I said to Frisbie: “Aren’t there any scars or marks...?”
Then I remembered. Abner and Abigail Welch had had no use for doctors and made no secret of it. Why, once when Julie was a kid she’d taken a terrible spill out of a black-cherry tree behind the house and banged her head on a sawhorse, and folks had talked a lot because Abner wouldn’t send for Frisbie. Then Julie got well and Abner was awful cocky over it and more bitter about doctors than ever. When the girls grew up they were healthy as tigers and never needed Frisbie.
I was stumped. It was embarrassing as all hell, but until the one on the sofa came to...
“Didn’t I see Dr. Perkins on the porch?”
I woke up with a start. My cheeks got hot when I realized how I’d jumped.
Doc Rennie was behind me, shoulders hunched up by the crutches. His lips were pale and there was no mockery in the question or in his hard blue eyes and freckled face.
“What the hell would a dentist—” I began. Then my cheeks got hotter. Of course. The Welch girls had been to Perkins.
Doc Rennie didn’t answer. He wasn’t trying to show me up before Frisbie — just helping to get things started.
I said to a cluster of heads at one of the kitchen windows, “Get Dr. Perkins, will you?” and heard the call go around the house.
Perkins popped in at the back door. He’s a round-bellied, thin-haired, pompous little guy who sings bass in the Congregational church. He stole one look at the mess on the hearth and then kept his eyes on me.
“Doc,” I said, “you’ve worked on these girls’ teeth. Now which one is...”
Perkins was getting whiter with every word.
Doc Rennie pushed me gently aside and cut in, smooth: “The sheriff wants you to examine the teeth of the young lady in the front room, Doctor, and tell us which one she is.”
Perkins almost fainted with relief. I could have booted myself out the door for being so dumb. I was so mad at myself that I nearly tipped Doc Rennie over as I stamped out through the diningroom. I saw a smile flicker across the corners of his mouth, but his face told me that his ankle was aching like fury. I made a mental note to apologize later.
Ma Thoroughgood moved aside to let Perkins get at the girl on the sofa.
The muttering of the crowd outside got quieter instead of louder. I didn’t like it. It wasn’t just gabble-gabble-gabble. The men were talking deeper than usual, and lower, and over it all was the hiss of whispering women. I learned something about crowds when the town got down on me about those arson cases. This gang knew something, or suspected something, and they were heating up.
Perkins was thumbing the girl’s mouth open now.
Through the windows I caught snatches... “Jumped off the porch and ran”... “No kiddin’?”... “Ma Thoroughgood says he”... “The most awful sight I ever saw in my life.”
Then one heavy voice chilled me.
“Well,” it said, and it was ugly, “if it’s Johanna Welch in that kitchen we’ll know who done it.”
And a lower voice said, real easy: “Yeah, and I think we’ll know what to do.”
Dave nudged me. He heard this, too. He tried to get Doc Rennie to sit down, but the Doc stayed beside me.
Perkins asked for my flashlight. Under cover of showing him how the switch worked, I whispered something. His eyebrows climbed. I scowled and he nodded.
Perkins handed the light to Ma Thoroughgood, standing over the sofa like a sharp-nosed old harpy. I showed her how it worked. The girl on the sofa moaned and twisted a little as Perkins forced her mouth open in the yellow light beam.
Doc Rennie’s shoulder brushed mine.
“Look at Garner and Fillmore.” He barely breathed the words. My glance slid from Fillmore, still in the chair, to my nephew.
If I live nine thousand years I’ll never forget those faces. Their eyes were on Perkins and what he was doing, and they looked — yes, they looked like two murderers when the foreman of the jury stands up to announce the verdict: Fillmore, smallish, nervous, tense as a violin string, his black eyes saucer-wide behind the thick lenses of his spectacles; my nephew’s handsome, dumb, brown face ridden with a fear that you could see came right up from his bowels.
Perkins got up, wiping his thumb on his trousers. Outside, the chatter stopped so suddenly that the silence was like a smack in the face. Fillmore bounced to his feet, shaking all over.
The heavy voice boomed in from the darkness: “Come on, Perkins, which one is it in the kitchen?”
So they’d understood why Perkins was doing what he had done. I’d hoped they wouldn’t.
Chapter Two
Case History
The tubby little dentist bit his lip. Popularity’s an important thing in a town as small as Essexville.
I caught his glance and held it. I heard Doc Rennie, still beside me, draw a long breath. Doc Rennie’s a psychiatrist. He was a brain surgeon once, but he’s a psychiatrist now. He hadn’t missed one tick of the feeling in the folks outside. On the other side, Dave stepped up, fronting the windows with me.
The three of us must’ve loomed pretty solid there, and besides, I was the law. I drilled Perkins with a look hard as a diamond drill.
Perkins came to me, sweat pearls starting along his forehead. I bent my head. He whispered one word in my ear, repeated it to make sure I heard.
“Thanks,” I said, in a normal tone. “Now you and Mrs. Thoroughgood take” — here I was mean enough to hesitate a second, for the crowd’s benefit — “take Miss Welch upstairs and look after her. You go with ’em, Ben.” Old Ben Thoroughgood doddered up and lent a hand. Dave started to help, but changed his mind.
When the crowd saw the girl being carried out, the rustling and chatter began again and another voice came through the screen.
This one said: “Won’t do you no good to cover up for that nephew o’yourn, Ed McKay. We know about him and Johanna Welch.”
I recognized that voice. It was Sam Chronister, that mean little devil I’d had to stick in a cell during the arson cases. And I knew now who the heavy voice was: Tom Hogan, a loud-mouth sea-lawyer who worked in Fillmore’s press room. Chronister had always wanted my job, and I’d heard he’d promised Hogan the deputy’s badge if he ever got it.
A hand pulled my sleeve. Fillmore’s usually a fiery little guy, but tonight he was burnt out. I could hardly hear him. “For God’s sake, Ed, which one is it?” His eyes kept wavering toward Dan Garner.
Feet rumbled along the porch. They were getting ready to come in. Dave started for the door, thunderclouds in his face. Doc Rennie caught his arm.
Hi Fillmore said: “Julie Welch accepted me tonight. You’ve got to tell me which one—”
I made for the front hall. Tom Hogan had his foot inside the screen door. He drew it back when he saw the look on my face. They gave me room when I stepped out on the sill. In the light from the hall I could distinguish most of the faces. With a few exceptions they were substantial people like the Welches and Thoroughgoods.
I cooled off a little. I couldn’t really blame them for being sore and excited — not after they’d had a look in at that kitchen window. And I know my town well enough to know that every man, woman, and child of them had.
“Well, what about it?” blustered Hogan. “We’re taxpayers here. We got a right to know.”
For a burning second there were just the two of us there. Hogan felt it and took another step back.
A woman piped: “Get your big dirty foot off my white shoes, Tom Hogan.”
That saved it. A chuckle got away from Tiny Hinkle. Two or three kids giggled, and a man snickered. Hogan flushed. Sam Chronister pushed his way through to Hogan’s side, but I ignored them. I spoke to the solider element, which was mad, but not beyond reasoning with.