Tampered

ECW Press

ECW Press

Copyright © Ross Pennie, 2011

Published by ECW Press, 2120 Queen Street East, Suite 200,

Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4E 1E2

416.694.3348 / [email protected]

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any process — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise — without the prior written permission of the copyright owners and ECW Press. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Pennie, Ross A

Tampered : a Dr. Zol Szabo medical mystery / Ross Pennie.

ISBN 978-1-55490-959-9

also issued as:

978-1-55490-936-0 (pdf); 978-1-55022-936-3(pbk)

i. Title.

PS8631.E565T35 2011 C813'.6 C2010-906697-9

Cover images: piano © Ryan Lane;

background © Roberto A. Sanchez (iStockPhoto.com)

Cover and text design: Tania Craan

Typesetting: Mary Bowness

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book is set in Bembo and Akzidenz

The publication of
Tampered
has been generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada, by the Ontario Arts Council, by the Government of Ontario through Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit, by the OMDC Book Fund, an initiative of the Ontario Media Development Corporation, and by the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.

This story arose from my affection for two people now well past eighty: Luise Denman, my godmother, and Reg Blundell, a longtime friend. Full of sparkle, Luise quotes Homer and Virgil, is still taking university courses, and is a whiz on the World Wide Web. Reg Blundell is a gentleman of the highest order. He is an accomplished artist who fought in the Second World War, helped build the telephone industry, and plays the piano with unabashed joy. I dedicate this book to all those who see the wonder in long lives well lived.

Although I wrote most of this book alone in the pre-dawn darkness when everyone else was still asleep, I had lots of help from the people I love and respect. Jack David at ECW Press continued his trust and mentorship. Peter Harcourt, Larry Kramer, Bob Nosal, Ken Stead, and Mark Walma critiqued my early drafts. Bev Haun came up with the title. Edna Barker guided me to the finish line with her unerring editorial insights. And every day Lorna was at my side, sharing the journey and making life worth living.

Zol Szabo peered across the sea of silvery heads bobbing in the buffet line at Camelot Lodge. Usually, he looked forward to these monthly Sunday brunches with Art Greenwood, his ex-wife's granddad. Art, the only member of Francine's family who hadn't smoked himself into an early grave, sparkled with wisdom and wit in defiance of his age and physical restrictions. Best of all, Art and his tablemates never let political correctness get in the way of a candid opinion or a good story.

But today, Zol saw only clinical diagnoses smouldering through the retirement residence: the wobbly knees of rheumatoid arthritis, the stooped backs of osteoporosis, the trembling hands of Parkinson's, the vacant eyes of macular degeneration.

Zol forced another smile at Art, who was taking his place at the piano in the sitting room on the other side of the archway. Zol hoped Art was well enough to play. He'd looked pale and drawn when he'd greeted Zol a few minutes ago and confessed he'd been hit by another bout of fever and the runs earlier in the week. That made it his third bout in the past couple of months. And he wasn't the only one. Dozens of others had been hit with the same bug. Art denied any headache, thank goodness. When headache compounded the fever and diarrhea, the result was lethal. In the past month alone, two of the converted mansion's thirty-eight residents had died within hours of a blinding headache compounding their explosive stools.

Art warmed up with a few bars of “Bicycle Built For Two.” His chording was tentative, not as sharp as usual. He switched to an improvised version of Beethoven's “Moonlight Sonata.” Art played everything by ear. He couldn't read a note, but if he heard something once, he could play it forever. Despite the advancing muscle disease that had forced him into an electric scooter, he still glimmered with the genius that had made him an engineering whiz-kid in the telephone industry fifty years ago.

The understated elegance of the dining room's caramel walls and burgundy accents reminded Zol of a café in one of Hamilton's nicer hotels, except the bucolic vista through Camelot's windows was considerably more handsome than any view of the city's down-at-the- heels central core. Here on an elegant cul-de-sac a few blocks from downtown, stately homes abutted the woodlands at the foot of the Niagara Escarpment. Known locally as the Mountain, the imposing ribbon of limestone and old-growth forest snaked through the city like a giant's doorstep, its flora and fauna protected by the United Nations as a World Biosphere Reserve. Zol thought of his own renovated house a couple of kilometres above as the seagulls flew, perched on a generous treed lot on the Escarpment's edge. He was thankful once again for the two million in lottery winnings that had sent him to medical school and bought him such a gorgeous piece of real estate with its jetliner view. He could cope with Hamilton's overgenerous share of shysters and gangsters if, at the end of the day, he could tuck Max safely in bed, then sip a Glenfarclas while watching Lake Ontario shimmer in the ever-changing light.

