Spark

10

Carver knew he’d be dealing with a medical doctor, and he wasn’t being operated on, so after breakfast the next morning at the Seagrill Cafe, he sipped coffee until almost ten o’clock before driving over to the medical center.

The same pleasant redhead was at the fourth-floor receptionist’s desk, but she didn’t seem to recognize Carver. Dr. Wynn was in, she told him, and like yesterday she invited him to have a seat and wait.

He settled down on a hard little sofa for what he figured would be a long time, resting his cane against one of the cushions. From hidden speakers, an FM station that boasted of playing “soft rock” sent out waves of neutered sound from the sixties. It was cool in here, anyway. He might as well relax and listen to violins play Jefferson Airplane.

Only seconds after he’d turned the first page of a tattered two-month-old Newsweek, he was aware of someone standing near him.

He looked up and saw a fortyish woman who surely at some point in her life had won a beauty contest. Her white uniform couldn’t mute the effect of her long, shapely legs, lean waist, high and full breasts. Shoulder-length, artfully tousled auburn hair framed a face with high cheekbones, luminous gray eyes, and a narrow, perfect nose. The only break in the symmetry was a slight overbite and pouty lower lip, but that only added to her appeal. It was a mouth made for uninhibited love.

She knew why he was staring at her and smiled, used to men’s eyes and what went on behind them. “Mr. Carver?”

He nodded and laid down the Newsweek.

“If you’ll follow me, I’ll lead you to Dr. Wynn’s office.”

She’d noticed his cane without seeming to, and she walked ahead of him at a slower than normal pace so he could keep up. He didn’t mind limping behind her.

She knocked twice perfunctorily on a closed oak door that had a brass DR. ARTHUR WYNN plaque on it, then opened the door and ushered Carver inside.

Carver was in a large, well-furnished office. Soft green leather furniture on a deep brown carpet. Paneled walls adorned with framed diplomas and certificates. In a corner stood a waist-high piece of modern sculpture that appeared to have been fashioned from scores of gleaming steel surgical instruments welded together. Carver wondered what it was called.

The door closed behind Carver, leaving him alone with an athletically built man about fifty who stood up behind his wide desk. He was six feet tall and wore pleated blue pinstripe slacks, a white shirt, red tie, and red and white suspenders, only he probably called them braces. On a corner of the desk was one of those little gadgets with half a dozen suspended steel balls that clicked against each other and maintained seemingly perpetual motion. They were still now.

Dr. Wynn introduced himself and shook Carver’s hand, inviting him to sit down in a small upholstered chair with dark wood that matched the desk.

Carver sat. Wynn seemed oblivious of the cane.

“I’m told you’re asking some questions on behalf of Jerome Evans’s widow,” the doctor said. He was tanned as well as fit, with blandly handsome features and razor-styled blond hair that would look white in a certain light. He had large, direct blue eyes, perfect teeth. He might have been a devout surfer who’d become serious between waves and gone into medicine.

“And I’m told you signed the death certificate,” Carver said.

Dr. Wynn nodded. “I looked in on the postmortem, then confirmed my conclusions by reading the examining physician’s report. More or less standard procedure here, Mr. Carver.”

“And you saw nothing unusual in the manner of Jerome’s death?”

“Of course not. It was a classic massive coronary. It would have dropped a bull moose dead in its tracks.” He swiveled in his chair and gazed out the window at some tall palm trees near the entrance of the parking lot. Swiveled back. “I sympathize with your client, Mr. Carver, I really do. But Hattie Evans isn’t the first surviving spouse to question a seemingly untimely death of a partner. This happens for a variety of reasons, from guilt to fear to loneliness. I’ve seen it before and I’ll see it again.”

“She said her husband had recently passed a physical.”

“At Jerome Evans’s stage of life, physical examinations aren’t passed or failed, like in the military.”

“But neither turned up anything wrong with his heart.”

“That’s true, and each examination included cholesterol count and an electrocardiogram. Everything seemed normal, so Dr. Billingsly quite correctly didn’t go further.”

“Further how?”

“Angiogram, CAT scan, various other tests if there’s historical or physical indication of heart trouble.” Dr. Wynn sank his perfect teeth into his lower lip and was silent for a moment, sitting there handsome, bland, and flawlessly groomed, the quintessential vice-presidential candidate. Then he said, “If Dr. Billingsly had asked him to undergo these tests, we might well have detected the blood clot that later changed position and killed him. But there was no apparent reason to extend testing. He fooled us, Mr. Carver. Unfortunately, it won’t be the last time we’ll be fooled, but we try to keep the percentages as low as possible.”

