Rust: Two

by Christopher Ruz

  Commissioner Snow squealed, but not for long.

  It was almost a full day later when Snow felt well enough to stand without her support. She unshackled him from the bed and let him dress himself. He was well behaved for a man who'd spent so long complaining. All the fight had gone out of him. His eyes were closed.

  She whispered in his ear before she let him out the door. "Remember the detective. Every step he takes, you tell me. Every phonecall, you tell me. And the moment he finds Fitch..."

  "I tell you." Snow's voice was husky, grating. Like he was mumbling around a mouthful of gravel, or bone.

  "Good boy." She kissed him on his stubbled cheek, brushing his bushy sideburns with the pad of her thumb. "I used to have other boys, you know. None as good as you."

  "Good boy," Snow echoed. "Good."

  "The very best."

  She'd almost ushered Snow into the rain before she remembered the last and most important thing. "Not too fast, boy." She jerked him back by the arm and pulled his head down by the hair, keeping him in place long enough to slide her bug-eye sunglasses up over his nose.

  They didn't suit him, but shit, he could always afford some Aviators. As for her, money had never been a concern. She'd find her next pair walking the streets.

  Snow stumbled on the way to his car, like he was still drunk. Getting used to his new parts, she assumed. There always was a period of adjustment. He was a talented guy. He'd get used to it.

  A good little soldier. The first of many.

  Chapter 10

  Kimberly hadn't meant to leave Fitch in such a huff. God knew she was pissed, angry at his silence and the way he mumbled half-truths and kept that hand buried in his pocket, that fucking six-fingered hand twitching like a spider sprayed with Raid, always twitching, always scrabbling for purchase on something he didn't dare to show...

  But as she drove blindly through the afternoon showers, rain threading across the windshield of the stolen Audi, she felt like a grade-A bitch. She'd walked out on Peter in the same way, leaving him grasping at apologies, unable to make sense of what he'd done wrong or how to repair the damage. Her boyfriend, too. How many times had their fights - always so petty, so meaningless when viewed through the lens of twenty-four hours apart - ended in her slamming the door behind her and plunging into the neon heat of New York? Poor guy. Poor... poor...

  "His name," Kimberly hissed. "His name is..."

  Tip of her tongue. Started with an A... or was it an E? Edward? Was he black, white, hispanic? She couldn't remember the feel of his hair between her fingers. New York? She'd never even been. She and Peter had wanted to take a trip months before, but it was always an issue of time and money. Peter couldn't take more than a few days away from his job, and after they'd found that Kimberly was pregnant they'd set their entire travel budget aside for baby clothes, nappies and the crib.

  A warm flush rose into her cheeks as she remembered that day in the clinic, the buttery slick of gel across her swelling belly as the sonographer teased an ultrasound wand across her skin, the frantic thud of Curtis's heartbeat, her hand in Peter's, squeezing tight, tight, tight as she saw Curtis's chest rising and falling on the monitor...

  "No!"

  Kimberly slammed on the brakes, the Audi skidding to a stop across the centreline. The road was empty in both directions. She sagged across the steering wheel, panting, curses caught between her teeth.

  "It didn't happen," she whispered. "It didn't happen. It didn't."

  The heartbeat echoed in her ears. So tiny, so fragile. Temporary.

  "It didn't!"

  Excitement in the sonographer's voice. Do you want to know if your baby is a boy or a girl?

  She'd looked at Peter for confirmation, and he'd nodded. Tell us.

  A boy.

  We're going to have a boy. Heat behind her eyes. A little boy.

  "Fuck!"

  She pounded the horn, the bleating reverberating off the weatherboard slums lining the street. Tears tracked down her cheeks. Her breath came in fits.

  "It didn't happen," she whispered, but this time it was a plea.

  And she still couldn't remember her boyfriend's name. Funny, how she'd once thought they were engaged. Who would ever want to marry her? She was screwed up, twisted in the head. The sort of girl men warned each other about. Psychotic. Ready for rooms with soft walls and jackets that tied her arms behind her back.

