by Ted Wood
“I'm cut, that's all, doctor. But I need your help.”
“Yeah, well lie down and you'll get it,” he said, gently easing me back down. He held out one hand to the nurse and she slapped a pair of scissors into them, without waiting for instruction. He cut the bandage off and peeled back the dressing off my chest. “Extensive but not dangerous if we get you a tetanus shot,” he said. “What happened?”
I looked at each of them in turn. “Somebody firebombed the house.”
Frazer frowned. He looked more tired than I had ever seen him. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. My dog woke me up and I saw the fire spreading out across the rug and smelled gasoline. No doubt about it. They'll probably find the bottle in the morning when the fire's out. Only I have a feeling nobody on the police department will think to look for it.”
“What you're saying sounds a little dramatic,” he said. I opened my mouth to argue, but he held up one hand. “No, hear me out,” he said, “or it would do, normally.”
“These aren't normal times in Elliot,” I said softly, containing my anger. I needed his help. I had thought from the talk we'd had earlier that I could count on it.
“I know,” he said wearily. “Tell me, were you going to get some help in your plan?”
I hesitated and he said, “Okay, let me answer it for you. A man called Wilcox was in on this. Wasn't he?”
“Was?” I looked at him, noticing for the first time that he had a smudge of soot on the edge of his hospital-green jacket. “Why do you say ‘was'?”
“I'm afraid you're not the only one who's had a fire tonight. I've just finished giving first aid to another guy, a Mr. Wilcox from the old town.”
TWENTY-THREE
“You say first aid. How badly hurt is he?” I rolled my legs off the gurney and went to stand, but he pushed me back.
“He'll make it, but not by a hell of a lot. He's got bad burns over his hands and his legs. He wrapped a blanket around his head so his face is safe, but he's going to need proper treatment in Toronto before he's back in shape. It's going to be months before he's anything like normal. Another couple of minutes in that fire and he would have been finished.”
I swore under my breath. “That's because he's working with me. I know it. I went to see him last night. Somebody had driven into the old town as I left. They must have seen I was visiting him, realized I was probably going to ask him for help, and tried to kill him as well as me.”
“Well they didn't make it,” Frazer said. “Only he's a lot older than you are and he didn't react as quickly as you did. He got burned badly.”
I put my own problems out of my mind. “Can you get him to the hospital in Toronto?”
“He'll go out by air ambulance tomorrow morning. The guys here will take him to Olympia and from there he'll be flown to the burns unit at Wellesley.” Frazer looked at Fred. “I'm afraid your husband's right, Mrs. Bennett. Somebody is seriously trying to kill him, and that puts you in danger as well.” He scratched his forehead gently with the middle finger of his left hand. It looked studied, a gesture he would use when he had to break bad news to a patient.
“I want them all to think I'm dead,” I said. “That way Fred will be safe. It's just for a few hours. It will put whoever threw that firebomb completely off guard. Will you go along with it for me?”
Frazer looked at me doubtfully, then at Freda. She spoke first, slipping down from her stool and coming over to me. “Isn't it time to quit, Reid? Can't you call in the OPP? You're not expected to take that kind of risk.”
“I've thought about it. If I do that they won't be here before morning and in the meantime neither one of us is safe.” I reached out and squeezed her shoulder. She smiled crookedly.
Frazer persisted. “But that's what has to be done, surely. You call the OPP and wait here until they arrive.”
It was as if he and Fred were ganging up on me. I didn't like that, but at the same time Fred in particular was entitled to know exactly what my reasons were. “I believe that the gold shipment is going to be lifted in the morning. Whoever is planning to do it knows that I intend to stop it. That's why they tried to cancel me out tonight.”
Frazer and my wife exchanged looks as if they were both doctors studying a particularly frustrating case. Frazer did the asking. “And what do you intend to do about it?”
“I've made a plan to cover the shipment as far as the edge of town. I want to do it. If, as I think, the chief of police is behind all this, then I'll know it. My job here will be over.”
