“It was what Miriam wanted, what she needed. You performed well.” I was about to say something when she smiled and added, “All throughout the evening apparently.”
“You bitch.”
“Well, what did you expect? Even with my door closed, I heard the bedsprings grinding away, the moaning, the—”
“Shut up.” She took a mouthful of egg and bit into her roll. I watched her sip the coffee.
“I don’t see what you’re so upset about. Miriam has come back to you, hasn’t she? Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Not like this.”
She shrugged and continued to eat. I watched her, intrigued with the movement in her throat, in the way her small veins pressed against the skin of her temples, how her eyes grew smaller and then bigger with each bite and swallow. The blanket slipped down her body, revealing more than half her bosom. When she lifted her cup again, it slipped even further until it was just above her nipples. I tried looking away, but everything about her was fascinating. It was as though I had been granted the privilege of watching some celebrity in her private moments.
“You’re just like every other man—you want things on your own terms. Be grateful you have anything at all, considering the circumstances.”
“I have been considering the circumstances. When do you plan on leaving?” I asked. I spoke softly, my tone of voice revealing my hesitation and subservience. She looked up from her food, a different sort of smile coming into her face. Then she sat back gently until the blanket fell completely below her breasts. She’s using her body like some sort of weapon, I thought, but I couldn’t resist looking at her.
“Are you sure you really want me to leave?”
“Yes,” I said, but not as convincingly as I would have liked. Even so, the smile left her face.
“I told you. When the job is done.” She went back to eating for a few moments and then looked up and said, “You know, I don’t think I’ll leave this room much today.” She put her hands behind her head and closed her eyes. As she stretched, her bosom lifted, each breast rising as though awakened, the nipples erect and inviting. I took another step back. “I’m going to indulge myself.” She looked at me. “Indulge all my senses.” She put the tray on the little night table to the right of the bed and shifted more to that side. Then she lifted the blanket from her body. “There’s plenty of room under here.”
“No,” I said. I started for the door.
“Come on, Michael. You know you want to.”
“No,” I repeated. I seized the knob. I heard her laugh at my retreat. Shaking, I stood outside the door. The thing that frightened me the most was that I was tempted to slide into that bed. I had a glimpse of her naked thighs. Her breasts quivered with promise. “No,” I whispered as though she were still temptingly before me. “No.” I headed down the stairs.
I stopped in the middle. Miriam was at the bottom of the stairway, smiling and holding a slip of paper in her right hand. Had she heard me being chased from Mrs. Randolph’s room? Perhaps this was the time to tell her that the nurse had just invited me into her bed. Would she believe me? I wondered. Would she want to know if I had done it before? The words were at the tip of my tongue.
“Everything all right, Michael?”
I closed my eyes and tried, but I couldn’t do it. I was surrounded: the nurse was behind me, terrifying me with her sex, tormenting me with her confidence; and Miriam was before me, fragile, beautiful, and trusting. What could I say?
“Yes, it’s all right.”
“Good. Before you leave the house to get the paper today, I wanted to be sure to give you this.”
“What is it?”
“A list of a few things Mrs. Randolph needs. There’s an herbal shampoo she wants. You’re probably not going to be able to get it in a regular drugstore, but I called the health food store in Liberty and they have it in stock.”
“You want me to go all the way to Liberty for shampoo? That’s over twenty miles!”
“It’s what Mrs. Randolph needs, Michael. You can’t expect her to get it; she hasn’t got a car.”
“I don’t care. Why can’t she use regular shampoo like everyone else?”
“Michael, really.”
“She’s driving us crazy with her needs,” I said thinking about her body beneath that blanket. I came down the stairway and took the list from Miriam.
“What needs, Michael?” She held that gentle smile. “What needs?”
“Needs, needs.”
“She hasn’t asked for very much. We don’t live exactly near a shopping center, and there are no buses running past our house. She’s not used to this. You, yourself said to her—”
“All right.”
