Sweet Everlasting (30 page)

“No, Ty,” she said, quiet but firm. “I’ve got to go home.” He turned around, but she wouldn’t let him interrupt. “If he’s there, I’ll know before he sees me, and then I’ll just turn around and come back. I promise I won’t see him without you. It’ll be all right.”

He kept shaking his head; she thought he was going to argue, but finally he said, “All right, Carrie. But swear to me again that you won’t go near him, no matter what.”

“I swear. I’m telling you, I’ll know if he’s there and I’ll come back. Don’t worry.”

He took her by the shoulders. “I’ll do nothing but worry until I see you again.” He gave her a quick, hard kiss. “Leave the mule at the livery and walk. It’s only half-light; be careful and don’t let anyone see you. Remember—you weren’t here, you went home last night.”

“I’ll remember. But what shall I do about Petey?”

“I’ll get him for you later today. I’ll tell Hoyle you remembered he had a stone in his foot and decided to leave him. Or—something, I’ll think of something.” He straightened his hair with his hands. “I’ve got to go.”

“Yes, hurry.” It hurt her throat to say the words, though. She didn’t cry. He took her hands; she could see it in his eyes that he knew what everything meant—that it was over now.

“Don’t stay here long, Carrie. Go right after I do.”

“I will.”

His smile twisted inside her. “See you soon.”

She nodded.

His last kiss was soft, and afterward he didn’t look in her eyes. He was trying not to make it feel like good-bye. He got off the bed, went to his wardrobe for something—she didn’t know what, she couldn’t look at him either. A moment later she thought he said, “See you” again, but when she glanced up he was gone. His fast footsteps faded. It seemed to Carrie that one of them ought to say it. So, into the gray dawn silence, she whispered, “Good-bye.”

No smoke from the chimney. That was a good sign. If Artemis was here, he’d have lit the stove by now to heat up his coffee. And it was barely full light, but there was no lamp burning—another good omen. He wasn’t here. She’d told Ty he wouldn’t be, and now she was looking at the proof. Odd, then, that she couldn’t shake this skittery, uneasy feeling inside. Even if he
was
here, and still asleep because he’d never stopped drinking, she was safe. He wouldn’t wake, and if he did, she could simply outrun him. There wasn’t a single sensible reason for this peculiar prickly fear. She told herself that several times, standing in the quiet yard. But it didn’t help.

The sun hadn’t burned through the morning haze, and fog still swirled like ghosts on the ground. Towhees were scratching in the underbrush; nearby a woodpecker drummed. The spiderwort under the window needed watering, and the dayflowers needed thinning again. But Carrie wouldn’t be staying long enough for that. More than likely she’d never live here again. Would she have to close her hospital? Yes, probably—but maybe she could move it somewhere else, someplace closer to her new home. Wherever that might be.

With a silent, fog-muffled step, she moved to the porch. The door wasn’t closed tight, she saw—it stood about two inches ajar. A strong shock of fear gripped her then; she came close to turning around and running. But she steadied herself by will power and made her legs stand still.
Don’t be foolish, it doesn’t mean anything,
her mind scolded.
He’s not sitting inside cleaning his gun, waiting for you.

Oh God!—the image of it had her ready to bolt again.
What if he is?

He’s not. This is your house, too, you can go in and get your own belongings. Anyway, he’s not here. How can you let your fear of him keep you from going into your own house?

She put her hand on the door and pushed it slowly open. The room was empty, but the sight of the flattened table and all the debris around it shocked her … again, calling back the sickening memory of how it had gotten that way. She hung on hard to the doorknob, needing its stability, and stepped inside.

She noticed the rank smell and the buzzing of flies at the same instant, and in the next she saw the muddy shoe. On the floor behind the door, preventing it from opening any farther. She jumped back, too panicked to scream, expecting anything.

But nothing happened, and when she craned her neck, she saw a splayed leg clad in gray denim. Artemis—drunk and unconscious. She took one more step, and saw the blood.

Everywhere. A great pool of it under him, as if he was swimming on his back in it. His eyes and mouth looked like wide black holes of amazement. And where his stomach used to be was nothing except red and gray meat, shiny as wet rubber, with green bottle flies swarming all over it.

Backpedaling, Carrie felt her shoulder smack the door frame, and then she did scream. Twisting away, she floundered back out on the porch. Fog and silence—just as before. She grabbed her skirts in both hands and ran down the mountain as fast as she could.

