Now, midway up the alley, Shade stumbled over his own feet and steadied himself with an elbow to the wall. The weight of remorse always took him by surprise. He wished
there was a suitcase made to store heartache so you could slide it under the bed and get it out only when you had the need for a moment’s penance. Man, he’d have a trunkful.
Coins jingled in his pocket. He pinched his dice from among the coins and folding money and secured them in a small flannel bag. He was sure the players had not seen him switch the dice for his own on that last shot. He had his tricks: a clearing of his throat or a shift in posture would take attention from his hand as he removed the weighted dice from the cuff of his trousers. He didn’t consider it cheating because he was good at it. He had studied the craft and lost a lot of lucre in the process. Some men robbed with a six-gun, some with a fountain pen; he used what he had at his disposal. Turnabout, what goes around
—all of life was just one fat gamble. It didn’t seem that much different to him than a man laying a bet against a roof fall every time he went down in the mines or a banker calling heads-I-win when a body fell behind on his mortgage payments.
Shade adjusted his hat and strode out of the alley. Right now he was betting he could have an easy look-see around the doctor’s office. She knew where his daughter was
—he’d wager good money on it
—and he aimed to find his Betsy Lane no matter what it took.
Monday morning
dawned hot and muggy, and Lilly was off to a late start. She wanted to wear her lightweight linen skirt, but no matter how she tugged at the button on the waistband, it would not fasten. She would have worn the same skirt she wore Friday, but Turnip Tippen had already come by for the laundry. Mrs. Tippen was going to spot clean and press her serge and lightweight woolen skirts today
—would they even fit tomorrow?
“Where is that skirt that was too big when the dressmaker sent it? You know, the brown one?” she asked of Kip. In order to be of help, he leaped into the clothes closet and sniffed around. The closet smelled of cedar and made her slightly
ill
—everything made her slightly ill these days, especially odors.
She sat on the edge of her freshly made bed and surveyed the closet. It was truly a thing of beauty. Most houses didn’t even have a press, just pegs on the wall or, worse yet, twopenny nails pounded into a doorframe. But in his thoughtful way, Tern had constructed roomy closets in each of the bedrooms as well as a linen closet in the bathroom and a coat closet by the front door.
“Oh, Kip, how can a person have so many options and not a thing to wear?” She rose and sorted through the wooden hangers once again. This shouldn’t be so hard. All her things were neatly and precisely ordered: shirtwaists in the front, skirts next, arranged by color, then dresses: day dresses, business wear, Sunday go-to-meeting, and last the gowns she kept in cloth protectors. Hatboxes were on the top shelf, undergarments and nightgowns folded between sheets of tissue paper in built-in drawers, shoes side by side on the floor. Tern had his own closet on the other wall.
“You know, Kip, I think I put that skirt in a box with some other items and stuck it on the shelf in Tern’s closet. He has more room.”
The closets had sliding doors, another innovation. She slid Tern’s open and looked up at the shelf. There was the pasteboard box. She should go to the pantry and get the folding stepladder, but instead, she pulled the bench from her vanity table over to the closet. She was already behind, and the bench was sturdy.
Even standing on the bench, the shelf was above her head, and the box was big and awkward. She heard the squeak as she slid the box toward the edge. A mouse poked its head out a ragged hole. With a yelp, Lilly lost her balance. Box, clothes, tiny baby mice, and she herself tumbled to the floor. Kip went crazy as the mother mouse darted around the room.
“Kip,” Lilly yelled from where she lay on her back. “Leave it! Leave it!”
Gingerly she stood and rested her hand on her abdomen. Thankfully, her back had taken the brunt of her landing and she hadn’t fallen hard. Everything seemed fine. What a foolish risk she’d taken. Now she had ruined clothes, a nest of shredded tissue paper, and a host of mice to deal with before she even started her day. Lilly sighed. She was doing nothing but stamping out fires this morning.
She could see the mother mouse’s whiskers twitching from underneath her dressing table. Kip nosed one of the babies. “Kip! Sit!” His whole body twitched, but he obeyed. Such a good dog. Now, what to do with the mice?
“Lord, I could use a hand,” she prayed sincerely and wondered if there was a Scripture for this particular problem. All she could think of was “A prating fool shall fall.” That sounded like Proverbs. Surely she had played the fool by ignoring the sturdy ladder in the kitchen in order to save a minute. She could have hurt her baby.
Before she could berate herself further, she heard the kitchen door push open and a familiar voice calling.
“Doc Lilly? Mommy sent you some eggs and some honey
that Daddy took from a hive. Doc Lilly? Want to see my stings? I got seven.”
