“Hello, Mr. Porter,” said Jeremiah. “Did Mr. Wendstrom apologize?”
“Apologize?” Mr. Porter said. Jeremiah could not help but notice that he was missing his left eyebrow, which otherwise would have joined the right one in arching in horror.
“Are you all right, Mr. Porter?”
“I killed him,” said Mr. Porter. “And now his ghost will haunt me forever.”
Jeremiah sat up and clutched the edge of his desk. Could this be it? With all the other disasters on his plate, Jeremiah had practically forgotten about the murder mystery. But now, after all the blind alleys and dead ends, had Boyle’s murderer just shown up on his doorstep to make a free and unforced confession? Which confession, by the way—after a promising start—seemed to have stalled. Mr. Porter was now sitting silently, watching Jeremiah, as if he expected something from him before continuing.
“I’m sure it was an accident,” said Jeremiah, just as he had heard countless detectives on CrimeHunters do.
“Yes,” Mr. Porter said, “an accident!”
“You didn’t mean to kill him.”
“Of course not—I only wanted to scare him.”
“Exactly. Anyone would understand that. And who could blame you?”
“No one,” said Mr. Porter breathlessly, as if the absolution Jeremiah was pouring on his head had shocked him like cold water. “No one could blame me.”
“After what he put you through.”
“Yes, yes! What he put me through!”
“And the way he walked around with that sour attitude and hostile air.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Porter, with perhaps a hair less of his former conviction.
“Always saying those unpleasant things.”
“Well, yes—but more to the point, cheating me at backgammon, every single day for two years!”
Fixing a game of chance was not the motive that Jeremiah had been expecting for Boyle’s murder, but—like the detectives on CrimeHunters—he would take whatever motive he could get. Except this particular motive rung a bell in Jeremiah’s mind, as if the writers on CrimeHunters—feeling the pressure of a relentless production schedule—had recycled a plot point from an earlier season.
“But wait,” he said, “like Mr. Wendstrom did?”
“What do you mean ‘like’ Wendstrom?” asked Mr. Porter.
“I mean, Mr. Boyle cheated you at backgammon too, just like Mr. Wendstrom did?”
“What does Boyle have to do with anything? It’s Wendstrom I’m talking about.”
“You killed Mr. Wendstrom?” said Jeremiah.
His head was swimming now. Lines that should have been straight did not look straight.
“I did, God help me,” said Mr. Porter, dropping his head into his hands and choking out the words, “and now his ghost will haunt me forever.”
“We have to call Battle,” Jeremiah said, thinking out loud.
“The security officer? Do we really?”
“Of course—a man is dead.”
“But just a moment ago you said anyone would understand,” said Mr. Porter.
“That was when I thought you had killed someone else,” Jeremiah said, “and I was trying to trick you into telling me how and why. Like detectives on CrimeHunters do.”
“Oh,” said Mr. Porter. He seemed to be taking it well.
“Wait,” Jeremiah said, “speaking of that, how did you kill Mr. Wendstrom?”
“What do you mean how? By threatening to spoil the end of those idiotic books.”
“How could that kill anyone?”
“Now you’re just trying to trap me again,” Mr. Porter said. “To cajole me into confessing. You’re using your interrogator’s bag of tricks!”
“How can I trick you into confessing when you’ve already confessed?”
After a moment of sucking his teeth, Mr. Porter conceded the logic of this point.
“I suppose I drove him to suicide,” he said finally.
“So you didn’t actually put the dagger in his heart?”
“Well,” said Mr. Porter, “metaphorically…”
“Yes, yes, you subjected him to a veritable arsenal of metaphorical daggers, bullets, and nooses—but how many literal, physical daggers, bullets, and nooses were involved?”
“Well, now that you put it that way—none.”
Relief flooded Jeremiah’s heart.
“Thank goodness,” he said. “I mean, poor Wendstrom, of course—it’s a tragedy. But you can set your mind at ease, Mr. Porter. No one—and certainly no court of law—could blame you for his death. You will need to tell me where you found his body, though, so we can alert Battle and the security team.”