Frazer pursed his lips, impatient with me. “And this job is that important to you?”
My chest and my arm hurt, my throat was painful from the smoke I'd breathed and I was weary. I didn't want to discuss this thing any further. I just wanted it over. I kept my answer simple. “Yes,” I said.
The nurse came back in with a bowl covered with a cloth. Frazer smiled acknowledgment and pushed me gently down flat. I lay there while the nurse shaved my chest around the cuts. Then Frazer jabbed my chest with a local anesthetic and started stitching. Fred wanted to stand by but the nurse gently put her back on the stool, where she could not see what was happening.
Frazer glanced into my eyes as he worked. “Okay, Reid, I'll go along with it, but Judy has to know about this. She's going to be part of it.”
“Know about what?” the nurse asked.
“Know that I'm going to pretend to be dead,” I said, and she laughed.
“Wha's this, doctor? A new gimmick for a malpractice suit?”
Frazer chuckled, not looking up from his work on my chest. “I think you'd best let Reid explain it to you.”
She laughed again but she was more angry than amused. I was upsetting her boss and that didn't sit right. “Just when I thought I'd heard everything,” she said. “Go ahead.”
I talked and by the time I was stitched up we had agreed on what was going to happen. Officially I was going to be declared dead, right here in this room. I would be wheeled to the morgue by the night porter. Fred would accept an invitation to stay overnight with the doctor and his wife, and they would go out to the car. At the same time, Judy would keep the porter busy at the other end of the building and I would slip out of the side door to the parking lot and go home with Frazer and Fred.
I glanced at Fred. She had said nothing while all the planning was going on. She looked pale. As soon as my chest was covered I stood up and went over and held her. “It's over as soon as the gold shipment leaves town,” I promised. “There's enough going on that the OPP can investigate. Something is sure to shake out and the whole thing's solved.”
She let me hold her but she was unbending in my arms. “If it's that straightforward, why don't you call them in now, Reid?” she asked, in a reasonable tone.
“Because if I'm right, the guys who did this to us will lift that gold in the morning and disappear. I want to stop them.”
“You make it sound personal. That's not like you,” she said.
And this wasn't like her, I thought. She had taken a lot of bad things in her stride since we'd been together. This time things were getting to her. The fire had shaken her worse than I had thought. I glanced up at the clock on the wall. It showed three-fifteen. “It is personal. They endangered you. I can't let them get away with that,” I said. “Five more hours and it's all over.”
She gave me a quick kiss. “I'm going to hold you to that.”
Frazer and the nurse were standing back, looking at one another awkwardly. As soon as I let go of Fred they came to life. “Okay, Reid. I don't like any of this, but let's get it started,” Frazer said. “Get on the trolley, please.” I got back on and lay down. The nurse threw a sheet over me. “Don't sneeze and try not to make any movement as you breathe,” she warned.
“Right.” I lay very still and heard Frazer say, “Okay, Mrs. Bennett. Are you ready to play your part?”
Fred's voice was crisp. “Yes,” she said. “Let's get on with it.”
“Judy,
go and get Mr. Tracy,” Frazer said. “Come with me, please, Mrs. Bennett.”
Everyone left. As the door swung softly shut I heard Fred's sobbing, low and believable. It filled me with disgust for myself and for a moment I almost threw off the sheet and abandoned the whole plan. But I reminded myself that this was the best way to keep her safe from whoever had thrown that Molotov cocktail through the window. I was their prime target but they had not hesitated to put her life in danger in their attempt on me.
The nurse was back a minute later, talking to a man who sounded elderly. “Doctor Frazer wants the body moved down to the morgue. I'll give you a hand.”
“Who is it?” The obvious question.
“Bennett, his name is. He's a cop. There was a fire at the house, oil furnace, his wife thinks. He had a heart attack.”
“Another goddamn fire? Two in a night,” the man said. “Was he smokin’ in bed or what?”
“His wife thinks the furnace exploded,” Judy said. “'Parently he went back into it, pulled the landlady out. She lives downstairs.”
