Pigeon Blood

  **********

  Someone put a hand on Blair’s shoulder and he jumped, slamming his knee against the blue Ford. “Ow!” he said, looking behind him and finding a man dressed in a business suit standing there. The midday sun had returned to him, but Blair couldn’t have been more skittish if it had been midnight.

  “Get away from my car,” the man said, looking mean, “or I’ll call a cop.”

  Blair raised his hands, trying his best to look apologetic. “I’m sorry,” he said, backing away and then stumbling over his own feet as he hurried along.

  Blair covered the back alleys and side streets quickly to get to Cal Maxwell’s dental office again. He was hoping that Vanessa would still be there to help him get what he needed. Running brought on a terrible ache across his chest and made his head start throbbing again, so he paused once to chew on a few more aspirin tablets.

  It was late in the afternoon when Blair reached the office. The patient flow was sparse compared to what it had been that morning. Everything was much more settled, less crowded, and he liked that. It would give him more time to talk to Vanessa.

  A well-dressed, young woman was sitting behind the front desk, manning both the telephone and a black appointment book. “Hello, sir,” she said. Her voice was pleasant, but her demeanor was somewhat suspicious. “How may I help you?”

  “My name is Blair Vaughn. I’d like to see Vanessa Cravat, please.”

  “She’s with a patient right now, but I’ll let her know that you’re here.” She stood up and then pointed to a chair in the reception area. “Won’t you please have a seat?”

  As she disappeared around the corner, Blair stepped behind the desk and searched through the files along the wall. Finding Cynthia Maxwell’s chart was easy, and he quickly leafed through it. Her health history was all in order; nothing unusual, except that she had ingested more than her fair share of prescription medications over the years. The daily green sheet went back at least ten years, showing six-month prophylaxes, regular recall examinations, fluoride treatments, and periodic x-rays.

  The last set of x-rays had been taken just a few months ago. Blair peeked inside the folder and pulled out a panoramic radiograph dated accordingly. He held it up to the light and discovered what he had known all along: Cynthia’s teeth had been perfect. There were no amalgams, composites, or crowns. Thirty-two exceptional molars, bicuspids, cuspids, and incisors, with perhaps only faint traces of sealants on her six- and twelve-year molars. Even her wisdom teeth were straight, and tooth number thirty was wholly intact.

  “Sir!” the receptionist said as she came out from the back. “You can’t look at confidential files!”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, smiling as he stuffed the chart back in the wall. “I was just looking at my own chart.”

  “You can’t do that, either, at least not without permission. Besides, those charts start with the letter ‘M’. I thought you said your name was Vaughn.”

  “McVaughn,” he said, grinning again and stepping around to the safe side of the desk.

  Vanessa came out with three charts in her hand. She paused at the front desk to jot down a few notes, and then put them into a bin next to her. “Hello, Doctor,” she said.

  “Vanessa, may I speak with you?”

  “Sure.”

  “Would you come outside for a minute?”

  Vanessa glanced at her young coworker, who was now perched beside the appointment book as if guarding it with her life. Vanessa checked her watch and then nodded with a smile. “Of course, but I can’t talk long. I have to get some deposit slips to the bank before it closes.”

  “I understand,” he said. “This will only take a minute.” Blair looked down at the young receptionist who was still glaring at him. He was sure that Vanessa would get a full account of his snooping around the minute he left, so he decided to make the most of their ensuing conversation just in case there wouldn’t be another.

  Blair followed Vanessa through the front door, down the narrow hallway and then out into the parking lot. She folded her arms as a breeze gently lifted the auburn bangs from her forehead. She sighed as if the day had been hectic, and it seemed to please her to have an excuse to be outside if only for a short while. Blair watched the side of her face intently, mesmerized for a time by how golden her skin looked when flush against the dulling rays of the sun.

  “So,” she said, turning around and giving him her full attention. Vanessa was no-nonsense and all business. “What is it, Doctor?”

  “I need to borrow a set of restorative instruments and a pair of wire cutters,” he said, standing a little closer.

  “Well, I’m not allowed to let any of the equipment leave the office, unless something has to be repaired.”

  “I know. I’ll bring them all back, I promise.” The red intensified in her face, smothering her beautiful aura. She looked skeptical; a drunk would take anything and sell it for booze, and she knew it.

  “I think I can figure out why Cynthia was murdered,” he told her, “but I need some restorative instruments to help me.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense at all.”

  “I have to remove a temporary restoration from one of her molars.”

  Vanessa unfolded her arms and laughed. Her body language let him know that she thought he was joking. “A temporary restoration? In Cynthia Maxwell’s mouth? No way!”

  “She found me on the night she was killed and told me it was there. She’d accessed the tooth herself.”

  “Come on, Doctor!”

  “She was afraid for her life and she had to hide something. She opened her tooth, performed a pulpectomy, and placed something inside. She told me so.”

  “Why on earth do you need wire cutters?”

  Blair shrugged. “Her body’s been embalmed, hasn’t it? It has to be for the viewing.”

  “So?”

  “Embalmers wire the deceased’s jaw shut, don’t they? I mean, muscles relax, the jaw hangs open….”

  “All right, all right,” she said, as if the conversation was getting a bit too morbid. “I’ll get those instruments for you, but I’ll have to ask Dr. Driscall for permission first.”

  “No,” Blair said, “he doesn’t need to know.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t trust him.”

  Vanessa scratched the lobe beneath one of her pearl earrings. “When can I expect the instruments back?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow is Saturday. The office isn’t open tomorrow.”

  “I’ll bring them by your place. Are you in the book?”

  “Why don’t you drop them off here, say, around seven o’clock on Monday morning?”

  “I’ll be through with them way before then.”

  “I can wait,” she said. “Come in and have a seat. I’ll bring those things out to you in an envelope.”

  After going back inside, Vanessa did as she said she would and brought a Manila envelope out from the sterile lab and then handed it to Blair. “Monday,” she said before letting it go.

  “Monday. I promise.”

  “I’d do anything to help catch whoever murdered Cynthia,” she said.

  “When is the viewing?”

  “This evening.”

  “How about Kevin Massey’s?”

  “Who? Oh, you mean the boy who was killed with her?” Blair nodded. “I don’t know. Here,” she said, reaching over the front desk for a newspaper. She opened it to the obituaries. “Cynthia’s service will be at Briarwood Funeral Home at six-thirty, and Kevin’s will be at St. Mark’s at eight. And they’re both tonight.”

  “Thanks, Vanessa. I owe you.”

  “Yes, you do,” she said, closing the newspaper and staring at him as if she intended to collect in full someday.