Pushing Murder
Authors: Eleanor Boylan
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Contents
“I could not believe, Clara, that you'd be so inconsiderate as to die before this matter is settled.”
The voice was the voice of my cousin, Charles Saddlier, but Sadd lived in Florida, and I was in bed in New York City trying to get some sleep. And what “matter” was he talking about?
The second voice made even less sense. “You gave us a scare, Mom.”
That was my daughter, Paula. But she lived in Boston.
Scare?
The third voice made the least sense of all. It was female and unknown to me. “Better let her get some sleep.”
Thanks, whoever you are. Sleep was all I wanted now, especially as the weird sensation in my stomach was beginning to recede.⦠But why was something pinning my left foot to the bed?
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
“It was arsenic, Mrs. Gamadge. Do you feel like talking about it?”
Not really. Nor was I at all sure what the attractive, fortyish woman in the white coat meant by “it” unless she was referring to the cast on my ankle, which I'd been told was broken, and what did that have to do with arsenic? I felt miserably confused, but with my family sitting there looking at me expectantly I supposed I must gather my wits.
I'd been told it was ten hours since their voices and that of Dr. Martha Somebody had penetrated my consciousness, that I was in Room 220 at St. Victor's Hospital on Tenth Street, and that “my condition” would keep me there another four or five days. Now pale morning sun slanted through the window, and sitting up in bed in a bright pink bed jacket I'd never seen before, Paula braiding my long white hair which must be in hideous disarray, I felt weak and embarrassed.
I said lamely, “I'm afraid I don't remember much,” and looked at Sadd, who was reading, then at my son, Henry, then at his wife, Tina. Their constant presence along with Paula's I'd been dimly feeling. Idiotically I began to cry.
“Go home all of you,” I blubbered. “You'll lose your jobs because of me. You haven't left this room forâ”
They began telling me to shut up, that now that I was out of danger yes, they'd go about their business, and Sadd, who is my senior by several years and hates New York in the winter, said I didn't seem very grateful that he'd come all the way from Florida when he heard the awful news.
“What awful news?” I was making an earnest effort to put all this together.
“That you'd been poisoned, Mom,” said Henry gently.
Poisoned? I'd been
poisoned?
“I came at once,” said Sadd, looking virtuous. “And in this appalling December weather too.”
Still at sea, I blew him a feeble kiss, and he blew one back. The doctorâI assumed that's what she wasâsmiled at these family pyrotechnics and said, “Mrs. Gamadge, I'm sorry to press, but if you could rememberâ”
“Doctor,” I said, trying to rally, “I should be the sorry one. You must be a busy woman. Tell me your name.”
“Martha Cullen. Your own doctorâArthur Kingman, isn't it?âis in Bermuda, we learned.”
Henry said, “Dr. Cullen was on duty in Emergency when you were brought in, Mom.”
Brought in? Brought in from where? From where I'd been poisoned? Broken my ankle? What possible connection could one have with the otherâor either one with me, for that matter?
“Let me think⦔ I sat up straighter in the bed and received a twinge in my leg that made me gasp.
Tina, my petite, sensitive daughter-in-law, said at once, “You're not up to this, Clara.”
“Yes, I am.” I gritted my teeth, a painful act in itself as nothing in my miserable old frame was prime for gritting.
Paula finished my braid and patted the end where she'd attached a little bow. She said, “There. Now you'll be more comfortable. How does she look?”
“Rather like an over-the-hill Rapunzel,” Sadd said.
This produced giggles from my children, and Dr. Cullen looked a bit aghast, but how could she know my nutty family?
“Doctor, I think it's coming back to me,” I said. It was, actually, mistily and piecemeal. “I seem to recall⦔ Then a quick, penetrating ray. “I was lying on a sidewalk somewhere.”
Five heads nodded encouragingly, and Henry said, “Cornelia Street, outside your friend's bookstore.”
“Bookstore?”
“Sal's new one,” said Tina. “The one you thought up a name for?”
“Name?”
I sounded like a darned parrot, but each word I repeated helped to dispel the mist. “Yes, Sal's new store.” Then a fine, productive burst. “It was the day she opened!”
Five more vigorous nods, and I waxed positively chatty. “You see, Doctor, this friend of mine has always wanted to open a bookstore specializing in mystery fiction. There are quite a few of them around the countryâa famous one here in New York called The Mysterious Bookshop and one in San Diego called Grounds for Murder, and there's Murder Under Cover and The Scene of the Crimeâso for my friend's store I came up with Pushing Murder.”
I beamed at the doctor, expecting her to be impressed with the cleverness of it, but she looked rather blank.
Paula said loyally, “An inspired name, really.”
Henry and Tina agreed that it was, and Sadd, the eternal grammarian, said, “Of course a participle is never as strong as a verb, but in this case it's quite effective.”
Dr. Cullen cleared her throat. “Mrs. Gamadge, do you remember whom you talked to and what you ate at that party?”
