He patted my back. “Did you have a good day or something?”
“Do I have to have a good day to give my own kid a hug?”
“Sorry. You just haven’t seemed happy lately. Neither has Patty Sue.”
No kidding.
“Did you have a snack?” I said.
“Well, they had burritos for lunch at school and I hate them, so I ordered from the Chinese place when I got home because I didn’t exactly want tuna casserole. I charged it. Hope that’s okay. Patty Sue came in a little while ago and she was hungry, too.” He paused.
“Go on.”
“Well,” he said as he pushed his glasses back up his nose, “when the guy came with our order and we opened all those little boxes, I said, Hey, this is like the boxes I used to get my goldfish in from the pet store. I felt real bad because then Patty Sue went into the bathroom and threw up.”
“Oh, God. Is she sleeping now?”
“I think so,” said Arch with a rueful twist of his mouth. “I knocked on her door and asked her if I could bring her some sweet-and-sour pork on a plate, sort of like breakfast in bed, but she said the smell of it made her sick, and please don’t talk about the goldfish.”
“Any more good news?”
“Vonette called. She sounded real upset. Said she’s a wreck and wants you to call her about the car.”
I shook my head and headed down toward my sewing room. I said, “That can wait.”
“Good,” said Arch as he retreated, “because I need to use the phone and I didn’t want to use the business line.”
We parted and I reluctantly plugged in the Japanese sewing machine I had bought from a traveling salesman who had failed to mention the all-Japanese instruction booklet. But I had been smart enough to figure out how to go forward and backward, and, staring at the illustration for the lich, I figured that was all I needed.
A robe like a Druid priest’s with batting in the shoulders and sleeves like a magician’s, the description said; the costume should have a ragged but costly aspect. The lich face was terrifying, like a skull. I drew on the material with a tailor’s pencil, then cut and sewed until the hood and shoulders were done and all it needed was a hem. Arch could paint the muslin any colors he wanted, and knowing him, he would.
The picture in the book was black and white. My gaze wandered to the caption, which read:
The lich specializes in vengeful activity. It uses spells, charms, traps and poison potions to punish the wicked. One spell of particular use is raising the dead. By communicating with deceased victims, the lich gathers evidence against evildoers. It carries out its plan of vengeance using small sharp weapons and clerical spells such as deep sleep, fireball, and scaring its victims to death. The lich stops only when the wicked one is dead.
I set aside the costume.
CHAPTER 22
Todd?” came Arch’s whisper over the phone, “I can’t talk long. I’ve been trying to reach you since yesterday.”
“Our phone’s been broken. What’s wrong? Does she suspect something?”
“No, she’s sewing,” Arch replied. “But I’ve still got to be careful.”
I’d wiped my face, blown my nose. Now I breathed oh-so-shallowly as I cupped my hand over the mouthpiece.
Todd said, “I can barely hear you. Do you want me to come over?”
“No,” said Arch, “no time before dinner.” He paused. “Listen, you’re not going to believe this. I got it.”
Todd asked, “Got what?”
“A weapon, silly,” Arch said with an impatient hiss. “It’s better than a knife too, because it’s just like in the book. Small and sharp. I found it in a plastic bag in my grandmother’s car. We’ll have to clean it later. It’s under our woodpile now.”
“Great!” replied Todd. “What spell are you going to use?”
“How about fireball?”
“Ever done it before?”
“Well,” admitted Arch, “not in real life.”
“Easy,” said Todd, “you could just make a Molotov cocktail. Get yourself a bottle, see, and fill it with gasoline—”
“Who’re you talking to?” asked a sleepy Patty Sue as she slouched into the room.
I pressed the receiver back into the cradle.
I said, “Nobody. Just checking to see if the phone’s free so I can call Vonette.”
She tilted her head at me. “What are you making for dinner? Arch ordered some Chinese stuff but it didn’t look that great to me. I am hungry, though.”
I said, “You’ve had a big day.”
She nodded, yawned again.
“Sorry we don’t have anything to eat,” I lied. “In fact I need you and Arch to go to the store for me before dinner—”
“But I haven’t even gotten my regular license yet,” Patty Sue protested, “and I don’t know how I’d drive with a cast.” She wandered out of the room toward the kitchen. I turned off the sewing machine and followed her.
“That’s okay,” I said, “I’ll drive.” I grabbed a pencil from beside the phone and hastily began to write. Patty Sue was fishing gherkins out of a jar with her pinky. “I have lots to do,” I went on, “and you guys can help me out while I do other errands.” I called to Arch, and he came clomping down to the kitchen while Patty Sue read the list over my shoulder.
“Now what?” he demanded.
I looked at the two of them and tried to imagine myself as a patient person.
“I have two parties this week, one day after tomorrow for my women’s group and one at the athletic club the next day. This means a lot of shopping and cooking. You two,” I went on, “will please buy groceries while I pick up pizza and do errands, and then we’ll all come home and discuss the news of the day. Okay?”
“Oh, guess what?” said Patty Sue. “Speaking of news. Dr. Korman’s treatments finally worked.”
Arch groaned and left to get his jacket.
I stared at her. “What do you mean, his treatment worked? You want to tell me what that treatment was?”
Patty Sue’s face turned quite pink.
“Oh, that’s confidential, Goldy. All I can tell you is that as of this afternoon, I’m, um, normal.”
I shook my head. If the North Pole was normal, then Patty Sue was living in Antarctica.
“The thing is,” said Patty Sue, “it’s been a long time for me. Since I was normal, I mean. Anyway, I don’t feel so good.”
Neither, I reflected, did I, as I swung the boatlike Chrysler wagon into the parking lot of Aspen Meadow’s grocery, one of a western chain of food stores. The store’s dairy selection was pasteurized to the extent that everything tasted scalded; the produce was whatever could make it to Colorado from California without rotting. Nevertheless, I had made the list long enough to keep both Arch and Patty Sue occupied for at least an hour.
A plastic bag crackled in my fingers and I drew it out. Inside the bag was the soft towel covering for a surgical pack, the kind I knew Fritz and John Richard kept in the storage closet in the room where the nurses drew blood. It was similar to, perhaps even exactly the same as, the one Arch had tried to steal from the office. Had he succeeded after all? I opened it carefully. Rolled up wads of latex, which I guessed to be surgical gloves, were at the top of the bag. They weren’t usually in the kit. Tissue forceps, suture set, two-by-two’s, other stuff I