“I mean, not many people would want to stay out here if they didn’t have a car. She could be asking you to drive her all over the place. She could—”
“All right,” I said again. I headed for the door. I kept thinking I had to get in touch with Dr. Turner. It was more important than anything else.
“What about your breakfast, Michael? You don’t have to rush right out.”
“I’m not hungry yet,” I called back. She started to say something else, but I closed the door on her.
I practically ran to the car. Before I got in, I looked back. Something drew my gaze to Mrs. Randolph’s front window. She was standing there looking out. She was smiling at me and she was completely naked. I slammed my car door shut behind me and drove off wildly, spinning out of the driveway, the tires squealing, dirt and pebbles flying. I imagined I heard the sound of her laughter.
I stopped at the first pay phone I saw. It was at a garage near the entrance to the Quickway route to Liberty. I dialed Dr. Turner’s office and waited. After three rings, an operator came on. It was his damn answering service.
“Isn’t he back yet? It’s important, terribly important.”
“We have no notification of his return, sir; however, Dr. Turner’s office has left instructions. There is another doctor covering his—”
“I don’t want another doctor, dammit.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Look, look, do you have the telephone number for his receptionist, Mrs. Greenstreet? She can get in touch with him for me.”
“One moment please,” she said in that infuriatingly calm, mechanical voice. I strummed the top of the phone with the fingers of my right hand.
“I’m sorry, sir, we have no other number associated with Dr. Turner, except for the number of the doctor covering for him.”
“No, no. OK,” I said, and I hung up. I found the chewed up telephone book in the slot under the phone, but when I looked up Greenstreet, I realized I didn’t know Mrs. Greenstreet’s first name or her husband’s first name. There were at least twenty Greenstreets listed in the telephone area. Since it was the weekend, she wasn’t going in to the office. I realized I might just have to wait until Monday. The thought threw me into a kind of panic. For a while I just stood outside the phone booth staring at the garage. The attendant finally came over to ask me if anything was wrong.
“You don’t know a Mrs. Greenstreet who works for Dr. Turner, do you?”
“Huh?”
“I didn’t think so. I’ve got to get some herbal shampoo,” I muttered. He shook his head at me as I got back into the car. Images of Mrs. Randolph’s smile and nude body flashed continually. I drove in a daze. I didn’t even remember pulling off the correct exit, but suddenly I was in Liberty and I had to park to shop for the things Mrs. Randolph needed. Before I was finished, I went into a liquor store and purchased six new bottles. It was my one act of defiance. I would keep these bottles where she couldn’t get her hands on them, I thought.
I must have appeared quite agitated because all of the store clerks and even some other customers gave me some strange looks. I caught them whispering about me. I knew I hadn’t shaved and my hair was a mess, but I didn’t think that was a big deal. I was wearing a plain short-sleeve white shirt and a pair of gray slacks,
so there wasn’t anything peculiar about my clothes. I suppose I was doing a lot of mumbling and cursing under my breath. The liquor store salesman looked as though he thought I was going to stick him up. I could see he was happy when I left.
“Mrs. Randolph is doing all this to me,” I muttered. “Mrs. Randolph.” In fact, I talked to myself all the way home. At times I actually screamed in the car. I know I was driving too fast so I was lucky no state policemen were on this section of the highway. Even so it was nearly two hours before I turned back into our driveway.
I knew something was terribly wrong right away. Miriam was out by the big oak tree in front of our house, and Mrs. Randolph, dressed in a bathrobe, stood beside her with her arm around her shoulders. She was comforting her about something. I parked and got out as quickly as I could. Neither of them looked my way until I called.
“What is it?”
They both turned to me, and Miriam took a few steps in my direction. Her face was streaked with tears, and her hands were folded in little fists. She kept her arms down stiffly, her fists against her thighs. I never saw her look so angry. Her face was flushed. Mrs. Randolph moved right behind her, just out of my view. It looked like she was pushing Miriam forward, whispering words of encouragement to her, but I couldn’t be sure.
