Family Practice (34 page)

“I was noticing your raincoat. It's very unusual.”

Nadine looked down at her blue coat, tugged tighter on the braided belt, and smiled. “It was Ellen's idea.” Her fingertips touched the appliqué below her left shoulder. “Our logo. Advertising, you know.”

Up close and with light overhead and spilling through the glass doors, Susan could see it wasn't a skull but an oddly shaped vegetable thing—no doubt a gourd—with a wide, round skull-like top and a narrowing-in, jaw-like, below. Dark splotches gave the illusion of eyeholes. “How many of these raincoats are there?”

“Only two, mine and Ellen's just like it. Except hers is black.”

29

“T
HIS IS THE
cleanest the place has been since I moved in.” Ellen fished two cans of soda from the refrigerator and popped the tabs. She handed one to Nadine and dropped into a chair across the table from her. They'd spent all day cleaning and polishing and straightening, removing all residue of murder, cops, searches, trying to scrub away the awful sense of violence.

Nadine took a gulp, looked at the barely visible traces of blood that had soaked into the scarred linoleum, and grimaced. “Well, the best we can do, anyhow.”

Yeah. Ellen had always hated that linoleum: worn splotches of brown and green and yellow with dull silver bits like confetti. She rubbed her face in the crook of her elbow. She wanted her own place back, the feeling that this was all hers, home and safe, being here and loving it.

Wind slammed against the old stone house and, solid as it was, Ellen felt it shudder.

“Storm coming up,” Nadine said. “You ready to go? I need to collect Bobby. Bob's mother is probably worn to threads by now.”

“You go ahead. I want to get some clean clothes. Boy, am I looking forward to a shower.”

Nadine stood up, drained the can, and set it on the table. “I'll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Right. And Nadine, thanks for—you know, everything.”

When she heard the rattletrap station wagon jouncing down the driveway, she noticed the thermos on the cabinet. Oh, oh. Nadine forgot Bob's thermos.

Ellen turned on the radio for company and carried it into the bedroom with her. The local station was playing oldies.
I Left My Heart in San Francisco.
I left my heart here, and I want it to belong here, and I want it to be happy. Like it was before—

Just get on with it.

From a chest, she took out her last two pairs of clean underwear. Time to do laundry. She shoved the drawer shut and pulled out the one beneath. Jeans, shorts. She dumped everything into a plastic bag.

The wind picked up, fitful and teasing. Infrequent gusts sniffled around the window.

Tony Bennett faded, and the announcer's cheery voice came on: “Those weather-chasers say we might be in for a good one, folks. So get your emergency kits ready. Stock up on batteries, get your blankets, and start filling up water containers. This just might be the real thing. And while you're packing up your gear, a little ‘Rocky Mountain High' by John Denver.”

She opened the closet door in search of blouses and blinked.

Her raincoat.

Hanging right there. Clear as day. Couldn't be. It wasn't there. It wasn't. I looked. I looked. I went all through everything. She pressed the heels of her hands against her temples. I'm losing my mind.

She also realized this day wasn't clear; it was as dark as it could get without being night. She switched on the ceiling light. Outside, the sky boiled with clouds, black, purple, green, gray, and white. Livid streaks of lightning charged from one cloud to another, thunder exploded. Rain splattered against the window.

She got two blouses, stuffed them in the bag, and was reaching for the raincoat when she heard a
rap rap rap.

It came again, louder. Nadine at the door, come back for the thermos. She went into the living room.

“Ellen?” The word was almost lost in a clap of thunder.

When she opened the door, the wind tore it from her hand and banged it back against the wall.

“What took you so long?” Marlitta, raincoat dripping, short hair pasted to her head, swept past her.

“Marlitta?” Ellen had to lean into the door to get it shut. The wind wailed around the edges, as though incensed at being kept out.

Marlitta plodded into the kitchen, leaving a trail of watery footprints. “This has got to stop.”

“What?”

Marlitta whipped around to face her.

Jesus, she looked terrible, wet, bedraggled, face all gray and tight. “Marlitta, are you all right? Maybe you better sit down.”

