“I’m making tea,” the man called out.
“That’s not necessary.”
“You prefer coffee?”
“No, no. Tea is fine.” He’d prefer nothing, so he could get on with the business at hand. He glanced at his watch: 8:25. Apparently there was more to making tea than just dunking a tea bag in hot water. Finally Roaring Wings emerged from behind the screen bearing two earthenware mugs steaming with that special fragrance. Fenimore envied the ease with which the Lenape lowered himself onto a turquoise cushion while balancing the two mugs full of hot liquid. He handed one to him. Fenimore had a strong desire to take out his pipe. But somehow, seated cross-legged opposite a Native American, he felt awkward about it. He took a sip of tea. “Hmm. What is this?”
“A blend of herbs.”
They drank in silence, Fenimore growing more and more ill at ease, edgy. He was not used to silence. If he hadn’t been sitting on the floor and afraid of making a fool of himself as he struggled to his feet, he would have risen and paced the room, looking at things and inquiring about them to relieve the tension. But he remained where he was, waiting for his host to speak. He was surprised that Roaring Wings didn’t ask more about his sister’s death. Or was there some taboo in his culture about discussing the dead? He seemed to remember that it was forbidden for the Lenapes to speak the name of their dead. The residue of crushed herbs was visible in the bottom of Fenimore’s cup, before Roaring Wings finally spoke.
“Tell me what happened.”
Reacting like a child who has been told to be quiet and is finally allowed to speak, Fenimore poured out the whole tale of burying Horatio’s cat and the discovery of Sweet Grass and the eventual identification of her body by Ted. When he had finished, Roaring Wings rose easily and, turning his back, busied himself with the fire. To hide his grieving? His face had remained impassive during the telling of the story, and Fenimore had begun to wonder if he had any emotions. He checked the time. A half hour had passed. Soon the creaky wheels of organized crime detection would begin to turn. Rafferty or one of his assistants would show up on the doorstep. Fenimore must be gone before then. Rafferty would not be amused by his meddling. The only time Rafferty condoned Fenimore’s meddling was when it was instigated by him. If there was anything more to be learned from Roaring Wings, he must learn it now. “Did you know of this burial ground?”
He turned from the fire. “My uncle took me there once, when I was a child.”
“Does it surprise you? That she was buried there?”
He sat down again and took a sip of tea. The deliberateness of his movements was maddening. “Nothing about my sister surprised me.”
Fenimore kept silent, noting that Roaring Wings neglected to mention her name.
“You see, we chose separate ways long ago. She chose to mix with the wasechus. I did not.”
Fenimore recognized the word wasechus. He had come across it in his studies of the Lenape. It was a derogatory term for “white man.” But he was learning the rewards of silence. He held his tongue.
“Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t blame her. When she was small, she had this sickness. She had trouble breathing. When we played tag and other running games, she had to squat down to catch her breath. The other children made fun of her. They called her Sitting Frog. And she was a funny color. Her skin was sometimes blue. The children made fun of that too.” He looked at Fenimore. “Children are cruel.”
Fenimore allowed himself a nod, without disturbing the flow.
“When she went to school, on the first day the nurse diagnosed the blue tinge of her skin as cyanosis. She insisted that my mother take Sweet Grass to a specialist. After that, everything changed. My sister went to a big hospital in the city. She had an operation. She was gone for several weeks. And when she came back, she was completely cured. She was no longer blue, and soon she was running like the rest of us. No one called her Sitting Frog anymore.” He paused.
“Naturally, she was very grateful to the wasechus,” he went on, “and afterward, she seemed to feel at home with them. She got along very well at school. The teachers loved her. And she made good grades. I also made good grades. But they did not like me as much, and I never felt at home with them.” Again he paused, obviously thinking back.
“As the years went by, she grew closer to the white people, and I did not. She went away to school and became a teacher. As a result, we grew farther apart. In recent years we saw each other only now and then. And when she told me she was going to marry a …” For the first time, he seemed to realize that Fenimore was one of them.
