Laurel patted the girl’s shoulder. “Ernie needs help, and you seem content to be here. But I’m worried about your safety.”
“You got no call to be.”
“Yes, I do, Corrine. Believe me.”
“Ernie’s protective.”
“I’m sure. But he may not always be around. You need to protect yourself.”
“I will, Miss Laurel. I promise.”
“Well, I want to make sure of that.”
Forty-Six
The landlady called Thatcher away from the supper buffet to the telephone in the hall. “Keep it short,” she said as she handed him the earpiece. “There’s others who use it, too, you know.”
Thinking it might be Trey Hobson at long last, he leaned into the mouthpiece mounted on the wall. “This is Thatcher.”
Bill Amos said, “Can you get over to Doc Perkins’s office?”
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
“Who’s sick?”
“Just come. Don’t say anything to anybody.”
The sheriff disconnected. Thatcher hung up, stared at the telephone in puzzlement for several seconds, then, responding to Bill’s urgency, ducked back into the dining room to take his hat from the rack.
The crabby Mrs. May said, “Are you eatin’ or not?”
“Not.” He was aware of Chester Landry’s interest in his abrupt departure, but he didn’t acknowledge the man as he rushed out. He feared the emergency pertained to Daisy Amos.
Having to walk several blocks, he was winded by the time he reached the professional building on Main Street where he’d been told the elderly doctor had a clinic that took up half the third floor. It was past quitting time for anyone else who had office space there, but the main entrance was unlocked. Thatcher went in and climbed the stairs two at a time.
A door with the doc’s name printed on it opened into a waiting room where a woman was seated near a small table, smoking a cigarette. She was unkempt. There were blood smears on her dress. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her expression harsh. “Who are you?”
He took off his hat. “Thatcher Hutton.”
“What are you doing here?”
Before he could reply, Bill Amos opened a door with “Examination Room” stenciled on it. “I called him,” he said to the woman, then hitched his head, indicating for Thatcher to join him in a small room with glass-fronted supply cabinets on two walls. The center was dominated by the examination table.
“Through here,” Bill said as he led Thatcher through yet another room into an operating room. He drew up short when he saw the table on which a female person lay.
A white sheet covered her from toes to chin. All that showed was a mass of thick, dark hair and her face, which looked like it had had a head-on collision with a locomotive.
Wearing a white lab coat, Doc Perkins was washing his hands at an industrial-size porcelain sink. Thatcher recognized the strong smell of antiseptic from his days in the army hospital.
Bill said, “That’s Norma Blanchard.”
Stunned, Thatcher remembered the pretty, shapely woman with the saucy walk whom he’d seen going into Gabe Driscoll’s house late one night. “She dead?”
“As of when I called you. I wanted you to see her to get an idea of what we’re dealing with here.”
Thatcher wanted to object to the plural pronoun. In his mind, he’d taken a stand against the likes of the violent Johnsons, but he hadn’t been sworn in as a deputy yet, and he wasn’t wearing the badge. However, now wasn’t the time to go into all that.