John MacDonald - Slam the Big Door

“Maybe tomorrow she needs you. So then you’re dead for sleep. What good are you? You got that Placidyl left?”

“Yes, there’s a few...”

“Take one tonight. Come tomorrow with flowers. Smiling. Stop arguing.”

Mary permitted herself to be led out to the station wagon. Charlie had set the rear seat up again, refolded the cot. Mike got in back with Mary. She seemed stunned.

As they turned out of the parking lot she said, “But what happened?”

“It was an accident,” Mike said. “She took a fall.” He waited for Marg to contradict him, but she kept silent.

“Just an accident,” Charlie said ponderously.

“Where did she fall?”

“I’ll show you how it happened when we get home,” Mike said.

“Where’s Troy?”

“I’ll tell you about that too,” he said, and touched her hand with a warning pressure. She looked quickly at him and he saw the sudden comprehension in her eyes — her understanding that whatever it was that he wanted to tell her, he did not want to tell her in front of the Laybournes.

“Poor baby,” Mary murmured. “People seem so... alone in a hospital.”

“She’ll mend fast,” Mike said. “She’s healthy.”

When they got back onto the Key one half of a florid sun showed above the steel edge of the Gulf and the waterbirds were heading for their mangrove homesteads. Mary, with warmth, declined Marg and Charlie’s offer of further help, and thanked them for all they had done. Durelda’s Oscar was waiting for her. Durelda came out to meet them in the yard as the station wagon drove away.

“Miz Mary,” she said excitedly, “I was waiting on you. Something bad is going on and I can’t find out a thing about it. Some boy brang Miz Debbie Ann’s car back and said she got hurt and they was taking her to the hospital so I phoned the hospital and they toll me she was doing well as expected, so with nobody telling me nothing I toll Oscar I’d just wait right here until somebody come to let me know.”

“Thanks for waiting, Durelda. I really appreciate it. Debbie Ann had a bad fall and hurt her face, but she’s all right now. I’m sorry nobody thought to let you know.”

“They said she was lyin’ an’ bleedin’ in the road,” Durelda said darkly. “Run over, I wondered. I looked at the little car and there was no blood at all.”

“You go on home now. You’ve had a long wait.”

“I can anyway carry your bag inside before I go, Miz Mary. You home for good?”

“I guess so, Durelda.”

She started toward the house carrying the suitcase she had taken away from Mike, saying over her shoulder to them as they followed her, “With you gone ever’thing gets messed up around here, nobody telling nobody nothing.”

“I should have phoned you, Durelda,” Mike said.

“Surely you should,” said Durelda.

After Durelda left, Mary stood in the living room looking out toward the Gulf, her back to the room. “Troy packed a bag,” she said quietly.

“Yes. He left, Mary.”

“For good?”

“That was the impression he gave.”

She turned toward him, angrily. “Did you try to stop him? Did you?”

“What do you think?”

“I’m sorry, Mike. How did she fall? What’s happening? Sam acted strange. Marg and Charlie acted funny. You better tell me.”

“Can I fix you a drink?”

She laughed in a mirthless way. “One of the little niceties of the culture, Mike. People don’t say brace yourself. They don’t say I hate to tell you this. They ask you if you want a drink. Yes, I want a drink. But if you take more than sixty seconds bringing it to me, I’ll go out of my mind.”

It was dusk on the terrace. He took the drinks out there. She followed him.

“All right, Mike. I’m sitting. I’m braced. This is a strong drink. Aim and fire.”

“Troy drank heavily last night. He didn’t get up until about two. As soon as he had some coffee, he packed a bag. I couldn’t get much out of him. He didn’t want me to give him a ride. Debbie Ann was coming home in the car. She saw him walking with the suitcase. She stopped. Apparently he wouldn’t talk to her. So she backed up and got out and waited for him. I started... walking toward them. I couldn’t hear what was said. And suddenly he... hit her.”

Her eyes were round and wide in the dusk, the drink motionless halfway to her lips. “He what!”

“He hit her, Mary.”

“Couldn’t... couldn’t anybody stop him?”

“He only hit her once. He knocked her onto the hood of the car. She fell off the front end of the car. And he kept on walking.”

“This is incredible! Who else knows this? Who saw it?”

He explained about the elderly couple on the beach, about the Laybournes’ suspicions, about telling only Pherson and Scherman, and telling Pherson only to keep it from being police business.

“About the police,” he said. “That will be your decision, and Debbie Ann’s.”

“He’s sick, Mike. He’s so sick.”

“I know.”

“To just... hurt her like that. She’s so sweet. She wouldn’t hurt anybody. Tell me, Mike. Why would he do a thing like that?”

Now is the time to tell her, he thought. We’ve got her clubbed to her knees. Now we kick her in the face. Tell her about her sweet little daughter. Come on, Rodenska. Here we go.

“I don’t know why he did it, Mary.”

“It’s so pointless!”

“The fact is that he did it. And she’s going to be all right.”

“But think of the psychic damage, Mike.”

“I’m not going to worry about that.”

“Where did he go? Right to that... Rowley woman?”

“Probably.”

“I shouldn’t have gone away, Mike.”

“I’ll give you that. You’re right. You shouldn’t have gone away.”

They talked, but the talk was meaningless. They had another drink, but there was nothing festive about it. Finally he talked her into letting him fix something for them to eat. He said he knew where things were, said he could scramble the hell out of an egg. He fed the two of them. She helped clean up. She phoned the hospital to check on Debbie Ann, and then went off to bed. Mike went to his room and wrote to his sons. He took a stroll on the beach. There was a moist west wind, a haloed moon. It had been, all in all, one of the very long days. He felt too tired to try to think about anything. After he was in bed he was conscious of the stillness and emptiness of the other guest bedroom. Mary was in the far end of the main house. He wondered if she was sleeping. He hoped so.

The phone started ringing early on Monday morning. The concerned, the curious. There had been a paragraph in the Ravenna paper, so brief and noncommittal that it merely whetted curiosity.

“Mrs. Debbie Ann Hunter of Riley Key, daughter of Mrs. Troy Jamison, was rushed to Ravenna Hospital yesterday afternoon after a serious fall. Her condition is said to be fair.”

After taking three calls herself, Mary instructed Durelda to take any others that might come in and tell them Mrs. Jamison was at the hospital.

One call was for Mike. He took it on the wall phone near the kitchen door, and recognized the whispery croaky voice at once as Shirley said, “Mike, that’s a private line, isn’t it?”

“I think so. Yes.”

“So is this one. Mike, the whole Key is buzzing. People are saying Troy put the slug on her. Is she hurt badly?”

He gave a capsule report of the injuries.

She gasped and then said, “Mike, I heard another rumor too. They’re saying Mary got out because Troy was... fooling around with Debbie Ann.”

“Nice clean outlook these people got.”

“I guess you can’t blame them too much. But I thought it would get back to you, and I wouldn’t want you to think I...”