23-The Tenth Life

by Lockridge, Richard

  “I have to suspect somebody,” Heimrich said. “Part of my job. And Blake’s no good. Even if he’s not in Europe, he’ll have calmed down by now, I’m pretty sure. Anyway, he’d have used a hatchet. Or maybe a baseball bat. Not a needle.”

  “Probably,” Susan said. “Although I can’t see Blake using either. Carl would just—sputter.”

  Heimrich thought that a fairly accurate guess. And he told Susan he would be at the animal hospital. “Just poking around.” Or perhaps at Mrs. Cummins’s cattery, doing the same thing. And that she could tell Latham Rorke that when he called back, as almost certainly he would.

  “I’ll hold his hand for you, dear,” Susan promised.

  11

  Roger King was sitting in the waiting room of the small animal hospital. He was reading Playboy. He put it down quickly when Heimrich came into the room. Apparently he was not always studying, and was ashamed not to be.

  When Heimrich had gone into the hospital previously, dogs had barked, resenting intrusion. Now no dog barked.

  King said, “Good morning, sir,” and Heimrich agreed with him verbally, although not thinking it was, particularly. Too hot, already, and too confused, too vague. He said, “All the animals gone, son?”

  “All but one, sir. One of Mrs. Weaver’s Labs is still here. She’s sending for him. And I—I’m just waiting, Inspector. Labrador retriever, Inspector. Big black one.”

  Heimrich knew that Labs are Labrador retrievers, and that they run to black. For no particular reason, he went into the canine ward and looked at the retriever, who was lying belly down with his muzzle on his forepaws. He turned his head and looked at Heimrich. Nobody he knew. His expression was almost as disconsolate as Colonel’s usually was. No other dogs left to bark with. “Somebody’ll be along for you, old fellow,” Heimrich said. The big black dog turned his head away. People are all the time lying to dogs.

  “Just want to check something in Dr. Barton’s records,” Heimrich told the lanky boy, who was waiting to return to Playboy until authority had gone away. Young King said, “Sir.” A rather obtrusive respect for rank, Heimrich thought. Or perhaps, of course, for age. Heimrich doddered into the office of the late Dr. Adrian Barton.

  Yes. “Blake, Carl. Part shep. ‘Pep.’ Gas. ma. Op. spec, to Ith. Prog 6 mo. Fee 75. Reported dec. 6/18.”

  So. Deciphering grew easier with repetition. Carl Blake’s part German shepherd named Pep had been operated on for a gastric malignancy; a specimen had been sent to Cornell for analysis. The prognosis had been for six months of life, but that had turned out to be optimistic, since Pep was now reported dead. Reported, Heimrich assumed, by Carl Blake, in an indignant rage. On, apparently, June 18.

  Heimrich read again the item concerned with Prince Ling Tau, all-American cat of the previous year. No man lives forever. Neither does any smaller animal or, for that matter, any larger one.

  Heimrich put the copy of June’s American Cat Fancy in his pocket and asked a last question. No, Roger had not heard anything from Miss Arnold. If he did, he would call and report. Lieutenant what, at the barracks? Oh, Lieutenant Forniss. He sure would, although he didn’t expect to be here long. Only until somebody showed up for the Labrador.

  Yes, if Mrs. Heimrich called while he was still there, he would tell her that the inspector had gone over to Mrs. Cummins’s cattery, but didn’t expect to be there long. He’d be glad to, if he was still around. Yes, he had Mrs. Cummins’s telephone number. Anyway, it was around here somewhere. He’d be glad to give it to Mrs. Heimrich. If he was still around when she called.

  “You know where her place is, sir?”

  Heimrich knew the location of the Linwood Cattery. About a quarter of a mile up Linwood Court from its intersection with the highway. And Roger could get back to his reading. Oh, one other thing. Did Roger happen to know what Mrs. Barton planned to do with the hospital?

  Roger King did not. Maybe another veterinarian would take it over. A Dr. Folsom had come the evening before and looked around. But maybe Dr. Folsom had been there merely to check on the animals still there. To decide whether they were ready to be discharged. Come to think of it, Dr. Folsom had taken one of the patients, a cat under treatment for enteritis, away with him, probably to his own hospital. Although vets were pretty leery of having cats with enteritis in their hospitals.

