A vivid image of Ted’s mother, Polly Hardwick, popped into Fenimore’s mind. Tall, big boned, imposing. She could have been her husband’s twin, and her son bore little resemblance to either of them. Fenimore remembered one dinner party he had attended at their house. A guest had rashly disagreed with Ned Hardwick on some current political issue. Polly had fixed him with an imperious stare and said, “We seldom tolerate such opinions in my home.” Startled, the guest had flushed, stuttered to a halt, and (to Fenimore’s disgust) remained silent for the rest of the meal.
“On Friday,” Ted went on, “Sweet Grass went to see Roaring Wings. He lives on a reservation in south Jersey. He’s not like his sister. He refuses to be assimilated into contemporary society. His main interest is preserving his native heritage and his Lenape blood. He refused to come to the wedding. She went down there to try, one last time, to persuade him to come. He’s her only living relative, and as children they were very close.”
“Have you talked to him since?”
“No. He doesn’t have a phone. One of his many quirks. When I realized she was missing, I sent a message to him. Eventually he got back to me saying he hadn’t heard from Sweet Grass since her visit. She had left him the next morning when she realized that he wasn’t going to change his mind. She had to get back for the party anyway.”
“Party?”
“Yes. Mother gave a party for us Saturday afternoon. Actually, it was only a picnic. She wanted to introduce Sweet Grass to some relatives and old friends of the family. Sweet Grass seemed to be feeling a little low afterward. Mother’s friends can be a bit overwhelming at times.”
I’ll say, thought Fenimore.
“And what with her brother refusing to come to the wedding, I think she was depressed. I wanted to drive her home, but she had her car, and since she was going to visit a friend in the hospital, she said I’d only be in the way.”
Fenimore got off the expressway at the Gladwyn exit and burrowed into the heart of the Main Line. “What friend?”
“Doris,” Ted said, “the one she’s rooming with temporarily. She was operated on last week, and Saturday was the first day she was allowed visitors.”
“Did you talk to Sweet Grass after that?”
“No.” There was a catch in his throat. “I called her at the apartment later that night, but she didn’t answer. I left a message, but she never called back.”
“And the next day?”
“I still got the answering machine, so I went right down there. There were a couple of women standing around in the hall. They told me Sweet Grass had scheduled a weaving class that morning, but she hadn’t shown up.”
“What did you do then?”
“Well, first I contacted Roaring Wings. Quite a production because of that phone thing. When I finally learned that he hadn’t seen her, I called Doris. She said Sweet Grass had come to the hospital but hadn’t stayed long. She had complained of a headache and dizziness. That’s when I got really concerned and wanted to call the police. But my parents wouldn’t have it. It would be too embarrassing if we involved the police and it turned out Sweet Grass was just suffering from a case of prenuptial jitters. They suggested that we wait awhile and see if she turned up.”
“And you agreed?” Fenimore struggled to hide his surprise.
“Yes. But I wasn’t happy about it. And I told them so. That’s when Mother thought of you and bugged Dad to give you a call. Dad dragged his feet all Sunday. I couldn’t stand it. Without telling them, I called Missing Persons. Then, this morning, Dad ran into you at the herb garden. Quite a coincidence!”
“Quite.” Fenimore wondered if Ned would ever have contacted him if he hadn’t staged their “accidental” meeting. “There are some things I need to know. Do you have something to write on?”
Ted pulled a small notebook and a pen from his pocket.
Fenimore flicked on the overhead light. “I need Roaring Wings’s address or some place where I can reach him.”
“You can leave a message at the Lenape Cultural Center in Riverton. They have a phone, and he’ll get it eventually.” Ted jotted the number down for him.
“And the name of her friend?”
“Doris Bentley.”
“And the hospital?”
“Franklin Hospital.” He wrote both these things down. “But I don’t know her room number.”
“Was Sweet Grass on any medication for her heart problem?”
