by John Farris
Jackson looked back at the house, vibrant in the dark surround, but he was unable to single out the third-story playroom where Champ lay virtually unattended, and unprotected. Something should be done about that, and soon.
He raked at a mosquito bite on one cheek as Nhora opened a rear door of the Cadillac.
"It's good to have you back, Evvy," she said dispassionately.
"Where's Champ? I want to see that ol' boy. Goddam, it's been two years since I set eyes on him!"
"May I introduce Dr. Jackson Holley? He's Champ's physician."
Everett John Wilkes leaned forward in the seat, squinting at Jackson. He was a heavy man in a seersucker suit, jowls on his chest, graying hair tumbling down into his eyes, a florid complexion to match his rummy disposition. There was a pair of crutches beside him.
"Doctor?" he said loudly, as if they were still on the other side of the lawn. "Where from?"
"I'm with the Red Cross," Jackson replied, now at ease with the convenient lie.
"American Red Cross? You sound British to me." Wilkes's accent and diphthongs were a puzzle to Jackson, but the rhythm of his speech was seductive.
"I am a British subject, but I've practiced in this country and in Canada for many years."
Wilkes continued to look him over. "How is Champ? I heard he was dying."
"He has pneumonia, but I'm still confident he'll recover."
Wilkes nodded, his eyes filling as if he were about to weep. Instead he smiled and bellowed, "Now that's some piece of good news, doctor! Yes, sir. Happy to hear it." He fumbled for a handkerchief and used it, then shifted his attention to Nhora, unable to conceal a gleam of malice. "Well, there's business I want to talk over with Champ; need to bring him up to date. No time like the present."
"Surely business matters could be postponed for a week or so," Jackson said, as Nhora hissed softly in exasperation. "Champ is quite weak, he's been on the road for days trying to get here. And emotionally he's in a precarious condition: the war, the death of his wife. He still hasn't fully accepted the fact of her death."
Nor had Wilkes, apparently; at the mention of Nancy Bradwin he winced in pain. Jackson had studied the lawyer closely as he spoke. Without doubt Everett John Wilkes was a heavy drinker, perhaps he was chronically drunk. In the available light it was as difficult to calculate his degree of sobriety as it was to fix his age. If he was an alcoholic, then he was one of the rare ones whose wit never failed them until the lights went out. Jackson decided to test this observation.
"But we have business that shouldn't wait," he said. "You and Nhora have to make a difficult decision tonight."
"Decision about what?" Wilkes said suspiciously. "Champ's back; Champ'll be runnin' things from now on."
"When he's fully competent. In the meantime an autopsy must be sanctioned."
"Autopsy? You talkin' about Nancy? What the hell for?"
Nhora drew a little closer to Jackson, touching him, whether to give support or reassurance he didn't know. "Dr. Holley thinks Nancy may have been murdered," she said.
Wilkes's eyes widened slightly; he sank back out of the light, exhaling, his body reacting in nods and jerks to the implications of the word "murder". He spoke for the first time, in a normal tone of voice, phrasing a question that was becoming too familiar to Jackson.
"Jesus," he said. "Just who the hell are you?"
The clinic in Chisca Ridge, a three-story brick house without distinction, was two blocks south of the one-street business district of the small town. It occupied an overgrown acre at the intersection of Des Arc and West Pine streets; similar houses, separated by victory-garden plots, filled the neighborhood. There was a deep front porch, a porte cochere and too many shade trees, which would serve to keep the interior dark even on the brightest days. The lower windows were shaded, the upper windows vacant. A child had left a broken roller skate on the front walk. A cat studied them from beneath a drooping branch of a giant mimosa tree. As they walked up the steps to the front door, Nhora morosely jangled the ring of keys she had received from Flax the undertaker.
"Henry was unaccountably brilliant, considering his background," she said. "He came from one of those impoverished mining towns where children rarely go to school past the sixth grade. Henry was spindly from birth, and if that wasn't enough of a handicap, when he was ten, a coal truck ran over him. That accident put him in the hospital for two and a half years. His father was a minor union official, so fortunately there were medical benefits. He needed seventeen operations in all, and still some of his bones wouldn't knit properly. To take his mind off the pain he educated himself, reading nearly every book in the local library, taking college-level correspondence courses. Somehow he put himself through medical school, but he never made up the cost emotionally.
