Four of a kind, p.21
Four of a Kind, page 21
We came to an edge of the cloud path beyond which was an enormous field of flawless grass, each individual blade a perfect emerald green. Socrates and Nietzsche were playing badminton. I was kind of worried Spiff might poop on God’s lawn, but Spiff, guided by some higher power, didn’t seem to be interested in even watering the grass.
God tried a different tack. We are, to him, like fish in a tank. He put the fish in the tank, but then he just watches them, not interfering in their natural order.
“But doesn’t the person who owns the fish tank want the fish to live? Doesn’t he have an interest in keeping the fish from killing each other?”
God sighed. I think I was trying his patience. This is all, he said, part of a greater plan.
“Ah,” I replied, “the old greater plan gambit. Probably one I wouldn’t understand even if you told it to me.”
“Probably not,” he agreed.
“I imagine that’s the same thing Ken Lay told his employees at Enron. You can’t understand why I’ve taken seven hundred and sixty million dollars from the company and put it into my own bank account, but trust me, it’s part of a greater plan. Incidentally, that whole Enron thing is another bit of needless suffering you let slip by.”
God frowned at me. Let me tell you, that was not a great feeling.
“I know, I know. More of the whole greater plan thing.” I shrugged.
At that moment Nietzsche hit a vicious overhead slam that Socrates whiffled his racket at ineffectually, the birdie striking him directly in the forehead.
“Good shot, Frederick!” I called out to him. The two men looked at me like I had let my dog tinkle on God’s sandals. They eventually continued the game without comment.
I turned back to God. “OK, forget it. We’ll just have to agree to disagree on that one. I have a different question. The bible talks about how you created the world in six days, and with the calendar of events it seems like the world is only about six thousand years old, and yet we have archaeology and strata studies which indicate it is a hell,” I paused, amended myself, “heck of a lot older than that.”
“Oh, that,” he laughed, “I fake it.”
The quality of the light changed over me, taking on a bluish tint. I was lying on my back on the cloud floor. My neck hurt. The leash was gone from my hand. The shadow of God loomed over me.
“You fake it?” I asked the shadow.
“What?” the shadow replied.
A second shadow moved the first aside. “Jack? Honey, can you hear me? Can you feel this?” There was pressure on my hand, something squeezing. I thought maybe I could return the squeeze, but it just didn’t seem important that I do so in the grand scheme of things, so I decided not to. Then because of some odd reflex, like an infant grasping an adult’s finger, I did anyway.
“Oh, Jack!” the shadow cried. It came rapidly closer, became focused. Valerie, face taut, eyes red, cheeks streaked with tears, full blown Maybelline nightmare. She came closer still, blurred back into an indistinct shape and passed to my left, burying her face in my neck, sobbing.
“Holy crap, Jack!” John’s face entered the frame, mostly in focus. “I’m glad as hell you didn’t die on my watch. People are going to talk about this one in fire stations across the country for the next hundred years!”
“What happened?” That little bit was harder to get out then I thought it would be. My ribs felt tired. My lungs felt achy. My head felt achy, along with my back, my neck, my shoulders. It would probably be easier to list the things that didn’t hurt which at that moment seemed to be only three of the toes on my left foot.
“Russell came out and said you had fallen into the basement. We tried to get a crew down in there, but –“
“Russell said?”
“Yeah, he came out covered in soot with a cracked facemask. We tried to get to you, three different crews. No one could get near it. Then it was like the whole building just imploded and fell into the basement. We were sure you were dead!”
“Then how did you find me?”
“Your flashlight!”
I had only dim memories of doing something with my flashlight after the building fell.
“We saw the light, and every guy on the scene jumped into the cellar hole, digging in the sludge and hot coals with shovels and rakes and their hands until we pulled you out of there.”
I could almost see it, feel the pride of teamwork humming through his voice. They had jumped into hell and pulled me out of there alive. I had no recollection of it at all. I must have run out of air before they got to me. Was there any damage? I did a quick mental inventory and everything seemed to be in place, but would I even notice the gaps? If the single brain cell in my head that had understood quantum mechanics had died, how long would it take me to find out? Would I even care?
I lifted an arm from the sheet, noticing for the first time the IV stuck into the back of my hand. I let my arm rest across Valerie and patted her on the back. She burst into a fresh round of wracking sobs.
“Where’s Russell now?”
“We don’t know. He-”
The door to the room swung open and Bobby leaned his head in. “I heard voices. Is Jack conscious? I have some questions for him.”
“You’re not coming in here. He needs rest.” A woman standing next to the bed spoke for the first time. She had olive skin, dark eyes, Mediterranean features, her hair bunched up under surgical cap with one thick lustrous curl of mahogany hair spilled out hanging to her shoulder. A stethoscope hung over her neck. She wore scrub greens with a blue rectangular nametag pinned to the chest over her heart that read “Teresa Millar M.D.” in small white letters.
He came into the room, the door closing behind him. “Sorry, doctor, but they can’t wait.”