  She needed a doctor.

  She needed Keller.

  * * *

  Doctor Keller was up to the wrists in his private patient when his pager beeped. He sighed, expecting it to be another callout for one of the blister-sickness patients on the third floor, but when he saw the name flashing across the LCD screen he stiffened immediately.

  "Be right back," he told his patient, before peeling off his gloves into the nearest hazardous waste bin and snatching up the phone. "Keller. Is she still in reception?"

  Trudi on reception sounded bored. Was that the click and pop of chewing gum he heard? "She says she'll only talk to you."

  "I already have a patient."

  "Schedule says you're available, Doctor. Should I tell her to wait?"

  "No, no. I'll be right up." Keller glanced over at the operating table. Nothing he couldn't walk away from if he tightened the straps, but of all the awkward times to get dragged away for a heart to heart with Mrs Archer...

  His patient moaned. Goddamned if she wasn't waking up early. He'd have to have a chat with the anaesthetist, but until then a couple minutes of concentrated enflurane would have to do. This was rapidly proving one of the most complicated projects of his long career, but he'd always relished a challenge...

  "Ten minutes," he told Trudi. "And spit out that gum. It's unprofessional."

  If the wait had gotten on Mrs Kimberly Archer's nerves, she didn't show it. She sat in the lobby with her hands folded in her lap, dressed in something that looked like period costume, but Keller decided it was best not to comment. With the economy the way it was, people wore whatever they could afford. Or maybe this was a sign?

  He remembered the weeks he'd spent with Mrs Archer prior to her release, when she'd insisted that her husband was false, that she lived in New York despite all the paperwork declaring otherwise, that her fiance was waiting for her just out of reach. He'd been convinced then that she was putting on an act, twisting the system to keep her apart from Peter's hard words or maybe even his fists, but doubts had crept in.

  If Mrs Archer had truly been faking her psychosis, she'd have run fast and far the moment she was released from St Jeremiah's and never looked back. But she was here, begging his attention.

  She'd returned to him twice, now. That set him on edge.

  Keller forced a smile as he met her in the lobby. "Mrs Archer. Lovely to see you. I really wish you'd made an appointment..."

  "I know you're busy." Mrs Archer's cheeks were flushed beneath the limp coils of her hair. Almost rouged, like a porcelain doll. Terribly fragile. "I just need five minutes."

  "Even so, an appointment-"

  "It's important," she said, and Keller knew immediately that this wasn't one of the many bullshit wastes of time that turned up on the doorsteps of St Jeremiah's. It wasn't just her voice, or the half-veiled panic in her eyes, or the way she sat rigid, at attention, like she was expecting a firecracker to go off under her chair at any moment. It was something deeper, something instinctual.

  He'd trudged the trenches of medical consultation for two and a half decades. He could tell a schoolchild faking a stomach ache before they'd even introduced themselves, and he could tell just as easily when a patient was, despite their protests and assurances of good health, standing on the precipice of cancer or diabetes or something altogether worse.

  That same instinct was itching at him so strong he could've screamed.

  "Come to my office," he said quietly, and Mrs Archer followed.

  No hysterics. No theatrics. No demands for pills, which had been his worst fear. During Mrs Archer'
s first stay at St Jeremiah's, Doctor Keller had fought the niggling suspicion that her entire post-partum episode had been fabricated to gain access to an all-you-can-eat prescription drug buffet. He'd seen the same ruse before, more times than he could count on both hands.

  But here she was, sitting prim and quiet on the far side of his desk, waiting to speak. Bursting, in fact. He could see the words behind her lips, the effort it was taking for her to keep from blurting them out.

  Keller made the first move. "Tea?"

  Mrs Archer didn't smile. "I don't want to take up your whole afternoon."

  "There's always time for tea." Keller folded his hands before him into a steeple, peering at Mrs Keller over the peak. She wasn't hard to read, not compared to some of his more esoteric patients, but still...

  "It's good to see you again," he said. "In truth, I should have arranged a checkup, but..."

  "Things got away from you?"

