Blind Tiger

She turned and gave Chester Landry a nod, which looked token to Thatcher. He outdistanced her to the swinging door and pulled it open for her. “I’ll walk you out.”

“No thank you. I’m in a hurry.”

He suspected her of fibbing about having more deliveries to make, but there was no way to gracefully call her on it.

“Then good night, Mrs. Plummer.”

“Good night.”

He watched her wend her way through the kitchen, where two women were washing dishes, and a man was chopping up raw chickens. After Laurel disappeared through the rear exit, Thatcher let the door swing shut. Mr. Martin was behind the counter spooning Landry’s cobbler into a bowl.

Landry himself had remained standing, his hand on the back of his chair, smarmy smile in place. Thatcher walked over and resumed his seat.

As Landry sat down, he said, “I was wrong.”

“About what?” Thatcher sipped his cold coffee.

“One sometimes can guess what’s going through your mind.” He cocked an eyebrow in a one-man-to-another leer.

Thatcher gave him a long, unwavering stare from which most men would back down. Landry’s grin only widened enough to reveal his gold tooth.

Thatcher badly wanted to knock it out.

Instead he called over to Mr. Martin, “I’ll have a slice of the pecan pie, please. No ice cream.”

His attempt to deflect Landry’s interest only seemed to amuse the man more. But the salesman didn’t pursue the subject of Laurel Plummer. Instead he asked Thatcher about his horse training technique.

Each bite of the rich pie melted in Thatcher’s mouth.

* * *

As they left the café, Thatcher declined the ride back to the boardinghouse. “I need to stretch my legs. I’m going to walk back.” Giving Landry no opportunity to quibble, he stuck out his right hand. “Thanks for dinner.”

Chester Landry shook hands. “Don’t get used to it. Next time it’s Dutch treat.”

Thatcher, planning for there never to be a next time, smiled as expected, then turned and headed down the street in the opposite direction from which he intended to go.

He waited until Landry’s car was out of sight, then doubled back. He looked in Hancock’s storefront window. The advertisement was still there.

He continued on, following the directions Bernie Croft had given him that first day.

Along the way, he kept to the shadows. Five minutes later, the picturesque facade of the Driscolls’ house came into view. Lights were on in some of the downstairs rooms, including the parlor with the bay window, the doctor’s office.

Aware of Miss Eleanor Wise’s seemingly uninterrupted vigilance, Thatcher didn’t go any farther, but took cover behind the catty-corner neighbor’s detached shed. He slid down the exterior wall of it, worked his butt around until he’d created a depression for it in the ground, and settled in to wait.

What he was anticipating, he couldn’t say. The sudden reappearance of Mrs. Driscoll? A surefire giveaway of the doctor’s guilt?

He was irrationally annoyed with Bill Amos for lending credibility to his notions about the physician. If the sheriff had instead laughed himself silly over them, Thatcher wouldn’t be sitting here in the dark, swatting at mosquitoes, accomplishing nothing.

Time passed. He whiled most of it away thinking about Laurel Plummer. She’d charmed Mr. Martin into increasing his order, and had seemed damned pleased with herself for having done so. Her features hadn’t looked as strained as they had the other times Thatcher had seen her. The smile she’d given the café owner looked genuine.

She’d been dressed different, too. Her skirt was shorter than any he’d seen her in before. It was nipped in at the waist. And, right off, he’d noticed the good fit of her blouse.

He wished he’d thought of an excuse to touch her during the brief time she’d been in the café.

As mouthwatering as her pie had been, Thatcher was certain her mouth would be even more delicious.

He’d enjoyed the sight of her bottom wiggling its way through that door, and couldn’t help thinking back onto what it had felt like when it had bumped up against his front during the rooster episode, as he’d come to think of it.