David Dean - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 125, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 763 & 764, March/April 2005

Then, two sets of footsteps walked rapidly out of the arcade.

Doris gulped for air. A sharp pain shot down her legs, her thighs trembled. She slid down the wall and sat on the toilet, gunshots still ringing in her ears. As she clung to a two-by-four stud, she brushed her hand across her cheeks, astonished at her cold tears. What a damn fool she was, she chided. Slowly her terror gave way to shame and disappointment.

She needed a drink badly. She needed people, happy, glamorous people. A place to erase this memory and plenty of others. The night wasn’t over yet.

She stood, opened the door, and stumbled into the dank night.

The following afternoon, Dazey called his wife from his office across from Santa Monica Hospital. Still no answer. She’d been asleep when he stopped by at lunchtime. Now it was 3:15 P.M. If she had gone out or was napping, Betty Rose should have picked up the phone. Maybe they had gone out to do some shopping together.

He tried not to be alarmed. Perhaps she was still asleep and hadn’t heard the phone. But normally Doris was up by this time of day.

Dazey knew not to panic with someone as unpredictable as Doris. Just the same, he felt strangely uneasy. He figured that he could make it home and back in fifteen minutes. If she fussed about being checked on, spied on, as she called it, he would invite her to dinner at one of her favorite clubs.

He slipped on his coat and grabbed his hat. He’d leave from his office door that led to the hall — wouldn’t even tell the receptionist he was gone. He placed his hand on the doorknob.

“Dr. Dazey, they’re ready for you in surgery.”

He spun around, embarrassed as if caught sneaking into a matinee without paying. His nurse, hands on her barrel-sized hips, filled the doorway. “We aren’t scheduled until three forty-five,” he said plaintively.

“Dr. Grodin canceled, so they moved everyone up.”

“When did you find out about this?” he demanded.

“Just now, sir. They’re waiting for you.”

Fuming, he tossed his coat and hat on his desk chair. He left his office, descended the stairs, and crossed the street to the hospital.

Even before she opened her eyelids, she felt the cool afternoon mist seeping in through the bedroom windows.

Silence hovered in the house. What had awakened her? The phone? Down the street, children laughed, a dog barked, a car started. The muted sun released the scent of gardenias into the damp air. She stretched her legs, enjoying the feel of the cool sheets. She felt deliciously alone.

She heard a thunk downstairs. Or was it outside? Was Wally throwing toys? Couldn’t be — the baby was still at her parents’. “Betty?” she called, then remembered that, in a fit of pique, she had dismissed the maid. Probably it was the postman. She closed her eyes and sank back into her pillow, grateful for her solitude.

Her mind floated over the images from the night before; the memory seemed remote. Was it possible it hadn’t happened? Where had she gone after the pier? She couldn’t remember — some after-hours joint. She couldn’t recall how she got home.

She opened her eyes and turned to the clock: It was 3:20. She wondered if George had come home for lunch. She seemed to remember sounds from the kitchen, maybe a figure in her bedroom. Had she been sick? She couldn’t remember.

She heard knocking on the front door. Loud steady taps. She waited: Maybe they would go away. Three more taps. She swung her legs out of the bed, pulled on her turquoise pongee robe, and tied the sash tight around her waist. She looked for her slippers. They weren’t under the bed; they weren’t in the closet. Tap, tap, tap. Fiddlesticks. She ran her fingers through her hair, then left the bedroom.

As she descended the stairs, she saw the back of a gentleman through the glass panels in the front door. He had broad shoulders and wore a fedora. Had something happened to George? Suddenly worried, she opened the front door quickly, without hesitation.

Her first thought was that the mist was as heavy as a fine rain, and she worried for the man’s cashmere coat, which was obviously expensive.

The man turned and moved toward her in an unhurried but forceful way, like the incoming tide, with comforting inevitability, extending his leather glove, pushing her gently into the house. She thought how handsome he looked, the brim of his hat pulled over his forehead, how handsome his collar, turned up under his square chin, how handsome his steady eyes that bore into her soul. What has taken you so long?

As she surrendered to his strong grip and his glove over her mouth, she was surprised at the soothing masculine strength of his damp woolly embrace.

Dazey returned home at around seven. He turned off the ignition, then the headlights. His hands fell into his lap, his body wearily sinking into the leather seat.

How much more could he take? he wondered. He was trained to be dispassionate, to be strong enough to witness pain and suffering. But he couldn’t — not with Doris. He loved her so much, but he felt exhausted and spent. He guiltily admitted that sometimes he wished he could come home to an empty house.

He stepped out of his car and slammed the door, the vigorous movement lending him energy to make it across the lawn. The sky was gray, retaining a glimmer of twilight. He looked up through the bare branches of the jacaranda tree — gnarled crone fingers scratching at the October sky — and he thought of Doris’s pale hands writhing in agony during one of her fits. He sighed heavily and walked up the front steps.

The windows were dark.

He opened the door, hung his coat and hat on a bentwood coat-rack, and set his doctor’s bag on a chair. He listened: The silence had an eerie sibilance. She must be dozing. He’d better go wake her or else she wouldn’t be able to sleep through the night.

He went upstairs into their bedroom, opened the door, and turned on a light. The bed was unmade. The coffee cup he had brought to her that morning sat empty on her nightstand. By Doris’s pillow, the Santa Monica Evening Outlook lay folded to the society page.

“Doris?” He checked the bathroom. No one. He headed down to the kitchen. Maybe she had gone out?

Dazey stared at the bowl of oranges on the kitchen table. No note. He heard the faint sound of a car motor, the distinct putter of a Packard sedan. She must be just leaving, he thought. He banged open the kitchen door and dashed across the backyard to the side door of the garage.

He paused to catch his breath, then opened the door.

A blast of hot air slammed into his face. Toxic milky-gray gases swirled in front of his eyes. Coughing, waving his arms, he reached to the wall, felt for the light switch, and snapped it on. The rounded shape of the rumbling Packard was barely visible. He sprang forward and grabbed the handle on the driver’s door. He swung it open and turned off the ignition.

He ran outside, gulped a mouthful of fresh air, then dashed back in. He tripped over something soft and fell, the heels of his palms slamming hard against the garage doors. He looked down. At first he thought it was a pile of rags. Then he saw the hair — there was so much of it. A wig? A Halloween costume?

Then he saw her profile.

He gasped, horrified, choking so hard tears sprang to his eyes. Grabbing the handle of the garage door, he shoved it open with his right shoulder.

Doris’s body curved along the arc of the streetlight like the figure of a goddess poised on the edge of a Roman portico. Her face, an arm’s length from the tailpipe, angled away from the car, her cheeks black with soot, her eyes partially closed, her hair spread out behind her as if facing a stiff wind.

He stared a moment, then, coughing violently, ran into the street. He buckled over and vomited.