“Well,” Brock said, “maybe I shouldn’t have left the motor running.” Then he grinned at her and winked.
Phoebe sighed happily and moved as close to her husband as the bucket seats would allow. She put an arm around his shoulders and kissed him on the cheek. It was so nice, she thought, being married to a man who knew her so well. So very, very nice.
“You haven’t taken any of the crab Louis,” Cal scolded her husband as they walked from the buffet. Choosing a picnic table beneath a copse of trees, she asked, “Have you tried it? It’s delicious, Plato.”
It was a stunning summer Sunday, a cool crisp midwestern rarity. Either divine providence or the fickle hand of fate was blocking Erie humidity from the Appalachian foothills. Plato wouldn’t let his wife’s appeal for a healthier diet spoil his breezy mood.
“All that mayonnaise!” he chided her with a self-righteous
Cal frowned at her plate as she sat down. Dwarfed by a pair of radishes, the tiny smear of crab was barely visible — hardly enough cholesterol to clog the arteries of a mouse. Some carrot slices and a light salad completed her meal. “Maybe you’re right. I’ll eat the crab last.” She brightened. “You’re doing so well with your Healthy Heart diet. I feel guilty sometimes...”
Plato glanced at his wife’s wispy figure and meager serving and felt his own twinges of guilt. Hidden under a flimsy Caesar salad disguise lurked a cut of prime rib thick enough to choke a horse. Under the table, a steak knife sliced through his pants pocket.
“Ahh, the Doctors Marley!” A beefy hand slapped Plato’s back.
“Rufus!” Cal bounced from her seat across the table and gave the intruder a warm hug. “The party is wonderful. Fantastic food. I was just telling—”
Her husband tried to rise, but his knife threatened vital organs.
“No, don’t get up.” Rufus Thorndyke squeezed Plato’s shoulder reassuringly. Back at the buffet tent, he had witnessed Plato’s cattle-rustling behavior with raised eyebrows. “That diet of yours must have left you pretty weak.”
“It’s a sacrifice at first,” Plato acknowledged with a brave smile. “But after a while, you hardly notice the difference.”
Rufus grinned back. Tipping the scales at three hundred pounds, he was something of a stranger to dietary sacrifices. But on his mooselike frame, the extra weight looked natural.
Tailoring, Plato told himself.
“Cal, I’ve got Brownie all saddled up and ready to ride.” His light green eyes chuckled at Plato. “Sanchez is ready, too, if you want to accompany your wife. He’s a gentle horse. Really.”
Plato suppressed a groan. Old Sanchez, the Venezuelan hell-horse. Rufus had rescued the ancient Thoroughbred from some Caracas glue factory. “Sure. Can’t wait.”
Thorndyke glanced up the hill. Near the buffet canopy a hand waved, accompanied by a voice carried high and thin on the breeze.
“There’s Jan. She was driving the lobster down from the airport.” Turning, Rufus waddled up the hill to greet his lovely young wife.
“What’s he talking about?” Plato asked when Thorndyke was out of earshot. In his confusion, he wondered if he had heard correctly. “Jan’s on a lobster drive? Is that what the horses are for?”
Cal just rolled her eyes.
He snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it! We all know there’s something fishy about how Rufus got his money. Maybe ‘The Lobster’ is a mob kingpin. Works out of Maine — Bangor, Rockport. Commands with a claw, traffics in tail.”
“Plato!” She glanced around, made sure no one had heard her husband’s lunatic ramblings. “The lobster’s for us, silly. Rufus had a hundred of them flown in fresh from Nova Scotia. It’s amazing. Each year the hospital staff appreciation dinner gets bigger and better.”
“And each year Andrew Cleeford gets closer to retirement.”
“This has nothing to do with hospital politics. Rufus is already on the board of directors.”
“Think about it, Cal. The chairmanship. You think that’s not the apple of his eye? The culmination of his career? He’s no spring chicken, you know.”
Cal squinted at her husband from beneath lowered eyebrows. They weren’t really as bushy as she thought. To Plato, they didn’t mar her prettiness at all. Except when she squinted. “Sometimes you can be so...
She was right. Plato knew he was being hard on the guy. After all, before the dinner, Thorndyke had publicly donated ten thousand dollars to the hospital’s drug rehabilitation center. Some DEA official had lectured about the drug menace, focusing on a Mexican product called “sleeper” that was hooking a lot of local kids. And Rufus’s seed money bore fruit through impromptu donations from his wealthy friends.
So Plato kept his mouth shut as he followed Cal around the Thorndyke grounds, chatting amiably with dozens of doctors, nurses, and other hospital staffers.
“Plato and Cal Marley,” he heard repeatedly, “an obstetrician and a pathologist. Plato brings them in, and Cal wheels them out.”
Ho, ho, ho.
