The Plague Doctor (6 page)

Chapter Eleven

Mother dismissed my piece of cardboard, calling it “puny,” and brought out a big white poster board instead. It was just the ticket. She also found a couple of black and some colored magic markers. Since she printed more legibly than either Cassie or I, we elected her to make our little organization chart.

She divided the chart into columns: one for each floppy disc, with spaces for the files underneath. There was still plenty of room to add notes and comments. We were in business.

Cassie brought us a big pot of tea and some chocolate biscuits. She and Mother sat in front of the fire munching while I worked on the computer and Aggie lay comatose at their feet. Not even the possibility of falling cookie crumbs could rouse the exhausted puppy after her afternoon romp in the woods.

The disc I chose first had the lowest sequence of numbers written on the label. I had no idea what they meant and probably never would, but I had to start somewhere.

Disc number one turned out to be Ethan's log book. The file manager only read that one location on the disc. The last entry had been the day of his arrest. It was a big file, and I had only just begun to read it, but it would have to wait until later.

“Oh, Mom, by the way, Ethan said to tell you, ‘look for the lambs.'”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“What lambs, dear? Paisley, language, please.”

“I don't know, Gran. He couldn't explain with the Gestapo listening to our every word.”

“Okay! Mother, for what it's worth, that's our first clue. Write it on the top of the poster in quotations.”

“I thought the abortion clinic in Morgantown was our first clue.”

“What abortion clinic? I thought this was about miscarriages and stillbirths, not about stupid people murdering babies.”

“Is that really how you feel, Cassie?”

I don't know why I was surprised at her attitude. After all, she had been brought up Catholic, like Rafe's family.

“I certainly do! I cannot imagine anyone in their right mind having an abortion for any reason. Not even to save the mother's life. The baby comes first.”

I saw Mother pulling herself up to give her little lecture. I tried to head it off at the pass. The last thing we needed tonight was an argument about abortion rights.

“I found the medical dictionary on the bookshelf today. Apparently the term ‘abortion' is applied to fetal loss depending on the number of weeks from conception. Up until twenty weeks a fetus is ‘aborted' either naturally or through intervention. After that it is ‘stillborn,'” I added weakly.

Nobody was paying me any attention at all. Mother was sitting upright on the edge of her seat and just itching to sermonize. Cassie, however, was not yet ready to give up her soapbox.

“Too many females of my generation think of abortion as just another means of birth control. It's not birth control at all. It's murder due to lack of self-control.”

“You certainly make a good point with that, dear, but don't you think…”

“Murder plain and simple,” interrupted my darling daughter. “Have you ever seen a little fetus, Gran? It has tiny little hands and…”

“Cassie.”

“…feet. What, Mom?”

“Mother, you too. Let's cool it, okay? If the Supreme Court has trouble with this decision, how in the world can you two hope to change each other's minds? It's way too emotional a subject for us right now, and it won't help Ethan at all. Let's put our energy into helping him.”

“Certainly, dear. You're right as usual.”

She smiled sweetly—too sweetly, and continued, “Cassandra, you could learn a few things from your elders.”

I tried again, “Mother, could you please get us some more tea? The pot's gone cold.”

“Never mind, Mom! You can't cut her off that easily. I'll get the tea so my ‘elder' won't wear herself out.”

“Cassie, that's enough!”

“Well, I never! No tea for me, Miss Cassandra. I'm going to bed. You know how we old people like our sleep. Good night, Paisley!”

They stormed out side by side and almost got stuck in the doorway. I started laughing, and they turned in unison to glare at me in fury. I laughed even harder and woke up the puppy. She raised her head sleepily and glared at me too, then, dragging her furry little tail tiredly behind her, she followed her mistress to bed.

And so I was left alone again to do the sleuthing. I wondered if Holmes ever had this much trouble with Watson and had just kept the knowledge of the domestic discord to himself.