T
YLER’S EMERGENCY WAS A
twelve-year-old girl with a perforated appendix. He operated immediately, on the family’s kitchen table, with nothing but the instruments he’d brought with him boiled in a dishpan and no surgical linens except the clean sheets and towels the girl’s hysterical mother found for him. But he worked clean and fast; as appendectomies went, this one was a success. If he’d been called six hours earlier, he might have saved her. After the operation, he stayed with the family for the thirteen hours it took her to die, of acute peritonitis.

His exhaustion was so complete, he could hardly bring himself to detour from the direct route home and stop by the livery stable on Wayne Street. He found Hoyle Taber in his tiny office, going over the day’s receipts. They greeted each other tiredly—working until nine o’clock made it a long day for Hoyle, too—and then Ty asked how Carrie’s mule was doing. “Did you notice anything in the right front foot, Hoyle?” he fabricated. “She said he was gimpy coming down the mountain, and she thought he ought not—”

“Carrie Wiggins?” Hoyle butt in. “Ain’t you heard? No, you couldn’t’ve, you been up at Ettermans’ all day. I heard about their little girl. Say, Doc, that was a damn shame.”

Ty acknowledged it with a nod, but it was a subject he had no heart for right now. “Yes, I know about Carrie, I treated her on Monday evening. She’s all right now, Artemis didn’t—”

“No, no, what happened today! You didn’t hear
this,
I’ll bet.”

“Hear what?”

“She killed her pa! Least, that’s what everybody’s saying over at the town hall.”

Tyler dropped his medical case on top of Hoyle’s littered desk. “What?” was all he could say.

“Yeah! She come runnin’ down the mountain this morning, claiming somebody killed her pa. Billy Stonebrake went back up with her, and then they got deputies and the county sheriff down from Chambersburg, and now they’re all over at the town hall figuring out whether to arrest her. She’s got Peter Mueller for a lawyer, I heard, and Frank Odell’s up there, too, trying to get ’em to let her go. Hell, half the town was standing around outside till it begun to get dark, but now I heard—Hey, Doc! Wait, here’s the damnedest part,” Hoyle shouted, jogging after Ty to the stable doors. “The Wiggins girl? She can talk now! Good as you and me! Ain’t that—”

The rest was lost as Ty raced up Wayne Street toward Broad. Town hall was a squat, two-story brick building with an incongruous pseudo-Greek portico taking up space across the narrow front. In the glow of a street lamp, two or three scattered knots of people still loitered, waiting for news. A solitary figure lurched away from the curb, and Ty made out Broom’s form bearing down on him.

“Doc,” was all he could say at first. Impatient to get away, Tyler jerked on his skinny arms, but the boy held on like a spider monkey. “Carrie,” he got out, choking on tears and spittle. “Locked her up. Oh, mercy.” His body shook as if he had palsy.

At a minimum he needed a sedative, but Ty had no time for him now. “Let me go so I can help her,” he said distinctly, finally getting a grasp on the spindly shoulders. He pushed Broom away and gave him a shake to get his attention. “I’ll go in now and fix it. You wait here. Understand?”

“You’ll fix it?”

“I’ll get her out.”

“You will?”

“I promise.”

“Okay.”

But he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, relax his grip, and in the end Ty had to pry him off with rough hands. “You wait here,” he said again and left Broom in the street, crying like a child.

Frank Odell stopped pacing the linoleum-covered foyer when he saw Tyler come through the door. “Hey, Ty,” he greeted him, the grimness in his boyish face lightening a little.

“Where is she?”

“Carrie? They pulled a drunk out of the lockup and put her in there.”

His hands curled into fists. “Who do I have to talk to to get her out?”

“Well, it’s too late for that. Peter’s been—”

“Why?”

“They arrested her, they’re going to keep her overnight. Tomorrow they’ll have the arraignment and set bond. Peter and I figure we can get up about five hundred dollars between us by then. He thinks that’ll be enough, but if you’d like to help us out, Ty, we’d—”

“Who’s still here? I want her out
now.
”

Frank’s blue eyes widened at his adamance. “You can’t now, I’m telling you. They’ve arrested her, she’s—”

“Why? Why do they think she did it? Tell me what the hell happened!”

