Suddenly (14 page)

Nothing was, it seemed, where Mount Court was concerned.

Feeling sad, tired, and alone, he crossed the campus and followed the path through the trees, behind the library and the art center, to the headmaster’s house. It was a beauty, a small brick Tudor covered with ivy, and had been one of the lures of the Mount Court job. That was before he had taken a closer look.

One could call the place dignified, elegant, even stately, but the most appropriate word was old, and although Noah had nothing against old houses that had been cared for, this one hadn’t been. He had already personally replaced nonfunctional door-knobs, front and back, put weather stripping around the windows, and reshingled large sections of the roof when the storms of late August had sent rain dripping inside. He had had a plumber in to replace the hot-water heater, all the while wondering if the Head before him had enjoyed cold showers, and when the refrigerator had proved nonfunctional, he had purchased a new one himself.

It was a small house, as fitted the image of the Head whose children were grown and living on their own. Noah wasn’t of that ilk, but he liked the intimacy. The first floor held the living room, dining room, kitchen, and den that were used from time to time for official entertaining. The kitchen and den jutted out from the back of the house as offshoots of an original, smaller kitchen. With their predominance of windows looking out onto the woods, this was Noah’s favorite part of the house.

The second floor had two bedrooms, each with its own bath. He had found the wallpaper so depressing that he had stripped it off within days of his arrival. Now, replacement rolls sat in boxes. He fully intended to do the repapering himself when he had the time.

One part of him thought he was crazy. It wasn’t
his
responsibility, during a temporary stint as Head, to make improvements in the physical facilities, at his own expense, no less. The other part knew that doing things like papering the walls would be therapeutic. At the rate he was going in the popularity sphere, come the cold weather, when he would be spending more evenings and weekends at home, he would be desperate for things to do.

There was satisfaction in working with one’s hands. Lord knew he needed satisfaction from some quarter.

He took
The Washington Post
from the pile of daily mail and felt an instant comfort. The
Post
was a relic of his life before Mount Court. It represented a world that valued Noah and awaited his return. Whether he chose to return to it was another matter, but the choice was his, and in the meantime the knowledge that he was appreciated somewhere was a solace.

He headed for the kitchen, intent on reading the paper at the round table in the glassed-in breakfast nook. The sun had fallen behind the trees. Dusk was approaching. He flipped the switch to illuminate the lamp that hung over the table. When nothing happened, he jiggled the switch, and when nothing happened still, he swore.

He dropped the paper on the table, unscrewed the bulb from the lamp, tossed it into the wastebasket, and took a new one from the storage closet in the back hall. The lamp remained dark when he flipped the switch, so he removed the bulb and tried another.

This time when he tried the light, fireworks flew from the switch on the wall with such force that he jerked back. He swore again and louder, then stood with his hands on his hips, his heart banging an unhappy message against his ribs, and his head bowed in defeat. He knew enough about electrical systems to know that this particular light switch would have to be rewired. He wondered how many others were in like state.

He didn’t understand how a house that was so beautiful on the outside could be so broken-down inside—and, in his frustration, he wondered if there might be a broader message in that. He had come to Mount Court with the best of intentions. If they, too, blew up in his face, he didn’t know what he would do.

Hating decrepit things, detesting snotty little rich kids, and, mostly, despising the thought of failure, he grabbed his car keys and made for the garage. Soon after, he was in his Explorer, winding over the Mount Court roads, curving around the main drive toward the wrought-iron archway. He kept his eyes straight ahead and his foot on the gas, and didn’t let up for a minute until the image of Mount Court, as seen through a rear window dotted with decals from another life, was a memory.

“She’s been dead more’n a week now. So how’s it going?”

The question came from Charlie Grace. As one or another of Peter’s three older brothers often did, he had slid into Peter’s booth at the Tavern uninvited. Normally Peter didn’t mind. His brothers had made so much less of their lives than Peter had that letting them sit with him was an act of charity. But Peter was tired. He had just ended another long day filled with questions about Mara from parents of her patients.

“It’s going fine,” he told Charlie, but he didn’t gesture the waitress—Beth was on that night—for a beer for Charlie, as he usually, benevolently, did. He was in no mood to encourage his brother to stay. He needed time alone before Lacey arrived.