I was glad to hear that story going the rounds, but it didn't seem enough to placate the porter.
“'bout time he did somethin’ good for somebody,” he said, as the gurney started to move. “He stole that hooker's money and you can't tell me no different.”
“Well, he'll never spend it now,” the nurse said casually. The gurney bumped the doorway lightly and she gave a little cluck of concern. “Don't tip him off that thing, he's a big guy to lift back on.”
“Don't worry. He can't feel it,” the man said. He sounded as if he was enjoying slamming me around, punishing me.
I concentrated on breathing as little as possible, keeping my eyes closed and my jaw dropped, in case the sheet should slip from my face as we moved. We trundled down a long hallway and down the elevator, then out. There was a pause while Judy opened the door of the morgue, and then Tracy asked the question I'd been worrying about. “You want me to roll him off a this into a tray?”
She was perfect. “Naah. The funeral parlor guys will be here first thing. Let them take him off this. George keeps it cold enough in here. He won't spoil before morning.”
The old man snorted a laugh and bumped the gurney against a wall. Judy said, “Oh, while I think of it, Mr. Tracy, can you bring your screwdriver and come and have a look at the desk on my station? There's a loose screw under the typewriter table. Young Lilian caught her knee on it yesterday.”
Tracy gave a little chuckle. “Wants it kissing better does she?”
“She wants it fixed is what. It tore her stocking,” Judy said. “You'll have to ask her about the knee.”
They both laughed again companionably and left. The lock on the door was a simple Yale, and I heard them pull it shut as they went out, turning out the light.
I flicked the sheet off my face and lay in the dark, thinking what had to be done. My first needs were clothes. I couldn't protect anything before I'd protected myself against frostbite. My parka and overboots were gone in the fire at the house. I needed replacements before I could work in temperatures of ten below, Fahrenheit.
The second thing I needed was a weapon. My service revolver had been in the holster pocket of my parka. It was lost in the fire by now, twisted and ruined by the heat. The old Lee-Enfield rifle belonging to Mr. Wilcox was still on the backseat of my car. I shuddered and pulled the sheet around my chest as I thought hard about reclaiming my car. It was probably damaged. It had been parked in the driveway, close enough to the house that it may have lost its windows in the heat, or been damaged by the firemen as they worked around it. On top of which it wasn't appropriate behavior for Fred to trail back to the burning house in the middle of the night to pick up a car.
But there was also the other weapon—my best. Sam. He was still at the scene of the fire. Even as a bereaved widow, Fred could be expected to collect him. And if the car was drivable she could bring it back with her. I felt uncomfortable assigning her so big a part in the plan. I wanted her out of it, but at least with me supposedly dead, she should be safe.
It seemed hours before I heard footsteps outside the door and I was stiff with cold, doing my best not to shiver. For camouflage I threw the sheet back over my face and lay still as the door opened. It might have been Tracy coming back to gloat. But it was Frazer's voice that whispered to me, “Okay, let's go, Reid.”
The doorway was outlined in the light from the corridor. I flicked the sheet aside and tiptoed out, moving quietly. Frazer was wearing a big down jacket. He looked at me as he pulled the door shut. “You'll need this, you're still in shock,” he said and slipped out of his jacket.
“Thanks. I'm frozen.” I pulled the jacket on gratefully, feeling my tight muscles slacken at once in the luxurious warmth. “You could store beef in that place.”
“Kind of what we do,” he said. “This way.” He led me to the stairwell and up to the back door of the hospital. His car was parked there with Fred in the passenger seat. “In the back and lie flat,” he told me.
I paused in the doorway to look all around. There were only two other cars on the lot and nothing was stirring, right back to the never-ending trees at the edge of the parking lot. Frazer went ahead of me, opening the rear door casually before getting into the front. I crossed the three paces to the open door and slid in, keeping low, hooking the door shut behind me.
“Good,” Frazer said. “Let's get home.” He turned the heater on full, suppressing a shudder. He drove off. Fred didn't turn around, but her left hand reached down between the bucket seats in front and she found my fingers and squeezed them.
