The Ardath Mayhar MEGAPACK®
Page 21
I guess I must’ve went off my head, like. I come to wanderin’ ’round in the woods, all black and blue from bumpin’ into things. I went back to the house, but it stared at me outen its windows till I couldn’t even go nigh it. Then I went up to Pa’s. Course, I didn’t tell him nothin’ about what had happened, but I could see him wonderin’. He loaned me a clean pair of khakis and five dollars, and I come on into town. Seems like I had to see people, be away from the woods.
First thing you know, Will Pollard come up and winked. “Got a jug hid out in the back of the hardware store,” he says.
So I went with him. Guess he didn’t get much of that jug. I must’ve drunk most of it. Next thing I remember, Will was lookin’ at me with his eyes bugged out and his face fish-belly white.
And now you’ve got me locked up in here, and they’re all down there right now, fixin’ to drag her out. And you’re lookin’ at me like I was the one that was crazy and sinful. And they’re goin’ to see what I seen when she come up.
Damn them crawfish!
AUNT DOLLY
On reading in a book on writing the mystery story the statement that any time you begin a story with a feeble little old lady confined to her bed you automatically know what is going to happen, I chuckled. This time I bet you didn’t know what was going to happen.
Outside the tightly closed window, the ivy leaves were beating against the small panes in the first real storm of winter. Even though the house was tight, the windows closely fitted, Dorothy shivered, feeling that the heavy draperies, only half drawn as yet in the last light, should be billowing in the fury of the wind.
Snug in her rose-shaded room, safe in the bed in which she had been born, Dorothy should have been content, but in the last month that had been lost to her. The hearty old woman who had broken wild horses, reared her three great-nephews to adulthood, if not to responsibility, and managed the horse farm she had built up from the tatty farm her father left her, seemed lost in the past.
Now she was an invalid, wrapped in plush blankets, confined to this room that had never fitted her personality. The pale rose blankets, the deep rose velvet of the draperies, the charming flower pattern of the sheets, those were matters that had appealed to her mother.
Dolly was a farmer, a horse breeder, a tough-minded, tough-bodied creature who had never been ill in all her sixty-seven years. This terrible thing that had happened to her frightened her for the first time she could recall.
A small stroke—what nonsense! You stroked a cat or the nose of a horse. This was more like a blow, aimed not only at her mind but at everything she had ever stood for.
Aimed, worst of all, at the independence she cherished above anything else.
There came a stir in the hallway outside her door. A timid tap told her that Cynthia, her third nephew’s wife, stood outside with a cup of chocolate and the afternoon paper.
Dolly sighed. “Come on in,” she grunted. “And close those damned drapes. That wind wants to come right through the glass, it seems like, and at my age I don’t need that for a bedfellow.”
Cyn set the tray just so, its legs straddling Dolly’s lap, and moved to tug at the velvet rope that shut out the chill pewter of the evening. The delicacy of her motions, the finicky precision of everything she did grated on the old woman’s nerves like diamond on glass. She suspected that in private, Cynthia was far less ladylike than she appeared now.
“Do sit down!” she commanded. “And don’t fiddle! I like my room messy. Makes me feel at home.”
She stirred the marshmallow into the steaming cup of chocolate and took a tentative sip. Ah! The warmth relaxed her a bit, and she settled back against the piled pillows behind her, holding down her irritation at the frills edging the cases.
“Tell me about the mare—did Dr. Winlow find out what ails her? She’s too valuable to risk, let me tell you, and if we need another vet, we’ve got to get one. Winlow isn’t bad, but he’s an old fogy in a lot of ways.”
“Oh, Auntie, don’t worry yourself about the horses. Jerry is taking the most splendid care of everything....”
“Don’t give me that! Jerry never took splendid care of anything but himself, and that includes taking care of you. He’s checking out every salable item on the place with an eye toward sneaking it out to a pawnshop is more like it. He’ll rob his brothers, if they’re not careful.” She watched the young woman closely, but Cynthia had learned to hide her feelings when Dolly went on a tear.
Rather disappointed, Dolly drank down the chocolate and poured another cup from the rosebud-sprigged pot. That was Haviland that she had bought to please her mother, once there was money for that sort of nonsense.
She wondered if any of the pieces had been sold, downstairs, by her rapacious kinsman. The stuff was worth a mint; the antiques dealer had told her when she made the purchase.
She always rolled her food and drink around her tongue, these days, trying them for any odd taste. She wouldn’t put it past Jerry and his nasty nice wife to try poisoning her. Then they’d have a free run at everything while Ed and Charlie traveled the long miles from England and Africa to protect their interests.
Cynthia turned even paler than usual, but she held her peace. The old saying, “Wouldn’t say boo to a goose,” applied nicely to her, Dolly thought.
“Winlow,” she said again, her tone stern. “Tell!”
“The mare was only bloated. He tended to it and gave her something to help. Jerry says he thinks she’ll be fine tomorrow.” The words came out slowly, precisely enunciated, spent grudgingly as if they were dollars instead of breath.