“I have no idea,” said Mr. Porter. “I haven’t seen his body.”
“Then how do you know he’s dead?”
“Have you been listening to a word I’ve said?” shouted Mr. Porter, leaping from his seat in agitation. “I’ve seen his ghost! I was rehearsing my act for the talent show and he came in and pointed a finger at me, accusing me—a judgment from the Other Side. He scared the life half out of me—I stumbled and singed my face, and by the time I’d recovered he was gone.”
A moment ago, Jeremiah had thought he’d known what relief was. Now he understood how relief actually felt, how sweet it actually was, as if he had sipped grape juice before being served a glass of Bordeaux. It was hard work not to smile.
“Mr. Porter,” he said, “Mr. Wendstrom isn’t dead. Everything is fine. You’ve had a nightmare, or accidentally overdosed on one of your medications, and you’ve hallucinated something terrifying. But that’s all. It wasn’t real. Come with me and I’ll prove it to you.”
“Where are we going?”
“To Mr. Wendstrom’s room.”
“Are you insane?” Mr. Porter shrank back from Jeremiah, as if the latter had been about to take his hand. “That’s where his spiritual presence is bound to be the strongest.”
“Trust me. We’ll knock on his door and he’ll answer and you’ll have a chance to tell him you’ve never even read Crowns on Fire—and to let him apologize to you for cheating at backgammon.”
Not to mention that Jeremiah would buy himself another stay of execution for having failed to find Carolus the Bold.
Mr. Porter did not look completely convinced, but he did at least seem to be hoping that he had hallucinated his spectral encounter, and eventually Jeremiah managed to cajole and borderline threaten him out of the office and through the hallways towards Mr. Wendstrom’s room, pausing only for the occasional crying jag or sink-to-his-knees meltdown.
“You hear that?” Jeremiah said when they were close enough that Frank Sinatra was audible in the distance. “That’s from Mr. Wendstrom’s room. Do you think he would be playing music if he weren’t alive?”
Mr. Porter grunted and shivered in response. He had stopped resembling a drunk whose emotions were having a bit of a field day and started to resemble a man who’d just been informed in rapid succession that he had a month left to live, that it was February, and not a leap year. Jeremiah continued to prop him up as best he could, both physically and morally, but he could not entirely keep an edge of impatience from his assertions that everything either was all right or would be. Was this really a man who performed with open flame?
Mr. Porter’s nerves collapsed entirely a few yards from Mr. Wendstrom’s room, his legs following suit in short order, and Jeremiah—having decided that tough love was the new order of the day—left him there and walked up to the door.
“Mr. Wendstrom! It’s me, Jeremiah.”
He smiled at Mr. Porter in what he hoped was a calm and soothing manner.
Fly Me to the Moon ended and looped without any sign of life emanating from the room.
“Mr. Wendstrom!” Jeremiah shouted even louder. “I’m here with Mr. Porter—and we have good news. Can you open the door, please?”
“He can’t open the door,” said Mr. Porter, “because he’s dead!” He began to writhe in horror and regr
et, moaning soft but pointed questions to the almighty about what he had done and what he would do now.
Jeremiah was considering leading Mr. Porter away at this point—or trying to—when he remembered the keycard he’d coded for Mr. Wendstrom’s room, and which he still had in his pocket.
He took it out and brushed it over the access panel, then braced himself as the door opened and the sonic ghost of Frank Sinatra nearly knocked him backwards. Jeremiah covered his ears, gritted his teeth, and entered the room, closing the door behind him for Mr. Porter’s psychological and aural benefit.
Two things Jeremiah could not find after a quick search of the entire cabin: the PED to switch off the music, and any sign whatsoever of Mr. Wendstrom. So, after one last check behind the shower curtain and under the bed, Jeremiah fled the acoustic torture of the room for the mere acoustic discomfort of the hall.
“Well?” said Mr. Porter, looking up with trembling lips.
“Mr. Wendstrom is fine,” said Jeremiah. “He’s very glad to hear that you aren’t actually going to spoil Crowns on Fire for him, and he asked me to apologize on his behalf for his ungentlemanly behavior at the backgammon table.”
