Chapter 20
Let the Dust Fly
“What am I going to do with you?”
Father just shrugged and grinned his Cheshire-cat grin. He stood and pointed at my computer sitting on mother’s desk. “You’ve got plenty to start with. Make some waves. Stir up some dust. See where it settles.” He opened the office door, turned and touched his nose. “Watch your back.” He stepped out into the street, raised his arms, and pantomimed a waltz with an imaginary partner, while loudly humming The Blue Danube. He faded into the shadows of Main Street.
“My lord,” Mabs said. “I didn’t know he could dance like that?”
“Mabs. You have some explaining to do.”
‘Yes, I suppose I do, dear. But it’s late. Tonight’s laundry night, you know. Maybe we can chat tomorrow.” She wheeled around in her black nurses’ shoes and hustled to her desk. After a mad shuffle of papers and drawers slamming shut, she yelled “Later, honey,” and whooshed out the back door.
A part of me was grateful for the peace and quiet but a larger part of me wanted more answers from Father. And a third part of me was relieved that Father still had all his faculties. That part of me wanted to open a bottle of Pinot Noir, kick off my shoes, and howl at the moon. I locked all the doors and sat down at the computer to compose my first editorial. Moon howling could wait. I headlined my editorial, “Let the Dust Fly.”
# # #
The next day I went hunting. Hunting for Sheriff Chad, who wasn’t in his office. Hunting for Walt Ferguson, our attorney, who was out defending a client in court. Hunting for Dr. Tom Cavendish, who thankfully was in between seeing patients at the noon hour and had a few minutes to visit with me.
His office was on the ground floor of one of Standard’s newest brick office buildings at the end of Main Street. Three large windows fronted the street with tops that resembled arched eyebrows. The sterile lobby was lined with plastic chairs set in a semi-circle facing the half-moon welcome desk, which was adorned with business cards, a monthly printed calendar taped to the top of the desk, and a bottle of green hand sanitizer. There was scant room on the welcome desk to put my elbows and maybe that was by design.
The perky receptionist led me back to Dr. Cavendish’s office, a Spartan space that had room for a secretary desk, more like a cabinet, a wood chair, computer, floor lamp, and a coat rack which served as the home for his white lab coat. Dr. Cavendish sat at his desk in shirtsleeves picking at a turkey sandwich. He greeted me with his mouth full and apologized. I thought he looked, well, cute. I wasn’t expecting that reaction. He seemed embarrassed, which made him appear all that much more cuter, and in that flash of a second, I felt my face flush.
“Hello Samantha,” he said. His voice filled the tiny space with a calming baritone.
“Sam. Uh, you can call me, Sam.”
“Sam it is. And I’m Tom. Nice to see you again.”
For a brief second, I forgot why I had come to see him. I’ve seen lots of people with the deer-in-the-headlights look. That lost, frozen, look of surprise or uncertainty, which I was convinced is how I must have looked to Tom Cavendish.
“Yes, me, too. I mean nice to see you as well. I’ve come to ask you about mother.”
“Yes. How can I help?”
“You said, you noticed a small red dot on her wrist that you thought seemed odd, like a needle prick, or something.”
“Exactly, I took photos of her wrist and arm…” He reached behind him into a horizontal drawer and withdrew a file. “Here it is. This is your mother’s workup.” He dug into the file folder and pulled out three snapshots to show me. The color photos weren’t all that interesting except that I could see a portion of mother’s arm from the wrist to her elbow and what appeared to be a small pinprick where her wrist joined her lower right arm. The other two photos were the same but from different angles.
“See that?” He pointed to the location of the pinprick. “I know this will sound preposterous, but I’ve compared my photos and your mother’s symptoms, and autopsy results with other medical journals, and it seems consistent with the types of poison deaths you would expect to read about in a spy novel.”
“What?”
“I know this sounds far fetched but these tiny red spots on your mother’s arm were caused by a needle of some sort. I sent a culture to a lab in Wichita, which when they saw what it was asked for my permission to share this with the FBI.”
“FBI?”
“I know. I had the same reaction. The head pathologist said these photos matched with the same kind of street assassinations the Russians are famous for, even amongst their own.”
“But…I don’t get it. Why would someone go to all this trouble?”
“Why does anyone kill anyone?”
“So, you think this was murder?”
“Absolutely.”
‘Oh, no.”
“What is it?”
I stood from my chair, but my legs wobbled. I thought I might drop. “I can’t say any more. Thank you for your time.” As I headed for his door, Doctor Tom stopped me.
“Wait. Um, I was, um, wondering. Would you like to join me for dinner Friday night?”
The question caught me by surprise. “Well, yes, of course. I’d like that.”
“Excellent. I make a mean spaghetti with grilled chicken. I hope you like chicken. Yes?”
“Yes.”
“Great. I’ll pick you up at six.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“I’m glad you can make it.” He grinned. “I’ll even dust the house.”
I left his office a bit dazed, most especially at the confirmation my mother had been murdered, but also at that word “dust,” appearing again. Dust and thought of mother and the Biblical phrase, “from dust to dust.” Did that mean the absence of existence? But for us living in rural America we put up with dust all the time. Dust is everywhere, on the county roads, in the fields, it rides the air from light to light. If I were a believer, I might accept the idea that in death we transform into dust, and maybe, just maybe, we end up existing in a different ethereal state.
I drove home and opened a bottle of wine with my lunch of cheese and crackers. I craved the glass of wine to settle my emotions between the giddiness of having been invited to dinner and the solemness of death. I ran my finger across the dining room table and left a streak where I’d pushed away the dust.