by North, Will
“I give up,” she said.
There was a knock at the front door.
“Patsy. Thank God,” Colin said.
“Who?”
“Oh, sorry; it’s my assistant, Patsy Ashton. From the clinic.”
“What the hell is this, Union Station?”
Colin ignored Edwinna and went to the door.
Patsy was still in her blue clinic scrubs. The sun was behind her and her backlit hair looked like a halo. He looked at his feet for a moment than back to her and smiled. It was a smile of defeat. “Thank you, Pats,” he said softly.
She gave his elbow a slight squeeze as he led her in.
Patsy thought she’d never seen him so drained. Intuitively, she understood why: this was an emergency he couldn’t treat. It wasn’t a broken bone. It wasn’t a tumor. It wasn’t an abscess. It wasn’t a parasite. It wasn’t an infection. The deeply competent doctor she knew, the colleague with whom she shared her days, the man she loved, however privately, was out of his depth.
After he made introductions, she said, “I think perhaps I’ll just sit with her awhile.”
“Does she even know you?” Edwinna snapped.
“Not well,” Patsy said, smiling. “But I think that may be an asset, don’t you?”
Edwinna shrugged. Suddenly, the old woman had no edgy riposte. She was lost. The girl she loved as a daughter was beyond her help.
But she was also distracted; she was seeing a vision in her mind’s strange eye, but the current crisis fogged it. She knew the vision was important, knew it was fraught, knew it had something to do with Pete. But it wouldn’t coalesce and it troubled her.
twenty-nine
THE UPS MAN HAD COME to the wrong house. At least that’s who Old Adam thought the fellow was. The chap at the front door wore a brown short-sleeved shirt and matching shorts, knee socks and black shoes.
“I didn’t think UPS delivered on holidays,” Old Adam said, leaning his bony frame against the door jamb. He was surprised that the trip to the front door had tired him so.
The delivery man was in his mid-forties, Adam guessed; thick in the middle and none too tall. Head nearly shaved. No neck. Hands studded with knuckles big as lug nuts.
“Well, sir, to be honest, I’m not UPS. I’m with Jacobsen and Silverstein. We deliver important documents. Easier to find folks home on holidays, you know? And I have a package here for,” the man looked again at the envelope, “Mr. Strong?”
“That would be me,” Adam said, “but I can’t imagine who…”
The man extended a clipboard and pen. “Just sign here, would you? Got a ferry to catch.”
Adam, distracted by his other worries, did so. He thanked the gentleman and the fellow nodded and backed away from the door as Adam closed it.
The old man limped into the living room and sat in his favorite chair, a deep and worn Parisian brown leather club chair he’d found decades earlier at an antiques shop in Seattle’s Pioneer Square. He looked at the package. It was a padded tan ten-by-fifteen mailer and it was thick.
He put on his reading glasses and discovered it was addressed to Tyler Strong. Wrong Strong. He was about to haul himself out of his chair to call after the delivery man when he noticed, in the upper left corner of the label, who the sender was: Soren Sorensen, his old friend Robbie’s general manager.
He sat for a few moments regarding the envelope. Then he rose, hobbled over to his mahogany writing desk, its tooled leather surface beginning to crackle like alligator skin but the waxed wood still radiant, and opened the top drawer. He lifted out a leather scabbard that held a pair of slender, silver-plated, filigreed scissors for cutting newspaper clippings and a matching, sword-like letter-opener. He withdrew the knife and slit open the envelope. It took him only a few seconds to discover that Pacific Pioneer Shipping was ruined and Soren was resigning. Certain he must be misunderstanding something, Adam took the papers back to his chair and began re-reading.
At first, he was furious that old Soren, a man he’d always liked and trusted, had let the company founder. Then, as he scrutinized the contents of the envelope, he realized it had nothing to do with Soren; it was Tyler’s doing. Soren had written repeatedly to his CEO about the failing company only to be either rejected or ignored. The company was buried in debt, had liens placed against its vessels by unpaid creditors, and was failing to meet its loan obligations. Worse, Pete was somehow a guarantor of the note. From what Adam could tell, the company would have to be liquidated and its capital assets wouldn’t be likely to fetch much. Its ships were old and inefficient and he knew the waterfront land along the Ballard ship canal where the warehouse was located already was already plastered with weathering For Sale signs.