“She was a strange one,” Charlie mused. “She could be a class-A bitch—Jamie Cox is the first one to say that—but her patients loved her. My kids think she’s the greatest.” He gestured Beth for a beer.

Peter wished he hadn’t. More than that, he wished Charlie wouldn’t put him down. “They think Mara’s the greatest simply because I precluded myself from being their doctor. If I hadn’t, they’d think
I
was the greatest.”

“They still think you’re the greatest,” Charlie said with a sincerity that made Peter feel like a heel, “but she was a woman, and a woman has something else going for her. She was like a second mother to the kids. She had half the men in town in love with her, too.”

“If you’re going to tell me about Spud Harvey, save your breath. That’s old news.”

“Spud? Him, too? I was thinking about Jackie Kagen, and Moose LeMieux, and Butchie Lombard. She dated them all.”

“Once or twice, each one, that’s all,” Peter specified. “You make her sound loose, but she wasn’t. She was decent when it came to men. She never led one on. She never promised more than she was willing to give.”

“Hey,” Charlie said, raising a pacifying hand, “I’m not accusing her of anything. Besides, Norman agrees. She didn’t have any enemies. He told me so at the doughnut shop this morning. He checked it out.” He grinned an over-the-hill football hero’s grin at Beth. “Thanks, doll.”

Peter felt an uncertain alarm, though he was careful not to let it show. “What do you mean, Norman checked it out?” he asked with commendable nonchalance.

“Checked out her love life. Talked to the guys she dated. Talked to the guys she didn’t date but who wanted to date her. He didn’t talk to you?”

“I’m her partner. I didn’t date her.”

“Come on, Pete,” Charlie chided in a lowered voice, “I saw you two out on the old covered bridge at dawn more than once.”

“We’re both camera nuts. We used to photograph it.”

“At dawn?” he asked skeptically.

“Pictures are always more interesting when the lighting is oblique. Dawn and sunset are the best. Trust me. Mara and I didn’t date. So Norman had no cause to talk with me. He must have annoyed the others but good.”

“Nah. They had nothing to hide. They knew Norman was just doin’ his job. Poor guy. I half hoped for him that he’d come up with something exciting.”

“Like what?” Peter asked against the rim of his beer.

“Like Mara had something kinky going on with someone in town. Like that person knocked her out and left her in the car with the engine running.”

Peter choked. He coughed, cleared his throat, then shook his head. “Coroner ruled that out. There wasn’t a single bruise on her body.”

“I know that, Pete, but where’s your imagination?”

“I’m a doctor. I’m not into imagining ugly manners of death.”

Charlie sighed. “All I’m saying is that Norman could have used the excitement. Hell, we
all
could have used it. This town is pretty quiet.” He looked up. “Hey, Donny. Go on back. I’ll be along.”

Donny swatted Peter’s shoulder as he passed. Peter raised a hand in greeting.

Charlie leaned forward. “So, tell me the truth. I swear I won’t tell anyone. Was she good?”

“Who?”

“It’s me. Charlie. I’m your big brother.”

“Was who good?”

Charlie sat back. “Okay. I can play the game. But I have to warn you that when old Henry Mills gets a couple under his belt, which is nearly every night right over on that barstool, he starts to talk. He says he used to drink with her and that when she was half-crocked she’d be talking about you. He says if there was any man in this town she loved, it was you.”

“That’s flattering,” Peter said with a smile.

“Was it true?”

“She never said so to me.”

“Not even in the heat of passion?”

Peter didn’t answer. He figured that silence, coupled with a bored stare, was his best denial.

Charlie offered a defeated, “I gotcha.” Beer in hand, he slid from his booth. “You’re one dull guy. I swear, if you weren’t my brother, I wouldn’t love you at all.”

He gave Peter a fond nudge and walked toward his booth in back, leaving Peter in worse spirits than ever. Once, just once, he wanted a legitimate reason to hate his brothers. He waited for them to say something disparaging about his profession. He waited for them to call him a nerd, or blame him for misdiagnosing one of their friends’ kids, or criticize him because he wasn’t married. But they never did. They were good guys, all three of them, stagnant in their lives, but good guys. And he, with his academic accolades and his advanced degrees and the reverence of the townsfolk who loved putting one of their own on a pedestal—he was still bringing up the rear when it came to character.

