by Glen Ebisch
Karen gave him a puzzled glance.
“I mean, even if you only go around once, you might prefer to go around able to do things, rather than as a barely ambulatory invalid,” he explained.
“I try to stay fit. I go to the gym four days a week.”
“I run,” Charles said, feeling a flush of guilt at exaggerating his accomplishments.
“Doesn’t that bother your knees?”
“Not yet,” he replied, making a note to check with Greg on whether that was a future complication
Charles discovered that fortunately he was not seated next to Jim. He had Rachel on one side and Karen on the other. Jim offered them popcorn once, but when Karen and Charles refused, he hoarded it, only sharing it occasionally with Rachel. When the film was over, Charles had to admit that he’d enjoyed himself. Although the characters were a bit hackneyed, going back at least to the Commedia dell’arte, the plot was spritely and the story well-acted. Rachel and Karen spent a couple of minutes exclaiming over the movie, while Jim rolled his eyes and winked at Charles. Charles ignored the winks and added his own positive remarks, which earned him a disapproving glance from the other male in the group.
They stood on the sidewalk in front of the theatre. The two women were debating the merits of various places to go for dessert. Charles stood there entranced by the amount of mental energy woman could expend on such a mundane question, while Jim paced back and forth impatiently as if he had several more appointments yet to come this evening.
“Let’s go, ladies, while the night is still young,” he finally said, his exasperation showing through his attempt at humour.
Rachel gave him a reproving glance. “We’re making progress. We’ve narrowed it down to The Mansion or Leonora’s.”
“Which do you think, Charles?” Karen asked, grabbing his hand and doing a little twirl to stand in front of him with a teasing smile on her face. “Where should we . . .”
Time compressed. Charles was aware of hearing a loud noise from somewhere in front of him. In the same instance, the smile disappeared from Karen’s face and her eyes rolled up into her head. She lunged forward into Charles. He grabbed her as she slumped down like a puppet whose strings had been cut. He couldn’t hold the dead weight, and he lowered her gently to the sidewalk. It was then he noticed the blood billowing from the front of her purple blouse. There was a roaring in his ears. In the distance someone screamed. Another voice shouted, “Dial 9-1-1!”
“Karen, I’m sorry,” Charles whispered to the unconscious body. “It’s all my fault.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Charles sat in the waiting room at the hospital. He waited and thought. He and Rachel and Jim had been interviewed by police officers at the scene, although none of them could give a very comprehensive description of what had happened. From what Charles had overheard from the others the police questioned, no one had seen the shooter who apparently, according to the direction the police had been pointing, was at the end of an alley across from the movie.
After the police were done with them, Charles, Jim, and Rachel stood looking at each other for a moment as if unsure what to do next.
“I think we should go to the hospital to see how Karen is doing,” Charles suggested. Rachel quickly nodded agreement.
“I’d like to, but I’ve got a late appointment tonight and have to get home,” Jim said.
“Really?” Rachel said, giving him a hard stare.
Jim shrugged apologetically. “Business is business.”
Rachel turned away from him. “Will you drive me to the hospital?” she asked Charles.
He agreed. He waved goodbye to Jim who was already walking toward the lot. Rachel didn’t even glance in his direction. Charles had a feeling that their relationship had reached a sudden end. Not staying around out of concern for a friend was a major faux pas, even if there wasn’t much in terms of practical help that Jim could have provided.
“What did you mean when you said ‘It was all my fault?’” Rachel asked as they were driving toward the hospital.
“What are you talking about?”
“Right after you laid Karen on the ground, you apologized to her and said it was all your fault. What was your fault?”
Charles paused. He didn’t remember saying that. It must have been something that came out automatically in the heat of the moment. Explaining this was going to be tricky.
“I’ve been sort of peripherally involved in the two murders that took place on campus, and that’s led to someone making a couple of half-hearted attempts to kill me.”
“Someone is trying to kill you?”
“The police aren’t certain, but it is a possibility.”
“Someone is trying to kill you, and you went out with us this evening. I can see why you took the blame, that bullet was meant for you.”
“Probably,” Charles admitted weakly.
“What do you mean probably? Do you think someone with a rifle was out there gunning for Karen?”
“No, I guess not.”
“Yeah, I guess not,” she said with obvious sarcasm. “You should feel guilty. If she dies, it will be on your head.”
“I didn’t pull the trigger. That’s the person who’s really responsible.”
“Maybe you didn’t pull the trigger, but you put her in the line of fire.”
Charles sighed. “Yes. You’re right.”
When they got to the hospital, Rachel marched into the emergency room and wanted to know where they could find Karen Melrose. When the clerk at the emergency room desk wanted to know if she was family, Rachel said in a very convincing tone that she was her sister.
“You aren’t her sister, are you?” Charles asked, once the woman had gone off to check on Karen.
“No, Charles.” Rachel sounded exasperated. “But there’s no way I’m letting some trivial hospital rules keep me from Karen.”
The clerk returned a few minutes later to tell them Karen was in surgery. She gave them directions how to get there.