I sighed and slipped the second disc into the computer. Once again I saw the columns and columns of numbers and formulas. This time I looked more closely and suddenly realized that they were laboratory results. The long numbers at the top of each column probably represented a patient. Each one had a red cell count and a white cell count. I recognized kidney and liver function studies, but there were some others I could not understand. The library in town would probably have a book on how to interpret medical tests. I could send Cassie down tomorrow—that is, if she would speak to me.

The third disc was more of the same, and so was the fourth, but the fifth held a little surprise. I found Ethan's “lambs.”

Dr. McHenry had apparently visited the medical library at the CDC before he left Atlanta. He had included excerpts from several toxicology manuals and journals in his notes. They were in a file entitled “possible causes.” It was not even written in caps. He obviously felt the information was of little significance.

There were three entries from environmental journals with cases of abortions in hazardous work environments—two in paint factories and one in a plant that manufactured plastics. They contained words that I could not even guess the meanings of and more columns and figures similar to the ones on the other discs.

It was not until then that I realized Ethan was planning to write a paper on the abortion cases here in Lakeland County. The laboratory results would make no sense to anyone but other professionals in his field.

I got up immediately and put the discs with the lab data in an olivewood music box on the library shelf. They would be safe there. I would be horrified if anything—a vicious puppy with sharp little teeth, for instance—happened to all of Ethan's hard work.

The next article was from a dental journal. It addressed the suspicion that dental assistants had a higher rate of fetal loss than other health care workers, but there was no definite conclusion made. We only had two dentists in town, and both of them had several young women working in their offices. I imagined that Mother would know their names. I could find out if any of them had lost a baby recently.

The most interesting entries were from a book on poisonous plants. Ethan had made several notes about crop plants with a high nitrate content, which was known to cause abortion in cattle and sheep. And there was a really gross entry on fescue seed used for lawns and gardens which contained “nematode galls.” I had no idea what they were, but I decided to tell Mother we should pour concrete on the backyard posthaste. Yuck, nematodes! Not to mention galls.

Goldenrod was the culprit in an article about abortion in cattle in Virginia. I made a note of that because goldenrod was our state flower, although I personally thought of it as a weed.

Another of Ethan's entries was also close to home. I wondered if he realized that this part of the state was called the Pennyrile because of the abundant growth of the pennyroyal plant. That little jewel was noted to have been used by the American Indians as an abortifacient. The article added that it was a volatile oil, a colorless liquid that evaporated quickly at room temperature. Apparently enough to cause abortion would be lethal to the mother. Just breathing a little bit could cause seizures and coma.

Nematodes and seizures. I was getting nauseous.

Finally, there was the article about the lambs. This was what Ethan had told me to look for, and I read it with anticipation. Here again was a poisonous plant,
Veratrum californicum
, otherwise known as the skunk cabbage. It caused congenital malformations when fed to pregnant ewes during the second and third week after conception. The resulting “monkey-faced” lambs were usually aborted. Those that were carried to term always died shortly after birth, since their facial deformities prevented them from breathing and eating. The upper jaw and nose were poorly developed, and the eyes were usually joined into one big cycloptic organ. They were normal otherwise. Ha, I thought, how normal can a cycloptic “monkey-faced” lamb be? But this plant grew in the high mountain valleys of the Pacific coast and the Rocky Mountains, nowhere near us.

There was another
Veratrum viride
which grew in open woods and pastures throughout North America. This plant, Indian poke, had been used as an insecticide in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Its toxicity was unpredictable. It had fallen into disuse until the 1950s, when an alkaloid it contained was found to have hypotensive properties. It was now used in some antihypertensive drugs such as Veratramine.

What part of this was supposed to mean something to me, or Leonard?

I went to bed and dreamed of lambs who ate bananas and climbed trees. It was a funny dream. I smiled in my sleep until I saw their big single eyes staring at me from behind the tropical leaves.

Chapter Twelve

When I awoke the next morning, I found Cassie and Aggie in bed with me. I must have slept very soundly because I had no idea when they had crawled under my covers.

