“Late twenties, I’d say. Dark hair, parted down the middle, all knotted up in back. Not pretty, but… Just say men would take to her better than women would.”
“She came to the doc’s house last night.”
Bill gnawed on that as Thatcher figured he would. “After office hours?”
“At eleven twenty-eight.”
He shrugged. “Could’ve been an emergency.”
Thatcher said nothing, just looked at him.
“But you don’t think so.”
“No, I don’t, Bill. She was dropped off at the street, and seemed in perfect health, best as I could tell by the way she walked.”
“How’d she walk?”
“Like she owned the place. Knocked on the door the same way. The doc was up, or at least his bedroom light was on. Drapes were drawn but there was light around the edges of them, which was why I hadn’t left yet.
“He came to the door in his pajamas and a bathrobe. It appeared to me that he wasn’t altogether happy to see her. In fact, when she tried to step inside, he blocked her. They didn’t raise their voices, or tussle, but there was a lot of angry gesturing. Eventually, he let her in.”
Bill kept his eyes on the road and didn’t comment, so Thatcher continued. “I don’t know where they spent their time while inside, because no other lights in the house came on. If she’d come for medicine or something, they’d’ve gone into his office, don’t you think?”
“How long did she stay?”
“Almost an hour. The car came back at twelve-fifteen. She walked out to it and got in, it drove off. A few minutes later, the upstairs bedroom light went off.”
“She didn’t have the baby with her?”
“No. Could have been in the car, I guess.”
“Did you see who was driving?”
“Another woman.”
“Her sister, no doubt. Patsy Kemp. They live together. Mrs. Kemp’s husband is off working somewhere. Montana, Alaska, somewhere like that. Which is why Norma is living with her, I guess.”
“Norma isn’t married?”
“I didn’t ask, but she wasn’t wearing a wedding band and no reference was made to a husband.”
“Did you see the baby?”
“He was sleeping there in a basket in the living room. She showed him off to me. If he was born out of wedlock, she gave no sign of being ashamed about it.”
“What did she tell you about Dr. Driscoll?”
“What she’d told Scotty when he questioned her, which matched what Gabe had told us. He paid her a house call earlier in the day while she was still in labor. On his way home from Lefty’s, he stopped there again to check on her. In the meantime, she’d given birth and all was well.”
Thatcher took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. “I feel like a damn peeping Tom.”
“It feels like that sometimes.”
“What feels like that?”
“Detective work.”
“That’s not what I was doing.”