by G. H. Ephron
There was that uncanny intuition again. I tugged the gym bag from beneath the wheel. Then I pushed Syl down to the conference room. I was careful to sit at right angles and beyond arm’s reach. Today we’d do the Rorschach Test, but I never start with it. It provides a peephole directly into the subject’s emotional insides. I usually start with something much more neutral, as I did today with questions from an intelligence test.
Just as I’d expected, Syl scored well on the test of general knowledge. What direction does the sun set? On what continent is the Gobi Desert? If you went from New York to Rio de Janeiro, what direction would you be going? She knew the answers. Her recall of old stuff was largely intact. But after every question, there were long stretches of silence while Syl pondered, then picked her words, and finally tried to coordinate her breathing with her voice to get the words out. Occasionally she forgot the question before she could deliver her answer. And if I tried to move on to the next question while she was still thinking, she’d become upset and confused. The normally fifteen-minute test took nearly a half hour to complete.
When we finished, I pulled over the stack of inkblots I’d left facedown on the table. I’d learned to expect the unexpected with this test and I was interested to see how Syl would respond.
“Did you ever sit on a beach looking at clouds?” I asked her by way of preamble. Syl nodded. “Ever imagine that clouds look like something familiar?”
She shifted in her seat, like she was trying to get comfortable. I hadn’t noticed how pale Syl was. The dark lines of her blood vessels, like long narrow bruises, ran down her neck and disappeared under the V-necked T-shirt. I tapped the stack of cards against the table edge to straighten them and flipped through quickly to be sure they were in the right order.
“Well, I’m going to show you some inkblots, and what I want you to do is tell me what they look like, what they could be. This is very much like looking at clouds. There are no right or wrong answers; different people see different things. Are you ready?” Syl was breathing rapidly. Her nod was little more than a shudder.
She grasped the arms of the chair. I took the first card, flipped it over, and held it out with one hand while starting the stopwatch with the other. I held it close to her so she could take it from me.
But she didn’t. She brushed the back of her hand lightly across her forehead and looked distractedly around the room. “Doctor,” she whispered. Then she reached out and clutched my hand instead of the card. Her fingers were icy cold. The skin of her face looked like parchment and her lips were bluish. She was breathing rapidly and pushing out the words, “I feel … funny … fuzzy … c-c-c-cold …”
She took a shallow breath and her head dropped. Then she lifted it and looked toward me with unfocused eyes. She shuddered violently just before her eyes slid up under her eyelids and she slumped over.
“Ms. Jackson?” I shouted, shaking her by the shoulder. “Help!” I shouted, even though no one could hear me through the closed door. I scanned the room. I hit the emergency call button. Then I yanked the door open and ran toward the nurses’ station. “She’s unconscious!” I yelled, hoping I was right.
Lovely appeared out of nowhere and charged past me with a what-have-you-done-to-her-now look on her face. The Code Blue announcement barely registered as a doctor and another nurse materialized, one from a stairwell and the other from a nearby room.
MacRae emerged from the men’s room. The two of us watched from the hall, picking up little snatches of conversation from the group huddled over Syl, who was now stretched out on the conference table — “Blood pressure’s falling,” “When did she have her last meds?” and finally, “Lavage!”
“Shit, shit, shit,” I hissed, under my breath. I couldn’t stand that feeling of helplessness, of knowing something terrible was happening and being powerless to act, to help, to prevent.
“Worried this might throw off your schedule?” MacRae sneered.
I turned on him. “You stupid sonofabitch.” I might have taken a swing at him but just then, a nurse came out of the room and ran between us. She returned a moment later with rubber tubing and an oversized plastic syringe. The interruption gave me what I needed to regroup. I walked over to the window and stared out over the river. It was very quiet as they worked.
An orderly arrived with a gumey. A few moments later he departed, the gumey now bearing Syl’s inert shape, one of the nurses trotting alongside holding aloft an IV bag.
MacRae turned to me and barked, “Don’t leave the building.” As he strode over to the nurses’ station to grab the phone, I flipped him the bird.