  “Spreads like crazy, way I get it, Inspector.”

  The boy wanted companionship almost as badly as the big black dog waiting in the canine ward, Heimrich thought. Well, the boy would have to make do with Playboy. He was the right age for it.

  It was not far to Linwood Court. Heimrich slowed the Buick and took, carefully, the turn which Carol Arnold had not been able to take at all in the Pontiac. There were still scars where the Pontiac had been dragged up. There was still a scar on the tree it had run into.

  Linwood Court was a narrow road of worn blacktop. There was nothing to indicate that it led anywhere. About a quarter of a mile up it, set among heavy trees, was “Linwood Cattery.” A small sign said so. The cattery was a fairly large white frame house which was a little in need of paint. Jutting out from one side of the house was an oblong structure of, at a guess, cement block. But it might be cinder block. There was room in front of the house to park the Buick. A blue Volkswagen was already parked there. Another Volks. Anyway, it presumably meant that Mrs. Cummins was home, if the Volks was the same one Mrs. Cummins had driven to the hospital to reclaim her spayed cat.

  Heimrich crossed a front porch to the door. There was a window beside the door, and he thought that he had been watched through it. But now he saw no one at the window. He rang the bell. When nothing happened, except the sound of chimes inside—“Avon Calling”—he pressed the button again. And waited again. Finally, he heard footfalls on board flooring behind the door. Then the door opened.

  Grace Cummins was wearing a brown pants suit which hugged her unforgivingly. She wore a white smock over it. She was a noticeably sturdy woman. “Whatever it is, I don’t want—” she said, and stopped with that. She looked hard at Merton Heimrich. She said, “Haven’t I seen you before somewhere?”

  “At Dr. Barton’s hospital,” Heimrich said. “When you came to pick up the cat he’d just operated on.”

  “Wherever it was, I’m glad to see you now,” she said. “I—I was getting terribly worried, with the phone off and all. No way to get hold of anybody, and of course I couldn’t leave her. Not the way she is, could I? That hospital! I don’t understand them at all. At any of the ones I’ve been in in the city, they’d never have let her go. Not ever.”

  Heimrich could merely shake his head, let his face show bewilderment.

  “You didn’t come for her? But you’re a policeman, aren’t you? She did say something about the police being after her. But she was so fuzzy, I couldn’t be sure what she was talking about. Whatever hit her —well, it made her fuzzy. Concussion, almost certainly. And I’m a nurse, you know. A registered nurse. Or maybe you didn’t know.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Cummins,” Heimrich said, “I did know. Are you talking about Miss Arnold? You mean she’s here?”

  “Of course I’m talking about her—who else would I be talking about?”

  Her hard voice carried contempt for stupidity.

  “Miss Arnold is here,” Heimrich said. “No, Mrs. Cummins, we didn’t know she was here.”

  “Here for the last—oh, it must be more than two hours. And out cold except just at first. It’s too bad, whatever she’s done.”

  “I’m not sure she’s done anything, Mrs. Cummins.”

  “Then you’re not really looking for her? She said you were.”

  “Yes, we’ve been looking for her. And now, I’d like to see her.”

  He moved forward toward the doorway in which she stood so resolutely. She moved aside and he went after her into a wide hall. The bare boards of the flooring crackled under their feet.

  “In here,” Mrs. Cummins said, and opened a door on their right. “I was about to t
ry to get her to bed, but the only room with a bed in it is upstairs. I didn’t know what to do with her.”

  The room he followed her into was large and furnished as a living room—a not very comfortable living room. It was hot in the room, although a window was open; hot and stuffy. No air seemed to be coming through the open window. There were several hard-looking chairs in the room and a narrow sofa. Carol Arnold was lying on the sofa. She was wearing the dark blue, sleeveless dress Heimrich had been told of.

  She was lying on her back and was pale and appeared to be asleep. The bruise on her forehead stood out cruelly against the pallor of her face. Her blond hair clung damply to her head.

  “See?” Mrs. Cummins, R.N., said. “She’s out cold, like I said. She ought to be in the hospital.”

