Murder for the Bride by John D. MacDonald

Author:John D. MacDonald [MacDonald, John D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: suspense, intrigue
Publisher: Fawcett Gold Medal
Published: 2012-04-21T15:49:04+00:00

Chapter Eleven

JILL was at her place. I got the outside door open. As I shut it behind me, she swung the wrought-iron door open and came down the hallway toward me. The light was behind her. She wore a loose robe and pajamas.

“At last the wanderer returns from—Dil! What happened? You’re hurt!”

“I ran into a door, they tell me.”

She held tightly to my wrist until I was safely seated in the living room. She said, “You’re cut, too. I’ll get the first-aid kit.”

“What can you do for broken ribs? I seem to have a couple.”

She stared down at me, her head cocked on one side, tapping her chin with a slim finger. She went back through the wrought-iron door to the phone stand, just beyond it. She turned on the hall light and looked at the book, then dialed crisply.

“Jack? Jill Townsend. How about a night call? No, you, big wolf, it isn’t for me. A house guest. With broken ribs, and a cut on his face. Yes, he tripped and fell. Thanks, Jack. See you.”

He arrived in twenty minutes. He was a square-faced guy with tinted bifocals and a cheery look. He tapped Jill under the chin and bustled over to me.

“Off with the shirt, my friend.” I got out of it painfully. He had me stretch out on the couch while he tapped and probed. “Nice clean breaks. There may be some cracked ones, too. I pity you in this hot weather.” He took a big wide roll of tape, and he used it generously.

He put his finger over the area where the breaks were. “Deep breath. That’s it. Any pain? Good. It’ll bother you trying to get to sleep.”

He washed the cut on my face with antiseptic solution and applied a small bandage.

“Warm weather to fall off roofs, my friend.”

“Thanks so much for coming over, Jack,” Jill said. “What do we owe you?”

“Ten ought to do it. Want me to bill you?”

I dug out ten and handed it to him. He turned to Jill. “Give him a couple of those sleeping pills of yours, if you’ve got any left, honey. You said he’s a house guest?”

“That’s right.”

Dr. Jack looked hard at me. “Behave, my friend. You’re staying with my girl.”

“Want me to tell Josie about this, Jack?”

He winked at her. “I tell her every day. I keep saying, ‘Honey, why don’t you divorce me so I can marry that Townsend wench?’ But she knows a good thing when she’s got it. She won’t let me go, not after getting me all housebroke.”

“Time for a drink, Jack?” Jill asked.

“No. I got to go roll a few pills. If you have trouble, my friend, stop in at the office.”

He bustled out. Jill walked him down the hall to the door. I heard the low murmur of their voices. I worked my way back into the shirt with certain difficulty.

She came back. “Like him? I think he’s very special. How about a nightcap and some more conversation, Dil?”

She brought me Scotch on the rocks.

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