Phil didn’t speak to me for the first five minutes of the drive back to the clinic. It reminded me of the old days. If I did something that annoyed him, he’d give me the silent treatment. Usually, I’d beg him to tell me what I’d done wrong, but not this time.
Eventually he spoke up. “How could you have said that to me?”
I gave him a blank look.
“About how the door was open now for a reconciliation with my father.”
“I never said anything about a reconciliation. Are you two estranged?”
“You know what I’m talking about, Ditie. You suggested I might have killed Carl to get him out of the way.”
“I can see how you heard what I said as an accusation. I didn’t mean it as one. Of course I was surprised Carl ended up working for your father. He hated the South, and you two stopped speaking in med school. You never told me why. Will you tell me now?”
“I don’t think you want to hear this.”
“Try me.”
“It was over a girl.”
“While you were dating me you were involved with someone else?”
“It’s before we talked about being exclusive. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You never do, Phil.” I sighed. “Okay, let me hear it.”
“Carl and I got interested in the same girl at the end of first year.”
“Someone from med school?”
“No names, just the story,” Phil said.
“All right. Tell me the story.”
“She didn’t tell us she was dating both of us. It probably would have been okay with me. I didn’t really want to get serious about anyone at that point. But Carl did. He found out about us and started spreading vicious rumors about me. Rumors that could have gotten me kicked out of school, like I was putting a scam together to help people cheat.”
Phil didn’t need to cheat. He was plenty smart in his own right. On the other hand, he cheated on me with his oncology nurse. Maybe that was the same thing.
“You’re quiet, Ditie. Don’t tell me you think I actually did cheat on exams. I was elected to AOA as a third year—you know how hard that is to do.”
“I know, Phil. You never let me forget it.”
“So if I’m in the medical honor society I didn’t need to cheat.”
“I heard about the cheating scandal, but I never knew any of the details, except that something was going on. The school managed to keep it hushed up.”
“Well, you won’t learn any details from me except to say Carl tried to convince the school and my father that I was the mastermind.”
“Did he succeed?”
“My father is a proud man—concerned about the honor of the Brockton name. ‘Never sullied in two hundred years,’ that’s his favorite quote. You can imagine what a scandal like this would have done to him.”
Phil turned into the drive to the clinic and parked near the front entrance.
“So that’s why I stopped talking to Carl—Carl claimed I’d engineered the whole thing when he was probably the one who did it.”
I looked at Phil. Phil always liked to push the limits. He didn’t need to cheat, but I wondered if he’d be curious to figure out how it could be done.
“I swear Carl accused me out of spite and to cover his own ass. I could only imagine the lies he was spreading to my dad.”
“Why would your father believe Carl over you?”
“Carl claimed he’d overheard a conversation between me and Frank about cheating—a conversation he made up.”
“That doesn’t make sense, Phil. Your father knows you, and Carl was a complete stranger.”
Phil was getting agitated. “What, you don’t believe me either?”
“I’m not saying that.”
“I’m not going to defend myself to you, Ditie. You know I had no reason to cheat. After a long conversation with my dad, Carl backed off his claims, and the school was able to keep the whole thing quiet. You know how much our school hates a scandal.”
“I do.”
“I found out about Carl working for my dad the last time I was here. Dad and I had a big blow up over him, but my father wouldn’t budge. Carl had a job. If I wanted one I could have it. Let the best man win in terms of who might take over the practice. My father has always loved competition.”
I’d need to go into the clinic in a minute, but I could see how distraught Phil was even now, and he wasn’t done talking.
“I couldn’t work in that environment. I hated the guy. He tried to ruin me at every turn.”
It was a pretty good motive for murder. I didn’t say that to Phil. “Are you and your dad speaking now?”
“A little. We’re going to Carl’s funeral together on Friday. Would you come with us?”
“No, Phil. I barely knew Carl and what I did know about him I didn’t like. I’m sorry for his wife, but I’ll see her at the reunion.”
“I’m surprised she’d want to come to that,” Phil said, “so soon after everything that’s happened.”
“Me too, but if it brings her some comfort, then I’m all for it.”
Phil nodded, got out of the car, and walked around to open my door—always the Southern gentleman. He left me with a barely audible goodbye.
Vic caught me as I walked to my office. “I’m glad you came back. We’re slammed. Did you have fun?” She didn’t wait for my answer. She just looked at my face. “Was it really as bad as that?”
I nodded, and she handed me a couple of intake sheets. “New patients. They’re yours.”
“Thanks.”
I found a young boy seated beside his mother. His intake sheet said he was ten, but he looked more like seven or eight. A nurse had recorded his vital signs. He had a low-grade fever and an increased respiratory rate. He looked sick and was struggling to get air. I introduced myself and the mother responded in Spanish. She said the boy had a sore throat and was having trouble breathing. They’d come as asylum seekers two days earlier from Venezuela. I motioned to an interpreter to follow us to the examining room. I looked in the boy’s mouth and saw a thick gray membrane partially covering the back of his throat.
I’d never seen a case of diphtheria, but this sure looked like one. I called in Vic, and she agreed. She also had never seen one and told me how rare they were in the US. She would notify the Georgia Department of Public Health about the suspected case.