All alone, I walked back into the now empty conference room. My notebooks and Rorschach cards were strewn on the floor. Syl’s wheelchair looked forlorn, shunted off into a corner. I squatted to gather up my things. I gagged. The sweet smell of vomit permeated the room.
I left the room and walked down the hall. On the way, I stopped at a water cooler and helped myself to a drink. I steadied my hand to raise the little pleated paper cup to my mouth.
As I sat and waited in the solarium, I reviewed the symptoms: low blood pressure, pallor, low body temperature, rapid breathing. Any one of a million drugs could cause symptoms like that and she was probably taking some of them. But where had those pills come from? Were they really left by the nurse when Sylvia Jackson was on the phone? If so, when?
I didn’t have to wait long before MacRae reappeared. “She’s in the ICU. She’s going to be okay.” I didn’t say anything. “It’s a good thing someone was with her,” he added grudgingly, “otherwise …” He took out a little pad and started to write. “Doctor, did you give her any medication?”
Now he wasn’t being hostile. He needed something from me. I wanted to wrench the pad from him, tear off the pages, and shove them down his throat. Instead, I counted to five and said, “I’m not her doctor. It’s not my job to prescribe or administer drugs. But I did see her take some.” MacRae’s pencil paused in midair. “When she came out of the bathroom, she had a little cup full of pills she said she’d forgotten to take.”
“Pills? How many?”
“A lot. She usually takes a half dozen, give or take a few.”
He scratched notes on his pad. “You say you watched her take them?”
“And I poured her some water.” I could see Syl, rolling out of the bathroom, the little cup of brightly colored pills balanced in her lap. “I wonder what happened to the cup.”
“Wait here,” MacRae barked, and he was up and out the door. Maybe he wasn’t so stupid after all. I tried to remember. Had she put it down on the bedside table? Did she throw it into the wastebasket?
He returned a minute later, empty-handed. “You sure about that cup?”
I nodded. “Definitely. A white pleated paper cup.”
“Paper cup,” he said, jotting the words into his notebook.
“White pleated paper cup,” I said.
“Anyone else see her take those pills?”
I shook my head.
“Anyone else around at the time?”
“No one but you.”
He ignored it. “Depending on what happens, we may need to call you in for questioning.” He snapped his little notebook closed, fished a card from his pocket, and held it out to me. “Dr. Zak, if you remember anything, call me” — I looked at the card — “please.” I took it and shoved it into my pocket.
When I got back to the Pearce, I called Chip. “Sylvia Jackson collapsed this morning while I was testing her. They rushed her to intensive care.”
“The D.A.’s office called us. Already they’re blaming us, though I’m not sure what for. Annie went over to the hospital to get it firsthand. So what do you think happened?”
“She’d just taken some pills she found in her bathroom.”
“Found?”
“She said the nurse left them for her. Definitely not standard hospital procedure. But it can happen. It’s also possible that they gave her the wrong meds. That happe
ns sometimes. Especially with all the float nurses they’re using these days who don’t know one patient from another.”
“Sounds suspicious.”
“And there’s something else fishy — when the detective went to Sylvia Jackson’s room to look for the cup she’d taken the meds from, he couldn’t find it.” I wondered how hard he’d looked. “Of course, she might have thrown it away in the hall or in the conference room.” Or he might have found it and tucked it into his pocket. “Or it might have been in her wheelchair. Didn’t occur to me to check.”
“Peter, could that many pills kill someone?”
“The pills that Sylvia Jackson takes regularly? Probably not. But a double dose could make you very sick. Have they analyzed stomach contents or done a toxic blood screen?”
“Annie’s trying to find out. She said she’d stop by the Pearce early tomorrow morning at around eight and give you an update.”
“Well, at least now we know one thing,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“If someone’s still trying to kill Sylvia Jackson, it ain’t Stuart.”
10
MY ALARM went off at six the next morning. Overnight, the air had developed a pre-winter chill and I awoke, cocooned in a double layer of blanket. It was dark, and I could tell that even after the sun came up, a damp overcast sky would make the day a perpetual twilight.
