I got a smile fronted by lots of nice, white teeth.
'Appointments don't mean much this afternoon. But come right in. He'll be with you in just a minute.'
I walked through the door with several pairs of maternal eyes boring into my back. Some of them had probably been waiting for over an hour. I wondered why Towle didn't hire an associate.
Sandi showed me into the doctor's consultation office, a dark - paneled room about twelve by twelve.
'It's about the Quinn child, isn't it?'
'That's right.'
'I'll pull the chart.' She came back with a manila folder and placed it on Towle's desk. There was a red tag on the cover. She saw me looking at it.
'The reds are the hypers. We code them. Yellow for chronically ill ones. Blue for specialty consults.'
'Very efficient.'
'Oh, you have no idea!' She giggled and placed one hand on a shapely hip. 'You know,' she said, leaning a bit closer and letting me have a whiff of something fragrant, 'between you and me that poor child has it rough growing up with a mother like that.'
'I know what you mean.' I nodded, not knowing what she meant at all but hoping she'd tell me. People usually do when you don't seem to care.
'I mean, she's such a scatterbrain - the mother. Everytime she comes here she forgets something, or loses something. One time it was her purse. The other time she locked her keys in the car. She really doesn't have it together.'
I clucked sympathetically.
'Not that she hasn't had it rough, growing up doing farm work and then marrying that guy who ended up in pris - '
'Sandi.'
We both turned to see a short, sixtyish woman with hair cut in an iron - grey helmet, standing in the doorway, arms folded across her bosom. Her eyeglasses hung suspended from a chain around her neck. She, too, was dressed in white, but on her it looked like a uniform. Her name tag proclaimed her to be Edna.
I knew her right away. The doctor's right - hand gal. She'd probably been working for him since he hung out his shingle and was making about the same amount of money she'd started out with. But no matter, lucre wasn't what she was after. She was secretly in love with the Great Man. I was willing to bet a handful of blue chip stocks that she called him Doctor. No name after it. Just Doctor. As if he were the only one in the world.
'There are some charts that need filing,' she said.
'Okay, Edna.' Sandi turned to me, gave a conspiratorial look that said Isn't this old witch a drag? and sashayed down the hall.
'Can I do anything for you?' Edna asked me, still keeping her arms crossed.
'No, thank you.'
'Well, then, Doctor will be right with you.'
'Thank you.' Kill 'em with courtesy.
Her glance let me know that she didn't approve of my presence. No doubt anything that upset Doctor's routine was viewed as an intrusion upon Paradise. But she finally left me alone in the office.
I took a look around the room. The desk was mahogany and battered. It was piled high with charts, medical journals, books, mail, drug samples, and a jar full of paper clips. The desk chair and the easy chair in which I sat were once classy items - burnished leather - now both aged and cracked.
Two of the walls were covered with diplomas, many of which hung askew and at odds with one another. It looked like a room that had just been nudged by a minor earthquake - nothing broken, just shaken up a bit.
I casually examined the diplomas. Lionel W. Towle had amassed an impressive collection of paper over the years. Degrees, certificates of internship and residency, a walnut plaque with gavel commemorating his chairmanship of some medical task force, honorary membership in this and that, specialty board certification, commendations for public service on the Good Ship Hope, consultant to the California Senate subcommittee on child welfare. And on and on.
The other wall displayed photographs. Most were of Towle. Towle in fisherman's garb, knee - deep in some river holding aloft a clutch of steelhead. Towle with a marlin the size of a Buick. Towle with the mayor and some little squat guy with Peter Lorre eyes - everyone smiling, shaking hands.
There was one exception to this seeming self obsession. In the center of the wall hung a color photograph of a young woman holding a small child. The colors were faded and from the styles of clothing worn by the subjects, the picture looked three decades old. There was some of the tell - tale fuzziness of an enlarged snapshot. The hues were misty, almost pastel.
The woman was pretty, fresh - faced, with a sprinkle of freckles across her nose, dark eyes and medium length brown hair with a natural wave. She wore a filmy - looking, short - sleeved dress of dotted swiss cotton, and her arms were slender and graceful. They wrapped around the child - a boy - who looked around two or younger. He was beautiful. Rosy cheeked, blond, with cupid's - bow lips and green eyes. He was dressed in a white sailor suit and sat beaming in his mother's embrace. The mountains and lake in the distance looked real.
'It's a lovely picture, isn't it?' said the voice I'd heard over the phone.
He was tall, at least six - three, and lean, with the kind of features bad novels label as chiseled. He was one of the most handsome middle - aged men I had ever seen. His face was noble - a strong chin bisected by a perfect cleft, the nose of a Roman senator, and twinkling eyes the color of a clear sky. His thick, snow white hair hung down over his forehead, Carl Sandburg style. His eyebrows were twin white clouds.
He wore a short white coat over a blue oxford shirt, burgundy print tie, and dark gray trousers of a subtle check. His shoes were black calfskin loafers. Very proper, very tasteful. But clothes didn't make the man. He would have looked patrician in double knits
'Dr. Delaware? Will Towle.'
'Alex.'
I stood and we shook hands. His grip was firm and dry. The fingers that clasped mine were enormous and I was conscious of abundant strength behind them.
'Please, sit.'
He took his place behind the desk, swiveled back and threw his feet up on top, resting on a year's back issues of the Journal of Pediatrics.
I responded to his question.
'It is a beautiful shot. Somewhere in the Pacific Northwest?'
'Washington state. Olympic National Forest. We were vacationing there in fifty - one. I was a resident. That was my wife and son. I lost them a month later. In a car crash.'
'I'm sorry.'
'Yes.' A distant, sleepy look came on his face; it was a moment before he shook himself out of it and came back into focus.
'I know you by reputation, Alex, so it's a pleasure to get to meet you.'
'Same here.'
'I've followed your work, because I have a strong interest in behavioral pediatrics. I was particularly interested in your work with those children who'd been victimized by Stuart Hickle. Several of them were in the practice. The parents spoke highly of your work.'
'Thank you.' I felt as if I was expected to say more but that was one subject that was closed. 'I do remember sending consent forms to you.'
'Yes. yes. Delighted to cooperate.'
Neither of us spoke, then we both spoke at the same time.
'What I'd like to - ' I said.
'What can I do for - ' he said.
It came out a garbled mess. We laughed, good old boys at the University Club. I deferred to him. Despite the graciousness I sensed an enormous ego lurking be hind that white forelock.
'You're here about the Quinn child. What can I do for you?'
I filled him in on as few details as possible, stressing the importance of Melody Quinn as a witness and the benign nature of the hypnotic intervention. I ended by requesting that he allow her to go off Ritalin for one
