Edward Gorman - The Autumn Dead

"I won't kill your girlfriend if you get the suitcase and bring it to me at ten o'clock tomorrow night. I'll phone you where I want you to bring it. Do you understand me?"

I started to snarl something about what I'd do if she so much as looked at Donna again, but for the second time that night, the tall, slender woman in the black motorcycle leathers caught me fast and cracking sharp across the back of the head.

This time I fell into the darkness with something like relief. My head was starting to ache intolerably and I was tired and confused and at least a little bit afraid of what I saw in her blue eyes, the same thing I'd seen one night ten years earlier when a young mother had put an ice pick through the eyes of her infant and then waited patiently for the policeman she'd summoned. I had been that policeman.

The next morning I woke with Donna sitting on the edge of my bed in a royal blue belted robe and her beautiful wild red hair fresh from the shower. I was in her bed in her apartment, where I'd come in a stupor not unlike drunkenness after leaving Larry Price's house, where the woman in black had knocked me out not once but twice.

"How're you feeling?"

"Better than I should, probably," I said.

"This should help."

I sat up in bed like an invalid and she set the tray across my lap. There were two lovely eggs over easy on a pink plate. And two lovely pieces of delicately buttered toast. And three lovely orange slices. And a lovely steaming cup of coffee. And two round little white tablets that unfortunately were not half as lovely as the other things on the plate.

"Aspirin," she said. "I figured you'd need them." She bent over and gave me a soft kiss and I just held her there momentarily, knowing her for the prize she was.

"Thanks," I said.

Her bedroom was a woman's room, with yellow walls and canopied bed, and outsize stuffed animals, one I like especially, a plump bear with oddly forlorn eyes and a little red cap. He sat in the corner, his arms forever spread in greeting, watching me eat, which I did with boot-camp hunger.

"Man," I said.

"Taste good?"

"Tastes great."

"Boy, I love to watch you eat."

"I thought you said I needed to lose ten pounds."

"You do. But I still love to watch you eat. It just makes me feel-secure somehow."

She leaned over and gave me a kiss again and then she said, "May I tell you something?"

"Sure," I said, wiping up egg yolk with the last piece of toast. I let my gaze lie on the windows, blue with cloudless spring sky. A jay flitted past the window and perched on a branch just blooming. The window was partly opened. I thought of how fresh laundry smelled in the breeze.

"That woman's threats last night?"

"Yes."

"I'm scared, Dwyer."

I put my hand out and brought her over to me. She sat on the edge of the bed. She smelled of perfume, bath soap, and clean skin. She smelled wonderful.

"I want you to go to Joanna's for a few days," I said.

"What?"

"Please."

"Joanna? You think I could handle it for a few days? All those heartbreak stories?"

Joanna was a news writer at a TV station, a woman gifted not only with talent but great looks that did not seem to do her much good with men. She was perpetually heartbroken.

"I really wish you'd call her," I said.

"What about you?"

"I'll stay at my place. I'll be all right."

She touched my head. "Dwyer, she's mean. So far she's knocked out three people, and from what you say, she's not hinged quite right."

"I know." Then I smiled. "All the more reason for you to stay at Joanna's. You've got the magazine done for the month. You can just sort of hole up. What I'd like you to do is pack a bag now and leave. And watch your rearview very carefully."

"Make sure nobody is following?"

"Right."

"God, people really do do that, don't they? I mean, it's not just in detective movies, is it?"

"No, it isn't."

"What're you going to do?"

"Check the calls on my answering service. Then I'm not sure."

She picked up the tray. "Did you really like it?" She's very insecure about her cooking, probably because her former husband Chad was always criticizing her for her lack of culinary imagination and, by implication, her lack of culinary skills.

"Honey, it was great, and it was sweet. It was very sweet."

"Thanks for saying that."

"It's the truth."

Water ran in the kitchen sink; then the bathroom door closed; then the hair drier erupted. I phoned my service. This was my day off at American Security, so my first dread was that there'd be a message saying somebody hadn't shown up so would I please come in. Fortunately, no. The only message came from a Dr. Allan Cummings. I wrote his number down and thanked the woman picking up the calls this morning. Just before we hung up, she said, "I saw one of your commercials on the tube last night. You did a good job."

"Thanks."

"Oh, that doctor who called?"

"Yes."

"He sounded real-uptight or something."

"Thanks."

"Sure."

We hung up. I dialed Dr. Cummings' number. These days, getting through directly to a doctor is nearly as unlikely as winning a lottery. So I was surprised when a baritone male voice said, "Dr. Cummings here." He must have given me a direct number.

"Doctor, my name is Jack Dwyer."

"Oh yes, Mr. Dwyer, thanks for returning my call." He sounded nervous.

Then he stopped talking. I sensed hesitation.

"What can I do for you, Doctor?"

"Well, I was wondering if we might talk a few minutes."

"Of course."

"What I have reference to, Mr. Dwyer, is the story in the newspaper this morning."

"I see."

"The one about Karen Lane dying of an accidental overdose of Librium and alcohol."

"Yes."

"Well, the story said that you were with her at the time of her death and that you were a former policeman, so I thought I would tell you something that might be pertinent."

"What's that, Doctor?"

"Karen Lane was my patient for several years. I'm a medical doctor, not a psychiatrist, but for some of my patients who tend to get depressed or overanxious, I prescribe various kinds of tranquilizers or antidepressants."

"I see."

"The point I'm trying to make here, Mr. Dwyer, is that I once prescribed Librium for her."

"And?"

"And she had an allergic reaction to it. Welts appeared on her tongue and her throat got very red and sore."

I threw my feet over the side of the bed. It was one of the moments I wanted a cigarette. "So what are you saying?"

"I'm not sure what I'm saying, Mr. Dwyer. I wish I could say absolutely that Karen Lane would never take Librium, but sometimes, as we get older, our allergies change. We begin to tolerate things we once couldn't tolerate-and vice versa."

"When was the last time you saw her, Doctor?"

"Oh, five or six years ago. She moved from the city, and when she came back she apparently found another doctor."

"So the sensible thing for me to do would be to find who her doctor is currently and to see what sort of medication he was prescribing for her, right?"

"That seems sensible to me."

But I knew who her current doctor was. And I also knew the vested interest he had in keeping Karen Lane his own. For the first time I started considering Dr. Glendon Evans a murder suspect.

"I really appreciate this, Doctor."

"Of course." A pause again. "Karen was a very striking woman."

"Yes, she was."

"I-" He stopped talking again and in his silence I could hear that he'd been smitten, too. "We went out a few times."

"I see."

"I'm afraid I was married and I'm afraid it got messy for everybody concerned."

This was the part where circumstances forced me to be a surrogate priest. I never much cared for the role. "I was afraid that if I went to the police with this, I'd get dragged into the papers myself and it would bring up some bad memories for my wife."