Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 75, No. 2. Whole No. 436, February 11, 1980

Dr. Temple Is Dead by William Bankier

© 1979 by William Bankier.

“In a minute, when she felt better, she would call the police”...

Gloria Temple poured some whiskey into her glass without spilling a drop. This was progress; twenty minutes ago she had knocked over the glass with the neck of the bottle and had spent the time since cleaning up her father’s desk. It was the fine walnut desk with inlaid green leather and gold embossed top, the one he sat behind when he saw his patients. Once she was started with the sponge and cloth, she went ahead and polished the front and side panels, even the round feet half buried in the pile of the bottle-green broadloom.

Gloria knew she was compulsive when it came to cleaning up a mess. Her session in the bathroom earlier was another example; starting with her father’s straight razor, she had gone on to wash and polish the comb, brush, and shaving mug, even though he would never use them again. Still, there were worse habits and it made her feel better to get things organized.

Now Gloria drew the telephone toward her and dialed, checking after each digit to make sure she was getting the number exactly as it was written on the patient’s card in her father’s neat hand. The patient was Mr. Kamen, S. J., and his appointment was for nine o’clock in the morning — the first on tomorrow’s schedule.

As the telephone rang, Gloria sipped whiskey. It was essential that she get through to these people. It would be chaos if they began showing up and found no Dr. Temple.

“Hello?” — a sluggish, middle-aged voice.

“Mr. Kamen?”

“Speaking.”

“This is Gloria Temple, Dr. Temple’s daughter.”

“Yes?” A defensive note crept in.

“I’m sorry but I have bad news. My father is dead. I thought I should tell you right away because I know you were expecting to see him tomorrow.”

“Dead? What happened?”

“He took a nap late this afternoon. I went in to call him and found him lying there. He was — he was all right. I mean there was no suffering. He died very suddenly and very peacefully in his sleep.”

There was silence on the line. Then: “But what am I going to do? Who will I see? Dr. Temple is the only one who understands my—”

“I know. This is going to be difficult for you and all the other patients until you can get re-established with another analyst. But I’m sure my father’s colleagues will help and you’ll be hearing from one of them soon. If you need help in the next few days, I suggest you call Mt. Hope Hospital. They can advise you.”

Gloria put down the phone on a stunned Mr. Kamen. Her glass was almost empty — she was sure she had poured more than that. As she refilled it, she realized that her father was not going to come into the room and take away the bottle. She was free to drink herself to death, the end he had so often predicted for her. There must be worse ways to go.

Gloria remembered the body on the bed and realized she ought to telephone somebody about it. Police probably; they had ambulances. But the patients came first — how often had she heard her father say that? Five years ago, when her mother was still alive, Mrs. Temple used to complain: “You paid taxes on more than a hundred thousand dollars last year, Raphael. We don’t need all that money. We need a husband and father.”

As always, Dr. Raphael Temple produced his mild smile and let the argument blow away. “I’m not selling shoes,” he would say. “These people are sick, they need me. The patients come first.”

Gloria loved her father. He was the handsomest, kindest man she had ever known. She could recall the early years when she was in primary school and he was still getting started. He was at home more in those days, and they went for walks after supper and on weekends. He held her on one arm outside the apartment building as the sun went down and she could smell his cologne and feel the heat from his face. It was like being held by a big warm tree.

Then he became busy so she got busy too and they saw less of each other. For a few months after her mother’s funeral she thought they were drawing together again. He rang her at the agency where she worked and they met for lunch. They went to a couple of plays and attended an important indoor tennis match. She was 24 years old now and he was still so youthful-looking that they made an attractive couple.

Until Abigail Peterson came along. Gloria never learned where he found Abigail, nor did she care. The hell of it was that the buxom architect began to dominate Raphael Temple’s life. He found time for her all right. His first vacation in six years was spent in Bermuda with that Peterson person — he brought back snapshots to show the fun they had. Blonde indecent cow!

Gloria dialed the next number. This was Mrs. Easterby whose appointment was for eleven the next morning. “Mrs. Easterby? It’s Gloria Temple, Dr. Temple’s daughter.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I have bad news. My father died suddenly this evening. Since your appointment is for tomorrow morning—”

“Is this some sort of joke?” Mrs. Easterby could not believe the message because the voice on the telephone sounded drunk and belligerent.