Aggie was whining to go out for her morning walk, so I slipped on my beloved old Cole-Haan moccasins, opened the French doors, and stepped outside.

The air was balmy, almost springlike, but the sky was a dirty pewter grey. And there was the slightly metallic smell of rain on the light breeze blowing from the south.

Aggie took her own sweet time. She puttered around endlessly under my grandmother Howard's big crepe myrtle and sniffed daintily at the tiny little wild violets she had planted at the edge of the driveway fifty years ago. I got impatient. I started to call her, but the wind picked up suddenly, lifting the thick soft fur on the dog's back until it stood straight up like a ruff. She raised her ears and eyebrows in a comical parody of alarm and scampered back to my side.

I looked to the south and saw big blackish-green thunder clouds boiling over the horizon. We were in for quite a storm if the wind kept blowing in this direction.

I stepped back inside and Aggie hurriedly squeezed in between my ankles. She hated thunderstorms and was a fairly good little barometer. I decided to batten down the hatches.

I unplugged Ethan's computer and mine, too. And just to make sure that Cassie would not try to turn it on during the bad weather, I stuck Ethan's in the big drawer of my father's desk. No sense taking any chances with government property. Thanks to Leonard's success I had plenty of tax dollars at work

Cassie was already up and dressed. She was cavorting with Mother in the kitchen, their feud over abortion rights apparently forgotten, as they danced and harmonized on “Dream a Little Dream With Me.”

I sat down at the table and drank a glass of orange juice while I watched them frolic around the big kitchen looking for all the world like Fred and Ginger—or Ginger and Ginger.

When they finished, I clapped, Aggie barked, and they bowed. Quite a pleasant way to begin the day. Then I had to go and spoil it.

“Tut, tut, it looks like rain.”

“The weatherman says ‘no,' dear.”

“Aggie says ‘yes.'”

They turned to look at me.

“Oh! I'd better close the windows in my bedroom. How about yours, Cassie dear?”

“I'll get them, Gran. And I'll move Watson into the garage.”

“Paisley, can you unplug the television and the microwave?”

“Sure thing.”

I turned and winked at Aggie. “Wow, you've got some reputation, dog.”

Aggie's prediction was correct. The storm was a dilly.

In Manhattan, I never noticed big electrical storms. It had just rained and gotten everything dirty and wet and nasty. Here on the farm, the force of nature could truly be seen in all its awesome power. Lightening flashed and thunder roared, to put it mildly. In the country, it was easy to understand why primitive man cowered in his cave and wondered what he had done to bring the wrath of the gods down on his poor head.

We three gathered in front of the big bay windows in the living room to watch as the fury of the storm play out before us. At times the old logs in the walls shook and the floor trembled. It was awesome.

Aggie perched miserably on the back of the sofa behind Cass with her head tucked between her paws. She yelped at a particularly loud clap of thunder and dove under the sofa as the lights went out.

“Damn!”

“Language, dear.”

“Oh, Mother, for God's sake.”

“Now is certainly not the time to blaspheme, Mom.”

I got up to look for the flashlights muttering something about how you could take the girl out of Catholic school, but not the Catholic out of the schoolgirl, or some such nonsense.

I crossed the hallway and was opening the door to my bedroom when I glanced out the front door. I was amazed to see a car backing rapidly out of our driveway.

“What the hell?”

“Paisley!”

I felt the wind coming from the open doors in the library just as Aggie crawled out from under the sofa and started barking.

“Oh, terrific! You're a great watchdog after the fact!”

Sure enough, someone had broken into the library. In a flash of lightning, I saw pieces of broken glass from the French doors. It was almost as dark as early evening outside, but I could still see wet footprints on the carpet. And my laptop was missing.

“Damn and hell and piss!”

“Paisley! You really must do something about your filthy mouth. Oh, my!”

“Yes! Oh my! And, oh, dearie me,” I responded sarcastically.