Camelot's dining tables boasted smooth white linens, shiny cutlery, and imitation crystal that sparkled as brightly as the stuff his mother reserved for special occasions. Today's spread of poached salmon, eggs, bacon, French toast, salads, and gooey desserts looked a treat. As a former professional chef himself, Zol respected the care and effort that went into every dish. But as a public-health doctor, the table seemed to him less a chef's delight than a minefield.

Something nasty and undetectable — a microbe or a toxin — was poisoning the food. But intermittently. Not every dish and not every meal. As the Associate Medical Officer of Health for Hamilton-Lakeshore, second-in-command at the region's health unit, Zol's job was to quash epidemics, not wallow in them during Sunday brunch. Twice he'd sent his inspectors into Camelot. They'd examined every centimetre of the place with a magnifying glass. They'd collected scores of samples from the kitchen and dozens of specimens from afflicted residents. But they'd come up empty. The kitchen met all the health codes, and the laboratory detected no disease-causing pathogens.

Zol's friend and medical-school classmate, Dr. Hamish Wakefield, a savant in the field of infectious diseases, had raised the possibility of epidemic Norovirus. But even Hamish, an assistant professor at the city's Caledonian University Medical Centre, was stumped; he conceded there was no indication that anything as simple as the cruise-ship virus was the culprit here.

Zol helped the wait staff — invariably hesitant, awkward, and struggling with their English — park the walkers in a double row against the far wall of the dining room. He escorted the frailest of the gauzy-white residents to their seats, then joined the slow-moving buffet queue. He knew he'd soon be hunting down unsalted butter for one person and cholesterol-free scrambled eggs for another. He shrugged off the risk to his intestines and half-filled his plate with breakfast fare he hoped would be sterile: a rubbery fried egg, three crispy rashers of bacon, and a piece of charred toast. Bypassing the devilled eggs, sliced tomatoes, and potato salad, he took his place at Art's table where Phyllis and Betty were already seated.

Despite being past eighty-five, slow to move, and somewhat hard of hearing, Betty McKenzie and Phyllis Wedderspoon stayed fully abreast of the news. These days they'd be bursting with opinions on the latest Parliament Hill shenanigans and lamenting the deceptions that had triggered the stock-market crash now threatening their pensions.

Betty beamed at Zol, then peered over his shoulder. “Where's that handsome little man of yours, Zol?”

“Max sends his regrets,” Zol said. “He's at a birthday party. One very brave mother is taking a dozen nine-year-old boys bowling.”

“You tell him we missed him,” Betty said. “And that his box of Godivas is here waiting for him. You will bring him next time, won't you Zol?”

“I'll have to check his social calendar. It's far busier than mine.” It wasn't Max's calendar that would keep him out of Camelot until Zol got the place decontaminated.

He glanced at the buffet table. There was no one left in line. Earl Crabtree, a retired history professor, usually completed the table's foursome. Although Camelot's mealtime seating was officially open, Zol had noticed that most of the residents gravitated to their regular spots, like the four euchre-mad women, all former math teachers, who sat together and barely said a word to anyone else. Today, two of them were missing. And no one else had dared join them. Their intimidating impatience with forgetfulness, no matter how mild, was well known.

“Is Earl going to join us?” Zol asked.

“Not today,” Betty said. “Dear Earl is staying in his room, close to the facilities.” She gave Zol a knowing look and patted her abdomen.

Zol put down his fork. What must Betty and Phyllis think of him? Half their table was down with gastro, yet Zol and his staff were no closer to resolving the epidemic than they'd been two months ago. “Does he have a fever?” Zol asked.

“Just a gurgly tummy,” Betty said. “And no headache. I made sure about that.”

Phyllis lifted her chin and inspected Zol's plate through the bottom of her bifocals. “Well, Dr. Szabo, I must say it's a relief to see you're not a vegetarian, or even worse, a vegan. But what's wrong? Little appetite? You took barely enough to feed a chickadee. I trust it's not
your
belly this time.”

“Let the good doctor eat in peace and not fuss about his tummy,” said Betty, her voice a slight tremolo.

Phyllis lanced the yolk of her eggs Benedict. “I'm just saying that young people today are seduced by fads and schemes that distract them away from the tried and true. As I always say,
timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.”

“For heaven's sake,” said Betty, “we're not in your Latin class now. And there's no stranger with gifts we have to be afraid of here.”

Phyllis was right on both counts: Zol was indeed an omnivore, and a Trojan horse was threatening Camelot's kitchen. He spooned strawberry jam onto his toast from a single-use packet and hoped the sugary hit would settle the disquiet he felt in his stomach.

From somewhere to his right came a sudden loud clang, the sound of metal bashing crockery.
Bang! bang! bang! bang!
Zol braced for shattered dinnerware skittering across the floor.

The more the clanging intensified, the louder Art pounded his rendition of “Camptown Races” from the sitting room.

Betty and Phyllis cupped their palms over their hearing aids and glared at the source of the unholy noise.