“Party?” I was feeling spent. I yanked at the bed jacket and tried to concentrate. “Party. Oh, yes. Sal had a wine-and-cheese do. She wasn't really ready to open yet, but with Christmas coming⦔ Oh, no! Christmasâand me in the hospital! I plowed on. “I remember that Sal's husband was still putting up shelves. They've just been married, you know. He's a dearâvery handy, too. He made a clever sign for out front. It has the words
Pushing Murder
between bookends that look like tombstones withâ”
“Clara,” said Sadd, his eyes on his book, “you're rambling.”
“I know it.” I suddenly felt exhausted, angry, and put upon. “What happened to my ankle, for heaven's sake? It's hurting again.”
Dr. Cullen nodded quickly to Paula, who scooted out the door.
Henry said, “What happened was this: You trippedâyou were sick as hellâcoming down the steps of Sal's store and crashed on the pavement. By the time the paramedics got there you'd passed out. The broken ankle was obvious, but we couldn't figure out why all the puking. Dr. Cullen recognized poisoning and gave youâwhat's it called, Doctor?”
“Chelation therapy. It's an intravenous treatment.”
“So she saved your life, and all we want you to do is tell us who you think might have wanted to take it.”
I looked at my son stupidly. “You mean kill me?”
“What else?”
I stared around in bafflement for a few seconds, then felt sudden relief. The answer was obvious.
Sister Agnes, a brisk, sixtyish nunâthe floor supervisor, hadn't she told me?âcame purposefully into the room. I pushed up the fluffy sleeve of the bed jacket and said, “Dearsâand this means you too, Doctorâisn't it perfectly plain what happened? The poison was meant for another person. I simply got the wrong canapé. Somebody who has it in for somebody decidedâoh, how sordid and sick!âto do it at Sal's party but did it clumsily and goofed and got me instead. Oh, thank you, Sister!”
The needle was in and out. I closed my eyes and started to count backward. “⦠Ninety-eight, ninety-seven ⦠Go home, all of you. I love you ⦠Don't worry ⦠Nobody wants to do in poor old Clara ⦠Ninety-three, ninety-two ⦠Problem is I love anchovies ⦠Eighty-eight ⦠eighty-seven ⦠eighty-six ⦠Just want to know one thing ⦠Sixty ⦠Fifty ⦠Where did this awful bed jacket come from?⦠Forty-two ⦠buckle my shoe⦔
“Sal,” said Tina's voice.
“What about her?⦠Thirty ⦠Twenty ⦠Jack jump over the⦔
“She brought the bed jacket.”
“Oh ⦠Fleece was white as ⦠Eighteen ⦠Poor Sal ⦠probably blaming herself ⦠Shouldn't ⦠Tenâno, nine ⦠Jack Sprat could eat no ⦠I should have been like Jack⦔
I snickered at this witticism, then felt irritated because they were all still standing there. I'd told them to go. I'd explained everything. Why were they gawking at me and not going?
Well, then, I'd go myself.
I went.
I swam up from the depths of the drug reluctantly, relaxed, remembering Caliban's words “and when I waked I cried to dream again.”
The sun seemed less bright, and there was frost on the window. From somewhereâthe street probablyâcame faint, mechanical strains of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.”
My eyes focused slowly and showed me Sadd sitting in a chair by the window. My children appeared to have left, thank heaven. Why didn't this dear man go too? I was in no danger; there was no reason for this kind of hospital vigil so wearisome to a family. Sadd had to be exhausted. But oddly, he wasn't even dozing. He was sitting upright, gazing into space. I looked at him over the mound of pillows that supported my knees and tried to figure out what was wrong with this picture. His appearance was no different from what it had been last March when I visited him in Florida. There was no thinning of the heavy white hair, no increased stoop of the shoulders. The different factor was something ⦠abstract.
My cousin Sadd, you must understand, is an incessant reader. A former publisher, he read, until his retirement, for both business and pleasure, and since then entirely and addictively for pleasure. He claims that if a day goes by without a glimpse of the printed word, he suffers withdrawal pangs. Sadd reads anywhere and everywhere. He reads in the bathroom, in the car, at meals, at parties, sometimes all night, often while sitting before the television, and he always brings a book to church, declaring it's the only way he can survive the sermon. I cannot imagine a place or occasion that would find him without something to read. Sadd will bring a book to Judgment Day.
He was without one now.
I lay considering this phenomenon, then said, “What time is it?”
He got up and came to the bed. “One o'clock. Your lunch tray came and went.”
“Not hungry. My stomach still hurts.”
“A nurse came in with a pill for that while you were under.” Sadd pulled a chair to the bed. “Also the doctor who set your ankle. They'll both be back. How do you feel generally?”
“Somewhat better.” I struggled to a sitting position. “Sadd, you have got to get some rest. Where are you staying?”
“Leave out
got. Have to
get some rest. Henry and Tina insisted I stay at Nice Ugly.”
It was thus they had christened a nondescript old house in Brooklyn Heights that they'd renovated and made comfortable, if not beautiful.
