Nervous Water

by William G. Tapply

  “That’s right.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “I thought you were Cassandra’s cousin.”

  “I am that, too.”

  “You’re the one who called last night.”

  “I did, yes.”

  “Cassandra isn’t back yet,” he said. “I know I told you I’d give her your message.”

  “That you did,” I said.

  “You don’t believe me? Is that why you decided you had to show up here unannounced?”

  “I don’t know you well enough to believe you or not believe you,” I said. “Where’s Cassie?”

  “She’s not here.”

  “When do you expect her?”

  “Look,” he said. “I told you I’d deliver your message.”

  “When?”

  “When she gets back.”

  “When will that be?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Can you tell me where she is?”

  “No.”

  “Can’t,” I said, “or won’t?”

  He pulled his head back and narrowed his eyes. “Look,” he said, “maybe if you told me what was so urgent….”

  “It’s private,” I said. “Family business.”

  “I’m her husband,” he said. “That, I believe, makes me her family. If there’s some legal matter…”

  I jerked my thumb over my shoulder. “Is that Cassie’s Saab, by any chance?”

  “So?”

  “So where’d she go without her car?”

  He folded his arms across his chest. “I will not stand here and be interrogated,” he said. “I don’t appreciate your tone, sir, lawyer or cousin or whatever you are. I said I’d give my wife your message, and I will do that, and now I’d appreciate it if you’d leave.”

  “I need to know what’s happened to Cassie,” I said.

  “Nothing’s happened to her.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t believe that.”

  He took a step closer to me. “I will not put up with this—this harassment,” he said. “Now, please—”

  Suddenly another man shouldered Hurley aside and jutted his face close to mine. “You deaf or something?” he said to me.

  “James,” said Hurley. “Let me—”

  James put his hand on my chest and gave me a shove. I staggered back against the wall.

  He stepped forward, grabbed the front of my shirt, and showed me his fist. “My father asked you to leave,” he growled. He was a big, strong, good-looking guy in his twenties. He wore a sleeveless T-shirt and blue jeans and work boots. “So get the fuck out of here.”

  I held his eyes with mine. “How much trouble do you want?”

  “You don’t scare me.”

  I smiled. “Okay. Punch me, then.”

  Hurley put his hand on James’s shoulder. “James,” he said, “for Christ’s sake.”

  James turned and looked at him. “You going to put up with this guy’s bullshit?”

  “I don’t need your help,” he said.

  “Yeah? Since when?”

  “He was just leaving,” said Hurley. “Let go of him.”

  James hesitated, then let go of my shirt and dropped his fist. He glared at me for a minute, then turned and disappeared into the house.

  Hurley looked at me. “I apologize for my son.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said.

  “Now,” he said, “will you please leave.”

  “Sure. I’m on my way.” I fumbled a business card from my pocket and held it out to him. “Would you give this to Cassie when you see her, ask her to call me? Or if you hear from her, tell her I need to—”

  “Yes, okay,” he said quickly. He took the card and stuck it in his pocket without looking at it. “Good-bye, Mr. Coyne.”

  “I had a root canal once,” I said. “It wasn’t half as bad as I’d expected. I swear the sonofabitch who did it was disappointed I didn’t suffer more.”

  “Must I call the police?”

  I held up a hand. “I’m leaving. I appreciate your family’s hospitality.”

  I got into my car and pulled out of the driveway, and I had just started back up the hill when an elderly man with two dogs on leashes stepped into the middle of the road. One dog was an enormous Irish wolfhound. The other was a little cocker spaniel. If the wolfhound stood on its hind legs, it would’ve towered over the man. The cocker came up to his shins. It was a Mutt-and-Jeff pair of dogs.

  The man held up his hand like a traffic cop.

  I stopped, and he hobbled around to the side of my car. He moved creakily, as if his joints were stiff and painful.

  In a conversational tone, he said, “Sit, fellas.”

  Both dogs instantly sat.

