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  “Good afternoon, Doctor,” Markham replied.

  “How have you been spending your day?”

  “I just finished playing eighteen holes with…”

  “I meant which seminars did you attend.”

  “Of course.” Markham gave him a quick recap and Brookline nodded. He hummed a few times, but Markham didn’t know if that meant he was pleased or not.

  “You’re a very good physician,” Brookline said.

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  “There have been suggestions that it was time I retired.”

  “No.”

  “Some members of the board have indicated that they expect you to replace me.”

  “No one could replace you.”

  “Thank you for that, Doctor. Still, perhaps it is time. One is not getting any younger. The question is, are you ready to step into my shoes? I’ll be frank, Doctor. There have been times when you have impressed me with, what shall I call it, your lack of judgment.”

  “Sir?”

  “I am referring solely to your judgment outside the hospital. One hears rumors.”

  “I don’t know how to respond to that, Doctor. I assure you that I have always tried to behave with the utmost caution in my personal affairs.”

  Brookline hummed some more.

  “It is a discussion for a different time and place,” he said. “We’ll talk again when we return home.”

  With that, the old man went back to his handouts. Markham stood slowly. He knew when he had been dismissed.

  “Sir,” he said. “I am having dinner with Dr. Krueger and a rep from a pharmaceutical company. Perhaps you’d care to join us?”

  “Thank you, Doctor, I already have plans. Dr. Krueger, you say? A steady hand. I am gratified to see you spending time with him.”

  Oh brother, Markham thought.

  Markham couldn’t believe it was possible. Caroline actually seemed to like the sniveling little creep. The way they connected, it was as if they had known each other for years. She laughed at Stephen’s jokes and when she laughed, she would touch his arm and he would blush, actually blush, like a teenager on a first date. What comedy, Markham thought. Especially when they wrestled over the check. Caroline told Stephen that she would put it on her expense account, but if he really felt guilty about it, he could teach her how to play blackjack. “I’m terrible at cards,” she said. Still, it gave Markham another idea.

  Before they left the restaurant, Caroline stopped at the restroom. While they waited, Markham punched Stephen in the shoulder. “You dawg,” he said. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  Stephen rubbed the spot where he had been hit. “What?”

  “Like you don’t know. ‘Oh, please, Stephen. Can you teach me to play blackjack? I’m terrible at cards.’”

  Stephen smiled sheepishly.

  “You realize of course, that these reps have ethics clauses in their contracts,” Markham said. “They’re forbidden to sleep with clients.”

  “Really?” Stephen said. “Are you sure?”

  Markham put his arm around Stephen’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. Rules are made to be broken, aren’t they?”

  Caroline and Stephen kept losing no matter how much they tried to help each other. Yet, neither of them seemed to care and for a moment, Markham felt a slight pang of jealousy. It disappeared when the cell phone attached to his belt started vibrating.

  “Yes,” he said into the phone.

  “You are such a slut,” Kathryn’s voice said.

  “Yes, this is Doctor Markham.”

  “You slept with her, didn’t you?”

  Markham slid his hand over the cell. “Excuse me,” he told his companions and backed away from the blackjack table. Caroline watched him for a moment, then returned to her cards.

  “What are you talking about?” Markham asked

  “I’ve been watching you. The way you touch her of so casually when you’re sure no one else will notice. It’s so obvious.”

  “Is it?”

  Kathryn laughed. “You should see your face,” she said.

  “What’s wrong with my face?”

  “From here it looks like you’re experiencing an aneurysm.”

  “Where are you?” Markham spun in a slow, tight circle, searching for the woman.

  “You’ll see me soon enough,” she said.

  “Where?”

  “The marina. There’s a white cabin cruiser docked at the end of the middle pier. It’s called Miss Behavin’. Meet me there in ten minutes. Don’t let anyone see you. Promise.”

  Sex in a boat, that would be new, Markham thought. “I promise,” he said.

  “I have a sheer black negligee,” Kathryn said. “Only it’s such a warm night, I might not be wearing it by the time you arrive.”