“Why doesn’t he come out to apologize himself?” asked Mr. Porter.
“He feels too bad about how he acted. Plus he just got out of the shower. Also, he’s not feeling well physically. Quite healthy, though. Just not feeling well. At all.”
“Why isn’t he turning off the music?”
“You know, I asked him the exact same thing.”
“What did he say?”
“He said…”
“Yes?” said Mr. Porter, his eyes widening in expectation and then narrowing in suspicion. The lower lip was trembling again.
“He said that he likes it like this. Can you believe that? I mean, can you?”
“Yes,” Mr. Porter said after a few seconds of earnest thought. He broke into a smile. “Crazy old Bernie. Yes, I can.”
“Me neither,” said Jeremiah. “But to each his own. Now why don’t we take a walk down to the infirmary and get that eyebrow looked at? And then I have to make an urgent visit to a—”
Jeremiah groped for a description of The Specimen he could feel comfortable with.
“—friend of a friend.”
22
Better Pockets
Still Friday (2 days until arrival)
“Battle,” said Jeremiah, “thank goodness I caught you.”
“What’s going on, Brown? I’m late for something.”
“Bernie Wendstrom has gone missing,” said Jeremiah.
“We’re on a ship in the middle of outer space, Brown. People don’t go missing.”
“He’s not in his room.”
“Then he’s somewhere else.”
“He’s in a disturbed state of mind, Battle. I don’t think he’s well.”
“And you know this how?”
“Because Mr. Porter—”
“What about him?”
“Mr. Porter swears he saw Bernie Wendstrom’s ghost.”
“Get the hell out of here, Brown. I don’t have time for this.”
“I just want you to check the door logs,” said Jeremiah, “like you did before, to see where Mr. Wendstrom might have gone.”
“And I just want the last 30 seconds of my life back. Neither one of us is going to end up satisfied.”
“Wait,” said Jeremiah, and—surprising even himself—reached out to grab Battle’s arm. As he did so, something fell out of his pocket and skittered softly across the ground.
At first Jeremiah was glad, as the sound had distracted The Specimen from deploying his carefully honed response to having his arm grabbed—which might have left Jeremiah eating through a straw for the rest of his life—and instead inspired him to turn his rage-filled eyes to the floor. As those eyes turned back, however, full of suspicion, Jeremiah’s gladness diminished somewhat.
“What is that?” said The Specimen. He broke his arm free from Jeremiah’s grasp and pointed to the Aunt Mildred’s Organic Iguana Treat that had come to rest between them. The sickly-sweet odor rose to Jeremiah’s nostrils, and Jeremiah could see in The Specimen’s face just how much sweeter it must smell to him, redolent with the possibility of busting Jeremiah for possession and—as he had been unable to do in Jack’s case—finally christening the brig with its first drug-related bust.
“Nothing,” Jeremiah said. “Just a…” To buy some time, Jeremiah raised his fist to his mouth and hacked a few times, which inspired him. “…cough drop.”
Under The Specimen’s watchful gaze, Jeremiah stooped to retrieve the treat. He popped it into his mouth, and then—in what was perhaps the greatest feat of will in his young life to date—managed not to spit it out. Jeremiah had never fancied himself as having a particularly sensitive palate, but he could have taken a decent guess at Aunt Mildred’s secret recipe: clear cut an acre of organic jungle, blend well the trimmings, mold into pellets and cure for a minimum of two years in a dank cave, directly beneath the sleeping place of a colony of bats with adventurous tastes in fruits and insects. Finish by smoking delicately above a low fire of the cheapest grade of Marya Jana commercially available, then salt and pepper to taste.
“Mmmm,” he said. “Soothing.” As he spoke, the iguana treat began to melt on his tongue into what felt like dry leaves and twigs suspended in a Jell-O mold. It was impossible to hold it in his mouth any longer—he either had to swallow or spit it out. He swallowed.
“Well,” said Jeremiah, and The Specimen wrinkled his nose at his breath, “I won’t keep you any longer. I’m late for a lunch appointment myself anyway.”
