by April Henry
“But you killing him won’t solve anything. Think of your daughter. She needs her father with her, not in jail for the next thirty years.”
Kevin stepped back from Tyler and put his face in his hands. Just before he hid it from view, Claire thought she saw a strange, uncertain expression cross Kevin’s face.
Tyler seemed at a loss as to what to do. His gaze went back and forth from his prisoner to his prisoner’s attacker. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to arrest you,” he finally said, but his words were weak and unconvincing. There was a murmur from the crowd. “I’ll ask the judge to go easy on the bail, though. What man wouldn’t go temporarily insane in a case like this?” He turned to the younger policeman. “Mike, take him on back to the police station. I’ll stay here and wait for the ambulance.” Mike opened the back door of the squad car, and an unhandcuffed Kevin got in without even a backward glance for the man who lay, barely breathing, on the sidewalk.
Tyler turned to wave his arm at the two dozen stunned spectators who had watched the savage attack in silence. “And the rest of you - show’s over, folks! Break it up and get out of here!” Now that it was too late, Claire found herself wishing that she had intervened, found a way to stop the lightning quick blows before they had done so much damage. When no one moved, Tyler face began to redden and he yelled even louder, “Go on, get out! Now!” Everyone finally started to walk quietly toward the hotel’s brass doors as the police car let the parking lot.
Her gaze on the fallen man, Claire remained behind. Two years before, she had taken a one-day first-aid class at the Red Cross. Her half-remembered encounter with a rubber Resuci-Annie doll hadn’t prepared her for a much messier reality. On the other hand, she was afraid this guy was going to bleed to death on the sidewalk. Kevin was calling for an ambulance on his cell phone, but would it come in time? Fleetingly thankful that her sports bra was black and sturdy enough to pass for a top, Claire pulled her T-shirt over her head and knelt down. Beneath her knees, the concrete was slick with warm blood.
Looking at the man’s swollen, bloody face, she tried to remember her first aid training. She had a vague memory of the instructor writing down the letters A, B, C, and saying that they were the first priority. Only what did the letters stand for? Airway, bleeding, cardiac? Alimentary, brachial, cuticle? Even if the first three didn’t sound quite right, she decided they were close enough.
Airway. Even though the man’s breaths sounded labored and somehow gravelly, at least he was breathing. And if he was breathing, she figured his heart must still be beating, so that meant she didn’t have to worry about the “C” word. That left bleeding. Turning her attention to the numerous cuts Kevin had opened on the man’s face, Claire dabbed at them tentatively with her T-shirt, trying to decide which needed the most attention.
Only a few seconds had passed, but it felt like hours. Time fell into place again when Rachel Munroe burst out of the hotel’s doors. She was dressed in a damp T-shirt and shorts, and her hair was still in wet curls from the shower. As she shouldered open the door, she was reaching into a satchel, and now she tossed Claire a pair of pale vinyl gloves while slipping on another pair.
“Take off his handcuffs!” Rachel commanded Tyler, while her fingers felt the fallen man’s pulse. Her tone was such that Tyler sprang into action without question. While he fumbled with a set of keys, Rachel ran her hands lightly over the man’s body, stopping every now and then to probe. “Have you called an ambulance?” When Tyler nodded, she barked, “Then get me a blanket. He’s going into shock.” Finally, she turned to Claire while she straightened the man out so that he now lay face up on the sidewalk. “I need you to hold his feet on your lap. I want whatever blood he has left to go flowing back to his brain and heart.” Claire quickly complied.
“Would you mind telling me how you let this happen?” Rachel demanded of Tyler, who had returned with a gray blanket. “How could you let someone attack a defenseless man?” Her voice was surprisingly low and powerful, given her fine-boned, diminutive frame. “Right now I can tell you that at a minimum he’s got a broken nose, a fractured cheekbone, possibly a skull fracture, three or four cracked ribs, and I wouldn’t be surprised if his hearing’s been damaged. And you just stood back and let it happen.”
“Hey, this jerk killed Cindy,” Tyler answered, stung. “Why don’t you spare some worry for how she died?”
