He nodded a bashful smile, looked at my gun belt, and then my star. “Hello, Sheriff?”
I moved around the desk. I was thinking that a little distance between us might help put him at ease. “Bill, why don’t I buy you a cup of coffee?”
He didn’t respond but watched as I poured us a couple of Styrofoam cups full. “Is there any cream?”
I offered him one of the powdered packets from the tray and was relieved that he peeled off the glove and dropped it into a waste can marked with a red biohazard sticker. He took the packet, tore it open, and dumped it into the cup. I took a sip of my coffee. “Yellowstone County has dropped the coroner system?”
“Yes.”
“The king is dead, long live the king.”
“Both puns intended?” He looked at my blank face and continued. “He’s dead. I did the autopsy on Eddie Cole. It’s how I got the job.”
“How’d he die?”
He took a sip of his coffee. “Suicide. He had an old Cadillac in his garage. Just climbed in, started her up, and took a nap. He left a note.”
“What’d it say?” I had to ask.
“ ‘When you perform the intermastoid incision, make sure the front quadrant is large enough for the frontal craniotomy. Most beginners make a hash of the thing.’ ”
“Professional to the last.” I nodded toward the operating room. “What’ve we got in there?”
He lowered his cup. “Caucasian, female, approximately mid- to late seventies, lifelong smoker, and the scars. I’ve just finished the thoracic-abdominal incision, exposed the pericardial sac, and took a blood sample.”
“Excuse me, but did you say scars?”
“The ones on her back.” He looked at me as if it were something I should have known. “A mass of scar tissue. It looks as though they were administered over a period of time.”
I unconsciously stiffened. “Administered?”
Bill nodded again. “Someone routinely beat the woman at some point in her life.” He looked at his coffee and swirled the tan liquid in the cup. “Probably with a belt, whip, or riding crop, something of that sort.”
I was a little shaken with that revelation. “What else?”
“Slight discoloration of the tissues and blood, but the type is what’s interesting. Was she Basque?”
I nodded. “We have a pretty large population from the turn of the last century; sheepherders mostly.”
“I thought so. The blood type, O with an RH-negative factor. Extremely rare, but 27 percent of Basques have it.”
“Cause of death?”
“I haven’t really gotten that far, but I’m betting that it’s a standard myocardial infarction or cerebral vascular situation.”
“That simple?”
“The numbers don’t lie. Out of five hundred thousand cases of sudden death each year, three hundred thousand are cardiac arrests following heart attacks. Considering her age, use of tobacco, genetic predisposition . . .” He thought for a moment. “Well, I’m far from being finished, and who knows what else we might find before the day is done? I like to do a thorough job.” He finished his coffee and dropped the cup into the biohazard container with the gloves. I agreed with his diagnosis and tossed mine in, too.
* * *
When I got out to the truck, there was another inch of snow, but there were a few streaks of sunshine. I gave the sky my darkest warning look to try and help out the little patches of blue but was only rewarded with a big fat flake in the eye. I climbed in and radioed Ruby. “What number Fetterman is Isaac Bloomfield’s office?” I waited as she looked up the number.
Static. “431.”
“Thanks.” Ruby hated using the radio, but I had told all of them I would only get a cell phone if they let me have a computer; so far, we were at a stalemate. The plows were out, and I watched the blinking yellow lights as I passed. The route up to the mountains looked clear, and I hoped that nobody would take it as an invitation.
The day hadn’t been as bad as I had thought it would be, so far. I started thinking about Cady, the fact that she was going to be here this weekend, and that, so far, I hadn’t gotten her anything for Christmas. She had been difficult to buy for as a child, and the situation hadn’t gotten any better as she had blossomed into womanhood. I would have to enlist Ruby’s help as a covert operator. Ruby enjoyed being a mole, but we were sadly lacking in haute couture. I wondered if I had any catalogs waiting for me at home. I wondered when I might get home. I wondered if the plastic was holding or if there was snow in the living room.
