Trace (Trace 1)

by Warren Murphy

  The ghostly voice filled the room again. “Th-th-th-that’s all, folks,” it said.

  “You want more, Mrs. Carey?” Trace snapped. “I can give you Goofy or Donald Duck. Maybe Clarabelle Cow? Or Buffy, if you want.”

  “Stop, stop,” the woman cried. She covered her eyes with her hands.

  Trace went to the light switch. The door to the room was now wide open. He turned on the light and waved toward the window for Chico to come in.

  When he went back to the table, Mrs. Carey had tears in her eyes and he felt a pain in the pit of his stomach at having been forced to hurt her.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Carey. But all this spook nonsense around here, the crystal ball, the incense, the voices, they’re all magic tricks, all part of a swindle.”

  The woman took a deep breath as if to compose herself. “I’m sorry, Mr. Tracy, but I saw Buffy’s face the other night. And I heard her voice.”

  Chico came into the room, carrying a tape recorder with the suction-cup mike and the image-projection light.

  “Mrs. Carey, this is my assistant, Miss Mangini. That was her voice you just heard.”

  The old woman turned toward Chico and for a moment her face showed anger at the young woman’s participation in the scheme. Then her good manners reasserted themselves and she just nodded.

  “I was wondering about that face, Mrs. Carey,” Trace said. “But remember, the other day, the picture of Buffy was missing from the mantel there. Look over there. It’s back. I think Muffy had a projection transparency made of it. I found the receipt in her room.”

  “Trace,” said Chico.

  “You were late.”

  “I know. I was meeting that reporter. He gave me this.” She held out a high-school yearbook. “You ought to look at it.”

  She put it on the table and opened it. Even with a different hairdo, the girl in the lower right-hand corner of the page was Muffy. The legend under the photograph read:

  Melinda Belknap, AKA Bucky. A twin and already a veteran at being cut in half onstage. This talented mimic will go far in show business. Drama Club, Class Night.

  Trace glanced at the picture, then turned the book around so Mrs. Carey could see it.

  “There’s your daughter’s voice, Mrs. Carey. From our talented mimic, Muffy.”

  The gray-haired woman looked at the picture blankly, as if she could not comprehend what was being said.

  “There’s more, Trace,” Chico said. “Turn another page.”

  He did, and at the top left-hand corner was a picture of a young man with a big gap-toothed smile. “Peter Belknap,” said the caption. “Class magician. He and twin Bucky (Melinda) continually captivate the class with their illusions. A show-business career looms for Petey.”

  “The accomplice,” Chico said.

  “More than that,” Trace said, and he looked down at the picture again. He had seen the face before, but it hadn’t belonged to anyone named Peter Belknap.

  “That’s Jack Ketch,” Trace said. “The night nurse in Mr. Carey’s room.”

  “What name?” said Chico.

  “Jack Ketch.”

  “Oh, Trace,” she said with a keening sound.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Jack Ketch. It’s an old British slang name. It means hangman.”

  28

  The door to Mitchell Carey’s hospital room was locked. Trace kicked it open. The flimsy lock splintered through the dried old wood of the frame and the door swung wide.

  Jack Ketch was leaning over Carey’s bed. He swung around as the door flew open.

  “Hey, what the hell—”

  Trace interrupted him. “Just came to check on Mr. Carey.” He walked casually toward the side of the bed, but as he neared Ketch, he balled his fist and buried it deep in the young man’s stomach. The air went out of him with a rush and he sank to his knees, groaning and holding his stomach.

  Trace looked through the oxygen tent at Carey and saw the old man’s face had a faint bluish pallor. He reached out his hand for the oxygen tank and found the valve had been turned off.

  He opened the valve, and the oxygen began hissing into the clear plastic tent over the old man’s bed. Trace lifted an edge of the tent to help clear away the carbon dioxide that might have built up underneath it.

  Ketch was struggling to his feet. Without a word Trace leaned over and punched him in the face. The nurse fell backward onto his back, groaning.

