The Doctor Digs a Grave

by Robin Hathaway

“Just in passing. Not to talk to. She left early. Said she had to visit a sick friend. I remember thinking it was a pretty lame excuse at the time. Now, of course, I know it was true.” She shook her head sadly. “That poor child down the hall was the sick friend.” The elderly woman slumped back into her pillows, looking her age again.

  Fenimore patted her hand.

  She smiled. “Sometimes we live too long and see too much, don’t you think, Doctor?”

  “Now, that’s just the gin talking. You have a big day tomorrow. You’re going home. You’d better turn off the light and get some sleep.” He lifted the mason jar, took it over to the sink, and emptied it. The bits of lemon peel collected in the drain. He picked them out and tossed them in the wastebasket. When he had washed and dried the jar and the two glasses, he turned to say good-night. There was no answer. Mrs. Henderson was asleep.

  As Fenimore passed through the dimly lit lobby, he noticed a familiar figure stretched out on a sofa. Oh, my God, Horatio.

  When Fenimore had finished making his apologies, Horatio sniffed, “You’ve been drinking.”

  It seems he had acquired not only a bodyguard but also a nagging wife.

  CHAPTER 20

  STILL LATER WEDNESDAY NIGHT

  Fenimore had been asleep no more than an hour when he was aware of a persistent ringing. The alarm? The phone? The doorbell. He staggered out of bed and stumbled barefoot down the stairs. Who the hell? He peered cautiously through the glass panel of the front door. First rule of city living—never open the door without checking first. The panel was frosted with a profusion of curlicues in the Victorian manner. All Fenimore could make out was the shadowy bulk of a man. He called out, “Who is it?”

  “Officer Brown. Urgent message from Detective Rafferty.”

  Rafferty occasionally did send one of his men over with a message, if it was something he didn’t want to communicate over the phone. Fenimore opened the door.

  What happened next was so fast Fenimore had trouble remembering the details later. As soon as he took off the chain and turned the knob, the man on the doorstep pushed past him into the house. He was followed by another, shorter man. Neither man was in uniform and neither spoke. They alternately dragged and shoved Fenimore down the hall and into his office.

  The first man held his arms twisted behind his back in a painful grip. The other began to slap him across the face—hard.

  Between slaps, Fenimore caught sight of Sal. She edged out from under his desk where she had fled when the doorbell rang. The slapper spotted her too. He paused long enough to kick her.

  “Hey.” The fellow holding Fenimore spoke for the first time. “Cut that out. I like cats.”

  The slapper grunted and gave Fenimore another blow. Not with his open hand this time. With his fist. The cat lover released his grip and shoved Fenimore into a chair.

  Fenimore fought for consciousness, but the comforting darkness, like a cloying syrup, kept drawing him down. He forced his eyes open.

  The slapper was roughly pulling out drawers, throwing open cabinet and closet doors, rummaging through their contents, and hurling them on the floor.

  Drugs, Fenimore thought hazily. Well, they won’t find any here. He hadn’t kept any powerful drugs here for over a decade. But the man was wrecking his office.

  The cat lover wasn’t much help to his partner. He had picked up Sal and was stroking her. “Nice kitty,” he crooned. “Nice puss.” He put his face down close to her ear. It was the moment she had been waiting for. Twisting in his arms, she made a horrid cat noise and scratched his face.

  “Ow!” The man covered his face with his hands. Sal jumped free and ran.

  The other man stopped his wrecking long enough to laugh. “I’ll kill her,” the injured man cried.

  “Come on. Help me trash this place.”

  The ex–cat lover, still holding his face, went to look in the mirror over the sink. “My eye,” he cried. “She got me in the eye.”

  “Christ. You and that damned cat!” But the other man stopped his ransacking long enough to look at the eye.

  “I gotta see a doctor,” the injured one whimpered.

  The slapper laughed again and looked down at Fenimore, still slumped in his chair. “Hey, Doc.” There was menace in his voice. “Looks like you’ve got yourself a new patient.”