I thought about Mari Baroja as I navigated to the doctor’s office. I thought about who would do that to the woman, who was responsible. The most obvious culprit would be the husband. I didn’t even know his name or if he was alive or dead. Her personal physician was a good place to start, though. I had seen Doc Bloomfield at the hospital a couple of weeks ago when he had given me the final checkup after my adventures on the mountain, but I hadn’t been at his office in a long time.
It was on the corner with a convenient parking lot you could approach from both sides. There was a 1971 silver Mercedes 300 SEL parked next to the steps that I knew belonged to the doctor, but there were no other vehicles, so he was probably free to speak to me.
It was warm in his waiting room, and I watched the clown fish in the saltwater tank as Isaac brewed us two cups of green tea. I had said no, but he insisted. There was music softly playing, Handel, Suite No. 1 in F, and I believed we were at the Andante. It was one of Dorothy’s favorites. Visiting Doc Bloomfield was like visiting your grandfather about ten years after your grandmother had died or the cleaning lady had quit.
“How is the knee?”
I watched as his glasses revealed the multiple folds that did their best to hide the glint in his hazel eyes. I took my mug and glanced down at the pale, ghostly green numbers tattooed on the inside of his right arm where he had rolled up his sleeves. “Good.”
“How is the shoulder?”
I took a sip, and it tasted like kelp. “Good.”
He continued to examine me. “Hands look good; how is the ear?” I turned slightly and took off my hat so that he could see for himself. “Looks good.” He continued to study me. “You’ve grown a beard?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Nobody does.”
I broached the subject of Mari Baroja. He seemed genuinely moved by her death and stared at the faded print of the carpet. I studied the side of his face; his eyes were sharp with a little too much to contain. A thumb and forefinger came up, pushed the glasses onto his forehead and pressed into the sockets, rubbing emotion away. His features were strong, and it was like watching a roman emperor at the fall; I should be so lucky at that age. I waited a respectful amount of time. “Did you know her well, Isaac?” He didn’t respond, so I asked again.
He didn’t move, the fingers still in his eyes. “She was not a happy woman. I think she had many disappointments in her life.” He took the hand away, readjusted his glasses, and turned to look at me through the imperfect world of the lenses.
“Can you give me some idea as to the cause of death?”
I waited as his eyes went back to the floor, then to me. “Walter, do you mind if I ask you a question?”
“No.”
“Why are you so interested in this woman’s death?”
That set me back. “Why shouldn’t I be?”
He actually reached out and patted my knee. “Even with the beard, you are a very young man.”
I was flattered, I think, but still didn’t know what to make of his response. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“She was an old woman who was tired of living.”
“Are you telling me that this was a suicide?”
His eyes sparked hard for a moment. “No, that is not what I am telling you.” He withdrew his hand; the skin was transparent, and I watched as the blue and red protruded in the fists at his lap. “I think she was tired and gave up.”
“You knew her pretty well?”
“She was my patient for more than half a century.”
I took a sip of the tea out of habit and immediately regretted it. “What can you tell me about the scars?” He looked at me blankly. “The ones on her back?”
He raised his head and nodded. “She was involved in an automobile accident a number of years ago.”
“An automobile accident?”
“Yes.”
“The scars couldn’t have been the result of some form of abuse?”
He turned and looked at me again, the picture of questioning disbelief. “What would lead you to think that?”
“The Yellowstone County Medical Examiner.”
His eyes widened. “You sent her to Billings?”
“No, he’s here. His name is Bill McDermott, and he’s over at Memorial.”
“Walter, it was Mrs. Baroja’s expressed desire that there be nothing done to her remains other than what was legally required.”
“Well, it’s gotten a little complicated.”
“Who did you say was doing the autopsy?”
I sat the tea down on the magazines stacked at the table behind me. “New fellow by the name of Bill McDermott. He’s a licensed ME.” I waited for a moment. “So, you and Mrs. Baroja discussed the possibility of her death?”
He seemed less excitable now. “I discuss the possibility with all my patients. I try to be truthful with them, no matter what the circumstance.”
I leaned in. “Isaac, it sounds like you had a lot more responsibilities than that of family practitioner. Is there something you want to say to me?”
