by Lee Roberts
Richard left the kitchen, moved lightly across the living room to the front door and peered out. There was no one in sight. It took only a minute for him to cross the drive to the garage, get the gun and cartridges from their hiding place on a shelf behind a row of paint cans, and return to the house. In the small passageway leading from the kitchen to the terrace he stood by the screen door there and loaded the gun, dropping the cartridges, bright and oil-smelling, into the silk-smooth chambers. When the gun was fully loaded and the cylinder clicked into place, when he felt its wicked balanced weight in his hand, he began to feel the excitement, the heady, luxurious, almost sexual excitement he always felt when he was about to kill with the magnum. It had been a long time, over a year since the last job for Alex. He shivered a little, as a lover might upon approaching the bed of his sweetheart after a long absence, and he felt a sense of anticipation, of satiation to be.
Holding the gun. low and a little ahead of him, Richard moved to the screen door and peered out at the terrace. They were in plain view, maybe fifteen feet away, almost point-blank range, so close that he could hear their voices. Karen first, he thought, not listening to what she was saying to the doctor, and then the doctor, both in the chest region. That was the neat way to do it. A bullet in the head might kill a second quicker, but it was messy. Slowly he raised the gun.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
At four-thirty on Tuesday afternoon Shannon ushered out his last patient, returned to his desk and lit a cigarette. He still had several house calls to make, including one at Erie Cliffs, where an elderly lady from Harbor City who spent her summers at the beach resort, was bedded with summer flu. Lucille Sanchez entered the office, removed her white starched cap and ran fingers through her dark hair. “A busy afternoon, Doctor,” she said.
“Yes.” Shannon pushed a stack of case history cards across the desk. “These are ready to file.” He stood up, removed his white jacket, went to a closet and put on the coat to his light tan summer-weight suit. “I may be a little late tonight—got to go out to the Cliffs to see Mrs. Westerby, and a couple of stops in town after that.” He picked up his bag and grinned at her. “Hold the fort.”
At five o’clock he reached the resort area and as the road curved upward through the pine woods he saw a car ahead, a yellow Chevrolet Corvette, parked off the road on the opposite side, headed for the city. Something stirred in Shannon’s memory and he slowed the Ford. As he drew closer, he saw that someone was sitting in the car. He stopped opposite the Corvette, saw that its occupant was a girl, dark-haired and pretty. “Having trouble?” he called.
“Yes,” the girl said. “My friend has gone to phone a garage.”
“That’s too bad. What’s the trouble?”
“I don’t know. It just won’t start.”
Shannon’s gaze went over the car and he thought of the man who had talked to him the morning before about the woman they’d found on Snake Island, the man who had said he was Richard Barry, the woman’s husband. It was the same kind of car he’d driven, not too common a model. And he remembered what Chief Beckwith had told him about the woman telephoning to Cleveland, to the residence of Richard Barry, before she disappeared. He said to the girl, “Shall I see if I can start it?”
She smiled. “That’s kind of you, but my friend should be back any minute. He just went up the hill to the next house.”
A tiny devil’s fork prodded Shannon’s brain. The girl was a stranger, but he had an odd persistent feeling that the car belonged to the man named Richard Barry, and he remembered Barry’s rather nervous manner, his insistent questions. Shannon made his decision. Maybe it’s silly, he thought, but it won’t do any harm. He pulled the Ford off the road, turned off the motor and crossed to the Corvette, smiling easily. “I’m Dr. Shannon, from Harbor City. Maybe I can help.”
“I saw the medical insignia on your car,” she said. “What do you call it?”
“A caduceus. I’ll be glad to try and start your car.” He grinned at her. “I worked nights in a garage when I was attending medical school.”
“I don’t want you to bother…” Rose Ann murmured, but she slid to the far side of the seat.
Shannon opened the door. “No bother,” he said, as he stooped and got in behind the wheel.
“It’s nice of you, but Dick will be back any time now.”
“Dick?” Shannon looked at her. “Your friend?”
“Yes.” She smiled. “We’re engaged to be married.”
“That’s nice. Perhaps I know him. Is he from around here?”
