Murder by Decay

by Suzanne Young

  The dog and cat had been in their usual beds, one beside and the other atop the radiator below the window next to the back door. Probably hearing the commotion and deciding to investigate, another cat, who could have been Spot’s twin except for being only eight months old, padded cautiously down the rear stairs. He was followed by a pure white feline of about the same age and an older Maine Coon. Recognizing Edna, the cats twisted in and around her ankles. She was busy greeting Charcoal, Snowball and Auntie Bea in turn when Mary appeared in the kitchen doorway.

  “Hi, Edna,” Mary said, her expression of pleasure turning to concern. “You don’t look so good. Come in. Have a cup o’ tea. I’m bakin’ bread.”

  “Rather late for baking, isn’t it?” Edna said, removing her coat and hanging it on a peg near the door. The thought of tea took away some of the tension and restlessness she’d been feeling.

  “Wasn’t sleepy. Besides there’s nothing like homemade rye for toast in the mornin’.” Mary had changed out of her hospital-volunteer garb of earlier that afternoon and was dressed in gray sweats. A green ribbon had replaced the yellow scrunchie for securing the curly red hair at the base of her neck. Wispy strands framed her cheeks as she studied Edna’s face. “Tooth still hurtin’?”

  Edna nodded, but said nothing. The temporary respite from discomfort was over.

  “Did you see Gordon?”

  Again, Edna affirmed with a nod, but remained silent. She wasn’t intentionally leaving Mary in the dark, but so much had happened that night, Edna didn’t know where or how to begin. And that lump in her throat seemed to have returned at the sight of a friendly face and the sound of a sympathetic voice.

  “Well,” Mary said, seemingly unruffled by Edna’s quiet. “Come on.” She led the way into the kitchen. Crossing to the stove, she put her hands around a blue teapot that looked like a large ball with spout and handle. “I’ll start a fresh pot. This one’s barely warm.”

  “’Barely warm’ is fine with me,” Edna said. “And, if you have a couple of aspirin, I’d be very grateful.”

  “Aspirin?” Mary asked, frowning as if she’d misunderstood the request, coming from the wife of a physician.

  Edna almost grinned at the reaction. “You know that old saying about a cobbler’s children having no shoes? Well, in a doctor’s home, we have neither aspirin nor bandages, and at the moment, I could use something to ease this pain.” She raised a hand to her jaw for emphasis.

  “Sure,” Mary’s face cleared with a laugh. “Be right back. Pour yourself some tea.”

  Edna did as she was told, then went through to the adjoining dining room and sat at the table. Mary took the chair opposite a few minutes later and placed a bottle of buffered aspirin between them.

  “That toothache must be a doozy for you to look this bad,” Mary said, with her typical directness. “Couldn’t Gordon fix it?”

  Edna winced at the less-than-tactful remark about her appearance. She knew her neighbor to be caring and considerate, if a bit blunt at times. As she thought of the last couple of hours, though, she grew serious. “Mary,” she began, looking across the table into the green eyes, “Gordon didn’t work on my tooth tonight. He didn’t have a chance.” She took a deep breath in order to voice the next words with a degree of calm. “I found a dead man in his office.”

  Mary, who had her forearms crossed on the table, straightened abruptly as if an invisible hand had shoved her against the back of the chair. “You what?” She shook her head as if to clear her hearing. “You’re kidding.”

  “Wish I were.” With that, Edna proceeded to tell her neighbor about the night’s events, ending with, “So I hope Doctor Resnik will be able to see me in the morning.”

  Much to her surprise, Mary hadn’t interrupted during the recitation, but now she said, “Who was he?”

  “The dead man?” Edna interpreted. She assumed Mary knew Resnik, if he’d lived and worked in the community for any length of time. “I don’t know.”

  “Didn’t Gordon say?”

  “He may have told Charlie, but I was in the waiting room when Charlie took him to look at the body. Actually, I couldn’t even stay in the office without feeling as if I were suffocating. I waited for them outside, in the hall.”

