Her words rushed forward in staccato fashion. “I haven’t done private duty in years, but as soon as I heard, I called Doctor Cherny and told him I was available for as many hours as necessary. Jan Wholly is doing night duty. You remember Jan, she used to be Jan Martin?”
“Martha, is she in pain?”
“We do what we can, son. She’s getting the best possible treatment.”
“I know she is, and that you’re doing all you can. Can I see her now?”
She seemed flustered. “I don’t know. The doctor has her on the critical list … I guess I shouldn’t even say that until you talk to him.”
“I talked to Gordon on the phone last night. I understand the severity of the case. Where’s room 314?” Without waiting for an answer, he strode down the hall.
“The other way, Mr. Maston,” echoed the ward clerk’s voice behind him.
Brian swiveled on his heel and walked quickly in the opposite direction. As he passed the nurses’ station Martha walked beside him. “She’s very sick. She may not even know you.”
“Where’s Uncle Lockwood?”
“He’s hardly left the hospital since she was admitted. He’s probably in the sun room. Wouldn’t you like to see him first?”
“No. I’ll talk to him later.” He stopped before the door of 314. There was a No Visitors sign posted across its front. He reached for the handle as Martha twitted beside him.
“Let me get the doctor.”
“I want to see my mother, Martha. I’ll talk to Gordon later.” He turned the handle and stepped in the room and closed the door. Lowered blinds cast shadows across the room. The still form, almost rigid under the blanket, seemed so much smaller than he remembered. He pulled a chair to the side of the bed and sat near her. Her eyes were closed, and her sunken cheeks were the color of alabaster. He clenched his fists at the sight of the IV running into her arm and the nose tubes violating her face.
Her eyes flicked open and slowly turned. The ravaged face smiled. “I knew you’d come.”
His hand clasped hers. “You shouldn’t have kept it such a big secret. People go to the hospital all the time, and sons visit mothers in hospitals constantly. Right?”
She winced as her body shuddered from a nameless spasm of pain. “You were a fine boy and you’ve turned into a fine man. I like you without the beard.”
“I shaved it off as a disguise.” He tried to chuckle, but it died in his throat. The times she had traveled to Montreal for the holidays were too vivid, and they had inevitably affectionately argued over the beard.
“How’s Faby?”
“Just fine,” he lied. “She wanted to come but …”
“Brian, your nose is getting longer.”
“She walked out.”
She shook her head and grimaced in pain. “You can get them, but can’t seem to hold them.”
“I’ll find someone.”
“I was hoping that … do you still have the nightmares?”
“Not so much anymore.”
It was obvious that speech was becoming more difficult for her. “Will you forgive me?”
“Mother.” He gripped her fingers and was surprised at the strength of her return clasp. “There’s nothing to forgive. I’m the one who’s …”
“I want you to promise me that you’ll take care of Uncle Lockwood.”
“My solemn word.”
“Bellchamp. I must tell you about Bellchamp.”
The door opening behind him dispersed the shadows into a pyramid of light that framed Mary’s gaunt face. Martha’s hands touched his shoulders. “We have to change the IV, Brian. It’ll only take a few minutes. Doctor Cherny would like to see you while you’re waiting.”
Brian stood reluctantly. Mary’s fingers left his and fell limply onto the covers. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He leaned down and kissed her.
“The doctor’s in the lounge past the nurses’ station,” Martha said as she closed the door behind him.
The doctors’ lounge had a swinging door that waffled shut behind him. Gordon Cherny was making notes in a chart. He looked up and smiled as Brian entered. Pushing the charts aside as his tall frame unwound from the couch, he grasped Brian’s hand.
They had grown up together. They had fished, played ball, and discovered girls together in an easy camaraderie. In recent years their interests had diverged, and Gordon only had made the trip to Canada once, and the visit was made uncomfortable by his wife’s protestations that they were probably doing something wrong and breaking some law or other.
“When you finally get the word, you don’t waste much time, old buddy. And where in hell did you get that suit?”
“She looks terrible, Gordon. I tried to prepare myself, but still …”
The doctor cleared the charts away and motioned to the couch. He shrugged. “What can I tell you? There’s no question in my mind that she’s had severe symptoms for some time, but by the time she came to me and I took a bronchial biopsy, we found squamous carcinoma with metastatic spread to bone and liver.”
“So little time.”
“She’s a tough little fighter. Who knows?”
“There must be something more that can be done. Radiation, some of the new drugs? We could take her to Boston.”
“I don’t think she’d make the trip. Good God, Brian! I’ve known Mary all my life. How many hundreds of hours did I spend in your house, eating at her table?”
“We’ve got to try. Who’s the best man in Hartford for this sort of thing?”
“McKinnley. I’ll call and have him come down if you want.”
“I’d appreciate it. I wouldn’t feel right unless I knew everything possible was being done.”
“I’ll have him here tomorrow.”
“Is she suffering?”
“I’ve changed from Demerol to morphine. She didn’t want to be out while she was waiting for you.”
“Then she is in pain?”
“Now that you’re here, I’ll increase the dosage. I should have before, but she’s a very opinionated little lady.”
