The Wycherly Woman

Chapter 12

Ben Merriman’s head hung like a ruined planet in the darkness. I crawled away from it and woke up scrabbling at the door of the room. The room was empty. It was after three by my wrist watch, which I saw double. I had been out for some time.

My gun was still in its holster. I fingered the side of my head. It was wet and numb. My fingers got blood on them, dark as axle grease. I tried standing up. It worked.

The room was clean. The woman and her protector, if that is what he was, had left nothing but the empty bottle and my half-finished drink. I finished it.

I washed my cut head in the bathroom sink and improvised a bandage out of a clean towel. In the bathroom mirror, I looked like an Indian holy man who had run out of holiness and just about everything else.

“What happened to you?” the night clerk said when I walked into the Hacienda lobby.

“I had a little run-in with a friend of Miss Smith’s.”

“I see.” His expression combined sympathy and a hotelman’s allergy to trouble. “Who did you say you had a run-in with?”

“Miss Smith’s friend. Have they checked out?”

“Miss Smith has checked out,” he said with great distinctness, as if I might have difficulty hearing him. “There was nobody with her when she checked out or when she checked in.”

“Who carried her bags?”

“I did.”

“How did she leave?”

“By car.”

“What kind of a car?”

“I didn’t notice.”

Now I knew he was lying.

“How much did they pay you?”

He flushed up to the eyes, as if his trouble-allergy had brought on a sudden rash. “Listen, fellow, I don’t like your allegations. I gave you civil answers. Now beat it, or I’ll call the sheriff’s office.”

I was feeling weak. I beat it, on my fine new imitation rubber legs. He forgot to ask me for the towel.

I made my way to my car and drove on instruments into the city. The towers of the capital loomed in the pre-dawn sky. Guided by some perverted homing instinct I found myself going the wrong way on the one-way street that led past the parking lot of the Champion Hotel. I drove in.

Next thing I knew, Jerry Dingman’s face came out of a yellow fog. We were in the alley under the insect-repellent light. All the insects in the world were buzzing in my ears. Through them the old man was saying:

“Take a sup of water, Mr. Wycherly. You’ll feel better.”

He squashed a paper cup against my mouth. His other hand was behind my head. I swallowed some water and spilled some. The buzzing began to fade. The yellow fog shrank to an aureole around the old man’s head. The Good Sacramentan.

“What happened to you, Mr. Wycherly?”

“Accident.”

“Traffic accident or people accident?”

“People.”

“You want me to call the police?”

“No. I’m all right.” I sat up.

“You’re not as all right as you think. You got a nasty wound on the temple. I’ll take you up to your room and you lie down. Then you better let me get you a doctor, you’ll be needing stitches. I know one that makes night calls, and he don’t charge too much.”

Dr. Broch arrived in a few minutes, as if he sat up all night waiting for emergencies. His breath smelled of Sen-Sen, and the hands with which he opened his worn black bag trembled constantly. Behind horn-rimmed glasses his face had a washed and formless, almost marinated look. I was beginning to wonder if the Sacramento River ran alcohol instead of water.

The doctor spoke with a slight Middle European accent. “Mr. Wycherly, eh? There is or was a Mrs. Wycherly staying in this hotel. A relative, perhaps?”

“My wife. We’ve been divorced. You know my wife?”

“I can’t say I know her, no. The manager Mr. Fillmore called me in to treat her one day last week. He was worried about her condition.”

“What was the matter with her?”

He shrugged, turning up his hands over the open black bag. “It is not possible for me to say. She would not let me enter her room to examine her. Perhaps it was a physical illness, perhaps an illness of the psyche. Melancholia, perhaps.”

“Melancholia is a form of depression, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I believe she was depressed. She hadn’t got up out of bed for several days. She wouldn’t let the cleaning woman come into the room. That is why the manager was concerned. But I was unable to help her. All she let me see of her was the body under the bedclothes.” His hand described shaky sinuosities in the air.

“How do you know she wasn’t hurt, or physically sick?”

“She was eating well, very well indeed. Mr. Fillmore said she was eating a great deal – enough for two. She kept ordering food from the restaurant in the daytime and also at night – meats and pies and cakes and ice cream and beverages.”

“Was she drinking hard?”

“Some, I believe. But alcoholics don’t eat like that, you know.” He smiled dimly, as if he had private sources of information. “Perhaps her problem is an eating problem. I suggest this to you so you can get her help, perhaps.”