“There are about two hundred people out in the corridor hoping for an update,” John said. “I’ll go out and tell them you’re back among the living.” He patted me on the shoulder, which unexpectedly sent a small twinge of pain shooting through my neck.
Two hundred people. Small town living. Hot damn.
“Come on, Valerie. People out there will want to see you too.” He gently disengaged her from me, and led her out. Valerie took one more look over her shoulder at me to make sure I still existed, her sight cut off by the door as it swung closed.
I heard a cheer from outside the room, and halfway expected to them to break into a round of For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow, like we were in the last five minutes of It’s a Wonderful Life.
“I have just a few questions for him, and then I’ll leave, doctor.” Bobby moved into the spot by the side of the bed John had vacated.
The doctor frowned at him. “Five minutes.” She said, and folded her arms across her chest. Casting a lingering and obvious glance at the watch on her wrist, she made it clear she would hold him to it.
Before Bobby could get rolling I interrupted him, “Where’s Russell Burtran?”
“That’s what I wanted to ask you. What happened in there?”
I told Bobby what I knew about Russell and what I suspected, about confronting him in the house on Oak Hill, his confession, and how I ended up in the basement. It took far longer than five minutes, but once I got rolling the doctor became engrossed in the story and was willing to let me run it out. “So where is he now?” I asked again.
“We don’t know. After his apparent change of heart about killing you, he took off as soon as rescue operations began. He stole the fire Chief’s pickup truck from the scene. We haven’t found it yet. He’s not at home, and his car is still at the fire station, so we don’t know where he went. Any ideas?”
I thought about it.
In the silence that followed I could hear a tapping sound. Apparently the doctor’s foot – she had gone back to clock watching.
Why had Russell run away? Did he think I would be rescued? Did he think I was dead? There was no way he could know either way for certain, in which case him running away could only mean one thing.
“I think I know where he went.”
“Where?”
“I’ll show you.” I threw off the covers.
“Uh-uh, no way.” The doctor attempted to pull the covers back over me. “You’re severely dehydrated, and you’ve been through oxygen deprivation. You’re at least mildly anoxic, and we’re going to run some cognitive tests before you can go anywhere.”
“Sorry, doctor, as far as I’ve come with this, I’ve got to see it through to the end.”
I swung my legs out of the bed, startling slightly as my bare feet hit the cold tile floor.
Forty
I made it exactly two steps before I fell over. It started as a slight feeling of lightheadedness that began as soon as I stood up, but almost immediately became a spreading weakness across my shoulders and down my back. I tucked my head and hunched over, determined to power through it, and took my first step. The IV, having reached the end of its length, tore loose. I looked down in surprise at the spreading spot of blood on the back of my hand and took my second step, knowing even as my foot hit the floor that my knee was buckling, that it wouldn’t hold me up. I looked up at Bobby and told him quite clearly I thought I was going to fall over, though later Bobby insisted all I said was something that sounded like “Gah,” and I would have cracked my head open on the floor had he not been there to catch me.
Bobby and the doctor got me back into the bed. The doctor slapped a gauze pad on my hand and reseated the IV, this time in the crook of my elbow.
She leaned over, her face very close to mine. From this distance her eyes, which I thought were very dark brown, actually looked black, like she had giant outsized pupils. “You are going to stay in that bed Mr. Fallon until I tell you otherwise. Is that clear? Or do I need to put restraints on you?”
There was probably a snappy comeback I could have made, something flirty with a hint of sexual innuendo, but I was too busy just trying to keep from passing out, and so simply nodded my head dumbly.
“Good.” She nodded once. “You,” she pointed a finger at Bobby, “out.”
“But he hasn’t told me where Russell is.”
“You had your five minutes. More than that in fact. If you have more questions, come back this evening.”
“But-”
“No buts.” She grabbed a hold of his uniform collar and began pulling him from the room. It looked almost comical because she was at least a foot shorter and more than a hundred pounds lighter than he was, and while simple physics dictated that he could have easily stopped her, he looked nonetheless completely helpless as she hauled him away.
“Where is he, Jack? Do you know?” He called to me as the room door swung closed.
I drew in all the air I could manage, which wasn’t much, to answer him. “Try the cemetery.”
That was it. My head was spinning, a cyclone of water running down the drain, and I was going with it.
“The cemetery.” I muttered again, my head lolling over to one side.
They found the Chief’s truck parked with the keys still in it and the driver’s side door open on the crushed stone roadway that cut through the cemetery.
He had stopped by his house before going there. The police knew this because they later found his abandoned fire gear on the floor in his living room and a lockbox open on the bed in the guest bedroom, only a rag stained with gun oil and a few loose bullets rolling around inside. The .38 revolver registered in his name was missing.
Driving as close to the graves of his son and wife as he could, he had abandoned the truck at that point, and then set off across the cemetery on foot in a straight line, kicking over framed photos and knocking over flower vases on other graves as he went. He had dropped hard to his knees in front of his son’s headstone leaving two deep oval impressions in the earth, put the barrel of the short-nosed .38 revolver in his ear and pulled the trigger.
