The Plague Doctor Page 7

  Sure enough, someone had broken into the library. In a flash of lightning, I saw pieces of broken glass from the French doors. It was almost as dark as early evening outside, but I could still see wet footprints on the carpet. And my laptop was missing.

  “Damn and hell and piss!”

  “Paisley! You really must do something about your filthy mouth. Oh, my!”

  “Yes! Oh my! And, oh, dearie me,” I responded sarcastically.

  “Some piece of crap…Oh, excuse me, Mother. Some terribly misguided soul has invaded our happy home and made off with my very expensive computer. And, oh by the way, our intruder has also stolen the only copy of my new book in existence.”

  I glared at her in my anger as I continued, “My goodness, how very inconvenient.” I raised my voice, “And damned pissing!”

  I flopped down on the sofa in disgust, then jumped back up again in alarm as I remembered Ethan’s discs. But they were still safely tucked away in the music box. Thank heaven I had stuck the other discs in the box when I had put his computer in the drawer. I wish I had been as careful with Leonard’s latest adventure. My agent and best friend, Pamela, was going to have to be very understanding about the delay in finishing the first draft of my manuscript. I would have to start all over again.

  Mother was picking up the larger pieces of glass. I knelt down to help her.

  “I’m sorry about my language, Mother. I just can’t believe someone would have the nerve to commit a burglary in broad daylight.”

  “It’s hardly light outside, Paisley. This storm is wonderful cover for a thief.”

  Cassie finally came to see what was going on.

  “What did I miss? I had to clean up after Aggie peed on the floor. Poor little thing was so scared.”

  “We’ve been robbed, dear. Someone broke in and stole your mother’s computer.”

  “Mother’s? Are you sure it wasn’t Ethan’s? I bet it was Ethan’s they were after! That proves he’s innocent!”

  “Either that or he has an accomplice with big, wet, muddy feet,” I said angrily.

  “My, my, yes indeed. It does look like our burglar could have wiped his shoes before breaking in. I’ll have to have the carpet cleaned.”

  “See, Mom. We just have to find a computer nerd with big feet and no manners and he’s our villain!”

  The storm washed the sky clean. When the thunder could only be heard in the distance, there was nothing but fleecy white clouds in the bluest of blues overhead. I looked at the clock and had a hard time believing it was not yet noon.

  I vacuumed the rest of the glass from the library carpet and taped a piece of cardboard over the hole in the door. Carpet cleaner had removed most of the muddy footprints and everything looked pretty good again.

  We had decided not to call the police and report the robbery. By now, Joiner would have figured out that Ethan’s computer was missing. And I was also sure that Miss Lolly would have been more than eager to tell him about my visit the morning after Ethan’s arrest. If he came to investigate the theft of my laptop, Andy just might have some questions about Ethan’s and I did not want to answer any questions—not just yet, anyway.

  After lunch I sat in the kitchen moodily adding up the cost of a new computer. With no police report there would be no insurance payment. To make matters worse, I could not remember how many chapters of Leonard’s tome I had completed. All in all, I was fairly depressed. The last person in the world I wanted to see was Mother’s weird friend Mavis Madden.

  “Hello, hello, hello. Anyone at home? Did the wild wind take you and your little doggie to Kansas?” the woman cackled quite convincingly.

  I let the old witch inside.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Madden.”

  “Paisley, darling, you look positively ghoulish. How much weight have you lost, dear? Skin and bones, skin and bones.”

  Mavis fluttered and flapped like an old hen. She had a little black hat on with a bright red flower sticking out of the crown. The flower and her jowls waggled back and forth as she babbled on without stopping.

  “Nice to see you, too, Mrs. Madden,” I interrupted. “Have a seat. I’ll get Mother.”

  As I escaped, I heard her voice going on behind me as though I had never left the room. I found Mother and informed her of the visitor. I had to push her towards the kitchen.

  “Damn.”

  “Mother! Language, please.”

  “Oh, dear. Now you have me saying those dreadful things, too.”

  “Me? How about Mavis? Doesn’t she get some credit for being a totally unpleasant and irritating old bag?”

