Requiem for the Bone Man (13 page)

“Mother seems to be deteriorating very quickly today, Doctor.”

He detected no sign of grief from the daughter, just a flat voice and flatter expression, as though she was describing a pet that had to be put down. But then, pet owners tended to show their sorrow at the impending loss of a beloved animal, and Anne Creding displayed no such emotion.

He nodded and followed her to the mother’s bedroom, where silk blankets and pillowcases adorned the bed and special pillows helped prop up the old woman.

He moved to her side. Marilyn Falcon was comatose now. The cancer drugs no longer held sway. Maybe it was for the best that she could not perceive her surroundings or feel any pain. He turned to Anne, who stood by looking like some cigar store Indian princess staring ahead blankly.

“She’s going now, Mrs. Creding. Is there anything I can do for you?

Anne just shook her head coldly—no verbalization, no sense of loss.

Maybe she’s in shock, too upset to react in any human way
.

At least, that’s what he hoped was happening. But in his years as their doctor, he never had seen an overt sign of affection or concern by the daughter for her mother. Anne Falcon Creding had tried to ignore what she considered her mother’s lower-class background when she married the wealthy and powerful Branson Creding, a Boston Brahmin who now held a Cabinet-level position. But her mother’s very existence exposed Anne’s ill-fitting social roots, no matter how hard she tried to conceal them.

So perhaps
, Galen thought,
Anne considered Marilyn’s dying a favor.

He turned to the old woman who now exhibited the irregular gasping of the dying. Yes, The Darkness was there this time, very strong, and soon Mrs. Falcon was no more.

Galen signed the form certifying time of death. As he prepared to leave he heard the startling words:

“Help me with her.”

Well, well, he thought. Maybe Anne was feeling the loss after all. Maybe she wanted to arrange her mother in a dignified pose. But his skin crawled and he shuddered involuntarily as he saw the look of grim determination on the face of the dead woman’s daughter then noticed her hands. They were holding a small hammer and chisel, and she grimaced as she stared back and said something that made him pick up his bag wide-eyed and walk out:

“I need you to hold her mouth open. I’m not going to bury all that gold in her teeth.”

“Dr. Edison, is something wrong?”

The hotel manager felt sudden panic as he heard the troubled voice on the other end of the telephone line.

“Yes, we’re all sick. We need a doctor for the whole team, including me!”

Edison hung up just as the latest overwhelming wave of nausea hit him. He had suffered through food poisoning before but this was different. His skin was turning beet red and he felt like millions of worms and bugs were crawling across his flesh. He was the last to be hit, after he had received calls from several of the torchbearers complaining of the same symptoms.

The hotel doctor came to his room and examined him.

“Damnedest thing! I’ve never seen food poisoning do this. Dr. Edison, I’d like to call a friend of mine. He’s local and often consults at the White House. May I use your phone?”

By then Edison didn’t care if the quack called the Pope. He had never felt so physically miserable. Saliva poured from his mouth, his skin burned and itched, and his intestines felt more like fire hoses. Now he was starting to wheeze, and he felt numb around his mouth.

Galen had arrived back at his office still shocked at that last turn of events. He had left the deathbed of Rosie with a sense of … what? Elation? Proof of something intangible? But then there was Marilyn Falcon. What did that poor dead woman ever do to deserve such malignancy on the part of her daughter? He sat down and seriously contemplated quitting. He felt the same inner torment as he did when Leni and Cathy had been taken from him.

Then the phone rang.

Naturally! What if it’s that Creding woman again?

“Bob, this is Jack Stevens. Yeah, I’m still doing hotel medicine. Beats working for a living. I got a strange one here. Can I tap your brain?”

Galen felt weary, but he would help his old friend.

“It’s like food poisoning but not like any food poisoning I’ve ever seen,” Jack told him. “They’re all beet red, vomiting, salivating, and crapping up the place. They’re wheezing and they’re ready to tear their skin off.”

“What did they eat for dinner?”