“Perhaps,” I said. “Or there may have been someone with her in the room.”

His eyebrows went up. “I had not thought of the possibility. It would explain her refusal to let me in, to let anyone in, wouldn’t it?”

I left the question hanging. In spite of their alcoholic tremor, his hands worked on me quickly and efficiently, cleaning and stitching up the cut in my head. It took six stitches. When he had put away his sewing materials, he told me that I was indubitably concussed, and ought to go to bed for several days. I said I would, gave him the twelve dollars he asked for, and suggested that he make no police report. He didn’t argue.

I went to bed for several hours, at least. Raw morning light at the window woke me out of raw black nightmare. I called the desk and after some negotiations got Jerry Dingman on the line.

“I’m just going off duty, Mr. Wycherly.”

“Stay on a few minutes for me. Is the restaurant open next door?”

“I think so.”

“Bring me three eggs, ham, hotcakes, a quart of black coffee, and a clothesbrush.”

He said he would. I took a long hot bath. Jerry knocked while I was drying myself. I fastened a towel around my waist and let him in. He sat on the bed and brushed my clothes while I ate.

Over the rim of the coffee cup, the harsh light at the window seemed to be softening down. The pulsing nightmare had dwindled to an all but forgotten blues with Phoebe’s name running through it. I couldn’t remember what I had dreamed about her.

“Feeling better?” Jerry said when I’d finished eating.

“I feel fine.” This was an exaggeration.

“Enjoy your breakfast?”

“Very much.” I put a dollar on the tray for him. Then I added another dollar. “Those days when Mrs. Wycherly wouldn’t get out of bed and had all the food sent up – who brought it up besides you?”

“Sam Todd, he’s one of the day men. Sam was amazed by all the eats she guzzled. So was I, for that matter. For a while there she was ordering up a big steak every night around midnight. Sometimes two.”

“Did she eat them herself?”

“She always licked the platter clean,” he said. “With double orders of French fries and everything.”

“Was there anybody in the room to help her eat them?”

“I never saw nobody, I told you that. I figured she just had a hearty appetite, or maybe she was feeding a cold, like.”

“Could there have been someone in the room?”

“A man, you mean?”

“Or another woman.”

He considered this. “Could be. When she was holed up like that, she never let me in. She made me set the tray outside the door, and then she’d take it in after I went away. I never even saw her for four-five days at a time. She telephoned her order down to the desk.”

I picked up my jacket from the bed and brought out Phoebe’s picture once again. “You never saw this – my daughter in the room?”

He took the colored photo to the window, and shook his head over it. “No siree, I never saw her anyplace around the hotel. I’d remember a pretty girl like her, too. I guess Mrs. Wycherly was pretty like her at one time. Before she started to eat so much?” He glanced up quickly. “No offense intended.”

“None taken.”

“Did you get to see her last night?”

“We won’t go into it, Jerry.”

“I was just wondering who clobbered you.”

“So was I. Are the cleaning women on yet?”

“They ought to be by now.”

He went away, looking slightly betrayed by my failure to confide in him. I dressed and went downstairs to the third floor. A linen cart stood in the hallway outside the open door of 323. Inside the room a vacuum cleaner whined.

The brown-armed woman operating it jumped when I spoke to her back, and turned with one hand in her asphalt-colored hair.

“Yessir?”

“My wife has been in this room for the last couple of weeks. Are you the one who cleans here every day?”

“Every day when they let me in.” She switched off the vacuum cleaner, looking at me somberly as if I was about to accuse her of a crime. “Is something missing?”

“Nothing like that. Jerry the bellhop says she wouldn’t let anyone into the room for four or five days last week.”

She inclined her head. “I remember. I was worried about her.”

“Why?”

“I think she had a spell on her,” the woman said with conviction. “My sister Consuela had a spell when we were living in Salinas. She put the bed against the bedroom door. She wouldn’t talk or show her face. I had to sleep in the kitchen for a week. Then I found a curandero and brought him to Consuela. He lifted the spell, and she was my sister again.”

I tried to keep the impatience out of my voice: “Was there anybody living in this room with her?”

“Nobody living.” She crossed herself unobtrusively.

“What do you mean by that?”

My tone was wrong, and she didn’t answer. I said more gently:

“Did you see anyone in the room, or anything out of the ordinary?”

“No. I see – I see nothing.”

“Hear anything?”