Marlitta looked around at the jumble of gourds in hanging baskets, ivy trailing down the side of the cabinet, the large hollowed gourd with apples in the center of the table. “How can you live out here?”

Irritation clogged up Ellen's throat. “I like it here,” she said when she could untangle the words. “What are you doing here? There's a storm coming. You shouldn't be—”

Marlitta's face seemed to melt with grief, or sadness, or—Oh, Jesus, what was the matter with her?

“You're the youngest.” Marlitta's voice was low and creepy, with edges of—something.

“Sit down,” Ellen said. “Let me get you a Coke. Or some coffee.”

Marlitta stared at the linoleum where Taylor's blood had spilled.

Ellen was getting scared. Something was sure bad wrong with Marlitta.

“I can't let Brent be blamed.” Marlitta raised her eyes and looked at Ellen. “The police have him.”

Brent? Arrested for the murders? Relief fizzed over Ellen like carbonated water, then she was ashamed of herself. No wonder Marlitta was so zonked. She loved the jerk.

“Please sit down,” Ellen said. “I'll get you some coffee.” She lifted Nadine's thermos and shook it, hoping there was some left. It sloshed reassuringly, and she managed to squeeze out two cups.

Outside the kitchen window, lightning flickered and zigzagged across the sky, then came the boom and rumbling roll of thunder.

*   *   *

Thunder echoed away to nothing, lost in the wail of the wind. A crosswind pushed the side of the Bronco, and Parkhurst, sitting erect and gripping the wheel at ten and two o'clock, had to make quick, small compensating twists. Rain hit the road in front of them and rebounded a foot. The air smelled like ozone and gun-metal.

Susan looked at his hands as the car shuddered on a curve. He was holding it just on the edge of control. Trees along the side of the road and in the fields whipped back and forth, bent almost double, then snapped upright. She heard a rending crack, muffled by the wind and rain; a limb fell onto the road, bounced and rolled, was pushed fast across in front of them, and tumbled into a ditch. So much force filled her with a wild, high surprise.

She knew that some people were sensitive to weather: bright sunny days brought out happy, festive feelings of good cheer; winter snows caused an oppressive, pushed-down sense of hush; rain made them weepy. A low barometer touched off primitive warning instincts, memories that created nervousness and tension; it was time to seek out shelter. She'd never been affected by the moods of weather.

Now she felt a stir of irrational fear—we're traveling as fast as we can into the jagged teeth of disaster—so strong she wanted to tell Parkhurst, “Turn this buggy around; get us to a cave.” She took a long breath to force herself to relax and looked at him. The Bronco bucked so violently he eased back on the accelerator.

“You're awfully quiet,” she said.

“I'm thinking. You know how hard that is for me. You ready to let go of Brent the Beautiful?”

“Whoever clipped Dorothy wore that raincoat. It couldn't have been Brent. He's too big, too tall, too broad-shouldered.”

“That brings us right back to Ellen. Motive—needs money. Means—we got anything for means?”

“Don't be snide. Why the hell haven't we found that murder weapon?”

“Ellen got rid of it someplace we didn't think to look,” he said, then went back to laying out the evidence against her. “She was at hand to find Vicky's body with a thin story about a phone call. She found Taylor in her own kitchen, decorated with her own knife.”

“Why didn't she use the gun?”

“Didn't think she'd need it again, disposed of it, had to improvise.”

“Why didn't she get rid of the raincoat?”

“We don't know that she didn't. Isn't that what we're going out there to ask her about?” He leaned forward even more as wind edged the Bronco over the center of the road. When he got control, he eased back slightly. “Just before we read her her rights.”

There is one other person, Susan thought, with just as much to lose.

Two cloud masses collided, and lightning streaked to the ground, bright, close. She braced herself for the crash of thunder.

*   *   *

The rumble seemed to go on and on. Ellen clasped the mug in both hands and sipped at the coffee. Marlitta hadn't touched hers. She sat across the table like a lumpy sack of old clothes. The ceiling light flickered, went out, then came back on.

“Marlitta,” Ellen tried again. “Please drink some coffee. It has sugar in it. You look like you're in shock.”