Rachel marched off, apparently not caring whether Charles came along or not. He had to hurry to keep up with her, but he was determined to find out Karen’s condition. They went down a long hall and up a set of stairs that took them into another building. Finally, they saw a sign that said “surgery” and Rachel stopped at the desk.
“Can you tell what the condition is of Karen Melrose?” Rachel asked, her voice shook indicating she expected to hear the worst.
The nurse checked a computer screen. “She’s still in surgery. Are you family?”
“I’m her sister,” Rachel lied again.
“You can have a seat in the waiting room. We’ll come and get you when we have some information.”
Charles turned in the direction of the waiting room, which was right across the hall.
“I’m going to sit out here,” Rachel said, pointing to a chair in the hallway. “You can go wherever you want. Why don’t you go home? That might make things safer for all of us.”
“You’ll need a ride.”
“I can always call my daughter.”
“I’ll sit in the waiting room. I’d like to know how Karen is doing.”
“Suit yourself.” Rachel plopped down in the hallway chair, and held onto the arms as if convinced that Charles was going to attempt to drag her away.
Charles went into the waiting room. It was painted a soothing shade of lavender, and filled with simple but functional furniture. In the corner was a table with magazines. Charles went over to browse through them. Even in the worst of times, he knew reading could be comforting. But aside from a couple of medical publications, the magazines all dealt with either automobiles or hunting. Considering the reasons why people ended up in surgery, he thought there was a delicious irony in that. He sat down with one of the medical journals, but soon found his mind wandering.
Was he really responsible for Karen’s injury? Had he shown a reckless disregard for the welfare of others by going out on a date when he might be
the target of a killer? But even Lieutenant Thorndike hadn’t warned him not to go on his date. No one had taken these threats on his life very seriously up until now. He sat there stewing about his responsibility, but somewhere along the way he must have dozed off because he wasn’t aware of another presence in the room until someone touched his arm.
“Charles,” Lieutenant Thorndike said softly, giving his arm a gentle squeeze.
Charles bolted upright in the chair, afraid that once again his inattention had put someone at risk.
“Easy, easy,” Thorndike said.
Charles shook his head as if shaking could get everything back into its proper place. Suddenly his eyes popped open wide, and he searched her face for any sign of bad news.
“Have you heard anything about Karen’s condition?”
“She’s going to be fine. The bullet hit her high in the back on her right side. There was a lot of bleeding, but she should recover completely. There wasn’t even any serious damage to her shoulder.”
Charles breathed a deep sigh of relief and felt tears comes into his eyes.
“You really care about her?” asked the Lieutenant.
“I hardly know her, but I don’t want her dying in my place. I shouldn’t have taken her out on a date in the first place with someone gunning for me.”
“Neither one of us took the previous threats on your life seriously enough. But this one was different. If Karen hadn’t stepped in front of that bullet, given your relative positions and size differences, it probably would have hit you in the heart. This time the shooter was in earnest.”
“Someone thinks I know more than I do.”
“Or thinks you’re on the brink of finding out.”
“What should I do?”
“Getting out of town for a few days might be a good idea.”
“How will that help? The killer will just wait around until I get back.”
“He may decide that you’ve been scared off and leave you alone. Plus in that time our investigation might get somewhere. We’re still canvassing the neighbourhood where Sylvia was shot, hoping to find someone who saw something. I’m also going to call Nora in for another interview, just in case she had an accomplice. And maybe by then your contact at Yale might have come up with the name of the person Underwood mistreated so badly during his time there.”
Charles frowned. “I guess I could go visit my daughter for a few days.”
“How long?”
“I doubt I could stand more than two. Between her husband and the boys, I’m exhausted after a couple of days. The boys run around like demented savages and Jack the Philistine wants to tell me in detail about wealth management.”
“Now that you’re retired, wealth management might be more relevant to you.”
“Not when it comes from Jack. He can never separate the forest from the trees enough to give you an overall sense of what he’s talking about.”
Thorndike grinned, and Charles thought that she really was a very attractive woman.
“I came here with Karen’s friend Rachel. She was waiting out in the hall. She needs a ride home.”
“I talked to her first, and had an officer take her home.”
Charles nodded his thanks. “She was pretty angry with me. Wouldn’t even stay in the same room. She thinks I was irresponsible for endangering Karen and herself.”
“Like I said, I’m more to blame than you are. I should have taken those threats more seriously.” Lieutenant Thorndike stood up and looked down at Charles. “Are you ready to go home?”
He looked at his watch and saw that it was well past one o’clock.
“Yes, I guess it’s time. When do you think Karen will be allowed to have visitors?”
“Probably not for a day or two. And I would recommend waiting a while until people’s tempers have cooled. Maybe until after you come back from your daughter’s.”
“Good idea,” Charles said, getting to his feet. “Right now I’m no one’s favourite.”
Thorndike patted him on the shoulder. Her touch was comforting.
