Duby's Doctor (9 page)

On Commodore Plaza, in Coconut Grove, a small
art gallery displayed – and often sold – Jean’s paintings and
sketches. Mitchell knew Stone had undoubtedly forced the gallery
owner to cooperate initially, but when Jean’s art began selling,
the owner was happy to be his exclusive representative.

Frank Stone was familiar with the owner of
the Barnacle Gallery because Frank had arrested her once upon a
time. That had been all the leverage Frank needed to get Jean’s
work into the gallery. The owner had started a new life in a new
city; she needed Frank’s continued silence about her mottled
past.

The arrangement had turned out to be
surprisingly profitable for the Barnacle. Stone had no further
communication with the gallery after his single conversation with
the owner. No further coercion had been necessary. In fact, since
that ominous conversation had taken place elsewhere, Stone had
never actually visited the Barnacle Gallery. Until this day.

On this day, he stood on the sidewalk outside
and looked through the Barnacle Gallery’s plate glass window at a
Jean Deaux original watercolor: “Girl With Rabbits.” Stone studied
the painting, marveling at the accuracy and beauty of the likeness.
Then he sauntered into the store.

The snobbish saleswoman inside was not the
owner, which suited him just fine. He was pleased to remain
anonymous while he made his purchase. He asked the saleswoman about
an artist named Jean Deaux. She led him to a section of the gallery
where a number of Jean’s works were featured.

“Yes, he is one of our newest discoveries,
and he is already quite popular,” the saleswoman intoned. “Such a
refreshing innocence in his work, don’t you think?”

Stone glanced over the selections on the
wall. He saw the same girl on many of the canvases, but none of
them were as imposing as the larger painting he had seen from the
sidewalk.

“How much for the one in the window?” he
asked.

The saleswoman quoted a figure that might
have shocked a lesser man, but Agent Stone did not react.

“Hmm,” said Stone, mentally calculating his
checkbook balance and Visa card credit limit. “How much without the
frame?”

The saleswoman looked at him as if he were a
cockroach in her soup. At the Barnacle Gallery, there were no price
tags and few vulgar negotiations. Price was not a consideration for
true collectors of fine art. Only an uneducated tourist or a common
lowlife would try to finagle a bargain, in front of God and
everybody, right there in the gallery.

And frames were not for sale at the Barnacle
Gallery, just the art. Collectors preferred to have their purchases
framed by their own framers in accord with their own interior
decorator’s specifications, so that the decor of the edifice
maintained its harmony of design.

The saleswoman refused to haggle with this
ignorant troll.

Sometime later, Frank Stone emerged from the
gallery with a scowl and a tubular package containing a carefully
rolled canvas. “Girl With Rabbits” had disappeared from the
gallery’s display window.

Weeks of hard work, since his graduation from
St. Luke’s Daycare, had transformed Jean’s room into the studio of
a full-time artist. Somewhere in there, a bed sank beneath a sea of
sketches and canvases. Jean would have to dig himself a place to
sleep later tonight, but until then, he stood near his south-facing
window and added careful brushstrokes to the painting on his
easel.

Downstairs, the front door slammed and
Mitchell called, “Mommy’s home!”

Jean heard mail dumped on a table, footsteps
crossing a tile floor, the refrigerator opening and closing, and
the pop-fizz of Mitchell opening a can of soda. Moments later,
Mitchell entered his studio carrying a diet soda and unbuttoning
her white lab coat. She commented on the watercolor on his
easel.

“Ah, that’s what I like to see: the working
artist turning out more inventory. What is it this time?”

“Boats. The gallery says all the tourists
want boats.” Jean continued to paint.

Mitchell studied the canvas. Something seemed
familiar. “Is that the marina at Dinner Key?”

“Dinner, breakfast, lunch, I don’t know. I
just thought of boats, and this is what came.”

“Hmm,” she said. “Oh, I talked to Hector. He
says he’ll help us build our booth.”

“Great!”

“Yeah,” said Mitchell and sipped at her soda.
“So, I’m going down to the library on Saturday to get the paperwork
finished. Arts Festival, here we come!”

“Dan wants to help, too.”