My mood matched the day. I wanted to sleep and go on sleeping. I must have dozed off because next thing I knew, it was after six-thirty. With a supreme act of will, I flung off the bedclothes and pulled on shorts and a T-shirt, shoved my feet into running shoes, grabbed a sweatshirt, and bolted out the door. I was halfway down the block when I realized I’d forgotten to bring a change of clothes. It was too late to turn back.
The jog to the river and a nasty wind whipping in from the north helped wake me up. The Charles was greasy gray, and choppy little whitecaps dotted its surface. I pushed open the door to the dark, fetid wooden boathouse. It was full of other equally unshaven, reluctant early risers who hadn’t yet had their morning cups of coffee. Everyone there was intent on just one thing — getting a boat into the water. Civil greetings and conversation were for after.
I descended a flight of stairs, its ancient treads scooped out and worn smooth. At water level, I was surrounded by sleek white racing shells with an occasional red or blue one. They were perched in racks on either side of me and in slings overhead. A huge gray rectangle loomed ahead where the double doors were flung open to the river.
I pulled out my oars and put them outside on the edge of the dock. Then I went back and lowered my boat from its overhead sling and carried it out. I set it gently in the water, trying not to splash myself. I set the oars into the oarlocks, kicked off my sneakers, and got into the boat. I slid my bare feet into the shoes that were bolted to the cross-stretcher and pressed the Velcro fasteners into place. The boat was already rocking in the choppy water.
I pushed off from the dock, turned the boat, and started to row, the seat sliding with each pull of the oars. The ride was bumpy as little waves lapped up against the shell. The occasional splash of tepid riverwater quickly turned icy against my skin.
I started to get into a rhythm, my muscles warming, the tension in my back and shoulders easing. The boathouse grew smaller. The river widened. I passed the MIT boathouse on the opposite shore, a high-tech cube plunked down in the middle of the river, connected by a concrete gangway to the shore. I rowed on steadily, my senses coming to life. Mist wrapped me in a skin of moist coolness and the stench of the Charles — sea air and sewage — became pleasurable.
I pushed myself harder and was just starting to feel my mind disconnect from my body when a wave hit the boat from the Boston side, shattering my concentration. My entire left side — shirt, shorts, shoes — was soaked. Annoyed, I watched a white motorboat speed away. I tried to steady the shell, leaning away from the wake, raising the gunnel that separated me from the water. Like a roller coaster, the boat climbed and fell, the bow flipping back and forth.
I was cursing and telling myself to let it go, calm down, get back into a rhythm, when another motorboat appeared. This time, I watched as it sped toward me. The driver had on what looked like a dark sweatshirt with the hood pulled low over his face. I wanted to stand up and wave my arms but I knew the boat would capsize. More than that, I wanted to take a revolver out of my pocket and pop the jerk between the eyes. Instead, I steadied the oars across and waited in a cold fury. “Asshole!” I screamed as the motorboat roared past. All I could do was sit there as a second wake hit me. Now I was soaked on both sides.
I loosened my cramped hands and flexed my fingers. This was unheard of. Fucking unbelievable. There were never motorboats out this early, never mind two of them. I yearned to keep going, to get back to that place where I could zone out. But the water in the boat was nearly up to my ankles.
Angrily, I started to turn back. I was perpendicular to the river, rowing across to the other side, when an unpleasant thought occurred to me. Both times, it had been a small, white, nondescript speedboat. Suppose it was the same boat? Then I heard the sound. I hoped it was a plane making its approach to Logan. Or a motorcycle roaring down Memorial Drive. But I knew better. I turned and watched the boat speeding toward me. It skimmed along, slapping the surface, spray spewing behind. This time, the guy wasn’t fooling around. He was aiming straight at me.
Quickly, I reversed the oars and backed the boat down, trying to avoid a direct hit. The drone turned edgy and sharp. I backed furiously, barely registering the panic and fear that had washed away my rage. It sounded as if a jet engine were bearing down on me. Push. Push. Push. And then the impact. The speedboat nipped a corner of the shell and flipped it.
