A Choice of Murders, page 13
Rackham was too concerned with Alma to notice Tracy’s choice of words, but Sands noticed, and wondered if it had been conscious or unconscious: Alma’s a healthy young woman… Take it easy, old man.
“If she’s still depressed in the morning,” Tracy said, “bring her down to the clinic with you when you come in for your X-rays. We have a good neurologist on our staff.” He reached for his coat and hat. “By the way, I hope you followed the instructions.”
Rackham looked at him stupidly. “What instructions?”
“Before we can take specific X-rays, certain medication is necessary.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I made it very clear to Alma,” Tracy said, sounding annoyed. “You were to take one ounce of sodium phosphate after dinner tonight, and report to the X-ray department at 8 o’clock tomorrow morning without breakfast.”
“She didn’t tell me.”
“Oh.”
“It must have slipped her mind.”
“Yes. Obviously. Well, it’s too late now.” He put on his coat, moving quickly for the first time, as if he were in a rush to get away. The change made Sands curious. He wondered why Tracy was suddenly so anxious to leave, and whether there was any connection between Alma’s hysteria and her lapse of memory about Rackham’s X-rays. He looked at Rackham and guessed, from his pallor and his worried eyes, that Rackham had already made a connection in his mind.
“I understood,” Rackham said carefully, “that I was all through at the clinic. My heart, lungs, metabolism—everything fit as a fiddle.”
“People,” Tracy said, “are not fiddles. Their tone doesn’t improve with age. I will make another appointment for you and send you specific instructions by mail. Is that all right with you?”
“I guess it will have to be.”
“Well, good night, Mr. Sands, pleasant meeting you.” And to Rackham, “Good night, old man.”
When he had gone, Rackham leaned against the wall, breathing hard. Sweat crawled down the sides of his face like worms and hid in the collar of his bathrobe. “You’ll have to forgive me. Sands. I feel—I’m not feeling very well.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Yes,” Rackham said. “Turn back the clock.”
“Beyond my powers, I’m afraid.”
“Yes… Yes, I’m afraid.”
“Good night, Rackham.” Good night, old man.
“Good night, Sands.” Good night old man to you, too.
Sands shuffled across the concrete driveway, his head bent. It was a dark night, with no moon at all.
From his study Sands could see the lighted windows of Rackham’s bedroom. Rackham’s shadow moved back and forth behind the blinds as if seeking escape from the very light that gave it existence. Back and forth, in search of nirvana.
Sands read until far into the night. It was one of the solaces of growing old—if the hours were numbered, at least fewer of them need be wasted in sleep.
When he went to bed, Rackham’s bedroom light was still on.
They had become good neighbors by design; now, also by design, they became strangers. Whose design it was, Alma’s or Rackham’s, Sands didn’t know.
There was no definite break, no unpleasantness. But the Eugenia hedge seemed to have grown taller and thicker, and the concrete driveway a mile away. He saw the Rackhams occasionally; they waved or smiled or said, “Lovely weather,” over the backyard fence. But Rackham’s smile was thin and painful, Alma waved with a leaden arm, and neither of them cared about the weather. They stayed indoors most of the time, and when they did come out they were always together, arm in arm, walking slowly and in step. It was impossible to tell whose step led, and whose followed.
At the end of the first week in September, Sands met Alma by accident in a drug store downtown. It was the first time since the night of the doctor’s visit that he’d seen either of the Rackhams alone.
She was waiting at the prescription counter wearing a flowery print dress that emphasized the fullness of her figure and the bovine expression of her face. A drugstore length away, she looked like a rather dull, badly dressed young woman with a passion for starchy foods, and it was hard to understand what Rackham had seen in her. But then Rackham had never stood a drugstore length away from Alma; he saw her only in close-up, the surprising, intense blue of her eyes, and the color and texture of her skin, like whipped cream. Sands wondered whether it was her skin and eyes, or her quality of serenity which had appealed most to Rackham, who was quick and nervous and excitable.
She said, placidly, “Why, hello there.”
“Hello, Alma.”
“Lovely weather, isn’t it?”
“Yes… How is Charles?”
“You must come over for dinner one of these nights.”
“I’d like to.”
“Next week, perhaps. I’ll give you a call—I must run now. Charles is waiting for me. See you next week.”
But she did not run, she walked; and Charles was not waiting for her, he was waiting for Sands. He had let himself into Sands’ house and was pacing the floor of the study, smoking a cigarette. His color was bad, and he had lost weight, but he seemed to have acquired an inner calm. Sands could not tell whether it was the calm of a man who had come to an important decision, or that of a man who had reached the end of his rope and had stopped struggling.
They shook hands, firmly, pressing the past week back into shape.
Rackham said, “Nice to see you again, old man.”
“I’ve been here all along.”
“Yes. Yes, I know…I had things to do, a lot of thinking to do.”
“Sit down. I’ll make you a drink.”
“No, thanks. Alma will be home shortly, I must be there.”
Like a Siamese twin, Sands thought, separated by a miracle, but returning voluntarily to the fusion—because the fusion was in a vital organ.