  "Something like that. Any more relapses?"

  "No. Nothing."

  "You and your husband-"

  "We're spending some time apart."

  "That may be for the best," Keller said. "Of course, that doesn't mean you should cut off all contact. Rebuilding a healthy relationship relies on keeping those channels open-"

  "I don't want to rebuild a healthy relationship. I want out." Kimberly hunched over his desk, like she was afraid to let her words escape into the hall. "How many other cases of... my psychosis... have you seen before?"

  Keller folded his hands beneath his chin, taking a moment to read Kimberly's expression. The faint shudder of an eyelid, the panicked blush in her cheeks... Yes, his first instincts had been correct. That was fear, bone-deep.

  He kept his voice low, even. "Many."

  "I mean, in women like me. Post-partum-"

  "Fewer, but still, enough to count on both hands."

  "Have any... never recovered?"

  Ah. The root of the problem. "You're worried about a relapse?"

  Kimberly Archer's face was ash-pale. Her fingers drummed on Keller's desk. "I-" she began, and stopped. Her voice was a bare croak. "I was just asking."

  "Without going into specifics, yes. One patient of mine continues to suffer intermittent relapses, although we've reduced the frequency with medication and therapy. Another was... well. She had a traumatic birth. Her illness was such that I don't think she'll ever fully recover."

  "What does she see?"

  "I'm sorry?"

  "Hallucinations, visions, paranoia-"

  "She sees monsters," Keller said. "Her child wasn't hers, she said. The devil put it in her."

  Mrs Archer was silent. Her hands had tensed into hard fists.

  "It's quite common," Keller continued. "The idea that the child belongs to somebody else. It's central to the psychosis, if anything. After all, post-partum depression centres around guilt, low self-esteem, a feeling of hollowness. A depressed mother sometimes looks for a person upon which to centre the blame, most often the child or husband. The ultimate conclusion of that frustration is to declare the child itself an imposter. Almost certainly the root of the changeling myth. The wrong baby, left by forces unknown." He set his hands on the desk, hoping Kimberly would unclench and mirror his pose. She didn't. "Do you still feel those doubts when you look at Curtis?"

  Mrs Archer shook her head, a little too quickly.

  "Do you see Curtis at all?"

  This time she nodded. Again, too fast, like she was eager to move the conversation along. "Doctor... that woman who had relapses. When she's, um, lucid... can she tell the difference between what's real and what's not?"

  Keller bit his lip. He knew what Kimberly wanted to hear and he wished he could say it, that yes, his old patient knew clearly the demarcation between fantasy and reality. That the more time she spent in therapy the closer she came to throwing off the shackles of her illness.

  But it wasn't true, and he couldn't lie. Not when it came to medicine. "She has trouble keeping track of what is and isn't real," he said. "A problem which I don't believe you share. Or is there something else you wanted to tell me?"

  Mrs Archer's lips fluttered, and he knew there was a word trapped there, a confession pressing against her tongue and teeth so hard it was threatening to burst free.

  "I saw your records," Keller continued, quieter this time, like he was wary of frightening a sparrow perched on the end of his finger. "He's your husband, Mrs Archer. People lie. Paperwork doesn't."

  She nodded. A quick, slight jerk of the head, and nothing more.

  "If there's anything, please tell-"

  "No," she said. "Nothing else."

  Kimberly shook his hand, and there was no mistaking the slackness in her wrist, like all the strength had gone out of her. She was trying to mirror his smile but it looked false on her, a horrible parody of happiness.

  She was on the way out when Keller called, "Did you ever take that holiday?"

  Kimberly paused in the doorway. "Ha!"

  "Don't be so quick to dismiss it. Some time away from here with your husband, or on your own, time to evaluate what you want from life-"

  "What about you, doctor? Why don't you take a holiday if it's so damn easy?"

  Keller smiled sadly. "My schedule doesn't permit me to step away."

  "I tried taking the bridge," she said. "The big bridge east, over the strait? I almost saw the other side. There are men there. Did you know that? Like they're guarding the place."