Marlitta seemed to stir herself like an old dog just coming awake. She blinked, looked at Ellen, rubbed a hand down her face, looked around the kitchen, and mumbled something.

Ellen leaned over the table to hear above the rain peppering the roof “What?”

“Where's the knife?” Marlitta flicked a glance at the block of wood with one empty slot.

“The cops have it.”

“Oh, yes, of course.”

Fear prickled along Ellen's scalp.

Marlitta, elbows on the table, started to push herself up, then fell heavily back. “My purse.” She looked around. “What have I done with my purse?”

“It's right there by the chair.”

“Oh, yes.” Marlitta reached down and lifted the brown leather bag to her lap, cradled it in her arms, then clicked it open and stuck her hand inside.

“Marlitta—”

“I have to stop this.” Marlitta drew out her hand, black pistol in her fist.

“Marlitta, what—”

“The police have to have someone, so they'll stop.”

“Where did you get the gun?”

“It's yours.”

“It isn't mine.”

“I'll tell them you just had it. I have no idea where you got it. They have been so stupid.”

Ellen stared witless at her sister. Marlitta with a gun in her hand. Ellen felt numb. Her own sister was going to shoot her. Her mind looked on in horrified detachment.

“You killed Dorothy,” she heard herself say.

“I'll tell them you called me and asked me to come out here.”

“Why did you steal Daddy's painting?”

Marlitta, confused, shook her head. “No. I don't understand about that. Why would I steal a painting? Dorothy told me to be there. At the house. Eight o'clock.”

“Marlitta, please put the gun down.”

“That meant she knew.”

“Knew what?”

“The Ackerbaugh baby.”

“What?”

“I'll tell them you tried to kill me.”

“Nobody will believe that.”

“Because I knew you had Daddy's gun. What have you done with it? I had to defend myself.”

Thunder crashed. They both jumped. The light flickered.

“Mistake,” Marlitta said.

“Yes. It was all a mistake. Just—”

“Vicky,” Marlitta said impatiently, as though Ellen were being particularly dense.

Vicky was a mistake? Ellen couldn't unstick her mind from the round hole at the end of the gun barrel.

“When she said that about the raincoat,” Marlitta said. “I had to do something. I didn't realize she thought it was you. Then it was too late.” Marlitta shook her head. “Somehow she just knew.”

“You took my raincoat.”

“I brought it back. And there was Taylor. Really quite a nasty man. Creeping up on me. Interested only in money. Standing there smirking.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why me?”

“The police need somebody.”

“You took Daddy's gun from me. You called me from Vicky's. Why me?”

“The first day of school.” Marlitta's voice was clotted with resentment.

“What?”

“Your first day. When you went to school.”

First day of school?

“Mother took you. She walked with you to school on your first day.”

“Marlitta, what—”

“You were the only one.” Marlitta stood up, stepped away from the table, and took dead aim at the center of Ellen's chest.

She's going to blow me away. Ellen's mind was making frantic, shrieking noises, but her muscles just sat there. The funny thing was, she didn't even remember their mother walking her to school.

Thunder boomed. The light went out.

Ellen slid under the table onto her hands and knees.

The gun fired.

Heart beating so fast she couldn't breathe, Ellen strained to see in the dimness. Marlitta scraped a chair away. It fell. Ellen crawled to the far end of the table.

“Ellen!”

The table skidded as Marlitta shoved it. She was mumbling.

Ellen slid out and ran for the door.

It blew open just as Marlitta fired. Ellen rushed out. The door slammed behind her. The wind shoved her back against it, forced her mouth open wide, and rushed into her throat. Rain pelted down. She leaned into the wind. It caught her and sent her stumbling sideways. She tripped, fell, and rolled.

Lightning flashed. She saw Marlitta coming after her, mouth open in a yell, but the words were blown away.

Ellen scrambled to her feet. Bent forward, she slithered down a slope toward the trees, got blown in staggering side steps, corrected, got blown the other way.

She hugged a tree, pulled air into her tight chest. In a bright flash of lightning she saw Marlitta, gun in her hand, whipped around by the wind, struggling through the rain.