“What makes you so sure he did it?” Rachel asked. “This is America, you know. Ever hear of innocent until proven guilty?”
“Someone tried to use Cindy’s ATM card about two last night.” With his index finger and thumb, Tyler rubbed his red-rimmed eyes. “I guess I mean this morning. On the surveillance camera, you can see a man spread all her ID out on the little metal ledge and start systematically going through the numbers he found on different things. According to the computer, he tried punching in her birthday, the first four digits of her Social Security number, her street address, etc. All the usual things people use for their PINs. Until finally the ATM swallowed the card. And this guy, this Juan deJesus, matches the pictures we got from the bank’s camera. The night manager says Juan -” Tyler exaggerated the “whaw” sound in Juan “- was out in the parking lot taking a smoke break about the time the medical examiner thinks Cindy died. He must have seen Cindy weaving out to her car, fishing around in her purse for her keys. Maybe she even took her wallet out. And the sight of this nice-looking lady, drunk, holding a wallet full of money, well, that’s just too much for this mope. He’s a wetback who’s only been in this country for a month or so. Maybe once he found that the streets aren’t really paved with gold out here, he decided to take matters into his own hands.”
Rachel shook her head and didn’t answer. Instead, she began to lay gauze over the worst of the cuts, only an inch long but deep and still pulsing blood. “Whatever he did, he didn’t deserve this. And no matter how good they sew him up, he’s going to be left with a nasty scar right here over his eyebrow. It’s kind of ironic in a way,” she added, putting down another layer of gauze that was immediately soaked through. “I’d say this cut was probably made by Kevin’s wedding ring.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Clutching her once-white T-shirt, now heavy with blood, Claire made her way to their room, glad that the hotel corridor was empty. She tensed when a door opened farther down the hall. At first she thought it was Belinda, but then she realized it was Belinda’s daughter. The girl went the other way. Claire took her room card key from her back pocket and slipped it in the slot. Dante was gone. On the bed, the sheets were pulled up, and when she went in the bathroom, a damp towel hung neatly on the rod. That was one of the little things Claire liked about Dante, that he always tried to minimize the work of the waitress or hotel maid.
A note propped on her pillow told Claire to meet Dante in the dining room. Filling the sink with cold water, she put her T-shirt to soak. Scarlet billowed in the water, so much that the whole sink soon seemed as if it were filled with undiluted blood. Seeing it, Claire’s empty stomach convulsed. She swallowed hard. Her whole body was trembling, shaking with the need for food, sleep, and at least a few hours without the sight of bodies, real or imagined.
She took quick shower, averting her eyes from the sink when she pulled back the curtain. After dressing in tan cargo shorts, Birkenstocks and a scoop-necked white T-shirt, Claire went back to the Feed Trough.
At first she looked for Dante by scanning the now nearly full room for a dark-haired man eating alone. She finally spotted him at a table with three other people. Claire blinked. Twenty years ago, no one would have imagined Tomisue Borders and Alex Fogel sharing a table. Tomisue had been the daughter of a mill rat, and even at fourteen she had possessed a reputation, breasts of startling proportions and tiny blue eyes raccooned with mascara. Alex had been a star athlete, equally good at football, basketball and baseball - enough to guarantee his popularity at Minor.
It was more than likely that the two of them had never spoken in high sch
ool, but now they seemed to be having a good time. Looking well-fed and sleek, Alex was dressed in an expensive golf shirt and slacks. A huge diamond ring glittered on his pinkie. Tomisue sat next to a man who was clearly with her, since they looked like a matching set, both blond and denim clad. While Claire watched, a smiling Tomisue said something to Alex, shaking her exaggerated mane of blonde hair, teased tawny curls streaked with platinum. She lightly punched Alex’s shoulder, which just made everyone laugh harder.
Tomisue pushed her chair back and went to the buffet line, passing by Claire without noticing her. Her petite frame was balanced on high-heeled cowboy boots, and from the aroma that accompanied her it was easy to guess that the only reason she fit in her tiny jeans was that she chain-smoked three packs a day.