Mitchell stopped in mid-sip. “Dan
Kavanaugh?”

“
Oui
.”

“The guy who beat the stuffing out of you –
and vice versa – at the Daycare? That Dan Kavanaugh? Are you
nuts?”

“He’s okay. He’s in counseling.”

Mitchell had no response.

All she could think to do was drink her soda
and enjoy the scenery: the tight shorts made from cut-off jeans,
the sleeveless muscle shirt, and the muscles under it. Personally,
she liked the shaggy hair and the five o’clock shadow.
Professionally, she appreciated that the rebuilt left knee was
itself a work of art.

He painted, and she watched him, until the
light from the window began to fade. Then, while he cleaned his
equipment and brushes, she went downstairs to prepare dinner.

Saturday morning found Mitchell, true to her
word, parking her car at the Coconut Grove Public Library near the
broad lawn and palm trees of Peacock Park. A placard taped on the
library window advised of Arts Festival Applications, Room 23.

Mitchell stepped from her car and looked at
the library. Then she turned 180 degrees and looked across the park
to the Dinner Key Marina.

She shook her head, locked the car, and
walked toward the library entrance.

Halfway there, she reversed course and headed
for the marina instead, suppressing a mental picture of mechanical
ducks abruptly switching direction in a shooting gallery.

She walked along the marina seawall and
scanned the crowded anchorage until she saw what she had only half
expected to find: a sailboat moored many yards from shore. A
sailboat exactly like the one in Jean’s most recent painting. She
aimed her phone and snapped two pictures of the distant vessel.
Then she searched for a way to get out there.

The way turned out to be a marina employee,
putt-putting past the seawall in a Zodiac boat with an outboard
motor. Mitchell smiled and waved until she captured his attention
and influenced him to steer in her direction.

Flirtation as strategy was a new concept for
Dr. Mitchell Oberon, workaholic wallflower. As fate would have it,
she turned out to be a natural. Remembering every cheerleader,
aerobics instructor, and prom queen she had ever known, Mitchell
channeled them with all her might. She pulled the hairpins from her
chignon and let her hair down into a shoulder length pony tail.

“Need help?” the marina hand called as he
pulled his Zodiac close to the seawall at Mitchell’s feet.

“How did you know?” she teased, with just
enough giggle in her smile and wiggle in her hips. She bent forward
at the waist so that she could hear him and he could see a whole
lot of her. “If you hadn’t come along when you did, I don’t know
what I would’ve done!”

“What do you need, darlin’?” he drawled with
a mischievous wink. It was a quick wink. No sense wasting an
opportunity like this one by looking with only one eye.

“Well, first of all,” she simpered, implying
that he could fill subsequent needs later, “I have to get out to
that boat right over there.” She pointed toward the Do Bee 2,
moored many yards away. She could have pointed at the moon and it
wouldn’t have mattered. The man’s eyes were glued to her
scoop-necked top and all it was revealing at that moment. “Do you
know how I can get there? Is there, like, a water taxi thing or
something?”

“You could swim,” he said, unhelpfully, still
preoccupied with her cleavage.

“But, I didn’t bring a swimsuit,” she said,
pretending to be shocked. She stood up and cocked one hip while she
patted her foot and tapped her chin with a finger, thinking. She
gave him time to scan her from tapping toe to curvy hip to luscious
lips before she turned wide eyes upon him and asked, “Could you
take me?”

“What?” he said, entranced, but certain she
wasn’t making the offer he wished she was making.

“Could you give me a ride?” she crooned,
smiling innocently.

“What?” he said again. Surely, she wasn’t
saying what he hoped she was saying.

“Could you, like, take me out there with you,
in your boat?”

“Oh!” he said, returning to reality. “Sure, I
can get you out there in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

She squealed with delight, mentally cringing
at her impersonation of a living brain donor. “You are so
wonderful!” she gushed. “Thank you so much!”

“No problem,” he said, and offered her a
hand. “Let’s get you down here, and we’ll take off.”

Mitchell had never in her life shown so much
skin to someone who was not her mother. She forced herself to stay
in character, giving him a vacuous smile and plenty of leg and
midriff to view as he helped her from the seawall down to the
water, where the Zodiac bobbed.