“Good.” Dolly finished the cup, placed the thin china in its saucer with a decisive clink, and motioned toward the door. “Now go and do whatever it is you find to do all day and all night. I’d as soon talk to a parrot!”
When the door closed behind the thin behind and the sharp elbows of her great-niece-by-marriage, Dolly sighed. She had tried. She truly had!
But those boys were a handful, and no matter how she worked them and taught them and made them toe the mark, they kept breaking out wherever she wasn’t expecting it. If she’d had a husband, it might have helped. A man would have understood them better.
But as it was, she was a better man than any of the three, and they all knew it. They all resented it too, which was why Ed had gone to London as soon as his paper had an assignment there. Charlie had taken himself off to Botswana or some such godforsaken place to write a book.
Jerry had been closest, and that only because the chemical firm for which he was a sales rep was based on the West Coast. They gave him leave and here he was, complete with baggage and wife, who was also a pretty fair baggage herself.
She listened sharply as the crisp steps descended the uncarpeted stair. The kitchen door gave its usual definitive thunk as it closed, and she smiled. Time to practice walking again.
She didn’t intend to be a bedridden invalid for the rest of her years, that was certain. But every time she suggested that Jerry help her stand and walk, he fussed and worried and all but said that he wanted her flat on her back.
There was no way she was going to put up with that, and his refusal was motivation enough to drive her to secret exercises that by now had strengthened her legs considerably.
* * * *
“How is the old...darling?” Jerry asked, as Cynthia entered the kitchen. “Bitchy as ever?”
She sighed, her thin face pinched. “I think she’s a lot stronger than she was. It wouldn’t surprise me if she got out of that bed one day and went back to running the farm.”
Her husband turned pale. “That’s impossible. At her age, with a stroke....”
“It was a minor one, with no permanent damage, Dr. Armworth said. Sixty-seven is not old. Not any more. I warned you to take your time and be certain, but no, you had to sell those two fillies when you had that offer from the breede
r in Kentucky. If she takes hold again, you’re going to have to buy them back, whatever it costs, and you know we haven’t a dime between us.”
She glared at him. “We could both go to jail, Jerry, if she gets back to normal.”
The man dropped into the rocking chair behind the long table where the family had always eaten informal meals. His sallow face was still pale, and his dark hair drooped dispiritedly over his forehead.
“When Ed and Charlie come, the fat’s going to be in the fire. You thought she was a lot worse off than she was, or you never would have risked going ahead with those sales. Now what do we do?”
“We think,” he said, putting his head into his hands.
“Think!” she muttered, clanging pans together as she started supper. “With what, I’d like to know?”
“I can’t get that money back. Arnie will turn his bruisers loose on me if I don’t get another fifteen thousand within the next two weeks. The boys will be here next week as well. I’ve just got to sell the gray stallion and use that to clear my account.”
She turned on him, red spots glowing in her cheeks. “That’s my Jerry—just keep going ahead, even when you know you’re going to fall over a cliff in the dark. The old woman’s going to get well, you fool!”
“Maybe...not.” He looked up from the rocker, a gleam dawning in his eyes. “Maybe not. Armworth is a lot like the vet—he doesn’t keep up with the times, and he all but said that someone her age was likely to pop off at any time. He won’t be surprised if she does, and he’ll sign her death certificate without any question.”
She, in her turn, went pale. She turned back to stir the pot on the stove, into which she had been slicing carrots, turnips, potatoes, and cold roast with vicious precision.
Back turned, she said, “You mean to kill her.”
“No, no. Not strangle or anything violent. There’s some stuff they prescribe for her that should do it. Just give her her regular dose and put a double-sized one in her supper. She’s supposed to have it in her system anyway, and Armworth will never think to do an autopsy.”
Cynthia’s skinny shoulders sagged suddenly. It was the only way, and she knew it as well as Jerry did. She didn’t like the old biddy anyway.
Jerry rose and went upstairs. She knew he was visiting the bath that connected their bedroom with that of Aunt Dolly. There was a new vial of medication there, along with a few tablets in the old one.
Like it or not, they were about to become murderers.
* * * *
Dolly heard the heavy steps coming up the stairs. She had gained a lot of mobility in the past couple of days, and she managed a pretty fair sprint back into bed before they reached the top and came down the hall. To her relief, Jerry went into the bathroom, instead of looking in on her.
She picked up a mystery novel and turned a page, staring at the lines without reading them. She had, she felt, to pretend to be a coddled old lady, helpless, weak, unable to get about. Some instinct told her that her life might depend on it.
Water ran. The toilet flushed. There was a tap on her door, and she glanced about to make sure everything was normal before responding. Her slippers, shed in her flight back to the bed, lay in the middle of the floor. She reached for the cane she used in going to the bathroom and raked them close beside the bed.
“Come in,” she said, in her most unoffending voice.
“Cyn’s making her special stew tonight,” he said. “You’ll like it a lot, I think. Should be ready about six-thirty. How are you getting on, auntie?”