I waited as he took a deep breath and noticed, not for the first time, how small the man was. “I lied to you just now.”
“Yep, I know.” He looked at me again. “It’s something I’m pretty good at spotting.”
“You realize, of course, that due to the physician/patient privilege I don’t have to tell you anything.”
“Yes.” We listened as the little pumps bubbled fresh oxygen into the fish tank; Handel joined the minuet. “You want to tell me about the scars first?”
He sighed. “Charlie Nurburn, her husband.”
I nodded and then stopped. “I don’t know him.”
“He was from the southern part of the county, near Four Brothers.”
“Middle fork of the Powder; not much out there.”
“Used to be a few little homesteads and an old coal mine.” I looked at the thick yellow nails as his fingers tightened at his kneecaps. “I used to run a clinic down in Powder once a week, Saturday mornings, back in the late forties, early fifties.”
I leaned back in the overstuffed chair and unbuttoned my sheepskin coat. “She was one of your patients then?”
“Yes. I delivered her two children and . . .”
“Three children?”
He paused for a moment. “Yes, I always forget about David, but I didn’t deliver him. I wasn’t practicing yet.” I waited. “She didn’t come in about the beatings.”
“What then?”
“Latent syphilis.”
I rubbed my hands across my face. “This guy sounds like a real charmer. How long were they married?”
“Long enough.”
“Jesus.” I looked at Isaac again. “Where is he?”
“Gone.”
It seemed like there was more. “Dead?”
“I’m not sure. Just gone.”
“When?”
“Years ago.” He waited for a moment, and his eyes stayed steady with mine. “It’s probably better that way, don’t you think?” I didn’t say anything. “You can understand my being circumspect concerning her situation.”
“Yes.” I wondered about all the individuals wandering around out there who were in serious need of the administration of a dreadful ass-kicking and weren’t likely to get it. “Why the response to the autopsy?”
“I thought she’d been through enough, and it was her expressed wish that her body not be disturbed any more than it already had. She was very religious.” It was a sad smile this time. “What does Mr. McDermott have to say about cause of death?”
I waited a moment and looked at Isaac, allowing myself the blurred vision of the living hell that he had endured. Lucian said that he had been one of three survivors of Nordhausen, a subcamp of Dora-Mittelbau for inmates too sick or weak to work in the tunnels of Dora. Nordhausen was a
Vernichtungslager
or extermination camp where starvation was the simple but effective measure. To make matters worse, on April 3, 1945, it was bombed by our air force. Since it was installed in concrete hangers, we thought it was a German munitions depot. A great number of the prisoners were burned alive; a week and a half later, when the 104
th
Infantry Division liberated Nordhausen, they found three thousand rotting corpses and three survivors. One of them was Isaac Bloomfield, and he weighed fifty-seven pounds.
I always thought that there was a reason why the old man was able to keep going; maybe it was because, as long as he was alive, he was a reminder. “Cardiac arrest. Any history of heart problems in the family?”
He chuckled to himself with a wistful quality. “Oh, Walter, there are nothing but problems of the heart in families such as this.” He continued to smile. “I suppose cardiac complications due to prolonged exposure to syphilitic infection; that, and I believe that Mrs. Baroja took solace in a number of lifelong vices that did nothing to prolong her existence.”
“So there isn’t anything suspicious about her death that you can think of?”
“I don’t think so.” He studied me a little longer than I was comfortable with. “Is this disappointing to you?”
I wondered how much he knew about Mari Baroja and Lucian and suspected that it was more than he was willing to admit. “No, that’s the one odd thing about this job. You’re always willing to turn work away.” I looked down at my uniform, the badge, and the .45 at my hip. It didn’t take much imagination to see the distance that they put between myself and most people, let alone Isaac. Nice people with uniforms, badges, and guns had once told him they were doing things for his own good, his own safety, and his own welfare. Next thing he knew he was being carried out of a reinforced hanger with three thousand dead people. If I were Isaac, I wouldn’t let me in the same room as me. “What do you know about the children?”