  The man was wearing a shapeless canvas hat with a crimson band, and when he took it off to wipe his brow on his sleeve, I saw that his head was entirely hairless. I guessed he was close to eighty.

  He bent to my window. “This is a one-way street, my friend. You’re going the wrong way.”

  I laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding. A one-way street in Madison?”

  He moved his hand from side to side, indicating the narrowness of the street. “On account of the school,” he said. “As you can see, it’s barely wide enough for a school bus. The question was hotly debated at a town meeting a couple years back. Most controversy we’ve had in this town since they voted to ban spraying for mosquitoes. One of these days I suppose they’ll get around to putting up better signs. There’s one down at the end, and another on the way in. When that big maple leafs out, it covers it up. Most people don’t notice it. The town fathers and mothers, I guess they figure nobody but local residents would have any reason to travel on Church Street in the first place, and it’s their responsibility as taxpaying citizens to know the rules.”

  “Well,” I said, “thanks for the heads-up.”

  “They’d give you a ticket in a heartbeat.” He grinned. “Going the wrong way on our only one-way street? That’s a major crime here in Madison.”

  I smiled. “You’ve lived here a long time?”

  “Thirty-two years,” he said. “Myself, I’m ready for that condo in Myrtle Beach. These New England winters are getting to me. But the missus, she likes her church and her flower gardens and her bridge club.” He pointed to the house next door to Hurley’s. “That’s my place.”

  Through a screen of trees I saw a two-story farmhouse structure with a wraparound porch and a well-kept yard featuring a lot of stonework and rambling flower beds.

  “Nice place,” I said. “You know the Hurleys, then.”

  He shrugged. “Good fences make good neighbors, if you catch my drift.”

  “Robert Frost,” I said.

  “Howard Litchfield, too,” he said. He jabbed his thumb at his chest. “That’s me.”

  I stuck my hand out the car window. “I’m Brady Coyne. You saved me a motor vehicle violation.”

  He shook my hand. “Police stop you, you just tell them, hey, I was driving one way.” He chuckled.

  “I was hoping to see my cousin,” I said. “Cassandra. Cassie. Mrs. Hurley. I haven’t seen her in a long time. Her husband said she wasn’t home?” I made it a question.

  Howard Litchfield shrugged. “I haven’t seen Mrs. Hurley around for a while.”

  “For how long?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Don’t recall the last time. Didn’t notice.”

  “To tell you the truth,” I said, “I’m kind of worried about her.”

  “You best talk to her husband, I guess.”

  “I just did.”

  He glanced at Hurley’s house, then tilted his head and squinted at me. “Well, I’m sure he knows more about it than I do.” He bent down and said something to his dogs, then straightened up and slapped the roof of my car. “We’ve got to be on our way. You drive safe, sir.”

  I backed into Hurley’s driveway, turned, and headed out the right way on Church Street. In my rearview mirror I saw that Howard Litchfield was standing in
the middle of the road watching me. His two dogs, the giant and the midget, were still sitting beside him.

  I reached out the window and waved my hand. In the mirror I saw him raise his.

  I wondered what he wasn’t telling me.

  “I think you were right,” I said to Evie that night. We were sitting up in bed reading.

  “Of course I was,” she said. “I’m always right. What was I right about this time?”

  “Hurley’s lying. Something’s going on with Cassie. She’s gone, but her car’s in the driveway covered with pollen, as if it’s been sitting there for a month. The mailbox of her cell phone is filled up with messages. The damn dentist was evasive, and his son attacked me. The next-door neighbor knows something more than he’s saying.”

  Evie laid her copy of Smithsonian magazine facedown on her lap, took off her reading glasses, yawned, and rubbed her eyes. “Attacked you?”

  I shrugged. “I handled it.”

  “Of course you did.” She smiled. “So what’re you thinking?”

  “I don’t have any theories,” I said, “if that’s what you mean. Those people are hiding something, though. I’m sure of it. But mainly, I guess I’m thinking about Uncle Moze. He’s worried about Cassie, and now I am, too. I’m worried that something has happened to her. And I’m especially worried about Moze, of course. This is eating him up, poor old guy. I’ve got to try to figure out what’s going on.”