“Yes, I know. I also know you’re doing all you can. I’m just sorry I wasn’t here sooner.” Brian walked to the door. “I want to get back to her. Can we talk later?”
“Hell, yes.”
The blinds had been partially opened and bright slats of light fell across the foot of the bed. Brian’s eyes flicked up to see that a full IV bottle now hung from the stanchion.
Something was wrong.
The form on the bed, its upper portion still in shadows, was still—too still. He stepped toward her. “Mother …”
A pillow was spread across her face.
He snatched it away and reached for the limp fingers hanging over the side of the bed. While his hand worked down the slender wrist feeling for a nonexistent pulse, his other hand fumbled across the bedclothes and switched on the emergency buzzer.
Slowly he straightened up, the pillow in his hands, and stood looking at the lifeless form.
Sharp intakes of breath made him turn to see Gordon and Martha framed in the doorway, looking at him with wide eyes. The doctor strode across the room, bent over Mary and then nodded toward Martha, who immediately hurried down the hall.
Brian backed across the room as Gordon pummeled Mary’s sternum. After a few moments he stopped, shook his head toward the group now gathered at the doorway with the emergency cart, and looked toward Brian.
“You’ve done it, old buddy. She’s dead.”
Chapter Two
Brian looked down at the pillow clenched in his hands, and then toward Gordon standing by the bed. “Someone killed her,” he said and let the pillow fall.
Gordon glanced down at the pillow and then into his friend’s face. Turning back to the bed, the doctor pulled the sheet over Mary’s face, and gestured toward Martha to close the door against the men huddled in the hallway. “I don’t blame you,” Gordon said as he looked down at the body.
“I didn’t do it.”
<
br /> “Who saw him with the pillow?”
“Two others,” Martha responded.
“Uh huh. I’ll sign the death certificate as natural causes.”
“Natural!” Initial shock parted before anger. “She was alive a few minutes ago. While I was gone, someone came in here and …”
“She was in pain. We don’t blame you.”
Tears creased an erratic course down Martha’s heavy face as she stood before him with outstretched arms. “She was waiting for you, child. Every day she asked, and I didn’t know what to say. A while ago, when I changed the medication, she smiled for the first time in days and told me how glad she was that you were home. You did it for her. You put her to rest and I thank you, I thank God for what you have done.”
Brian shrank back from the cloying protectiveness of the large woman. “You’re mistaken. You’re both wrong. We didn’t have enough time together … I couldn’t have.”
“You were the only one alone with her,” Gordon said.
“The pillow was over her face when I came back.”
Gordon turned sharply to Martha. “Exactly who saw it?”
“Doctor Williams.”
“I can handle him.”
“An aide. That new black man, Artie Stewart.”
“Do you know him well enough to keep him quiet?”
“Yes, I think so. If not, there are a lot of people on this floor who loved Mary Maston and will help. I don’t think Artie will say anything.”
Gordon paced the room. “Let me think it through. It’s not that unusual, you know. This sort of thing has happened before and will happen again. Now, everyone knew of Mary’s condition, and the chart will verify that she was weak, with the possibility of clinical death at any time. Who’s to say it would be now, or three days from now? It can be kept quiet. By God, it can!”
“Gordon. Someone just killed my mother!”
“We don’t condemn you, we’re with you all the way.”
“We thank you,” Martha said.
“Martha, you attend in here and call the Faulkland Funeral Home. Faulkland all right with you, Brian?”
“Funeral home … yes.”
“Then let’s get the hell out of here. The administrator’s away on some Mickey Mouse convention, and I happen to know he keeps a bottle in his desk. Right now, you look as if you need a drink—a stiff one.”
Brian stood before the window in the downstairs office. He looked vacantly out at the speckled parking lot, and in some far-away, distant place heard liquid pouring from a bottle.
“Bourbon all right with you?”
Looking down at the drink next to his hand, Brian said, “Sure.” He had to take the paper cup in both hands and immediately sit in the swivel chair behind the desk in order to bring the trembling under control. Gordon slouched in a leather divan at the far side of the room with one leg draped over the arm and eyed him speculatively.
“I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve done it. An overdose in the needle, benign neglect with life-support systems. We’re all human, old buddy.”
Brian snapped his head back and rubbed his forehead. “It’s not a moral issue. You don’t have to vindicate me for something I didn’t do.”
“Have it your way.”
“Someone smothered my mother and I want to know who.”
“There are always dozens of people in the halls. When you left me in the lounge, did you go right back to the room?”
“I stopped in the rest room for a few minutes.”
“Then it could have been me.”
Brian glanced up at his friend. “It could have.”
“It wasn’t.” Gordon crumpled the paper cup and threw it toward a corner wastebasket. “Okay. Possibilities: You did it, and as much as you wanted to do it, you found it so damn alien to your nature that you blacked out the process.”
“No.”
Gordon shrugged. “Or someone else who loved your mother very much, and in anguish over her suffering, decided to do it for you. Someone who knew you had seen her, been at her side, and now was the time. Do you know that when Mary was first admitted, dozens of people a day came to visit? I finally had to put a stop to it. She wasn’t up to that sort of socializing. They knew and loved her.”