A door opened down the hall; he whirled to see Peter Mueller close it behind him and come toward them, already shaking his head. Mueller was a large, bald-headed man with a bulbous nose, as ugly as his daughter Spring was pretty. He smiled when he saw Ty, no doubt remembering last Thursday night, when he’d won four dollars from him at the weekly poker game. “Well, Doctor, what brings you here? Heard about the Wiggins girl’s trouble, did you? They’ll probably want to talk to you about her tomorrow, since you saw—”

“Frank says they’ve arrested her,” he cut in.

“That’s right. There wasn’t much I could do about it. The sheriff’s a hardhead,” he said, lowering his booming voice a trifle, “but in this case I couldn’t much blame him. Why, what’s wrong, Ty? Do you know something about this?”

“Tell me what happened, Peter. I’ve been out on an emergency all day. I just found out about Carrie.”

Mueller smoothed the front of his vest with both hands. “Well, she says her stepfather—
says,
mind you,” he interrupted himself to point out, still amazed; “she can
talk
now. Must’ve been the shock. Anyway, she says her stepfather knocked her out cold, night before last. Your housekeeper corroborated that, and so did the boy—what’s his name?”

“Broom,” answered Frank.

“Broom. She stayed overnight—this is Monday night, now—at your office. That’s right, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“And she didn’t leave the next day till six or so—this is according to Mrs. Quick again—when you took her home. Got there about seven, Carrie says, and you left soon after. She says you were worried, but she convinced you there was no need because Artemis was away on a job and wouldn’t be back till late today. That right so far?”

“Keep going.”

Mueller glanced once at Frank, but went on obligingly. “Well, then it gets bad.” Reaching inside his coat pocket, he took out a leather-bound notebook. “As near as they can tell right now, Wiggins died between ten and fourteen hours before Sheriff Butts and the deputies first saw the body, which was around noon today. They’ll know more tomorrow, but for now they’re thinking he was killed around midnight, give or take a couple of hours on either side. Now, what Carrie says is that she was fast asleep when she heard him come in last night, and she has no idea what time it was. She says he didn’t even know she was there—she sleeps behind a curtain, evidently, in the main room of their cabin. She says they never argued, they never even spoke, that he went to bed as soon as he got in and that’s the last she saw of him. Till the next morning when she found his dead, fully clothed body by the front door.”

Mueller pulled on his ear and started thumbing through his notebook. “Not unnaturally, Butts doesn’t find this too convincing, and he starts hammering at her. Did she hear a shot? No. Why not? She went for a walk, she suddenly remembers. A walk, in the middle of a moonless night? Yep. Where did she go? Just a walk, she says, there’s trails up the mountain behind her house, she knows them well even in the dark. How long was she gone? All night.” He looked up from his notes and shook his head, unable to hide his own skepticism at that. “Says she slept in the mule’s stall; says she’s done it before, to get away from Artemis when he’s drunk.

“Did she hear a shot? Butts asks her again. No. Why not? She’s a sound sleeper, never hears anything once she’s out. Meanwhile, that mule’s stall is all of thirty-forty feet from the house, there’s no way a dead man could’ve missed a shotgun blast.”

He closed his book with a snap and stuck it back in his pocket. “She’s making it all up—that’s my
confidential
opinion—and she’s the worst liar I ever heard.”

“It’s pitiful to listen to her,” Frank agreed, “especially since there’s no way in the world she would’ve done this, and I don’t care how many times the son of a bitch beat her. Carrie wouldn’t hurt a fly.
Literally,
” he insisted. “I don’t know how many times I’ve seen her carry ’em outside the house so Eppy can’t swat ’em.” He ran his hands through his carrot-colored hair. “Eppy’s fit to be tied. She told me not to come home without her.”

“Butts thinks Artemis beat her, and she went back and shot him with his own gun,” the lawyer concluded, “and there’s nobody to say she didn’t.” He took out his watch and flicked it open. “Well, gentlemen, it’s late. My wife—”

“Is Butts in there?” Ty pointed to the door Mueller had just come out of. The lawyer nodded. “Then you two had better come in with me. I’ve got something to tell him.”

The sheriff’s makeshift office was a tiny room furnished with a desk, two chairs, and a filing cabinet. At the moment both chairs were occupied, one by the sheriff and one by Officer Stonebrake; that meant the two deputies had to stand. When the door opened and three more men came in, the room shrank even further.