“Michael,” Miriam said, “you didn’t do it, did you? Did you do it, Michael?”
“Do what?”
“Because if you did such a thing ...” She shook her head. I leaned to the right so I could see Mrs. Randolph clearly.
“Do what? What is she talking about now?”
Mrs. Randolph stepped forward until she was beside Miriam. She took Miriam’s left arm at the elbow and held her close.
“Lillian’s dog,” Mrs. Randolph said, talking through clenched teeth, “is dead.”
11
* * *
I WANTED TO HAVE AN AUTOPSY PERFORMED ON THAT dog. I wanted to have it confirmed that the dog was injected with some lethal drug. This was a golden opportunity to turn Miriam away from Mrs. Randolph. I would present Miriam with the scientific evidence and Mrs. Randolph would be trapped. So confronted, she would leave our house and finally we would be rid of her.
“Dead?” I said. “How did it die?”
“Poisoned,” Miriam said. “Mrs. Randolph knows about things like that.”
“I bet she does,” I said. “What kind of poison?” I started for the back of the house.
“It looks like rat poison,” Mrs. Randolph said.
“We have rat poison in the basement,” Miriam said. Mrs. Randolph nodded sympathetically. I continued on.
The dog, still hooked to its leash, lay on its side by the dog house. Its tongue hung out, a pale pine leathery-looking slice of flesh. Its eyes were opened. They were glassy. Flies were feeding off the mucus, and there were bugs already crawling through the dog’s coat. When some flies emerged from the opened mouth, my stomach began to churn. I turned away for a moment. The dog had to have been dead overnight, I thought. What was probably the remains of contaminated meat was still in its dish.
I considered having the meat analyzed. Most probably it would be confirmed as rat poison, just as Mrs. Randolph said. She had gotten into it and done the deed, I thought. How could I prove to Miriam that it was the nurse who had done it? An autopsy would do no good. The nurse was too clever.
For the first time, I considered why she would do such a thing. What was she trying to accomplish? As I looked down at the pathetic carcass, I wondered whether the nurse had had this planned from the start, even when she had driven me, through Miriam, to get the dog. Was it all part of some grand design?
I decided I would bury the animal. I went back around front to the garage to get a shovel. Miriam and Mrs. Randolph had gone inside, but all the while I felt someone was watching me. I found a soft spot in the backyard and dug a grave. Then I unhooked the dog, holding my breath as best and as long as I could, and dragged its body to the hole. After I had covered it and had put the shovel back, I remembered the things I had left in the car.
The two of them were sitting in the living room when I entered. I was sure they had stopped talking the moment I opened the front door. Both looked at me accusingly.
“These are Mrs. Randolph’s things,” I said setting one bag down on the table. “This bag is mine,” I added embracing the remaining one in my hands, “and no one but me is to touch its contents.” I lifted a bottle out to illustrate what the bag contained.
“It’s your body. Destroy it as you will,” Mrs. Randolph said.
“Exactly.”
“What did you do about the poor dog?” Miriam asked.
“I buried it.” She began to cry again. “You were right-—someone killed it with poison. I swear to you, Miriam, it wasn’t me.” She lifted her hands from her face.
“What will we tell Lillian?”
“Tell her it ran away,” I said. “Tell her dogs usually do that and it will come back soon.”
“Why don’t you tell her?” Mrs. Randolph asked. “You know so much about it.”
“That’s right, Michael. You’ll have to tell her.”
“All right, I will. I just want to repeat that I did not kill that dog. I didn’t like it particularly and I was not keen on getting it, but I wouldn’t do such a thing.”
“Being the dog was tied up all the time,” Mrs. Randolph said, “someone had to bring the poison to it.”
“It wasn’t me.” I stared back at her. Miriam looked from me to Mrs. Randolph and then back at me again.
