Читать книгу The Plague Doctor - E. Joan Sims - Страница 4

Chapter Two

We had dinner on the back porch. According to my mother, it was simple fare: creamed chicken and wild mushrooms in phyllo cups with warm goat cheese tarts and grilled vegetables. I didn’t quite keep my promise to dress for dinner but I did spruce up a clean pair of jeans with a silk shirt in a lovely warm apricot.

I needn’t have worried about my outfit—Mother had dressed up enough for both of us. She wore an Oscar de la Renta gypsy skirt and peasant blouse that would have made me look like a bag lady. She looked like a million dollars.

Cassandra wore a simple pale aqua shift that came to the top of her pretty knees and showed off her long, tanned legs to perfection. My daughter, her rich pile of dark hair piled carelessly on top of her head and tied with a green velvet ribbon, was full of smiles and laughter. I found it hard to take my eyes off her face, and so did Ethan. Cassie was so beautiful it was a pleasure just to look at her.

We watched the late September sun go down while we ate what was left of Ethan’s birthday cake. Cassandra had been humiliated when the top fell onto the floor as she was bringing it out to the porch. Aggie had immediately jumped into the middle of the sugary, gooey mess and started gobbling. Mother was horrified, and I, of course, started laughing. Ethan saved the day by scooping up Aggie and most of the mess in his big hands. He threw the cake in the garbage on the way to dumping the dog in the nearest bathtub. I mopped up the residue and made Cassie quit sniffling. Then we all sat back down and started over again with the bottom half of what turned out to be a very tasty cake.

Mother patted Cassie on the shoulder. “Never mind dear, you’ve got down the basics. Next time we’ll work on aesthetics. I have a lovely dessert cookbook that tells all. Have another piece, Ethan?”

What a sweet guy! He ate three pieces. Cassie’s smile got bigger with each piece. Ah, young love.

We took our coffee and Cointreau out to the patio and watched the fireflies send their little signals of yearning to each other. The moon rose slowly over the trees to illuminate the night garden I had planted that spring. I had taken special care in choosing only flowers with white blossoms. The big silver reflecting ball I had always wanted sat in the middle of the yard on a pedestal and made the whole thing magical. It looked like a fairy garden.

The scene evoked memories of the summer when Cassie was twelve and into crystals. We had taken them all around the yard and hidden them in tree trunks. They were for the fairies and gnomes, she had said. I wonder what had happened to them. I guess the bark grew up around and over, encompassing each little piece of quartz. I supposed they would make a future Sterling pause and reflect someday when he cut down the tree. It had better be a Sterling, after all the hard work we had put into this place.

I was surprised that the young people showed no signs of leaving. Mother was apparently thinking the same thing.

“You children have no plans for tonight?”

“No, Mrs. Sterling. I hope you don’t mind if we stick around?”

“Why, of course not, Ethan, dear. We love your company. But how can you put up with us old fuddy duddys?”

“Come on, Gran, quit fishing for a compliment. You know you’re about as far from a fuddy or a duddy as they come.”

“As a matter of fact I’ve been looking forward to some conversation with you, young man.”

“Yes, Mr. Raleigh?”

“Please, call me Horatio. It seems there are a few rumors floating around town as to the reason for your visit to our little neck of the woods. What does Rowan Springs have that would interest a man of your experience and talents?”

“Ethan, have you been holding back on me?” teased Cass.

It was too dark to see him blush, but I’m sure he did. It was something he did often. It made him look almost handsome—like a young Gary Cooper.

“Your young man here is quite well-known in certain scientific circles, Cassandra. Before he went to work for the Centers for Disease Control, he was in Kinshasa trying to find the original vector for the Ebola virus.”

“What’s a ‘vector’, Ethan?”

Horatio went on as if Cass had asked him instead of her boyfriend.

“Let me finish showing off here, my dear. I learned all of this from the Internet this afternoon when my curiosity about this young man could be contained no longer. A vector is the creature, insect or animal, which carries a viral or bacterial agent—an illness if you will—to man. An example would be the mosquito whose bite causes malaria. The vector that causes Marburg Disease, or the Ebola virus, has yet to be identified. Am I correct young man?”