“Just a minute, Timmy. I’ll be right out.” There was nothing to do but wear one of her loose-fitting dresses today. Slipping one over her head, she buttoned the dozen buttons. With a quick look in the mirror to straighten her pearls, she went to the kitchen. The good Lord did provide. Of all the people in the world, Timmy was perfect for mouse removal. She’d take Kip to work with her to get him out of the way.
“Hey, Doc,” Timmy said. “Say, did you know someone busted out your window last night?”
Lilly looked around the room. “My window?”
“Not here, at the clinic.” At the drain board, Timmy arranged the eggs in a pyramid
—the better to make a mess with when one fell from the stack with a plop. “Oops.”
“Timothy,” Lilly said with a sigh, “explain the window.”
“Well, Mommy dropped me off at your work so’s I could leave you the eggs and show you my stings, but you weren’t there, so’s I brung them here.” He held out one arm dotted with red blotches. “See? Daddy says never stick your arm up a hollow tree before you smoke the bees.”
“The window, please, Timmy,” Lilly said as she mixed baking soda in water and began to dab the paste on Timmy’s wounds.
“Well, the sheriff was there, but he wouldn’t tell me nothing. The bust-in I figured out for myself. The windowpanes are smashed to smithereens.”
“Did you go in?”
“Nah, the sheriff, he’s making everybody stay outside until he finishes his look-see. You got all kinds of people minding your business. Daddy could smoke ’em for you if you want.” Timmy laughed at his own joke.
Lilly ruffled the boy’s hair. You couldn’t tell where one cowlick ended and another began. “I’d best get a move on, then. But first I need to show you something.”
Timmy’s eyes widened when she cracked the bedroom door. “Boy,” he said. “You oughta turn Kip loose in there. He’d make a stack cake with mouse guts.”
“Now, don’t hurt them. Take them out to the woods and turn them loose. Okay?”
“I could take them down to Miz Tippen’s. She’s got all them cats.”
“That wouldn’t be a fair fight, would it, Timmy? The babies are not big enough to run.”
“Nah, that’d be like two on one. I’ll keep them safe, Doc Lilly, and sweep up the mess they made. Where’s your broom?”
Lilly got the broom and dustpan from the back porch and a brown-paper sack from the pantry. “Here are your tools. Do you have time to do this properly before you meet your mother?”
“Yeah, sure, she’s going to that reading and Bible study class. You know the one that meets on Friday but got postponed till Monday on account of the teacher got sick? Daddy says, ‘It’s Monday. When’re you going to do the laundry?’ and Mommy says, ‘Whenever I get around to it, Landis.’ Daddy
knows whenever Mommy says Landis thataway that he’s got on her last nerve. Usually she calls him honey.”
Lilly opened her coin purse and handed Timmy a quarter. “I trust you to do a proper job.”
Timmy flipped the coin into the air with the nail of his thumb. “Heads!” The coin rolled under the stove. “Oops.”
“You can fish it out with the broom, Timmy.”
The boy looked up with a crooked smile. “Well, lookee there. Kip’s got egg all over his mouth. He’s done cleaned up one mess for me.”
A deputy stood outside the private entrance to Lilly’s office, keeping the gawkers well away. Lilly stepped inside to find Chanis waiting.
“Dr. Still, can you open the pharmacy cabinet? I figure whoever broke in must be looking for drugs. But as you can see, he didn’t jimmy the lock.”
Since she carefully inventoried the medication cabinet every evening, Lilly could tell there was nothing missing when she surveyed the amber-colored vials and the paper-labeled bottles. “He didn’t take anything from here. Have you checked the surgery and the waiting room?”
“I walked through. Nothing seems amiss, except for right around the window.”
“Maybe someone threw a rock through it.”
“Good thought, Doc, but rocks don’t bleed. This guy got a nice cut for his efforts.”
“Thankfully there weren’t any patients in-house.”
“He wouldn’t have busted in if anybody was about.”
Lilly turned the key in the lock and faced the room. It all looked as tidy as when she had left it except for her paperwork. The metal-bound charts were kitty-corner on the desk. When she’d finished working Saturday night, she had left them as she always did, squared up at her right hand, ready to be filed by Mazy.
Reflexively, she reached to straighten them. “Someone went through my charts.”
Chanis caught her hand. “Let me look first.”
As if he thought a copperhead might be lurking between the pages, Chanis opened the top chart with a pencil he took from the desk. “Why would he be interested in this medical stuff? There must be something else. Keep any money, any pills or jewelry, in the drawers?”
One by one, Lilly pulled them open. Everything was just as she had left it.
“Doggies,” Chanis said, obviously disappointed. “I was wanting to lay this off on a morphine addict or some such fly-by-night.” Careful of the glass, he leaned on the windowsill and looked out. “Look here, Doc.”
