by M. K. Wren
“Especially after you told him not to okay the loan?”
His chair scraped back as he surged to his feet.
“I told you, I never said nothin’ to Foley about—”
“That isn’t what he told me. ‘Someone close to Aaron’—his words—advised him not to make the loan. Who was it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, and that don’t change the fact that you’re givin’ out money to the man who murdered my son! And you called George a friend!”
“In the first place, I’m not giving money to anyone. The Ten-Mile is backing a loan at reasonable interest with the bank acting as a go-between. Secondly, you only think Alvin murdered George. You may be right, but so far it can’t be proven. Thirdly, I’ve met Emily and Bridgie Drinkwater and found them very likable. They’re part of the Double D, too. I see no reason for them to suffer because you think Alvin is guilty.”
Aaron came out from behind the desk, his rancor sagging out of him as he picked up a glass. Like so many aggressive men, he seemed curiously satisfied at meeting real resistance.
“I got nothin’ against Emmy or Bridgie.” Then he scowled irritably into the glass. “Gil knows I don’t like these damned dyed cherries.” He tossed the offending fruit into the wastebasket and took a healthy swallow.
Conan frowned, remembering Potts’s and Laura’s comments on Aaron’s fruitless drink, but the answer was simple enough: he’d picked up the wrong glass. Conan didn’t bother to point out the error. Instead, considering a peace-making gesture timely, he went to the desk drawer, took out three keys, and a fourth from his pocket.
“These are the keys to the office, Aaron. I won’t be needing them anymore. Thanks for putting up with the inconvenience.”
“Well, I hope it done some good.”
Conan ignored the suspicious question in his eyes, picked up the other glass, and went to the door.”It did. Shall we return to the happy hour?”
They found Laura and Ted sitting on the couch sharing a gloomy silence, and Aaron demanded, “Where’s Linc and Gil gone to?”
“To town,” Laura replied; then before he could work up another head of steam, “Aaron, please, I have something to tell you. I told Linc, and maybe that’s why…” She let the sentence hang, while Aaron sank uneasily into his chair and waited in stoic silence for her to go on.
“Aaron, I’m going back to San Francisco. I called a friend of mine last night, and she said there’s a job opening at the hospital where I worked… Before she met George; she didn’t finish that sentence, either.
Aaron looked across the room at her and suddenly seemed old and tired, nodding mechanically, repetitiously.
“Well, I guess I knew you’d be goin’, Laura, but you’re always welcome here; you know that.”
“Yes, I know. But I…I want to get back to work.”
He nodded again, staring vaguely into space.
“Well, I can understand that. When d’you figger you’ll be leavin’?”
“Oh, as soon as I can get my things sorted out and packed. A week, probably.”
“I—we’ll miss you, Laura.” Then he added almost plaintively, “Ain’t right, not havin’ a woman around.”
*
Dinner was an unexpectedly pleasant hour, with Aaron indulging in gentle reminiscences of early days on the ranch, in which Laura encouraged him, laughing and commiserating over problems old and happily resolved. Ted shared the spirit of placation, even asking for a few favorite stories. The tension was still there, but by mutual consent kept under the surface, and perhaps because of the peaceful atmosphere, Aaron showed a remarkably healthy appetite.
But Conan found his own lagging, and his stomach protested the foot he forced into it with queasiness that verged on nausea by the time dessert was served. He turned down a piece of dark, thickly iced chocolate cake that normally would have induced him to ask for a second helping, privately blaming it on accumulated anxiety and lack of sleep.
When Mrs. Mosely and Laura began the woman’s work of clearing the table, Ted managed to slip off to the barn without having exchanged one direct word with Conan, while Aaron retired to the living room and the television to watch the news. Conan went out on the porch to watch the sunset and enjoy a cigarette and cup of coffee, but found neither enjoyable, giving up the cigarette after a few puffs, the coffee after half a cup. The evening chill seemed to accumulate between his shoulder blades and spread out under his skin.