“Some piece of crap…Oh, excuse me, Mother. Some terribly misguided soul has invaded our happy home and made off with my very expensive computer. And, oh by the way, our intruder has also stolen the only copy of my new book in existence.”

I glared at her in my anger as I continued, “My goodness, how very inconvenient.” I raised my voice, “And damned pissing!”

I flopped down on the sofa in disgust, then jumped back up again in alarm as I remembered Ethan's discs. But they were still safely tucked away in the music box. Thank heaven I had stuck the other discs in the box when I had put his computer in the drawer. I wish I had been as careful with Leonard's latest adventure. My agent and best friend, Pamela, was going to have to be very understanding about the delay in finishing the first draft of my manuscript. I would have to start all over again.

Mother was picking up the larger pieces of glass. I knelt down to help her.

“I'm sorry about my language, Mother. I just can't believe someone would have the nerve to commit a burglary in broad daylight.”

“It's hardly light outside, Paisley. This storm is wonderful cover for a thief.”

Cassie finally came to see what was going on.

“What did I miss? I had to clean up after Aggie peed on the floor. Poor little thing was so scared.”

“We've been robbed, dear. Someone broke in and stole your mother's computer.”

“Mother's? Are you sure it wasn't Ethan's? I bet it was Ethan's they were after! That proves he's innocent!”

“Either that or he has an accomplice with big, wet, muddy feet,” I said angrily.

“My, my, yes indeed. It does look like our burglar could have wiped his shoes before breaking in. I'll have to have the carpet cleaned.”

“See, Mom. We just have to find a computer nerd with big feet and no manners and he's our villain!”

The storm washed the sky clean. When the thunder could only be heard in the distance, there was nothing but fleecy white clouds in the bluest of blues overhead. I looked at the clock and had a hard time believing it was not yet noon.

I vacuumed the rest of the glass from the library carpet and taped a piece of cardboard over the hole in the door. Carpet cleaner had removed most of the muddy footprints and everything looked pretty good again.

We had decided not to call the police and report the robbery. By now, Joiner would have figured out that Ethan's computer was missing. And I was also sure that Miss Lolly would have been more than eager to tell him about my visit the morning after Ethan's arrest. If he came to investigate the theft of my laptop, Andy just might have some questions about Ethan's and I did not want to answer any questions—not just yet, anyway.

After lunch I sat in the kitchen moodily adding up the cost of a new computer. With no police report there would be no insurance payment. To make matters worse, I could not remember how many chapters of Leonard's tome I had completed. All in all, I was fairly depressed. The last person in the world I wanted to see was Mother's weird friend Mavis Madden.

“Hello, hello, hello. Anyone at home? Did the wild wind take you and your little doggie to Kansas?” the woman cackled quite convincingly.

I let the old witch inside.

“Good morning, Mrs. Madden.”

“Paisley, darling, you look positively ghoulish. How much weight have you lost, dear? Skin and bones, skin and bones.”

Mavis fluttered and flapped like an old hen. She had a little black hat on with a bright red flower sticking out of the crown. The flower and her jowls waggled back and forth as she babbled on without stopping.

“Nice to see you, too, Mrs. Madden,” I interrupted. “Have a seat. I'll get Mother.”

As I escaped, I heard her voice going on behind me as though I had never left the room. I found Mother and informed her of the visitor. I had to push her towards the kitchen.

“Damn.”

“Mother! Language, please.”

“Oh, dear. Now you have me saying those dreadful things, too.”

“Me? How about Mavis? Doesn't she get some credit for being a totally unpleasant and irritating old bag?”

“Come with me, Paisley. Please? I don't think I can stand her on my own.”

She looked pleadingly at me. She was absolutely no good at trying to appear helpless and pitiful. Some day I would have to tell her.

“Okay. But just so long as she doesn't start asking me questions about my marriage.”

Mother nodded in agreement.

“I swear I'll leave the room the minute she mentions Rafe, or South America, or even the word ‘jungle.'”

“Done.”

“Or ‘guacamole' or ‘burrito' or…”

“Enough, Paisley, dear. You've made your point.”