We had one room in the clinic at the end of the hall, which we used for isolation, and that’s where we took the boy and his mother. I put on a mask and gloves and hooked him up to oxygen along with an oximeter to check his oxygen level. I could see his effort to breathe ease and his respiratory rate decline as the oxygen filled his lungs.
Vic called the emergency room at the hospital, which was less than half a mile away, and spoke with a physician there. They would run the tests necessary to confirm the diagnosis and start the boy on antibiotics and diphtheria antitoxins obtained from the CDC. My nurse called for an ambulance.
I had the interpreter explain the situation to the mother including my assurances that we could treat her child in the hospital. I asked if she had other children at home and she said no. When I asked if she had any symptoms, she confirmed she was in good health.
The afternoon continued to be busy. I got home around six to find Lurleen, Lucie and Jason standing at the front door, full of news. Mason and Hermione stood behind them. The only creature who seemed indifferent to my arrival was Majestic. He was seated at the screen door observing two cardinals that had settled in my magnolia tree.
“Where’s Danny?” I asked, once I managed to get in the door.
“He’s with Phil,” Lurleen said. “Phil wanted him to check out his hotel room for security issues and go over plans for the next weekend. If something bad is going to happen, that seems to be when Phil thinks it will occur.”
“I’ve had about all of Phil I can take for the moment,” I said.
Mason’s face brightened and then soured again when I mentioned having lunch with Phil.
“Two classmates were eager to catch up with me. They insisted Phil bring me to lunch.”
I sat on the sofa, took off my shoes and curled my feet under me. Lucie climbed up beside me, but Jason couldn’t sit still.
“Wait ‘til you see, Aunt Di,” he said. “I’m a soldier in a war.”
“You’re a bugle boy,” Lurleen corrected. “Show Ditie your bugle.”
Jason ran out of the room and returned carrying a plastic bugle that looked like it was made of brass.
“Looks real, doesn’t it,” Lurleen said proudly. “I found it in a toy store.”
Jason was busy blowing a single note.
Mason brought me a glass of white wine and sat on the other side of me.
“What about you, Lucie? Do you have a costume?” I asked.
“Lurleen said I can help her in her store, so I have a costume for a girl from a hundred years ago.”
I looked up at Lurleen.
“You won’t believe it, Ditie. You know that retro clothing store in Little Five Points. They had the perfect dress for Lucie and one for me. We’ll show you after dinner.”
“Dinner,” I said. “I haven’t even thought about dinner.”
“No problem, I have,” Lurleen said.
Lurleen didn’t cook. “You’re fixing dinner?” I asked.
“Not exactly. I thought we could go to the Varsity. Danny will meet us there in half an hour.”
Mason patted his not so flat belly. “I don’t know, Lurleen. I’m trying to eat a little healthier.”
“What about you, Ditie?”
I took another sip of wine. “I do love their onion rings, but I’d rather eat in tonight. After my lunch out, I want to stay put.”
Lurleen looked a bit ruffled. “But, chérie, I’ve already promised the kids, and Danny will be there.” She brightened. “I’ll take them and you two can have an hour to yourselves.”
“That,” Mason said, “sounds great.”
“I’ll bring you back some onion rings,” Lurleen whispered to me.
I gave the kids a hug and tossed Lurleen the keys to my Toyota. “There’s more room in my car.”
They left in a rush and for a moment I didn’t know what to do with the sudden calm.
“You look tired,” Mason said to me. “Hard day at work?”
“Busy and one pretty sick child, but not bad. I hate to break my day up with a long lunch. And there was something about it that didn’t sit well with me.”
“Did it have to do with Phil Brockton?”
“No. Phil is the same person he’s always been, although perhaps I’m seeing him more clearly now. No, it wasn’t him. He did tell me about the split with Carl.” I told Mason the abbreviated version.
Mason waited for me to continue.
“It was a funny feeling I got about Ryan and Harper Hudson. They seemed to be disconnected in some way—I don’t know if I can explain it. Maybe after years of marriage that’s what happens to a couple.”
Mason shook his head. “If that’s a way to say we shouldn’t ever get married save your breath. We’re getting married. Someday.”
“Someday will be wonderful,” I said. “Let’s see if I can find us some healthy leftovers. Better yet I made Captain Sanderson’s Boiled Pork and Bean Soup from an 1800s cookbook. We’ll see if it’s good enough for the party.”
It was. We both agreed. I was not one for false modesty.
Mason and I talked a little about our work day. He was in the middle of a case involving the murder of a Buckhead socialite. It had made national news and was the kind of case Mason often got pulled in on. I asked him what the Gordon County investigator was making of the cannon explosion.
“Barden said the experts are only adding to the confusion. It’s still possible it was an accident. It seems the inside of the barrel had a thinned area, maybe natural wear and tear or maybe man-made. The experts don’t know for sure yet. Phil was the one who was supposed to inspect the cannons, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, and he’s a very meticulous guy,” I said. “I can’t imagine he’d miss something like that unless it was hard to detect.”
“Given your story about Carl Thompson and Brockton’s father, do you think maybe he didn’t miss it?”
“You’re asking me if I think Phil could have committed cold-blooded murder?”
“I am.”