The old man pulled the cell phone from his sweater pocket and punched in Tyler’s number.
All he got was the voicemail: Please leave your name and number and the time you called… It was Pete’s voice.
***
WHEN PEGGY MARCH emerged from her bath, wrapped in an antique Japanese black silk kimono patterned with white chrysanthemums, she found her husband in the chair in which she’d spent the night. He had not changed his clothes. He had not left.
She said nothing.
Her husband looked at her for several moments. Neither moved.
“Take off your robe,” he said, finally.
“What?”
“Do it.”
Peggy untied the sash and let the robe pool at her feet. He gazed at her nakedness. Then he spoke.
“I know you, Peggy Rutherford March. I know your body. I know your heart. I know your soul. Because you have shared them with me. I know your true self, because I have seen it embrace our children in love and have felt that love myself. Your true self has nothing to do with whatever has happened between you and Strong. I’m not pretending it didn’t happen. But I refuse to let it tear us apart.”
Peggy March, who had steeled herself over the course of the long, empty night, who had made her exit plan and crafted her goodbye, who had used the hot bath as the first step in her cleansing and leave-taking, sank to her knees as if unable to resist gravity.
Rob March did not move.
“Get up,” he said.
She struggled to her feet again.
“Come here,” he ordered.
Suddenly, she was afraid. She hesitated.
“Come.”
She stepped forward. She expected a blow. She believed she deserved it. Her husband rose, gathered her into his arms, and kissed her, tenderly and for so long that she gasped when he released her.
“You are going nowhere without me. Do you understand that?”
Peggy nodded, tears streaming.
He pulled her close again.
“We are human beings, and, as such, we are fools. Because we are fools, we do foolish things. The counterbalance to foolishness is forgiveness.”
Peggy shook her head. “I don’t deserve…”
“You don’t ever deserve forgiveness; it’s not something you earn. It’s given, like a gift. It’s given from the heart. From love.”
Rob March stepped away from his wife, took her hand, and pulled her toward their bed.
“Later, I will deal with Tyler Strong. But right now, I want to hold the love of my life.”
“You’re filthy,” she said, smiling through tears.
“So what?”
“Yes. So what…”
***
PATSY ASHTON STEPPED into Edwinna’s living room, but left the door to Pete’s bedroom ajar.
“Stuffy in there,” she said softly to Colin, who’d jumped from his chair as if jerked by a rope. “I’ve opened the windows. She’s sleeping.” She looked around. Young Adam was on his fourth National Geographic. Justine was out on the back porch, pacing. Edwinna was dozing in her chair.
Patsy thrust her chin in the direction of the back door and walked silently toward it. Colin followed. Justine looked up when they emerged.
“She talked to me,” Patsy b
egan. “It was easy, like two girlfriends. She wanted to, I think. So I know more of what happened; not everything, but some things. It’s not pleasant, okay?”
Justine nodded.
“Pete was quite drunk,” Patsy began. “The guests had gone and Tyler had vanished. She’d seen him flirting earlier with her cousin, Alex, and assumed he was with her. She decided to wait him out and kept drinking. Sometime long after midnight—she’s not sure when, naturally—Tyler finally appeared. She was about to take him on when she noticed he smelled like Peggy March’s perfume. She flipped. I don’t know, maybe she could deal with the idea of Tyler fooling around with Alex because the girl’s much younger. But Peggy, her friend… well, that was too much. Anyway, they fought. She shoved him away and he fell. He was falling down drunk anyway. When he got up again, he grabbed her. Clamped both her skinny wrists in one hand, threw her down, and dumped the open gin bottle into her mouth with the other hand. Says she gulped until she thought she’d drown. That’s all she remembers.”