Eventually, the clanging stopped. Betty's face softened. “That's Bud,” she said quietly. “Poor fellow. I do feel sorry for him.”

“Poor fellow, nothing,” Phyllis countered. “Bud doesn't belong here. Not anymore.”

“He had a stroke, bless him,” Betty explained. “And now he can't talk. Just bangs his spoon on his plate. It's embarrassing for his wife at mealtime. You know, with everybody watching.”

Betty pressed her arthritic left hand on Zol's forearm. Despite her thinning hair and dorsal hump, she glowed with the grace and elegance she must have wielded forty years ago as the Prime Minister's executive assistant. Zol always found himself comforted by the quiet confidence of her presence. He'd never known either of his grandmothers, and as Art's girlfriend, Betty had become Zol's de facto grandma and Max's great-grandma. As a long-time widow, she understood Zol's years of single-parent loneliness. She'd coached him through it with more skill and empathy than anyone else. She'd really taken to Colleen, the private investigator he'd been dating since Christmas.

“Art plays our favourites so beautifully,” Betty said, closing her eyes and drinking in the final chorus of “Danny Boy.” The plump blue veins on the back of her hand, so clearly visible in their rich detail, reminded Zol of Gray's drawings in his anatomy textbook. Her skin felt warm and soft. “Without him, we'd never hear our kind of music anymore. They don't play our tunes on the radio.”

“But Gloria should get that damn piano tuned,” Phyllis said. “I've written to her about it over and over. It doesn't do the slightest good. The high notes are still flat.”

In Camelot Lodge's well-defined hierarchy, Phyllis strutted in position number one. As the self-appointed grand peahen of the pecking order, she possessed a sharp mind and a strident voice. But the real source of her authority was her '
72
Lincoln Continental. No one else had a car.

“None of us has a gramophone anymore,” said Betty. She held Camelot's position number two, a status she didn't flaunt but that was hers nonetheless. “When my nieces and nephews moved me in here, they threw out all my seventy-eights and thirty-three-and-a-thirds.”

Phyllis dipped her chin, her eyes piercing Zol over the top of her spectacles. “I believe you young people have taken to calling them
vinyl.
”

Betty leaned toward Zol, still patting his arm. “Earl isn't the only one with a delicate tummy. I suppose Art told you. He hasn't been feeling himself the past few of days.”

Zol stared at his plate and winced inside. He'd pleaded with Art to come and stay with Max and him until this gastro business got resolved. There was plenty of room in Zol's house for Betty as well. Zol had suggested confidentially to Art that the two of them could share a room or each have one of their own. Art had declined for both of them. It wasn't a question of the bedroom arrangements or the difficulty with the stairs. They would never abandon their friends.

Phyllis made a face. “No point in hiding it, Art has been down with
faeces liquifacti
for the past few days. I call it Gloria's Revenge. Montezuma had nothing on her.” She stiffened and coughed into her serviette, as though forcing herself to stifle further criticism of the Lodge's manager, Gloria Oliveira. “But if we let the good doctor concern himself about Camelot's tummies, he'll have us in quarantine. Again. Every time we turn around, the place gets locked up like Fort Knox. No one in or out except the staff, who tiptoe around us as though we had leprosy.”

“Now Phyllis, it doesn't help to exaggerate,” Betty said.

Phyllis lifted a forkful of egg toward her mouth, studied it, then dropped it to her plate. “The Portuguese may be famous for their lace and celestial navigation, but they're hopeless in the kitchen.”

“Zol has been doing everything he can to put a stop to our . . . our gurgly tummies.” Betty dabbed her lips with her serviette and smudged her ruby lipstick into the wrinkles around her mouth. “Tummy troubles or not,” she said, her tone of voice indicating she was changing the subject, “Art Greenwood is one of the best things to happen to this place. Just look around. Most everyone is smiling. Even the Mountain Wingers.” She pointed to two tables at the far end of the dining room. “They've got their heads up.”

Four of Camelot's Mountain Wingers were seated in wheelchairs, terry-cloth bibs tied around their necks. They lived in the eight-bed infirmary on the second floor and were allowed out of the locked ward only on special occasions such as Sunday brunch. They ate puréed meals out of plastic bowls and were never given knives or forks. Around them hovered uniformed staff with the gentle movements, rich black hair, and almond eyes of Filipinas. Watching the aides spoon beige mush into the toothless mouths, Zol shuddered. He'd promised himself he would jump off the Skyway Bridge and into a watery grave in Hamilton Harbour the instant he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, or anything like it.

“I'll grant you that,” Phyllis admitted. “Arthur's playing is almost like magic.”

“Of course it is,” Betty said. “It lifts the heads of those dear souls like sunflowers tipped toward the noontime rays. They wave their arms, tap their feet, and sometimes sing along.”

“Hardly,” Phyllis corrected. “It's really just muttering.”