“Good morning,” Claire said as she pulled out the empty chair beside Dante. Everyone said hello back, including Tomisue’s companion. His collar-length hair was blonde, too, and also dyed, although not as aggressively. His denim shirt was open to the nipple line, and he wore a gold pendant.
“I’ll give you the rundown,” Dante said, “and spare you the trouble of asking. Alex here,” Alex inclined his head with exaggerated graciousness, “is currently managing a golf club in Phoenix. And Tomisue” - she smiled as she sat down, her plate stacked high with pancakes - “is a checker at that Safeway store we passed on the way here. And next to Tomisue is her husband, who’s a welder. His name used to be Tommy, which caused some confusion, but now it’s The New K103 FM. The New K103 FM, I’d like you to meet Claire Montrose.”
“What?” Claire thought she had been following the conversation, but clearly she had been wrong.
The New K103 FM spoke around a mouthful of quiche. “It was a contest. I changed my name for Super Bowl tickets.”
“Ticket,” Tomisue corrected him around a mouthful of pancakes. “You won one ticket. We still had to pay for my ticket and the airfare.”
“And you had to keep the name?” Claire asked. “Even after the contest was over?”
He shrugged. “It was part of the contract I had to sign to get the tickets.” Tomisue tossed him a look. “Ticket. But everyone always remembers me now. That didn’t used to happen before.”
“What do people call you for short?” Claire asked.
“Mostly K. Or the K-man. Or if they forget my name, they call me ‘Super Bowl guy’ or ‘radio station guy.’”
Claire sneaked an embarrassed glance at Dante, but he didn’t look as if he thought these people were weird. And, she guessed, they weren’t any weirder than the people he knew in New York. After all, was it any stranger to christen yourself after a radio station than it was after an insect? Dante’s friend Ant had done just that, and ever since the CD from Ant’s band Muck had been in the Billboard Top 100.
“You just missed the meeting,” Dante said. “They took a vote to see if people wanted to cancel the reunion.”
“And what was the result?” Claire asked.
“It’s still on,” Alex said. “A lot of us didn’t fly back here just to turn around and fly home again. Besides, if Cindy were here, she would want us to do it. She always liked a party.” Tomisue and her husband nodded solemnly.
“I told Dante that I saw you out there with Rachel Munroe,” Tomisue said. “Helping that guy that killed Cindy. Is he gonna live?”
Dante touched her hand under the table. He quirked an eyebrow at her, and she could tell he was concerned with how she was feeling after seeing so much violence in less than twelve hours.
“I don’t know. He’s unconscious. Rachel was mostly worried that he might have some kind of head injury.”
“Cindy’s husband clocked him pretty hard,” The New K103-FM said.
“I think I’m glad I wasn’t there to see it,” Dante said. He turned to Claire. “When Tomisue told me what happened, I went back and tried to find you, but everyone was already gone. You doing okay?”
Claire gave a shrug. She didn’t know how she feeling.
After an exaggerated scan of the room, Alex leaned forward. In a low voice, he said, “I was kind of surprised to see who they arrested.”
“Then who did you think did it?” Tomisue asked.
Claire could tell that Alex was the kind of guy who liked to gossip, all winks and suggestive nods. Had she known that about him in high school? Had she ever talked to him in high school?
“Well, Wade was pretty mad at Cindy back when she broke up with him.”
Claire stated the obvious. “But that was twenty years ago.”
“Yeah, but a couple of people told me that they saw him and her fighting last night, not that long before she was killed,” Alex said, ticking his index finger. “Then a little while later I happened to be looking for Wade, and I couldn’t find him. Wherever he was, he wasn’t in the Hoe-Down Room.” Now his middle finger joined his index. “And about ten minutes later I went into the bathroom and someone was in the handicap stall, choking and moaning. And you know what I saw when I looked under the door?” Around the table, heads shook or shoulders shrugged. “Cole-Haan tasseled loafers.”
“So?” The New K103 FM asked.
“So! Those are the same kind Wade was wearing last night. I noticed them because I’ve got a pair just like them at home in my closet.”
“But what was he doing?” Tomisue wrinkled her nose.