He left a note, if you could call it that. It was stuffed into one pocket of his jeans, written on a gas receipt in simple block letters with a pen from the center console of the Chief’s truck, and contained only the two words “I’m sorry.”
It wasn’t much of a note, even considering the gas receipt had little clear space for writing and the pen from the console was very nearly out of ink. It didn’t convey the pain and anger of a man whose entire life had collapsed. A man who, unable to lash out at demon fate or an uncaring God or whatever else you wanted to attribute his misfortune, had struck at those he felt were responsible with a violence and bitterness which surprised us all who thought we knew him.
It wasn’t until much later that I learned of this. I was busy playing the role of eyelid inspector for about the next thirty-five hours, and when I finally decided to return to the world of the conscious, it was night. I looked down at the IV in my arm and then followed the slender plastic tube up to the bag on the rack by the headboard. It was empty. Tracing the line of my other arm down to my hand I was surprised to find I held another hand within my own. Valerie had pulled one of the blocky wood-and-vinyl room chairs over next to the bed and fallen asleep in it, legs pulled up underneath her, head tilted at a bad angle against the back of the chair, one hand stretched out and held in mine, the other thrown over the short chair back. It was a position I knew would leave her an achy pretzel in the morning. Moonlight fell though the Venetian blinds and painted lines across her face.
I was just considering waking her when a nurse came in on ninja rubber-soled shoes. She efficiently swapped my empty bag for a full one, then noticed me watching her and leaned in close. I caught the scent of coffee and vanilla.
“Do you need anything?” she whispered.
“I don’t think so.” I whispered back.
She stood up and adjusted the flow valve on the drip, then gave me a little finger wave as she left.
I looked over at Valerie again in the moonlight, tried to put myself in her shoes. How would I feel if I lost her? Just probing the edges of that minefield was more dangerous than I cared to contemplate.
I adjusted my grip on her hand; let my index finger slide down her wrist. I could feel the beat of her pulse through the pad of my fingertip. Don’t let there ever be a day I can’t feel that, I prayed to whatever anthropomorphic God inhabited my philosophy.
Valerie’s eyes fluttered open.
“Jack.”
Pulling her gently towards me, I slid over to one side of the narrow hospital bed. She climbed carefully aboard and snuggled against me, my side basking in her warmth. I felt her breathing hitch as she started to sob.
“Shhh,” I whispered to her “no more tears. I’m here. I’m OK. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”
I meant it too, right down to the core of my soul. But is it a promise any of us can be certain we can keep?
I didn’t get out of the hospital for another four days, and when I finally left I remained as weak as a small kitten. It frustrated me, because while lying in the bed I felt fine, but even trips to the bathroom became an obstacle as onerous as a trek across the Andes, barefoot. Dr. Millar promised me I would get better, though it would take time. We also discussed doing some physical therapy, which brought to mind the possibility I might ultimately end up with some level of disability, which was something I wanted to avoid even thinking about. We left that one hanging in the indefinite future.
While I was there I received a lot of visits from other firefighters, who would sit uncomfortably in the guest chair talking about sports or the weather, check their watches frequently, and often leave after exactly thirty minutes on the dot from the moment they had walked into the hospital room. Just because we’re firefighters doesn’t mean we’re all bosom buddies or anything.
My best friend from graduate school, Steve, called from New York and my sister called from Long Island to make sure I was alright, as did my parents from Florida who offered to come up to see me. I assured them that was not necessary and I was doing fine. Though earnest in their offer I got the feeling they were glad they wouldn’t have to make the trip up from Fort Lauderdale. Snowbirds dislike coming back north before their appointed migration time, almost regardless of the reason.
Once I woke up to find Rachael sitting in the chair beside the bed reading a Grisham paperback. She thanked me for finding her sister’s killer, to which I responded it was more like her killer had found me. She also told me she was going to drop out of college and join the fire academy in Concord. We talked about that for a bit, what little I knew about a career in firefighting. It seemed like she was making an emotional decision rather than a thoughtful one, but I didn’t see it as my place to dissuade her. When I started to doze off she kissed me on the cheek, thanked me again, and left.
Bobby also came by several times to give me updates on the investigation, a gesture I accepted as the olive branch it was intended to be.
Connecting Patricia to Daniel had proved more difficult than he would have thought.
There were never any phone calls between them Bobby could find. If Patricia had ever had an email account, or even a computer, no one knew anything about it. Patricia’s sometimes running partner and neighbor hesitantly identified Daniel from a photograph with a shrug and a maybe. No one at Patricia’s workplace could identify Daniel from the photo; none of the local eateries remembered seeing them together.
Daniel did show up in Beverly Dell’s records, which Tolland released after the death of Russell Burtran. Her notes indicated during sessions that he spoke often of a woman he loved who loved another man, though he never mentioned either Patricia or Michael by name.
There was ample proof of Michael Carston’s involvement with Patricia, including lingerie purchases, flowers, a little jewelry, and numerous matching dates in their respective calendars.
Of course, none of this connected Russell to anything or proved he had murdered anyone.
