The Tenth Life Read online

  “Doctor ought to be out any minute, Mrs. Heimrich,” Carol said. She did not seem to have heard Dr. Latham Rorke, or to have noticed the edge in his voice. “Anyway, he seems just to be sleeping, doesn’t he?”

  “He,” Susan assumed, was Colonel. It could hardly refer to Dr. Barton. Or, conceivably, it could. Couldn’t he hear voices from his operating room? Or did he choose not to?

  “Yes,” Susan said, “he does seem to be asleep. But, couldn’t you ask the doctor when he’ll be ready, Miss Arnold? After all, we’ve been waiting—well, quite a little time. If he could just look at Colonel and give us an idea? Whether he thinks there’s anything he can do? If, of course, he’s really finished with Mrs. Cummins’s cat.”

  Carol Arnold said, “Well. He won’t like it, but I suppose—”

  She did not say what she supposed. Instead, she walked to a door at the end of the waiting room and knocked on it. She knocked tentatively. Then she said, “Doctor? Dr. Barton?”

  She opened the door widely, and stopped and said, “Oh—oh, no,” her young voice rising. She almost screamed the “no.”

  The slender girl in white drew back from the opened door. She seemed to sway as she moved, but had regained balance by the time Rorke had taken long strides across the room and put his arms around her. But Rorke did not take his arms from around her.

  From where he stood, Heimrich could see into the small, brightly lighted room. A fluorescent tube glared down on a small table. There was nothing on the operating table.

  But on the floor beside the table a man was lying. He was rather a large man, but he looked crumpled as he lay on the floor. He wore a white jacket.

  Heimrich could hear the girl’s voice behind him as he went into the room.

  “Not me, Lathe,” Carol Arnold said. “Not me—Adrian. You’re a doctor, aren’t you? Aren’t you, Lathe?”

  2

  “He’ll have a stethoscope around,” Rorke said. “In that little cabinet over there, probably. Next to the fridge.”

  Heimrich opened the cabinet Rorke had pointed at. The stethoscope was in it. He gave it to Rorke and Rorke listened through it. He listened at various points on the bared chest and, finally, sat back on his heels and again looked up at Heimrich. He took the stethoscope out of his ears.

  “Nope,” he said. “Looks like a DOA, Inspector.” He got to his feet and looked at the girl, again in the doorway. “Sorry, Carol,” he said. “I’m afraid Adrian’s had it.”

  Carol Arnold said nothing. She put a hand up to her lips.

  Heimrich had for some minutes been certain the big man on the floor was a dead man. He said, “Dead of what, Doctor?”

  Rorke shrugged. He spread his hands in a gesture of defeat.

  “Heart attack,” Rorke said. “Fatal stroke, could be. And, I suppose, it could be diabetic coma. Take an autopsy to be certain. You see—”

  “Dr. Barton was a diabetic, Doctor?”

  “Told me so once,” Rorke said. “Said it was mild but he was on insulin. On forty units a day. I wasn’t his physician, you know. Chap named Chandler, I think his doctor was.”

  “And he forgot to take his insulin?” Heimrich said. “And went into coma and died in it. That’s your guess, Doctor?”

  “Only a guess,” Rorke said. “A possibility. As I said, there’ll have to be an autopsy to make sure. If Louise consents, I suppose.”

  “Even if she doesn’t, I’m afraid. Dr. Chandler won’t want to sign a certificate. And I don’t know whether we could take it if he did. Would you think Dr. Barton would have been likely to forget his insulin shot, Doctor? After all, he was by way of being a medical man himself.”

  “No, I wouldn’t. And they get so injecting it is automatic. And he did premed at Cornell. Required by their vet school, I understand. No, I’d think he’d be damn unlikely just to forget it. Half an hour before eating is the usual routine. Perhaps—” He stopped talking because Heimrich was not looking at him. Heimrich was looking down at the dead man. He was looking at a hypodermic syringe on the floor, partly hidden by a fold of Barton’s white jacket, and near the flaccid right hand.

  “Move him a little, Doctor,” Heimrich said. “Toward you.”

  Rorke moved the body a little. They could both see the hypodermic then. Rorke reached a hand toward it.

  “No, Doctor,” Heimrich said. “I’ll get it.”

