Do Evil In Return (11 page)

Miss Schiller combed her hair and replaced the net over it. With the net on, it hardly looked like hair at all but like a fuzzy gray cap under which the real Miss Schiller hid, bald as an egg.

The newspaper that she’d bought at lunchtime lay on her desk folded so that she could glance at Violet’s picture whenever she felt the excitement beginning to deflate inside her.
Mrs. Violet O’Gorman, of Ashley, Oregon, whose body was found this morning on West Beach apparently a suicide
…

Miss Schiller was reading the report all over again, with the intense fascination of one reading about herself, when Charlotte came out of her office dressed for the street and carrying her medical bag.

Miss Schiller hurriedly turned the paper over and said in her most alert, efficient voice, “Yes, doctor?”

“How many house calls to make?”

“Only three. Here they are.”

“Lord,” Charlotte said. She leaned against the desk and closed her eyes for a moment. The thought of even three house calls appalled her.

“It’s none of my business, doctor, but I must say you haven’t been looking at all well the past few days.”

“No?”

“Haggard, you look, real haggard.”

“Thanks.”

“I was reading only the other day that doctors die sooner than people in any other profession. Now this new herbal tonic I’m taking, really, it’s so invigorating.”

“The stuffs probably loaded with alcohol. No wonder it peps you up.”

“Alcohol?”
Miss Schiller blanched. “Oh no. They wouldn’t dare…”

“Cheer up. It won’t kill you,” Charlotte said.

“But I don’t drink. I don’t
believe
in alcohol.”

“Well, maybe the tonic will help you change your mind.”

The phone rang, but Miss Schiller was too perturbed to answer it. In her imagination she was already an alcoholic, doomed to a drunkard’s grave, through no fault of her own. The vicious stuff was right this minute churning around in her bloodstream, corroding her will, destroying her character. That’s what they told her when she took the pledge—that one never knew when one’s will was being corroded until it was too late. Oh dear. She felt quite giddy.

“Charley? Bill Blake.”

“Hello Bill,” Charlotte said.

“I have to go out of town the beginning of next week. I thought we’d try a switch again, if you’re willing.”

“Certainly.”

“If you haven’t anything critical on your books, I could take over your practice for the rest of this week, and you take mine next Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.”

“That suits me.”

“Swell,” Blake said. “Dare I hope that Miss Schiller has quit and gone into a nunnery?”

“You dare not.”

“All I can do is keep her under ether, then. I’ll see you, and thanks, Charley.”

“Good-bye.” She hung up and turned to Miss Schiller. “Dr. Blake sends you his love.”

“He
does?”
Miss Schiller bounced out of her drunkards grave with the single-minded agility of a rabbit “Well, I must say I’m flattered. Dr. Blake is such a
sweet
man.”

“Yes. He’ll be around now and then for the rest of the week. Any calls that come in, just relay to his office. And in the morning you’d better phone the patients who have appointments and send them to Dr. Blake, or else make new appointments. The charts are all in order?”

“Of course.” Miss Schiller was offended. “Well, I mean,
really.
I’ve been in this business for…”

“No offense meant.” Charlotte picked up her medical bag from the desk where she’d put it when she answered the telephone. It seemed heavier than usual. She realized that for the first time in years she felt exhausted. She moved slowly, as if part of her brain tissue had been destroyed like a spastic’s, and each physical move she made had to be thought out and the muscles forced to obey.

“What a nice coincidence that Dr. Blake phoned,” Miss Schiller said. “Now you can have a good rest for a few days. Go down to the beach and lie in the sun.”

“Perhaps I will.” She wondered, briefly, about the “nice coincidence,” and then forgot about it as soon as she reached the street and got into her car.

It was nearly seven and the sky was showing its first stars, when she arrived home. Even before she turned into the driveway she could hear her phone ringing, a shrill rising, falling, like the sound of tree toads. The ringing stopped as she was unlocking her front door and began again a few seconds later.

She thought it might be Lewis calling and when she answered the phone she tried not to sound tired. Lewis hated her to sound tired; it always started an argument about her working too hard.

“Hello?”

“You work late,” Easter said.

“I wish you’d stop bothering me.”

“Who’s bothering you? I have a new lead in Violet’s case and I thought you’d like to hear about it.”

