“It’s a pretty hateful business,” he said, rising. “But we deal with hateful things every single day in our line.”
“Then you’ll help?”
“I’m your friend,” he said simply. “And I’m the D.A. I don’t know whether or not it’s ethical for me to hide you, to conceal the fact that you’re still living—I don’t have a precedent to establish the ethics of the case, do I? But if there’s a would-be killer in our town, I want to know it.” He hesitated. “It’ll take some fixing, Doug. With the undertaker, Charlie Markham—one or two others I’ll have to bring into the thing.”
“You can do it,” I said.
“I’ll try.”
* * * *
A little later that morning Lew got his family out of the house. I learned then that they’d brought Vicky over for the night. Marge and the kids were taking her home. I wondered what it would be like in that silent, empty house. What thoughts would pass through Vicky’s mind as she went from room to room, each with its own flood of memories?
Lew brought me food; then he took me upstairs to a small back room with windows on two sides overlooking his side and back yards. There was a three-quarter bed in the room, a scarred bureau, a night stand holding a lamp, and a single boudoir chair.
Next Lew brought a visitor up to the room, a tall, florid man who wore grey tropicals and a pince-nez. He was Doctor Hardy, and he knew the story and we could trust him, Lew assured me.
I was silent during Hardy’s examination; then when he stood up and snapped his bag shut, I asked, “Do you know what happened to me? Can you explain it?”
“Certainly,” he said. “You’ve been deeply depressed lately?”
“For some time,” Lew put in. “He’s been working too hard.”
“And of course you were deeply frightened when the shot rang out and the bullet struck you?”
“Scared to death.”
“That’s almost my precise diagnosis,” Hardy said. “Lying in your foyer last night you were in a state of very acute catalepsy, a nervous condition in which the power of your will and of sensation are suspended. It arises from prolonged depression and acute fright. It’s more common, in its less acute phases, than many people would think. Your condition was aggravated by the wound, of course, which came very close to killing you.”
“A doctor examined me,” I reminded him.
“Of course. But in a state of acute catalepsy no heartbeat was audible. No pulse could be felt. Your eye muscles had completely lost for the moment the power of contraction, of focusing; so your eyes responded to the doctor’s light exactly as a dead man’s would respond. That is, no response at all. In short, you exhibited several signs of death, and in the moment the doctor is not at all to blame for interpreting your state of suspended animation as he did. We’re human, too, you know. We make mistakes like the rest of the race, though often our mistakes are never known—they’re buried.”
With a smile and a last admonition that I should be in a hospital under observation, Hardy prepared to leave.
I felt a lassitude taking hold of me, and then I slept.
The sun was dying a crimson death in the gulf when I awoke. I was ravenous, but forced to wait until Lew should show up, as he did half an hour later. There were a dozen questions trying to spill out of my mind, but my first interest right then proved to be the food he brought. Once I started eating, I felt as if I would never be filled again.
“I had to ring Marge in,” he said, watching me spoon up the last drop of the broth in the bowl. “She’s too much the homebody for me to succeed long in sneaking food up here and keeping the door locked. She was shocked, of course.”
“And Vicky?”
He hesitated. “We’ve found the man, Doug.”
I tried to keep my voice casual. That was impossible, and the word quivered when it came out of me: “Who?”
“Keith Pryor.”
“The water-skiing instructor at the Bath Club.”
Lew nodded, and a silence came to the room. I recalled Pryor to my mind. I’d met him when he’d first come to the club three months ago. We’d had him at our table two or three times for drinks. He’d danced with Vicky during a couple of our evenings at the club. He must have been every day as old as I, but he looked more boyish. Slender, but extremely well knit with wide shoulders. A lean, almost hungry face, topped with close-cut sun-scorched blonde hair. With his deep suntan, the brilliant white of his teeth flashed when he smiled, and he had an easy, relaxed air about him. On the whole he was the kind of man who would appeal to every lonely instinct in a woman.
“Have you got anything on him?” I asked.
“Only a little. He’s not exactly a gigolo, but he’s never made much money and he likes to live high. Two items on his record. A Jax woman had him arrested for making off with some of her jewelry, but in the end broke down in court and admitted she’d given it to him, as he’d claimed, bringing the charges later because he’d walked out on her. An assault charge in Miami. He punched an irate husband in the nose in one of the beach clubs. But the man’s wife testified for Pryor. Pure self defense, she said. Nothing at all between her and Pryor. Her husband was just a nasty-minded old man, she said.”
“A nice boy. Does Vicky know any of this?”
“Of course not! You listen to me, Doug! You’re hurt because she happened to look at another man twice in a weak moment. She’s never been alone with him, though they’ve met at the club and parties. Maybe she was lonely. You’ve been moody, depressed, you’ve neglected her.”
“Dammit, Lew, are