  There was a box of Kleenex on the narrow counter under the cabinet next the small refrigerator. He took tissues out of it and used them to pick up the syringe. He wrapped the syringe carefully in tissues and put it in his pocket.

  “For God’s sake,” Rorke said. “You act as if this were—I don’t quite know how to put it. You—I guess it’s as if you’re acting like a cop.”

  “I am a cop,” Heimrich said. “And we don’t like sudden deaths. Particularly unexplained sudden deaths.”

  “Probably used the needle to shoot a barbiturate into the cat,” Rorke said. “The one he was operating on. What they usually use for anesthesia.”

  “And, as they put it, to ‘put animals to sleep,’” Heimrich said. “That is, to kill them. Something not allowed in your profession, of course.”

  “Not yet, anyway,” Rorke said. “But already, I’ve seen cases where—”

  He did not finish that. “Somebody’ll have to tell Louise,” he said.

  Heimrich agreed. He said, “Miss Arnold?”

  Carol Arnold was still in the doorway, Susan behind her. Heimrich had not spoken to Carol, but she answered—answered in a strangled voice. She said, “No. Please no, Inspector. I—I’m not up to it.”

  “You’re damn right you’re not,” Rorke said. “I’ll do it.”

  But then Carol said “No” again. “It’s something for me to do, isn’t it? But, will you come with me, Lathe? In case—well, in case she needs something?” Rorke looked at Heimrich and Heimrich nodded. “Yes,” Heimrich said. “You’d both better go, I think. But, I’d like both of you to come back after you feel you can leave Mrs. Barton.”

  They did not leave the waiting room by the front door. They went, the girl ahead and Rorke very close behind her, by the doorway through which Carol had dragged the pad Colonel was sleeping on. Toward, presumably, the “back way” out.

  “Look, dear,” Susan said. “He’s turned around. He’s heading the other way.”

  It was quite true. At least, they both were sure it was true. Colonel’s big head was at the opposite end of the pad from the end it had been. And, to both of them, he seemed to be breathing more easily.

  “Could be it’s just heat exhaustion,” Heimrich said. “Maybe he’s coming out of it. Cool in here, and could be he just needs rest where it’s cool.”

  “Heat exhaustion? Like humans get?”

  “They get most of the things we do, Susan. From head colds to cancer. We’ll ask Miss Arnold about it when she gets back. Until then—well, Colonel will just have to wait.”

  Susan nodded. Murder, even possible murder, comes ahead of a dog, even a well-loved dog.

  There was a telephone on the reception desk. Heimrick picked it up, but then put it down again. He found a Westchester–Putnam County telephone directory in the desk drawer. “Chandler Ernest MD of … Res….” Ernest Chandler would be at home by now. Since it was Saturday, he had probably been at home all day. Or, of course, on the golf course of the Van Brunt Country Club. He dialed.

  “Evening, Ernie,” Heimrich said to their longtime family physician. “This is Heimrich.”

  Chandler, who does not like to be called “Ernie,” retaliated. He said, “Hello, Merton.” Heimrich does not like his given name. So they were now more or less even. In the friendliest possible fashion.

  “This is more or less official,” Heimrich said. “You had a patient named Barton? Dr. Adrian Barton. A vet?”

  “Had?” Chandler said.

  “I’m afraid so, Ernest. He’s died. Rather suddenly.”

  “Suddenly enough to make you curious, apparently, M. L. Y
es, he’s been a patient of mine for the last couple of years.”

  “Diabetic, Doctor?”

  Chandler hesitated, as Heimrich had known he would. Physicians do not discuss the ailments of their patients with outsiders.

  “Barton’s dead, Doctor,” Heimrich said.

  “Yes, diabetes. Fairly mild case.”

  “On insulin?”

  “Of course. Forty units, before dinner. And a controlled carbohydrate intake. All balanced out. Hasn’t had any problems lately, far’s I know. And he’d have let me know if he’d had any. Not entirely a layman, you know.”

  “Had premed at Cornell, a doctor here tells me. An M.D., Ernest. A young one, interning in White Plains, he says. Name of Rorke. Latham Rorke. Ever hear of him?”

  Dr. Chandler had never heard of Latham Rorke, M.D. Which meant nothing. “And, M. L.?”