  She leaned her head against my shoulder. “Gonna go snooping, huh?”

  “I guess I already started.”

  Five

  Things slow down a bit in the law business in the summer. Or at least they do in my law business. Clients go on vacation. So do judges and other lawyers. For some reason, people are less inclined to file lawsuits or initiate divorce proceedings in July and August.

  So in my office, which is, after all, a two-person office, just me-the-attorney and Julie-the-secretary/boss, we take Monday mornings and Friday afternoons off in the weeks between Independence Day and Labor Day. We arrive after lunch on Mondays and leave around lunchtime on Fridays, and nobody except us seems to notice.

  Unfortunately, Evie didn’t have the same deal at the hospital, so truly long weekends rarely materialized for us. That didn’t stop me from taking the time off, nor did it make me feel the slightest bit guilty.

  On that particular Monday morning, after a weekend devoted to Uncle Moze, I had some office work to catch up on. A few phone calls. Some paperwork Julie had slipped into my briefcase on Friday before I could make a clean escape. Nothing very challenging.

  A little before noon, Henry and I went out to the kitchen, where, under his watchful supervision, I made a ham-and-Swiss-cheese sandwich with spicy mustard on pumpernickel, fished a dill pickle from the jar, added a handful of potato chips, and poured a glass of iced coffee.

  I ate at the picnic table out in the garden so I could watch the chickadees and look at the flowers. A couple times I accidentally dropped a hunk of sandwich and a few chips on the ground, which Henry devoured. He seemed to like the spicy mustard, but after a tentative lick, he snubbed the bite of pickle I offered him.

  I drank all the iced coffee myself. Caffeine keeps dogs up at night.

  We had just gone back inside when the phone rang.

  I guessed it was Evie, calling to tell me she loved me and to discuss options for dinner.

  When I said hello, a woman’s voice—not Evie’s—said, “Have I got Mr. Brady Coyne?”

  “Yes. This is Brady.”

  “You’re Moses Crandall’s nephew?”

  “I am. Who’s this?”

  “Helen Meadows is my name. I’m your uncle’s neighbor. Moses. Moses Crandall.”

  “Is something wrong? Is Moze all right?”

  “Well, sir, I’m afraid they took him to the hospital this morning, and I ain’t so sure how he’s doing. Still alive, I believe. He’s a tough old cuss.”

  “What happened, Miz Meadows?”

  “It’s Helen, young man.” She paused. I heard her blow out a breath. “You see,” she said, “Moze and me, we’re both old-timers, and we kind of look after each other. He calls me at eight o’clock every night, just to see how I’m doing, and I call him, six thirty every single mornin’ of the year, same thing. So today when I call he don’t answer. I don’t think too much of that. Figure he’s probably in the bathroom. But when I call again fifteen minutes later, he still don’t answer. Now I’m worried. He knows I’m going to call. We been doing it for years, and he always answers. So I go over to his house. That was our deal. If one of us don’t answer the phone, it means something’s wrong. When I get there I find him sprawled out on the floor wearin’ his pajamas and lookin’ pretty much like a goner. All grayish and still and clammy, breathing so soft and slow you can’t see his chest move. So I call that 911 number, and the ambulance comes, and they work on him for a while, and then they take him off to the hospital with their sirens screaming, and when I get my wits about me, I remember how just yesterday he was talkin’ about you, how you’re helpin’ him out with Cassie and all, and I didn’t know who else to tell, but I figured somebody ought to know—family, I mean—so I looked up your number in his book, and here I am, tellin’ you about it.”

  Helen Meadows paused. We both needed to catch a breath. “Moze,” she said after a minute, “he can be terrible crabby sometimes, but he’s a dear old bugger, and I don’t know what I’d do if I lost him.” She cleared her throat, and I guessed she was crying. “Anyways, I figured you’d want to know. You being family and all. Moze thinks the world of you, you know.”

  “I think the world of him, too,” I said. “So where is he?”

