by David Haynes
He jumped forward and took her wrist. “She’s trying to get this out too.” He spoke to Dr Hamilton across the bed.
“Just hold her wrist,” she said. “Gently.”
He nodded but Frances was much stronger than he thought possible. He didn’t want to break any bones but he was getting close to the point where he could safely restrain her without causing damage. The nurse on the other side of the bed was struggling too and Dr Hamilton was trying to help her.
Donovan reached around him and took Frances’s forearm. Between them they were able to pin her arm to the bed.
The spasms had stopped but her arm movements weren’t jerky, they were deliberate. She was trying to kill herself. Maybe not with a gun but she was trying to follow her son to the next world, all right.
Wilson and Dr Hamilton locked eyes for a moment. He saw something in them that was almost as frightening as the patient’s behavior. Confusion. A slight shake of the head. Disbelief. A doctor should never show those emotions. Feel them, yes. But reveal the fact that you’re scared or you don’t understand, never.
Then it was gone and she looked away, to the nurse at the foot of the bed. “Jane, come and take over.” Turning to the last remaining member of staff, she said, “Mark, I need to get the line back up and I need a list of the medication she’s been given this morning.”
Mark was too stunned to move.
“Now, Mark!” she shouted.
He blinked several times, looked at the Doctor and at Frances, then ran out of the room. Dr Hamilton was back in charge. A few seconds later, whatever reserves of strength had been in Frances Pace’s body leaked away and her arms relaxed. They all held onto her for another two minutes to make sure she wasn’t trying to fool them before Dr Hamilton called it.
“Slowly, everyone let go of her.”
They all did, one by one, watching for any sign that she might try a repeat showing. She didn’t but her eyes remained open, staring straight up at the magnolia-painted ceiling. Unblinking.
Dr Hamilton caught Wilson’s eyes again. “Gentlemen, if you could wait for me in my office? I’ll be another ten minutes with Mrs Pace.”
Wilson nodded and turned away with Donovan.
“Oh, and Mr Wilson, Mr Donovan?”
They both turned.
“Thank you.”
Wilson nodded. He bent down and picked up a solitary daisy that had fallen to the floor. He put it on the bed.
“They’re her favorite,” Dr Hamilton said.
A smile tried to wriggle its way across his lips but it was killed before it caught hold. A wisp of black smoke snaked slowly across the wall behind her honey-colored hair. It hung from the corner of the room and then was gone.
“Frankie?”
He felt Donovan grab his elbow and pull him away. He allowed himself to be led from the room on feet that felt like they belonged to a three hundred-pound linebacker. They started back toward the office.
“Got a bit freaky in there,” Donovan said, his voiced hushed.
“Sure did. Didn’t look it but she was strong. See her eyes?”
“I’m not talking about the old girl. Although I’m not sure what the hell we were watching there. I’m talking about the way you fixed Hamilton just then. Stared right at her without saying a word. Got the hots for the doc, Frank? Or should I call her ‘ma’am’?”
“Migraine,” Wilson replied. Because that’s what it was. It had been coming for a while. “And I most certainly don’t have the hots for her. I’m not a teenager, for Christ’s sake.”
They turned around the staircase and headed down the corridor to Dr Hamilton’s office. Nurse Jones hadn’t moved from her position.
Donovan was smiling as they walked. “Put you in a room full of knife-wielding, gun-toting maniacs and you’re the coolest man I’ve ever met. A regular Frank Bullitt,” he said. “Put an attractive woman in front of you and you’re a mess. More like Frank Drebbin.”
“Dick,” Wilson replied. But he knew Donovan was right. He pressed a thumb to his temple.
They walked the rest of the way in silence until they reached the office. Donovan paused before entering. “Sorry to ask this, Frankie, but did your mom ever have an episode like that? Like Frances Pace just had?”
Wilson shook his head. “She never moved. Not once.”
