“I don’t mind,” said Stephanie. There was a sudden tightening in her throat. “It was a while before I could talk about it,” she allowed. “Ray died of a form of liver cancer.
It was very rare. He was treated at Mass. General in Boston.
The doctors there had only seen a couple of similar cases.”
Although Marsha had expected as much, she still felt as though she’d been hit. This was exactly what she was afraid of hearing.
As tactfully as she could, Marsha ended the conversation, but not before enlisting Mrs. Cavendish’s aid in getting an invitation over to Joe Arnold’s house.
He wasn’t the sort of stuffy history professor-type Marsha had expected. His warm brown eyes lit up when he opened the door to greet her. Like Stephanie Cavendish, he seemed about her own age. Between his swarthy good looks, empathic eyes, and somewhat disheveled clothing, Marsha could see he had a beguiling demeanor. He was no doubt an excellent teacher; he had the kind of enthusiasm students would find infectious. No wonder David had gravitated toward this man.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Frank. Come in, please come in.” He held the door for her and led her into the book-lined study. She looked around the room admiringly.
“David used to spend lots of afternoons right here.”
Marsha felt unbidden tears threaten to appear. It saddened her a little to think how much of David’s life she didn’t know. She quickly composed herself.
After thanking Joe for seeing her on such short notice, Marsha got to the point of why she was interested in seeing him. She asked Joe if David had ever discussed his brother VJ.
“On a few occasions,” Joe said. “David admitted to me that he’d had trouble with VJ from the first day that VJ had arrived home from the hospital. That’s normal enough, but to tell you the truth, I got the feeling it went beyond the usual sibling rivalry. I tried to get him to talk about it, but David would never elaborate. We had a strong relationship, I think, but on this one subject he wouldn’t open up.”
“He never got more specific about his feelings or what the trouble was?”
“Well, David once told me that he was afraid of VJ.”
“Did he say why?”
“I was under the impression that VJ threatened him,” Joe said. “That was as much as he’d say. I know brothers’
relationships can be tricky, especially at that age. But quite frankly, I had a funny feeling about David’s trouble with VJ. David seemed genuinely spooked—almost too afraid to talk about it. In the end, I insisted he see the school psychologist.”
“Did he?” Marsha questioned. She’d never heard about that, and it added to her guilt.
“You bet he did,” Joe told her. “I wasn’t about to let this thing drop. David was very special . . .” For a moment, Joe choked up. “Whew, sorry,” he apologized after a pause.
But Marsha was touched by such an obvious display of feeling.
She nodded, moved herself.
“Is the psychologist still on staff?” Marsha asked.
“Madeline Zinnzer?” Joe asked. “Absolutely. She’s an institution around here. She’s been here longer than anybody else.”
Marsha made use of Joe Arnold’s hospitality to get herself invited over to Madeline Zinnzer’s home. Marsha couldn’t thank him enough.
“Anytime,” said Joe, giving her hand an extra squeeze.
“Really, anytime.”
Madeline Zinnzer looked like an institution. She was a large woman, well over two hundred pounds. Her gray hair had been permed into tight curls. She took Marsha into a comfortable, spacious living room with a picture window looking out over the Pendleton Academy quad.
“One of the benefits of being on the staff so long,”
Madeline said, following Marsha’s line of sight. “I finally got to move into the best of the faculty housing.”
“I hope you don’t mind my stopping by on a Sunday,” Marsha began.
“Not at all,” Madeline insisted.
“I have some questions about my children that maybe you can help me with.”
“That’s what Joe Arnold mentioned,” Madeline said. “I’m afraid I don’t have the memory he does of your boy, David.
But I do have a file which I went over after Joe called.
What’s on your mind?”
“David told Joe that his younger brother, VJ, had threatened him, but he wouldn’t tell Joe much more than that.
Were you able to learn anything more?”
Madeline made a tent with her fingers and leaned back in her chair. Then she cleared her throat. “I saw David on a number of occasions,” she began. “After talking with him at length, it was my opinion that David was using the defense mechanism of projection. It was my feeling that David projected his own feelings of competition and hostility onto VJ.”
“Then the threat wasn’t specific?” Marsha asked.
“I didn’t say that,” Madeline said. “Apparently there had been a specific threat.”
“What was it about?”
“Boy stuff,” Madeline said. “Something about a hiding place that VJ had that David found out about. Something innocuous like that.”
“Could it have been a lab rather than a hiding place?”
Marsha asked.
“Could have been,” Madeline said. “David could have said lab, but I wrote hiding place in the file.”
“Did you ever talk with VJ?” Marsha asked.
“Once,” Madeline said. “I thought it would be helpful to get a feeling for the reality about the relationship. VJ was extremely straightforward. He told me that his brother David had been jealous of him from the day VJ had arrived home from the hospital.” Then Madeline laughed. “VJ told me that he could remember arriving home after he was born. That tickled me at the time.”
“Did David ever say what the threat was?” Marsha asked.
“Oh, yes,” Madeline said. “David told me that VJ had threatened to kill him.”
From the Pendleton Academy Marsha drove to Boston. Much as she resisted putting the pieces together, she felt utterly compelled to assemble them. She kept telling herself that everything she was learning was either circumstantial, coincidental, or innocuous. She had already lost one child.
But even so, she knew she couldn’t rest until she found the truth.
Marsha had taken her psychiatric residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Visiting there was like going home. But she didn’t go to the psych unit. Instead, she went directly to Pathology and found a senior resident, Dr.
Preston Gordon.
“Sure I can do that,” Preston said. “Since you don’t know the birthday, it will take a little searching, but nothing else is happening right now.”
Marsha followed Preston into the center of the pathology department where they sat at one of the hospital computers.
There were several Raymond Cavendishes listed in the system, but by knowing the approximate year of death, they were able to find the Raymond Cavendish of Boxford, Massachusetts.
“All right,” Preston said. “Here comes the record.” The screen filled with the man’s hospital record. Preston scrolled through. “Here’s the biopsy,” he said. “And here’s the diagnosis: liver cancer of Kupffer cell of reticuloendothelial origin.” Preston whistled. “Now that’s a zebra. I’ve never even heard of that one.”
“Can you tell me if there have been any similar cases treated at the hospital?” Marsha asked.
