Kathryn looked at Paul; he looked away with what appeared to be humility, in reality was thinly masked panic. His story, confabulated in the heat of the moment -- heading home, drunken lunatic came outta nowhere, slammed into the median, who knew it was Wells? -- was supported by the big rig driver, who had only seen the aftermath... and absent any other witnesses or reason to believe otherwise, was simply accepted. Especially when the ambo crew and the cops on the scene knew Paul by name. But Paul still worried: as stories went it had the surface cohesion of a soap bubble, and would not bear up to scrutiny.
But no one was scrutinizing. Kathryn Wells regarded him not with suspicion, but gratitude. His was the only sympathetic face, the only one who looked at her with anything other than what seemed like scorn. Just as they’d known Paul, they recognized James Wells, too. And everyone had heard of his son: the elusive and notorious William Wells, accused killer, fugitive from justice.
She asked the intern if James would be alright; Wheaton told her they’d have to wait and see, then excused himself to make his rounds. The cops and paramedics went next, their work finished for now, pausing to pat Paul on the back and praise him for a job well done.
"No problem," he told them, knowing that in fact it was. A big one.
They exited, leaving Paul and Kathryn together, and alone. Behind them, James Wells lay in the ICU ward, a mass of bandages, tubes, and IV tethers. Monitors beeped softly, clocking mortality. Paul turned away from the window, looked at Kathryn. He didn’t know what to say. But before he could speak, she hugged him.
"Thank you for saving his life," she said. "For everything."
"Don’t mention it," he replied. Wishing she wouldn’t. Wishing none of them would.
But of course, they did.
THIRTY-SIX
Paul stood over his daughter’s grave: no flowers in hand to replace the dead ones long withered in the vase, nothing but a head full of careening thoughts, and a very bad feeling he could not seem to shake. He stared at the polished face of the granite headstone, saw his own reflection staring back.
"Hi, kiddo," he started to say, then paused. He suddenly wondered what he was doing - not just here, talking to a slab of rock, but with everything. He felt shaky, his thoughts skittering, unable to focus long on any one thing.
He felt like he was losing his mind.
"I... I did something bad last night," he told her, immediately thinking yeah, right, attempted murder is bad... and actually doing it must be downright naughty. "Not bad," he amended. "It was wrong." It was cold outside, but he was sweating. He wiped his eyes, hand trembling. "But the thing is," he continued, "while it was happening it felt so right... like I should be doing it..." His voice lowered. "Only now I’m not so sure..."
He flashed back to the chase, the crash, the sudden reversal of rescue... and the screaming irony that, by the time the morning paper hit the streets, Paul Kelly was again in the news. A stringer for the Glendon Herald had picked up the accident on his scanner; six hours later, a page two headline splashed HERO KELLY SAVES KILLER’S DAD, the accompanying copy luridly recounting an official regurgitation of Paul’s ersatz explanation, the sole mercy being, he hadn’t made page one.
Paul freaked out, but of course could not show it. Every aspect of his life had become a funhouse hall of mirrors: every reflection warped and distorted, every image false and askew. He had to feed everyone what they expected to see. Here, alone, could he let any of it out. And even here felt dangerous.
"I’m okay," he told her. "But it was a close call. And now I wonder..."
He stopped - wondered what, exactly? And therein lay the heart of it. As much as he was loathe to admit it, his brush with destruction had been nothing if not miraculous. It was almost enough to make him believe in miracles.
Almost enough to make him believe in God.
And that was the shocker, a veritable knee to the cosmic nuts. Paul felt his legs wobble: he reached out and steadied himself on Kyra’s tombstone, then knelt on the slushy, naked earth.
"Please, God..." he murmured, voice cracking. "If you exist... if you’re really out there... please help me... I need to know… I need to know that I’m not just crazy…that there’s still some reason why this is all happening…"
He stopped, head lowered. No thunderbolts of punishment split the sky; no beams of golden sunlight pierced the granite clouds above. Nothing. Thoughts roiling, Paul reached down to scoop up a handful his daughter’s burial dirt. And closed it in his fist.
And all of a sudden it hit him.
