Knife wounds? How deep? How much damage had the knife done, penetrating her?
No way to tell.
But if all the blood on the kitchen floor was from Ace, she’d bled a lot. And she undoubtedly had internal hemorrhaging.
She might be dying.
Vicki rolled her over.
Ace stared up at her, blinking.
“It’s all right,” Vicki whispered.
Though her front was smeared with blood, there were no more wounds that Vicki could see.
Ace raised an arm. Clutched in its hand was a mop of hair. She reached up as if offering it to Vicki.
“Hang onto it, hon. I’m gonna get you to a hospital.”
She lifted Ace’s other hand. The pulse was weak.
She looked across the kitchen at the wall phone.
What if Melvin’s still in the house?
He’s not. He’d be on me by now.
But calling for an ambulance…the volunteer ambulance. The alert would sound through town like last night. The ambulance drivers would leave their homes, drive to the fire station…It might take ten minutes to get here. Or longer.
We could be halfway to Blayton Memorial by then.
“Come on,” Vicki said.
She straddled Ace, grabbed her sticky arms and pulled. Ace came up into a sitting position. “You’ve gotta help,” Vicki muttered. “Can you help?”
Scurrying around behind Ace, she squatted and hugged her beneath the breasts and lifted. Ace shoved her feet at the floor. Vicki staggered backward a step as the weight moved up against her. Then, Ace was on her feet—balanced, at least for the moment. Vicki rushed in front of her. “Grab on.”
She felt Ace fall against her. But she was braced. She stayed up. As Ace’s arms went around her shoulders, Vicki bent slightly and reached back. She clutched Ace’s rump, thrust it upward and bounced.
With Ace on her back, she hooked her hands under the big thighs and lurched to the screen door. She used Ace’s knee to punch the handle, releasing the catch. She rammed the door open and lumbered outside.
And ran.
She didn’t think she could run, but she did.
Ace like a giant child riding piggy-back. Her weight pounding down with every stride Vicki took.
But Vicki stayed up. She kept on running. Alongside the house, across the front yard, her lungs burning, her legs leaden.
If only it were her car in the driveway.
Whose was it?
Who cares?
She only cared about getting to the Mustang. Far ahead. On the other side of the street.
She blinked sweat out of her eyes. She wheezed for air. Ace started to slide down. She tugged her thighs and boosted her higher and kept running. Over the sidewalk and across the street.
At the Mustang, she whirled around. Ace bumped the side of the car. Vicki released her legs. Ace let go. Bracing her up with a hand against her chest, Vicki jerked open the door. She flung the driver’s seatback forward. Ace, turning, bumped against her. Vicki caught her, guided her, shoved her into the car.
Ace fell across the back seat. Facedown, she squirmed over the cushion.
Vicki raced to the trunk. She slipped the handbag straps off her head, dug out the keys, and opened the trunk. In the faint glow of the streetlights, she spotted Ace’s blanket.
Ever since Ace had started driving cars, she’d kept a blanket in the trunk. Never know when you’ll wanta flop in the woods.
Vicki snatched out the blanket, slammed the trunk, and rushed to the open door. Ace was on her side, curled up. Vicki leaned into the car and spread the blanket over her.
“Don’t want the ER doctors drooling over your naked body,” she said.
The blanket was for warmth, not modesty. Standard treatment for shock.
Vicki slapped her haunch through the soft cover, then scurried out, threw the seatback forward and got behind the wheel. She started the engine, pulled the door shut, shifted and shot the car forward.
“Too bad you’re in no condition to appreciate this, hon,” she called out. “This is gonna be the quickest trip to Blayton in the history of man.”
Chapter Thirty
As a professional courtesy, she supposed, Vicki was led to the deserted office of the chief of surgery instead of a waiting room. She was told to make herself comfortable. Then, she was left alone.
With tissues from a box on the desk, she wiped as much blood as she could from her hands and clothes. She wanted to sit down, but she knew that the back of her blouse must be bloody and she didn’t want to make a mess on leather upholstery. Her skirt was clean in front. She twisted it around, then sat on the soft chair and leaned forward, elbows on her legs.