“And killed her.”
“There’s another word for it. If there was ever a moral case for euthanasia, it was Mary’s. She was suffering, she had no medical possibility of survival. If she’d had more time with you, I’m sure she would have asked you to do it.”
“She was murdered.”
“Damn it all, old buddy! You’re not listening. Maybe under the circumstances, that’s only natural. This has been one hell of a shock. But think about it, Brian. Why would anyone conceivably murder a woman who had only days, if not hours, to live? And why would anyone want to do away with Mary?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Damn right it doesn’t. I ought to give you something, but I hate to mix a tranquilizer with booze.” He filled two more paper cups with bourbon. “Okay, you didn’t do it. I’ll call the cops.”
“I think it deserves an investigation. Are you afraid of scandal in the hospital?”
“That’s unfair. Any investigation around here is going to point in one direction.”
“Right at me.”
“It’s either that, or you come to terms with the fact that a friend did Mary one hell of a favor.”
“I don’t like either alternative.” He swiveled the chair to stare out the window. A stooped man in overalls left the building and hurried across the macadam toward an ancient station wagon parked in a far corner.
The man was his Uncle Lockwood. Brian wanted to speak with his uncle as soon as possible.
Afraid of the condition of his reflexes, Brian drove the Ford toward the house slowly. The massive combination of drinks, grief and utter fatigue had left him numb. The bright summer day had taken on an aura of unreality.
He stopped for a traffic light at the corner by the village green. The surrounding buildings had been designated an historical district, and therefore retained their original facades; and except for the intrusion of motor vehicles, the green looked unchanged from a century ago.
The war monument had been placed in front of the bandstand. As the light changed, and he made his turn parallel to the green, he pulled to the curb and stopped near the monument.
His father’s name was the last listed of World War II dead.
Brian Maston—1944.
There would be no common grave for Mary and Brian senior. Corporal Maston lay on a small atoll in the South Pacific, the victim of a last convulsive suicidal rush by Japanese defenders. He remembered Mary’s anger at town officials when they showed reluctance to add his father’s name to the list. Brian senior had never lived in Tallman, they had pointed out; in fact, during the war, Mary had married and lived away for a number of years. But the fact of four generations of Mary’s family in Tallman had swayed them, and the name had been added.
“He was a laughing man,” she had told him when he asked about his father. “That’s a quality I hope you inherit. You’re too serious, Brian. Now, your father saw humor in everything, even the day we were married. It was that small Congregational Chruch in Mystic that we’ve passed on the way to the aquarium. It was a small wedding, just the minister, his wife and us. Brian kept them in stitches. He was that kind of man.”
She had never remarried, and in fact, Brian couldn’t recall her ever dating anyone. But now she was dead.
Gordon had suggested that Brian might have blacked out or erased the act of killing.
He didn’t think so. Death was all too real to him. The memory of the first man he had lost in Vietnam was still as vivid as the moment it happened. It was during his third patrol, and the platoon had walked a narrow path a few feet above surrounding rice paddies. They never heard the shot, but the young soldier, carrying the radio at his side, had plunged forward with a look of incr
edulous shock. It was real then, and his mother’s death was real today. No, he hadn’t blacked out. He wasn’t in any fugue state. Gordon and Martha might talk of euthanasia from now to next year, but Mary’s life had been cut short; perhaps only by a day, hours or minutes, but it still had been shortened.
Brian pressed the accelerator and turned toward Ferry Road and the house he had grown up in. It was a low, rambling brown house set on the top of a small knoll above the sparsely traveled road. The sign on the oak in front swung gently as he turned up the drive and stopped in front of the porch that ran along three sides of the rebuilt farm house. Here they had lived, his grandparents, and theirs before them.
He left the car to walk the few steps up the front porch and open the screen door. The heavy interior door was locked. A small sign with orange lettering that read “Sorry—We are Closed” had been stuck in the door glass. He entered the house by an open side door.
“Lockwood, you here?” Brian’s voice echoed through the silence. Shuddering at the dank chill in the rooms, he walked quickly through the house opening windows to dispel the damp. The sitting room, with its overstuffed chairs and crocheted doilies at the headrests, had not changed in the years he had been away. He threw open the door of his mother’s room where a picture on the nightstand smiled in his direction. The young soldier in the photograph was obviously proud of his newly sewn corporal stripes and glistening parachutist’s badge. The grin seemed to divide the face, and Brian had always imagined that after the camera shutter had fallen, the man had tilted his head back to emit long peels of laughter that filled the studio.
Brian closed the bedroom door and walked toward the shop that occupied what had once been the formal sitting and dining rooms of the old house. The antique store was cluttered with hundreds of items on display on shelves that ran the length of each room: collections of dolls, porcelain figurines, glassware and decanters, pewter in various sizes and shapes, and furniture.
He stopped before a chest of drawers that he recognized from Mary’s description of it. “I picked it up at an estate auction,” she had told him during one of her visits to Canada. “Absolutely genuine Connecticut River Valley, middle 1700s. A real find.” He ran his finger along the top and felt accumulated dust.
The Laughing Man Page 2