Maybe he wasn’t crazy. Maybe it made perfect sense. Meeting Kathryn Wells in his darkest hour. Their conversation in the coffee shop. At first it had felt like luck, or fate. Now it felt like something else. At that precise moment a lifetime of agnostic defiance crumbled inside him, and it suddenly dawned on Paul that the plan might not be entirely his. Going to the bar to meet James Wells? Yes, that was his idea. But he could have killed Wells in the wreck, and he didn’t. He could have killed him in the wreckage moments later, but he didn’t. Not for want of wanting to, or trying. But something intervened, and it felt like more than simple chance or fate. He was not found out. His secret was still safe. The kindness he had shown Kathryn Wells was not entirely false, and it had served a purpose he could not have imagined or foreseen, and only now could begin to fully comprehend. A purpose almost divine.
It could only mean one thing.
If there was such a thing as God, He must want Paul not to kill, not to avenge... but to continue. This journey. This mission. Until it was finished. God had intervened, like some mystical unindicted co-conspirator, and allowed him to go on.
Paul needed to believe in something. That was as good a thing as any. Kneeling at his daughter’s grave, from the depths of his despair, Paul suddenly found his Higher Power. And in so doing, trusted that somehow, He and God would find a way. He felt better even thinking it.
But God, it would seem, had other plans.
~ * ~
Back in the bowels of Marley Street, Will was undergoing an epiphany all his own, of a much more earthly nature. He stared at the walls, his own thoughts focused down to one overwhelming impulse. And the epiphany was this:
I fucking gotta get outta here.
Sounded simple. Not even. Playing patty-cake with Paul Kelly was an act born not of desperation, but of sheer survival. Motherfucker was crazy, and watching Kelly click off his own personal countdown to meltdown was a losing proposition, no matter how many yessirs and nossirs he choked on. Will had sucked up and kissed ass about as much as he could stand, winning concessions like light and soap, and thus far had managed, if barely, to keep all his moving parts. But for how long? Will surveyed his petty privilege of the week, his big reward for cleaning his cell and generally acting like a good little boy: a roll of toilet paper.
Fucker.
Will picked up the roll and threw it at the wall; it bounced harmlessly off and flopped to the floor, coming to a stop by the leg of the chair. Will picked it up. The crinkly wrapping depicted a happily gurgling baby, and promised to be squeezably soft. Will flopped back and started bouncing it off the wall in an impromptu round of 2-ply handball. Thinking.
I’ve got to get out of here.
But how?
Escape was futile; that much was for sure. The cell was too well constructed, his movements too closely monitored. Will knew all too well that simple force would not get him out of here. Nor would attitude. And luck was fast running out. Will realized: he was going to have to think his way out. And his only chance lay in playing this mad game until he could somehow get Kelly to lower his guard. Then, and only then, could he hope to strike.
Yeah, right, he thought morosely. With what?
Will stood, injured foot throbbing. Kelly was strong, even for an old fuck. And nuts. And Will was nothing if not used up. He wracked his brain. A fringe benefit of his cleaning spree was that it had afforded him the opportunity to scour every square inch of the box in search o
f something, anything, that could be fashioned into a weapon. The results were not good. The lights were recessed behind heavy wire mesh. The bunk was useless. The chair was heavy and bolted to the floor.
Bolted...
Will suddenly knelt, ran his hands down the stout wooden legs. Heavy hex bolts were driven through the metal brackets that anchored it to the flooring. The edges were sharply angled, difficult to grasp. Will tapped the floor, heard the deadened thud signifying a support beam under the chair’s front legs. No good.
He moved back, tapping, listening. As he reached the rear legs, Will heard the slightly hollow thunk of air space beneath. Flooring, maybe a subfloor of some kind. Then, nothing.
Not nothing, he amended. Hope was there.
Yes.
Will scrabbled into position behind the chair, braced his feet against the wall. The pressure on his injured foot was pure agony. He held his breath, pushing with all his strength. Nothing happened. The pain was excruciating. Tears formed in his eyes. Will released and sagged, exhausted. Then took a deep breath and pushed again. Harder this time.