“What is it?”

“I’ve just learned that Violet has an older sister who lives in Ashley, a war widow by the name of Myrtle Reyerling. Violet may have confided in her about the man we’re after—let’s call him Mr. B.”

“Why Mr.—B?”

“No reason. I’m driving up to Ashley tomorrow, unofficially, to have a talk with Mrs. Reyerling. Do you want to come along?”

“No thanks.”

“Think it over.”

“I’ve thought.”

“The trip will do you good,” Easter said. “Fresh air, etcetera.”

“There’s fresh air here.”

“But the Oregon fresh air is said to have therapeutic qualities for nervous women—a sort of gaseous Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound.”

The door chime pealed. “I’ve never been nervous in my life and my doorbell’s ringing.”

“I hear it.”

“So if you’ll excuse me…”

“I will, but I don’t want to.”

“Thank you for the invitation.”

“Keep thinking it over,” Easter said, and hung up. As she was going towards the door it occurred to her that Easter’s invitation was oddly coincidental with Dr. Blake’s offer to take over her practice for a few days. There was no connection, of course, but it worried her. She wondered about Easters motives, whether he was falling in love with her as he pretended, or whether he thought she knew more about the case than she had told him.

Before she opened the door she glanced out of the little window at the top and saw that her caller was Lewis.

For a moment he looked to Charlotte like someone she had once known well and hadn’t seen for years. His face was grim, his mouth a tight bitter line. There were dark gray circles under his eyes like smudges of soot.

“Hello, Charley.”

“Lewis—Lewis, are you ill?”

“No.” He kissed her on the cheek; his breath smelled of brandy.

She withdrew from his embrace, holding him at arms’ length so that she could see him better. “You haven’t been drinking too much, or anything?”

“I am not ill and I haven’t been drinking.” He crossed the room and flung himself wearily into the red leather chair. He was wearing the hat and topcoat he’d had on the previous night when they’d met on the breakwater. He leaned his head against the back of the chair and the hat slid off and rolled on the floor. He didn’t seem to notice. “At least I’ve been drinking only enough for medicinal purposes, to keep me from strangling my wife.”

The words jarred her. “You mustn’t talk like that.”

“If I didn’t talk it I might just go ahead and do it… Have you seen the papers?”

“Yes.”

“It’s the same girl, the one who came to you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m sorry,” he said. “Sorry for the girl, and sorry you had to be mixed up in it.” All during dinner Gwen had talked about it: “Oh,
the poor child
,
how lonely she must have felt! I know so well what loneliness is. Sometimes when you’re not here
,
Lewis
,
when you stay away in the evenings for hours and hours
, I
almost feel like—like killing myself
.” Gwen, sitting across the table from him, an animated little doll with the big dogs pressing their noses moistly against her arm begging for attention, for a scrap of meat He had felt a murderous rage, a terrible desire to stop those white fluttering hands, that gentle voice: “
That poor, poor girl
.
Think how the man must feel who got her into that condition
.”

He covered his eyes with the palms of his hands. Charlotte sat on the hassock at his feet. “I tried to call you this afternoon at the office.”

“I wasn’t there.”

“I know.”

“I went to a movie.”

“I didn’t think you ever went to movies,” she said, half lightly.

“I don’t. I was tired. I thought I’d go to sleep from boredom, but I didn’t… I need some sleeping pills, Charley.”

“I have a couple of Nembutals I can give you.”

“Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

She brought the capsules out of the medicine chest in the bathroom. “Don’t take them until about twenty minutes before you go to bed.”

“All right.”

“Lewis, is anything the matter?”

“Not a thing.”

“I’m glad, Mr. B.”

He looked very surprised, and pleased. “You haven’t called me that for a long time. Remember?”

“I remember.”

“I love you, Miss K.”

“Darling, it’s nice to see you smiling again.”

“I’m out of practice.”

“I know. Things will be better for us someday, wait and see.” She gave him a cigarette and lit it for him, feeling happy that she was able to help him when he was tired. Her own tiredness was nearly gone. “I’m taking the rest of the week off, Lewis.”

His hand tightened on her arm. “Sudden, isn’t it?”

“The chance came up. I thought that I’d take a little trip in the car, perhaps.”

“A trip where?”

“Oh anywhere. You know I’ve always liked driving to new places.”

