“You’re a good girl, Hazel. I want you for my nurse the next time I check in here.”
“You and a thousand others. The doctor asked me if you had requested anything.”
“The doctor is good to me in my old age. Now I’d like to make another request.”
She studied me carefully before answering. “What is it?”
“See who sent those roses.”
I couldn’t be sure but I think I disappointed her. She walked around the bed and over to the vase to glance at the little tag that had accompanied the flowers.
The tag read “Louise.” Thank you, baby, again.
The doctor arrived about half an hour later. When she came in her cheeks were still pink from the wintry air; her bedside manner gave me the impression that the visit was partly professional and partly personal. She made no attempt to disguise her delight in finding me looking so well.
“Well, hello,” she laughed. “How’s the slick sleuth this morning?”
“If that’s irony, it’s lost.”
“Chuck—” She pulled up a chair and sat down very close to the bed. Her forefinger traced a vague pattern on the blanket. “Chuck, what happened?”
“You don’t know?” I watched her face.
“Oh, I don’t mean this.” The forefinger pointed to the bandage on my head and the cast on my lower arm. “But what happened to you?”
I had to admit it, “I didn’t take good advice. When I finally realized what excellent advice it was, it was too late.”
“I found you, you know,” she said.
“No. I didn’t know, but I had guessed. I rather thought it would be you. Rather convenient, eh?” She either missed the point or pretended to.
“It most certainly was. Your car was perhaps half, or three-quarters of a mile ahead of mine. I saw them stop and toss something into the ditch. I have to admit to my curiosity, Chuck; I’m from Chicago, remember. The newspapers make you aware of such things. When I reached the spot I turned my spotlight on the something — it was you.”
“And then?”
“I got out of my car and ran to you. I tried to make you get up, but you were a dead weight. Your head was bleeding. I took your arm to help you up and you screamed. That made me suspect a fracture. I returned to my car, got my bag, and made an injection. In a few minutes you were peacefully asleep.”
How much of her story could be accepted at face value? How could I know someone else hadn’t helped her put me in her car, after she put me to sleep?
I said, “I must have been heavy.”
“I didn’t think I was ever going to get you into the car. It required a long time.”
“And my wrist is fractured?”
“Yes. You fell on it.”
“Tough luck. That’s my gun hand.”
She thought a moment. “I saw you writing with your right hand.”
I nodded. “I’m ambidextrous. I learned to use a gun with my left at a time when my right arm was in a sling. I’ve never changed.”
“You’re not going to use it for a while. Several weeks, anyway.”
“That’s what I’m thinking. Damned unfortunate it had to be my left I fell on.” I changed the subject back to something that interested me more, and watched for a reaction. “What were you doing on that road?”
There was no hesitation. “I was on my way back to town. I’d made a call on a patient. Lucky for you the woman lived on that same road.”
“Yeah, wasn’t it. I might have bled to death.”
She shook her head. “The blood was already beginning to congeal. You would have frozen to death. That gash on your head looked like the well-known blunt instrument.”
“A gun butt.”
Her eyes widened. She said nothing for several seconds but she was thinking of the advice she had given me not to go to Croyden, and obviously wishing I had heeded her. Then she saw the roses.
She didn’t get up and walk over to inspect them, not then. Instead, she asked, “Chuck, who is Eleanor?”
I frowned. “Eleanor?” Stalling for time. I still didn’t want to betray Eleanor, despite her dirty work.
“Yes, Eleanor. You called me Eleanor when I picked you up.”
“Oh, Eleanor is the... a girl I know.”
“Eleanor is the what?”
“Is the perfect type of American beauty.”
Annoyed, she arose from the chair and sauntered over to the vase of roses. She read the tag.
“That reminds me: there is some mail in your office from the lady. Shall I bring it out this afternoon?”
“I’d appreciate it.” So she was still hanging around my office. Dr. Saari stood there by the roses, absently. Her long fingers pressed a flower gently to her cheek.
“Chuck—” and she walked back to stand beside the bed, “are you going to be a good boy and stop playing with fire?”
“Who,” I asked, startled, “Louise?”
“No, silly. I’m speaking of this nasty business.”
“I don’t know,” I replied warily. “Sometimes I’m in the mood to forget the whole affair and settle down to raise chickens for a living. And then again, something like this happens and I get mad all over again.”
“And you are angry now?”
“Would you let anyone do this to you?”
“N...o.”
“Then I’m mad.”
“I see. Well, Chuck, I’ve warned you twice.”
Yes, she had. Once in my office, and again just now.
Dr. Saari fiddled around for some useless minutes and made ready to leave. I asked her to send in the nurse as she went by the desk. Her good-bye was ineffective.
Hazel bubbled in with the same old hospital smile and started for the closet without a word. I stopped her.
“Not that. I want to send a couple of telegrams. You phone them in for me.”
She searched in the drawers of the dresser for paper and waited. I dictated that wire to you, and a second one to Rothman. I told Rothman where I was, but that I was doing okay, and to keep his eye on Eleanor.
Hazel asked eagerly, “You’re the detective, aren’t you?”
“The detective?”
“Boone has only one. The girls have been talking about you. I’m sorry, Mr. Horne, but you’ll have to pay for these in advance. Hospital rules.”
I paid for them. And questioned her.
“How old are you, Hazel?”
“Mr. Home!”
“No, I mean it. Are you old enough to vote?”
“I certainly am. I voted in the last elections.”
“Have you heard of a man named Don Thompson?”
“Oh, yes! He’s handsome. I voted for him. I had to scratch my ballot, but I wanted to, for him.”
“That’s what I thought, but I wanted to make sure.” A lot of people in Boone County scratched their ballots and put Thompson into office. That’s the kind of a man he was; his personality and ability outweighed the opposite machine. “Will you phone him for me, Hazel?”
“I’d love to. What shall I say?”
“Tell him what you know about the circumstances of my being here. Tell him that I want to talk to him, this afternoon, if he can make it.”
She smiled in obvious pleasure and clacked out.
Rothman should have my message in an hour or less. In a matter of minutes if the wires were clear. I hoped they were. I hoped my telegram would reach him before Elizabeth Saari could reach someone else in Croyden.
I was plenty sore at Eleanor for the part she had played in putting me in the hospital, but not so sore and so callous as to sit idly by and see her murdered. Because I had made the mistake of calling her by name while lying in that ditch.
The State’s Attorney came in late yesterday afternoon, just as somebody’s radio across the corridor was about to drive me nuts with the ninth or tenth consecutive hillbilly program.
Donny Thompson stopped in the doorway in some surprise and checked me carefully from head to foot. Or what he could see of me above the covers. He held himself straight and tall, causing his suit to fit him as his tailor had intended. And then he casually closed the door behind him and pulled a chair close to the bed. When he sat down he kept his upright bearing. His expression wasn’t anything to make a patient happy.