“Oh, no. He lives in Cleveland. He’s here on vacation and we just happened to meet. My name is Rose Ann Deegan.”
“I see. What’s his last name?”
“Barry. Richard Barry, but I call him Dick.” Rose Ann turned on the seat and gazed back up the road. “I wonder what’s keeping him.”
Shannon sat with his hands on the wheel. He’d been right about the car, he thought. It did belong to the Richard Barry who had visited him yesterday morning. But the girl beside him was certainly not Mrs. Barry, not the woman he’d treated at the hospital. Something was wrong here. Was Richard Barry, who drove a yellow Corvette, married to one woman and engaged to be married to another? It was possible, Shannon decided, but not conventional, to say the least. He gazed at the dash of the Corvette, looking for the ignition key. There was none. He said to the girl, who had turned back in the seat. “Do you have the key?”
“Key?” Her gaze went to the dash. “Isn’t it there?”
“No.”
“I see it isn’t.” Rose Ann sighed. “Dick must have taken it with him, from force of habit.”
“Probably,” Shannon said. He got out of the car. “Well, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
“Thanks, anyhow.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll be back this way in a little while. If you and your friend are still stuck, you can ride into town with me.”
“Thank you, but I’m sure Dick has contacted a garage by now.”
Shannon nodded, crossed to his Ford and drove up the hill. The first house, the girl had said, and as soon as he rounded the curve he saw it on the bluff, a low, sprawling one-story structure at the end of a drive curving up between a hedge and small pines. Sunlight glinted red on the windows and cast long afternoon shadows over the green lawn. There was a station wagon in the drive, parked behind a car in the garage. Shannon swung his Ford into the drive, circled up to the garage and stopped behind the station wagon, a new Mercury. He got out of the Ford, slamming the door behind him, crossed the drive to the front stoop and pressed a bell button beside the screen door. He heard chimes inside the house, but no one came to the door. He pressed the button again, waited a moment, then turned and walked around the house toward the rear. As he approached the edge of the bluff he saw the lake stretching to the horizon, a private beach enclosed by pines, and a long dock with a boat house at the end. He rounded the corner of the house and came upon a terrace. A woman was sitting in a chair there, her back to the sun. She held a glass in one hand and was watching him. He moved forward in the wind and when he stood before her he saw with a small shock that she was the woman he’d treated in Memorial Hospital the Sunday before, the woman they’d found unconscious on Snake Island. But she looked different now, dressed as she was in tight pale green slacks and a short-sleeved white blouse. Her short yellowish hair was smoothly combed, hugging her head like a boy’s, and her face looked much younger. He smiled at her. “Hello. We meet again.”
“I saw your car come up the drive,” she said, “and I heard the door chimes. I didn’t answer them because you are not Richard.”
He peered at her closely. “Richard Barry? Your husband?”
She nodded slowly and took a sip from her glass, which was almost empty. “Yes, Dr. Shannon.”
“You remember, then?”
“I never forgot. Sunday, in the hospital, I pretended that I couldn’t remember. But I did remember, everything. I would like to forget, thoug
h.” She drained the glass.
Shannon gazed at her, feeling a faint uneasiness. He started to speak, but she stopped him. “Go away. I’m waiting for Richard.”
“But I thought he was here,” Shannon said. “His car is stalled down the road, and a girl is waiting in it. She said he’d come here to phone a garage.”
The glass fell from her fingers, crashed on the stone. “Richard? Here? Girl? I—I don’t understand.”
“You haven’t seen him?” Shannon asked sharply.
Dumbly she moved her head from side to side.
“But you’re expecting him?”
She nodded slowly. Her eyes held an odd vacant expression. What was Richard doing with a girl? What girl? A young and pretty one? Was that why he…?
Shannon gazed down at her, feeling his uneasiness grow. “Why did you pretend that you couldn’t remember? And why did you sneak out of the hospital?”
“W-what?”
Shannon repeated his questions.
“I—I can’t tell you.”