“Speaking of percentages,” Carver said, “I’m told the death rate in Solartown is somewhat higher than at similar retirement communities.” He gave the doctor the figures Beth had recited on the phone.

“A statistical fluke,” Dr. Wynn said, “assuming those figures are correct. There’s simply no reason why the death rate here should exceed the average, and I’m positive that over a sufficient period of time the numbers will even out.”

“If the figures are accurate and not a fluke,” Carver said, “could you think of any possible explanation?”

The doctor made a steeple with his manicured pink fingers and smiled. “Could you?”

“Something in the water, maybe,” Carver said.

The pink steeple contracted and expanded as Dr. Wynn flexed his fingers. “You’re joking, but that sort of thing actually happens. So for the record, the Solartown water supply is periodically checked, carefully monitored.” He laced his fingers and lowered his hands to the desk, gazing at Carver with a fresh awareness. “Are you suggesting the presence of a mass murderer in Solartown?”

“That sort of thing actually happens, like something in the water,” Carver said. “But I’m not suggesting anything.”

“I suppose if that kind of aberration were present, we here at the medical center would be in a position to see signs of it. As far as I know, there are no such signs.”

“Except for the statistics I just quoted.”

“I can promise you, Mr. Carver, I’ll personally check your numbers, and if they’re accurate I’ll do further research to confirm they can be dismissed as a meaningless statistical blip. Numbers occasionally lie. Despite the polls, Truman defeated Dewey for the presidency.”

“Only once,” Carver said.

“In the year the Cleveland Indians uncharacteristically won the World Series,” Dr. Wynn pointed out.

He had Carver there.

Carver thanked the doctor for his time, stood up, then limped to the door. As soon as his hand touched the knob, the door swung open, held by the smiling beauty who’d escorted him into the office. The lucky name tag on her left breast said she was Monica Gorham, R.N.

“I’ll show you out, Mr. Carver,” she said in a voice suitable for 900 numbers.

This time she walked beside him in the wide hall.

“Did your talk with Dr. Wynn go well?” she asked.

“Well enough.”

“I suppose you wanted to ask him about Jerome Evans.”

“What makes you think so?” Carver asked.

“You were here yesterday, making inquiries. It just seemed natural you’d want to see Dr. Wynn. I hope he reassured you.”

“He’s a reassuring sort,” Carver said noncommittally.

“He’s a superb administrator,” Nurse Gorham said.

“What do you do here?” Carver asked.

“My title is executive director of nursing.”

“Head nurse?”

She smiled. “Sometimes much more than that.”

It was odd that the executive director of nursing had ushered him into Wynn’s office in the manner of a secretary. Maybe she’d wanted to get a close look at Carver, size him up.

They’d reached the elevator. Carver punched the DOWN button with the tip of his cane and said, “Do you have any personal opinions about Jerome Evans, Nurse Gorham?”

“I wouldn’t be in a position to form opinions,” she said. “I can tell you this, though: Mrs. Evans isn’t the first widow to get suspicious in her grief. Even though I wasn’t in the O.R. at the time, I know that no one shot or stabbed her husband. This isn’t a big-city trauma center, Mr. Carver. We deal with old people, and they die at a faster rate than the young. And very often they go swiftly and unexpectedly, like Jerome Evans.”

“Exactly like?”

“Exactly.”

A young, heavyset woman in a nurse’s uniform was ambling down the hall. She saw Nurse Gorham and immediately picked up her pace. For an instant the kind of hate that can only be generated by fear was in her eyes.

Carver waited until the young nurse had hurried past.

“What about Maude Crane?” he asked.

Nurse Gorham seemed puzzled. “It’s a name I don’t know.”

“It was on the news. She’s a Solartown resident who committed suicide the other day.”

“I don’t have time to keep up with the news, Mr. Carver.”

“Maude and Jerome Evans were not-so-secret lovers.”

She began to answer, but the elevator arrived and he thanked her and limped inside, leaving her standing there with her mouth open. On any other woman it wouldn’t have been attractive.

As the elevator dropped, he wondered why she was more interested than she should be about his talk with Dr. Wynn.