  There was no telephone in the room, so Trace walked to the open door and bellowed down the hall. “Nurse, Nurse.”

  A nurse came running around the corner into the corridor and Trace motioned for her to follow him into the room.

  “Mr. Carey,” he said. “Check his pulse. Make sure he’s breathing.”

  The nurse looked worriedly at the male nurse lying on the floor, then again at Trace.

  “Just do what I say,” he snapped.

  “Pulse seems strong,” she said after a moment.

  “All right. Now go get Dr. Matteson right away. Tell him that Tracy, that’s me, wants him up here right away. Tell him that Mr. Carey’s oxygen had been turned off and his body may be flooded with carbon dioxide. Got that?”

  She hesitated, then nodded yes.

  “Snap to it.”

  The nurse ran from the room.

  Ketch was stirring and Trace punched him again in the face, but not hard enough this time to put him out. He reached down, grabbed the young man’s long hair, and jerked him upward to his feet, then twisted an arm up behind him. He could feel the weight as the man sagged against him.

  “What…where…?”

  “Just move, hero,” Trace said, and pushed him toward the open door to the corridor.

  When Ketch came to, he was lying in a bed, strapped down by canvas bands across his legs and another across his chest and arms.

  His eyes registered shock when he realized he was under the plastic dome of an oxygen tent and he could hear the faint hissing of the oxygen and feel the chill of the gas surrounding him.

  He breathed deeply and turned his head to look around the room.

  Trace was leaning against the doorway, staring at him.

  “Game’s over, Florence Nightingale,” Trace said. “Start talking.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart. You’re in Three East. Nobody’s going to find you here. Not until I’m done with you.”

  “The guard,” Ketch started.

  “I sent him off on a wild-goose chase. Nobody knows you’re here. Except me. Just the two of us, isn’t that cozy? Now you’re going to tell me what’s been going on.”

  “Wait and read it in my memoirs,” Ketch said.

  “Yours. Or sweet little sister Muffy’s?” Trace paused as the man in the bed gaped at him. “That’s right. I know about you and your sister and your whole traveling medicine show.”

  “Then I don’t have to tell you anything.”

  “You don’t have to, but you will,” Trace said. “Are you really a nurse?”

  “Of course I’m a nurse.”

  “Then you know how dangerous oxygen can be, don’t you?”

  Ketch hesitated. “Yeah…”

  Trace took his cigarettes from his pocket and lit one. “You ever seen an oxygen fire?” he asked.

  “Just pictures.” The young man squirmed against the bonds around his legs and chest.

  “Then you got the idea. You know what you’re going to look like after I puff this cigarette up and then toss it on that plastic tent of yours, don’t you?”

  “Now, wait…”

  “No, pal. I’m tired of waiting. You’re going to be incinerated, Ketch. I’ll tell you what it’ll be like. First, the cigarette’s going to be on the top of the plastic for a minute before it burns through. You’ll be able to watch the plastic starting to melt. Then the oxygen is going to flare up and you’re going to be swimming in fire. Fire’s a bloodsucker. It’ll burn out the oxygen in the tent, then it’ll burn down yo
ur nose and mouth, looking for more oxygen. In the meantime, your clothes will be burning. Your flesh will start to melt. It’s mostly fat, you know, and it burns good. When it gets burning, it’ll keep going because the tent’ll be gone and the oxygen from the room will keep feeding the fire. Oh, yeah. Maybe the hose from the tank will ignite too. That’ll be like a blowtorch aiming at your face. Nice way to die, Ketch.”

  Trace puffed hard on his cigarette, shook off the ash, and puffed it again into a bright red glow. He held the cigarette between his thumb and curled middle finger, ready to flip across the room at the oxygen tent.

  “So long, Ketch,” he said.

  “No, wait. I’ll talk. I’ll talk.”

  Trace put the cigarette back in his mouth, reached behind him, and pressed the on button of his tape recorder.

  “You’re going to talk of your own free will, isn’t that right?” he said.

  “Sure, sure, anything you say.”

  “Start at the beginning,” Trace said.