“Right you are, sir. You’re a fast learner.”

Horatio smiled, obviously pleased with himself. “I also found out that young Dr. Ethan McHenry went into a cave in Africa where the original case of Marburg was contracted. I would say that is comparable to Daniel going into the lion’s den.”

“Well, it wasn’t exactly like that. I was wearing protective gear.”

“Nonsense, my boy. Daring to enter a dark and dangerous cavern in search of an unknown entity which causes a deadly untreatable virus—why, I call that damned heroic!”

Ethan laughed, a rich full laugh, and there was that smile again. I saw “son-in-law” written all over him.

“My colleagues called it damned foolish.”

“Well, I should say so! I hope you’re not doing anything like that now,” Cass scolded. “You’re not are you?”

“Africa’s a long way from Lakeland County, Cassie.”

“I know, Mother, but Mabel said…never mind,” she trailed off.

Ethan reached over and took Cassie’s hand in his big one.

“What is she saying about me?”

“Only that you went to see her last week and asked all about her pregnancy. She said you were asking other women the same thing. Lots of other women.”

Mabel had been my mother’s part-time housekeeper for years. She had confided to me a few months ago that she and her husband were determined to have another baby before she turned forty. She said she could not imagine her home without a little one around to get underfoot and pull the dog’s tail. I guess she had told Cassie the good news first.

“Do we have some sort of medical problem here in town, Ethan? Something we should know about? I mean, if you are at liberty to discuss it.”

“That’s the problem, Mrs. Sterling, I’m really not supposed to discuss it. But I can see that the rumors are flying.”

“You don’t know the half of it, son,” said Horatio as he topped off his liqueur glass. “You’re on par with the little green men from Mars.”

“I guess I should have gone about this differently, but we usually have more information to go on. Most of the time one of the local docs calls us in. This time the call came from the state, and I came in blind.”

“What are you investigating, dear?”

“The truth is I don’t really know, Mrs. Sterling.” Ethan shrugged his big bony shoulders. “At first I was thinking about bacteria in the water. And then I considered some sort of infection from the local wildlife getting into the domestic animal reservoir—chickens, pigs, that sort of thing. But none of the specimens I sent back to the lab have shown anything unusual. It’s like Marburg all over again. A big question mark.”

“But what does this unknown agent do? What does it cause?”

“Miscarriages, abortions. There hasn’t been a viable baby carried to term in Rowan Springs in the last six weeks.”

“You mean they are all born dead?” I was stunned.

“Either dead or dying. But since most fetuses are lost in the first trimester, I suspect we don’t even know the full extent of the problem.”

“Why is that?” I was beginning to feel Ethan’s frustration and concern.

“Sometimes women don’t realize they’re pregnant, and when they abort spontaneously, they think they’re just having a heavy cycle. It happens more often than you might think. It’s nature’s way of getting rid of abnormal cells. I suspect that’s the truth with whatever phenomenon is going on here. What we see is just the tip of the iceberg.”

“And what is the count on the iceberg, my boy?”

“Enough to make the State Medical Examiner call the CDC and ask for an investigation. The difficult part is that neither of the local doctors seem to want to cooperate.”

I couldn’t control myself. “Well, Winston Wallace is an asshole, but what is the excuse Doc Baxter gave you?”

Ethan laughed again. “Don’t tell anyone, but I couldn’t agree with you more about Dr. Wallace. Ed Baxter is something else again. He’s a sweet old guy, but he seems depressed and exhausted. I understand his wife died last year, and he had open heart surgery shortly thereafter. Maybe he’s never really fully recovered. He’s begged off several appointments we’ve made, and I understand that he’s cut back on his patient load. He’s not seeing any maternity patients at all now.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Mother smiled softly. “Ed delivered Paisley and Cassandra. He’s a dear man. I haven’t seen him since last Christmas when he had dinner with us.”

“Jeez, pity the poor baby that has to see Winston’s mug with his first breath.”

“Paisley, that’s very unkind.”

“Don’t worry much about that, Mrs. DeLeon. The way things are going there may not be any babies to pity.”