invited it, I suppose, what with my uniform putting my legs and my bust on display, but there was nothing inviting it here, in my husband’s bedroom, with his body not ten feet away, and
“Earl was certainly entitled to a normal life,” Dr. Cord said, “but I’m not so certain that’s what he had.” He gestured in the direction of the intravenous chelation equipment, still standing by the armchair in the corner, hypodermics for the vitamin injections lined up on the shelf behind. Then he bent and picked up the brassiere between the tips of his second and third fingers, like something unclean. “This is a lovely piece of lingerie, Mrs. White, but unless I’m mistaken, at least two sizes too small for you to be its owner.” I snatched it from him and jammed it in the pocket of my jacket.
He went on: “The police will be here momentarily, but it needn’t be anything but a routine matter for them. I’ll let them know of Earl’s medical history, his prior attacks. They won’t even perform an autopsy if I do that. They won’t see any reason to. Assuming…”
“Assuming?”
“Assuming I don’t tell them about the article of clothing in your pocket.” He walked over to the chair and lifted the empty bottle from its hook. “About medical treatments I didn’t sanction. They might do an autopsy then. I really don’t think I need to tell them, though. As a favor to Earl, rest his soul. He deserves better than to have his good name tarnished by a scandal in the papers. There isn’t a man, alive or dead, who can’t use a favor now and again.”
I knew then what he thought me, what he thought I’d been to Earl — something like what Bella had been, only better paid.
“You go ahead and tell them,” I snapped. “Tell them anything you want, everything you want. I have nothing to cover up. Nothing.”
“Mrs. White-”
“I don’t want any favors. I don’t offer them, either, not the sort you mean. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself asking …?”
I heard footsteps in the hallway then, and the sound of the door opening behind me. Looking over my shoulder Dr. Cord stood up straighter, which told me it was the police. I didn’t know how much of what we’d been saying they might have heard, but I at least hadn’t been quiet. I only prayed that when I turned I’d see faces I’d never seen before.
Like so many of my prayers before it, this one went unanswered.
“If you could step aside, doctor, and put that bottle down,” said Private Church, “we’d appreciate it.”
*
They were neither of them in uniform, Church or Young, both looking as though they’d been rung up in the middle of an evening at home and had rushed over when they heard my name. It made me anxious-while once again I’d done nothing to answer for, it looked bad that here I was with a second dead husband on my hands.
Dr. Cord gave them the full report he’d threatened and I found myself having to explain the brassiere in my pocket, and the chelation, and pretty soon the whole story had come out. Only I didn’t tell them that it had been my idea for Earl to call Bella, since after all he’d said he’d had the same idea himself, hadn’t he? Nor did I know Bella’s name, or the Kitty-Cat’s, I was sorry to say. I’d simply received the call at the Garden and come running, much as they had, to find the room as they saw it and my husband on the verge of dying. It was the truth, with only a small lie attached, and not one of any consequence, merely one that spared me a measure of embarrassment.
“Why did you pick up the other woman’s clothing?” asked Private Church, his voice neutral as ever, but his meaning much less so.
“The doctor picked it up, not me. He handed it to me. Said he wouldn’t want Earl to suffer from a scandal.”
The doctor had gone home by them, leaving behind the completed death certificate and a general air of having washed his hands of us all-Earl, me, the police, everyone. His patient was dead. His job was done.
“And who was she?”
I shrugged. “I gather there are women around this town, as around any, that will take money for intimate acts. Men know where to find them, somehow.”
Sergeant Young was looking at me with grave sympathy in his eyes, or so I thought. It was Church, however, junior partner or not, that was leading the grilling, and I saw that his zeal for pinning something on me had not ended with the exhumation of Ron’s body, but had merely gone into hibernation, or what they call remission if you have had cancer. The danger never wholly goes away, it merely sleeps for a time.
“We’re going to have to take some of these things back with us, have our laboratory men inspect them. And we
“… Do what you must.”
“You could save us some time if you’d tell us now of anything we’re going to find when we do.”
“You’d have to talk to Dr. Jameson about that-he’s the one set all this up, the treatment Earl was on, the chemicals.”
“Then why did you call Dr. Cord when your husband needed help? Rather than Dr. Jameson?”
I waved a hand at the equipment. “Because I didn’t trust it, any of this. I told Earl I didn’t. Dr. Cord was the one warned him of the risk, the one who told him he might die of it. So he’s the one I called.” Private Church nodded, as if he thought that very reasonable, and I breathed a little easier. He extended a hand and ushered me toward the door.
But before I stepped out, he spoke again: “I know I don’t have to say this, but let me say it anyway. Don’t leave Hyattsville, Mrs. White. O.K.?”
“Where would I go?” I said.
“Anywhere. But don’t.”
“Can you tell me what the reason is?”
“We might need you here, for the inquiry.” That was all he said, but I could see in his eyes there was more he wasn’t saying.
I went downstairs while Young and Church remained with the body. Araminta came in to the drawing room and I asked her to keep me company. Then Myra was there, and Leora, and we all four just sat there, not speaking. I started to talk, telling them I hadn’t made any plans, so I couldn’t speak of the future, but assured them that “whatever seems indicated,” I would deal decently by them, and help them find other work. They were quite sweet and understanding. Then the bell rang, and Church came down to let them in. Two men were there with a stretcher. They asked for the death certificate, and Church handed it over to them. Then Earl was going out, of the house, of this world, of my life.
This time it was I, not Ethel, who was calling the undertaker, or funeral director, as they now seem to be known. I called the same one, and a girl was on night duty. She said she’d contact the police the next afternoon to inquire about releasing the body. She thought it would take that long for the autopsy to be completed.
It was, as I’ve said, Friday night, and no funerals are held Saturday or Sunday, so the service would have to wait until Monday. Plenty went on over the weekend, however. Both newspapers called on Saturday morning, the
By the time the afternoon editions came out with the story in them, the lawyer had come, Bill Dennison, flying down from New York with the will, the one Earl had drawn just a short time before, which left everything to me, except for some small bequests to the household staff and some to the people in Earl’s office-$2,500 to his secretary, and $1,000 each to the others, about a dozen in all. By the time I’d read all this and had some parts explained to me by Bill, I was getting dizzy. But more people kept coming, most of them strangers to me, but some of them friends, like Jake, Bianca, and at last Liz, who I craved to see most of all-not counting Tom, who did not show. I begged Liz to stay, to spend the night, to see me through what was getting to be an ordeal, but she couldn’t, having to work. While she was there Mr. Garrick rang the bell. He was the undertaker, and of course had