“Holy shit,” Justine said. “He could have killed her. We learn that at the bar where I work: acute alcohol poisoning.”
“Except that he didn’t,” Colin interrupted. “So at some point she must have fled. You were right, Patsy, she wasn’t trying to commit suicide. She was running away, heading for the south ferry. And she collapsed before she could get very far.”
Justine shook her head in disbelief.
“Let’s talk to Edwinna about next steps…whatever the hell they are,” Colin said.
When they reentered the living room, Young Adam was playing with Eileen, and Edwinna had roused herself and gone to the kitchen.
“Whatever else it is, it’s also lunchtime,” she announced from the door. “Peanut butter and jelly work for you?”
“Fine with me,” Justine said.
“I had a late breakfast,” Colin lied.
“I’d love a PB&J, Miss Edwinna,” Patsy said. “Want a hand?”
“I think I can still cope with this particular culinary challenge.”
Patsy ignored this and she and Colin followed her into the kitchen. “I’ve got the jelly,” Patsy said. You handle the peanut butter; I always tear the bread with it.”
“Hey guys?”
It was Young Adam’s voice, in the next room.
“I think you should look at this.”
The three adults drifted out into the living room again.
“What’s up, bro’?” Justine asked.
“The dog.”
“Huh?”
“Check it out.”
Eileen was skidding around the polished fir floor, swatting at a woman’s silver high heeled sandal with her front paws and watching it skitter around the room.
The adults watched the dog’s pure joy in its play and smiled.
After a few moments, Adam became irritated.
“So what’s wrong with this picture, people?”
“Excuse me?” Justine said.
Eileen picked the shoe up in her soft mouth and loped around the room, tossing her head.
Colin looked at Patsy.
Edwinna stared at the dog. Then she strode across the room and grabbed the shoe from the dog’s mouth.
She turned the sexy sandal over in her hands a few times. Then she reached out and cuffed the side of Young Adam’s head playfully. “Your mother didn’t bring up no idiots, did she, boy?” She said.
Adam beamed.
“Somebody going to let the rest of us in on this?” Colin asked.
Edwinna tossed him the sandal.
“What do you see, big shot?”
Colin held the shoe for a moment and gave it back.
“It’s one of the shoes Pete had on when I found her. So?”
Edwinna thrust the shoe at Patsy.
“What’s wrong with it?” she demanded.
Patsy looked at the shoe for a few moments and then dropped her hand to her side, as if the shoe were made of lead.
“It’s all wrong,” she said.
Justine took the shoe from Patsy, turned it in her hand as Edwinna had, and finally the light came on: there were no scuffs on the sole. There were no scratches on the high silver heel.
“They’ve never been worn,” she whispered.
“Which means?” Adam demanded.
“Somebody put them on her.”
“And?”
“And left her there in the middle of the Highway. She didn’t walk there.”
“Elementary,” the boy said. He was not smiling.
Patsy saw Colin was way ahead of them. He had his cell phone in his hand and was heading for the porch. As he passed her, he leaned down and whispered, “Would you look after Pete, love?”
She nodded and watched him slip out to the porch.
Love, he’d said.
thirty
HAVING FINISHED OFF a half gallon of orange juice and most of a half gallon of Stolichnaya for breakfast, Tyler Strong was now struggling to load the family Ford Explorer. An observer, had there been one, would have puzzled at the methodology, which appeared frantic and, at the same time, utterly random; Tyler was tossing whatever was at hand into the back of the SUV, talking to himself as he did so.
Suitcases: Got mine. Where are Pete’s? Where’s Two’s? Where’s that girl, Justine? She’s old enough to help, dammit. Tennis gear. Got it. Water skis; where the hell are they? Can’t find them. Emptied the fridge. Well, most of it anyway and filled the cooler. Shoved it to the back. Crammed stuff around it for insulation. Need more stuff. And the toys…never know which go and which stay… Shouldn’t have to sort this all out myself.”