Fenimore said quickly, “And what were you doing all those years, while your sister was becoming a teacher?”
“I am an engineer, a builder.” His eyes swept the room. “I built this house.” His voice held a note of pride.
“Quite an accomplishment. It’s charming and very comfortable.” (Albeit chairless, Fenimore thought.) “But during all those years when you were getting an education, surely you mixed with the wasechus?”
“Mixed, yes,” he nodded, “but never blended.” He glanced at the herbs in the bottom of his mug. “That I do only with my own people.”
“Would you have considered burying someone in that burial ground?”
He shook his head vigorously. “Never. Very foolish. Too public. Things happen. Disturbances. Look what did happen. You and that boy. The dead do not like to be disturbed. My sister should not have been disturbed.”
Fenimore felt like a child who has been justly reprimanded.
“However, I can remedy that.” Roaring Wings rose and turned back to the fire. “Now we have this land.”
“We?”
“The Lenapes. The Turtle band. The Great Spirit has returned this land to us in the form of a grant from the government. I am the director, in charge of development. We will turn it into a historic park, a memorial to our ancestors.” He outlined his plan for the park in some detail for Fenimore. “I can bring my sister here and bury her,” he concluded. “And I guarantee she will not be disturbed.” He looked at him. “Where is she now?”
To Fenimore’s consternation, Roaring Wings seemed ready to come back with him to Philadelphia then and there, to collect his sister’s body. “Her body has not been released.” The Lenape’s gaze was intimidating. “Uh, the police are uncomfortable with the circumstances of your sister’s death.”
“The police?” He frowned. “What have they to do with this? This is a blood feud, between the wasechus and the Lenape. Obviously a wasechu buried my sister—and botched it.” The word leaped out at Fenimore, from the Lenape’s carefully formal sentences. “Probably that fiance of hers …” His lip curled. No lack of emotion now.
“Wait a minute. You have no proof of that. Her fiancé was the one who reported her missing.”
The Indian’s eyes burned with years of controlled resentment, and Fenimore recalled a Lenape legend he had once read: When the Lenape met his first white man, the Lenape had a deer hanging up. The white man took all the fat parts, leaving only the neck and the feet for the Lenape. The literal translation of wasechu, he remembered now, was “fat taker.”
“We’ll see.” Roaring Wings looked down, as if to hide the depth of his feelings from Fenimore. “Meanwhile,” he continued, “I want my sister. I am her next of kin. It is my right to bury her.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Fenimore got clumsily to his feet, but Roaring Wings took no notice. His mind was filled with funeral plans—and vengeance.
On the way home, Fenimore was so absorbed in his thoughts of Roaring Wings that he took no notice of the pickup truck maintaining a discreet distance of three car lengths behind him.
CHAPTER 15
TUESDAY, AROUND NOON
The minute Fenimore stepped into his office, he sensed that something was amiss. The atmosphere was charged. Mrs. Doyle sat stiffly at her typewriter. Horatio was hunched over a file drawer, filing for all he was worth. Sal was cowering under the radiator, only an inch
of tail visible.
“Good morning,” Fenimore chirruped, although it was after noon. The return trip from Camp Lenape had taken longer than he had expected.
They each bestowed on him a glacial stare, Sal’s the most frigid. She had emerged from under the radiator and was arranging herself artistically on top of it.
“You’re early, aren’t you?” he remarked to Horatio.
“Teachers’ meeting. Got a half day off,” he muttered.
“And you came right here?”
He nodded.
For some reason, this pleased Fenimore inordinately.
Apparently, his feelings were not shared by Mrs. Doyle.
“Any messages?” he asked his nurse.
Wordlessly, she handed him a pile of slips. Usually she commented on the more urgent ones. Not today. The first one read: “Jennifer. 10:15.” No hint of trouble there. The rest were routine calls for office appointments or prescription refills.
“Any drop-ins?”
Mrs. Doyle shook her head. Horatio banged shut his file drawer.