  “She was,” Heimrich said. “But she apparently told you that, didn’t she? Because you said she shouldn’t have been discharged. That a New York hospital wouldn’t have let her go.”

  “Something about it. About the hospital and the police being after her. Aren’t you going to do something about her?”

  “Call an ambulance,” Heimrich said. There was a telephone on a table near the sofa the unconscious girl lay on. Heimrich moved and picked it up.

  “There’s no use of that,” the woman said. “Think I wouldn’t have called somebody if it was working? And I couldn’t leave her here alone to go get somebody, could I?”

  The telephone was indeed dead. It was dead, Heimrich saw, because it had been pulled out of the wall. He pointed this out to Mrs. Cummins.

  She said, “So that’s what she did. She must have come to while I was out of the room. Getting ammonia, because it might revive her. Because she’s not just asleep, just naturally asleep. Concussion—well, it can do strange things to them, Inspector.”

  So she did know who he was. Not just that he was a policeman.

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “Stay here with her, will you? See that she doesn’t—well, do anything to harm herself.”

  “Of course. I’ve been with her ever since she passed out. Except for those few minutes.”

  Heimrich went outside to the Buick. He called the hospital from there. He also called the barracks, and Susan, to tell her where he was, and that she could tell Dr. Rorke when he called that Carol had been found—found alive and that—

  “He’s already called,” Susan said. “Apparently from a filling station on his way up. I told him where you would probably be, dear. Is the pretty girl really all right?”

  Heimrich hoped so. At the moment she seemed to be asleep, deeply asleep. An ambulance was on the way.

  He went back into the big white house, the almost-white house. Mrs. Cummins was not in the entrance hall. He went into the living room. Mrs. Cummins was leaning down over the unconscious girl on the hard sofa. Mrs. Cummins had one hand in a pocket of her white smock. When Heimrich came into the room, she took the hand out of the pocket and went to sit on one of the inhospitable chairs. Heimrich sat on another. It was as resistant as it had looked to be.

  “A couple of hours ago she came here, you say?” he said. “In a car, I suppose?”

  “I didn’t see any car, or hear any car, Inspector. Just the doorbell, the chimes. I was taking care of my cats. Changing their pans and feeding them; giving them water. Saying—well, saying good morning. I suppose that sounds silly to you?”

  “No,” Heimrich said, “we say good morning to our animals. One of whom is a dog. About Miss Arnold?”

  “It took me a few minutes to get to the door. I didn’t hurry, because I thought it probably was somebody selling something. Or wanting me to take religious tracts. There are a good many of that kind around, you know.”

  “Yes. About what time was this, Mrs. Cummins?”

  “Around eight, or a little after. But it was just the girl, standing there. And looking like she might fall down.”

  “Yes. Go on, Mrs. Cummins.”

  “She said would I please let her in. Something like that. And ‘They’re after me,’ and that she didn’t have any place to go.”

  “Did she say the police were after her? Or just ‘they’?”

  “I don’t think I remember. I was too surprised. Taken aback. And she spoke so low I could hardly hear her. Low and muzzy. So I said, ‘Come in, Miss Arnold,’ and she did. There was this awful bruise on her head, you know. The way it is now.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said, “she was in an accident. But that was a couple of days ago. On Sunday, actually. You didn’t know about that? It happened quite near here.”

  “No. Sunday, you say. What time Sunday?”

  “Around noon. A little before noon. She was on her way here. Bringing the cat you’d asked her to bring.”

  “I’d asked her to bring a cat? What cat? Because I never asked her anything of the kind. Around noon Sunday? Why on earth would I? I’d have been in church. The First Baptist, over in Cold Harbor. Like every Sunday.”

  Heimrich said he saw. And what time had she got back from church?

  It must have been after one. She had stopped for a bite to eat on her way back. And dear Dr. James had preached longer than he usually did. Yes, it must have been after one. Again, Heimrich told her that he saw.

  “She’s been missing since then, Inspector? Since Sunday noon?”

  “No. She was in the hospital for a while. As you seem to have guessed. Unless she told you about it when she showed up this morning.”

  “I don’t think she did. But she was blurry. Perhaps she did.”