  “Come with me, Paisley. Please? I don’t think I can stand her on my own.”

  She looked pleadingly at me. She was absolutely no good at trying to appear helpless and pitiful. Some day I would have to tell her.

  “Okay. But just so long as she doesn’t start asking me questions about my marriage.”

  Mother nodded in agreement.

  “I swear I’ll leave the room the minute she mentions Rafe, or South America, or even the word ‘jungle.’”

  “Done.”

  “Or ‘guacamole’ or ‘burrito’ or…”

  “Enough, Paisley, dear. You’ve made your point.”

  “Or ‘husband’s gone missing and don’t know where to find him, humm, Paisley?’”

  We marched back to the kitchen like good little soldiers. Mavis was still talking as though she had a room full of people as an audience.

  “…and so I said to Agnes Wallace, I saw your husband in Morgantown at that new restaurant with a woman young enough to be his daughter. They were sitting so close together you couldn’t see light shine between ‘em. And her a bottle blond, too. Agnes, I said, you’re a saint to put up with that man. Anybody else would have more pride than to let a worm like that crawl in their bed at night.”

  “Mavis, dear, would you like some tea?”

  “No, thanks. I just had lemonade at Agnes Wallace’s. That was before the storm. It was hot this morning.”

  She looked out of the window accusingly. I was sure I heard Mother Nature’s knees knocking together in alarm. Mavis was not one to be inconvenienced by anything—not even the elements.

  She droned on about the misery in the life of poor Mrs. Wallace, misery that she had been only too happy to point out to the poor woman.

  Mavis and I agreed on one point. I had always considered Winston Wallace to be one of Rowan Springs’ lower forms of animal life. How he managed to hold on to his medical practice, I would never know.

  “And now Ed Baxter has thrown in the towel just because a few of his patients miscarry. And since most of them have no business having any more brats, I look on it as a blessing.”

  My ears perked up. “What do you mean, Mavis?”

  She looked startled for a moment. I hardly ever spoke to her. She warmed up immediately to her new audience.

  “Well, you must be aware that Barbara Malls has two deaf and dumb kids already. And her husband just lost his job at the mill. He had no call to get her in the family way again. What with no money coming in, and her trying to school those poor little dummies at home. Good riddance, I say. And the same for Susan Arnold. She had that mongoloid baby two years ago, and Edgar Baxter told her the new one had the same problem. But she and Herb wanted it just the same. Imagine! And them being already in their late forties. Who’s gonna take care of those poor little retards when their parents die, I ask you? Me and you! The taxpayers—that’s who!”

  Mavis seemed to have forgotten that she was at least sixty-seven and would no doubt have gone to her own little coven in the sky long before Susan and Herb Arnold made their “little retard” an orphan.

  “Our taxes will be taking care of them just like our taxes are taking care of all those babies in Paradise Trailer Park. And speaking of trailer trash, Patsy Floyd has five little snot-nosed brats from at least four different men. Good thing she dropped the sixth before its time, I say!”

  I watched l
ittle drops of spittle dry in the corners of her mouth as Mavis Madden continued spewing forth the vilest venom. She was quite a sight. Makeup had caked in the wrinkles on her cheeks and forehead, and bright magenta lipstick fanned out in the thin lines around her mouth like tiny varicose veins. Her mean little eyes were dark with muddy colored irises and yellowish sclera. She frightened me. Mavis had long ago passed the point of being just a meddling old gossip. She was evil. I would have nightmares again tonight.

  Mother had zoned out completely, and I was so amazed by the quality of Mavis’s meanness that neither of us had noticed when Aggie came in the kitchen. She had been quietly chewing away on the handle of Mavis’s big black leather purse for some time. When the puppy burped, we all looked down.

  Mavis jumped up and screamed. Her upper arms and bust wobbled and heaved with her agitation. She looked like a pink Jell-O mountain in clothes.

  “Look what she’s done! Look what your rotten little beast has done!”