“I’m sure some folks still like you.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Lieutenant Thorndike followed him home, and checked out the security in the house, locking all the windows and checking the doors. When she was done, she’d given him a reassuring smile and said that a cruiser would be coming past the house on an hourly basis to look out for intruders. She thought he was safe for now, and he should try to get a good night’s sleep. Charles tried. However, the next morning he felt as if he hadn’t rested at all. His body ached from spending the night tossing and turning. He’d awakened a couple of times from a shallow sleep in a cold panic, reliving the moment when Karen had slumped into his arms. Guilt and fear were proving a potent combination.
When Greg came to the door at seven, Charles debated what to tell him. Finally he decided that the truth might give him some valuable information as to whether the physicist had been involved in the shooting. Charles doubted that was the case, but you never knew. So he stood just inside the doorway for safety and told Greg about last night’s shooting. He said he was going away for a couple of days and wouldn’t be available to run.
Greg ran in place and began looking over his shoulder as if he might be in the line of fire if the murderer was trying for a second shot.
“Yeah, I guess going away is a good idea,” he said with a trace of nervousness. “We should probably put off running together until they catch the killer.”
Charles nodded. “That might be best,” he said, amused that he had finally managed to rattle the always-composed physicist.
Well, he didn’t have anything to do with it, Charles thought to himself as he closed the door. Greg might be a lot of things, but a good actor wasn’t among them. He had been genuinely frightened.
Charles had breakfast after a quick dash to his mailbox for The New York Times, during every moment of which he’d expected to hear the crack of a gunshot and feel his body go numb. But some risks were outweighed by the result. And having the Times with his breakfast was one such important result. As he ate his cereal, had coffee, and read about the misery throughout the world, he began to feel somewhat more optimistic. Perhaps it was because the world situation was so much worse than his own. But it was also because Karen was going to recover, he was still alive, and the chances of catching the murderer were no worse than before all of this happened.
When he was sure that his grandsons would have been delivered to preschool or kindergarten, whichever they were in, he called his daughter.
“Hi Dad,” she said, not attempting to conceal her surprise. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Does something have to be wrong for me to call my only child?”
The moment of silence on the other end made Charles realize how infrequent his calls to Amy actually were. Almost always, she was the one who initiated contact. Barbara had been the one who made the obligatory phone calls, allowing Charles to squeeze in a couple of shouted comments. After her death, he had not taken up the slack, leaving it to Amy, as if it were the woman’s job to hold their tiny family together. He resolved that he would be better about this in the future.
“Well, it’s good to hear from you anyway.”
“I was thinking if it’s okay with you, that is I’d like to come to visit for a couple of days.”
“Are you sure nothing’s wrong?”
“Of course there isn’t. Well, maybe I have been feeling a bit at loose ends lately now that I’m retired. I just thought this would be a good opportunity to see the boys, and Jack, of course.”
Again there was a moment of silence. “Has Karen Melrose still been pursuing you?”
“Do you think I’m running away from something?” he said, trying to sound hurt.
“It’s just that I usually have to call you and cajole you into visiting. It’s not like you to take the initiative.”
“As a matter of fact, Karen and I did go out last night. I didn’t think i
t was a big success. I’m not sure how she felt about it.” Although he could certainly make an educated guess, Charles thought.
“So you don’t want to be around for a few days in case she calls you back for an encore.”
“That’s the idea.” And a remote possibility, Charles thought again.
“Well, of course, you’re welcome. The boys always like a chance to see their grandpa on my side. They see Jack’s father often enough. You’ll be a nice change of pace.”
Charles recalled that Jack’s father was a very successful corporate lawyer in Boston. He’d only met him at the time of the wedding, and his impression was of a florid, portly man who was confident and self-satisfied. Charles wondered how he managed to cope with the grandsons, who were certainly no respecters of privilege.
“How about I aim at getting there by lunch? I can take you out if you’d like.”
“Why don’t we have a quiet lunch in? I have a lot of things to do this morning, and I won’t feel like getting fixed up to go out.”
“That’s fine.”
“Safe travels, then.”
Charles hung up the phone. He gazed longingly out the sliding door at the patio where he would like to be sitting. He doubted the shooter would try the same trick twice, but he didn’t dare risk it. Although he wasn’t terrified, last night’s experience had made him duly cautious. Life might not always hold a lot of charms for him, but he didn’t want to shuffle off without knowing who had killed Garrison Underwood.
He went upstairs to his bedroom and threw enough clothes for two days in his bag and packed his toiletries. He couldn’t remember when he had done this last, and realized that it must have been over six months since he had last visited Amy and the grandchildren. Again, he made a silent resolution to do better about that.
He went through the house and made certain everything was locked. He didn’t want to be surprised by an intruder when he returned home. He went out and put his bag in the car. Attempting to look casual, he glanced around the neighbourhood, on the lookout for anyone spying on his home. The neighbourhood appeared as innocent as always. Driving away, he turned down a series of quiet residential streets to make sure he wasn’t being followed. He thought he must have been followed from his home last night for the shooter to have time to stake out the movie theatre, and he wasn’t going to put Amy and the children at risk by allowing that to happen again. When his circuitous route didn’t reveal anyone following him, he eventually got back on a main secondary road and headed south toward the Massachusetts Turnpike.