"His record was sensational—I saw the transcripts—but the prestige appointments he wanted didn't come his way. Henry had no social graces, and he was totally at a loss on any level of give-and-take with other people. Also he had the sharp, antagonistic manner of the man who knows his superior mentality isn't going to pay off for him. Henry had a minor breakdown from overwork; nothing serious, but his psychiatrist recommended an undemanding practice in a town like this one. He wasn't experienced, but we needed a doctor badly."
Jackson struck a match while Nhora searched for the right key to unlock the clinic. There was a tarnished brass nameplate beside the bellpull. Henry F. Talmadge, M.D. A breeze pushed its way through the heavy mimosa, and shadows came to life the length of the porch.
"The practice turned out to be more demanding than he anticipated. Because of Nancy?"
"Yes." Nhora put a key in the lock. "His interest was—far too personal. I think he fell in love with Nancy. He should have looked for help, he could have taken her to Memphis or New Orleans. But after a while he became obsessed, he had to find the cure all by himself."
The door opened and they went in. Nhora paused to turn on the dim overhead light in the foyer. On the left a mahogany staircase went up to the second floor. Nhora turned and looked at the top of the stairs with visible apprehension.
"What's the matter?" Jackson asked.
Nhora pointed. "That's where he did it. He tied his rope to a baluster, then jumped or threw himself over the railing."
"When did it happen, Nhora?"
"The end of March; March twenty-sixth, I think."
"No one knows why?"
"He was under a strain, spending so much time with Nancy other patients were neglected. There were complaints."
"That isn't enough to drive a man to suicide. Is it?"
"I don't know; I told you he was obsessed. He had no tolerance for frustration, for failure." She led Jackson down the linoleum hall. "This is the white reception room, the colored is in the back. There's a colored doctor in town, Old Lamb, who has his own office. When Dr. Gilgo was alive Old Lamb saw patients here three days a week, and he could use the facilities now if he wanted to. But I don't think anyone's been in this house for months."
Nhora massaged the base of her throat. "I can't breathe in here," she complained.
"I'll find what I need."
"You won't be long?" she said hopefully. "I'll wait outside on the porch."
The clinic had been well designed and was more modem than Jackson had anticipated. One room was fully equipped for emergency surgery. Shelves of pharmaceuticals were still usable. The previous tenants had purchased the best instruments and machines available. Jackson found a chest of unexposed X-ray plates purchased within the year. The laboratory was adequate for routine tests—blood counts, pregnancy—and the medical library was up to date, thanks to Dr. Henry Talmadge, whose nameplate was in two-thirds of the volumes.
And someone had kept good records through the years in the doctor's private office he found Nancy Bradwin's file and pulled it.
Jackson couldn't resist taking an extra few minutes then and there to look through the file. He switched on a desk lamp with a green glass shade and put the fil
e on the blotter, bending over it as he turned to the first page. But he couldn't concentrate; a faint, sourceless odor in the room distracted him.
He looked more closely at the desktop beneath the lamp. Dust, of course, thick enough to gray the darkly finished wood. But the corner of the desk had been scrubbed clean, as if someone had sat there to read.
The odor was identifiable, now that he was giving it some thought: apples.
Jackson found two apple cores in the wastebasket, and peelings. Fresh no more than three days ago. He got down on his hands and knees, discovered more apple parings and a couple of spat-out seeds on the carpet. In the desktop there was a thin gash, where Early Boy's knife had been stuck close to hand.
"What's keeping you?" Nhora asked from the doorway. Everett John Wilkes came up behind her, straining on his crutches, dragging the dead weight of his left leg.