  She yanked the soggy, wet strap out of Aggie’s mouth. And before I could warn her, she landed a smack solidly on the puppy’s rump. Aggie whirled around and leapt at Mavis like a streak of fuzzy white lightning. She sank her teeth into Mavis’s thick, purple-veined ankle with all of her might.

  Mavis’s scream was deafening in the enclosed kitchen.

  “Ow! She’s killing me! Get her off! Get her off!”

  Mother and I watched, paralyzed, as Mavis ran around the kitchen dragging Aggie behind her like a furry little mop. With one tremendous effort, she finally managed to shake the puppy loose, grab her purse by the one remaining strap, and run out of the house like the hounds of hell were after her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Mother and I looked at each other in horror. We both knew that Mavis was on her broomstick flying to the home of her next hapless victim with a marvelous, brand-new story to tell. Poor Agnes Wallace and her marital woes would have to take a back seat to the tale of the vicious beast that Anna Howard Sterling had turned loose on Mavis Madden. Aggie might even make the headlines in the weekly paper.

  Cassie peeked in the kitchen to make sure our visitor was gone so she could raid the fridge. When Mother informed her of the events of the last hour Cassie’s response was, “Good doggie.”

  Aggie hopped up into her lap and allowed herself to be patted for the moment. She seemed aware that she had done something momentous.

  “The good doggie might end up in doggie jail if Mavis has her way. Then you’ll have two pen pals.”

  I realized almost—almost—but not quickly enough, how mean my little joke might sound to her.

  “Oh, Cassie, I’m sorry! What an idiot I am!”

  Her pretty mouth wilted at the corners while her eyes filled up with gargantuan tears. Cassie had never been one to “cry small.” No tiny little hiccoughy gasps for her. Giant sobs were her forte, and once she started she would have to cry herself out.

  I jumped up and put my arms around her.

  “Please forgive me for being so stupid and insensitive.”

  For a moment I thought she was going to shrug off my embrace, but she hugged me back, wiped her eyes and nose on a napkin, and surprised me once again.

  “You’re right, I would have two pen pals, but only one of them is guilty.”

  She sniffed loudly and patted me on the shoulder.

  “I forgive you, Mom. But please, try to think before you speak next time.”

  I sat back down, once again amazed at the emotional evolution of my daughter. I wondered briefly if I could take any credit for this growing level of maturity, but I knew better. Cassie was just on the way to becoming a fantastic young woman. At least I could be proud even if I could not take credit.

  She buttered a cold biscuit and poured on some honey.

  “Gran, do you really think Mavis could cause trouble for Aggie?”

  “She’ll try, but I think everyone she tells the story to will be so amused, secretly of course, that no one will take her seriously. Aggie can go on being Aggie. I quite enjoyed it myself. And you are right, ‘Good doggie!’”

  “How in the world did that mean old witch get to be a friend of yours, Mother?”

  “She was in my Sunday School class last year.”

  “Yoff go’ ta’ be kidding!”

  “Cassie, darling, don’t talk with your mouth full. You might choke, and Mavis’s husband would have to come out here.”

  “Why on earth?”

  “He drives the ambulance. That’s why she knows so much about everybody’s business. It’s also the reason everyone is so reluctant to put her in her place.”

  “So that guy who drives around blowing that siren at the drop of a hat is Mavis’s true love? He seems so much younger than she is.”

  “He is—ten years, maybe fifteen. And he is a bit simple.”

  “And he drives the ambulance? Come on Gran, really, is this the craziest little town on earth or what? Ethan calls it ‘quaint and unique.’”

  “Are you sure he wasn’t referring to me?”

  “No Gran, he thinks you are the most elegant and wonderful person he’s ever met. He would love it if you were his mother.”

  “And what am I, chopped liver?”

  “You, Mom? He does think you’re eccentric. But you’re an artist, so it’s okay.”

  “What a relief.”

  “He did say he hoped you won’t wear jeans to our wedding.”

  “I was thinking maybe the hot pink satin ones with the rhinestones.”

  Cassie polished off two more biscuits while we mused over Mavis and the nasty stories she spread. But then an idea flitted through my brain, and I excused myself to return to my little atelier to pursue it.