“Before this guy got arrested, I was thinking maybe Wade argued with Cindy, accidentally killed her, and then got sick. See, if we won a game, he used to swagger around afterwards. But if we lost, he would hide in the bathroom, puking his guts out - and making noises just like that.”
Tomisue shook her head. “I had my money on that guy, Logan.” She must have caught the look on Claire’s face. “Of course now I know that isn’t what happened.”
Claire’s stomach growled loud enough that everyone could hear it. “Excuse me. I’d better go feed the beast.”
Tomisue cocked her head. “You mean you’re pregnant?”
Claire felt herself flush to her hairline. The curse of the fair-skinned. “No, no. I just meant my stomach was empty.” The smells of eggs, potatoes and Sterno mingled as she waited her turn for the breakfast buffet. Tomisue’s question made her pay more attention to the children in the room than she normally would have. Her classmates all seemed to have offspring of one kind or another - from kids who were on the verge of graduating high school themselves to babes in arm. A women sitting in a corner of the room, the wife of a guy Claire vaguely remembered from her history class, was lumpily pregnant. In Minor, though, the pregnant woman was in a definite minority. People tended to have their kids young.
If it weren’t for Susan Sarandon and the fact that Claire’s new ob/gyn had confided that she had had both her kids after she turned 35, Claire would have felt depressed as she looked at the evidence of her classmates’ fecundity. It was one thing to be a late bloomer and it was another to wither on the vine.
As Claire was walking back to her table, someone called her name. It was Rachel, damp again from another shower, her hair a mass of black and silver springy tendrils.
“I’d like you to meet my husband, Chad. He’s a pediatrician, too. We’re in practice together.” Chad, a man with short, dark receding hair, half-stood to take her hand in a firm grip. “And these are my kids, Jeremy and Melanie.” The kids, Claire guessed, were about five and seven, with bright blond hair that matched neither of their parents. Rachel smiled at her children, then turned her attention to Claire. Her face wore what Claire imagined was the assessing gaze of a physician. “I wanted to see how you were feeling after what happened this morning - and what happened last night.”
“All right, I guess. The whole thing just doesn’t seem real. None of it. Not finding Cindy, and not seeing her husband beat that guy up.”
“I appreciated that you were there to help this morning. Everyone else was ready to let that guy die.”
Claire shrugged, feeling she had been little more than a pair of gloved hands to hol
d various bandages as Rachel taped them into place while they waited for the ambulance. After it had screamed off with the still unconscious Juan deJesus, Rachel had made sure that Claire washed her hands and even her knees with soap and hot water. Then she had examined them closely, looking for the tiniest cut or scrape that might have exposed Claire to HIV if the dishwasher carried it. Claire didn’t know who had been more relieved to find that her skin was unbroken - her or Rachel.
Claire realized that Rachel might know the answer to a question she had considering since the night before. “Since you work with kids, I was wondering if you see many with schizophrenia? Isn’t that when you get it - when you’re a teenager?”
Rachel nodded. “Probably all pediatricians follow a certain number of patients with schizophrenia. You’re thinking of Logan, aren’t you? I heard everyone was talking about him last night. The high-risk years are fifteen to twenty-five. They used to blame it on parenting - especially the mother. They called them ‘refrigerator mothers.’ Now we know it’s genetic. To be schizophrenic is to be terribly isolated. I wish I had had more understanding back when we were in school. Instead, like everyone else, I avoided Logan.”
Again, Claire found herself wishing that she had done more for Logan, not let him slip from the grasp of friendship. “People last night were ready to blame Logan for Cindy’s death. Do you think he could be violent?”
Rachel shook her head. “Very few schizophrenics are violent - only about four percent. Those are the ones you hear about, but that’s one reason you hear about those incidents - because they are so unusual.” Looking thoughtful, she added, “However, if drugs or alcohol are involved, then the probability of violence skyrockets.” Claire wondered if Rachel had remembered the squat glass in Logan’s hand last night, complete with a slice of lime. “For the most part, though, it’s not that schizophrenics are a danger to others, it’s that they are a danger to themselves. For some reason, most of their hallucinations ridicule them, put them down, frighten them.”