To tell them of his suspicion that Early Boy Hodges had been making himself at home in the clinic while going through the medical files would have invited sharp questions from Wilkes. How could he be so certain it was Hodges, and how had he become acquainted with the outlaw's habits? Jackson had known Wilkes for only a short time, but he was already wary; it was obvious that the lawyer was not a fool despite his prodigious, compulsive drinking. He had the vision of an owl in the besotted darkness of his mind. Having paused outside the door, he was already twisting the cap off his silver flask of bourbon. Jackson had concluded that Wilkes didn't crave whiskey for its own sake; he drank it austerely, in measured swallows. Neither was the lawyer courting oblivion, like many other heavy drinkers. There seemed to be a massive fear behind his grip on the bottle. In the dark which he created for himself he found courage, and relief from demons.
"Coming," Jackson said with a smile, and turned off the desk lamp. He brought the file with him. Wilkes coughed to clear his throat, leaning to his right, on hi good leg, and recapped his flask. "What's that you got there?"
"Everything Dr. Talmadge knew about Nancy Bradwin's condition. I should study it before the autopsy."
Wilkes nodded. "Judge Romney'll have that court order ready, nine o'clock in the mornin'." His voice was thick with booze; it sounded to Jackson as if he'd said "coat odda."
"Is this where you're going to do it?" Nhora asked as they went down the hail to the front door.
"No, Flax and Dakin have better facilities for an autopsy. Because Flax is the county coroner, I'll just be assisting."
"And you're sure she won't be disfigured—I mean, autopsies are really brutal, aren't they?"
"You won't notice a thing," Jackson assured her.
Wilkes was adroit with his crutches, but in going through the door he hung a rubber tip on the sill and nearly took a hard fall. Jackson and the Negro chauffeur caught him in time.
Wilkes swore under his breath. He was sweating heavily, his pride suffering. "Goddam deadwood. I'd make out better with it cut off!" When they had him upright he shot a look of special pleading to Jackson. "Maybe there's somethin' you could do?"
"The leg is paralyzed?"
"Yeah. Woke up one morning about a year ago and it was numb all over, like I might've slept on it wrong. My two oldest boys had to cay-ruh me into the house, you'd think I was senile. Well, I hoped it would get better by and by, but it's just deader'n hell. Looks bad, too, like that time I had a broken arm when I was a kid, after they took the cast off."
"Have you seen a specialist?"
Wilkes snorted. "I've seen forty of 'em. What they specialize in is bad guesses, and big bills, and no help at all. About all they had to say was that some nerve is affected—"
"The sciatic nerve."
"That's the one; they said the nerve sheath just disappeared, like it was eat up overnight. How can a thing like that happen to a man without any kind of warning." There was fear in his look this time—tomorrow it could be the other leg.
"I don't have a good answer, either," Jackson said reluctantly.
Everett John Wilkes brooded over this admission as they went down the walk to his Cadillac. The chauffeur hopped ahead to open the back door for him. But instead of getting in, Wilkes swung around on his crutches, stopping Nhora and Jackson as they were walking back to Nhora's car.
"Well, what do you think about it?" he demanded of Jackson. "Could you make do with what we got to offer here?"
"Excuse me?"
"Don't be deceived by the looks of the town, it's small but it's decent rich. Dasharoons ain't the only plantation in the county. We do need a doctor here, in the worst way. What do you say, Mora?"
"It's a wonderful idea, but Dr. Holley hasn't been here long enough to make a decision about—"
"I know it; I know: I'm merely askin' him to keep us in mind, if he thinks the Red Cross could spare him for the duration."
"I'm immensely flattered, Mr. Wilkes."
"Evvy. Chrissake."
"Evvy. It's a fine clinic. But you've taken me by surprise."
"We'll have a few drinks soon—talk it over. Y'all take care." He lowered himself into the back seat of the Cadillac, reaching for the flask in his coat pocket as soon as he was settled. The chauffeur closed the door.
"He drinks a lot, but he's only as drunk as he wants to be," Nhora said. They watched the Cadillac drive away, then turzted to her own car, a modest Chevrolet coupé. "I don't believe he likes you very much."