“She cried. I heard her cry. I wanted to go in and comfort her, but I was afraid.”

“No voices?”

“No voices. Only hers.”

“I’m told she ordered up a great deal of food – enough for two people.”

“Yes. I took the dirty dishes. She put them out in the hall every morning.”

“What was she doing with all that food?”

“Feeding them,” the woman said. Her eyes burned like candles in the niches of her brows. “They are hungry when they come back.”

“Who are you talking about, Mrs.–?”

“Tonia. Everybody calls me Tonia. You know, I can see, you think I am a stupid woman. But I have had transactions with the spirits of the dead. They would not let Consuela sleep or eat or talk for seven days, until I fed them. The curandero reminded me to feed them, and she was my sister again.”

She spoke in a whisper, so that the spirits would be less likely to hear her. She glanced furtively towards the window. Phoebe’s name was still there, written large on the grimy pane. In spite of the bright morning, I was almost ready to believe in Tonia’s theories.

“You believe that she was feeding the spirits of the dead?”

“I know she was.”

“How do you know it, Tonia?”

She pulled at the small gold ring in her left ear lobe. “I have ears. I heard her crying for the dead. I do not listen at doors but I could hear her from the hallway, crying.”

“What did she say?”

“She called on the murdered one to come back to her.”

“The murdered one? She used those words?”

“Yes. She spoke of murder, of death and murder and blood, and other things. I didn’t understand.”

“Try to remember.”

“I can’t. I didn’t hear much. I was afraid. When the dead come back they attach themselves to anyone who is waiting. I ran and shut myself up in the linen room.”

“When was this?”

“Six days ago, or seven.” She counted on her fingers. “Six. It was the day before the Feast of the Three Kings – a bad time to call the dead.”

“Did she say who was dead?”

“No, but the grief in her voice was very bad. Perhaps a member of the family? A son, or daughter?” Her look was sympathetic and inquiring.

I showed her Phoebe’s picture. “This is her daughter – her daughter and mine.” For some reason, it was hard to tell her the he.

“She is beautiful.” Tonia smiled. “I have one blue-eyed daughter who is almost as beautiful. Her father, who was my husband at that time, was also blue-eyed.”

I brought her back to the point. “Have you ever seen this girl?”

She studied the picture for a long time. “I think so. I can’t be sure. I think I have seen her face before now. Where would I have seen her?”

“In this room, maybe.”

“No,” she said flatly. “There was nobody in the room with your wife. She slept alone, I can tell by the bedclothes. I watch the bedclothes, see. When they try to double up in a single, I tell Mr. Fillmore.”

“You may have seen her on the street.”

“Maybe.” She handed the picture back to me. “I’m sorry I do not remember. I can only say I have seen her.”

“Recently?”

“I think so.” She wrinkled her brow in concentration; nothing came. “I’m sorry, I don’t know where. I see so many. But she is beautiful.”

I thanked her and went to the window, tearing a leaf from my notebook. The paper was too opaque to make a tracing. I made a copy instead, reproducing the slanting characters as closely as possible.

“Caray!” Tonia whispered at my shoulder. “What is that?”

“A name.”

“An evil name?”

“A good name.”

“I cannot read,” she said. “It frightens me.”

“It’s my daughter’s name, Tonia. There’s no need to be frightened.”

But she was crossing herself when I left her.

Mr. Fillmore, the manager, was in his office behind the main desk. He was one of those slightly confused middle-aged men who needed someone to remind him that his dark suit could use a pressing and that his lank hair stuck up like weeds at the back. I introduced myself as Homer Wycherly. I was stuck with the name and the tragicomic role as long as I stayed around the Champion Hotel.

The name seemed to impress Fillmore. He rose up out of his early-morning doldrums and offered me his hand and a chair. “Delighted to meet you, sir. What can I do for you?”

“I’m concerned about my wife, Catherine. She occupied Room 323 until she checked out last night. I don’t know where she is now.”

“I’m sorry.” His face fell into doleful grooves, left by the harrows of circumstance. “I hate to say this, but I believe you have reason to be concerned. Your wife is a very sad woman, Mr. Wycherly. I’ve seen a lot of them, and I never saw a sadder.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“I did, yes. I happened to be on the desk when she checked in. That was a day or two before Christmas. I remember particularly because frankly I was a little surprised that a lady like her would choose to stay at the Champion.”

“Why shouldn’t she?”

