.”

  That wouldn’t be necessary. Kojian could pass the word. A trooper in a cruise car, the nearest he could reach, was to go to Dr. Barton’s small animal hospital, and pick up a vial Heimrich would point out to him. And take it to the lab. O.K.?

  “The lab being me today, Inspector. O.K. Meet you at this animal hospital and bring in what you give him. I’ll get on it, sir.”

  Heimrich dialed the Cold Harbor hospital. After some delay, he got James Marvin, M.D.

  No, they hadn’t finished yet with Dr. Barton. Curare? Yes, he’d pass the word to Terry Snead—Terence Snead, M.D—the pathologist who was cutting Barton up. Yes, it would be a help to know what they were looking for. Evasive stuff, curare. Might have to send samples to New York to be sure. Not that Terry wasn’t a good man. Damn good man. But curare was something you didn’t come across too often.

  “Not something we use nowadays,” he said. “Tried it in tetanus cases awhile back. And in shock treatment, to keep people from breaking their arms and legs. Tried it in abdominal surgery, to relax muscles. It relaxes the hell out of them, you know.”

  By then Heimrich did know. “Nothing a doctor would be likely to have around, then, Doctor?”

  “Hell, no. Very tricky stuff. Anything over, say, twenty-five m.g.’s and—poof. Unless you use artificial respiration very quickly. No, M. L., nothing we fool with in the profession. Some veterinarians—my God!”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “How, Doctor?”

  “To immobilize animals without inducing unconsciousness. You can’t just tell an animal to lie still, this won’t hurt. In minute quantities, of course.”

  “Yes, Doctor. In one c.c., how many milligrams, would you say?”

  “About forty.” He added that he would be damned.

  “Yes, Doctor,” Heimrich said. “Looks as if we’ve got ourselves a murder, doesn’t it?”

  Susan was not happy about it. Heimrich had not assumed she would be. No, he could not tell when he might be back. Susan was not surprised. She said, “Damn. Oh, damn.” Heimrich agreed with her. He kissed her and backed the Buick out of the garage. Colonel came to the kitchen door and watched. He pushed at the screen, but when it resisted he did not persist. He did woof that he would like to go along. When the car door did not open for him, he went back to lie on the floor in front of the fireplace.

  Heimrich drove f
aster toward the animal hospital than he had driven before. He should have taken the used insulin vial last night and sent it to the lab along with the syringe. He should have had the courage of his suspicions. Somebody else might have the vial by now. Carol Arnold? Latham Rorke? Even Louise Barton? Damn! He would have a rookie trooper on suspension for such carelessness. Hell. I not only look like a hippopotomas; I think like one.

  There was no police car parked in front of the animal hospital, no trooper waiting. The front door of the animal hospital was closed. There was a sign: “Ring and enter.” Heimrich rang and tried to enter. The door was locked. He rang again and heard a bell sound inside. Nothing else happened. He went around to the back door.

  Roger King was sitting on a director’s chair in the shade of a big maple behind the hospital. There were now no cars in the garage next to the big white house.

  Roger King was reading a book. It did not look like a textbook to Merton Heimrich. A mystery novel, possibly. Roger laid the book down on the grass and stood up. He said, “Sir? Sorry, Inspector. I guess I didn’t hear the bell.”

  It was all right, Heimrich told him.

  “Miss Arnold asked me to sort of stay around,” Roger said. “Keep an eye on things until she gets back. You want to go inside, Inspector? I’ve fed all of them and changed the cats’ pans. I was just—well, waiting until Miss Arnold gets back. I’m not supposed to be here on Sundays. Miss Arnold asked me to, well, stay around. But everything’s all right, sir.”

  A very polite boy, if inclined to fuller—and defensive?—explanations.

  Everything wasn’t all right, of course. Heimrich said, “Sure, son,” and that there was just something he wanted to check on. And was the back door open? Roger went to the door and pulled it open for Heimrich. A very polite boy, who acted a little as if he had been remiss in guard duty.

  Heimrich went into the hospital. The cats were in their cages. The big black cat hissed at him, but in a rather perfunctory manner. Heimrich felt, vaguely, that there were fewer cats than there had been the evening before. Hadn’t there been a Siamese in a cage, in addition to the postoperative one in the oxygen chamber? It didn’t matter.