“As well as can be expected,” she said, her tone dry. “I’m not twenty, Jerry, but I seem to be holding up pretty well, considering.” She felt a sudden pang, recalling the thin, tanned little boy who had brought his troubles to her.
He had been the youngest of the three, hit hard by the loss of both parents to a virus infection while they were abroad. He had seemed wary of everyone, as if fearing that they, too, might go away and never return.
She sighed. “That’s nice. I like a good stew. But I’m tired now, and I think I’ll take a little nap before supper time.”
He nodded and crept out, looking entirely too satisfied with himself. She knew him too well to believe that such a look could possibly be innocent.
When his steps had died away in the distance, she waited. Usually he walked around the place before supper, and when that was something that could be left to simmer, Cynthia went along. Perhaps the cold wind would keep them inside, but she hoped they might at least check on the animals in the barn some three hundred yards from the house.
When she had heard nothing from the lower floor for fifteen minutes, Dorothy swung her feet to the floor, slid them into her slippers, and rose unsteadily. The cane propped her nicely, as she donned her robe and headed for the closet.
This was a very old house, and rooms, stairs, even the floors had been altered time and again, over the years. There had been a back stair once, and her closet was the head of it, using the space between the inner and outer walls to make a walk-in space.
The steps were still there, leading down into blackness and emerging in the back entryway as a deep supply cupboard beside the kitchen door. The well was narrow enough to allow her to brace one hand against the wall while bracing the cane on the other side, securing her slow downward steps.
She paused from time to time, resting, listening for any sound from the kitchen, now just on the other side of the partition. But no hint of movement came to her ears other than the slap of wind-blown shrubbery against the outer wall.
Then her descending foot found no further steps. She was in the cupboard, her right shoulder brushing the shelves stacked with preserves and canned goods, some of them years old. She opened the door a crack and peered into the hallway, finding that after the darkness on the stair even this dim passage was visible.
Nobody.
She crept along the hall and into the kitchen, finding one light burning over the stove and the stewpot simmering obediently, its contents smelling delicious. She was tempted to take a taste before doing what she came to do, but she pushed the impulse away.
She took a vial, salvaged from her stash of medications for healing—and killing—animals, from the pocket of her robe and dumped its contents into the stew, stirring it vigorously with the spoon conveniently placed in the flower-shaped holder. When the last hint of oily liquid was gone, she turned away and made her painful trek back up into her room.
* * * *
When she dropped into bed again, she was genuinely exhausted. Jerry, checking on her before bringing her supper, found himself wondering if he needed to trouble himself to doctor her food, but he knew it was better to be safe.
“She doesn’t look good at all,” he said with great satisfaction, as he helped Cynthia dish up the stew into rose-sprigged Haviland bowls. He piled crackers on the plate under the bowl, and his wife added a salad to the tray as he assembled his aunt’s supper, complete with special seasoning.
Dorothy had to be helped into a sitting position, and he almost felt a qualm, remembering all the times she had nursed him through childhood illnesses. But he placed the tray across her lap, folded the napkin over her chest, and asked if she needed anything else.
“No, no, I’m quite all right. You go and eat your supper. I’ll manage by myself. And when I’m done I’ll set the tray on the table, here. This does smell good....” She inhaled greedily, and he smiled as he closed her door behind him.
Cynthia was waiting for him. She was very persnickety in many ways, he had to admit, but she was an excellent cook. They dug into their meal with good appetite, his enjoyment augmented by relief at the solution of his immediate problem.
* * * *
Dolly set the tray aside on the bedside table, the stew untouched. That was bad—she had to get rid of it, and the best way was to flush it, if she could make it that far.
The cane hit a slick spot on the tiled floor and skidded. Dorothy flung out both hands to catch herself as she went forward toward the tub, but even before she hit the hard edge she felt that familiar blackness engulfing her again.
* * * *
Dr. Winlow rapped on the door. “Miss Pelling? Mr. Danvers? Is anyone there?”
He rapped his heel irritably against the flagstone walk as he waited. Surely, so early in the morning, there would be someone stirring. He had taken the trouble to check again on that mare, and here they were lying slug-abed, neglecting their work.
He rapped again. “It’s the vet! Come on, now, I’m a busy man.”
He touched the knob and it turned. They hadn’t locked the door last night? That was odd, in these days of vandalism and pilfering.
He pushed and went into the wide, inviting hall at the front of the house. Lights were on at its other end, in the kitchen, and he went that way, calling at intervals.
The Danverses were there, all right, convulsed, soiled, and quite dead beside the cold remnants of their meal. On the stove a scum of scorched stew smoked nastily on the low-set burner. There was an odd tang there, even amid the smell of burning.
He turned to find the phone, which he knew was in the hall. Then it occurred to him that the old lady might be upstairs, helpless, hungry, wondering what had happened. He called the sheriff and Dr. Armworth; then he climbed wearily up the dark walnut stair, clinging to the banister and feeling very old and tired.
There was a line of light below Dorothy’s door. He tapped softly. “Miss Pelling? Miss Pelling? It’s Dr. Winlow.”