“What is the matter?” asked Fenimore.
“One of your slippers is missing.” “She thinks I stole it!” His employees spoke simultaneously.
Fenimore glanced at the floor by his chair that was usually occupied by a pair of disreputable slippers. Today there was only one.
Only a stranger to Fenimore’s establishment would wonder at the stress Mrs. Doyle laid on this seemingly minor incident. The doctor valued his slippers more than all the gold in Fort Knox.
“What would I want with a fucking old slipper?” Horatio spat out the words.
“I didn’t mean to imply that he took it,” Mrs. Doyle justified herself. “I only thought he might have misplaced it.” She continued pounding the life out of the typewriter.
Sal, disgusted with the low tone things had taken, landed with a graceful leap and took off for parts unknown.
“Now see here, you two.” Fenimore adopted his most soothing manner. “I’m sure there’s some reasonable explanation.”
They ignored him, pretending to be absorbed in their work.
“A man comes home after a hard morning’s work and what does he find? Dissension, dissolution, and discord.”
“Piffle,” said his nurse.
“Bullshit,” said the boy.
“Let’s begin at the beginning.” Fenimore used his most conciliatory tone, the one he reserved for the interrogation of suspects in his most difficult cases. “When did you first notice the slipper was missing, Mrs. Doyle?”
“About half an hour ago.”
He turned to Horatio. “Did you leave the office at any time after you arrived?”
He shook his head.
Back to Mrs. Doyle. “What was the first chore you gave him to do?”
“Clean up the waiting room.”
Fenimore glanced in the waiting room. It was cleaner than he’d ever seen it. The rug had been vacuumed, the sofa pillows plumped, the magazines stacked into neat piles.
“I went into the kitchen for a few minutes to make a cup of tea,” Doyle murmured defensively.
“That’s when I stole it!” Horatio’s eyebrows shot to the ceiling.
“Where would he have put it?” Fenimore exclaimed. “He would have had to be Houdini.”
Horatio sent Fenimore a look, transmitting the complex message that if he had wanted to steal the slipper and conceal it in that brief time, he could have managed it, but what would he want with a fucking old slipper?
“I’m sure it will turn up,” Fenimore said hastily. “Now let’s forget all about it.” He struggled into his white lab coat and went to the sink to wash his hands, symbolically washing them of the whole unsavory episode. “Who’s my first patient?”
Mrs. Doyle consulted his appointment book. “Mrs. Johnson at one o’clock. You said to reschedule all the morning patients.” Her voice was peevish with disapproval. Not of his rescheduling, but of his taking off for New Jersey without telling her why.
“Great, then I have time for a sandwich.” He took the well-traveled tuna sandwich from the cooler and, ignoring its soggy condition, settled into his old armchair to eat it. From habit, he was about to shed his shoes and replace them with his comfortable old slippers, but he caught himself in time. He had no desire to reopen wounds. He wriggled his toes painfully in their confined space (he sorely missed those slippers) and flipped open the can of Coke that had been his companion since early morning. A deep swallow of the tepid liquid caused him to grimace. But the thought of traipsing to the kitchen for a glass and tussling with an ice tray for a single cube was even less appealing. He drained the can.
The other occupants of the room followed suit. Mrs. Doyle removed her hermetically sealed lunch box from her desk drawer and methodically laid its contents on a paper napkin that she had previously spread on her desk. Salad in a plastic container, a thermos of soup, three crackers, and an apple. She believed in a well-balanced diet.
“Think I’ll grab a frank.” Horatio slammed shut the file drawer he had been working on and glided down the hall. His destination, the corner vendor, Fenimore surmised.
Sal made a dignified entrance, head and tail held high, padded over to her dish in the corner, and filled the uneasy silence with noisy munchings on something revolting called Kitty Chow.
It was a relief when the telephone rang.
“Fenimore?” Rafferty.
“Speaking,” Fenimore responded nervously.