“I understand,” he said.
Rackham shook his head. “No one can understand, really, but you come very close sometimes. Sands. Very close.” His cheeks flushed, like a boy’s. “I’m not good at words or expressing my emotions, but I wanted to thank you before we leave, and tell you how much Alma and I have enjoyed your companionship.”
“You’re taking a trip?”
“Yes. Quite a long one.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Today.”
“You must let me see you off at the station.”
“No, no,” Rackham said quickly. “I couldn’t think of it. I hate last-minute depot farewells. That’s why I came over this afternoon to say good-bye.”
“Tell me something of your plans.”
“I would if I had any. Everything is rather indefinite. I’m not sure where we’ll end up.”
“I’d like to hear from you now and then.”
“Oh, you’ll hear from me, of course.” Rackham turned away with an impatient twitch of his shoulders as if he was anxious to leave, anxious to start the trip right now before anything happened to prevent it.
“I’ll miss you both,” Sands said. We’ve had a lot of laughs together.”
Rackham scowled out of the window. “Please, no farewell speeches. They might shake my decision. My mind is already made up, I want no second thoughts.”
“Very well.”
“I must go now. Alma will be wondering—”
“I saw Alma earlier this afternoon,” Sands said.
“Oh?”
“She invited me for dinner next week.”
Outside the open window two hummingbirds fought and fussed, darting with crazy accuracy in and out of the bougainvillea vine.
“Alma,” Rackham said carefully, “can be very forgetful sometimes.”
“Not that forgetful. She doesn’t know about this trip you’ve planned, does she…? Does she, Rackham?”
“I wanted it to be a surprise. She’s always had a desire to see the world. She’s still young enough to believe that one place is different from any other place.You and I know better.”
“Do we?”
“Good-bye. Sands.”
At the front door they shook hands again, and Rackham again promised to write, and Sands promised to answer his letters. Then Rackham crossed the lawn and the concrete driveway, head bent, shoulders hunched. He didn’t look back as he turned the corner of the Eugenia hedge.
Sands went over to his desk, looked up a number in the telephone directory, and dialed.
A girl’s voice answered, “Tracy clinic. X-ray department.”
“This is Charles Rackham,” Sands said.
“Yes, Mr. Rackham.”
“I’m leaving town unexpectedly. If you’ll tell me the amount of my bill, I’ll send you a check before I go.”
“The bill hasn’t gone through, but the standard price for a lower gastro-intestinal is twenty-five dollars.”
“Let’s see, I had that done on the—”
“The fifth. Yesterday.”
“But my original appointment was for the first, wasn’t it?”
The girl gave a does-it-really-matter? sigh. “Just a minute, sir, and I’ll check.” Half a minute later she was back on the line. “We have no record of an appointment for you on the first, sir.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Even without the record book, I’d be sure. The first was a Monday. We do only gall bladders on Monday.”
“Oh. Thank you.”
Sands went out and got into his car. Before he pulled away from the curb he looked over at Rackham’s house and saw Rackham pacing up and down the veranda, waiting for Alma.
The Tracy clinic was less impressive than Sands had expected, a converted two-story stucco house with a red tile roof. Some of the tiles were broken and the whole building needed paint, but the furnishings inside were smart and expensive.
At the reception desk a nurse wearing a crew cut and a professional smile told Sands that Dr. Tracy was booked solid for the entire afternoon. The only chance of seeing him was to sit in the
second-floor waiting room and catch him between patients.
Sands went upstairs and took a chair in a little alcove at the end of the hall, near Tracy’s door. He sat with his face half hidden behind an open magazine. After a while the door of Tracy’s office opened and over the top of his magazine Sands saw a woman silhouetted in the door frame—a plump, fair-haired young woman in a flowery print dress.
Tracy followed her into the hall and the two of them stood looking at each other in silence. Then Alma turned and walked away, passing Sands without seeing him because her eyes were blind with tears.
Sands stood up. “Dr. Tracy?”
Tracy turned sharply, surprise and annoyance pinching the corners of his mouth. “Well? Oh, it’s Mr. Sands.”
“May I see you a moment?”
“I have quite a full schedule this afternoon.”
“This is an emergency.”
“Very well. Come in.”
They sat facing each other across Tracy’s desk.
“You look pretty fit,” Tracy said with a wry smile, “for an emergency case.”
“The emergency is not mine. It may be yours.”
“If it’s mine. I’ll handle it alone, without the help of a poli—I’ll handle it myself.”
Sands leaned forward. “Alma has told you, then, that I used to be a policeman.”
“She mentioned it in passing.”
“I saw Alma leave a few minutes ago… She’d be quite a nice-looking woman if she learned to dress properly.”
“Clothes are not important in a woman,” Tracy said with a slight flush. “Besides, I don’t care to discuss my patients.”
“Alma is a patient of yours?”
“Yes.”
“Since the night Rackham called you when she was having hysterics?”
“Before then.”
Sands got up, went to the window, and looked down at the street.