He thought he heard his mother Amanda’s low, cigarette-ruined voice, with its usual rasp of disgust:
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Tyler ducked out of the rear of the SUV to find not Amanda but Old Adam behind him. The old man was standing, legs apart for balance, in the middle of the crushed oyster-shell driveway, cane in one hand and a sheaf of papers in the other.
“Did you even hear me? What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Old Adam repeated.
Given the extremity and baffling discontinuity of his present circumstance, a condition which made the space around him seem to ripple like heat waves off an asphalt road, Tyler had no idea what the old man was talking about, no idea even how he’d got there.
“Hello, Adam,” Tyler said, buying time and trying to steady himself by leaning on the edge of car’s rear hatch.
“Don’t ‘Hello’ me, you bastard; do you have any idea where your wife is?”
“Nope.” The younger man held his hands up in the universal gesture of helplessness and grinned, the picture of ease. “Went for a walk early this morning, I guess, and hasn’t come back yet. Left me to do all the heavy lifting, her and those kids. How about that?” He wasn’t at all certain this was the truth; he was finding truth to be elusive.
Old Adam was about to tell him where Pete was, but something—his old prosecutorial instincts, perhaps—held him back. Tyler was drunk; that must be it. But why would you be drunk on the morning you’re supposed to be driving home? Crazy. He was also acting, or covering maybe; that was obvious, too. What was he disguising?
Adam switched subjects, an age-old technique to throw a defendant off his game: “Guess who just paid me a visit?” It was less a question than an accusation.
For a moment, for just a fraction of a second, for the merest blink in the stately procession of time from present to past and back again, he saw fear in Tyler’s eyes. And just as quickly, Tyler’s eyes went blank again.
“No idea, Adam. Is this a game? Maybe I should get Two. He likes games.”
“Two? What the hell are you talking about?! Two has been…”but he stopped. He had no words for the craziness he was hearing.
Tyler didn’t know. He didn’t know where everyone was, why no one was helping. He looked around and listened for their voices, but the beach was silent except for gulls’ cries and the
distant keening of an eagle. He couldn’t hear Amanda anymore either. Suddenly, he found the old man’s questions infuriating, and the noisy dissonance in his head rose painfully.
“Get on with it, Uncle; I’m trying to pack the car.”
“Odd how there’s no one here helping you, isn’t it?”
A part of his brain, the part on autopilot, agreed but he wouldn’t acknowledge it. “Was there something you wanted from me?”
“Oh yes, there is. There is. A legal messenger just mistakenly delivered a package of documents to me. But they were meant for you. Guess who they’re from?
Tyler crossed his arms against his chest but said nothing. It was all a mystery to him, this entire encounter. He tried to be separate from it. It wasn’t hard. He had only the slightest grip on the present.
“Soren Sorensen. Remember him? General Manager of Pacific Pioneer? Your wife’s family’s firm? Of which you’re CEO?”
“Soren…”
“Now why do you suppose old Soren would resort to sending documents to you via a receipt-requested legal messenger service? Never mind; don’t bother fabricating, I’ll tell you. Thanks to your incompetence, Pacific Pioneer is effectively bankrupt and Pete is ruined.”
Tyler slipped into another chapter of the present, found a bit of text, and waved a breezy hand. “Whole industry’s in collapse, Adam. Nothing we could do. Fuel prices through the roof, customers dropping like flies, creditors snapping at our heels…”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“Soren and me. And frankly, that old coot Soren—what is he, in his late fifties now? Older? He’s lost it. Completely. Can’t keep on top of the invoices. We’re forever in arrears. Supposed to be the general manager but can’t be trusted to make timely payments. Have to cover for him all the time.”
“Curious of you to say that, Tyler, because these documents include increasingly desperate letters from Soren to you, pleading that you act to take charge of the company’s financial crisis. If anyone’s ‘lost it,’ it looks like you.”
Tyler thrashed around in his crowded head for a response. “Oh Christ, Adam, the guy’s a Chicken Little. The sky’s always falling with him.”