“How did you happen to be on Snake Island?” Shannon’s voice was insistent. He was growing angry, and with the anger was the uneasiness. She needs help, he thought. She’s afraid of something, or someone. Her husband? Richard Barry, who was engaged to marry a girl named Rose Ann Deegan?
“Please,” Karen said. “Doctor, I—I don’t wish to talk about it. If you’ll tell me your fee, I’ll pay you, and the hospital, too. I intended to send a check.”
“I’ve been paid. Your husband paid me yesterday morning.”
“He—he did?”
Shannon nodded and said evenly, “He was worried about your disappearance, naturally. He said you’d gone alone in a boat Saturday afternoon and hadn’t returned. He tried to locate you, called your home in Cleveland, reported it to the coast guard station. He said he read in the paper that a woman answering your description had been admitted to the hospital. He called there, learned that I had treated you, but that you’d left during the night. He came to see me, hoping that I might be able to tell him something that would help him find you.” Shannon paused, took a deep breath, and then said, “Why don’t you tell me about it, Mrs. Barry?”
Karen stared at him. Her lips worked silently. Shannon regarded her steadily for a moment, and then looked at his wrist watch. Almost five-thirty. He’d be late for his evening office hours, he thought. He should call Celia, tell her not to hold dinner. He must see Mrs. Westerby, and there were the two house calls in town. But where was Richard Barry, who had left the girl in the Corvette to telephone a garage from this house, from his own home? Shannon’s gaze went to the house, roved over the terrace, the beach and the surrounding grounds. Where had he gone? Shannon looked at the woman and said quietly, “Haven’t you seen your husband since you left the hospital?”
“No.” Karen averted her face, her lips quivering. “Just—forget it. Just go away.”
“I want to help you.”
“No one can help me,” Karen said brokenly, thinking that she’d said the same words to Maggie. No one could help, no one but Richard. She whispered his name, pushed herself up from the chair and moved slowly across the terrace toward the house.
“Wait,” Shannon said.
Karen stopped and turned slowly. Something glinted in her gray eyes, but she smiled and arched her fine brows. “Yes, Doctor?”
“I want to talk to you.”
The smile died on Karen’s lips. She said coldly, “We’ve talked enough, and I have an appointment. Good evening, Doctor.”
Shannon gazed at her silently. What was the matter with the woman? What was bothering her? His mind raced back to Sunday afternoon when Mort Watson had phoned about the woman, this woman, and he thought of the following events. Two special events came into focus; Lew Sprang and the woman had switched rooms, and Lew had been murdered in her original room. Maybe it meant nothing, and maybe it meant very much. Sunday night Lew had died in the room, murdered. And suddenly he remembered Miss Martha James’ words: She’s not in 102 any more. We moved her…
Shannon said, “Mrs. Barry, does your husband drive a yellow Corvette?”
Karen nodded, distressed at the sudden rapid beating of her heart.
“Would you describe your husband, please?”
“Really…” Karen’s hand fluttered.
“Describe him,” Shannon said flatly.
Karen’s chin lifted. Her lips trembled. “I see no reason to do that. I’m sorry.”
Shannon took two steps toward her. “Mrs. Barry, that car parked down the road is a yellow Corvette. I’m sure it’s your husband’s car, and yet you say he isn’t here. I don’t wish to upset you, but I must tell you that I am the coroner of this county. Sunday night a man was murdered in his room at Memorial Hospital, in the room you originally occupied. The man was a friend of mine, a kind old man who never harmed anyone. There is no apparent reason for his murder, not even robbery. I would appreciate anything you can tell me, anything at all. If you would rather talk to the police, I will call them right now.”
Karen felt faint. “M-murdered? In my room?”
“It was not your room at the time,” Shannon said carefully, watching her, “but the murderer may have thought you were still occupying it, and in the darkness…”
“How was he—this man—killed?”
“By blows on the head with a heavy weapon,” Shannon said bluntly. “Skull fracture, massive brain hemorrhage. He died almost instantly.”
Karen shuddered and thought wildly, Where is Richard now?
“Why did you leave the hospital Sunday night? Were you afraid?”