The chair creaked slightly. Will pushed still harder, legs trembling from exertion, sweat popping on his skin. He was just about to pass out, when the chair gave. Not a lot. A little. A tiny little bit.
It was almost like a miracle.
Will unflexed, turned to check it out. The head of the hex bolt had separated from steel bracket ever so much. He had managed to create a millimeter of play, a hard-won window of hope. Will stripped off his t-shirt, wrapped a bit of it around the bolt head, tried to work it free. No good. It was in too tight.
He needed tools.
"Dammit!" Will hissed. "God DAMMIT!"
He was panting, pissed. If he didn’t get out of there, he might as well just flush himself down the toilet, because his odds of survival were shit…
Shit, Will thought. An idea flashed. Suddenly Will scrambled up and over to the toilet, grabbed the toilet paper and unpeeled it. The happy baby wrapping went first, smiling image going sodden as it sank. Then he unreeled the roll, yard by yard by yard, and began stuffing it into the bowl. As the toilet began to block, Will flushed it, then flushed it again. The toilet gurgled and sputtered, water swirling.
Will flushed it again for good measure, then turned his attention to one of his other hard-won luxuries: the small bar of Dial soap. Grasping it carefully, he raked it across the edge of the bunk, slicing off thick shavings. As the bowl stopped up and began to fill, Will held up the shavings to his nose, sniffing them. He grimaced for a moment. Then took a deep breath. Put them in his mouth.
And began to chew.
~ * ~
Paul arrived hours later to find a trail of water leaking from the box.
"What the fuck?" he gasped, and hurriedly opened the lock . He threw the door open, found the toilet flooded, water swirling over the brim to pool on the floor. Will huddled on the bunk in a fetal position, looking decidedly ill.
"What happened?" Paul demanded.
"Sick…" Will shuddered in the grip of a horrible cramp. "I’m sorry," he added weakly. "I tried to stop it. I’m sorry…"
Paul bit back anger, willed himself calm. "It’s okay," he said. "Can you stand?"
"Yessir," Will nodded feebly, started to pull himself up. He doubled over again, fell back on the bunk.
"Shit!" Paul grumbled, holding a hand to the boy’s forehead. No fever to speak of, but clammy. He pressed two fingers against Will’s belly, probing. Will groaned.
"It’s not your appendix, " Paul decided, thinking thank God for that. He probed a few more points, then checked his pulse. Normal. Paul stood and shook his head. "It’s just a stomach ache," he said. "You’ll be all right. Can you sit up?"
Will nodded gamely. Paul helped him up, then reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. He clicked one around Will’s right wrist, secured the other to the back of the chair. Will did not resist.
"I’ll be right back," Paul told him. "Gotta get some tools." Will nodded and watched, as Paul exited the box.
And, for the first time since his capture, Will smiled.
~ * ~
Will sat on the floor, his back to the chair, watching. Paul’s bulky toolbox lay open before him. The excess water had been scooped out and disposed of, the spillage mopped up; Paul cursed and wielded a plumber’s helper, trying to unblock the stoppage.
"Damn," he muttered. "How much toilet paper did you use?"
"I felt really sick…" Will explained, mock apologetically.
"Feel better now?"
"Yessir," Will said sheepishly, eyes cast downward. He glanced at the tools jumbled inside the box. "I’m really sorry…"
Paul regarded him skeptically, then shook his head. "All right, all right," he said, surveying the situation. The toilet was jammed tightly between the bunk and the wall; maneuvering room at a premium. "Hand me the snake," he said, straddling the bowl. Will looked into the box uncomprehendingly. Paul looked back, annoyed. "That one," he said. "That coily thing, there…"
He pointed to a long, flexible metal tube, coiled and wrapped around itself. Will grabbed it; as he did he spied a small Craftsman open-end wrench, gleaming like a promise.
"Sorry," he said, and handed it off. Paul harumphed and unwrapped the snake, one end flopping to the floor. It was six feet long, ribbed metal sleeve housing heavy steel wire, a claw-like prong one end and a handle on the other. Paul grasped the handle, started feeding the pronged end into the bowl. Will watched, intensely alert; as he did he carefully plucked the wrench from the toolbox, deftly palmed it and slipped it behind his back.