My glasses flew off as I went over. The water was a warm soup compared to the chilly air. In the dark turbulence, I tried not to inhale. I thrashed around, losing all sense of direction, until my lungs felt as if they would burst. Then, from somewhere, a calmness grew out from the center of my chest. I relaxed, the dark behind my eyelids lifting like waves of heat lightning. I felt only weightlessness as I hung, suspended. I could just let go, inhale, and it would all be over. Then, as in a slow-motion ballet, my body curled fetal and righted itself, and my head emerged into the air pocket under the overturned shell. I gasped for air and reached out for the sides of the boat. I hung there, catching my breath, feeling the slimy water icing my head and shoulders. I listened to the wake lapping, lapping against the outside of the shell and my ragged breathing echoing inside.
I tried not to think about how deliberate it seemed. How the hooded figure seemed to draw a bead on me and then mow me down. I could see Ralston Bridges at the helm, laughing. But I knew it was a made-up memory, manufactured for this moment when all forms of danger and personal malice brought his face to mind.
I heard a distant buzzing. I froze. It was definitely growing louder. There wasn’t time to check out what was coming or where it was coming from. In a blind panic, I took a gulp of air and dove down, swimming underwater as fast as I could in what I hoped was the direction of the Cambridge shore. By the time I surfaced, the drone of the motorboat was receding. A wave of relief washed over me. I took a few more strokes, reached a footing at the base of the Mass Ave Bridge, and climbed out, my arms and legs scraping against the rough stone. I huddled, clinging to the bridge abutment, shivering. Blood oozed from where my feet had been ripped loose from the shell. The acrid smell and the cooing that seemed to come from the bridge itself gave me a clue as to the origin of the white that coated the girders. Pigeon shit. I listened, straining to sort out the competing sounds. All I heard was the benign rumble of cars, the thump of an occasional bus crossing the bridge, and the rhythmic drone of what was probably a traffic helicopter checking out the morning rush on Storrow Drive.
I expected to see my boat bobbing in the ripples. But even without my glasses I could see it had vanished. A shard of white came floating over to me on the remains of the
wake. I reached out and grabbed it. Barely five inches long, it was all I had left of my boat. I turned it over, my hands trembling. The boat had been a gift from Kate. “You bastard!” I screamed, my words carried away by the wind. “You shitty sonofabitch. What kind of dumb-ass would pull a stunt like —” And then I woke up to the certainty that this wasn’t some idiot, some stunt. It had been quite deliberate, probably personal. The anger froze into fear. I steadied myself. I zipped the boat fragment into my shorts pocket and scanned up the river and down. Then I threw myself into the water and stroked as fast as I could to the river’s edge. Winded, I clung to a steel ladder set into the stone wall. I hung there breathing heavily, my body feeling like dead weight, becoming colder by the second and nauseated by my own stench. I was so tired I couldn’t twist around to see if anyone or anything was bearing down on me. Raw fear propelled me up the ladder, the metal rungs cutting into the bottoms of my bare feet. I grasped the top of the ancient cast-iron fence, the last obstacle between the river and the shore. I was hauling myself over when the top broke away and I came crashing down with it onto the grass. I struggled to my feet in a blind rage, wrenched the broken fencing free, and flung it as hard as I could toward the river. It hit the water with a satisfying splash.
I walked back, muttering to myself and ignoring the early morning dog walkers, joggers, and bicyclists who shared the pathway alongside the river. By the time I got to the boathouse, I had deluded myself into believing that I was completely rational and convinced myself that something serious was going on. I called the cops.
“Sorry, sir,” a voice on the police emergency line whined, “did you say you had an accident with your boat along Memorial Drive? Is this a boat trailer?”
“No, I was rowing. Someone tried to run me over.”
“Someone tried to run over your rowboat on Memorial Drive?”
By now I was steaming. “I was rowing on the Charles. You know, in the water. Someone tried to kill me.”