* * *
As Jeremiah hurried to the cafeteria to meet Katherine, he experienced a series of peculiar sensations: first a spreading warmth in his stomach, which might have been pleasant if occasioned by a brandy; then a tingling in his extremities, as if after a day spent in the snow he were warming them by a fire; and finally a feeling of unbearable lightness in his head and a fisheye lens effect warping his vision. Balance was a bit trickier than usual, and when he reached out to steady himself by trailing his fingers against the wall, he felt the texture of the brushed metal with an amazing intensity.
With each step the effects intensified, and by the time he reached the cafeteria Jeremiah had come to three vague conclusions: one, he was having some sort of out-of-body experience, apparently brought on by ingestion of one of Aunt Mildred’s Organic Iguana Treats; two, this was cause for concern; three, he was not concerned—which concerned him.
Katherine was sitting alone at her table in the back corner, but even in his altered state Jeremiah picked her out immediately, as if the rest of the room had been dark and a single spotlight trained directly on her. He waved unsteadily; she waved in return. He smiled; she smiled back—a little guardedly, but she smiled.
Then, as Jeremiah approached, Katherine’s brow furrowed—she appeared confused. Just in case she was confused about how happy he was to see her, Jeremiah smiled wider. Her own mouth straightened. Just in case she thought he had been shooing a fly, Jeremiah waved again, harder. Katherine folded her arms in front of her chest. At this point the situation seemed to call not for more desperate action, but sober reflection and review. Had his head actually swollen to the dimensions that he felt it? Were his fingers sparking and smoking? Were his eyes popping out of his head? Was he floating towards her instead of walking?
As he skimmed down this checklist of possible causes for Katherine’s consternation, Jeremiah sensed something moving from the dark wings of his attention into the spotlight that still shone on Katherine, blocking the line of sight to her that he had enjoyed. Someone had stepped in front of him.
“The blue ones are allergy pills,” said Kimberly. “The white ones are ginkgo leaf supplements. The pink ones are for acid reflux. One red is for sinus pressure, the other for dry eyes. Oh, and the yellow one is a mild sleep aid. Ready?”
That one word multiplied the effect of the
iguana treat like a bottle of bourbon chasing a pharmacy’s worth of sleeping pills. Jeremiah experienced a kind of reverse zoom shot that left his head spinning and his stomach feeling as if he’d swallowed a live octopus. He looked around in a panic at the tables where other workers were seated, picking at their whipped ham mousses. Kimberly had met him right in the center of the room, in the precise spot where toasts would have been proposed to any couple unfortunate enough to book the E4’s cafeteria for their rehearsal dinner.
“No,” Jeremiah mouthed, suddenly unable to produce sound. “Wait.”
Kimberly sensed his reluctance and smiled indulgently. In a preview of what their married life might have been like, she gently, almost affectionately, kicked his right leg out from under him. She did it in the same spirit as, after 20 years of wedded bliss, she might have taken away his ice cream and chided him about his cholesterol.
Jeremiah fell hard to his right knee, reaching out reflexively for support to Kimberly, who took the opportunity to demonstrate her considerable talent as a reverse pickpocket. Jeremiah had not even felt the arrival of the ring he now held, proffered, in his right hand. He could no longer swear to it that this was not a bad dream.
The cafeteria at large had begun to take notice of what was transpiring—people were looking over and nudging each other. Some of those who were shorter or farther away had stood up. Jeremiah saw one woman clasping her hands in front of her mouth and one man fighting tears. The current of the moment was so strong, and Jeremiah’s state so altered, that he himself felt a swell of pride at the size and quality of the diamond he was tendering to Kimberly—so obviously dearer than two months of salary, or even two years in his case. It looked as big as his head felt.
“Oh,” gasped Kimberly, once she was sure she had the attention of the room, and especially one very particular person in it. “Oh, Jeremiah, this is so unexpected!”
She left a space, in case Jeremiah felt like adding a touch or two of his own, but holding the ring without falling over represented the absolute limit of his abilities. He did manage to move his mouth a bit more.
World Enough (And Time) Page 24
