rest of them behind bars. But you won’t take it. What does this Ferguson woman mean to you?”
It was a hard question. The cliche phrases like “beauty in distress” didn’t answer it. Neither did the answer I gave him. “Ferguson is my client. He retained me yesterday.”
“Mrs. Ferguson isn’t.”
“Ferguson retained me for the specific purpose of procuring information about his wife. The information is privileged.”
“Her husband doesn’t trust her either, eh?”
“That’s your conclusion.”
“It sure is. What did you find out about her? I’m not asking you to talk for the record, just for checking purposes. Spice’s story got pretty fantastic at certain points, and I can’t afford to make any false moves.”
“You’ll be making one if you try to force me to give you privileged information. You can’t force Ferguson to talk about her, either.”
Wills sat with his chin in his hand, and pondered the situation. I tried to do some consecutive thinking about the rule of privilege, but my line of thought was invaded by images: my wife in childbirth, Secundina dead, a rose-tipped body fallen in fire, in weeds; and a woman firing across her knees at me. Whatever else was covered by the rule, that shooting wasn’t, and I knew it. I was holding back on my own responsibility, for reasons that wouldn’t stand up under examination.
Wills looked up from his deep thought. I suspected that it had been partly assumed, to give me time to consider.
“I know,” he said in a soothing voice, “you want to be fair to your client, and you want to be fair to the law. I’ll tell you a funny thing, it may help you to decide. Ronald Spice came up with quite a snapper when we pressed him. He claims that the kidnapping at the Foothill Club was a phony, something cooked up between Gaines and the woman to extort money from her husband. He claims that she co-operated with them all the way, that she even drove the car for Gaines when he picked up Ferguson’s box of money. That she deliberately showed herself to her husband at that time so that he wouldn’t know what action to take. Does that fit in with your information about her? Or was Spice just trying to get off the hook as accessory to a snatch?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“I don’t believe you, Bill. I talked to a waiter in a bar and grill where you and Ferguson had a pow-wow yesterday. He heard some mighty queer snatches of conversation. Privilege or no privilege, bullet wound or no bullet wound, you’re on shaky ground if you’re trying to cover up a kidnapping.”
“I thought your theory was that no kidnapping occurred.”
“I don’t have a theory. I don’t know what occurred. I believe you do. I’m asking you to tell me.”
“When I find out, I’ll be glad to.”
“It can’t wait. Don’t you see, if this Hollywood floozie is in cahoots with Gaines, she probably knows where he is, or where he’s headed. Don’t you want him caught?”
“As much as you do. Get that straight, at least.” From the jumble of images in my head, I dredged up a fragment of a scene in merry hell. “I remember something that was said last night. Gaines and the woman are headed for South America. Gaines’s mother was supposed to buy tickets for them.”
“Gaines’s mother?”
“She lives in Mountain Grove. Why don’t you question her?”
Wills stood up abruptly, crossed the room to press the elevator button, and came back to me. “This is the first I heard of a mother. Who and where is she?”
“Her name is Adelaide Haines. She lives on Canal Street in Mountain Grove.”
“How did you get a line on her?”
“Through Ella Barker. Incidentally, it should be plain by this time that Ella Barker’s involvement was innocent.”
“You’re probably right. Spice’s statement pretty well clears her.”
“Don’t you think she ought to be released?”
“She went home this morning. I got the D.A.’s office to agree to reduced bail and a friend of hers, a Mrs. Cline, put up a property bond.”
The elevator took him away. I let the images in my head whirl out centrifugally. The pentothal sleep came back like soft and sudden night.
chapter 27
WHEN I WOKE UP AGAIN, the elevator was taking me down to a room on the fourth floor. Dr. Root, the bone surgeon, came along and watched the orderlies transfer me from the rolling cot to the bed. He said when the door closed behind them: “I ordered you a private room because you need rest and quiet. Is that all right with you?”
“If you say so, Doctor. I don’t expect to stay long.”
“You’ll be in for a few days, at least. I understand there’s nobody at home to look after you.”
“But I have things to attend to.”
“What you have to attend to,” he said firmly, “is letting that shoulder knit. By the way, I have something for you. Thought you might like to keep it as a memento.” He produced a small plastic pillbox and rattled it at me. “It’s the slug I removed. It will make an interesting conversation piece. Pieces, rather. It’s in several pieces.”
He showed me the distorted fragments of lead. I thanked him, because it seemed the thing to do.
He shook his gray head. “Don’t thank me. You should be thanking your lucky stars. It was providential for you that your collarbone deflected it upward. You could have come in here with a bullet in the lung. Who shot you, by the way?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Your wife?” Perhaps his narrow smile was intended to be jocular. “I’d hardly blame her, for taking the chances you took. I hope you’ve learned to leave these matters to the authorities. What were you trying to do?”
“Get myself shot. I succeeded. Next question.”
My unpleasantness failed to deter him. “There may be more to that than meets the eye. I’ve seen young men do some wild things while their wives were having babies. It isn’t only the women who suffer from parturient pangs.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Think about it. How are the wife and baby doing, by the way?”
“Fine, they tell me. Is it all right with you if I go down and see them? I’m feeling pretty good myself.”
“Tomorrow, perhaps, if your temperature stays down. I want you to remain in bed today. Can I trust you to do that?”
I grunted something noncommittal at him.
I asked the nurse’s aide who brought me breakfast to see if she could dig up pencil and paper. While I was waiting for her to come back, I composed a note to Sally in my head. Perhaps composed is not the word:
When my writing materials arrived, I wrote it down quite differently. The pentothal had worn off, and I wasn’t feeling so funny. I put the plastic pillbox in a drawer of the bedside table where I couldn’t see it.
I noticed for the first time that there was a telephone sitting on a lower shelf of the table. I picked it up and tried to call Sally. The switchboard operator told me acerbly that maternity had no telephones. I called Ferguson’s house instead.
He answered himself, in a hushed and wary voice. “Who is calling, please?”