“Do you think ... maybe someone did it as a practical joke?” Miriam asked. “Or maybe Mr. Gilbert didn’t like its barking?” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “He could hear it barking, couldn’t he, Michael?”
“He could hear it, but I don’t think he would do such a thing. If it bothered him that much, he would at least call us about it, and as far as I know, he never did, did he?”
“No,” Miriam said. She looked to Mrs. Randolph, but Mrs. Randolph said nothing.
“Couldn’t you have done it by accident?” Mrs. Randolph asked. Miriam’s eyes widened. “Perhaps you had prepared the poison for rats and somehow it got mixed up with the dog’s food.”
“No!”
“We were talking about rats the other day, Michael,” Miriam said. “We always knew field mice and such got into the basement.”
“I couldn’t have made such a mistake.”
“So you did prepare something for rats.”
“No.”
“Then we’ll have to chalk it up to the world of mystery,” Mrs. Randolph said.
“Yeah, some mystery,” I said. I looked at Miriam, but she still appeared suspicious of me. I left to put my booze away.
Afterward, I went outside to think. If only there was a way to trap her in this, I thought, now that she has put up such a facade of innocence. Something occurred to me. For my own satisfaction, I went around to the side of the house and entered the basement through our side door. There was a light switch just inside.
The old farmhouse still had its original fieldstone foundation. We never did anything with the basement because it wasn’t much, even though it ran the length and width of the house. I had my hot water heater and oil burner in it, both set on slabs of concrete. The rest of the floor was simply hard-packed earth. There were only two light fixtures: one at the foot of the stairs that led down to the basement from inside the house, and the other just inside the outside side door. Both had been added on years after the house was built.
Originally, the basement had been used to store potatoes and canned goods. There were shelves along the walls. I remembered how hard my mother worked to can tomatoes, pickles, and fruits. My father aged cider in some vats just at the base of the stairway. There was a vat still there, although there was nothing in it. I never liked the cider, so I never cared about it.
There were a number of old trunks, cartons, and boxes still in the basement. My father had put some furniture down here to
o. He never liked to throw anything away, even though some of it was broken beyond repair. I don’t know why I hadn’t come down here before and just cleaned the place out. Maybe it was because we had put some of Lillian’s old things down here years ago.
I went to the shelves under the stairway where I kept the poisons and the traps. There was an empty space where a can of poison had been. The dust had formed around it. Now there was no question in my mind that the nurse had done it. If only I had a way of proving that to Miriam.
I stood there thinking about it and thinking about it. The dank odor began to annoy me. I thought I saw a snake slither across the floor on the far side, but neither light fixture was really strong enough to give illumination to confirm it. However, an idea came to me when I looked at the dirt floor.
I leaned against the wall almost directly under the light by the stairway and lifted my foot so I could take off my shoe. After I did so, I studied the heel and the sole. Just as I had suspected, the clay-dirt floor stained the bottom of the shoe. If Mrs. Randolph’s shoes still had such a stain ... It was worth a try, I thought. I put my shoe back on, flipped the light switch off, and went back outside.
They were just going into the kitchen for lunch when I reentered. They looked at me as though I were some stranger who had just barged in on them. I looked down at the nurse’s shoes. They were bright white and spotless as usual. There was a good chance, however, that she didn’t wear those shoes when she did the ugly deed.
“Are you hungry?” Miriam asked.
“No.”
“Maybe he’s afraid we’ll put some poison in his food,” the nurse said.
“That’s not funny.”
“Well, we’re going in to eat,” Miriam said. I watched them go, and then as quietly as I could, I walked up the stairway. My fingers were trembling as I turned the knob on Mrs. Randolph’s door. I hesitated, looked back at the stairway, and then entered her room. What I was afraid would happen, happened. For a moment I couldn’t move. It was as though I had entered a forbidden area. I closed my eyes because I was getting dizzy. It took a moment for the vertigo to pass. As soon as it did, I moved to the closet quickly.
Tender Loving Care Page 18