  “Did she say anything about a cat? A ‘poor little cat’?”

  “Of course not. Not if she meant any of mine, that is.”

  “She was bringing a cat over from the hospital when her car went off the road Sunday. The cat seems to have disappeared. She was worried about it. After she was discharged from the hospital.”

  She did not know what he was talking about.

  “There wasn’t any cat at the hospital. Since—oh, Saturday night. The night Dr. Barton died. I’d brought them both home that evening. Wait a minute. You were there then, weren’t you? You must have seen me get them.”

  “The cat the doctor had just operated on,” Heimrich said. “The one you had sold.”

  “That one, yes. They’re going to call her Jenny, the poor thing. And Lady Bella. She’d been off her feed for several days, and Dr. Barton had been taking care of her. But, with the doctor dead, I decided to bring her home. So I put them both in the carrying case and brought them out. But you saw me. You were standing right there.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Cummins, I saw you bring the carrying case out. I hadn’t realized there were two cats in it.”

  “The case is plenty large enough for two of them, Inspector. And, when there are two of them in one they don’t get so nervous about it. They don’t like to be in boxes, especially boxes that move, you know.”

  Heimrich could see their point. Once more, he said he saw. And he said that possibly he had misunderstood Miss Arnold when he thought she said Mrs. Cummins had telephoned her at the animal hospital and asked her to bring Lady—what was the rest of the name?”

  “Bella—Lady Bella’s her call name. Her registered name is Lady Mau Tang. We give them Oriental names because they’re supposed to be Oriental cats. Except I’ve heard there aren’t any Siamese cats in Siam, and probably never were. Not as we know them, anyway. They’ve been bred to look the way they do. In England first, and then over here.”

  “Well,” Heimrich said, “there isn’t any Siam any more, is there? To get back to Miss Arnold”—he looked at the unconscious (sleeping?) girl on the hard sofa. The girl whom conversation in a smallish room didn’t waken. But he could see the rise and fall of her breathing. “She asked to come in. You thought she was wobbly, unsteady on her feet. She came in, obviously. Then?”

  “I brought her in here, and she sat down on the sofa. And I thought coffee might help her, so I made her some. I had to urge her to drink it—help her, actually. Hold the cup for her. I thou
ght she seemed, well, a little more pulled together, so I went back and made another cup. Instant, you know. But very good instant. The kind I drink myself. But when I brought it back—”

  When she had brought back the second cup of instant, but very good instant, coffee, Carol Arnold wasn’t sitting on the sofa any more. She had slid off it, and was sitting—“sprawling, really”—on the floor with her back against the sofa.

  “And, she seemed to have passed out, Inspector. Gone to sleep, anyway. Only—well, it didn’t seem right, you know. That awful bruise on her head and this sudden unconsciousness. Well, it frightened me. I’m a nurse, you know. Used to be, anyway. In New York. At Saint Vincent’s for years. Then at Doctors Hospital. I’m retired now, of course. But I haven’t forgotten my training. And—well, it looked to me as if it might be concussion. So, I tried to call somebody. Only the phone was dead. The way it is now.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Cummins. Pulled loose from the wall. You didn’t notice that?”

  “Not right away. I was too upset. Too worried about her. And—well, I didn’t know what to do. Which isn’t really like me at all, you know. I wanted to get help, but the phone was dead. And I was afraid to leave her and go somewhere for help. And I had some people coming. Bringing a female for the Prince. They’re almost due now, actually. I thought they could get somebody to help. But you came instead. Only it’s taking the ambulance a long time to get here, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it does seem to be, Mrs. Cummins. It does, some—”

  The sound of a car door slamming shut interrupted him. It didn’t however, sound like an ambulance door. Too light a sound for that.

  “There it is, finally,” Grace Cummins said. “I’ll go”

  Her smock brushed against Heimrich as she went. The swinging garment swished against his hip. Whatever was in the pocket was small. Small and hard.

  Heimrich could hear a door opening; he could hear her inquiring, “Yes?” He could not distinguish the words of the answer, only the much lower sound of a male voice. “Why yes, Doctor,” Grace Cummins said. “As a matter of fact, he is.”