  Fenimore forced himself up through the syrupy darkness and tried to pay attention. His eyes were swollen. He could see only slits of light. And there was a buzzing in his ears. Although he could barely see or hear, there was nothing wrong with his sense of smell. There was an odor, strong and unpleasant, very near. Garlic. He forced one eye open. A face was close to his. It had two eyes, and blood was oozing from one of them. “Your lousy cat did this,” the face said. “What are you gonna do about it?”

  And if I don’t help you, thought Fenimore, what will you do? Sue me? Fenimore groped at the chair arms and tried to pull himself up. The uninjured man helped him. Fenimore made it to the medicine cabinet, which for some reason they hadn’t ransacked. Maybe they weren’t after drugs. He found an eye cup. He filled it with a cleansing antiseptic and handed it to the man with the bad eye. Through lips now swollen to twice their size, he instructed his new patient how to wash his eye. The orders came out thickly.

  The man went to the sink and tried.

  People are funny about doctors, Fenimore thought fuzzily. They criticize them, insult them, even beat them. But when they need them, they turn around and place their health—even their lives—unquestioningly in their hands, with no fear of reprisal. And usually, their trust is not misplaced. It had something to do with that oath, framed and hanging on the wall, hanging crookedly now as a result of the ransacking.

  The man at the sink was bungling. Most of the solution was missing his eye and going down the drain. Fenimore went to his aid. When the eye was finally clear, Fenimore examined it with his ophthalmoscope, as well as he could with his own swollen eyes. Sal had left her mark. There was a scratch just missing the cornea.

  Fenimore said, through swollen lips, “You have a nasty scratch, but it’s shallow and the cornea isn’t damaged.” He felt more alert now, and the buzzing in his ears was beginning to fade. He took a tube from his doctor’s bag, another thing they hadn’t found and violated. “I’ll put some ointment in your eye,” he said, and squeezed it in. The hood winced. “But this is only a temporary measure.” Fenimore turned to his partner. “You must get him to an ophthalmologist right away”

  “Speak English, Doc.”

  Fenimore rooted through the mess they’d made of his desk until he came up with a prescription pad. Another search uncovered a pen. He wrote the name, address, and phone number of an ophthalmologist at a nearby hospital. “Take him there and ask to see this doctor.” He ripped off the slip and handed it to the thug.

  “You gotta go to the hospital,” the man told his companion, as if he were deaf or not in the same room when Fenimore had given his instructions.

  The patient clenched his fists. “Not ’til I get that cat,” he hissed, scanning the room with his good eye.

  Fenimore held his breath.

  “No time for that.” The other man took his arm and started to lead him out of the office.

  Fenimore breathed again.

  He stopped and turned back to Fenimore. “I almost forgot. We have a message.” His eyes narrowed. “Lay off the Lenape.”

  Fenimore looked puzzled. “That wasn’t from Rafferty.”

  “No, it’s from …” The thug’s face split into a grin. “Nice try, Doc.” He pushed his partner before him, through the front door.

  As soon as Fenimore had slid the chain back into place, he felt Sal rub against his leg. Reaching down, he carried her into his office. There, he gave her the body rub of her life.

  CHAPTER 21

  THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3, DAWN

  Rosy-fingered dawn was filtering through the slats of the interior shutters of Fenimore’s bedroom when the six aspirins and several shot
s of Scotch (he hadn’t counted) finally took effect. With apologies to Homer, he fell asleep. At 7:00 A.M. he was jarred awake by the alarm clock. He had forgotten to reset it. For a split second he was blissfully unconscious of the previous night’s events. But when he reached out to punch the button on the clock, a shock of pain charged up his arm, his shoulder, his neck, and came to rest directly behind his eyes. There it remained. Gritting his teeth, he reached for the button again, successfully silencing the instrument, and fell back exhausted on the bed.

  As he lay there wondering which shades of the rainbow his face would assume today, Sal slid onto his chest. With her face a bare two inches from his, she gave a sharp staccato mew not unlike a bark. A reminder that it was breakfast time, or at least time for another body rub. Fenimore shoved her gently off his chest and sat up. He would like to loll around all day with her, sipping Scotch and staring at the TV, while he recovered. But today he could not afford such luxuries. Today was not Sunday. Today was a workday, and he had lots of work to do. The least of which was finding out whom he had to thank for last night’s free home entertainment. Cautiously, he reached for the phone.