  Mary looked thoughtful for several seconds before she spoke. “I can call the station and find out, ‘specially if one of my friends is on duty tonight.”

  The pain that shot through Edna’s gum at that moment caused her to cry out. Any impulse to follow up on the murdered man flew out the window.

  Mary winced with empathy. “What time do you see Pieter tomorrow?”

  Edna shook her head and waited nearly a minute for the throbbing to diminish before she managed to mutter, “Don’t know. I hope there’ll be a message on my answering machine when I get home.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “Doctor Resnik?” Edna frowned, recalling her earlier encounter. “Not really. I met him tonight for the first time. He was in the corridor when I left Gordon’s waiting room. Came over to see if I was okay. Actually, I think he was more curious about the police activity than concerned about me.”

  Mary grimaced. “That’d be like him.” She crossed her forearms on the table and leaned forward as if imparting a secret. “He changed a lot after the accident, you know.”

  Edna raised her eyebrows, remembering the man’s noticeable limp and how he’d depended on his cane. “Accident?”

  Mary nodded as her brow wrinkled. “Hit and run. Killed his wife and smashed him up pretty bad. He almost died himself. I think the reason he became so resentful and unapproachable was because the driver was never identified or caught.”

  “When did all this happen?” Edna asked, shocked by news of such a tragedy.

  “Let’s see.” Mary cast her eyes toward the ceiling as she murmured to herself. “Ten years ago.” Her gaze dropped back to Edna’s face. “Matter of fact, it’ll be ten years in June. I remember because it happened the day after he testified in court.”

  Mary had a knack of confusing Edna with statements that seemed to have no relevance to what they’d been talking about. She decided not to ask Mary to clarify the statement. Instead, she said, “If he’s so disagreeable, maybe I should look for someone else to fix my tooth, but I don’t know anyone who might see me at such short notice.”

  “Don’t worry,” Mary back peddled. “From what I hear, his social skills are the problem. Professionally, he’s supposed to be the best in the area.”

  Edna felt slightly better at that encouragement, and decided to make up her own mind about the man’s personality quirks. Besides, she had little choice as the throbbing along her jaw reminded her. “I’d better get home. I want to see if I have any messages. I sure hope I have an appointment with him first thing tomorrow.”

  Mary rose with her and picked up the aspirin bottle. “Take these.”

  Gratefully, Edna accepted, adding, “Thanks for listening to me. On the way home, I thought I’d never get to sleep tonight, but suddenly I’m exhausted.” Silently, she wondered if the feeling was what her TV crime programs described as the aftermath of an adrenalin rush.

  “’S okay,” Mary said, eyes sparkling. “I’m gonna call the station and see if I can find out who got killed.”

  Chapter 4

  According to the message on her office machine, Edna did indeed have an appointment with Pieter Resnik and was overjoyed to hear that she was to be in his office at seven o’clock the following morning. With help from Mary’s aspirin and the knowledge that her problem tooth might soon be fixed, Edna had a better night’s sleep than she’d expected. She was glad, though, that Albert had spent the night with their daughter in Boston because Edna had still been restless. In her dreams, she walked corridors that were dark, endless and lonely.

  Waking with a stab of pain at 5:37 by her bedside clock, she knew she would get no more sleep. The voice message from Dr. Resnik hadn’t warned her against eating or drinking anything before her app
ointment, but she’d always had a queasy stomach when anticipating unusual dental work, so she’d decided against taking anything but water. With more than an hour to kill, she showered and dressed, taking as much time as possible over her morning ablutions. She fervently desired a few aspirin to quell what was now nearly constant throbbing in her jaw, but she dared not, thinking that even a small dose might add to her nausea.

  As she finished dressing, she thought of the morning paper. She hadn’t heard the delivery van, but it may have come when she was in the shower. She was more than a little curious to learn what the newspapers had to report about the previous evening’s events and was suddenly chilled to think they might have learned who discovered the body.