  I got down the olivewood music box and retrieved one of Ethan’s discs, then pulled Ethan’s laptop out of the desk drawer, turned it on, and opened the file. Sure enough there was the list of patients under the care of Edgar Baxter. Susan Arnold and Barbara Malls were on the list. So was Patsy of the trailer park.

  I sat back in Dad’s big chair and wondered what these women had in common besides being pregnant. The obvious answer was they all had the same doctor. And that’s when I decided to do a little breaking and entering. After all, Leonard would not think twice about it. B&E was right up his alley.

  I went back to the kitchen to share my plans. Cassie loved the idea and went immediately to her room in search of a burglary fashion statement. Something in black, she said. Mother, however, was appalled. I argued with her.

  “If Doc Baxter hadn’t closed up shop and refused to cooperate with Ethan, I wouldn’t have to break in to see his files.”

  “So, Paisley, let me see if I understand your motives. You feel compelled to break into the office of one of my oldest and dearest friends because he had the audacity to quit his medical practice. Because he got old and tired and heartbroken over the fact that he couldn’t save enough lives?”

  “Well, of course it sounds bad if you put it that way.”

  I decided to take a nap in order to fortify my body for the coming nocturnal activities. Aggie is always on the lookout for someone to curl up with. She readily followed me to the library sofa, where I pulled a soft, handmade afghan over us, and we were soon snoring away in unison.

  Cassie came in twenty minutes later to seek my opinion on her “stealing out in the dark of night” ensemble. She had to shake me awake. Aggie growled at the interruption of her slumber and took a quick nip at my bare toe in protest.

  “Ow! For heaven’s sake, what is it, Cassie?”

  “My outfit, what do you think? Is this scarf too much? I thought it would come in handy if we had to tie someone up.”

  She posed and twirled in her black leather jeans and black cashmere turtleneck. I decided not to bite her head off. After all, just a short time ago, I had been mentally praising her maturity. In less than an hour she had digressed from nineteen going on twenty to fifteen again.

  “Ummpf.” I tried to hide my face in the soft dow
n sofa cushion.

  “What, Mom?”

  She pulled the cushion away. I rose up, and the dog took another impatient nip out of my foot.

  “My God! Is one little nap too much to ask? After all I’ve done for you? Eighteen hours of labor, six months of breast feeding, four years of college—all I’m asking is a tiny little one hour nap!”

  “Oh, Mom, come off it. You don’t do the maternal guilt shtick very well.”

  She grabbed the poker and held it menacingly as she posed in front of the fireplace.

  “So how’s it look?”

  I gave up. I pulled myself up to a sitting position and decided on a little revenge.

  “The sweater’s fine, but the pants look a little tight in the rear. Have you gained weight?”

  The poker clanked loudly as she thrust it back in the holder. Cassie was out of the room like a shot. She would be occupied for at least two hours trying on all of her clothes to see if her slim and perfect figure had changed even a centimeter. I snuggled back down. Aggie sighed and nestled against me. We slept.

  I woke up a couple of hours later when Mother came in to make a grand announcement. She would drive the getaway car and serve as our lookout. She looked terrific. She and Cassie had collaborated on their choice of wardrobes. I was going out on a caper with Coco Chanel and Twiggy.

  I was starving, but figured a nervous stomach full of food would not be a good thing. “Can we stop at the Dairy Queen on the way home and have a burger?”

  “Of course, Paisley, dear. That way if someone sees us leaving the scene of the crime and calls the police with our descriptions we will be easy to find. They’ll just look for three women dressed in black who are wolfing down hamburgers and french fries in a post-burglary eating frenzy.”

  “Maybe Gran is right, Mom. We should get in, out, and back as quickly as we can. Of course,” she mused, “we could get the burgers to go before we break in the office and then eat them later.”

  “Cold hamburgers, dear?”

  “Enough with the hamburgers! It was a dumb idea. Forget it. Let’s go.”

  “You always get so testy, dear. Whenever we get involved in anything that is just the least bit…”