  Markham deactivated the cell and reattached it to his belt. He returned to the blackjack table, stopping behind Caroline and Stephen. He placed a hand on each of their backs.

  “Play my chips for me,” he said. “I need to take care of something.”

  “You’re leaving?” Caroline asked.

  “No rest for the wicked,” Markham said.

  “Is it serious?” Stephen asked.

  Markham wagged his hand. “I don’t know yet. It could be. Caroline…” Markham wrapped his arms around her, hugged her tight and said loudly, “It was a pleasure meeting you. Let’s do it again.” Into her ear he whispered, “I’ll call.” He didn’t hug Stephen, but Markham shook his hand and whispered into his ear as well. “Break the rules.” He pulled back and looked him in the eye. “You know what I’m saying?”

  “I know,” Stephen said.

  The marina lay on the far side of the resort. To reach it, Markham had to leave the casino, follow a long asphalt path to the resort itself, pass through the resort to the patio in back, pick up the asphalt path again and follow it between the 11th and 12th holes of the golf course to the lake. He was tempted to run, only he didn’t want to be tired and sweaty when he met Kathryn.

  It’s too bad about Caroline, he told himself. But if she slept with Stephen, it would afford him an excuse to break it off completely with her. If she complained, he’d tell her, “I used Stephen to see if you were faithful and you failed the test. Pity.”

  As he cut through the resort’s opulent lobby, Markham was stopped by a man calling his name. Brookline was sitting in a stuffed forest-green chair and examining a medical journal, his black-rimming reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose.

  “Calling it a night so soon, Dr. Markham?”

  Why do these things keep happening to me? Markham’s inner voice shouted.

  “Good evening, Doctor,” he said. “Yes. Early to bed early to rise.”

  “I am gladdened to see it.”

  “I’m not much of a gambler. Besides, there’s a seminar early tomorrow morning.”

  “Quite so,” said Brookline. “I was thinking of turning in myself. But,” he gestured with his ancient hand toward the bar, “perhaps one might interest you in a nightcap.”

  “Thank you, Doctor. But I promised I’d call Susan.”

  “Of course.” Brookline stood, yawned, stretched, and said, “I’ll go up with you.”

  Markham and Dr. Brookline rode the elevator together—they were on the same floor. With his luck, Markham figured it couldn’t be any other way. Brookline walked slowly along the corridor and Markham forced himself to keep pace. Markham came to his door first.

  “Perhaps we can have breakfast together before the seminar,” Brookline said.

  “I’d like that very much, sir,” Markham said.

  “I’ll call for you.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  Markham opened his door, went into the room, closed his door, took his phone off the hook, sat on the wine-colored love seat, counted two hundred ten seconds by his watch, opened the door, hung a Do Not Disturb sign on the knob and scrambled down the emergency staircase.

  Lake Vermillion sh
immered in the moonlight. It had twelve hundred miles of shoreline and three hundred sixty-five islands and Markham thought it would be great fun to take the boat and Kathryn and explore some of those islands. There were three piers jutting into the lake. Markham took the center one. Markham could hear only soft waves lapping gently at the hulls of the boats moored in the slips and the muffled sound of his footsteps on the wooden planks. He walked past fishing boats, pontoons, tour boats and an assortment of larger craft, some owned by guests, others for rent. At the end of the pier he found a white, thirty-foot cabin cruiser. The name Miss Behavin’ was stenciled on her bow and stern.

  “Ahoy.”

  Kathryn’s voice answered from the interior of the boat. “Dr. Markham?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did anyone see you? Does anyone know you’re here?”

  “Not a soul.”

  “Come aboard.”

  Markham stepped onto the deck of the boat and followed Kathryn’s voice into the cabin. The moonlight that flooded through the narrow windows let him see the outline of furniture. Kathryn slid out of a shadow. She was naked.

  “I like your outfit,” Markham said, although he would have been happier if the lights were on and he could see more than her shape.

  Kathryn stepped forward. Her face slipped from shadow to light and into shadow again. She was grinning. Once again Markham wished that the lights were on. He reached for her, rested his hands on the points of her bare shoulder. He liked the way her warm flesh felt beneath his fingertips. His arms slipped around her and he pull her against him.