Galen felt that old itch in his head as he scoured his little gray cells and came up with an idea even before Jack’s next words confirmed his suspicions.

“Salmon,” he said. “The chef said it was freshly caught and brought in down at the E Street wharf.”

“Don’t believe him,” Galen replied. “This is scombroidosis. Get them all on steroids and diphenhydramine, stat! They’re getting whacked by histamine release.”

He hung up the phone, shaking his head.

Scombroidosis! He hadn’t seen a case since med school. Bad stuff. Chemicals released by salt water fish when their skin starts to rot and break down.

Can trigger one helluva allergic reaction!

After the hotel quack had given him two injections, Edison began to feel human again. In a little while he would call Nancy to let her know he was okay.

“You were right, Bob, that seafood dinner was bad news,” Jack told Galen after the emergency had passed. “We had the lab run tests on it. I think that chef, and maybe the food supplier, need some closer scrutiny.”

“Glad to hear it, Jack.”

“Nancy, how soon can we retire?”

She heard the plaintive tone of his voice on the phone. He was still in D.C., the Olympic affair had ended, and the effects of the illness had passed, but the powers that be had told him not to come back just yet. They needed him to take a short hop to South Carolina to check on a government security lab that was having some trouble.

Not even an extra day to recuperate from his banquet fiasco! Even worse, he couldn’t find a direct flight to the small southern town where the lab was located.

Another one of Uncle Sam’s damn hidden facilities!

The only way he could get there by tomorrow was to rent a car and drive or hire a puddle jumper, but he surely didn’t feel well enough to drive that far.

Why does this have to be done on a Saturday, anyway?

“Take it easy, Bob. I’ll spend the weekend analyzing our finances. You just get this last thing done, and if they try to make you do more, tell them to go lump it!”

She hung up the phone and sighed to herself. Things were getting worse at the bank, too. She was manager now—actually manager of the whole state—but upper management had no clue about the training deficiencies of the new employees they were hiring and no understanding of the need for increased security with the new computer systems. She felt like a voice crying in the wilderness. But she also knew that if anything did go wrong, she would take the blame. This was no way to live.

She carefully laid out all of their assets and liabilities on a spreadsheet. They certainly couldn’t afford to stay in the New York-New Jersey area. The taxes on the house and the utility bills alone would eat up their savings within several years. They would have to move.

She had heard that Bob’s company was considering changing the retirement and pension plans to something far less satisfactory. And, if Bob was right about the rumors he had heard, the company was trying to get rid of its higher salaried employees—like him. Her mathematical mind did some quick calculations and she smiled.

Gee, it actually would be better if he did retire, but only if they offer him a buyout and allow him to keep his old pension plan.

She had watched her own retirement plan at the bank very carefully. They wouldn’t get away with anything while she had anything to say about it.

Maybe it was just the day, or maybe it was because he was away, but Nancy suddenly started feeling blue. Up popped the memory of that long ago day when the hope of having children of their own was lost, followed by more memories of the denials by the adoption agencies. It overwhelmed her. She put her head down wishing Bob was there to hold her.

She sat up again.

Snap out of it! Bob needs me to be logical now! Could we really do it—retire, escape the rat race, and move away? Could I see myself not working?

Then she smiled as she remembered something her mother had told her when she was first married.

“A woman never really quits work—she just stops getting paid for it!” The grimness of Friday’s death watches gave way to a Saturday lit with sunshine. Galen took advantage of the lovely morning, walking through the yard before the first patients arrived and thinking once again that maybe he could get in some flight time later in the day.

It’d be great—doing a little cross-country hop in the aviation club’s Piper.

He walked back in to the office, called the club scheduler and discovered he had lucked out. He had called early enough to be the first one requesting use of the plane.

Okay, today I get in some sky time!

He became wistful as the usual companion thought crossed his mind: He’d feel closer to Leni and Cathy up there.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Edison, we only have a Cherokee available. That’ll get you to where you want to go in South Carolina. Hell, if the parking lot of the company is long enough, old Sam can even land you right where you want to be!”

