The Grave Maurice by Martha Grimes Page A

I mean the patients. Just last week there was an elderly gentleman who’d come in with a bad heart. Fit as a fiddle, he looked”—she checked her watch and chuckled—“and then wouldn’t you know it, he slumped over in his wheelchair when the attendant was wheeling him toward the visitors’ room. His daughter and grandchildren were waiting for him and just as he raised his hand to wave—that’s enough,” said the nurse to Jury as she yanked the thermometer from his mouth (as if it were a lollipop he’d been licking) “—and as the little grandson was rushing toward the old man, he went down like this!” She snapped two fingers. “Never got to say good-bye, he didn’t. Then there was the poor little girl that came in with her appendix—”
    Said Melrose, “I always travel with mine, too.”
    Nurse Bell paid him no mind. “—and died on the operating table. Heart, can you believe it? Poor little Dory. Had a heart arrhythmia and nobody knew it. Doctor”—here she looked at Jury just to let him know not all of Dr. Ryder’s patients walked out under their own steam—“blamed himself. Then there was old Willie, that was getting on perfectly well until he choked to death on coffee from the dispensing machine.”
    God! But the woman was a ghoul. “How could a patient choke to death surrounded by nurses?”
    She didn’t answer, only looked at the thermometer ruefully. “Oh, I don’t like this, Mr. Jury. Temperature’s up. I’ll have to tell doctor, won’t I?”
    Melrose hated it when “doctor” was used almost like a first name. Like God, for instance.
    Nurse Bell turned to go and then turned back. “And you”—here came a frenzy of finger waggling—“five more minutes and then out. Five minutes!” She left, her heavy rump swaying and her uniform bristling with starch.
    â€œWhat in hell was it? Your temperature, I mean.”
    â€œWho knows—517, probably. Let’s get back to the horse-trading plan.”
    â€œLet’s not.” Melrose threw himself into a fit of mock weeping.
    â€œOh, don’t be so childish. Look—”
    Melrose raised his untearstained face to see Jury holding The Daughter of Time. “I’ve got several more days in this place, being ministered to by—” He nodded meaningfully toward the door. “I need something to think about, something to chew on, and I find this girl’s disappearance very interesting.”
    â€œYou’ve got her father right here. Chew on him.”
    â€œCome on, he’s hardly objective.”
    Melrose sighed. He knew he’d do it and Jury knew he knew it. “So I tell this Ryder chap I’m interested in buying some horseflesh.”
    â€œFor God’s sake, don’t call it ‘horseflesh.’ ”
    â€œGary Cooper always did.” The actor was one of Melrose’s all-time favorites. That badge he threw down in the dust at the end of High Noon !
    â€œNo, he didn’t. What are you doing?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œIt looked as if you threw something. Anyway, pay attention. What would be even more convincing”—here Jury sat forward, pushing the tray table out of his way—“would be to go after a particular horse, or find out what horses he had there and read up on them. Do what Diane Demorney does: learn a lot about one horse instead of a little about all of them.” Jury thought for a moment. “Red Rum, that’s a good horse. He won the Grand National, and more than once, I think.”
    â€œI’d have to know general things; I can’t see me going back and back, knowing only Red Rum.”
    â€œThe one Wiggins was talking about—”
    â€œSeabiscuit?”
    â€œOf course not Seabiscuit. Seabiscuit’s an American horse. He’s also dead. You’ve really got your work cut