“It’s no joke.” Gloria reined back her feelings. She was still able to do this when necessary; her sessions with Dr. Sills had helped in that direction. “Dr. Temple died in his sleep a short while ago. All appointments have had to be canceled.” She went on to explain the emergency arrangements and finally hung up on Mrs. Easterby who sounded on the verge of tears.

What would Dr. Sills say about Gloria’s falling off the wagon this way? Her feelings for Morton Sills were almost as strong as those for her father — in fact, they were all mixed up together, and she recognized this for the truth. It was the subject of many of their early sessions when she had submitted at last to her father’s persistent suggestions that she see someone.

“This jealousy of yours towards Abigail is not healthy, dear,” her father told her. “A certain amount of resentment is normal. But you are far beyond that level. It’s no good my talking to you — a third party is needed. Let me give you Mort Sills’s number. Call him, you’ll like him.”

She did like Dr. Sills from the very beginning. He was quite similar to her father physically — a man in his late forties with salt-and-pepper hair and a heavy face with pleasant wrinkles beside the eyes. After an initial period of deep reserve she broke the ice and found she was able to talk easily. But still she talked only about comparatively trivial things; her essential hostility remained buried so deeply that she herself only suspected its existence.

In time the usual transference took place and Dr. Sills became the most important man in her life. She called him Mort, he called her Gloria. She maneuvered him into meeting her for coffee and vowed that she intended to go on seeing him after her therapy was finished. As always, he listened quietly, not saying much, as if the very fact of the words flowing out of her was enough.

It was not enough. It would never be enough.

Phone call by phone call, Gloria made her way through the appointments calendar. It began to look as if the bottle was not going to see her to the end of the list. Fair enough; she had advised the patients for the next four days. The rest could be telephoned tomorrow.

She got up from the desk and walked to the couch. She sat down. Then she lay back and closed her eyes. There was a couch in Mort’s office but she always spent the fifty minutes sitting in a chair. They never used the couch — except for that one time. Had it really happened? The whiskey and her own confusion were loosening Gloria Temple’s hold on reality. The things she wanted from Mort and the things that had actually taken place between them were beginning to blur together.

No sense falling asleep in her father’s office. Gloria got up and staggered as she moved back to the desk. There was something else she had to do — what was it? Yes, call the police and have them come and take away the body.

The police would be unhappy, she realized, at being brought in so late. There had been light in the apartment when she made the discovery but now the windows were dark. A thought struck her. What if he was not dead after all? What if they came in response to her call and found him sleeping? That would be an embarrassing situation. And all those patients to be rung back, all of them thinking the doctor’s daughter must be crazy.

The idea of her father waking from a much-needed nap took over in Gloria’s mind. She saw him sitting up on the bed, his hair tousled on the sides, his voice confused. She started to cry, heavy tears streaming down her cheeks, the first release since it happened.

She took the empty bottle to the kitchen and set it out on the back landing beside the bin. She dried her face with a dish towel. Then she walked down the corridor to the bedroom door, opened it, and went into the darkened room.

She knew from the silence that he was really dead. She was alone in the world. No more father, the best there was even though he had switched his affections to Abigail Peterson. And now no more Morton since his insistence that their relationship had grown too close for comfort.

“I’m more to blame than you are, Gloria,” she remembered him saying. “I should have seen it coming and should have avoided it. I guess I’m only human. I’m sorry. Here’s the name of a colleague who has time for another patient. Call him, he’s a good man,” That was what she was being given in place of his love — a scrap of paper with a name on it.

She went to the bed and looked down at the body, the salt-and-pepper hair against the shadowy pillow, the blanket drawn up to the chin. She lay down on top of the blanket and closed her eyes. In a minute, when she felt better, she would call the police.

The sound of the door opening did not disturb her but when the overhead light snapped on, she sat up. She was confused, dragged out of deep sleep. Her father crossed the room, setting down his suitcase.

“Gloria? What the hell—”

“Daddy?”

“You’re drunk, aren’t you? I go away for one night and you—” He glanced at a crumpled slip of paper on the bureau, smoothed it out, and read the scribbled name of a psychiatrist he knew vaguely. His daughter’s companion had not moved. Dr. Temple approached with an expression of curiosity on his face. “I don’t much appreciate your using my bed—”

He stood still for a moment, then reached down and drew back the blanket. She watched his reaction as he stared at the slashed throat and the bloodstained sheets. “Good God, no,” Dr. Temple said. “Mort.”

Gloria felt like laughing, so she did. “Oui,” she said in high-school French. “Il est mort.”