She flinched at the sound of the door opening.
I’m sorry, Dr. Chandler, but we weren’t able to…
The nurse who came in had a cup of coffee on a serving tray with a packet of sugar and a small plastic container of cream. “Can I get you anything else? The kitchen is closed, but we have a vending machine in the lounge.”
Vicki shook her head. “Thanks, I don’t…”
The nurse set the tray on the desk in front of her. “We’ve notified the police, Dr. Chandler. They should be here shortly. They’ll want to speak with you.”
She nodded.
“I’m sure your friend will be fine.”
“Thank you,” she muttered.
The nurse could be sure of no such thing, but Vicki appreciated the kind words.
When she was alone, she picked up the cup. She brought it toward her mouth. Coffee slopped out, splashing hot on her thigh.
She remembered joking with Jack about spilling coffee. Black coffee, white couch. That seemed like days ago. She wondered, vaguely, if he’d awakened yet and found out she was gone.
It took both hands to hold the cup steady. She drank, and set the cup down.
Jack. Thank God I didn’t stay. Ace would’ve died for sure.
She might die, anyway.
Vicki wished she were with Ace in the operating room. She’d asked to join the surgical team, but the doctor had taken a quick look at her and shaken his head. “I’m sorry,” he’d said. “No way. You’re in shock, yourself.” Then he’d instructed the nurse to show Vicki to the office and “look after her.”
Vicki supposed the doctor was right about keeping her out of the OR. In her condition, she certainly couldn’t have done Ace any good and her presence might’ve been a distraction for the others.
But she hated just sitting here, not knowing.
Ace could be dead right now.
She’d been unconscious by the time they reached the hospital.
She’ll be all right, Vicki told herself. She’ll be fine.
We’ll pop open a bottle of Champagne for her homecoming, and get royally soused, and laugh about dumb things…
Vicki lowered her face into her hands and wept.
The nurse came in, followed by two men in slacks and sports shirts. Vicki stood up and faced them. Both men had thick mustaches. The older one, gray at his temples, wore a leather rig that held an enormous handgun upside down beneath his armpit. The other, with black curly hair, had a small revolver in a holster clipped to his belt.
Vicki tried to read the nurse’s face. It looked solemn. “Have you heard anything about Ace?”
“She’s still in surgery. These men are detectives Gorman and Randisi from the police.”
Vicki wiped her eyes. She looked at the two men.
Randisi, the curly-haired one, said, “We’d like to ask you a few questions about…”
“It was Melvin Dobbs. He did it.”
“Dobbs?” Gorman asked “The Melvin Dobbs? The psycho? The guy they put away after he pulled the jumper-cable stunt on that dead cheerleader? What was it, ten-fifteen years ago?”
“That’s him,” Vicki said.
Randisi glanced at the nurse. With a nod, she turned away and left the room.
“You were there at the time of the assault?” he asked.
/> “No. Melvin was gone when I got there. I think he was gone. I didn’t look around. I just got Ace—Alice—out of there as fast as I could.”
“What makes you think it was this Dobbs psycho?” Gorman asked.
“It couldn’t have been anyone else. He went to the house…because of me. I don’t know why, maybe just to see me and talk, and maybe Ace tried to keep him out. See, he thought I was there. He was with me earlier, and I told him I was going home. Maybe he wanted to kill me or…abduct me or something. I don’t know.”
“Had you quarreled with him?” Randisi asked.
“I’d taken him out to dinner. I…baited him. I got him to admit he killed Dexter Pollock.”
The two policemen glanced at each other.
“I know,” Vicki said. “Everyone thinks the nurse did it. Patricia Gordon. But Melvin got her to do it.”
“How did he manage that?”
Vicki almost told about the hypnosis. And how she suspected he’d also used hypnosis to persuade Charlie Gaines to make her a partner, then staged Charlie’s crash. But she stopped herself. It would sound too much like hocus-pocus. These men might not buy it. Her credibility might start falling apart. “I don’t know how he did it,” she answered. “He wouldn’t tell me. But he did confess to making her kill Pollock. That was just before I left him. He must’ve got nervous, afraid I’d report him, so he went over to the house, thinking I’d be there.”