"What," Paul grumbled, "you never did this before?"
"Nossir," Will replied. Paul strained as the toilet hitched and sloshed, the snake sliding into the pipes. The scrape of metal on porcelain and sloshing water was huge in the claustrophobic space. But not huge enough.
"My dad never really wanted my help," Will suddenly said. "He always said I’d fuck…" he caught himself, reiterating… "he said I’d just screw it up."
Paul paused, his back to Will, shocked. The boy actually spoke, actually volunteered a piece of personal information. It was a hallmark moment, even if happening while struggling with a plugged-up commode. Paul thought of James Wells, laying in the ICU ward. "That’s too bad," he said. "Fathers should teach their sons."
"It’s okay," Will said, forlorn. "I got used to it." Behind his back, he blindly fitted the wrench to the head of the bolt as Paul finished feeding the line in, then grasped the handle.
"The way this works," he explained, "is that the sleeve inserts through the pipes til the prongs hit the blockage. Then you just turn this little crank here." Paul twisted the crank; the toilet gurgled and gulped. Will stared at him as if rapt.
"Wow," he murmured appreciatively, all the while thinking fucking psycho I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you…
Paul turned back to the task. Will started turning the bolt head in sync. Threads bit wood, softly creaking as it slowly spiraled up.
"The cable turns inside the sleeve, and the prongs chew up the blockage," Paul continued.
"Uh-huh." Will adjusted the wrench, twisting the bolt head back and forth, up and down, loosening it in its socket. "I didn’t know that," he said, thinking but I’ll try to remember that when I shove it up your ass…
The toilet was almost cleared. He was running out of time. Will desperately tried moving the bolt with his fingers. It wouldn’t give. Dammit. He tried again, squeezing as hard as he could.
Suddenly the bolt gave way, with a tiny squeak. He twisted it again, moved it up, then down. He could do it. It was free. Just then the toilet made a huge slurping sound, as the blockage gave way. "Got it!" Paul exclaimed, reeling the snake back out.
"Yessir," Will said. "You sure did."
Paul hit the plunger; the toilet burped and chugged, water swirling freely. As it flushed Will palmed the wrench and slipped it back into the toolbox, a heartbeat before Paul
turned back to him.
"There ya go," he said. "Good as new."
Will smiled wanly. Or even better.
Paul finished the job, packed up and closed the lid of the toolbox. He uncuffed Will from the chair, then helped him up and onto the bunk. Wells winced. Paul checked his forehead for fever. "Still kinda clammy," he said. "How do you feel?"
"All right," Will said, then looked up at Paul, not sullen or resentful, but frankly questioning. "I’m never gonna get out of here, am I?"
Paul stiffened defensively; the question caught him off guard. "I guess that’s up to you," he said.
"Yessir," Will looked down. "I guess it is."
Paul stood and grabbed his toolbox. As he exited he paused at the door. "Rest," he said. "You’ll feel better later."
Will nodded. Sure he would.
In fact, he already did.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Paul came up the cellar stairs carrying his tool box, found himself quite unexpectedly face-to-face with Detective Buscetti, standing on the back porch, staring in through the door window. He smiled, craggy features crinkling like a worn shoe, and nodded hi. Paul opened the back door. "Stevie," he said, unable to mask his surprise. "What’re you doing here?"
"Just dropping by," Buscetti said, looking around casually, his features pleasant but alert. "I was in the neighborhood… is this a bad time?"
"No," Paul said. "No, of course not. C’mon in." He moved to let Buscetti enter. S’good to see you, man." Paul held out his free hand.
"Good to see you, too," Buscetti replied, taking and shaking it. Paul moved away from the basement door, which closed with a click; as he did, Buscetti noticed the shiny new deadbolt.
"So," Buscetti said. "How’re things?"
"Fine… everything’s fine …" Paul replied, a little too fast, a little too forced. He gestured to the still gutted kitchen, leading him away from the basement. "You know, old house, boiler’s shot, lotta work to do. You know how it is."
A Question of Will Page 25