  But before Ketch had a chance to speak, something in the back of Trace’s head exploded and his eyes rolled up into his head as everything went black and he pitched to the floor.

  29

  Jack Ketch had gone. Trace dragged himself to a sitting position on the floor and a starburst of pain flashed between his eyes.

  He felt the back of his skull, gingerly, then looked at his fingers. No blood. He shook his head to try to clear it, and slowly, holding on to the doorknob, he pulled himself to his feet.

  How long had he been unconscious? He didn’t know. He seemed able to walk, and he started down the corridor toward the exit of Three East.

  The guard was back at his desk.

  “Who are you?”

  “Later,” Trace said. He pushed past the guard out into the hallway to the steps leading downstairs.

  On the first step he stopped.

  His tape recorder.

  He could feel it vibrating gently against his right hip; he reached back, pressed the rewind button, and then pressed the button to play the tape.

  Muffy’s voice: “You idiot, Petey. You all right?”

  Jack Ketch’s voice: “Get me out of here.”

  Muffy: “Did you tell him anything?”

  Ketch: “Jesus, that was tight. No. I didn’t tell him anything. What does he know?”

  Muffy: “There’s nothing for him to know. We haven’t done anything wrong.”

  Ketch: “Hurry up. My legs are killing me. I don’t know. He acted like he was onto us about something.”

  Muffy: “I tell you. There’s nothing for him to know. What’d we do? There.”

  Ketch: “Thanks. It feels like my blood stopped.”

  Muffy: “All we did is I befriended an old lady. And you’ve been working as a nurse at night. We haven’t done anything wrong.”

  Ketch: “Muffy, you got balls, I’ll tell you.”

  Muffy: “Hell with him. He wants to cause trouble, we’ll give him trouble. Him tying you up. Threatening your life. We’ll have his ass in jail.”

  Ketch: “I don’t know. I think we ought to just get out of here. He caught me with Carey’s oxygen off.”

  Muffy: “Nonsense. I was just down there and Carey’s all right. So it’s your word against this creep’s. A million things. You wanted to see if the oxygen was working right. You were just checking inside the tent to see if Carey was all right. A million things. Come on, let’s go. (Giggle.) Dear old Nana is probably worried about me.”

  (Sound of bed creaking. Footsteps. A loud crunch as if something hit the microphone.)

  Muffy: “Leave him be. He doesn’t mean anything. We’re too close now to let go.”

  Ketch: “I’d like to kill him.”

  Muffy: “After we’re rich.”

  (Sound of door closing.)

  Trace saw the telephone on the wall next to the stairs and dialed the Careys’ number.

  Chico answered. “Carey home.”

  “This is Trace.”

  “What’s the matter? You sound terrible. Where are you?”

  “Actually, I’m about two steps from Three East.”

  “What’s Three East?”

  “It’s the nut factory at the sanatorium.”

  “Trace, you’ve always been two steps from Three East.”

  “Is Mrs. Carey all right?”

  “Yeah,” Chico said. “She’s shook but okay.”

  “All right. I think Muffy and her brother are on their way there. You get out of there with Mrs. Carey right now.”

  “Okay. What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know yet. I think I’m coming there,” Trace said.

  “You sure you’re all right?”

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Get moving.”

  He hung up, remembered Mitchell Carey, and hurried down the steps to Room 213.

  Dr Matteson was at Carey’s bedside.

  “How is he, Doc?”

  “He’s alive. Are you leaving town soon?”

  “Why?” Trace asked.

  “Since you’ve been here, there’s nothing but chaos. What the hell’s been going on here?”

  “I don’t know. I think that night nurse has been cutting off the oxygen, letting him rebreathe his own carbon dioxide. Would that explain why your therapy wasn’t working?”

  “It could. His brain would be starving. Cells dying. He wouldn’t have a chance.”

  “What’s the chances now?”

  “I don’t know,” Matteson said. “Time’ll tell. Hey, where you going? You look like hell. I think you ought to stay here, let me look at you.”