He knew, finally, that his symptoms couldn’t be dismissed as nerves or lack of sleep, but he didn’t know how else to explain them, except as an incipient virus infection, and his initial response was annoyance. A bout with flu would put a cramp in his investigatory style, and if he must be attacked by a virus, it could have made its presence known this morning when he was in Maxwell’s office.
Still, he said nothing to Laura when she and Ted left at seven, although as acting ranch doctor she could probably offer a choice of remedies. He couldn’t explain his reluctance; perhaps it was simply a stubborn refusal to admit he needed a remedy.
Long after they were gone, he sat shivering in the fading twilight, listening to the mutter of the television and a distant exchange of voices that died as the hands retired to the bunkhouse. He should at least get a jacket if he was going to sit out in this freezing wind. No. He should go to bed. A good night’s sleep. That’s all he needed.
But he was so damnably tired; his body seemed an immense weight upon itself, and the prospect of climbing the stairs to his room was overwhelming. Just getting to his feet was too much of an effort to contemplate seriously. Maybe he could just rest here until Laura came home.
He pressed his folded arms against his body; he wasn’t even thinking straight. The class wasn’t over until ten. Laura wouldn’t be back before eleven. A man could freeze to death by then. Anyway, something in him balked at the supreme discourtesy of vomiting in the neatly kept marigolds.
He reached for the railing and his hand slipped, setting his pulse into an erratic flurry. A startling sensation, and that only intensified the irregular pounding.
Still, it clarified something in his mind.
This was no virus. It was an imminent threat realized on the primal level of brute terror. A threat to survival; to his life.
He levered himself to his feet, panting with the effort, and clung to the railing. The wind had risen. Couldn’t stand up against a wind like this. And rain…no rain in wind clouds.
But it was only dizziness and a chill sweat that seemed to freeze on his skin. He realized that at the same moment he realized he’d never make it upstairs to his bathroom, and Mano would have to forgive the desecration of the marigolds.He sagged over the railing until his stomach’s rebellion eased, but the dizziness didn’t abate, nor did the alien rhythm palpitating in his chest. Help. He needed help.…
“Aaron!” The door was open. Light glowing in a silent haze. Yellow light. No answer; the television still muttered, and he angrily mustered the strength to shout again.
“Aaron, for God’s sake…”
Yellow light. Yellow vision. That meant something. A clue; a veritable clue. And where was Aaron? Behind a cloud of cigar smoke watching some foreign apocalypse, while he died on his doorstep? “Aaron!”
“What the hell—?” A shadow against the yellow light, and Conan began shaking uncontrollably.
“Aaron, can…can you drive?”
“What? Well, sure.” He turned on the porch light and came out for a closer look. “You sick or somethin’?”
Conan flinched at the light. Still yellow; even Aaron’s hair was yellow, and finally the neural link closed.
He said dully, “Yes, I’m sick. I’ve been…poisoned. Get me to Dr. Maxwell.”
“You’ve been what? Here—jest hold on to me, or you’ll take them stairs head first. Mebbe I better call Wil or—”
“No.” He felt Aaron swaying under his weight as they started down the steps. “Don’t call—don’t tell anyone�
�can’t let anyone know…”
“But, damn it, boy, you’re sick as a dog. Easy now. That’s the last step. All downhill from here on out.”
It seemed quite literally downhill to Conan; downhill and canting. “Just get me to Maxwell. And don’t let him send me to a hospital. Promise me. On your word. No hospital and no—don’t call…call Tate. Give me…your word…”
“All right, all right, you got my word on it. Watch that gate. What the hell you got against hospitals? Or Joe Tate? If you ain’t the om’riest son of a gun I ever run into. Hold on, now. You go down, I ain’t gonna pick you up by myself. Little bit further…” Conan stumbled along, clinging stubbornly to Aaron and to consciousness. He couldn’t surrender yet; not until he made sense of this. How…how did it happen?
When Aaron eased him into the front seat of one of the cars, he closed his eyes, concentrating on forming words.
“Aaron, tell Maxwell…”
“What? Tell him what?”
“…digitalis.”
