He heard a knock, and Jackson popped his head around the door. “Your two o’clock had to reschedule. Something with a childcare issue.”
“What does the rest of my afternoon look like?” Simon asked his assistant.
“A follow-up with Mr. Morris at 3. Consult with a new patient—a Ginny Whitcomb—at 3:30. And then open until tomorrow morning. Your first surgery is scheduled for 6:30am.”
“Yes, Hazel Bloom. Pancreatic growth.” Simon nodded.
Jackson asked if he needed anything, and Simon thanked him and said he’d be looking over charts in his office until his three o’clock.
Simon scrolled through his phone once the door was closed again and clicked on Trina’s voicemail.
She needed money, which was something he could give readily. Joyce wouldn’t even know, since he kept an account separate from their joint affairs. Hearing Trina’s voice, and that she needed him, was a balm to his chafed sense of self. It had been a difficult trio of surgeries this morning, and he’d promised himself he’d only put cream in his coffee and nothing stronger beforehand. His hands were steady as he headed into the operating room, but his mind betrayed him as he slid his hands into the latex gloves.
Images of Tom, his mouth open and blood pouring down his chest, bloomed in Simon’s thoughts and he found himself stumbling towards the patient. A nurse reached out and steadied him with a careful hand, which was humiliating beyond belief. And he hadn’t even been drinking that morning.
Tom. Almost a year ago, come next week. It was hard to remember life before that afternoon. Before he’d seen Tom’s body wrangled by metal and cement, and before he’d watched Trina’s life spiral into a chasm of self-loathing.
Joyce and he couldn’t have children. They’d convinced themselves a few decades ago that they in fact preferred it that way.
He reached into his desk, retrieved the flask Joyce had engraved tongue-in-cheek for their tenth anniversary: To sweet beginnings and smooth finishes. It was full of Lagavulin, and he took a hard pull before bringing up Trina’s number to call her again.
As he was about to push the button, though, another call flashed across the screen. An unfamiliar number. He answered, as he was in the habit of answering unknowns. Sometimes patients passed around his personal number, which he gave out sparingly but with confidence it wouldn’t be abused.
“Dr. Morgan?” The voice was female, clipped and authoritative.
Simon confirmed who he was, curiosity flaring in his chest.
“This is Detective Bechdel with the Summitville Police Department. We’d like to schedule an interview with you.”
“Regarding what, exactly?” Simon took another swig.
“Your wife.”
CHAPTER TWELVE JOYCE
Joyce scheduled the appointment with Mamie Van Doren three weeks ago, in the hopes of recruiting her ample third-divorce reserves for the hospital’s latest charity venture. Mamie lived on the top of a hill, in a Hitchcockian tower her second husband built as a temple to her fine Scandinavian-etched beauty, if not her aging hips and ankles. Approaching ninety, and only twenty years off her second marriage and letting the ink dry on her third, Mamie had the world come to her when making requests.
Joyce drove herself in the Jaguar, having learned stick as a sixteen-year-old romping around her small Ohio town in her father’s old Ford F-150. The car drove like a dream, and Joyce loved the sensation of its purring engine bending to the smallest shift of her hands on the wheel. Inside the car was one of the few places she felt totally in control.
The irony of this position, compared to her husband’s, was not lost on her.
Mamie welcomed Joyce at her own door, shooing the aged butler away like a middle-class housewife, which she had been once. Her first marriage began in love, ended in tragedy—a mill town accident too nasty to be described as more than a “gory tangle of blood and bone” (yes, Joyce had looked it up in the library archives)—and a huge payout to Mamie and the other widow involved. With only one child to provide for and a savvy head for investments, Mamie transformed herself from middle class into the elite. Which was exactly why Joyce was here today.
Not for Mamie’s money, although that couldn’t hurt. Hospitals always needed benefactors. But for information.
“Joyce, you look amazing.” Mamie’s voice had none of the wobbly tenderness of other nonagenarians. “Especially considering…” She let her insinuation dangle, and Joyce set her coat and purse aside on the gleaming end table and readied herself for the emotional gauntlet ahead.
Mamie led them into her formal drawing room, ensconced entirely in teal and cream like a child’s candy.
“Thank you so much, Mamie. It has been an incredibly difficult time lately. This last year, in fact, has been more of a challenge than I could have ever anticipated.” Joyce chose a round settee with bold stripes. The back was too far removed, and she shifted to keep her posture upright as she crossed her ankles and folded her hands in her lap.
Mamie nodded solemnly. “Julie Dreyfuss was just here yesterday afternoon—you know her, I believe. Tall, horse-faced, with an obscene sense of humor and too much money to be good at anything?”
Joyce had forgotten how sharp Mamie’s bite could be.
“Yes, I know Julie.”
“Well, she came over yesterday for a game of gin—and some gin as well, to be honest.” Mamie leaned over the tea service the butler brought in moments ago and started to fuss with the tea things. “I’ll play mother, yes?” she asked, without really asking. Her white hair sat in a soft cloud of well-managed curls around her head, diamond studs at her ear lobes and a creamy cashmere sweater and teal pedal pushers fit her petite figure well. Her shoes still had a slight heel, which clicked against the parquet floor as they walked from the entrance to their seats.
Joyce didn’t have to tell Mamie how she took her tea—the woman remembered everything.
Handing Joyce her cup, Mamie settled into the back of her overstuffed armchair and examined Joyce with a gaze of unmitigated satisfaction.
“So, my dear. Tell me why you’re here.”
Joyce drank from her cup. The tea was still too hot and burned her tongue, but she fought not to show her gaucheness.
“As you know, the hospital fundraising committee has set a new goal this year, focusing on children’s health…” Joyce began, anticipating Mamie’s reaction.
“Oh, come now. You haven’t come just to persuade me to donate to sick children, have you?” Mamie shook her head and added another cube of sugar to her tea. Catching Joyce’s eye, she said, “At my age, what will a little extra sugar—or a little extra gossip—hurt?”
Joyce cleared her throat, hoping to seem uncomfortable with the turn of their conversation.
Mamie waved a hand dismissively. “Let’s stop with the whole hand-wringing, ‘I didn’t come here to discuss these terrible things or ask for your help’ nonsense and get down to it. I’m ninety years old. I haven’t time left for all this decorum.”
Joyce couldn’t help but smile. So much of Mamie Van Doren’s existence was decorum. Teal and white decorum.
“You’re right,” Joyce admitted. “I’m here to ask you about something more sensitive than giving money.” She paused, and Mamie seemed to have her attention caught as she leaned forward in her chair. “As you know, my husband was involved in a tragic event around this time last year.”
Mamie nodded gravely. “It was such a shame. So much awfulness that could have been avoided.”
“Well, with the first anniversary approaching, it appears that we have yet to move beyond it as much as I had hoped. The woman whose fiancé died…”
“Catriona Dell. The professor. She isn’t doing well, I’ve heard.”
“No, and Simon seems to have taken her on as his own personal crusade. Calls, texts, money offered.”
“I’ve heard nothing about an affair.” Mamie offered a look of solidarity.
“But you have heard something?”
Mamie set her tea down. A loud jangle burst from the ancient-looking handset seated on the end table next to Mamie’s chair. Holding up a finger to Joyce, she answered it, confirmed that she’d like the cucumber soup and some lightly toasted rye bread for lunch, and then hung up.
Joyce waited expectantly.
“I mentioned Julie Dreyfuss was here yesterday. Her husband is friends with the police commissioner, and when I told her you were coming by this morning, she made a not-so-delicate allusion to a recent police visit to your home.”
“I wasn’t there when they stopped by,” Joyce said coolly.
