Page 107 of Forever Dead

Connor checked the road ahead, then activated the turn signal as an intersection approached.

“You planned all this before calling us,” Selena said.

Blethan replied, “I prefer to have an answer ready before I make a call.”

Connor took the turn toward Eagleton, and Selena settled back as the route changed on the navigation screen.

*

Dr. Gerald Foss lived on the quieter edge of Eagleton in a two-story house set back from the road behind clipped hedges and a narrow strip of lawn.

The house was older than most of the surrounding homes but well maintained. The porch rails had been painted recently, and a few fallen leaves had collected along the path.

Connor parked beside a dark green sedan. Selena reached for her cane.

“Want an arm?” Connor asked.

“Once I’m up.”

Connor came around but waited while Selena brought her right leg out of the car and got her feet beneath her.

She planted the cane and stood. Only then did she take his offered arm.

Neither of them made a joke of it.

The front door opened before they reached the porch. Gerald Foss stood behind the screen.

Foss was several inches shorter than Connor, with a solid build, white hair and a narrow gray mustache. Wire-framed glasses rested on his nose. He wore a dark cardigan over an open-collared shirt.

“Sheriff Chase?” Foss asked.

“Yes.”

Foss opened the screen door. “And you must be Selena Raven.”

Selena paused. “Blethan told you?”

“No, I read the papers. You two are getting quite the reputation around the county. Please, come in.”

He stepped aside to let them through.

The hallway was tidy. A folded newspaper lay beside a stack of medical journals on the sitting-room table.

“Blethan says you worked at the same hospital,” Connor said.

“For a few years, yes.”

Connor sighed. “I can’t imagine him younger. What was he like back then?”

“Much as he is now. Argumentative, opinionated and intolerant of sloppy thinking.”

Selena smiled. “So, nothing changed.”

“Not a great deal,” Foss said.

Photographs covered part of the wall beyond the staircase. Most were clearly from Foss’s medical career. Hospital groups. Formal dinners. Conference photographs. A younger Foss standing beside men and women in white coats.

Near the end of the row was a photograph of Foss with two men in rowing jackets, holding a trophy between them. The caption beneath it identified an Eagleton masters regatta held the previous summer.