“Don’t!”
“He arrived shortly before seven o’clock,” Fogarty said So Frank had
traveled for nearly another hour and a after he had returned Bobby to
the office.
Fogarty said,
“He’s been here over three hours, and I do know what the blazing hell
I’m supposed to do with him. N and then he comes around a little bit,
looks at you when talk to him, even responds more or less to what you
say. Though sometimes he’s positively garrulous, runs on and on, won’t
swear your questions but sure wants to talk at a person, couldn’t shut
him up with a two-by-four. He’s told me a lot about you, for instance,
more than I care to know.” frowned and shook his head.
“You two may be crazy enough to get involved in this nightmare, but I’m
not, and I resent being dragged into it.” At first glance, the
impression that Dr. Lawrence, Foga made was that of a kindly grandfather
who, in his day, been the type of devoted and selfless physician who
became revered by his community, known and beloved by one and He was
still wearing the slippers, gray slacks, white shirt, a blue cardigan in
which Bobby had first seen him earlier, a the image was completed by a
pair of half-lens reading glasses over which he regarded them. With his
thick white hair, eyes, and gentle rounded features, he would have made
an effective Santa Claus if he had been fifty or sixty pounds heavier
But on a second and closer look, his blue eyes were steely, not warm.
His rounded features were too soft, and revealed not gentility so much
as lack of character, as though they had been acquired through a
lifetime of self-indulgence. His wide mouth would have given kindly old
Doc Fogarty a winning smile, but its generous dimension served equally
well to lend the look of a predator to the real Doc Fogarty.
“So Frank’s told you about us,” Bobby said.
“But we don’t know anything about you, and I think we need to.” Fogarty
scowled.
“Better that you don’t know about me.
Better by far for me. Just get him out of here, take him away.”
“You want us to take Frank off your hands,” Julie said coldly,
“then you’ve got to tell us who you are, how you fit into this, what you
know about it.” Meeting Julie’s gaze, then Bobby’s, the old man said,
“He’s not been here in five years. Today, when he came with you,
Dakota, I was shocked, I’d thRoselle’s father. Supposedly her father
was so itinerant who knocked up her mother, but I always knew it was a
lie. Her father was Yarnell Pollard, her mother’s brother Roselle was a
child of rape and incest.” A look of distress must have crossed Bobby’s
face or Julie for Fogarty let out another bark of cold laughter, clearly
amused by their sympathetic response.
The old physician said,
“Oh, that’s nothing. That’s the least of it.”
THE TALLLESS MANX- Zitha by name-took up sentry duty in the concealment
of an azalea shrub near the front door.
The old Spanish house had exterior window ledges, and the second cat-as
black as midnight, and named Darkless-sprang to another one in search of
the room to which the old man had taken the younger man and woman.
Darkle put his nose to the glass. A set of interior shutters inhibited
snooping, but the wide louvres were only half closed, and Darkle was
able to see several cross-sections of the room by raising or lowering
his head.
Hearing Frank’s name spoken, the cat stiffened, because Violet had
stiffened in her bed high on Pacific Hill.
The old man was there, among the books, and the couple as well. When
everyone sat down, Darkle had to lower his head to peer between another
pair of tilted louvres. Then he saw that Frank was not only one of the
subjects of their conversation but actually present in a high-backed
chair that stood at just enough of an angle to the window to reveal part
of his face, and one hand lying limply on the wide, maroon-leather arm.
LEANING OVER his desk and smiling humorlessly as he talked, Doc Fogarty