Sleeping Beauty

chapter 26

I drove across town to the hospital and learned, after some palaver at the front desk, that Jack Lennox was in a private room on the top floor. In the hallway outside his door, I found Sergeant Shantz sitting on a metal folding chair which his flesh overlapped.

“Where have you been?” he said.

“I returned Jack Lennox’s car, and got involved with the family. How is he doing?”

“Okay. His wife is in there with him.” Shantz rose heavily, pushing his chair back against the wall. “If you’re going to be here for the next few minutes, I should make a phone call. The Sheriff asked me to let him know when Lennox was able to talk.”

The Sergeant moved down the hall toward the elevators, and I went into the room. It was dim, with the curtains partly closed over the windows.

Marian Lennox was standing in a protective attitude by the head of the bed. She looked rather resentful of my intrusion, as if she valued this time alone with her husband. His face was sallow and pinched under a turban of bandage.

“Archer?”

He tried to sit up. His wife pushed him gently back against the pillows. “Please, Jack. You’re not supposed to get up.”

“Stop making like a nurse, for God’s sake.” He moved rebelliously under her hands. “You’re not good at it.”

“But the doctor says you need complete rest and quiet. After all, you’ve been shot.”

“Who shot me?”

“Don’t you remember?” I said.

“No. The last thing I remember is opening the door of the tower – the lookout tower at Sandhill Lake.” He groaned.

“Why did you go there?”

“It’s where I was supposed to leave the money.” His voice was losing its force.

“Who asked you to leave it there?”

“Nobody I knew.” He looked at his wife. “Do you know who it was?”

She shook her head. “I only talked to him once, when he made the first call. I didn’t recognize his voice.”

“It hardly matters, anyway,” I said. “It was probably the same man who shot you. And I know who that was.”

They waited in silence for me to tell them. When I gave them Harold Sherry’s name, Jack Lennox seemed blankly puzzled by it, as if the shot that had wounded him had driven all memory of Harold from his brain. But Marian’s face changed. She looked as if she could feel the recurrence in her body of an old illness.

“Don’t you remember Harold?” I said to him. “You shot him in the leg.”

“I shot him? You’ve got to be kidding.” He sat up, balancing his head like a heavy weight. “Does that mean you’ve captured him?”

“Not yet.”

“What about the money? The hundred thousand?”

“He got away with it, at least for the present. I’m going to have to tell the police about the money.”

Lennox seemed uninterested. He didn’t ask me about his daughter Laurel. I wondered if he had perhaps forgotten her, too. He let out a long sigh and collapsed against his pillows.

Marian interposed herself between us. “I’m afraid Jack is exhausted. Couldn’t we talk outside?”

“Of course.”

She pulled up her husband’s covers, pressed his shoulder, and followed me out. She seemed to be under better control than she had been earlier. Her face was strained but focused. It occurred to me that she was one of that disappearing species of women who live in their husbands’ shadow and can only step out of it when the husbands are out of action. She said, when the door had closed behind her:

“You haven’t said anything about Laurel, Mr. Archer.”

“There hasn’t been any word on Laurel.”

“You don’t know where she is, then?”

“No. The way to her is through Harold Sherry.”

“He got his money. What more does he want?”

“I don’t know. He may want some assurance of personal safety. The money’s no good to him if he doesn’t live to spend it.”

Her gaze moved past me, pale and desolate, looking down the long arctic slope of the future. “Jack shouldn’t have shot him.”

“No. It upset the bargain. But Harold may have fired at your husband first.”

A puzzled cleft appeared between her eyes. “Why would he do that?”

“I’ll have to ask him.”

“Do you have any hope of finding Harold Sherry?”

“Some. I know the name of a doctor he’s gone to in the past. With his leg wound, he’ll be wanting to get to a doctor.”

“Would I know the doctor’s name?”

“I doubt it. He practices in Long Beach.”

“We know quite a few people in Long Beach.”

“But I don’t think I better mention his name to anyone, even you. He’s my only decent lead so far. The chances of getting Laurel back aren’t quite as good as they were this morning. I guess you know that, Mrs. Lennox.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Everything is so confused. It was a sorry day for Laurel – for all of us – when she met Harold Sherry. This isn’t the first time he’s abducted her, did you know that? He ran away with her when she was just fifteen.”

“I’ve heard about it. But I don’t understand his motive.”

“He was always envious of our family.”

“Was he attracted to Laurel?”

“Perhaps he was, in a sick way. I remember once he came to the house – this was before he took her to Las Vegas. He couldn’t keep his hands off her. She had to ask her father to intervene.”

“Laurel asked your husband to intervene?”

“That’s correct. Jack threw him out of the house.” Her voice was cold and featureless, like a medium reciting words whose meaning was not clear to her. “My husband has always had a violent temper.”

“I’ve seen a few indications of that. Tell me, Mrs. Lennox, has his temper ever been turned against Laurel?”

“Of course it has. Many times.”

“Recently?”

“Yes. They haven’t been getting along at all well lately. Jack hasn’t been too happy about her marriage. In fact he’s done his best to break it up.” She overheard herself and gave me a worried look. “What do you suspect Laurel of doing?”

“There is a possibility that she threw in with Harold of her own free will.”

“When they went to Vegas?”

“Then,” I said, “and now. Do you think Laurel was genuinely kidnapped last night?”

“I don’t know what to think.” She looked at me suspiciously. “What are you getting at, exactly?”

“The possibility of collusion. There’s some evidence that Laurel and Harold have been seeing each other.”

“Where did you get that story?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t name my source.” There was enough bad blood between Harold’s mother and the Lennox family.

“Anyway, I don’t believe it,” she said.

She turned away to go back into her husband’s room, and paused with her hand on the door. I could see how thin and vulnerable she was. Her graying hair, cut in a long shag, curled like wispy feathers at the nape of her neck. Her shoulder blades stuck out under her dress like unfledged wings.

She had lost her daughter, and her husband had been shot. It was the kind of experience that used people up in a hurry. A week from now, if the attrition continued, she could be old and defeated like Sylvia.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Lennox. I thought you should know some of the possibilities.”

She turned quickly and almost lost her balance. “Yes, of course. You’re right. I want you to keep me informed.”

“I’ll try to do that.”

“If Laurel is involved with Harold Sherry – I don’t believe it, you understand, but if she is – I want to know about it before anyone else. Particularly before you tell the police.”

“I understand you.” But I made no promises.