“Where were you?” Randisi asked.
“With a friend. Jack Randolph. At his house.”
“So,” Randisi said, “you went to dinner with Dobbs, got him to confess killing Pollock, then you told him goodnight and went straight over to this Randolph fellow’s place. Why Randolph? Why didn’t you take your information to the police?”
“That’s a good one,” she muttered.
“In what way?”
“I’d already told the Ellsworth police my suspicions about Dobbs killing Pollock. They acted like I was some kind of a flake.” She looked Randisi in the eyes. “Which I’m not.”
“You don’t seem much like a flake to me,” Gorman said.
“Who’d you tell in Ellsworth?” Randisi asked.
“Joey Milbourne. And he passed the word to Raines. I guess they had themselves quite a laugh.”
Gorman mumbled something. It sounded like “dickheads,” but Vicki couldn’t be sure.
“So you figured,” Randisi said, “there was no point in taking your information to Raines. He wouldn’t act on it, anyway.”
“That’s right. The man I went to, Jack, is an attorney. We discussed the situation. He was going to wait for morning, then go to Raines himself. If Raines wouldn’t listen to him, he planned to see a friend of his in the District Attorney’s office. One way or another, we figured we’d get someone to pay attention.”
“They’ll pay attention now,” Gorman said. “Where does this Dobbs fellow live?”
“In Ellsworth. His house in on…Elm Street, I think.”
Gorman got a sour look on his face. “That’s in the city limits,” he said to Randisi.
“Where did the attack take place?”
“Ace’s house is on Third.”
“Damn.” Gorman shook his head.
“What’s wrong?” Vicki asked him.
“We’re Blayton PD. We’ve got no jurisdiction in Ellsworth.”
“So it’s Raines’s ballgame,” Randisi said.
“We’ll contact him right now. If he gives us any…trouble, we’ll…”
“There’s something else,” Vicki said. “If he needs convincing. Dobbs left his shoes on the kitchen floor. I know they’re his. I’ve seen him wear the same kind at the gas station he owns. And they have grease stains on the soles.”
“We’ll see that Raines picks him up,” Randisi said.
“He gives us any crap, we’ll do it ourselves.”
Vicki looked at the two men. “I’m really…Thanks. You’re terrific. I was starting to think all cops were dickheads.”
Gorman blushed. Just a little.
Melvin was down in his basement laboratory when Patricia called from the top of the stairs. “They’re coming. They just got out of their car.”
“How many?” he asked.
“Two of them.”
Melvin climbed the stairs, looking up at Patricia. She wore one of his bright blue Hawaiian shirts, and nothing else. The tails draping her thighs were parted slightly, letting him see a hint of her blonde curls. Above the single button fastened at her belly, the shirt gaped wide enough to show the sides of her breasts.
She looked just right.
Melvin had dressed her for the occasion.
As he reached the top of the stairs, the doorbell rang.
“You ready?” he asked.
Patricia nodded. She had fear in her eyes.
He kissed her gently on the mouth. “Hey, don’t worry.”
“I don’t want to lose you, Melvin.”
“Ain’t gonna happen. Just do like I said.”
The bell sounded again. Patricia turned around. Melvin followed her, watching the loose, glossy shirt shimmer on the moving mounds of her rump.
“Sure hope these cops ain’t a couple of fairies,” he said.
Patricia glanced back at him and smiled.
The bell rang again.
Melvin stationed himself against the wall beside the front door. The door would conceal him when it swung open. Patricia slipped the guard chain free and looked at him.
Melvin nodded.
She pulled the door open just a few inches. She peered out through the gap. “Yes?” she asked.
“I’m sorry to disturb you at this hour, but…This is the home of Melvin Dobbs?”
“Yes?”
“I’m Chief Raines of the Ellsworth Police Department. This is Sergeant Woodman.”