  Nonsense, she thought, descending the stairs, my phone would be ringing and at least one reporter would be knocking on my door. Still, she opened the front door cautiously and peered out before stepping onto the granite stoop. No newspaper. She went farther out onto the broken-shell driveway, looking around and under the yew trees that stood sentry on either side of the stone slab. Nothing.

  Of all mornings for the delivery to be late, she thought, feeling irritated and frustrated that she didn’t have the news and the morning puzzles to take her mind off the ache in her tooth, let alone get the latest on her discovery of the night before. She was increasingly curious about the identity of the man she’d found in Gordon Jennings’ office and wondered what Mary had learned from her police contacts.

  In the kitchen, Edna tried to greet Benjamin cheerfully as he crept into the kitchen from his bed in the mudroom, eyeing her suspiciously. He was both wary and alert to her moods and relaxed noticeably at her chirpy “good morning.” As the ginger cat brushed against her ankles while she prepared his food and fresh water for the day, she felt a pang of guilt over ignoring him for the past day or two. A twinge in her tooth, at that moment, removed the remorse as self-pity took hold.

  Even if her stomach weren’t churning, eating was out of the question. Just the thought of something liquid or solid hitting her tooth made her cringe. She needed physical activity to occupy the time before she could leave, so she proceeded to water every plant in the house and pinch off drooping leaves. She dusted the tables in the living room and polished the mirrors in all three bathrooms. Anything to distract herself from the ache in her mouth and the ever-so-slow progression of the clock hands.

  Finally the time was near. Donning her tweed coat, she took her time driving into town, an eight-minute trip at best. When she neared the building, she saw the parking lot was nearly full with at least two patrol cars and a local media van among several other vehicles, so she decided to park on the street and walk a half block, killing more time before her appointment with Dr. Resnik.

  As she headed up the walk leading to the glass front doors, she quickened her pace, hoping to avoid the notice of the man holding a large TV camera and talking to a woman leaning against a blue sedan with a sign on the driver’s door advertising the community’s weekly newspaper. Obviously, reporters were hanging about to catch any breaking news on the dead body. Not certain if the media were aware it was she who had made the discovery, Edna again felt untypically annoyed at the delivery service for not getting the daily paper to her that morning. She supposed the late-breaking news was responsible for the newspaper’s delay.

  Hurrying through the double-wide doors, she passed an elevator and a set of stairs leading to the second floor before she reached the periodontist’s office. When she found the door locked, her heart sank. Had Resnik forgotten about her appointment? The events of the previous evening could certainly have removed it from his mind.

  There was no place to sit and she didn’t want to go outside the building to be seen by the reporters lurking in the parking lot. A surge of exasperation tightened her chest, but before she could think what to do, Pieter Resnik opened the door, and Edna realized how much one small tooth could cause her to act so irrationally.

  After a brief “good morning” greeting, the dentist apparently felt the need to explain the locked door and the quietness of the office. “I don’t like to leave the office open when I’m working alone in the back room. My assistant would have been here, but it was too late to phone her last night. I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for me doing Vera’s usual prep.”

  The words were proffered with a charming smile which might have put Edna at ease if he hadn’t accompanied them by reaching behind her to relock the door. She balked for a second or two before realizing he might be extra concerned about security after the previous night’s events. Again, pain seemed to be making her unusually nervous, but she wondered why the presence of the local police wasn’t enough to make the doctor feel safe. Nonetheless, she kept her opinion to herself and followed the limping man to the operatory.

  In the room, he motioned Edna to the dental chair and clipped a bib around her neck. Whistling softly as he worked, he carefully laid a lead apron over her chest and neck.

  “I stopped by Gordon’s office this morning and got your file from Nancy,” he said by way of explanation, “but I need a recent x-ray of that tooth.”

  “Nancy’s in the office?” Edna’s nervousness subsided enough for her to ask about Gordon’s office manager. “Have the police released the crime scene? Is Gordon there, too?”