“Hi,” Lacey breathed, sliding into the booth. “Sorry I’m late. The most incredible thing happened to me when I left the estate. Jamie Cox was waiting by the gate, wanting to talk.”

Peter relaxed. Jamie Cox was harmless, more an annoyance than anything else. He might own half the town, but he didn’t own Peter. “What did he want to talk about?”

“Mara O’Neill.”

Peter should have known. He couldn’t escape her.

“And you,” Lacey went on. “He wanted to know whether you were going to pick up the fight against him where Mara left off. He said he got that impression when he saw you here, and I can see why he did. I remember what you said. I told Jamie that your points were valid. He argued that they weren’t and that they’d only get you into trouble.”

“Was that a threat?” Peter asked.

“I asked him that, and he denied it. Still, it sounded that way to me. I told him that as a doctor here, it was your responsibility to speak up when you felt that the well-being of the people was being compromised.”

“What did he say then?”

She smiled. “He asked me to repeat what I’d said. He hadn’t understood it. So I repeated myself. I’m not sure whether he understood it the second time, either, but he started to defend everything he was doing around town. He paints himself as the good guy and everyone else as the bad guy. You’re going to fight him, aren’t you?”

Peter hadn’t really thought about it. Up until the week before, he hadn’t had to. Mara had appointed herself his opponent. “I don’t know.”

“You have to,” Lacey said in alarm.

“Why do I have to?”

“Because someone has to, and you’re in a better position than anyone else to do it. You knew Mara. You knew what she stood for. You know that she was right.”

He didn’t like Lacey’s tone. He didn’t like her suggestion that she knew what he knew. He didn’t like her telling him what to do. “That doesn’t mean I have to take on her fights.”

“But it’s the right thing to do,” Lacey pressed.

“It may also be futile. Jamie Cox has a perfect legal right to do what he wants with his property. Sure, lower Tucker looks scummy, but that’s a matter of aesthetics. There’s nothing illegal—
or
unhealthy—about that.”

“What about the old movie house? You said it was a fire trap.”

“Jamie has a permit to keep it open, issued by none other than Tucker’s building commissioner.”

She sat back, looking disappointed. “You said that there was a conflict of interest, since the commissioner lives in one of Jamie’s buildings.”

It struck him that her disappointment was aimed at
him.
Angry, he leaned forward. “Look, Lacey, if you want to throw down the gauntlet, be my guest. You can fight Jamie Cox. You can take him to court, but it’ll cost money. Why do you think Mara didn’t do it?”

“She died before she could.”

He shook his head. “She didn’t want to spend the money.”

“She didn’t have to. She had an ongoing working relationship with the public defenders in town. They would have gone to court for her. They’ll do it for you.”

“Christ, that takes time and more energy than I have. I’m up to my ears in patients because Mara O’Neill decided to off herself, and you want me to take over her causes, too? Dream on.”

Lacey didn’t respond. She frowned at a gouge in the table. Finally, in a quiet voice, she repeated, “It’s the right thing to do.”

Peter swore. He knew that it was, but, damn it, he had enough on his mind without taking on Jamie Cox. He couldn’t believe that Mara had saddled him with that one, too. So now he looked somehow less of a man because he refused to fight her cockamamy wars.

Struggling to contain his annoyance, he said, “I see patients from eight in the morning until five-thirty or six, and in between I squeeze in phone calls to parents, pharmacists, labs, radiologists, schoolteachers even, sometimes”—he glanced at his watch—“and in thirty minutes I have to address the Rotary Club two towns over. I think I do pretty well, with or without Mara’s noble causes. I’m more productive than most everyone else in this town. If that isn’t enough for you, what is?”

“Peter, I wasn’t saying—”

“You were.” He pushed himself out of the booth. “You were saying I’m not good enough. Well, fine. Go find someone who is. Better still, go back to the city. You want big-time philanthropists? You want diehard do-gooders? You sure as hell won’t find them in Tucker.”