He leaned across the desk, so close I could count his pores. He had a lot of pores. “Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m proud of my little hotel, for what it is, but I’ve worked in better places, let me assure you. I recognize a lady when I see one. Their clothes, their manner of speech. And ladies like Mrs. Wycherly don’t normally stay at the Champion.”

“She may have been short of money.”

“I doubt that very much. She was well provided for, as you know.”

“How do you know it?”

“She showed me one of your alimony checks.” He was startled by his own directness, and went on in a flustered tone: “I mean, I have no wish to pry into your personal affairs, but it was a certified check for three thousand dollars. She mentioned that she got one every month.”

“I’m glad she felt free to confide in you,” I said, with a hint of the needle in my voice.

“Oh, it wasn’t that. She wanted me to cash it, and she was assuring me it was genuine. As I’m sure it was,” he added hastily, “but I had to tell her I couldn’t possibly cash it. It was New Year’s Day, the banks were closed, I had no way of raising three thousand dollars. I offered to take it for collection, but Mrs. Wycherly said she couldn’t wait.”

“What did she do with the check?”

“I guess she cashed it at the bank. At any rate, she paid her bill next day.”

“Where did the check come from? Do you remember?”

“I’m afraid not. She mentioned it was her home-town bank.” He looked at me with a trace of doubt in his boiled-onion eyes. “You should know.”

“Yes, but I was wondering how it reached her, on New Year’s Day.”

“It came by Special Delivery. She asked me to notify her when it arrived.” The doubt in his eyes became more apparent. “Please don’t misunderstand me – it wasn’t a phony check?”

“The check was well-backed,” I said stuffily.

“Of course. I knew it was.” The thought of my imaginary bank account made him emotional. “I know a lady when I see one, and I’m sure you won’t take it amiss if I offer you a piece of advice. Look to your lady, Mr. Wycherly. This can be a dangerous town for a lady going it alone with or without a purseful of money. Especially with. There are toughs and drifters galore in this town.” Fillmore permitted himself to stare directly at the bandage on my head. “Maybe you found that out for yourself. Mrs. Silvado told me you were injured.”

“I fell and hit my head on the curb.”

“In our parking lot? I hope not.”

“On the public street,” I said. “The falling sickness runs in the family.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

His hand went to his head in a nervous gesture. He discovered the tuft of hair sticking up at the back, mechanically took out a comb and ran it through his thin locks. The tuft stayed where it was. He put the comb away in his breast pocket.

“While we’re on the subject of sickness,” I said, “I’m grateful to you for looking after my wife.”

“I tried to. We do our best. But she refused to see the doctor.” He went on apologetically: “Of course Dr. Broch isn’t the best medical man in the world, but his office happens to be nearby and he’s the one we call.”

“I talked to the doctor last night. He thinks she’s suffering from depression.”

“So he told me. It agrees with my own observation.”

“Did she mention any reason for being depressed?”

“Not a hint. Sheer loneliness, maybe?” There was a catch in his voice, as though he had experienced the condition. “At any rate she locked herself in her room and wouldn’t budge from it for four or five days.”

“Exactly when was this?”

“At the beginning of the month. It started the day she paid her first week’s bill, January second. It went on for nearly a week. I called the doctor in the middle of the week, but she wouldn’t accept treatment. Eventually she came out of it on her own, but I could tell by looking at her that she had been through something. She looked ten years older, Mr. Wycherly. She had been through an ordeal.”

“Physical or mental?”

“Physical or mental, who can tell. I don’t understand the mysteries of the human heart, particularly the female heart. I said farewell to all that some time ago.” His hand discovered the stubborn tuft of hair again and gave it a good hard wrench. “I’m a divorced man, too, you and I have something in common.”

“Is there any chance that there was someone in the room with her?”

“Someone?”

“When she wouldn’t let the servants in. Could there have been another person with her?”

“I don’t see how. We don’t permit doubling up in a single. It’s a matter of revenue as well as morals.”

“I’m not thinking of a man, necessarily.” I produced Phoebe’s picture. “Have you ever seen this girl in the hotel?”

“No. I never have. She’s your daughter, isn’t she? I can see the family likeness.”

“Yes, she’s my daughter.”

A repeated lie can do strange things to the mind. What you say often enough becomes a provisional truth. I caught myself half-believing that Phoebe was my daughter. If she was dead, I would share Wycherly’s loss. I already shared his feelings about his wife.