In moments, they were putt-putting toward the
Do Bee 2.

They were nearly at the sailboat when the
marina hand seemed to recall the protocols of client security.
“Say, beautiful, how do I know you’re allowed to be on this boat? I
mean, you got any ID you can show me, like a driver’s license or
somethin’?”

“Allowed!” she laughed ingenuously. “Of
course I’m allowed, silly. It’s Daddy’s boat.”

The man looked puzzled. “This one right here?
The Do Bee 2? That’s your daddy’s boat?”

“Yep.”

“Huh,” he said. “I thought the guy that owned
this boat was a younger guy, you know – twenties, maybe. Not old
enough to be your dad.”

“Oh, you’ve probably seen my uncle – Daddy’s
youngest brother. He’s been using the boat as sort of, like, an
apartment, like.” She dropped to a stage whisper, “He’s going
through a divorce. She got all the money, y’know.”

“Ah,” said the marina hand. “Been there, done
that. Woulda got the tee shirt, but she took that, too.” He
chuckled at his own joke.

They drew closer to the Do Bee 2, and
Mitchell could see the smaller words below its name, indicating
that it was registered in Quebec, Canada.

Quebec. Where the
lingua franca
was
French. She became more and more convinced that this boat was
connected to Jean.

“Looks like you won’t need a ride back to
shore,” her pilot said, gesturing to a small rowboat tethered to
the rail of the sailboat. It had not been visible from the
seawall.

“Sorry,” she cooed. “I don’t know how to
drive one of those things. Can you, like, come back for me in a
little while? Please?”

He nodded and lent her a hand as she
scrambled awkwardly aboard the Do Bee 2. Then the man reached
beneath a seat in the Zodiac and produced an aerosol horn, which he
tossed to Mitchell.

“Two shorts and two longs when you’re ready,
and I’ll come back to pick you up,” the marina hand called to her,
already reversing away from the sailboat.

From behind Mitchell, a man’s voice boomed
from the sailboat, “It’s all right. I’ll give her a lift.”

Mitchell spun around, nearly tipping herself
into the water. She grabbed the nearest safety line and stared at
Frank Stone’s head protruding from the forward hatch of the
sailboat’s cabin.

Stone pointed to the rowboat bobbing at
rope’s end beside the sailboat. “You could never be a cop, Doctor.
Don’t you know a car in the driveway usually means somebody’s home?
Give the man back his horn.”

Mitchell turned and tossed the air horn back
into the Zodiac and cheerily waved the marina hand on his way.

Her cheer disappeared when she turned to face
Stone again.

For a moment, they simply stared at each
other. She leaned toward fury, while he seemed satisfied with dour
resignation to her presence.

“Well, come on inside,” Stone said. “There
might be some coffee in the galley, but I doubt it. Duby likes that
wimpy chai tea.”

His head disappeared into the cabin below,
and Mitchell picked her way across the cockpit deck to what seemed
to be the main cabin door.

Later, as they sat across the dinette table,
with mugs before them, Stone offered Mitchell a refill. She said
no. He got up and stepped to a teakettle resting on the galley’s
small, gimbaled stove.

“So, I get out here once every few weekends,
to be sure it’s all shipshape,” he said, continuing the
conversation they had been conducting. He held up the teakettle.
“Sure you don’t want some more?”

She shook her head.

Stone poured another cup for himself as if it
were his disagreeable duty to empty the pot. He set the empty
teapot in the sink and rejoined Mitchell at the table.

“So, this was his home. I never imagined him
living on a sailboat,” Mitchell said. She surveyed the furnishings
and the construction of the small, well-organized cabin. “Would it
be safe for him to come back here now? You said they’d be watching
it.”

“Why? Is he coming back here?” Stone looked
at her and reached a conclusion. “You think he remembers it.”

Mitchell reached into her pocket and produced
Jean’s Arts Festival registration form, with photos of several
paintings included. She folded the paper to display Jean’s painting
of the Do Bee 2, although, of course, the boat in the painting had
no legible name on its stern. She pushed the paper across the table
to Stone. He studied the picture and then the entire registration
form.

“Something in him remembers it,” she
said.