People were passing, children were playing on the sidewalk, the sun shone, the palm trees rustled with wind—everything outside seemed normal and human and real. By contrast, the shape of the idea that was forming in the back of his mind was so grotesque and ugly that he wanted to run out of the office, to join the normal people passing on the street below. But he knew he could not escape by running. The idea would follow him, pursue him until he turned around and faced it.
It moved inside his brain like a vast wheel, and in the middle of the wheel, impassive, immobile, was Alma.
Tracy’s harsh voice interrupted the turning of the wheel. “Did you come here to inspect my view, Mr. Sands?”
“Let’s say, instead, your viewpoint.”
“I’m a busy man. You’re wasting my time.”
“No. I’m giving you time.”
“To do what?”
“Think things over.”
“If you don’t leave my office immediately. I’ll have you thrown out.” Tracy glanced at the telephone, but didn’t reach for it, and there was no conviction in his voice.
“Perhaps you shouldn’t have let me in. Why did you?”
“I thought you might make a fuss if I didn’t.”
“Fusses aren’t in my line.” Sands turned from the window. “Liars are, though.”
“What are you implying?”
“I’ve thought a great deal about that night you came to the Rackhams’ house. In retrospect, the whole thing appeared too pat; too contrived: Alma had hysterics, and you were called to treat her. Natural enough, so far.”
Tracy stirred but didn’t speak.
“The interesting part came later. You mentioned casually to Rackham that he had an appointment for some X-rays to be taken the following day, September the first. It was assumed that Alma had forgotten to tell him. Only Alma hadn’t forgotten. There was nothing to forget. I checked with your X-ray department half an hour ago. They have no record of any appointment for Rackham on September the first.
“Records get lost.”
“This record wasn’t lost. It never existed. You lied to Rackham. The lie itself wasn’t important, it was the kind of lie. I could have understood a lie of vanity, or one to avoid punishment or to gain profit. But this seemed such a silly, senseless, little lie. It worried me. I began to wonder about Alma’s part in the scene that night. Her crying was most unusual for a woman of Alma’s inert nature. What if her crying was also a lie? And what was to be gained by it?”
“Nothing,” Tracy said wearily. “Nothing was gained.”
“But something was intended—and I think I know what it was. The scene was played to worry Rackham, to set him up for an even bigger scene. If that next scene has already been played, I am wasting my time here. Has it?”
“You have a vivid imagination.”
“No. The plan was yours—I only figured it out.”
“Very poor figuring, Mr. Sands.” But Tracy’s face was gray, as if mold had grown over his skin.
“I wish it were. I had become quite fond of the Rackhams.”
He looked down at the street again, seeing nothing but the wheel turning inside his head. Alma was no longer in the middle of the wheel, passive and immobile; she was revolving with the others—Alma and Tracy and Rackham, turning as the wheel turned, clinging to its perimeter.
Alma, devoted wife, a little on the dull side… What sudden passion of hate or love had made her capable of such consummate deceit?
Sands imagined the scene the morning after Tracy’s visit to the house. Rackham, worried and exhausted after a sleepless night: “Are you feeling better now, Alma?”
“Yes.”
“What made you cry like that?”
“I was worried.”
“About me?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about my X-ray appointment?”
“I couldn’t. I was frightened. I was afraid they would discover something serious the matter with you.”
“Did Tracy give you any reason to think that?”
“He mentioned something about a blockage. Oh, Charles, I’m scared! If anything ever happened to you, I’d die. I couldn’t live without you!”
For an emotional and sensitive man like Rackman, it was a perfect set-up: his devoted wife was frightened to the point of hysterics, his good friend and physician had given her reason to be frightened. Rackham was ready for the next step…
“According to the records in your X-ray department,” Sands said, “Rackham had a lower gastrointestinal X-ray yesterday morning. What was the result?”
“Medical ethics forbid me to—”
“You can’t hide behind a wall of medical ethics that’s already full of holes. What was the result?”
There was a long silence before Tracy spoke. “Nothing.”
“You found nothing the matter with him?”
“That’s right.”
“Have you told Rackham that?”
“He came in earlier this afternoon, alone.
“Why alone?”
“I didn’t want Alma to hear what I had to say.”
“Very considerate of you.”
“No, it was not considerate,” Tracy said dully. “I had decided to back out of our—our agreement—and I didn’t want her to know just yet.”
“The agreement was to lie to Rackham, convince him that he had a fatal disease?”
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
“No. I showed him the X-rays, I made it clear that there was nothing wrong with him… I tried. I tried my best. It was no use.”
“What do you mean?”
“He wouldn’t believe me! He thought I was trying to keep the real truth from him.” Tracy drew in his breath sharply. “It’s funny, isn’t it?—after days of indecision and torment I made up my mind to do the right thing. But it was too late. Alma had played her role too well. She’s the only one Rackham will believe.”
The telephone on Tracy’s desk began to ring, but he made no move to answer it. Pretty soon the ringing stopped, and the room was quiet again.
Sands said, “Have you asked Alma to tell him the truth?”
“Yes, just before you came in.”
“She refused?”
Tracy didn’t answer.
“She wants him to think he is fatally ill?”
“I—yes.”
