He gave me a nod that time.
“And my understanding is that her online business does even better than her storefront.”
“She’s mentioned that to me as well,” he granted, and I saw his posture relax, his shoulders lower, and the quarrelsome quality in his voice softened.
“Okay,” I replied, smiling at him. “So you were fine with everything but the paranormal investigations, then?”
His scowl was back in a second. “Call it what it is. They’re spirit hunters, and it’s absurd.”
“Absurd is harsh,” I found myself saying, defending Benji’s profession as well as Sian’s involvement, which surprised the hell out of Benji if his raised eyebrows were any indication.
“Mr. James,” Dr. Coburn said wearily, “do you know they carry around EMF detectors like they do on television?”
“Yessir, I do, and it’s Shaw, please.”
His face scrunched up. “It’s a bunch of crap. I’ve been on this planet for over seventy years now, Shaw, and I can promise you there’s no such things as ghosts!”
Benji groaned.
“Now, you have a temperature of ninety-nine degrees. Why was I called over for that?”
I explained that I’d dosed him with a horse pill, and he went about checking Benji over both gently and thoroughly, which told me that, even though he wanted the man out of his daughter’s life, he was professional enough and he cared enough to still do his job.
After a few minutes, he stood, staring down at Benji. “The back of your throat is a mess, no doubt from drainage; your nose is full of mucus, but your ears look good; your lungs are clear, and your heart sounds excellent. Have you been popping cold tablets all day?”
“For a few days now, yes.”
So he was hopped up on pseudoephedrine, which was ironic since he had helped to expose a would-be meth lab.
“Fine,” Dr. Coburn muttered, exhaling, “I’m fairly certain you’re at the tail end of an upper respiratory infection. At this point, you want to continue taking whatever you’ve been using, keep up with the ibuprofen until the fever breaks, and alternate with Tylenol every four to six hours. Eat, rest, and push fluids. That’s it.”
“I don’t have pneumonia?”
“As I said,” Dr. Coburn reiterated, “your chest is clear.”
“But shouldn’t I have an antibiotic?”
Dr. Coburn glowered at him. “As you very well know, antibiotics are rarely needed to treat upper respiratory infections, and since I highly doubt you have a bacterial infection, I’m going to go ahead and say no.”
“Yeah but––”
“Even though I don’t like you,” he clarified for Benji. “I took a sacred oath when I became a physician, and I would never knowingly put you in danger.”
Benji nodded. “I’m aware.”
“You vex me,” the doctor continued, scowling down at his patient. “Why in the world would you leave a successful psychiatric practice in Portland to move to the middle of nowhere to hunt ghosts?”
“I don’t hunt anything,” Benji explained. “I’m a facilitator. I help departed souls take the next step in their journey.”
Dr. Coburn not only scoffed but rolled his eyes, glancing at me before putting his stethoscope and other items back in his case, but not before putting each in a sealed bag. Nice to know that everything had to be sterilized before his next patient.
I saw the doctor to the door, thanked him profusely since Benji’s manners seemed to have deserted him, and told him to bill me and gave him one of my business cards with the email address for the office.
“No, son,” he assured me, “this is at my daughter’s request so––”
“Your time, sir,” I reminded him. “That’s valuable, so please.”
His smile was warm. “I appreciate you, thank you.”
He was gone moments later.
“You know, as a psychiatrist I’m also a medical doctor, so I could have told you there was nothing wrong with me.”
“Then why were you grilling him about you having pneumonia?”
“Because if I didn’t question his conclusions, we’d never talk at all.”
“Maybe baiting him isn’t the answer.”
He gave me the head waggle in a sort of reluctant agreement.
“Sian needs to talk to her father, though, so he can stop thinking you’re ruining his daughter’s life.”
“Agreed,” he grumbled, and I noted how disgruntled he appeared.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing,” he sighed, “but since I’m not dying, could you please come back and sit with me after you get done making sure the door is locked?”
I was, in fact, not happy with how flimsy everything in the house felt. The locks didn’t look like they could keep out a stiff breeze. “I think you need to go to bed after you take some more drugs,” I resolved, testing his deadbolt.
“I’ll take the drugs and rest if you stay in the room with me.”
Like it was a negotiation. “You need to rest so you can be clear-headed enough to help me figure out who––”
“Don’t you want to hear the rest of the story about why I left my practice?”