“I just received a call from a detective employed at the Riverton Police Department. I’d asked him to make a routine visit for me to Camp Lenape.”
“To what purpose?” When nervous, Fenimore’s speech became more formal.
“TO COMPLETE A WILD-GOOSE CHASE I’D SENT HIM ON!” he shouted.
“Oh?”
“It seems that a certain Lenni-Lenape, by the name of John Field, also known as Roaring Wings, had already been informed of his sister’s, Joanne Field, aka Sweet Grass, death when my man arrived.”
“Uh, well, I thought he should be notified as soon as possible, and since he didn’t have a phone …”
“You took it on yourself to hightail it down there at the crack of dawn and blab the whole thing. Right?”
“Put coarsely.”
“We policemen are known for our coarseness.” He took a deep breath. “Now, if it wouldn’t inconvenience you too much, perhaps you would be kind enough to honor me with your presence and share the essence of your little tête-à-tête?” When really angry, Rafferty could outdo Fenimore in formality.
“Er, I’m expecting a patient.”
Fenimore’s ear reverberated with the sound of the receiver being replaced.
Hastily exchanging his lab coat for his suit coat, Fenimore was halfway down the hall when he paused to call over his shoulder, “I won’t be long, Doyle. Ask Mrs. Johnson to wait.”
“Yes, Doctor.” She looked after him curiously.
After Rafferty had finished raking Fenimore over the coals for being an “insufferable, interfering, amateur meddler” and had gleaned every bit of information that the doctor had acquired during his interview with Roaring Wings, he settled down to a rational, nearly-but-not quite-friendly discussion of the case.
“What was your overall impression of Roaring Wings?” The policeman’s gaze was no less forceful than the Native American’s.
Fenimore thought a moment. “Proud, introverted, bordering on the fanatical where his tribal origins were concerned.”
“Umm.” Rafferty ran his hand through his thick black hair. “I had a visitor this morning. A representative from Higgins, Marple, and Woski. It seems that Sweet Grass had taken out a life insurance policy worth a hundred thousand.”
“Beneficiary?”
Rafferty drummed his fingers on the desk. “Her brother.”
Fenimore considered. “That makes sense. There was no point leaving it to her fiance. His coffers were already overflowing.”
“Did Ro
aring Wings impress you as the greedy type?”
“Not in the usual sense of acquiring material things for himself. But he is a crusader. He has a cause. He told me about his plan to re-create a Lenape village in south Jersey. The project calls for the construction of authentic dwellings, a ‘big house’ or large barn for traditional ceremonies and a museum to house artifacts—weapons, pottery, ornaments—that have been found in the area. The land has already been acquired from the government. But this legacy would certainly help him with this project and to realize his dream.”
“Interesting.”
Fenimore, suffering from guilt pangs over Mrs. Johnson, said, “I’d better be getting back.”
Rafferty made no objection, but as Fenimore rose to go he remarked, “Next time you get any bright ideas about the early bird catching the worm, forget it.”
Fenimore made a speedy departure.
Once outside, he remembered that he hadn’t returned Jennifer’s call. He hastened to the nearest phone booth. He didn’t like to make personal calls from the office with two pairs of ears flapping. Three, if you counted Sal, who understood every word he said.
“So you aren’t dead.” Jennifer made no attempt to disguise her relief.
“Nope.”
“You’re on a new case?”
“yet.”
“Can you talk about it?”
“Nope.”
“How about dinner tonight, here. I have a mad desire to feed monosyllabic medical men. Besides, Dad has a new acquisition he’s dying to show you.”
“On the Lenapes?”
“I don’t think so. But I’ll show you our shelf on them. And for an aperitif you can take a look at the Chandlers.”
Mr. Nicholson’s new acquisitions were usually several hundred years old, and Jennifer’s dinners were always a culinary treat. Plus the shelf on the Lenni-Lenapes and some early Chandlers added up to just what the doctor ordered, especially after a day spent with ill-tempered employees and an irate law enforcement officer. “I’ll be there,” Fenimore said.
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