  “Hospitals don’t agree with me,” Trace said.

  “Well, well, the overbite twins. Bucky and Cluck,” Trace said.

  Muffy wheeled and glared at him in the study door. “Where’s Amanda?” she snapped. Her brother was sitting on the couch, a bottle of beer on the table before him. He rose to his feet.

  “I thought it was best to get her out of here for a while,” Trace said. “And shouldn’t you be calling her Nana?”

  Muffy paused, then said confidently, “It’s all right. She’ll be back. This is her home. And mine.”

  “That simple, is it?” Trace said. He stepped into the study, closing the door behind him.

  “Actually, it is,” Muffy said. “Make you a drink?”

  “You’re a cool one. I’ll say that for you. I’ll pass on the drink.”

  “Why not cool?” Muffy said. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “That’s where you’re mistaken. You’ve done a lot wrong.” He turned to Ketch. “Sit down.”

  “Why don’t you make me?”

  “Nothing would give me more pleasure,” Trace said.

  “Petey, sit down. Let’s let our guest talk. He seems to want to. And I do want him out of here before Amanda, Nana, comes home. He does have a way of disturbing her.”

  She had mixed herself a highball and she joined her brother on the couch. She sipped her drink, looked at Trace, and said coolly, “So?”

  “You had me going for a long time,” Trace said. “I couldn’t really figure your game out.”

  “And now you have?” Muffy said.

  “Yeah, pretty much. You, dummy, pay attention ’cause I’ll ask questions later.”

  “I’m going to have fun taking you apart,” Jack Ketch said.

  “Not on your best day, Junior,” Trace said. He leaned back against the study door. “The trouble with a pair like you is that you’re stupid. And when you try to be smart, you’re even more stupid and you get into trouble. Fish shouldn’t try to fly.”

  “Sis, why are we listening to this? Why don’t I just throw him out?”

  “Aaah, let him talk. Maybe he can tell us how we went wrong.” She smiled, as if sharing a private joke.

  “I didn’t like you, Bucky, right from the start,” Trace said.

  “Don’t call me Bucky. That name’s dead,” Muffy said.

  “You left a whole lot of piece
s around for me to pick up,” Trace said. “Coming back here after Buffy’s death. What was it you saw? That Mrs. Carey was shaky and on the edge? So you started combing your hair the way Buffy used to. You started calling her Nana the way Buffy did. There was an old lady whose husband was near death and you were worming your way into her life like a second daughter.”

  “She’s my friend’s mother. I came here to help,” Muffy said.

  “But I couldn’t figure out why you had Mrs. Carey talk to Bob Swenson. If you were figuring on killing off Mr. Carey, why have some insurance snoop looking into it?”

  “Why indeed?” she said.

  “That threw me for a while. I’ve been dealing with smart devious people so long I wasn’t used to something that was dumb and obvious. You were afraid that Doc Matteson or his people might really get Mr. Carey to change his will or his insurance or whatever. Before you had a chance to get yourself cut in for a piece of the pie. You couldn’t take a chance that he had already done that. If you planned to kill him, that put a stop to it. Maybe I will have that drink.” Trace poured some vodka into a glass and sipped at it.

  “Mr. Carey steered me wrong there. When I first came to town, he said that ‘they’ were trying to kill him. But he was wrong. You weren’t trying to kill him. Not then. You were just trying to make sure that he didn’t recover. That’s why you had Earthquake McGoon here cutting off his oxygen at night, letting him breathe back his own carbon dioxide. Just to make sure that Matteson’s oxygen therapy didn’t have a chance to work. The lawyer told me about your checking into wills. It wasn’t hard to figure out that you were nervous about Mr. Carey’s. Even if you wanted to kill him, you couldn’t. Not until you were sure that he hadn’t made sure that you were written out somehow. What was it? When he was at the first hospital, did he catch onto your game. Is that what it was?”

  “Maybe he didn’t like my hairdo,” Muffy said.

  “And maybe he recognized it for what it was, an attempt to swindle your way into an old woman’s confidence.”