"He was patronizing when I married Boss, and shocked when Champ put me in charge of Dasharoons. I suppose he thinks I have—grand designs. I don't. I love Dasharoons, but it belongs to Champ. I wouldn't have it any other way."
Nhora opened the Chevy door and went blank for a vital second. Jackson saw the reflected gleam of a streetlight on the point of the sword that was aimed at her head and reached around her to slam the door shut. Nhora backed slowly away, mouth working, staring at the car. She backed all the way across the street and into deep shadow. Jackson heard her groan.
He opened the door again. There was a gardenia stench, cheap perfume, which he hadn't noticed before. It smelled inside the car as if a bottle had been uncorked and drained on the floorboards. The sword, or saber, had a straight blade about three feet long. It had been wedged hilt-first through the steering wheel. Jackson tested the edge of the saber with the back of his hand; it was sharp enough to shave with. He went around to the other side of the car, got in and worked the saber free. Nothing fancy about it; a duelist's weapon. A single gold star, wired to the hilt, dangled in the palm of his hand. He placed the saber in the trunk of the coupé and went to
Nhora.
She looked bloodless when he drew her out into the light; her skin was predictably cold as her body continued to adjust to the shock she'd received.
"What is he trying to do to me?" she cried.
"Clipper's?"
"Yes!"
"How could Early Boy get his hands on it?"
"The saber originally belonged to Boss, it was one of his cherished possessions. He gave it to Clipper for graduation. It should have been buried with Clipper, but Champ said no. The saber was in the attic at Dasharoons with all of Clipper's things. I don't know why we didn't just throw it away. Clipper was nothing but a vile, demented little monster, and he killed my husband with that sword!"
Jackson looked back at the Chevrolet, trying to fathom what Early Boy had in mind when he placed the saber there. No matter how hasty Nhora was about getting into her car it was unlikely she would have been hurt. Still, this seemed to be more than a scary prank; might there be some meaning in it, according to Early Boy's deranged logic?
"There was a gold star wired to the hilt; does that have any significance?"
Nhora shook her head in anguish. "I don't know, I can't think. Could we get out of here?"
Jackson drove. The odor of perfume was still strong in the car, even with the windows wide open. Nhora had a cigarette and said nothing other than to give directions until they reached the boundary of Dasharoons. Then she was able to relax, and to breathe without gulping air.
"What frightens me most is the way he gets around, and no one ever sees him."
"Early Boy has spent years living like a shadow. And he has a flair for the dramatic, as you know."
She turned her head to look at Jackson. "Do you think he wants to kill me?" she said, her voice even but a flare of panic in the eyes, like an animal with one foot in the grip of a trap.
"No. If that's what he wanted, he's had opportunities. He seems to be testing, challenging you. It's like a brutal club initiation, ritualistic in design. That's all I can make of it."
"But why?" she said, hopelessly, almost inaudibly. "I haven't done anything to him."
"Champ is very ill now, and unstable. For all practical purposes you're the boss at Dasharoons, and Early Boy may resent that."
"No matter what he thinks, or any of them think, I've done the job my husband would have done. I'll go away, for God's sake! I'll pack my bags tonight if that's what he wants."
She was a woman who cried suddenly, and violently, and got over it within a minute or two. Afterward she didn't touch her face; she angled the window vent and her tears dried in a slipstream of warm air. Her hair waved and tangled becomingly. Jackson glanced at her more than he needed to during the final mile home.
"You asked about the gold star," Nhora said, as if she'd been thinking of the saber again. "It meant that Clipper was first in his class at Blue Ridge for four years. Only a few other cadets have won it. Clipper led an exemplary public life. No one knew about the rot underneath, until it was much too late."
"What do you mean?"
"Just as Beau was—tried to be—Boss's conscience, Clipper was the dark side of Boss. No bones about it, Boss was a hell-raiser in his time. He had a good, honest streak of lust and he indulged himself, colored and white. But he treated his women with respect and affection. Clipper's sexuality was twisted, he used young girls shamefully. He left a diary behind that described orgies and sick fantasies. Champ and I both read it. Clipper expressed such contempt, such loathing, for sex, for what is human and necessary in all of us."