“Nice to meet you,” David said, and I could have sworn his voice was an octave lower than it had been this morning. His gaze was so intense it bordered on inappropriate. I mean, couldn’t he see that this woman was pregnant?
“David,” I said, trying to wrench his attention away from Ridley. “I have another couple of quick follow-up questions for the obit. Do you have a minute?”
The mention of time snapped him out of his trance. He checked the clock on his phone. “You can walk me down to radiology—we can talk on the way.” He then turned his attention back to Ridley and again lowered his voice. “Lovely to meet you, Ridley. I hope you don’t mind me saying, but pregnancy suits you.”
“You are too kind.” Ridley lowered her eyes as if she felt self-conscious from his attention. Whatever. And then she looked at me. “I’ll call you about that coffee, Riley. Maybe we can go later this week?”
“Sure, sure,” I said, but was already taking David by the elbow and starting to walk down the hall. I would not be having coffee with Ridley, of that much I was sure.
Once we got far enough away, David said, “Who was that? She’s incredible.”
I refrained from rolling my eyes. “Ridley Nilsson. She’s new to town.”
“Is she married? I didn’t see a ring. I mean, obviously she’s about to have a baby, but . . .”
I hated it that Ridley was the kind of woman who could make men ask if she was taken at eight months pregnant. And I hated it how much I hated that. “Actually, do you know Ryan Sanford?”
“Yeah, his family has the farm and home store, right?”
I nodded. “The baby’s his. They’re not together though.”
David stopped walking. Literally, this news stopped him in his tracks. “Really? So she’s single?”
“Well, you could say she’s double . . .”
He looked confused.
“Because she’s pregnant. You know, she’s incubating another human life?”
“Oh,” he said, clearly not getting my joke. “Right. Hey, do you think I could have her number?”
Seriously? What was with this guy? First, he asks me out this morning, and now—not even two hours later—he is asking me for another girl’s phone number? What the hell?
“Yeah. Um, sure. I’ll text it to you.”
His eyes were sort of unfocused, no doubt calling up a vision of the Swedish siren in his mind.
“Anyway,” I said louder than I probably needed to, “I wanted to clarify a couple of things. First, you said earlier that you’re father had ‘gotten close a few times’ to remarrying—can you tell me to whom?”
“Oh, I was just sort of kidding,” he said. “He was never officially engaged or anything like that.”
“And you don’t know if he was seeing anyone recently?”
David again checked his phone; he was concerned about time. “Dad didn’t like to be alone, that’s all I know. I don’t know who he was with, but in the past nine years, Dad was rarely without female companionship.”
That would have to be good enough for the time being. He was about to run off, so I asked him what he had meant when he said he learned not to be an asshole from his dad. “Did you say that because he was one, or because he wasn’t?”
David laughed. “Good question. Um, I’d have to say a little bit of both. He was a good man, but I guess like everyone, he had his moments.” We were approaching the hallway that led to the radiology department, and David stopped walking. He took a step closer, touched my elbow, and lowered his voice. “I was actually going to call you. I’ve come across some information that I think might be important.”
“Like what?”
“Like, I’ve found something odd in Dad’s files that might have something to do with why he was killed.”
A beeping sound cut him off before he had a chance to say more and he looked down at the pager attached to the waistband of his baby-blue scrubs. “I really gotta go now. I’ll call you later, okay?”
Not okay. But what could I do. I stood there for a second with that sense of frustration you get when you’re about to sneeze and something interrupts you. And then just before David walked through the swinging doors to radiology, he turned back around. I thought for one shining moment he was going to give me a clue as to what new information he’d come across, but instead he said, “Don’t forget to text me Ridley’s number, ’kay?”
CHAPTER 13
Franklin Steeler was an internal medicine doctor who had worked alongside Arthur Davenport for nearly ten years. I found him in his office doing paperwork, and when I said I’d like to chat with him about Dr. Davenport’s obituary, he’d welcomed me right in. Steeler said he often referred his patients who needed a cardiology workup to Dr. Davenport.
“He was very thorough. My patients liked him, liked the way he treated them. I always felt comfortable sending them his way.”
But, as he told me, there were a few notable exceptions. “Art was fond of the ladies, if you know what I mean,” Dr. Steeler said as he waggled his eyebrows up and down. “After he lost Maribelle, I guess he sought comfort in the arms of other women. Uh, frequently.”
Dr. Davenport really had a reputation around here. “Did it affect his work?” I asked, wondering what he meant about the “notable exceptions.”
“Not really, but about a year ago, I referred him a patient of mine, a gentleman in his early forties who was having some unexplained chest pains. Arthur took him on—he always found room for one more patient no matter how busy he was—and I think ended up doing an angioplasty or maybe a stent, can’t recall exactly, but in any case, during the course of visiting with the