  “Not to my knowledge. Some police officers are hanging about. I believe Nancy came in extra early to phone patients and reschedule appointments.” Resnik didn’t seem much interested in Nancy’s activities, however, as he proceeded to take the x-ray and hobble out of the room.

  Reclining in the chair, Edna tried to relax while he was gone. She closed her eyes against the overhead light and was beginning to feel drowsy when the thump of his cane roused her.

  “Good news,” he said with his back to her as he clipped the negative to a light box embedded into the wall.

  For whom, she wondered as pain struck her tooth again, causing her to gasp. When Resnik continued to study the x-ray, apparently unaware of her anguish, she finally controlled her distress and impatience enough to ask in what she thought was a reasonable tone, “What did you find?”

  “A simple cracked filling,” he said, turning to study her with a frown that made her feel like a lab specimen. “I’ll have you fixed up in no time.”

  “A cracked filling causes this much pain?” Edna didn’t bother to hide her surprise.

  “A bit of nerve is exposed. Pain comes from air or liquid touching it.” He sat on his stool and rolled closer to her. “Let’s see what we’ve got here,” he said, adjusting the overhead light and selecting a stainless steel pick.

  After poking around Edna’s sore tooth and making her wince and groan more than once, he swapped the pick for a rather large and threatening-looking syringe. “I’m going to give you some Novocain. Would you like nitrous oxide as well?”

  Remembering the sight of the mask over the dead man’s nose the night before, Edna nearly shouted, “No” but replied instead, “Just Novocain will be fine,” more quietly than she felt. It took some time for her to shake the image of the duct tape and the staring eyes from her mind.

  Several needle jabs later, Resnik sat back on his stool. “Now we’ll wait for that to take effect. Shouldn’t be long.” Busying himself with the instrument tray, he didn’t look at her when he said, “Who was the man in Gordon’s office?”

  Startled by the question, Edna hesitated a second or two before answering. “I don’t know.”

  “Gordon didn’t tell you?” Resnik narrowed his eyes at her as if he were certain she was holding out on him. “You were there. You found the body.” His statements sounded accusatory.

  “Well, yes, but I have no idea who he was.” She felt her temper rise. Was he blaming her for the man being dead? Again, she regretted not being able to read the paper that morning to find out what, if anything, had been reported. How did Resnik know it had been she who’d made the discovery, or was he guessing? She said in a tone she hoped would end his unwelcom
ed curiosity, “I am not privy to police conversations.”

  Not exactly true, she thought, hoping Charlie would phone to fill her in sometime soon. Even if she had more information, she wouldn’t confide in a stranger. She couldn’t help feeling annoyed at his presumption that she would spew forth gossip like a water fountain. Taking a deep breath as the Novocain began to take effect, she made herself relax. Okay. Maybe she could understand the inquisition. A dreadful act had been perpetuated in the building, in the office of a colleague. She’d probably be just as persistently curious if she were in his shoes.

  At that moment, Resnik resettled himself on his stool and pulled the instrument tray closer. He seemed to be studying her face, pick and mirror poised above her mouth. “You didn’t talk to Gordon?” he asked.

  “No.” Edna said. Since he chose to ignore her reluctance to talk about the night’s events, she decided to ask him a question or two. “You were here yourself last night. Did you see anyone else in the building?”

  He frowned as if considering a reply, but instead of answering, he bent closer, lifting a small pick in one hand and an equally tiny mirror in the other. “Open a bit wider, please.” With those words, he inserted the implements into her mouth and began his repairs.

  Three quarters of an hour later, the periodontist escorted Edna from the office. As they passed through the empty waiting room, she mumbled through numbed lips, “How much do I owe you?”

  “I’ll have Vera send you a bill.”

  Edna had been pleasantly surprised at Resnik’s gentle touch as he worked on her tooth. Now, as he hitched along beside her to unlock the outer door, she thought about what Mary had told her, how he’d lost his wife in an automobile accident that had left him crippled. “Thank you, Doctor,” she said, feeling much more kindly toward the man. Was her compassion also due, in part, to the fact that he’d removed her pain?