Joe walked alongside Dave, who was pushing his wheelchair through rows of grapevines.
“I work in these fields,” Dave Channing told Joe.
“Really? I thought you were Mr. Inside.”
“I’m multitalented,” Dave said, forcing a smile. Joe recognized that smile, same as when he broke his wrist at practice, same as when Carolyn Kinney broke up with him and he said, “It’s not the end of the world.”
“I do the books, but I also prune, tie up the vines, harvest the grapes. See the clouds? Mare’s tails and mackerel scales. It’s going to rain tomorrow. We need the rain.”
Joe felt as though his coat were weighed down with stones. Did Dave’s belief that Ray had been murdered make any sense at all? Or was that his grief talking? He didn’t know how or if he could help his friend.
The two men stopped at the top of the field and looked down at the two stone houses and the winery across a country road from the vineyard.
“Stick with me,” said Dave, taking the lead, setting a downhill course for a stone patio outside the winery. Joe took a seat on a bench with a view, and when both he and Dave were settled, Joe said, “Tell me all of it.”
Dave took a deep breath and said, “We lived next door to each other for the last twenty-five years. Started our day together with morning coffee and ended with dinner in the restaurant kitchen when we were done for the day. I never got tired of being with my father. He had a big personality, you know? A lot of love.”
Joe nodded and said, “Tell me again what happened.”
“He fell down, just dropped in the restaurant. I called the ambulance and I rode with him to the hospital. His friend Dr. Daniel Perkins said, ‘Don’t worry. He’s stable, but I want to keep him for a few days.’ Joe, you saw him after we had lunch on Friday. He had spunk, remember?”
“I sure do.”
“So then on Saturday they put Dad on the list for a scan on Monday, but Perkins said Dad needed to be monitored. His aneurysm could rupture, but worst case it was treatable by open-chest surgery. Then Monday morning my father was dead. His heart stopped. Why?”
“What did Dr. Perkins say?”
“He said he was sorry. This happens.”
Dave dropped his head into his hands and said, “Oh, God.”
Joe put his hand on his friend’s arm.
“I’m so sorry, Dave.”
A long moment passed before Dave could speak again.
“Thanks, Joe, but I have to tell you, I’m furious. Dad was strong. He lifted cases of wine. He could work all day.
“And here’s the thing, Joe. Dad wasn’t the first of Perkins’s patients to die suddenly. From what I could find out just from reading obituaries, he was the third of Perkins’s patients to die suddenly this year.”
“The deaths were all suspicious?”
“Yes. Mild heart attack in one case, and two were complications from aneurysms, like Dad.”
Joe nodded, thought about Ray. He’d been seventy-two, a vigorous seventy-two, but still, an age where heart attacks and strokes were not uncommon.
Dave gently shook Joe’s arm, bringing him back to the moment.
“Will you help me, Joe? He never got that MRI, and maybe that scan would have given Perkins a clue. But he didn’t get it. I don’t know if my father’s death was due to gross malpractice, or if Perkins gets off on snuffing his patients. But I do know this: my father died inexplicably under Daniel Perkins’s care, and that needs to be investigated.”
“What about going to the police, Dave?”
“I don’t want to stir up the hospital’s lawyers. Not until I have something solid to go on. Joe. Will you help me? I can’t let him get away with this.”