As I turned away and started towards the street someone sitting in the coupe tooted the horn twice.
The interior of the car was too dark to reveal the someone and the station lights didn’t penetrate that far. Behind me on the platform there were only a young couple standing by the steps of a coach. They paid no heed to the horn. Neither did I.
The wooden platform ended abruptly and I stepped down into the street, sinking up to my ankles in drifted snow. The middle of the street made the best walking. I didn’t hear the coupe start up nor see it until it slid alongside of me, matching my pace.
After leaving the parking lot it had had to swing around behind the station, cross a little-used spur track and emerge into the street. I was surprised it had made the swing so quickly.
I kept walking, my right hand swinging free.
Suddenly the door nearest me was impatiently pushed open and a girl sitting behind the wheel called out, beckoning with a gloved hand. I had started to swing sideways, but stopped the movement.
Instead, I answered despairingly, “Please — not
The coupe stopped, throwing snow with the rear wheels.
A bare head popped out the door and the wind caught up the brown hair to whip it around. It was the nurse I had seen in the undertaker’s basement room.
“Don’t be silly!” she half screamed at me. “Get in here; it’s cold out there.”
I said yes mam and got in. It was warmer inside. She started up.
“Hello,” I offered feebly by way of opening a conversation the proper way.
“What did you mean by what you just said?” she countered.
“ ‘Not again?’ Lady, I’ve stopped trusting strange women who invite me into their automobiles.”
“I’m not strange. Call me Beth.”
“My name is—”
She cut it off. “I know. Mr. Thompson told me. But what do they call you? Your friends I mean?”
“Chuck. Or Horny. I prefer Chuck. What were you doing at the train?”
She neatly ignored the question by asking one.
“All right, Chuck. What’s what in Chicago?”
“And
“That train makes no stops between Chicago and Boone. I suspect you’re nosing into something.”
“I am?” And a repeat of the question, “Why were you at the train?”
“You am.” And a repeated ignoring of the question. “Your interest in the autopsy yesterday wasn’t as casual as you pretended. Want to tell me?”
“Sorry. Professional confidence and stuff.”
“Bunko, Chuck. We’re a couple of professionals.”
“Nurses don’t count. At least, not until you take an office and go into business.”
“I have an office, smarty. Just across the hall from yours. I spoke to the rental agency this afternoon. And I’m not a nurse.”
“That office? That’s an old doctor’s office.”
“The new doctor is moving in.”
“And why not? What did you suppose I was doing at the autopsy?”
“I thought you were... a nurse, or something.”
She laughed, a gleeful, silvery sound. It was like soft organ music playing bells at a far distance. Soft bells.
“Dr. Elizabeth Saari,” she introduced herself, “at your call. Have a card. They’re in my purse on the seat.”
I just sat there.
“Why don’t you say something? Make conversation?”
“Wait until I get my breath. I don’t like surprises. But I seem to be getting them all the time.”
She suggested artfully, “You’re still evading my question. Why the sudden Chicago trip?”
I turned so that I could look at her face, barely illuminated now by the light of the dash. It was quite pleasing to look upon. She hung onto the wheel and kept her eyes on the street. The loaded mail truck overtook us and passed in a cloud of churned-up snow.
And she was accusing me of evading the question!
“You may be a doctor,” I replied, “but first you’re a woman.”
“Why, Chuck! This is an odd place to launch a proposal. But then I’ve been proposed to in odder places. You can imagine a medical school. Oh — perhaps you aren’t proposing?”
It was good needlework. “I am not proposing!” Searching for something with a sting to hurl back at her, the best I could find was, “I’m accusing you of being nosey.”
“Like you, Chuck,” she snapped back. “There was the autopsy yesterday. And now — Chicago?”
I gave in. I’ve run into many a woman like that before, Louise, including you. They won’t let you win.
“I was in Chicago,” I told her as patiently as was possible, “looking for a link between that Chinese girl and Harry W. Evans.”
“O...h.” But she didn’t say it quite like that. It was more of a long drawn out, speculative “oh.” The kind where you try to fill in the gaps yourself as you are saying it. She added, “I’m not up on the Evans business. Only the newspaper story.”
“The hit-and-run driver was a woman.”
“I know that. And the automobile has been found.”
“And so has the driver.”
She jerked her head around to study my face.
“O...h.” It required a longer time to fill in the gaps. She was silent for several moments. And then, “Proof?”