7
Dr Hamilton walked back into the office and sat down behind her desk. Her cheeks were flushed. A little over twenty minutes had passed since they had left her in Frances Pace’s room; twenty minutes in which Wilson and Donovan had talked about anything but what they had just seen. Rifling through the cabinets and drawers in Dr Hamilton’s office would always have been wrong, but now it felt ugly too. Wilson didn’t need to ask Donovan if he felt the same way. If he hadn’t, he would have tried the drawers instead of talking about the Patriots again. Besides, they were probably locked.
“Is she okay?” Wilson asked.
Dr Hamilton took a moment before answering. “Has he communicated the extent of his mother’s illness to you?” she asked, looking at them in turn.
“Locked-in Syndrome,” Wilson started. “De-efferented state. Whether total or partial, we haven’t been told. Similarly, the cause hasn’t been communicated to us. Whether that be stroke or a different cause of damage to the brain stem, we don’t know.” He looked at Donovan. “We understand that she has been in this state for some time, but again, how long we don’t know exactly. As we said, he’s a new client.”
Dr Hamilton nodded.
“However,” Wilson continued, turning back to the Doctor, “from what we’ve seen today, her condition doesn’t fit with my understanding or experience of the condition.” He shook his head. “In no way.”
“Nor mine,” the Doctor replied.
Her response shocked Wilson. He had expected her to produce a list of medical reasons why Frances Pace could behave in the way she just had. Instead, she was shaking her head and admitting incomprehension.
“Frances has been in Hemlock for the last six months. She came from another facility, a different type of facility, in Oregon. Her records show she has been moved from one facility to another, to another. It’s been difficult to put everything together but those records show her to have suffered from total Locked-in Syndrome for at least two years. In all that time, not once has she moved.”
“Not even her eyes?” Wilson asked.
“No, not even her eyes. Her particular condition is very rare. Usually, in cases such as this, the patient regains some level of movement following the initial trigger, eye movement generally is the first indication of consciousness. Although her eyes are open, there has been no movement whatsoever, not in all the time she’s been here.” She paused and looked over their heads. “And if there are no signs of consciousness, the patient...”
“Dies,” Wilson cut in. The word sounded even more final, if at all possible, than normal.
She nibbled her lip and nodded. “Which is why my staff and I were momentarily taken aback by what happened in there.”
“So, does this mean her condition is improving? She’s getting better?” Donovan asked. “Or am I missing something?”
Dr Hamilton almost shrugged but caught herself. The confidence she had shown when they first met had seeped away. She was out of her depth. Wilson felt a little sorry for her.
“We’ll have to monitor her. We’ll have to run some tests, of course.” She stood up, reached into her pocket and withdrew a set of keys, then reached over and unlocked the closest filing cabinet.
“I’ll have to speak to the board and get some guidance.” She withdrew a large file and dropped it on the desk. “And of course what we do next will have to be discussed with you now. As his representatives.”
Donovan and Wilson looked at each other, then back at Dr Hamilton.
“Of course,” they both said in unison.
“And if by...” Dr Hamilton paused and looked at the ceiling, “some miracle, she does show signs of improvement after all this
time, we’ll have to discuss where her treatment and care will continue. Did Mr Pace mention that to you? As I said, he didn’t seem particularly happy with at least some aspects of her care here.”
“Go?” Wilson asked.
“Yes, she couldn’t remain here. We’re not equipped to treat Frances.”
“But isn’t that why she’s here, Doctor?” Donovan asked. He looked as confused as Wilson felt.
She looked at them both as if they were deluded fools. “But I assumed Mr Pace would have told you this...” She opened her arms. “Kennebec Health Consultancy is a hospice. There is no treatment we can offer Frances.” That same uneasy frown appeared on her brow again and her mouth tightened as if the words were distasteful. “At least not medical.”
*
They climbed back into the car in silence. Wilson turned the ignition but didn’t make any moves to drive away. He stared at the droplets of water on the windscreen and the gold plaque on the wall. The word ‘Visitor’, printed in black, was a deformed tangle of spiders’ legs in the rain but he knew what it read. It took on a new and depressing meaning now he knew what sort of place Kennebec Health Consultancy was.
