Warren Murphy: Return Engagement

Mrs. Smith clicked into the next bedroom, unsteady on her new high heels. She was not used to high heels, had never worn them. But they were back in style and maybe they would make her seem taller, her legs slimmer, and her carriage appear less . . . frumpy.

Vickie's bedroom was the same as when she had left it to go offon her own. It was hard to believe that her only daughter was now a grown woman. Where had the years gone?

On the vanity Vickie's cosmetics sat where they always sat, waiting for the holiday visits, as she always explained it to Harold whenever he suggested converting the bedroom into a den. In truth, she had kept the room as a shrine to the young girl she thought had grown up much too fast.

Sitting at the vanity, Mrs. Smith went through the trays of cosmetics. She never used makeup. Harold had always disapproved of it. She sometimes wondered if he really objected to makeup or to the high prices for the stuff. Thinking back to the lawn mower, she decided it was the cost.

She gave up on using the makeup and applied just a touch of perfume behind each ear. That would get his attention.

Satisfied, Mrs. Smith called a taxi.

During the ride, she worried about what Harold would say to her when she showed up at the gate of Folcroft Sanitarium. Would he be annoyed that she had come unannounced? In the more than twenty years Harold had worked at Folcroft, Mrs. Smith had never visited. And so it had come as a pleasant surprise when he had suddenly invited her to see his office and meet his secretary.

That had been a week ago. In that week, she had not seen her husband. In that week, he had regressed from the new, attentive Harold Smith to the withdrawn machinelike Harold Smith of too many years of dull marriage. Each day, his voice seemed edgier, more harried. Each day, she could feel him slipping away from her.

Today she was going to stop that erosion-even if she had to pull him away from his office by force.

But mavhe Harold would be upset. He might even send her home, never noticing her new dress and the coy hint of Chanel No. 5 behind each ear.

When the cab pulled up to the Folcroft gate and Mrs. Smith handed over $28.44 and tip for the fare, she stopped worrying about what Harold would say to her about dropping in unexpectedly.

He was going to kill her for not bargaining the cabdriver down to a lower flat rate. She just knew it.

Chapter 28

"Are you sure this time?" asked Ilsa Gans. "I mean, really sure."

"It is Smith," said Konrad Blutsturz. He lay on an adjustable hospital bed. "I recognize his eyes, his face, his manner. He has not changed. Not much. Not since Tokyo. How can he have changed so little after I have been changed so much?"

"Do you want me to kill him for you-"'

"No! I must do it myself. It is him, Ilsa. It really is this time."

"Wild," said Ilsa. "I was thinking, before we kill him, if I should do something about his skin. His skin looked kinda dry. Maybe I could send him some baby oil or something. I don't think I'd want to bind my diary in skin that yucky."

"It really is him," whispered Konrad Blutsturz. "Ilsa, I want you to find out everything you can about him. Talk to him. Talk to his employees. I must know what he has been doing all the time I suffered."

"Okay. Then can we go after the Jews?"

"The Jews?"

"Yeah, after we kill Smith, then we can go after the Jews. They killed my parents, remember?"

Konrad Blutsturz pushed himself up in bed painfully. He balanced on his right arm. The bluish connecting knob gleamed amid the rawness of his left arm stump.

"Ilsa, there is a book among my things. In the van. Get it, please."

Ilsa returned moments later. "Read it," said Konrad Blutsturz.

Ilsa looked at the title, The Diary of Anne Frank. "Oh, yuck! I don't want to read this."

"Read it. Now. When you are done, come back to me."

"If you say so, but I think I'm going to throw up." Two hours later Ilsa Gans returned to his bedside. She was in tears.

"You cannot kill the Jews," said Konrad Blutsturz. "Hitler tried, and although six million died, the Jews emerged stronger than ever, with a nation of their own. Do you think a culture that produced such a person as that brave young girl can be extinguished by you or by anyone?"

"No," said Ilsa sobbingly.

"Good. The Jews did not kill your parents, Ilsa. Someday I will tell you that story. And when I do, you must take care to understand that anything I did in the past, I did for us. The Jews do not matter. No one matters. Only Smith and I matter. Do you still want to kill the Jews, my Ilsa?"

"No," Ilsa said definitely. "I want to kill the blacks. No black could write a book like this."

Konrad Blutsturz sighed. "I have taught you too well. Enough, we will discuss this another time. Find out what you can about Harold W. Smith, my mortal enemy."

Mrs. Smith was surprised.

She had expected her husband's secretary to be younger, more attractive. Instead, Mrs. Mikulka was not much younger than she was, although possibly less frumpy. More matronly than frumpy. She wondered if Harold was sometimes attracted to the matronly type.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Smith. Dr. Smith left several hours ago," Mrs. Mikulka informed her pleasantly.

"Oh. Did he say where he was going?"

"No, he didn't," said Eilean Mikulka, wondering if she should mention the fact that Dr. Smith had gone out of town. It was odd that Dr. Smith should go out of town without telling his wife, who seemed pleasant enough, if a tad frumpy.

Mrs. Smith frowned. "Oh dear. I'm so worried about Harold. He hasn't been home in over a week. But he's called every day," she added hastily.

That decided Mrs. Mikulka. "I believe he mentioned something about a short trip," she said hopefully. Perhaps Dr. Smith had tried to call his wife, but missed the connection.

"Oh dear." Mrs. Smith twisted her purse about with both hands. "I guess I should have called."

"I'm sorry."

"Do you suppose . . ." started Mrs. Smith- "I mean, it may be an imposition, but I've never been to Folcroft."

"Yes?"

"Might I see Harold's office?"

Eileen Mikulka smiled reassuringly. "Of course, I'd be glad to let you in."

"You're very kind."

"Not at all. I was about to run down to the cafeteria for a bit of lunch. Could I get you something?"

"Orange juice. And a Danish."

"I'll be right back," said Mrs. Mikulka.

And the two women smiled at one another in that tentative way two women who had a single man in common often did.

Ilsa Gans asked directions to the office of Dr. Smith. Along the way, she flashed her smile at every male who looked like he worked at Folcroft and asked, "What's Dr. Smith like?"

The answers fit into two uniform categories.

The polite people said he was dull, but nice.

The more honest people called him a miserly Scrooge.

No one seemed to like him much.

"There was no one seated at the big reception desk outside Dr. Smith's office.

"Darn," said Ilsa Gans. "I'll bet his secretary would have spilled plenty."

Ilsa put her ear to the door to Smith's office, and hearing nothing, tried the door. It gave. She entered carefully.

"Oops!" said Ilsa when she bumped into a frumpy woman in a blue print dress.

"Excuse me," said Mrs. Harold Smith politely.

"I'm looking for Dr. Smith," Ilsa said uncertainly.

"So am I. I'm his wife. I came to have lunch with Harold, but I guess I should have called first because Harold has left for the day and no one seems to know where he is." Mrs. Smith giggled nervously.

"His wife?" asked Ilsa. "Maybe you'd like to meet Mr. Conrad."

"Mr. Conrad?" Mrs. Smith said blankly. "A very good friend of your husband."

"Oh, really. I don't think I've ever heard the name before."