  “I am so lucky that you sat in my row at the seminar,” he said.

  “Luck had nothing to do with it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I have a message from your wife.”

  “My wife?”

  “Susan says, ‘You failed the test.’”

  “What?”

  Markham felt the eleven-blade scalpel slice through the intercostal muscles between the fourth and fifth ribs and penetrate the left atrium of his heart. He found Kathryn’s face in the darkness.

  “Doctor,” he said, as he collapsed to the floor.

  But of course, she wasn’t a doctor.

  “Miss Behavin’” Copyright ©2007 by David Housewright. First published in Resort to Murder, Nodin Press.

  Back to TOC

  Author’s Note: This story is also inspired by true events. A St. Paul man sued his friend claiming that the friend stole the design for his headstone. Some things you just can’t make up.

  Last Laugh

  The old man kept repeating himself in different tones of voice and at different volumes, yet still he couldn’t make the youngster understand him.

  “It’s my design,” he said.

  “It’s not,” the young man said.

  The old man pointed at his photograph. “Look it,” he said. “It’s the same black marble. It’s the same shape and size. It has the same drawing etched into the stone—a pastoral scene with a path leading to a cloud-draped sunset. Here’s the plank fence, here’s the maple tree, here’s the two deer.”

  “Mr. Garber,” the young man said. “I admit the tombstones are similar in appearance. However, if you look closely, you’ll see that ours is ten percent larger. As for the etching, in our design we have a road leading to the horizon, not a path, and it follows a picket fence, not a plank fence. We incorporated a fir tree, not a maple, and as for the deer—you have a buck and a doe while we have a buck and a fawn.”

  “What about the inscription?” Garber said.

  “All I seek, the heaven above and the road below me,” the young man read. “It’s a common slogan. Shakespeare, I believe.”

  “It’s from Robert Louis Stevenson.”

  Garber felt his granddaughter’s hand tighten on his forearm; saw the concern in her face. He had seen the look many times since his last doctor’s appointment. He patted Johanna’s hand and gave her a smile in return.

  “I don’t know why I’m upset,” he said. “Put the gravestones side-by-side and anyone can see it’s like comparing apples to apples.”

  “Sir,” the young man said. “The Studders Monument Company is not in the habit of pilfering designs. As I explained, our client Mr. Tinklenberg brought a sketch to us and requested that we duplicate it, and so we did…”

  “He stole it from me,” Garber said.

  “Sir, if you believe your copyright has been infringed upon, you have every right to take legal action. I will refer your complaint to our legal department and we will let the courts sort it out.”

  “How long do you think that’ll take? I’d be dead and buried before it went to trial.”

  The young man leaned back in his chair. “Certainly we would hope not,” he said.

  Once outside, Johanna gave Garber an arm to lean on as they descended the concrete stairs leading to the mortuary’s parking lot. Garber shrugged it off and took her hand, instead.

  “Sugar, I’m not an invalid,” he said.

  “Grandpa, the doctors said—”

  “The doctors said…”

  Garber sighed like it was a subject he had tired of long ago. Still, he saw the anxiety in Johanna’s eyes, so he grinned and rapped his chest with his fist just like Johnny Weissmuller did in all those Tarzan movies. It sent a sudden and unexpected shock of pain through his bones; he winced and coughed, and then added a brilliant smile and pretended to stagger so Johanna would think it was a joke.

  “I’ve lived a lot of years,” he said. “For the most part I’ve had a crackerjack of a time. The docs wanna inject me with their drugs and douse me with their radiation but what’s that gonna get me? Another year at the most. A bad year. I’d rather take the three months and go out with a little style.” He glanced about like he was suddenly afraid the cops were listening and his voice dropped a few octaves. “Especially, if you score some of that medicinal marijuana you promised me.”

  Johanna chuckled just as he hoped she would. Garber brought Johanna’s hand to his lips and kissed her knuckle.