  Keller shook his head. "I'm not sure I follow."

  "You couldn't leave if you tried, Doctor. I'd know. I tried really fucking hard." Her shoulders rose and fell, as if she was holding in a sob. "Either I'm screwed up, or it's the whole town. Flip of a coin, huh?"

  For a moment he was wound up, ready to dart across the room and grab her shoulder, haul her back, demand answers. Press a prescription into her hand. Maybe even force her to stay a night or two, under observation. God knew he'd be derelict in his duties if he let her walk...

  But at that moment, he didn't feel noble. Just curious. Men on the bridge? The whole town, screwed up? It reminded him of something, a dream half-remembered.

  And, after all, he couldn't spend the entire afternoon with Mrs Archer. Not when he had so many patients demanding his attention, and his private client still waiting.

  So he let her go with a wave and a handshake, and watched from his window as she drove away. Funny, that Audi. Her husband had only driven a Volkswagen, and he doubted she'd come into money since leaving him.

  His hand hovered over the phone. He'd debated calling Detective Goodwell from the moment Mrs Archer arrived, but something had stopped him. The desperation in her eyes, perhaps. He knew well enough when one of his patients was running from something, running so hard they didn't dare look back to see whether it was closing on their heels. Maybe that was her husband. Maybe something else.

  Question was, was it right to bring the police down on a scared woman's head? With all she'd been through, with her psychosis... if it was psychosis, and not all an excuse she was laying down miles in advance to pave the way for some massive divorce settlement. No way to tell without a two month evaluation, private consultations, locking the poor lady up like she was a criminal...

  No, no, no. Moralising wasn't his place. The law was the law.

  In certain cases, that was.

  He snatched the phone off the hook and dialled Rustwood PD.

  Chapter 11

  Kimberly drove with tears in her eyes. She brushed them away with the back of her hand, furious at Keller, furious at herself. Bullshit. All of it, bullshit.

  The devil put it in her. Relapses. Don't think she'll ever fully recover.

  Had he really been talking about another patient? Or was it all code for you need help, lady. On a scale of crazy, you're red-lining. You need a straightjacket, a shrink and meals served through a straw. Nothing but the finest plastic cutlery, once we're sure you're not going to saw through your own wrists.

  She'd see
n that pitying smile before. It was the same smile Goodwell gave her that first morning in the Rustwood PD, when he'd spread the evidence of her false life across the table and tried to squeeze a confession out of her, a confession she couldn't bear to give. That sickening grin, like it would all be so easy for her to admit deception, to let the police take all her troubles and worries away...

  Fuck that.

  She drove furiously, slaloming down the bends from St Jeremiah's into the heart of town. The rain pattering across the windshield slicked back as she accelerated. The Audi's tires made pained, shredding noises as she took the turn at the end of Lucerne Avenue. So what if she skidded out and wrapped the car around a lamppost? She was delusional, wasn't she? It'd be the perfect defence if she ended up before a magistrate. I'm crazy, they all knew I was crazy, and they still let me drive in the rain. Fuck Fitch, fuck Keller, fuck all of them. Paperwork doesn't lie, apparently. What a crock of-

  Of course. Paperwork.

  It should've been her first stop, but in the weeks spent running back and forth across town with the police on her trail and monsters taking bites out of her heels, she hadn't really had time. Now, with room to breathe and think, it seemed obvious.

  She knew the way, like she'd always known the way, like she'd known the closest gas station to Rosewater Avenue. Because the town was in her as much as she was in it. Up Prole Lane, a left on Collington, and she was there. The sign was small, unassuming. Lettering wrought in copper against a board stained black by endless rain. RUSTWOOD DEPARTMENT OF RECORDS.

  The cops said she belonged in Rustwood. Keller had seen the papers himself. Peter talked like he'd known her his whole adult life. But if Peter had snatched her at random off the tracks in New York, he wouldn't have had the time or means to file fake paperwork. Even the police wouldn't go so far as to alter the town registry of births, deaths and marriages. That was the sort of conspiracy reserved for senators and celebrities.