  “I’m at Dr. Barton’s hospital,” Heimrich said. “Rorke happened to be here. Confirmed death, actually. Not sure about the cause. Thinks diabetic coma is a possibility.”

  Chandler said, “Mmm.”

  Heimrich waited.

  “People do die of it,” Chandler said. “Not often, nowadays. Insulin brings them around. And other medications, of course.”

  “If Barton forgot his insulin injections, he might go into coma?”

  “Not by missing one injection. And they don’t forget them, M. L. Not if they’re in their right minds. And Barton seemed to be in his right mind to me.”

  “But if he did forget? Both doses, say?”

  “I wouldn’t have thought so. Mild case, as I said.”

  “But it is possible?”

  “M. L., I’ve been practicing medicine for a good many years. About thirty, actually. I’ve been at it too long to say that anything is impossible. Including voluntary remission of cancer. Had Barton been exercising violently during the afternoon?”

  “I don’t know. Would that make a difference?”

  “It might.”

  “So far as I know, he was operating on a cat. Spaying a cat.”

  “For my money,” Chandler said, “anything you try to do to a cat amounts to violent exercise. But probably it didn’t for Barton. Treats a lot of cats, he told me once. Professional chitchat.”

  Which was, Heimrich thought, what this was in danger of turning out to be. “So you wouldn’t,” he said, “rule out the possibility of death in diabetic coma?”

  “No,” Chandler said. “Without examining the cadaver, I wouldn’t rule out anything. But, I would think it entirely improbable. More likely cardiac arrest, although his EKG was all right a year or so ago. Pressure was up a little, way I remember it. Could have shot up in a year, of course. Does sometimes. Possibly a stroke, I suppose. However, I’m just guessing. With damn little to guess on.”

  Heimrich realized that, and thanked Ernest Chandler and hung up. Then he called the barracks and got things started. It was a suspicious death, which was enough to start with.

  “I’m in the way,” Susan said. “And, since there’s no vet here to examine Colonel, I could take him home. Only he’s too big to manage.”

  “Much too big,” Heimrich said. “I’m afraid you’ll just have to wait, dear. It may not be too long. The boys ought to be here before long. Maybe our doctor will say ‘Natural causes’ and we can both go home.”

  Susan went to the morose green sofa and sat on it. It was not only morose; it was hard. There were magazines on a table at one end of the sofa, but most of them seemed to be Reader’s Digests. There was a copy of something called The American Cat Fancy. Susan decided to watch her dog.

  “I’ll have a look around while we wait,” Heimrich said, and Susan responded with an “Mmm.” Heimrich’s look around started with a dead man.

  Adrian Barton, DVM, had, at a guess, been in his middle or late forties. He had been almost startlingly handsome—tall and reasonably slender; dark-haired, firm-jawed. A strong, straight nose. Probably, Heimrich thought, attractive to women. Probably, although that was sheer guesswork, easily diverted by women. “Divert?” Why had that word come to mind? Yes, of course; Carol’s word picked up by Latham Rorke with an edge in his voice. (Or was it “distract”?) He was, Heimrich thought, guessing ahead of himself.

  Dark-haired, with no gray showing. Probably dark eyes. But that he could not tell, because the eyes were closed. A little unusual, that. Most die with their eyes open, as if they strained for a last glimpse of life.

  Heimrich touched one of the outstretched arms. Yes, rigor had begun.

  There were three doors in the small, narrow room. One opened on the waiting room, and Heimrich had just come through it. There was a door at either end of the room. Heimrich tried the one on his right.

  It opened on a room with a desk in it and with filing cabinets. Dr. Barton’s office. A door beyond the desk. The next room had a narrow table, similar to the operating table in the room Barton had died in. An arm of an X-ray machine was folded back against a wall, placed so it could be swung out over the table. There was a sterilizer, with instruments in it. All the instruments appeared to shine with cleanliness. A pair of surgical gloves, wrapped for sterility, lay at one end of the examining-operating table. There were cabinets on the wall, so set that the veterinarian could turn from the table and get what he needed out of any of them.

  So, a well-equipped operating and examining room, for canine and feline patients.

  Heimrich went back to the room with the body in it, and through the other door.

  As he opened the door, a dog barked. Then another, louder dog barked. Then it seemed as if a dozen dogs barked, in mounting hysteria.