Lilly positioned herself beside him. Kip nosed his way in between.
“See across the road? See how you can look right up the alley between the commissary and the cream station? Saturday night I found a man sleeping there. He acted like he was drunk, but there wasn’t a hint of alcohol about him. I didn’t think much of it at the time.” Chanis rubbed
his hand across his chin. “I want to have a talk with that gentleman.”
“Why, Chanis? Do you think he had something to do with this?”
“I think he was staking out the office. He’d made himself comfortable like he was going to be there for a while.”
Lilly shivered. “I was here until past dark catching up on work Saturday evening.” She indicated the two medical tomes on the desktop. “And I was doing some research on mongolism and cleft palate.”
“You’re speaking a foreign language, Doc.”
“Our little foundling has those disorders. I was reading about them so I’ll know how to best treat her.”
Glass crunched under the sheriff’s heel, and Lilly said, “Let me put Kip up before he gets a sliver in his paw.”
Kip howled when Lilly shut him in the bathroom. She opened the door and shook her finger. “No whining!”
Then she looked about the office. “Are we safe here, Chanis?”
“Until we get this sorted out, don’t stay late, Doc, and never work alone. I’d say he was passing through, looking for something to steal, but you never know.” Chanis began to pick up shards of glass and burnt matchsticks, pitching them into a black metal waste can. He looked up from his task, his eyes frowning. “Where’s Miss Mazy this morning? I wouldn’t want this to frighten her.”
“Mazy has the morning off. She had some errands to do.”
“Good. Good.” He put the waste can out on the porch
and motioned to his deputy. “Let the nurse and Doc’s patients into the waiting room; then go see if you can find Turnip Tippen to come fix this window.”
The deputy tipped his hat to Lilly. “Why you reckon he broke out the window instead of busting through the door?” he asked of Chanis.
“Easier and less likely to attract attention,” Chanis said. “See, he only needed to tap the windowpane to break it, reach in and turn the latch, then slide the window up. Once he was inside, he struck a match and had a look around. Piece of cake.”
“Takes all kinds,” the deputy said.
“Sure does,” Chanis replied, following the deputy out. He leaned in again. “I’ll stop back by directly. Don’t worry
—we’re on the job.”
Lilly dusted the seat of her chair although she didn’t see any bits of glass. A feeling of disquiet unsettled her. She wished she had time to look through the charts remaining on her desk. As improbable as it seemed, there might be a clue there. But the nurse was ushering in her first patient. Later
—she’d have time later.
“I ain’t staying long enough to sit,” Armina said when the nurse pulled out the patient chair for her. She was wearing her best print dress, her wispy brown hair pulled back into a tight bun. She carried a black patent-leather handbag with an imitation gold clasp
—a castoff of Lilly’s. The faint scent of Cashmere Bouquet powder accompanied her.
“Armina, what are you doing here? Where’s Hannah?”
“She’s resting her fanny in the waiting room,” Armina said. “Ain’t I got a right to talk to you in private?”
“Oh, Armina, of course. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to question you. Please, sit down.”
At the sound of Armina’s voice, Kip began scratching frantically on the other side of the bathroom door.
“Either you got a beaver in here or Kip wants out,” Armina said, turning the knob to the lavatory door.
Kip bounded out, barking at the top of his lungs. The hair on his back stood up in a ruff.
“Quiet yourself, Kipper,” Armina said, making a stop sign of her right palm. “How’d ye get yourself shut up in there?”
Kip licked Armina’s palm. Finally somebody was listening to him. Lilly laughed despite herself.
Armina sat down and patted her knees. Kip sprang into her lap, and Armina settled him up against her purse. Four brown eyes looked accusingly across the desk at Lilly.
“I come for one reason,” Armina began, her words as straight as a sourwood sprout. “I don’t need a nursemaid a-fetching for me and a-humoring me all the livelong day and half the night. I won’t stand for it no more. Ye got no right to make me a prisoner in my own house.”
“Do you think that’s a fair charge against me? I’m your friend as well as your physician.”
Armina dropped her eyes. “I’m a right pain, ain’t I?”
“Sometimes you are, but I love you anyway.”
“I’ve been a-thinking. What if I stay days by my lonesome
and stay evenings and nights at your house? I promise not to go off berry picking or any such thing.”
Lilly’s ears perked. “Have you wanted to go pick berries?”
“I don’t rightly know where that thought come from. It’s just Friday evening
—when I was looking for my sycamore stick
—I noticed my berry bucket was gone. You recollect I always keep it hanging on a peg in the storage cupboard. My walking stick’s always leaned up beside it, resting against the wall.”
Confusion clouded Armina’s face, but she didn’t lose composure. Lilly took that for a good sign.