Great! My pilot is going to be one of the Wright Brothers!

It was VFR all the way, that perfect, clear kind of day when you could almost see forever. Galen had gone through his preflight check carefully, filed a cross-country route south toward the Carolinas, made sure his fuel was topped off, and checked the aviation weather forecast: no storm fronts anywhere along the Southeast coast.

He shook his head in wonder. Was it five years ago when one of his agency friends had cajoled him into taking flying lessons? How he had resisted at first. Now, other than his peaceful forays in the garden and the daily numbing routine of his patients—though he needed that numbness to keep the demon of memory from sending him into depression tailspins—he squeezed every spare moment into the air.

He was certified for IFR, instrument flying, but there are times when seat-of-the-pants sky blue is the most enjoyable. As he taxied down the runway, he could make out the air traffic controller in the tower giving him a wave. He knew them all.

“Piper 2874J you are cleared for takeoff.”

“Roger, tower. Keep ‘em in the air, Joe!”

He noticed the Cherokee, a small charter plane, taxiing up behind in queue.

Not a bad plane to fly. Maybe the club will get one someday
.

He held the brake in check as the engine RPMs built up and he could feel the tug of the prop as the plane wanted to roll.

Off we go!

No matter how many times he had done this, he always felt exhilaration as the plane began accelerating and the nose lifted off the runway. Quickly he and the little Piper were airborne. He banked left and headed south by southeast toward the coast. This was the scenic route—and one of the purest forms of solitude he could have.

The growl of the single engine, the forward thrust pressing against him—yes, this was the escape he needed. He had dedicated his life to his patients, spent entire days listening and talking, but especially listening. He didn’t wear clerical robes, but what his patients told him … no …
needed
to tell him, included bits of personal information no less sacrosanct than those spoken in the confessional. There came a time when he simply wanted to hear no more.

An hour into the flight he noticed the Cherokee again on a similar heading. It was faster than the Piper, with more range.

Must be going farther south, but by all rights, it should have been well ahead by now. What’s going on?

Then he spotted it: a stall out! Was this an instructor teaching a student about stalls?

“Cherokee 29371K, Cherokee 29371K, this is Piper 2874J. Everything okay, guys?”

The voice of the other pilot quavered as it came on.

“74J, I think we’re out of fuel! The forward gauge is reading empty. We must have had a leak.”

“71K, check your fuel tank switch, Switch to auxiliary now!”

Silence, then he saw the prop turn over and the plane begin to pull out of the stall. Then he heard the pilot’s voice again, sounding sheepish.

“74J, this is 71K. Thanks, man! I plumb forgot about the auxiliary. I owe you one!”

“Roger, 71K, do you have enough for destination?”

“More than enough. Over and out.”

Galen frowned. He would have to check up on the pilot later. That type of dangerous mistake never should have happened.

Wonder who did his last flight physical?

Back over the airfield, Galen circled and made a smooth all-point landing, taxiing to the hanger with no waiting. All in all, it was a nice day and a productive flight. But what would tomorrow bring? What would it be like not having to worry about tomorrows?

He could almost hear the Fates laughing.

“It’s got to be some kind of an omen, Nancy. First the food then that idiot in the plane. I thought my guts were going to go through the windshield when we went into freefall. Good thing that other pilot saw us and knew what to do. Now I know for sure. I want out!”

She sat in the corporate headquarters of the bank and stared at the generic painting on the wall of an ocean scene.

Probably not even real, just a print—though that thick piled rug and cherrywood wall panels sure do look real
.

The secretary to the CEO sat impassively staring at her monitor screen, periodically pressing the answer button on the switchboard and speaking softly in monotone into her telephone headset microphone. It made her look like some weird insect with abnormal mouth parts on one side only.

What am I doing here? Dollars to donuts it’s something I warned them about and they ignored, and now it’s come back to bite them on the ass! Fools!