He hadn’t taken his eyes off her, hadn’t even blinked. “New places such as where?”

“Well, I haven’t seen much of Oregon,” she said. “They say it’s very nice in the summer.”

“Who says?”

“I though perhaps…”

“Stop that thought-perhaps business. Your mind’s made up. It always is. Where are you going in Oregon?”

“Ashley.”

“Where the girl lived?”

“Yes.”

“Haven’t you gotten into enough trouble already?”

“Please, darling…”

“Don’t go,” he said. “Don’t go, Charley.”

“I want to. I feel that I should.”

“Why should you? It’s none of your affair.”

“The police are going.”

“Police?”

“I want to get there first. I don’t like the lieutenant in charge of the case, Easter.”

“I know him,” Lewis said. “He’s a troublemaker.”

“He rang me up tonight and asked me to go with him to Ashley and talk to Violet’s sister. I refused. I think he was trying to set a trap for me. I know I haven’t done anything, but the feeling is there that in some obscure way I’m deeply implicated in Violet’s death.”

“Don’t go, Charley,” he said again.

“But I want to. I’m not afraid of Easter. I’m just curious.”

“Just curious. Oh God.”

“Besides, driving rests me, the trip will do me good.”

“It might do us both good. A world of good.”

He got up. When he leaned over to pick up his hat from the floor he staggered slightly, and she wondered if he had had more to drink than he admitted, or if he was simply exhausted.

He kissed her at the door, a long kiss that seemed to Charlotte to be sad and bitter. She felt suddenly like weeping.

“Good-bye, Charley. Good-bye, darling.”

“Lewis, you’ll take care of yourself?”

“Of course. Have a nice time.”

“Wait. Lewis, if you don’t want me to go, if you have a reason…”

“Reason?” he repeated. “No. No reason except that I’ll miss you.”

“I hope you will.”

“Good-bye, Charley.” The words had an air of finality, as if he never expected to see her again.

The door closed.

She left the following morning long before sunrise. For the first hundred miles she drove along the coast where the road meandered like a concrete river following the curves of the sheer, barren cliffs, blanketed by fog. As the sun rose it swallowed the fog, leaving only a few undigested wisps hiding in the hollows and dips of the road.

The highway turned suddenly inland beyond the reach of the sea, where the heat lay thick over the fertile valley. Here the barren cliffs seemed remote and Charlotte could hardly imagine them only a few miles away from this sudden profusion of growth: acres and acres of silver-green lettuce—greengold, the farmers called it—and groves of oranges too huge to look real and miles of fat tomatoes reddening on the vines.

But the valley ended with the same finality as the cliffs. The road ascended, and the area of the redwoods began, trees so high, so ancient, that their origins dazed the imagination. There was a clearing where the trees had been ruthlessly cut down and hauled away, and from here Charlotte could see two mountains to the northeast, their snowy caps untouched by changes in the weather or by the footprints of men. It was as if nature—and the department of highways—had collaborated to give the tourist the whole scope of California in a few hundred miles.

When she crossed the border into Oregon she had to cut her speed because the noon sun, pressing down through the huge trees, made such brilliant patterns on the road that it was difficult to see any distance ahead or to distinguish the real from the shadow. Now and then she heard a mountain stream chortling furiously, violently, as if nothing could ever stop its mad, hilarious descent to the Pacific.

She reached the outskirts of Ashley a little after two o’clock. A sign informed her that she was about to enter Ashley, the Friendliest Little Town in the West, Population 9,394, Come Early and Stay Late.

She stopped at the first AAA motel that she came to. It was built in a small clearing of trees, two hundred yards off the highway, and it was so new that it still smelled of fresh wood.

A fat man in shirt sleeves was sitting on a kitchen chair tilted against a door marked “office,” fanning himself with a comic book. A dozen other comics were scattered around his chair, half of them without covers, the others brand-new,
True Love Comics, Teen-Age Romance, I Was Jilted, Western Love and Romances.
The fat man’s face was as innocent and devoid of thought as a marshmallow. He was probably laughed at in school as the fat boy, Charlotte thought. Now he’s getting back, he’s the hero of all the comic books, the lover who jilts, the cowboy who rides roughshod over women’s hearts. Poor man, poor boy.