Intimately Dead by Stuart Friedman

by Monte Herridge

  Mammoth Detective, May, 1943

  Nurses usually save lives, this one did the opposite!

  S MY train came around a curve I

  He took my bag, caught my arm

  saw Danny Harrison pacing the with his other hand and propelled me A platform of the funny little wooden toward a horse and cutter. He was new, all railway station. As we came closer I could right. Danny looked like a particularly see he had on the outlandish old fur coat bouncy Santa Claus, and his eyes danced he’d worn in college. He came running

  with life like sunlight on swift water.

  toward us, scanning the coaches till he

  “You know how glad I am,” I told

  spotted me. Then he whirled like a shaggy him as we got settled.

  pup, came romping alongside through the

  “Marriage,” he said, giving me an

  snow, waving and yelling.

  impish side glance as he reached for the

  “Bill, old boy. Am I glad to see

  snow banked reins. “Are you ready to say you,” he cried, yanking off a fur mitten and that you were a very bad old

  beginning to pump my hand the moment I

  grandmamma?”

  was off the train. “Good old Bill.”

  “Somebody had to give you bad

  “Easy on that ‘old’ stuff,” I advice. Who had a better right than your laughed. “How are you, Danny?”

  lawyer?”

  “New, Bill. Brand new. And do I

  I couldn’t help remembering the

  like it!”

  last time I had seen him, as he joggled the

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  horse into motion, and our cutter moved off the clean white pattern of the quiet

  in a pleasant glide through the crisp snow.

  countryside. A police dog bounded happily He had just come out of the hospital, toward us, falling into step with Danny officially from a cure for a nervous after we turned the horse over to a hired breakdown. Actually it had been caused by man. I could sense Danny’s pride as Gloria too much money and no parental control

  peered from behind frilly curtains, then from the time he’d been fifteen. In four opened the door wide.

  years Danny Harrison had been taken for

  “Shake yourself, dear,” she

  nearly a quarter million in breach of admonished Danny. Then she turned to me promise settlements.

  as I started brushing the collar of snow Of course he was badly from my overcoat.

  disillusioned with all women—but—he had

  “Hello, Bill. I’m very glad to see

  fallen in love with his nurse. He had you.”

  assured me for a solid hour in my

  She was different, softer somehow

  apartment one night that he had finally in a simple pink housedress. I’d been

  found the pot of gold. True enough he had wrong, I decided. She’d only needed a

  thought that before. However, this time—

  normal life. Anyhow, she’d forgiven me, And so on.

  knowing I’d tried to stop the marriage. The Later I had met the girl, Gloria. I’m

  least I could do was be a sport.

  not mystic, or psychic, but there was

  “You’re a delightful specimen for a

  something about that girl I didn’t like. I man coming in out of the snow, Gloria.

  couldn’t figure it at first. Then I decided The very essence of warmth and wife-what it was. It happens to some nurses. It hood, and—and fried chicken?” I finished, comes from seeing so much of the ugliness sniffing hopefully.

  of people at their worst. It had hit Gloria

  “Danny said you were a glutton for

  hard. Instantly I knew she detested all it. He was all for killing half a dozen fryers, mankind. It’s not a pretty thing in a young if you can imagine it. But, knowing the woman.

  Boy Tempest, you can imagine it, all

  I tried to talk Danny out of the

  right,” she said, looking fondly at him as marriage. But Gloria had had months to get we came inside.

  her blows in. I finally gave up. Actually I I watched them as Danny kissed

  didn’t have anything concrete against her, then held her a moment, as though she Gloria. But I knew I would have preferred were very precious. I was not only wrong to deal with any of the other smart little about Gloria, I decided. I was just a little numbers who’d got Danny tangled up envious. And then, five minutes later, it before. Because Gloria was more than a

  happened.

  smart little schemer.

  Gloria had trundled us into the

  Now, looking at Danny, a living room, and the pair of them waited completely happy man, I was on the point for me to be properly impressed. It was a of admitting I had let my imagination run long, intimately low-ceilinged room with away with me.

  fur rugs on the floors, and a pleasant

  assortment of really comfortable furniture.

  IT WAS nearly dark as we turned into the The masterpiece, though, was an immense lane. Thick flakes of snow fell steadily, and fireplace, copied right out of Dickens. It the lighted house made a pleasant design in was cut in a deep semicircle. Around the

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  3

  semicircle were stone benches, extending He came over and looked down at

  all the way back around the fire itself.

  me.

  “This is wonderful,” I exclaimed.

