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Eight
For over an hour, Scott sat by Alvirah's bedside, hoping she would say something else. Then, touching Willy Meehan's shoulder, he said, "I'll be right back." He had seen John Whitley at the nurses' station and followed him into his office.
"Have you anything more you can tell me, John?"
"No." The doctor looked both angry and perplexed. "I don't like not knowing what I'm dealing with. Her blood sugar was so low that without a history of severe hypoglycemia we have to suspect that somebody injected her with insulin. She sure as hell has a puncture mark where we found the spot of blood on her cheek. If Von Schreiber claims he didn't inject her face at all, something's screwy."
"What are her chances?" Scott asked.
John shrugged. "I don't know. It's too soon to tell if she has incurred any brain damage. If willpower can bring her back, that husband of hers will manage it. He's doing everything right. Talking to her about chartering a plane to get here, about fixing the house when they go home. If she can hear him, she'll want to stay around."
John's office overlooked the garden. Scott walked to the window, wishing he could spend some time alone, think this through. "We can't prove Mrs. Meehan was the victim of an attempted murder.
We can't prove Miss Samuels was the victim of murder."
"I don't think you can make either one stick, no."
"So that means even if we can make a stab at figuring who would want those women dead-and have the guts to attempt to kill them at a place like the Spa-we still may not be able to prove anything."
"That's more your line of work than mine, but I'd agree."
Scott had one parting question: "Mrs. Meehan has been trying to talk. She finally came out with a single word-'voices.' Is it likely that someone in her condition is really trying to communicate something that makes sense?"
Whitley shrugged. "My impression is that her coma is still too deep to be certain as to her recall. But I could be wrong. It wouldn't be the first time."
Again Scott conferred with Willy Meehan in the corridor. Alvirah was pla
He was scheduled to meet with the mayor of Carmel at five o'clock. On his two-way car radio, he learned that Elizabeth had phoned him twice. The second call was urgent.
Some instinct made him cancel his appointment with the mayor for the second time in two days and go directly to the Spa.
Through the picture window, he could see Elizabeth on the phone. He waited until she put the receiver down before he knocked. In the thirty-second interval, he had a chance to study her. The afternoon sun was sending slanted rays into the room which created shadows on her face and revealed the high cheekbones, the wide, sensitive mouth, the luminous eyes. If I were a sculptor, I'd want her to model for me, he thought. She has an elegance that goes beyond beauty.
Eventually she would have surpassed Leila.
Elizabeth turned the tapes over to him. She indicated the writing pad with its lines of notations. "Do me a favor, Scott," she asked him. "Listen to these tapes very, very carefully. This one"-she indicated the cassette she had taken from the sunburst pin- "is going to shock you. Play it over and see if you don't catch what I think I've heard."
Now there was a determined thrust to her jaw, a glitter in her eyes. " Elizabeth, what are you up to?" he asked.
"Something that I have to do-that only I can do."
Despite Scott's increasingly stern demands for an explanation, she would not tell him more. He did remember to tell her that Alvirah Meehan had managed to utter one word. "Does Voices' suggest anything to you?"
Elizabeth 's smile was enigmatic.
"You bet it does," she said grimly.
Nine
Ted had bolted from the Spa grounds in early afternoon. By five o'clock he had still not returned. Henry Bartlett was visibly chafing to go back to New York. "We came here to prepare Ted's defense," he said. "I hope he realized his trial is scheduled to start in five days. If he won't meet with me, I'm not doing any good sitting around here."
The phone rang. Craig jumped to answer it. " Elizabeth. What a nice surprise… Yes, it's true. I'd like to think we can still persuade the district attorney to accept a plea, but that's pretty unrealistic… We hadn't talked about di
Scott drove home with the windows of the car open, appreciating the cool breeze that had begun to blow in from the ocean. It felt good, but he could not shake the sense of apprehension that was overcoming him. Elizabeth was up to something, and every instinct told him that whatever it was, it might be dangerous.
A faint mist was setting in along the shoreline of Pacific Grove. It would develop into a heavy fog later on. He turned the corner and pulled into the driveway of a pleasant narrow house a block from the ocean. For six years now he had been coming home to this empty place and never once not felt that moment of nostalgia that Jeanie was no longer here waiting for him. He used to talk cases through with her. Tonight he would have asked her some hypothetical questions. Would you say that there is a co
And finally: Jeanie, what the hell is Elizabeth up to?
To clear his head, Scott showered, changed into old slacks and a sweater. He made a pot of coffee and put a hamburger on the grill. When he was ready to eat, he turned on the first of Alvirah's tapes.
He began listening at quarter of five. At six o'clock, his notebook, like Elizabeth 's, was filled with jottings. At quarter of seven, he heard the tape that documented the attack on Alvirah. "That son of a bitch, Von Schreiber!" he muttered. He did inject her with something. But with what? Suppose he had started the collagen and seen her go into some sort of attack? He had returned almost immediately with the nurse.
Scott replayed the tape, then played it a third time and finally realized what Elizabeth had wanted him to hear. There was something odd about the Baron's voice the first time he spoke to Mrs. Meehan. It was hoarse, guttural, startlingly different from his voice a moment or two later, when he was shouting orders to the nurse.
He phoned the hospital and asked for Dr. Whitley. He had one question for him. "Do you think an injection that drew blood is the kind that a doctor would have administered?"
"I've seen some sloppy injections given by topflight surgeons. And if a doctor gave the shot that was meant to harm Mrs. Meehan-he may have had the grace to be nervous."
"Thanks, John."
"Don't mention it."