I looked back to the little table standing beside the bed. There was a water glass on it, upside down, a pitcher, a folded towel, and a small white card propped against the glass. The card was too far away to reveal the printing on it, but it seemed familiar. I reached for it but my left arm wouldn’t move.
I looked down to see why and saw the plaster cast. It began just below the elbow and ended just past the wrist, leaving a part of my palm and the fingers free. I wiggled them. Fractured or broken wrist, I guessed. So I reached for the card with my other hand.
It was a duplicate of the card I had found propped up between the typewriter keys. On the back Elizabeth Saari had written in brown ink:
“Send for me immediately, Chuck.”
I put the card back where I had found it and lay down to think.
Mother Hubbard came to mind first. Mother Hubbard would have worried about me when I didn’t get home last night. You know how she fusses around, Louise. An old hen with one chick. I’m the chick. She’d like for you to give up your job and come back to town so there’d be two chicks. I wondered which would worry her the less: to call her and tell her where I was, or not to do anything and let her think I was out chasing around somewhere.
There and then is when I tried to scratch my head. It was wrapped up. My friend, Eleanor.
Eleanor’s name brought other things to mind. There had been a fuzzy something about wet snow, and a buzzing fly, and Eleanor telling me to get up.
The buzzing fly must have been my buzzing skull and my imagination. Wet snow, and a stinging arm. The plaster cast explained the arm. I suppose I fell on it, or twisted it when I fell. In wet snow. I must have stumbled out of the farm house and fallen in the snow. Or was pushed.
But the dog? He would have been on me if I had gotten out of the house. He wouldn’t have just bitten my wrist and walked away; the dog would have gone for my throat.
So I was pushed, and not from the farmhouse porch. I was pushed from a car after I had been carried away from the farm. Packed in the Cadillac, hauled off a long distance down the road, and dumped out. Why? Why was I still around to think about it?
Because Eleanor had received a telephone call and the message hadn’t been the one for which she and Paul were waiting. That was only too apparent. Instead of being killed outright — as they were expecting — the message had ordered a “once over lightly.” Afterwards, I was dumped in a ditch.
And then Eleanor had said—
But Eleanor couldn’t have said anything. Eleanor couldn’t be there, in the ditch. She had either remained at the farmhouse or gone on with the car. She wouldn’t have gotten out to stay there with me, begging me to get up.
I turned to look at the card propped against the water glass. Dr. Saari’s card.
There was a flash of starched white at my door. I hadn’t been paying much attention to the heels. The flash of white came in and gave me the conventional hospital smile from an attractive face. The starch in the white camouflaged the probably attractive figure that belonged to the face.
“Good morning,” she said cheerily. “How do you feel?”
“With my fingers. What’s your name?”
“Bartlett. Do you feel better now?”
“Bartlett what? I’m doing all right. When do I get out of here?”
“Hazel Bartlett. I’m glad to hear it. We’ll have to ask the doctor.” She puttered around with the bedclothes, doing nothing constructive. Then she asked me, “Do you want anything from the closet?”
“No. Unless there’s a drink hidden there.”
She hadn’t of course but she pretended it was a very funny thing for me to say. And she zipped away. I followed her heels down the corridor until they stopped. I heard her give a number and call Dr. Saari by name. Her voice dropped. Then she hung up and the heels faded away altogether.
Pretty soon she was back with a large shot glass of colored liquid. She smiled a genuine smile and held it out to me.
“The doctor says you may have this.”
“What is it?”
“Taste it and see.”
I sniffed it first. It was bourbon. I drank it. It was fine bourbon.
“You’re a good girl, Hazel. I want you for my nurse the next time I check in here.”
“You and a thousand others. The doctor asked me if you had requested anything.”
“The doctor is good to me in my old age. Now I’d like to make another request.”
She studied me carefully before answering. “What is it?”
“See who sent those roses.”
I couldn’t be sure but I think I disappointed her. She walked around the bed and over to the vase to glance at the little tag that had accompanied the flowers.
The tag read “Louise.” Thank you, baby, again.
The doctor arrived about half an hour later. When she came in her cheeks were still pink from the wintry air; her bedside manner gave me the impression that the visit was partly professional and partly personal. She made no attempt to disguise her delight in finding me looking so well.
“Well, hello,” she laughed. “How’s the slick sleuth this morning?”
“If that’s irony, it’s lost.”