He nodded. “She takes …” He paused and said deliberately, “She took a pill once a day. I’d pick them up for her sometimes at the pharmacy.”
“Do you happen to remember the name?”
“Digoxin.”
“Write that down.”
He did.
“Had she gotten a refill recently?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact. I picked one up last week. I think she said it would last for three months.”
Fenimore paused at an intersection and asked which way to turn. His visits to the Main Line were infrequent, and it was easy to lose your way on the narrow twisting roads. Once back on track, he asked, “Do you know the name of her physician?”
“Robinson. She’s at Jefferson. Her office is in the hospital.”
Fenimore knew Dr. Robinson. A competent cardiologist. Not overly aggressive. Board certified, like himself. Less experienced, of course.
They drove in silence for a while. Suddenly, Ted began to talk quietly, almost to himself. “It was so unlike her, not to call. She always called before she went to sleep at night. We would tell each other about our day and …” Abruptly remembering that he was not alone, he said, “You see, we shared an apartment until a few weeks ago when the lease ran out. Since then we lived apart. I lived at home and Sweet Grass stayed with Doris. Mother’s idea. ‘It would be more practical,’ she said. ‘More proper,’ was what she really meant.” He paused, probably regretting those weeks with Sweet Grass that he had lost. “After the wedding we were going to move into a small town house in Society Hill. We’ve been working on it off and on all year. Getting it into shape. The floors were the toughest. All that sanding. All that dust. Sweet Grass isn’t much of a housekeeper. She …” he trailed off.
It was after nine o’clock when they passed through the gate, brooded over by two stone lions, into the Hardwick property. It took a long time to circumnavigate the driveway to the house. The house itself was a mix of French château, medieval castle, and English country estate. Only a combination of inherited wealth (Polly’s) and a surgeon’s income (Ned’s) could possibly sustain such a spread. There was no car in the circular drive in front of the house and only a few lights on downstairs. The Hardwicks, it seemed, had not returned from the orchestra. Fenimore felt uneasy about leaving Ted alone. He had been silent for some time. As they crunched to a halt, Fenimore said, “How about if I come in for a while.”
“No. I’m all right.” He tore the sheet from his notebook, handed it to Fenimore, and got out quickly. “Thanks for the ride.” The courtesy was automatic.
Fenimore waited while Ted disconnected the burglar alarm and unlocked the front door. A large black Labrador rushed out to greet him. He knelt and hugged the dog, pressing his face into its fur. Fenimore waited another half minute before sliding into gear and starting back down the curving drive.
CHAPTER 12
LATER MONDAY EVENING
As Fenimore groped his way through the dark suburban roads, the image of the young man burying his face in his dog kept coming between him and the windshield. When that image disappeared it was replaced by another—of a young woman lying in the city morgue.
A screech of tires and brakes. To his left, in the glare of headlights, an angry man was shaking his fist and shouting something that sounded remarkably like “Damned drunk!”
From the breadth of the driver’s shoulders and the set of his jaw, Fenimore decided not to defend his sobriety. He pressed the accelerator and did not let go until he was deep on a wooded road requiring his high beams. The in
cident had jolted him out of his numbing depression. He craved action. Technically his services were no longer needed. He had located the young woman he had been asked to find. But he wasn’t satisfied. Intuitively he sensed that there was more to this than a simple missing person’s case followed by a natural death and burial. Why had Ted blurted “Roaring Wings” as soon as he had learned of his fiancée’s death? And there was something else Ted had said about his brother-in-law-to-be: “He feels very strongly about preserving his native heritage and his Lenape blood.” He must talk to Roaring Wings before the police did, before they put him on his guard. He glanced at his watch. Almost ten. Too late to tackle New Jersey back roads. These suburban roads were a piece of cake compared to the unmarked roads of south Jersey at night. Besides, it would be nearly midnight before he arrived. Hardly an appropriate time to inform someone of a death in the family. One thing was in his favor, however. Roaring Wings had no phone. And he was sure the police would not bestir themselves to notify the man of his sister’s death until the next morning.