CHAPTER 21
“Mr. Flagg, are you ready to tell us what happened?”
Mr. Flagg wasn’t ready for anything. He lay huddled under a blanket on the couch in Walter Maxwell’s office, resenting the brevity of the respite afforded him while the doctor restored his examination room to antiseptic order.
Let the inmates fight it out among themselves; an eminently reasonable proposal. But pride is a hard and unreasonable taskmaster, and finally he pushed the blanket back and maneuvered into a sitting position, an effort that left him dizzy and aching. He rested with his elbows on his knees, head propped in his hands.
His feet were fuzzy. Everything was. But the yellow vision typical of digitalis poisoning was almost gone. The blurred vision was a side-effect of the atropine injection Maxwell had given him. A paradox, that; a poison as antidote for a poison, and both were medicines.
Maxwell had drawn up a chair by the couch, and when Conan finally raised his head, he held out a glass to him.
“You better drink this; get something in your stomach.”
“After all the trouble you went to emptying it?”
Milk, beautifully chill; it seemed pure ambrosia. He saw Aaron sitting across the room by the desk, but ignored him until he reached the bottom of the glass. Aaron waited with unaccustomed patience, a phenomenon Conan regarded with some amusement He had finally been shocked into silence.
But then he had reason enough to be shocked, having a victim of poisoning thrust on him, and the process of emptying the human stomach wasn’t pleasant, either for the victim or the observer. Conan had yet another shock for him; one he hoped would reduce him to a cooperative frame of mind.
He handed Maxwell his empty glass and looked across at Aaron, futilely straining to focus on his face.
“Aaron, you owe me for this.”
He seemed startled, as if he’d been physically prodded.
“I—I owe you…?”
“This was intended for you, not me.” Aaron’s slack-jawed silence was a satisfactory index of shock, even if Conan couldn’t read nuances of expression. He went on matter-of-factly, “Doctor, wouldn’t you agree it took a sizable dose of digitalis to make me this sick? What would Aaron’s survival odds be if he’d been given that dose?”
Maxwell frowned, his gaze shifting to Aaron.
“At his age, and with his heart condition…I don’t know. I might’ve saved him if I got to him in time.”
“In time,” Conan repeated, still looking across at Aaron even while addressing Maxwell. “But it’s an hour’s drive from the ranch, and that has to be added to the time necessary to discovery. Now, Laura might have recognized the seriousness of the symptoms soon enough, but she was here in Burns for her regular Monday evening 4-H class, and Ted came with her, as he always does. Potts was trained as a paramedic, but he and Linc left early for Burns’s taverns, another regular occurrence. Aaron was alone in the house except for me, but all I could do was bring him to you, Doctor, and with his history, would you have considered digitalis poisoning soon enough? Or would you have assumed heart failure?”
Aaron was recovering, and before Maxwell could answer, he spluttered angrily, “Will you talk sense, damn it! You’re the one got poisoned.”
“Yes, I noticed.” He eased back into the cushions. “I was encouraged by that at first; I thought I must be getting close enough to the tmth to be considered a threat. But when I realized how I was poisoned, I had a rude awakening. I wasn’t regarded as a threat In fact, the killer didn’t hesitate to poison you right under my nose. Now, that’s a blow to the ego.”
“I still don’t understand—”
“A little patience, Aaron. Just consider the how of the poisoning. That’s the key. I ate nothing at the ranch today until supper, and that was served from communal bowls, boarding-house style. Even the milk and water were served in pitchers. If the digitalis was in the food, I wouldn’t be suffering alone. So, it had to be in the cocktails. The old-fashioneds; perfect for disguising alien flavors because of the bitters. And it was only in one old-fashioned, or, again, I wouldn’t be suffering alone. Your old-fashioned.”
“My old-fashioned? How the hell d’you figger that?”
“Remember when we went into the office this afternoon, we took our drinks?”
“Sure, but what does that have to do with—”
“And you were annoyed because there was a cherry in yours?”
“Well, yes. Gil knows I don’t like the damn things.”