“Or ‘husband's gone missing and don't know where to find him, humm, Paisley?'”

We marched back to the kitchen like good little soldiers. Mavis was still talking as though she had a room full of people as an audience.

“…and so I said to Agnes Wallace, I saw your husband in Morgantown at that new restaurant with a woman young enough to be his daughter. They were sitting so close together you couldn't see light shine between ‘em. And her a bottle blond, too. Agnes, I said, you're a saint to put up with that man. Anybody else would have more pride than to let a worm like that crawl in their bed at night.”

“Mavis, dear, would you like some tea?”

“No, thanks. I just had lemonade at Agnes Wallace's. That was before the storm. It was hot this morning.”

She looked out of the window accusingly. I was sure I heard Mother Nature's knees knocking together in alarm. Mavis was not one to be inconvenienced by anything—not even the elements.

She droned on about the misery in the life of poor Mrs. Wallace, misery that she had been only too happy to point out to the poor woman.

Mavis and I agreed on one point. I had always considered Winston Wallace to be one of Rowan Springs' lower forms of animal life. How he managed to hold on to his medical practice, I would never know.

“And now Ed Baxter has thrown in the towel just because a few of his patients miscarry. And since most of them have no business having any more brats, I look on it as a blessing.”

My ears perked up. “What do you mean, Mavis?”

She looked startled for a moment. I hardly ever spoke to her. She warmed up immediately to her new audience.

“Well, you must be aware that Barbara Malls has two deaf and dumb kids already. And her husband just lost his job at the mill. He had no call to get her in the family way again. What with no money coming in, and her trying to school those poor little dummies at home. Good riddance, I say. And the same for Susan Arnold. She had that mongoloid baby two years ago, and Edgar Baxter told her the new one had the same problem. But she and Herb wanted it just the same. Imagine! And them being already in their late forties. Who's gonna take care of those poor little retards when their parents die, I ask you? Me and you! The taxpayers—that's who!”

Mavis seemed to have forgotten that she was at least sixty-seven and would no doubt have gone to her own little coven in the sky long before Susan and Herb Arnold made their “little retard” an orphan.

“Our taxes will be taking care of them just like our taxes are taking care of all those babies in Paradise Trailer Park. And speaking of trailer trash, Patsy Floyd has five little snot-nosed brats from at least four different men. Good thing she dropped the sixth before its time, I say!”

I watched little drops of spittle dry in the corners of her mouth as Mavis Madden continued spewing forth the vilest venom. She was quite a sight. Makeup had caked in the wrinkles on her cheeks and forehead, and bright magenta lipstick fanned out in the thin lines around her mouth like tiny varicose veins. Her mean little eyes were dark with muddy colored irises and yellowish sclera. She frightened me. Mavis had long ago passed the point of being just a meddling old gossip. She was evil. I would have nightmares again tonight.

Mother had zoned out completely, and I was so amazed by the quality of Mavis's meanness that neither of us had noticed when Aggie came in the kitchen. She had been quietly chewing away on the handle of Mavis's big black leather purse for some time. When the puppy burped, we all looked down.

Mavis jumped up and screamed. Her upper arms and bust wobbled and heaved with her agitation. She looked like a pink Jell-O mountain in clothes.

“Look what she's done! Look what your rotten little beast has done!”

She yanked the soggy, wet strap out of Aggie's mouth. And before I could warn her, she landed a smack solidly on the puppy's rump. Aggie whirled around and leapt at Mavis like a streak of fuzzy white lightning. She sank her teeth into Mavis's thick, purple-veined ankle with all of her might.

Mavis's scream was deafening in the enclosed kitchen.

“Ow! She's killing me! Get her off! Get her off!”

Mother and I watched, paralyzed, as Mavis ran around the kitchen dragging Aggie behind her like a furry little mop. With one tremendous effort, she finally managed to shake the puppy loose, grab her purse by the one remaining strap, and run out of the house like the hounds of hell were after her.