But sleep was out of the question. He would only toss and turn. There must be something, someone. Doris Bentley, Sweet Grass’s roommate. She was a patient in the hospital. Often patients recuperating from surgery had trouble sleeping. Perhaps she would welcome a nocturnal visitor. But he must not tell her about Sweet Grass, as such a shock might delay her recovery. He would have to pretend they were still searching for her and he needed Doris’s help.
While working out this plan, Fenimore had been driving automatically. When he took stock of his surroundings, he was surprised to find that he was approaching the entrance to the expressway. The efficiency of his automatic pilot always amazed him. He was only ten minutes from center city and Franklin Hospital. He pulled onto the ramp and waited for an opening between the stream of cars.
At night, the cavernous lobbies of big-city hospitals depressed Fenimore. They reminded him of deserted railway terminals. But instead of waiting for trains, the few people dotting the landscape were waiting for news, often of life and death. And there were no cheerful attendants in blue and gold uniforms, eager to answer their questions. The only attendants were interns who appeared sporadically, in garish green tunics often stained with red—to let you know they had been dealing with serious matters. They wore their stains with an air, a sort of “red badge of courage.” They were young, of course. The older doctors no longer indulged in such histrionics, and they never showed up in the lobby.
Fenimore rarely came in the front entrance of a hospital. At his own hospital, he always came in the back, directly from the parking lot.
On his way to the information desk, he skirted a large sofa that had become home base for a woman and her three children. The youngest was curled up asleep against her thigh, but the older two were restless, darting around the room, engaged in some game. The woman made a halfhearted attempt to restrain them in Spanish, but its effect was short-lived and they were soon up and at it again.
The lone receptionist was deep in a paperback.
“I’d like the room number of Doris Bentley, please.”
The woman looked up and yawned. “Visiting hours are over.”
“I’m a physician.” He showed her his card, not bothering to tell her that he wasn’t on the staff.
“Oh, sorry, Doctor,” she flipped through the card file. “Room two-one-four.”
“Thanks.”
Fenimore got off the elevator and made his way down the corridor. He passed the nurses’ station where a party seemed to be in full swing: Nurses, orderlies, and assorted staff engaged in hilarity while the lights on the call board behind them flashed with the SOS’s of patients. If it had been his own hospital, he would have read them the riot act.
In this grim mood, he scanned the room numbers: 210, 212, 214. He tapped lightly on the half-open door. If she was asleep, of course, he wouldn’t disturb her.
“Come in.”
In the soft gray light of a small TV set suspended from a bar above the bed, he made out the young woman. Like Sweet Grass, she was sitting in a flexed position, knees bent. But this woman was alive—and facing west.
“My name is Dr. Fenimore … .”
Obligingly, she turned off the TV with the remote control and pulled a string that turned on the light above her bed. The room, illuminated as if by a camera flash, revealed someone in the early stages of convalescence after major surgery. Her pale face was set in a manner Fenimore recognized instantly—someone who has recently suffered severe pain and is still anxiously awaiting its return. She smiled tentatively, as if expecting yet another test or examination.
“I’m sorry to bother you at this hour—”
“No bother,” she stopped him. “A visitor is always welcome in the hospital. It relieves the monotony.”
“Then you must be feeling better.”
She smiled. “A little.”
“I’m a friend of Ted Hardwick. He—and his father—have asked me to help look for your roommate.”
“They haven’t found her?”
“Not yet.” Fenimore hated lying, but he told himself that in this case the end justified the means. “I wonder if I could talk to you for a minute.”
“Of course.” She indicated a chair by the bed.
“When did you last see Sweet Grass?”
“Saturday. She dropped by and brought me those.” She pointed to a pretty basket of violets on the windowsill. “I haven’t heard from her since.”
“Does that strike you as odd?”
“Not really. She’s awfully busy with the wedding and everything.”
