The Doctor Digs a Grave Read Online Free PDF Page A

windows in trolley cars). Rafferty, barely more than a rookie himself, had threatened him and the others with arrest on charges of assault and battery. The lean, dark policeman (he could have been a stand-in for a young Gregory Peck) had even had the temerity to accuse Fenimore of being the instigator. But the silver-tongued medical student had managed to convince him that no harm had been done. Not only did Rafferty let them go, he agreed to meet Fenimore later, when he was off duty, for a few beers at The Raven, a shabby dive with pretensions to having once served the famous author, Edgar Allan Poe. It had been their favorite haunt ever since.
    â€œNow let’s get down to the important business.” Rafferty tipped back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his head. He still looked like a movie star, albeit an aging one. His black hair had some gray in it, and there was the slightest hint of a bulge at his waist—even though, Fenimore knew, he worked out regularly—but his eyes were the same deep blue, and his gaze was, if anything, sharper and more penetrating. “Could the condition revealed in the coroner’s report cause sudden death many years after the operation?”
    Fenimore pondered. “It’s a definite possibility. You see,” he pointed to the septal wall in the model, “this area where the surgical repair took place is also where the electrical conductor of the heart is located. When this conductor is disturbed by
surgery, it may not conduct beats properly. And more important, years after the surgery it might cause ventricular arrhythmias that could result in ventricular fibrillation and syncope—”
    â€œWhoa!” Rafferty held up his hand. “You’re beginning to sound like that pathologist. Back up and give me those last three again.”
    â€œSorry.” He took Rafferty’s pencil and wrote down the three technical words. “‘Arrhythmia’ is any disturbance in the rhythm of the heartbeat: ‘Fibrillation’ is when the heart muscle stops contracting and merely quivers, making ineffectual wormlike motions, and the blood doesn’t get pumped around: And ‘syncope’ is fainting due to lack of blood getting to the brain.”
    â€œAnd all these developments are bad?”
    â€œVery.” He nodded.
    Rafferty was thoughtful. “If someone knew this woman’s medical history, could any of these disturbances be artificially induced, by, say, the introduction of a drug?”
    Fenimore looked up. “You think her death was unnatural?”
    â€œHer burial sure was.”
    â€œNot for a Native American.”
    â€œCome on, Doc. How many Native Americans bury their friends and relatives in vacant lots?”
    â€œThat ‘vacant lot’ happens to be a sacred Lenape burial ground. But you have a point. It’s been neglected and it’s unprotected. A Lenape would not be likely to use it, unless …”
    â€œUnless?”
    â€œUnless they wanted the body to be found.”
    Rafferty pondered this, drumming his fingers on the desk. Then he said, “Another thing. If this was a traditional Lenape burial, why didn’t the family lay her out in something more appropriate—some kind of ceremonial dress? She was wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and sandals.”
    â€œTrue. But not all Lenapes own ceremonial garments. The
younger ones may have lost or discarded them, the way we might give our grandmother’s wedding dress to a thrift shop or rummage sale.”
    â€œYours, maybe. If I did that, my grandma would come down and haunt me ’til I bought it back.” Rafferty had been pacing the office; now he turned on Fenimore. “And if this was a simple family burial, how do you account for someone bashing you on the head? Is that a quaint Lenape family custom too?”
    â€œTotally unrelated. Some mugger—”
    â€œWho left a wallet behind with two hundred