  “In the meantime,” he said, “I have to figure out what to do about Tinklenberg.”

  “Who is he?” Johanna said.

  “Just a guy from the neighborhood. Vern Tinklenberg. He moved in when we were kids and he didn’t know anybody. He wanted to fit in, so he started copying everything I did. I played ball, so he played ball. I played hockey, so he played hockey. I’d get in trouble at school and sure as hell, the next thing he’d be in trouble at school. It got to be a habit with him. I remember the morning after the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor, I was first in line to join the army; didn’t even tell my mom until afterward. Vern heard about it so he enlisted the next day; yet he’s talked it up ever since like he was the first in line. He’d tell stories about the war, too. Talk about things that happened to me, to others, like they happened to him. I was shelled on, mortared on, rained on, snowed on, strafed, machine-gunned, bombed, and shot at all the way from Normandy to the Rhine. Meanwhile, Vern was in San Antonio eating barbecue. Man didn’t even get to Europe until April ’45 and by then it was all over but the shouting. Only to hear Vern talk about it, you’d think he was George friggin’ Patton and Audie Murphy rolled into one. Didn’t stop there, neither. No, sir. I’d see him around afterward and it was always how big is your house, mine is bigger; what car do you drive, mine is newer; how much money do you make, I make more; how many kids do you have, three? I got four. Now this. Pretty low, even for him.”

  “Why would he steal your tombstone?” Johanna said. “Why now? You don’t think…?”

  Johanna hesitated, frightened by the words that had formed in her head. Garber heard them even though they went unspoken.

  “Sugar, only the good die young,” he said. “Pricks like Vern Tinklenberg, they live forever. Although…”

  Garber halted in the middle of the parking lot; Johanna was three steps past before she realized it
and turned to face him.

  “If he did die first, people would think I copied his crummy memorial instead of the other way ’round,” Garber said. “Course, if he died soon enough, I’d still have time to build a monument that would make his look like a tar-paper shack on a dirt road.”

  They blocked off both ends of the avenue where Garber had grown up with huge sawhorses painted white with orange stripes. There was a sign from the city on the barricades—No Thru Traffic—and another from the neighborhood—Block Party 6—10:30 PM.

  Garber sat with Johanna at one of the many picnic tables that had been dragged into the street. He had been drinking ice cold beer and eating flame-grilled chicken and corn-on-the-cob dipped in sweet butter and he thought, if this turned out to be his last meal, it wasn’t too shabby. Johanna had tried to dissuade him from coming. She sensed her grandfather’s excruciating pain even if he refused to acknowledge it. Yet Garber couldn’t resist the chance to see the old neighborhood one last time and those few childhood friends that were still alive and kicking. Besides there was a band and Garber had always loved to dance. Granted, the band wasn’t very good and mostly they played Golden Oldies that were nowhere near as aged as the songs that he considered golden, but he could dance to anything.

  At first Johanna had refused to dance with him, insisting instead that he sit and rest. She stepped in only after watching Garber shake and shimmy and twist with the forty-year-old babe that was currently living next to the house where he grew up, and then with the thirty-year-old babe who now lived across the street—lately Garber considered nearly every woman he met to be a babe.

  “You have moves,” Garber told her.

  “I inherited them from you,” Johanna said.

  “Nah, Sugar, you got ’em from your grandmother. My, how that woman could dance. Oww!”

  It pleased Johanna that Garber was having fun. Yet at the same time it distressed her to see him pressing his hand against the small of his back beneath his cotton sports jacket as if there was something there that required constant attention. He had become so old and so thin in just a few weeks. She held him close as the rock band slowed into Fools Rush In (Where Angels Fear To Tread), a 1940’s ballad that Ricky Nelson turned into a Top 40 rock & roll hit twenty-five years later. Garber sang the words sweet and low into her ear. When he stopped abruptly, Johanna looked into his face, expecting the worst. Garber’s eyes had narrowed, not with pain, but with anger. She followed his gaze across the makeshift dance floor to where the picnic tables had been set up. A man close to Garber’s age was holding court, waving his arms as he told a story.