The chief himself, Melvin thought. And sounding pretty nervous. Probably hadn’t seen this much of a pretty young babe in a long time. Probably trying for a look inside the shirt.
Did the chief realize he was in the presence of Patricia Gordon, RN, who’d nailed Pollock?
“Is Mr. Dobbs home?” Raines asked.
“Yes, he’s upstairs. Won’t you come in?” Patricia gave the knob a pull and backed away. The door swung closer to Melvin. It blocked his view of the men, but he saw Patricia beyond its edge.
She kept walking backward toward the stairs. The shirt trembled over her breasts. The gap below the single button seemed wider than before. Her hair gleamed in the lamplight. Her thighs flashed white.
Melvin grinned.
He heard the men step forward. A shoulder and left arm came into view.
“I’ll just call him,” Patricia said, stopping at the foot of the stairs.
“Thank you.”
She spun around. The shirt tail swished, giving a glimpse of her buttocks.
Melvin heard a soft breathy sound, almost a whistle.
“Melvin!” she called up the stairway. “There are gentlemen here to see you.” She waited a moment. “Melvin?” she called again. Facing the men, she shook her head and rolled her eyes upward. “He must be asleep. Should I go up and wake him?”
“I’ll go with you,” Raines said. “Woodman, you wait…”
Patricia whirled and raced up the stairs, taking them two at a time, her shirt tail flapping.
Both cops bolted after her.
“Melvin!” she shouted toward the top. “Cops! Run!”
Melvin stepped away from the door.
“Hold it!” Raines snapped, drawing his revolver, aiming it at her.
Patricia stopped. She turned around. She had popped open the button on her way upstairs. The front of the shirt was wide open. She raised her arms.
Both cops, guns drawn, stood at the foot of the stairway and gazed up at her.
Melvin aimed at their backs. He fired both his revolvers at once. He kept firing, pulling the triggers as fast as he could. Through the roaring blasts, he heard one of the men
yell, “OW! OUCH!” as the bullets knocked him down. The other was silent.
When both guns were empty, one cop lay face-down on the stairs and looked as if he’d been trying to hug them. The other, who’d succeeded in turning around after the first shot caught him in the shoulder, was sitting on the floor, leaning back against the stairs, his legs stretched out. That one stared at the ceiling and twitched as blood foamed out of his mouth.
Grinning up at Patricia, Melvin twirled the guns and jammed them into his pockets.
“Reckon its Boot Hill for them hombres,” he drawled.
Patricia rushed down the stairs. She leaped over the bodies and threw her arms around Melvin. She was shaking. She squeezed herself hard against him.
Vicki sat, leaning forward, elbows on her knees, waiting.
The two policemen, Gorman and Randisi, had gone away a long time ago to phone Chief Raines. Later, Gorman had returned alone to tell her how it went.
“Raines said he’d look into it,” he had told her.
“Look into it? Is that all?”
“He’s not a great fan of yours.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“But he couldn’t just ignore the attack on Miss Mason. Ace? Even a narrow-minded, stubborn cop like Raines has to do something about it if one of his citizens gets carved up like that. But he didn’t want to believe that Dobbs was the perpetrator. Not on the basis of your suspicions. He said you’ve got a ‘burr up your ass’ about Dobbs.” Gorman’s face reddened when he said that. “Sorry, but those were his words. He said you’ve been trying to get Dobbs put away so he’ll stop…putting moves on you.”
“I guess we gave Milbourne that idea Sunday morning,” Vicki said. “Joey Milbourne, one of his men. Dobbs had threatened Pollock’s life right in front of us, and we told Milbourne that. But he wanted to know why we were out with Dobbs, and Ace had to go and tell him the creep has the hots for me. So Milbourne went and convinced Raines we were trouble-makers. So they didn’t do anything about that bastard.”
Gorman shook his head. “No accounting for fools,” he said. “Any cop worth a damn would’ve pulled in Dobbs for questioning at that point.”
“So now Raines is willing to look into it? On the word of a flake with a…grudge?”