“W-what?” Karen stuttered, wishing desperately that she were back in Cleveland, safe in the big house with Maggie and Albert. Why had she come back here? She felt dizzy. She swayed and brushed a hand across her eyes. Then she felt the doctor’s arm around her and she leaned against him, her mind fuzzy with fear and bewilderment. She thought, Richard tried to kill me—again. Right in the hospital. He feared I would tell what he did to me out on the lake, what he tried to do to me. But he didn’t know they’d moved me and he killed that man instead… She clung to the doctor, wanting him to stay now, because she was suddenly and completely afraid.
As she pressed against him, Shannon felt the hard outline of the gun against his hip. His hand went to the pocket of her slacks and before she was aware of what he was doing he had the little gun in his hand. He hefted it in his palm and said grimly, “So you were waiting for your husband with this?”
“Yes,” Karen whispered.
“Describe him—quickly.”
Karen closed her eyes and spoke in a choked voice. “He—he’s tall, over six feet, and—and young, very young. He has blue eyes and black hair and—”
“Does he sometimes wear a gray tweed jacket,” Shannon broke in quickly, “and gray flannel slacks and a dark blue shirt? Is his hair thick, curling over his ears?”
“Yes, yes, that’s Richard.”
Shannon held her tightly with his left arm, holding the gun in his right hand. “You fear him, don’t you?”
She trembled against him and made no answer.
Shannon dropped the gun into his coat pocket and grasped her by the shoulders. “Why do you fear him?”
She raised her head and gazed at him with a kind of blank horror. Her mouth worked, and then the words came out, almost whispering. “He tried to drown me, Richard did, Saturday afternoon. He—he threw me overboard and left me. But he didn’t know that I can swim. I—I learned secretly, to please him. I made it to a little island. I don’t remember much after that—not until I saw you in the hospital. I was afraid to stay there and I wanted time to—to think, to decide what to do about Richard. That night I called my home in Cleveland and asked a—a servant to come and get me, to take me home. Today I came back here—I had to come back—to ask him why—why he wanted me dead. I love him.”
Shannon knew then, beyond a doubt, who had killed Lewis Sprang, and why. The murder had been
a mistake. Richard Barry, whatever his motive, had made a second attempt to kill his wife. And had failed. Shannon felt a coldness creep over him, a chilling tremor not caused by the wind off the lake. Would Richard Barry try a third time? His fingers dug into Karen’s shoulders. “Where is your husband now?”
“C-close,” Karen stuttered, her gaze shifting wildly about. “He—he’s near, maybe inside the house, watching us. That’s his car you saw—it must be. I—I don’t know about the girl. But Richard is near. I feel it.” She came against Shannon, clung to him, pressed her face to his chest. “Don’t let him hurt me. Don’t let…” She began to sob wildly.
Shannon stood with his arms around her, holding her tightly, and gazed uneasily toward the house. Suddenly he stiffened. Had he seen a movement by the screen door opening onto the terrace?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Coral Thatcher sat at her desk behind the glass partition of the cashier’s office in Memorial Hospital and slowly tore a thick green blotter into tiny squares. A closed ledger was before her and the stack of morning mail was unopened, even though it was her first duty to open the mail, sort it and see that it was properly distributed. But this morning, after the questioning in Mr. Grange’s office, that distressing and horrible time, she could not concentrate on her work. She had deliberately lied to them—to Dr. Shannon, Mr. Grange and Chief Beckwith—because she was afraid. Afraid of what? Of losing her job? After all, it was her fault that Mr. Sprang was dead. That man had killed him, the man who was so attractive, who had reminded her so strongly of Arthur Standish, who was also dead, but who had been so alive in the moonlight on the rectory lawn so long ago. She could describe the man to Chief Beckwith and he would no doubt be found and punished for killing Mr. Sprang. Only he had not wanted to kill Mr. Sprang. He had asked for the woman’s room number and she had given it to him in good faith. How was she to know that the Snake Island woman had been moved? The man must have had a reason to kill her; she was a wanton creature who probably deserved to be killed. But he had made a mistake in the darkness, in his haste, and had killed Mr. Sprang. It wasn’t his fault, not really. Still, it was murder.