  “Pardon?”

  “What hospital?”

  “Maine Medical, up to Portland. Don’t know why they took him there. The Portsmouth hospital’s closer, but that’s what they did.”

  Portland was a little under two hours from Beacon Hill, if the traffic was light. “So,” I said, “how are you doing, Helen?”

  “Me?” She hesitated. “I’m doin’ how you’d expect, I s’pose, thank you kindly for asking. I’m scared, is how I’m doing. I tried calling the hospital, but they won’t tell me nothing.” She sighed. “You get old, you start losing your friends. Moze is my best friend. I don’t want to lose him. It’d be awful lonely around here without him, I’ll tell you that.”

  “I’ll check up on him, find out how he’s doing,” I said. “Why don’t you give me your number and I’ll keep you posted.”

  “God bless you.”

  She recited a phone number, which I wrote down.

  After I hung up with Helen Meadows, I called information and got the main number for the Maine Medical Center in Portland. I called it, asked to be connected to the emergency room, which I eventually was, and they redirected me to intensive care. I said I was calling for information on a recently admitted patient, Moses Crandall, who was my uncle, and an apologetic-sounding woman told me they weren’t allowed to give out patient information over the telephone.

  “Can you at least tell me if Mr. Crandall is still alive?” I said.

  “You’re his nephew, you say?”

  “That’s right. Also his lawyer.”

  “Lawyer, eh?” She chuckled. “Okay. I’m scared.”

  “I didn’t mean anything like that,” I said.

  “Oh, I guess you probably did.” She hesitated. “All I can tell you, sir, lawyer or nephew or president of the United States, is that Mr. Crandall is here in intensive care.”

  “He is alive, then.”

  “I can’t tell you anything else,” she said. “Hospital policy. Sue us. You won’t be the first one.” She hesitated. “It may interest you to know, however, that it’s against regulations to store dead bodies in the intensive care unit.”

  I smiled. “Thank you. We’ll have to see about that lawsuit. Can I visit him?”

  “Only family.”

  “Good,” I said.

  I called Juli
e, who’d already arrived at the office, and told her to go home, take the rest of the day off, because I wasn’t coming in. She asked what was up, and I told her that I was going to visit my uncle in the hospital in Maine and that I’d tell her all about it.

  She said she’d be happy to take the rest of the day off, though it would’ve been considerate if I’d mentioned it before she got dressed and drove into the city.

  I said I was sorry, and if it would make her feel better, she could stay in the office until five.

  She said thank you just the same. She hoped my uncle would be all right.

  Then I snapped my fingers at Henry, who was curled up under the kitchen table. He scrambled to his feet, his toenails clacking on the tile floor, and plopped his chin on my knee so I could scratch his forehead.

  “I’m off to Maine,” I said to him. “You’re going to have to stay here. Bark at that UPS guy. Lick Evie’s face when she comes home.”

  Henry gazed at me out of those intelligent brown eyes of his, and there was no doubt he understood every word I said.

  I called Evie’s office. Gina, her secretary, said she was still off at a meeting, wasn’t sure when she’d be out, but anyway, after that she had another meeting that it looked like she’d be late for, so could she take a message?

  “Tell her my uncle’s in the hospital,” I said, “and I’m driving up to Portland to see him. Not sure when I’ll be home. Tell her I’ll have my cell with me. Tell her I love her.”

  “Is your uncle all right?”

  “He’s in intensive care. That’s all I know. I don’t know what happened to him.”

  “I hope he’s gonna be okay,” said Gina.

  I found my cell phone in the bottom drawer of my desk. Evie had given it to me after I’d been very late getting home one night and had been unable to find a pay phone. She’d been worried, then angry, then frantic, and neither of us enjoyed that. I’d promised to carry it with me, but I was having trouble getting in the habit after resisting the idea of cell phones for all those years. If I didn’t watch out, the next thing I knew I’d find myself standing in a trout stream casting to a rising trout with one hand and talking to a client on the damn phone with the other hand.

  The image made me shudder.