  It was 7:05 when the phone rang in Mrs. Doyle’s apartment. She was standing at the kitchen counter, packing her lunch while watching the news on TV. She put down the knife she was using to spread egg salad (made with no-fat mayonnaise, of course) on a slice of whole-wheat bread and went into the hall to answer it. The receiver had a long cord so she could move back to the kitchen and continue watching her favorite programs while chatting with her callers. She did not do that with this caller, however. This caller demanded her full attention. When she hung up, she finished packing her lunch in record time. She turned off the TV and the overhead light and trotted briskly around the apartment gathering together the things she would need—from the top of her bureau, the medicine cabinet, and a duffel bag stowed in the back of her closet. She tucked all these items into a navy blue purse (which most people would have taken for an overnight bag) and grabbed a powder blue cardigan from a chair and her keys from the coffee table. She had one foot out the front door when she remembered her lunch.

  One nice thing about Philadelphia is the public transportation system. There is hardly a corner in the city where a bus doesn’t stop and take you where you want to go. Mrs. Doyle was especially grateful for this today because she had an errand to do in an obscure part of town before she went to the office. As the 32 bus peeped over the brow of the hill a block back, the five people at the bus stop moved toward the curb as if drawn by a single, invisible string. Mrs. Doyle was the first in line, her token ready.

  “Nice day,” the driver said. He was a stranger. She knew all the ones after 8:00 A.M., but today she was early. She settled into a seat, but instead of taking out her latest Harlequin romance, she thought about the doctor. He had downplayed the whole thing, of course. Told her two toughs had roughed him up a bit looking for drugs and could she come in a little early? She could imagine what they had done to him, if he needed her services. She shifted in her seat, evoking a grunt from the woman next to her. Well, she would fix him up. She’d done it before. And this time she had a special cure in mind. Three buses and forty-five minutes later, Mrs. Doyle pulled the overhead cord, signaling the driver to stop at the next corner. As she stepped off the bus, she picked out the sign at the end of a row of dilapidated shops: OTTO’S PHARMACY. Behind the dirty window was an arrangement of glass pharmaceutical jars filled with colored liquids—red, blue, amber, green, the standard pharmacy display, vintage 1920. Each jar bore a thick coat of dust. Stuck in the upper panel of the glass door was a small handwritten card: “Open for Business.” She pushed on the door. It refused to budge. She looked around for a bell, found one, and pressed it. A buzz, like an angry hornet, brought Otto himself to the door.

  CHAPTER 22

  LATER THURSDAY MORNING

  Fenimore was seated in a straight-backed chair next to Mrs. Doyle’s desk, a lavender towel draped around his neck. Mrs. Doyle was taking the last of her assorted packages from her purse and arranging them in a row on her desk when the doorbell rang.

  Fenimore flinched. “Don’t answer it.”

  “Nonsense.” Mrs. Doyle started down the hall. “You can’t go through life not answering the door.”

  “I can try,” he called after her.

  Mrs. Doyle peered through the frosted glass pane. “It’s Horatio,” she called back.

  “It can’t be. He’s not due ’til three. It’s someone disguised as Horatio.”

  “Yo, man. Let me in.” Horatio’s familiar voice echoed down the hallway.

  Mrs. Doyle opened the door. “What are you doing here?”

  “It’s a saint’s day. I have off.” He sidled in. “Thought I’d drop by. My mom sent me to early Mass, and if I go home now she’ll have me scrubbin’ floors and washin’ windows all day. Filing’s easier. Besides, here I get paid. Holy Christopher!” He caught sight of the doctor.

  “Your epithets have been tempered by your visit to the holy sanctuary,” Fenimore said.

  Horatio looked to Doyle for a translation. When none was forthcoming, he said, “What hit you?”

  “Not what. Who. Two thugs looking for drugs.” He wasn’t ready to reveal the whole story yet.

  “Hold still.” Mrs. Doyle was trying to apply ointment to his cracked and swollen lips.

  “Two hits in five days?” Horatio shook his head. “You better stay home, man.”

  “I was home.”

  Mrs. Doyle patted a scratch on Fenimore’s forehead with something that stung. He winced.

  “Better get out, then.”