  There were, actually, only six dogs in what was clearly the hospital’s canine ward. They were of various breeds and sizes, and all, from a mammoth Newfoundland through a sizable golden retriever to a small smooth-haired fox terrier, making all the indignant noises they could manage. Indignant or, possibly, welcoming? Dogs expecting to be fed?

  Beyond the dog ward, separated from it by a partly closed door, a quieter room, with cages along the wall, and cats in the cages—cats who, for the most part, were curled asleep on pads. The cages were roomy; each had its toilet pan with litter in it. Like the pan Mite used when he didn’t want to go outdoors because it was cold outdoors. Or, of course, wet.

  Most of the eight cats in the feline ward sat up when Heimrich went into their room. Several of them mewed at him, in a friendly fashion, but one large black tom hissed. One that sat up was a smallish seal-point Siamese. Its posture and blue eyes were alert—too alert, he thought, for it to have just had surgery. There ought to be a relatively limp female along here somewhere. He looked in more cages.

  He found the slender Siamese queen in a glass box near the far end of the room. There was a plaque above the glass box. It read, “No smoking! Oxygen.” So. Postoperative patient in an intensive care ward, undergoing oxygen therapy.

  The patient, another seal point, lay on her side. She had a bandage around her middle. She appeared to be soundly asleep and breathing easily. She flicked one brown, pointed ear as Heimrich looked down at her. He opened another door at this end of the ward.

  The door opened on a narrow hallway, with a door at the end of and doors on either side. As Heimrich opened his door, the door at the far end of the hallway also opened. It was opened by a short, heavyset woman, probably somewhere in her sixties. Even from twenty feet away, she looked formidable. She was also wearing a man’s felt hat. She wore a pants suit of dark gray and what Merton Heimrich’s mother would have called “sensible” shoes.

  She paid no attention to Heimrich. She said, “Roger? Roger!” She had a formidable voice. When she was not immediately answered, she took a step into the hall—a step which could easily be called a stride. And once more, she commanded somebody named Roger.

  This time the door on the right side of the hall opened and a tall, rather gangling youth came through it. He had a book in one hand; he wore glasses. He had long blond hair, part of which dangled dow
n his forehead. He pushed his hair back. He said, “Yes’m, Mrs. Cummins. Afraid I was reading.”

  “Jenny,” the stocky woman said. “Ready?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Cummins,” Roger said. “Only she was still out, last I looked. Doctor said you’d be coming for her.”

  “I have,” Mrs. Cummins said. “I’ll get her.”

  Her voice was still inflexible. She started toward Heimrich, still in the doorway. She did not seem to see him, except as something in the way. He got out of it, and she strode past him into the animal wards.

  “She likes to handle them herself, sir,” Roger King said. Heimrich said “Evidently” to what was evident.

  Mrs. Cummins was gone several minutes. Then she came back, a ventilated cat-carrying case in one hand. Heimrich again got out of her way. An indignant Siamese voice spoke from the black box.

  “She’s coming out of it, Mrs. Cummins,” Roger said.

  “Sounds like it,” Mrs. Cummins said. “Let’s hope she is, boy. That he didn’t bungle this one. Two hundred she’s bringing, tabby markings or not. He give her the shots?”

  “Yes’m. Said to tell you she’s all set and he’d like you to keep an eye on her for a couple of days before they take her off.”

  Mrs. Cummins said, “Huh,” and went out the door with the carrying case. She went across smoothly mowed lawn to a blue Volks, parked partly on the grass. The boy pushed his drooping hair back again and said “Whew,” more or less to himself. Then he said, “Sorry, sir. The doctor’s probably up at the house.”

  “No, Roger, I’m afraid he isn’t,” Heimrich said. “He’s still in the building. Only, he’s dead, son. I’m Michael’s father, Roger. Michael Faye. His stepfather, actually.”

  “Inspector Heimrich,” the boy said. “You say Dr. Barton’s dead, sir? Jeez!”

  “Yes, Roger. They didn’t tell you? Miss Arnold and Dr. Rorke, I mean. They went out this way a little while ago.”

  “No, nobody told me. I had my door closed, and maybe they didn’t know I was here. I generally come in the back way. I was early this evening. You mean that’s why you’re here, Inspector? Because Dr. Barton’s dead?”