“He didn’t put one in your drink; I know that as an observed fact. You picked up my glass by mistake. I didn’t say anything; we hadn’t touched our drinks, and it didn’t seem important, so when we went back to the living room, I picked up your glass, and probably saved your life. The digitalis had to be in that drink.”
Aaron needed time to digest that, and it went down hard.
“But there wasn’t nobody there ’cept…the family.”
“True, and the family doesn’t include Alvin Drinkwater, your arch suspect. But take my word on this: the feud, George’s murder, and this attempt on your life are all part of one grand scheme. The person who tried to poison you is George’s killer.”
“But that means it’s…Flagg, you—you’re crazy!”
Conan only laughed. “Am I? How do you feel tonight?”
“What? Well, I-I feel fine.”
“No stomach upset or dizziness? None of the symptoms that sent you to bed early Friday and Saturday nights?”
“I told you, I feel fine, damn it.”
“And you felt fine enough last night, in spite of the funeral, to pitch hay. But there was no cocktail hour yesterday. You missed your evening overdose of digitalis.”
Maxwell leaned forward at that. “Are you saying this isn’t the first time somebody tried to poison him?”
“Yes. Either the poisoner wasn’t sure of the dosage, or, more likely, Aaron was given just enough to make him sick; to establish his ill health, so that when he died of heart failure’ as a result of this last dose, no one would be surprised.”
“That sounds like somebody knows a little about medicine,” Maxwell commented.
“Or knows someone else who does. Aaron, when was the last time you took the Digoxin Doc prescribed for you?”
He glanced uncomfortably at the doctor.
“Hell, I don’t know. Can’t be bothered with them fool pills. Ain’t took one for mebbe a year now.”
Maxwell only sighed as Conan went on, “But the prescription has been renewed regularly, so by now someone has a good supply of digitalis on hand. In fact, it was on hand two months ago when Bert Kimmons died—at the Black Stallion, of heart failure.” He didn’t pause for them to voice their startled reactions to that. “The digitalis was available, Aaron, and getting it into your drinks wouldn’t be at all difficult. Your aversion to cherries sets them apart, and it would only take a split second to drop some powder or soluble capsules into your glass.”
Aaron was red
uced to bewildered silence, and it was Maxwell who asked, “Who mixed his drink today?”
“Gil Potts. But that doesn’t mean anything. When I came into the living room, Gil had the glasses lined up on the bar, and both line and Ted were standing within easy reach of them, and Laura took Aaron’s drink to him. I don’t know who had an opportunity to add the digitalis Friday or Saturday; I arrived on the scene too late. Aaron, do you remember who handled the drinks?”
He sank deeper into his chair. “I didn’t pay attention. But nobody was there but…but the family.”
That plaintive repetition wasn’t so much an objection now as a realization; an agonizing one, Conan knew.
Maxwell broke the brief silence that followed.
“Mr. Flagg, you still haven’t told me why you’re so set on secrecy, or why I shouldn’t call Sheriff Tate.”
Conan frowned and tried to focus on his watch.
“What time is it?”
“Ten till nine.”
That didn’t leave much time, but more than he expected; he’d have guessed it was closer to midnight.
“The secrecy is to make sure the killer doesn’t realize the poison missed its mark. The attempt is revealing in its way, and that gives me an edge, even if it’s a thin one. I can’t afford to forfeit it by showing my hand now.” He cast an anxious glance at Aaron. “As for Tate, he’s an officer of the law, dutybound to uphold it. He’d be forced to take certain action which would cause a great deal of grief, but wouldn’t convict the killer. It might destroy the grand scheme, Doctor, but the schemer would escape.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I can’t explain it fully. I’m sorry.”
“Without causing grief? Is that it?”
“Yes”
Maxwell accepted that with a thoughtful nod, but Aaron seemed too numb for any kind of response. Conan thought bitterly that it was misleading to hint that grief could be avoided; there would be more grief for Aaron, for this divided “family.”
But that was the price. The price of justice.
The doctor asked hesitantly, “Do you know who this killer and schemer is?”