“When she was here, did she mention anything about going away, to think things over or … ?”
“No. Nothing like that. She talked a little about the Hardwicks’ picnic. That’s where she was before she came here. And she complained about how hectic things were getting ready for the wedding. She and Ted wanted a simple wedding, but his parents insisted on the works.”
Fenimore nodded. “Parents tend to do that.”
“Sweet Grass had just joined a Friends Meeting and wanted a Quaker wedding,” Doris told him. “They marry themselves, you know. It’s a very simple ceremony. No minister. They sit in silence until the spirit moves their friends or relatives to speak about them.”
“Yes, I know.”
Fenimore was a great authority on weddings, of course. A bachelor for forty years, he had never even been engaged. Although Jennifer Nicholson was his frequent companion, he hesitated to make a permanent commitment because of the difference in their ages (she was fifteen years his junior). He could envision Jennifer in her prime, while he was doddering around some nursing home. It wouldn’t be fair to her, he thought. The fact that Jennifer might disagree didn’t occur to him.
“I’m a Presbyterian, myself,” Doris said, “but I went to a Quaker school … but I’m rambling. That’s what happens when you’re stuck in the hospital without anyone to talk to.”
Fenimore laughed. “Yes, hospital staff would rather stick needles into you, or take pictures of you, or roll you around on trolleys, than converse.”
She started to laugh but stopped abruptly, pressing her hand over her abdomen. “Not quite ready for that.” She smiled wanly. “Would you like some candy?” She gestured to a box of chocolates on her bedside table.
Why did people insist on giving bonbons to people recovering from abdominal operations? “No, thanks.”
“I don’t like them either. Pickles and salami are more my line. When I’m well, that is,” she hastened to add.
Fenimore went to the end of the bed and glanced at her chart. Expecting to find notes on an appendectomy, or at worst a gallbladder operation, he was dismayed to read “hysterectomy.” When he looked up, the young woman was watching him. He came back to his chair. “Did you know that your roommate’s brother had refused to come to the wedding?”
She nodded, relieved that he was not going to discuss her personal health problem. “She was very upset abo
ut it.”
“Did you know him?”
“I met him once. He’s …”—she plucked at the blanket, searching for the right word—“intimidating.”
“In what way?”
She frowned. “He’s very quiet.”
“Shy?”
“Oh, no. Still.”
“Still?”
“Yes. You know how most of us fidget—rub our chin, play with our hair?” She began to fiddle with her own gold braid as if to illustrate. “Well, he doesn’t do that. He just sits, hands in his lap, and stares. His eyes are full of intelligence, and he fixes you with this gaze.” She shook her head. “It’s very disconcerting.”
“Thanks for the warning. I’m going to see him tomorrow.”
“Oh? Do you think he has something to do with her disappearance?”
“Well, we have to explore every angle.”
She looked at him hard. “Are you some kind of detective?”
“Uh, unofficially. I like to solve puzzles. It’s not too different from diagnosing people’s ailments. You take a history, do some tests, use some judgment based on experience, and make a diagnosis.”
“And the cure?”
He shifted uncomfortably. “That’s not so easy.” He changed the subject. “Ted told me Sweet Grass wasn’t feeling well when she came to see you.”
“Yes. That’s true. She complained of a headache, and she felt dizzy and a little nauseated. She thought it was a migraine coming on. She’s subject to them. She blamed it on all the tension over the wedding. She left here early because of it.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
“Straight home to bed.”
“Were you aware that your roommate was on medication?”
“Oh, yes. She took a pill once a day.”
“Do you happen to know the name of it?”
She thought a minute, then said tentatively, “I think it was digoxin.”
Fenimore examined the young woman’s face—as a doctor, not a detective. It was pale and drawn. It was time to bring the interview to a close. “You’ve been a tremendous help.” He rose. “Now try to get some sleep before they wake you up to give you your sleeping pill.”
The Doctor Digs a Grave Page 5