“I had no idea,” Donovan said. “Nowhere did it mention what sort of hospital it was.” He turned in his seat and looked at Wilson. “But old Mrs Pace looks like she’s got plenty of life in her yet. Maybe if Dickie had waited a few days he might not have put that Glock in his mouth.”
“Maybe,” Wilson replied. He raised his eyebrows and put the car in reverse. “I guess we’ll never know about that.”
Donovan nodded. “Want to get some breakfast?”
Breakfast sounded like a good idea. Dr Hamilton had taken both his and Donovan’s cell numbers and promised to update them as soon as there was anything new to tell them.
That could all be done back in Boothbay Harbor, and yet something tickled the back of Wilson’s brain and told him it was too early to go back yet. There was still something to find up here in Hemlock Mill.
*
There had been three diners in Hemlock Mill at the peak of the town’s prosperity. Now there was only one. It was called Dianne’s and the signage was straight out of the Sixties. As were the soda signs, the furniture and the paint job. Not so the waitress. She was a product of the Nineties, and the recession that had almost destroyed the town and hundreds like it across the country.
“What can I get for you two gentlemen this morning?” At best she sounded disinterested, at worst mildly irritated by their presence. The rest of the diner was completely empty.
Donovan flipped through the menu. “I’ll go for the pancakes, blueberry please, with some crispy bacon on the side and coffee.” He closed the menu. “Oh and a side of home fries too, thanks.”
Wilson smiled at the waitress. Her name was Courtney. “Ham and cheese omelet, with coffee, please.”
Courtney wrote the order on her notepad and walked away. Wilson’s smile wasn’t reciprocated.
“Cheery soul,” said Wilson.
“Doesn’t look like the cheeriest of places to live though, does it?”
“Guess not,” he replied.
They looked out onto Main Street. The diner’s windows were streaked with a rain that looked dirty, like it had fallen through a cloud of soot and ash from the mill. It hadn’t of course, not unless the imprint of a polluted cloud hung above the town like a septic ghost.
A man in a black overcoat stopped by the window to shake another man’s hand. They both looked inside at Wilson and Donovan with a surprised look on their faces, stared for longer than was polite or friendly and then hurried on in opposite directions.
The street was quiet and no traffic passed in either direction. It was entirely possible that Wilson’s Ford Escape was the only vehicle to have come through town in days. The hardtop was cracked like crazy paving. There was no point in repairing it; the lumber trucks stopped passing through around the same time as smoke stopped spilling out of the mill’s chimney.
Courtney slid two cups onto the table and filled them up with coffee without saying a word.
“Thank you,” Donovan called after her. She didn’t seem to notice his sarcastic tone. He shook his head and looked out of the window again. “What do you want to do then?” he asked.
Wilson exhaled loudly. “I don’t know.” He took a sip of his coffee. Despite Courtney’s people skills, the coffee was excellent. “What have we really found out by coming here? Frances Pace is expected to die? That’s about it. We could’ve found that out from home.”
“She might not have LIS. That’s another thing. It could mean something.”
“Like what?” Wilson asked.
Donovan shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m probably looking for something that isn’t there.”
Courtney appeared with plates balanced on her arms. As she unloaded them, Wilson noticed a dozen small red welts on both her forearms. Cigarette burns? She saw where he was looking and stared at him, challenging him to look away first. He did.
“Enjoy your breakfast, gentlemen,” she said without the faintest trace of warmth.
“Jeez,” Donovan whispered, stuffing a rasher of bacon into his mouth. “Wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of her.”
“It has to be a coincidence though,” said Wilson.
“Huh?”
“That we show up and Frances Pace comes back from wherever she’s been hiding for the last...” He turned his palms upward. “God knows how long. I mean, that’s just a coincidence. Right?”