  “You say that—well, sort of

  “And if it’s somebody’s idea of Heaven, disapprovingly. Can’t you see, Bill? Now I’m through with sin.”

  that you’ve got to know her better? I don’t Danny and I scooted inside the big

  want her to have any trouble—just in case stone fireplace, took seats at the extreme something should happen to me. You know back, and sat lazily staring into the fire. In what that swarm of relatives would do to a moment Gloria came back with a pair of her in court.”

  pewter mugs filled with steaming toddy.

  I didn’t say anything. This was

  Danny took a draught, set his down, and what she’d been waiting for. Without a

  began poking earnestly at the fire.

  will, she might be held down to a third of Then I turned to Gloria. She was

  his estate, if he died. He’d had so many facing me, in a position where Danny affairs, and this marriage was only a few couldn’t see her. Waves of firelight made months old. She didn’t want anything

  her face dance in color and shadow. I’ll happening to Danny without a foolproof

  never forget that moment. I lifted my toddy will.

  in a sort of salute, smiling at her. Her face

  “You’re a young man, Danny.

  was set in an expression that suddenly There’s no big rush.”

  froze me. I had never seen such bloodless

  “Sure, but—” he said. He made a

  hate. Her eyes bored into me, cold and

  vague motion with his pipe. “It’s a funny grim. Then slowly, boldly, her thin mouth situation. I know she feels it, Bill. I want to smiled. Smiled a flat, dead smile! For a make this gesture, and prove that I don’t moment she was not a woman at all, but

  mistrust her. She’s mentioned it—”

  some weird, unreal thing from out of the

  “Your will? She’s mentioned that?”

  flames. She looked ageless and weird in I asked incredulously.

  that strange light.

  “No,” he said hastily. “Just about—

  The look lasted no more than a oh, about maybe there was some doubt in secon
d, and then she left us. I drank my my mind as to why she’d married me—”

  toddy, and tried to forget it, but she left me I understood. Of course she’d been

  with cold horror. It had been like the slash too smart to talk about a will. But she’d of a knife, tearing away the curtain of this accomplished the same thing more subtly. I sham hospitality, and showing me the grim watched Danny.

  machinations of a scheming mind. I hadn’t

  “You don’t have to make apologies

  been wrong about Gloria!

  for wanting to protect your wife,” I said.

  “Why are you doing it?”

  LATER, after dinner, Danny and I went

  “I’m not,” he said. “Bill, you’ve got

  into the library. We filled our pipes from to do it my way. We’ll remember all the his humidor, and I stretched in a big leather relatives with a few thousand apiece, if reading-chair, my feet on an ottoman. He they don’t contest. You know how. Listen, began to pace, and I watched him I never was happy before. I want to be with speculatively, for a few seconds.

  her. I don’t want anything to come between

  “Come to it, Danny,” I said finally.

  us,” he said, tensely. “You know what

  “You want to change the will. You don’t would happen to me if I were back

  want to wait the year as I suggested.”

  single—”

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  4

  “All right, Danny. You’re the silent. Then it came again, louder this time.

  boss,” I said. So she had threatened him.

  It was the howl of a dog. And it was inside Deftly of course. But threatened, the house, just down the hall.

  nevertheless, after she’d made him

  The big police dog, I thought. I

  dependent on her emotionally. She knew

  wondered if he were having a bad dream.

  how desperate he was for a stable life. She The sound wavered out, then rose again, knew he’d do anything to prevent mournfully.

  shattering his life all over again.

  Suddenly with a shock that set my

  Finally it was done, and he brought

  whole body rigid I remembered. A dog

  her into the library. If I had been uneasy howls at death. And Danny’s dog was

  before, I was really frightened now. For howling. Someone was dead in this house.

  Danny. She sat on the arm of his chair as I sprang from bed, ran out into the

  he read the will to her. She had her hand hall to Danny’s door. I began to pound on tucked around his neck, and long fingers it. There was no answer. I waited a few caressed his cheek, as she looked directly at seconds, my whole body trembling with

  me. Her lips were set in that same dead cold and fear. I banged the door again, my smile, and her eyes like steel. She was knocks echoing and dying dully in the far telling me as Danny read that will, that she recesses of the quiet house. Then the dog had won her game. It hadn’t been any little raised his head again, let out a loud wail.

  breach of promise business, or divorce For an instant I had a terrified feeling that settlement that she was after. She was only I was alive. I and this dog. That we playing the big game.

  were alone in a house of death. Then I

  whirled suddenly as I thought I heard the Gloria showed me to my bedroom on the

  step of someone creeping along the dark second floor, while Danny fixed the hall. I was imagining.

  furnace for the night. The big police dog Gloria’s voice cut out impatiently.

  was curled in the hallway before Danny’s

  “Who is it?”

  door. I remembered he’d told me the dog

  “Something’s wrong. Open up.”

  always slept there, on guard.

