Book One, Page Fourteen. Obituary.
Things finally slowed down for Jerry at one-thirty in the afternoon. Two more patients were coming in for minor matters, which made anything more than a short lunch impossible. He walked over to the Taj Mahal, barely making it before the buffet closed. While he ate a plate of lentils and chicken saagwala, he scanned through the newspaper. Its pages were filled with new developments on old developments, matters he either didn't care about or thought were so outrageous that reading more about them would only make him mad.
Then a photograph caught his eye. It was of an attractive woman who seemed familiar. When he looked more closely, he found it was an old picture of Lacey Roquette Lancaster, in a short article about her death. She was only sixty-seven when she died. She seemed much older to Jerry. She was a widow, and survived by three daughters, of which Winifred was the youngest. And by her brother Robert Roquette--the old pharmacist who owned the drugstore Jerry wanted to buy.
"Yes!" Jerry said to himself, but audibly. He would go to the services! He'd meet Winifred Lancaster there, and probably Mr. Roquette. And he could talk to them, and. . .
The callousness of it made Jerry’s conscience revolt. But still. Mrs. Lancaster was a patient, wasn’t she? He had put the cat she was trying to bury into a coffin for her. Nobody would think it odd for him to be there. Would they? He'd have to soft-peddle the restaurant connection, but the contact would be enough. But what if they're all crying over their loss?
Jerry phoned Julie to run this by her. He hung up before she answered. He knew she’d not only disapprove, but be ashamed of him for even harboring such a thought.
The phone squirmed and tootled. "Did you just call me?" Julie's voice said.
"Yes!" Jerry said, caught off balance. "I wanted to ask you. . . whether you want to go out to dinner tonight. I, uh, want to talk with Ralph Brennan about what I need to do to get a restaurant open."
"I don't know, Jerry," Julie said. "I’d have to go home sooner than I was planning, and anyway I don't want to go out to some expensive place to listen to you talk with Ralph Brennan about stoves and stuff. Why don't you just go to lunch there without me?"
"Okay," Jerry said. This got him off two hooks. Although he wanted to talk with someone he knew in the restaurant business, he didn't know what he'd ask. Anyway, he was still stuffed with Indian food.
"Did you see the notice in the paper about Mrs. Lancaster?" Julie asked. "I think you really ought to go to the funeral. It's tomorrow at Lake Lawn at 10 o'clock. It's not that far from the office, and you probably don't know any of those people and won't have to stay very long."
I love you, he thought. “Really?” he said. “I guess you’re right. What time is the funeral?”
