Act of Murder by Bishop John

Author:Bishop, John
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mantid Press
Published: 2019-08-16T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 32

J. J.

Friday, March 25, 1994

I made it thorough rounds on Friday morning, not that I didn’t on other mornings during the week. Patients who were required to stay in the hospital over the weekend, though, always acted a little clingy and resentful on Friday, saying things like they hoped I would have a nice weekend. Fortunately, I could afford the luxury of hiring a resident or a fellow to see patients on Saturday and Sunday, a benefit of being associated with the hospital teaching program.

Of course, when I had been in training, it had been the custom for the house staff to perform such services for free. Maybe the difference was that during the ’70s, our alternative was to be in Southeast Asia. Personally, I had preferred making rounds for the staff orthopedic surgeons and taking their calls on the weekend to playing honkytonk piano in a MASH unit. The thought of playing Elmore James’s “Stormy Monday” under a tent surrounded by machine-gun fire had never appealed to me.

I did three small cases, all outpatients, and went to the office. I dictated the “have to do today” stack of charts, opened my mail, and bid adieu to Fran and Rae.

Mary Louise had left me a note, saying she had a luncheon and two meetings to follow, and that I should relax and enjoy my afternoon off. So I constructed a pastrami sandwich on toasted white bread with all the trimmings, selected an ice-cold beer, sat in the kitchen, watched HBO, and enjoyed myself.

I meandered into the backyard after lunch, inspected our gardening handiwork, and plopped into my rocking chair like a man twice my age. I concentrated on Lawrence Sanders’s newest novel about the continuing adventures of Archy McNally. I flipped to the back cover periodically, noting to myself that his cat must like him a lot better than mine liked me. Cat would never pose for a photograph like that. Although, admittedly, his cat didn’t look that thrilled to be held next to Mr. Sanders’s face for the picture that adorned all of Sanders’s recent novels.

I pondered the arrival of J. J. and thought about him as a little boy transitioning to an adult. He was too smart for his own good. J. J. was now twenty and had grown up in the era of complicated video games and computer wizardry. We bought his first computer, an early Apple model, when he was in the second grade. Although J. J. did fairly well in school, he was no straight-A student. He preferred to spend his time playing intricate games on his computer or on his television conversion that served as a monitor for his video games. I tried to play his games with him, but by age ten, he was unbeatable.

I will never forget one particular Sunday afternoon when he was twelve. I was working in my study, paying some bills and leafing through correspondence. I had an unfortunate habit of forgetting to record checks in the check

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