  There was the sound of her feet

  Gloria paused in the doorway of my

  running, then the scraping of the chain lock room, and laughed softly.

  as she released it. She stood staring at me

  “You don’t like me, do you?”

  blankly. She had on a filmy black

  “What do you think?”

  nightgown, and she put a hand quickly

  “I think it’s just too damn bad,” she

  across her breast as she became conscious said. “Just too damn bad.”

  of me. She turned back to the bed, caught The snow had stopped when I piled

  up a blue dirndl robe, then slipped bare feet into the big feather bed. I lay awake a long into fur-lined slippers.

  time.

  “What’s the meaning of this?”

  I thought at first it was the cold that I stared vacantly past her to the bed

  had waked me, because some of my covers she’d left.

  had slipped to the floor. But in a moment I

  “Where is he?” I said coldly.

  knew it wasn’t. Suddenly there rose the The dog had slipped past, walked

  sound of a low whine.

  stiff-legged to an open door along the right I raised my head a little from the

  wall. He stood motionless, head lowered, pillow, listened intently. The house was the hair on his cockles stiff. I followed

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  5

  Gloria’s run to the door. She switched light

  “I don’t know,” she said hollowly,

  onto the white interior of the bathroom, fell staring at the tiny flame spurts rising back shrieking suddenly. I went inside, around the fresh log. “Maybe it came back stood rooted in fascinated horror. Danny on him.”

  was hanging.

  “What?” the sheriff asked, casually,

  his eyes appraising her.

  I DIDN’T realize till I’d admitted the

  “Danny was being treated for

  sheriff and coroner that I was barefoot, in nervous breakdown when we met, you

  pajamas. My flesh was icy.

  know. He had a very queer personality.

  Gloria barely glanced up from the

  But—but—” she said, her voice muffled. “I bed where she sat, shoulders slumped, as had thought he was so happy. So happy.

  we walked in. I watched from the opening But you never can be sure with mental

  as the officers went about their work. My sickness.”

  mind was milling feverishly with the

  I felt the anger streaming through

  problem. I wouldn’t believe Danny had me.

  killed himself.

  “Damn you!” I cried. “Danny

  The sheriff stood on the ledge of the

  wasn’t crazy!”

  bathtub for several minutes, scrutinizing The sheriff let his gaze travel

  the rope, his eyes squinting. Then he slowly to me.

  stepped to the floor, backed toward where I

  “Who are you?”

  was standing for a better view of the

  “His lawyer. I came up here for the

  rigging. The rope had been knotted around specific purpose of changing his will so the drain pipe under the wash basin. she’ll benefit from his death by about a Apparently Danny had then thrown the million dollars. I’ve known him since noose end up over the shower curtain bar, college. He was always wild. But he wasn’t which was embedded solidly in tile walls at crazy. He didn’t commit suicide.”

  both ends of the tub. He’d stepped up on

  “No?”

  the edge of the tub, got into the noose, then

  “I’ll stake my life,” I cried, glaring

  stepped off. His feet dangled outside the at her. “She’s a little woman, but she was a tub, six inches above the floor.

  nurse. She had to be strong enough to

  The sheriff, a tall, somber-eyed handle people. She could have strangled man, nodded to the coroner and his men, him in his sleep, dragged his body in

  turned to me.

  there—”

  “Come on ou
t of the way. We’ll all

  “I inspected the rope,” the sheriff

  go down and let the doc work.”

  said. “His body dropped into the noose. It I stopped for robe and slippers, then

  wasn’t pulled up there by passing the rope joined him and Gloria in the front room over the shower bar, and tugging

  downstairs. The sheriff was carrying a downward. A strong woman could have small log in one big hand. He threw it in done that.”

  the orange embers, stood punching it a

  “You inspected the rope?” I asked

  moment before speaking. Then he looked

  dumbly, the air going out of me. “And it at Gloria, hunched on a seat inside the shows he dropped—”

  fireplace.

  “He hates me, sheriff,” Gloria said,

  “Why did he kill himself, Mrs. looking up at him, making her eyes wide.

  Harrison?”

  “He tried to stop our marriage.”

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  6

  “Is that so?” he returned politely.

  look at Danny once again. I went into the

  “Well, it appears strange to me that this bedroom where he lay covered. I inspected strange man suddenly appears, and your

  it minutely, in the hopeless hope—then I husband suddenly kills himself. There is a saw something.

  possibility that the two of you are in love, I set my bag down abruptly, strode

  and got rid of him. Between you, you could quickly to the rug section between bed and have lifted him into that noose.”

  bathroom. I got to my knees. Yes! The nap

  “Love!”

  I

  jeered.