  “I was out the first time, remember?”

  “I mean outa town.”

  The doorbell.

  “What is this? Grand Central Station?” Mrs. Doyle put down the jar of ointment, but Horatio was already at the door.

  “Check who it is first, Rat,” Fenimore cautioned.

  “It’s a dame.”

  “Woman, for God’s sake. It’s the nineties. What’s she look like?”

  “Small, dark … a babe.”

  “Oh, no. Get rid of her. I can’t let her see me like this.” He started to get up from the chair.

  Mrs. Doyle pushed him down. “I told you to hold still.” With a brush, she applied a coat of pancake makeup to his chin.

  “The doctor’s not in,” he heard Horatio say.

  “Who are you?” A female voice, faint but familiar.

  “I’m his new employee.”

  “Well, I’m his old girlfriend,” she said, not so faint.

  The rasp of the chain being pulled back. Horatio opened the door a crack and leaned out. “By appointment only,” he said and pointed to the sign in the window.

  “That’s a very old sign. I happen to know he has hours this morning.”

  The babe didn’t look nearly as pretty with her eyes narrowed and her hands on her hips, Horatio decided. “What’ll I do, Doc?” he called back.

  “Let her in,” he sighed.

  Horatio came in, followed by Jennifer.

  Jennifer didn’t see him at first. Mrs. Doyle’s ample back, in a white starched uniform, blocked her view.

  “I brought a book on the Lenapes … .” She caught sight of the cluttered desk. With its assortment of bottles and tubes, tissues and powder puffs, it resembled the cosmetic counter at Saks when someone was undergoing a makeover. “What’s all this?”

  Mrs. Doyle stepped aside to get something from her purse and Jennifer let out a gasp, just like in the TV sit-coms.

  “I didn’t want to let you in,” Fenimore said in an injured tone.

  Jennifer paled as she contemplated his ravaged face.

  “Next to me, Lon Chaney’s a matinee idol.” Fenimore tried to grin, but it turned into a grimace.

  “What happened?” she murmured, her eyes moving to the ravaged office.

  “A nocturnal visit from a couple of thugs.”

  “You told me your investiga
ting was always done on a high intellectual plane.” Her voice bordered on the hysterical.

  “Yes, well, last night it dropped a few notches.”

  Doorbell.

  “Bring out the music and the drinks,” Fenimore said. “It’s party time.”

  “No party,” Mrs. Doyle said sternly. “I’m not finished with you yet.”

  Horatio had gone to the door again. There were male voices in the hall. Fenimore froze. “What did I tell you,” he whispered. “More guests.” Warily, he watched the door to the hall until it was filled with Rafferty’s reassuring frame.

  “Well, well.” The policeman surveyed the chaotic scene. “Are we party crashing?” His expression didn’t match his jocular tone. “Is it just starting—or breaking up?” He glanced at his watch. “And how come I wasn’t invited?”

  “An oversight,” Fenimore said. “Ouch.” Mrs. Doyle had jerked his chin front and center.

  A uniformed officer came in behind Rafferty, followed by Horatio. Horatio slunk quietly back to his filing cabinet. He was never completely at ease in the presence of officers of the law.

  “Gentlemen,” Mrs. Doyle turned on them, a powder puff in one hand and an atomizer in the other, “state your business and be on your way. As you can see, I’m caring for a patient.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Rafferty looked past her at the patient. “This is Officer Mario Santino.” He indicated the man in blue. “Since you were mugged in that alley, I thought you could use some protection. I brought him over to keep an eye on the store, only to find the horse has already been stolen.”

  “This is not a store. I am not a horse. And you’re mixing your metaphors.”

  “From now on, wherever you go, he goes,” Rafferty said. “And wherever you stay, he stays. He’ll make himself as inconspicuous as possible.” Considering the officer’s husky frame, thick neck, and protuberant ears, not to mention his uniform, this seemed highly dubious.

  Mrs. Doyle looked impatient. Jennifer, anxious. Horatio, uneasy. Fenimore, annoyed.

  “When Mrs. Doyle gives up trying to make you look like Clark Gable,” Rafferty continued, “give me a call. I’d really like to hear the whole story—from the horse’s mouth.” He turned and walked out.