Donovan put his fork down and wiped his chin on a napkin. “It’s got to be, but... I don’t know...” His expression changed instantly. He was looking back out onto Main Street.
“Look at that guy!” He pointed to the other side of the street.
Wilson looked out. An elderly man, thinning white hair plastered to his scalp, ran across the frontage of the empty stores. He was wearing nothing but a white hospital gown. He caught his reflection in one of the windows and froze, staring at himself. The gown flapped open at the back, revealing his naked behind.
It might have been comical except for the awful expression on his face as he turned away from the window. His mouth was a dark chasm, his teeth gone, but from that void erupted the most pitiful wail Wilson had ever heard. The man clutched his temples, looking directly at them.
“We should help him.” Wilson stood up, Donovan did the same. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Courtney standing at the door. She held a hand over her mouth. Perhaps she was human after all.
The white-haired man looked both ways, up and down the road, as if searching for someone, someone to help him perhaps. The street was deserted.
“Come on,” Wilson said and pushed his way out of the booth. His coffee spilled on the table but he didn’t care.
“Oh Christ,” Donovan hissed.
The white-haired man’s intentions became clear. He stepped off the sidewalk into the road, his eyes never leaving the diner and his clawed hands raised to his temples. Wilson noticed the water running down his temples in dirty streaks a moment before he turned back around to look at his reflection. Was it his reflection? For a moment, Wilson saw something else. A shape, nothing more. He shook his head, just the rain on the window, that was all.
Then the man took three loping strides, more suited to someone in their thirties, and hurled himself head-first into the glass.
Courtney gasped as first his head then his shoulders breached the window before his momentum gave out. The glass collapsed around him like a galaxy folding in on itself, being sucked into a black hole. Except it wasn’t up in the sky somewhere far, far away, it was on the street in the middle of the day, right in front of them. There weren’t any brilliant, sparkling stars either. There was blood. A lot of blood.
Wilson started running. He heard Donovan behind him. Courtney screamed and stepped away from the door as Wilson flung it open.
“Call 911!” he shouted at her.
He jumped off the sidewalk
at the same time as Donovan, but within two strides the younger man had overtaken him.
“He’s moving!” Donovan shouted.
Wilson could see the old man’s legs twitching. He thought the movement might be death throes rather than signs of life. He was wrong about that. Within a split-second, he wished he’d been right.
The old man sat upright and turned to face them; the sound of glass crunching and piercing his flesh was awful. His face was a crimson mask as a hideous fissure seeped dark blood from his forehead. The wound ran in a diagonal line across his nose, all the way down to his jawline. Something white gleamed briefly, washed by a splash of rain and then was gone. Wilson felt his stomach lurch but he kept going. He didn’t know what he was going to do when he got there but to stop was unthinkable.
Donovan jumped up onto the sidewalk in front of him and stopped. “No!” he shouted.
Wilson was beside him a second later and saw why Donovan had shouted that particular word. The old man, his eyes almost completely obscured by the blood, held a shard of glass in his hand. It looked like a dagger. He mumbled something but it sounded like water spiraling down the plughole as his voice flowed through the blood.
Then he drove the point of the shard into his eye socket and tumbled back into the empty shop. Across the street, he heard Courtney scream again.
Donovan dropped to his knees on the wet sidewalk. Rain bounced off the broken and bloody glass all around him. “No!” he roared.
Wilson put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. John Donovan had gone through the first thirty-two years of his life without witnessing anything worse than roadkill. In the last few days he’d witnessed two men kill themselves in the most violent manner imaginable. Close up.
“Stay there,” Wilson said, squeezing Donovan’s shoulder. He stepped into the store. He’d seen the old man push the glass deep into his eye socket. There was no coming back from that but he needed to check, he needed to be sure.
Glass crunched under his feet. The man had fallen backward off the platform for whatever window display had once been here and lay on his back between two clothing rails. The sliver of glass protruded from his eye socket. There was blood everywhere.