“How're you doing?” I asked.
“Tragedy isn't my favorite,” she said.
“The curtain comes down at breakfast time,” I promised. “But there's one more scene to play in public. Can you do it, Love?”
“Sure.” She gave my fingers a final press and then withdrew her hand. It was too much like the end of a relationship to leave me happy, but I planned to make up for it once this job was over.
“We have to get Sam back from the neighbors,” I explained. “And if possible, get the car as well.”
I saw Frazer glance sideways at Fred. The gesture looked anxious and I felt a tiny nip of jealousy. His tone of voice did not soften the impression. He asked her, “Will you be all right? I'll drive you over there when we've let Reid out at my place.”
“It gives me a scene at center stage,” Fred said. Her voice had a touch of its usual breeziness. It made the jealousy a little more real. Was she flirting with him?
He spoke to me next. “What's so important about the car, Reid? It might look a little suspicious. Your wife's supposed to be in shock. It isn't likely she'd worry about the car, not tonight.”
I minimized my reasons. “There's something in it that I need for the morning.”
“What is it? Maybe we can find a substitute.” He kept his tone reasonable, too reasonable. I felt like a difficult teenager arguing with an understanding parent.
“It's a rifle.” I laid the fact out for inspection. It didn't faze him.
“Then I can help,” he said cheerfully. “When we moved up here I gave in to my daydreams of being John Wayne. I bought a Winchester lever action. I've fired it once and it's lived on the basement wall ever since. Will that do?”
“Absolutely. Thank you. But I'd still like to get Sam back, Fred, if you could manage it.”
She exploded. “Dammit Reid. Don't keep asking me if I can manage it. I've taken this on and I'll work it through. I'm not a kid.”
“Good.” It wasn't what I wanted to say, but with Frazer in the car oozing concern and understanding from every pore, it was as close as I could get.
The exchange had chilled out the conversation and we rode in silence to Frazer's house. It was one of the two-story executive homes, stuck in the middle of the block, but it had one advantage. He used his garage, unlike a lot of the people in town. He had even cleared the snow so he could drive right in
without problems.
He closed the door behind us and I sat up gratefully. My chest was getting painful again now, as the anesthetic was wearing off. Frazer switched on the light and Fred and I got out. She looked at me appraisingly. “You're pale as hell, Reid. You should lie down and rest.”
“Okay, I will.” I stood back to let her through the door into the house ahead of me. Frazer came last. The house was in darkness. He said, “Hold it a moment. There's stairs up to the main floor on your right, down to the basement on your left. Can you feel your way down, Reid?”
“Sure.” I felt around for the handrail and moved on down the stairs. When I'd reached the door at the bottom Frazer switched on the light. “Okay, Fred. It's all right for you to go through to the living room. We never draw the drapes. I don't want the neighbor seeing Reid in there.”
“Thank you,” Fred said. She called over her shoulder at me. “Sorry about that, dear. You have to use the tradesman's entrance.”
I opened the door in front of me and went through, kicking off my shoes first, the way most Canadians do automatically in other people's houses. I felt carpet under my feet and I eased forward, making the most of what light spilled in through the doorway behind me until I found a couch. That was enough. I slipped out of the doctor's jacket and lay down, pulling the jacket over my aching chest.
I fell asleep almost instantly, but woke with a start when the light switched on. I sat up and found Frazer standing at the door. “Mission accomplished,” he said.
“Sorry. I dropped off. Combat fatigue.” I sat up.
“Understandable,” he said. “Your car's a mess, but we've got your dog safe and sound. I've had to leave him in the garage. One of my kids is allergic. I hope you don't mind.”
“No. Not at all.” I was getting my marbles back. I stood up. “Listen, I can't thank you enough for all the help. My wife's really upset, but I have to finish this thing off.”
“She's going to be fine. She wanted to come down and see you but she's bushed. My wife took over and put her to bed in the spare room.”
