East Salem Trilogy 01-Waking Hours

by Lis Wiehl

  Tommy asked at the front desk and tracked Carl down in the cafeteria, where he was talking to an old man bent over in a wheelchair. Tommy waited until Carl saw him and waved him over.

  “Robert?” Carl said, leaning in to speak directly into the old man’s ear in a voice that could have been heard from across the room. “I’d like you to meet somebody—this is my friend Tommy Gunderson. He used to play professional football. He’s very famous.”

  “Who?” the man in the wheelchair asked, looking up without straightening.

  “This is Tommy,” Carl repeated. “He used to play football.”

  Tommy took the man’s hand and shook it but didn’t squeeze for fear of breaking the old man’s bones. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Robert,” he said, leaning closer. “Do you know who I am?”

  “What?” the old man asked.

  “Do you know who I am?” Tommy said louder.

  “No,” the old man said, “but if you ask down at the front desk, they’ll tell you.”

  When a nurse said it was time for Robert to take a nap, Carl rose to his feet and let the nurse wheel the old man down the hall. Then he turned to Tommy.

  “What brings you here?” Carl asked.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing,” Tommy said.

  “Just visiting an old friend,” Carl said. “You?”

  “I was hoping to talk to Abbie Gardener,” Tommy said. “Her doctor said I was welcome to give it a shot. Care to join me?”

  “If you don’t think I’d be in the way.”

  They found the old woman in a rocking chair, watching television in the solarium. She was dressed in a white nightgown and pink terry-cloth bathrobe, her hair a faint halo of blue fuzz. The television was tuned to Jeopardy. Her eyes seemed clear and focused, her cracked lips mouthing the answers the contestants were giving.

  Tommy clicked on his phone’s camcorder icon and then handed the phone to Carl. “See if you can record this,” Tommy said. “Just press the button that looks like a roll of film.”

  Tommy pulled up a chair and sat next to Abbie while Carl sat on a chair nearby. Tommy moved his chair closer to the old woman and waited for her to glance his way, but she didn’t take her eyes from the television, an old floor model in a mahogany cabinet with the cable box on top.

  “Abigail?” Tommy said over the sound of the television. “Would you mind if I talked to you for a few minutes?”

  She turned to look at him when she heard her name.

  “I’ll take Potpourri for six hundred, Alex,” she said.

  “My name is Thomas,” Tommy said, hoping not to hurt her feelings by correcting her. “Thomas Gunderson. My aunt is Ruth Gunderson. Your friend from the East Salem Library. She said to say hello and to give you her love. I’m her nephew.”

  “Who is Ruth’s nephew?” the old woman asked.

  “Correct,” Tommy said enthusiastically. “Six hundred for Abbie. You have the board.”

  “I’ll take Presidents for two hundred, Alex,” she said.

  “Okay,” Tommy said, trying to think. “This president helped his father out in the garden by chopping down a cherry tree—Abbie!”

  “George!” she said with glee.

  “Yes,” Tommy said, looking at Carl, who gave him a look that said, Whatever works.

  “That’s right, Abbie—George the gardener. Do you have a son named George Gardener, Abbie?”

  “Yes yes yes,” she said, watching the screen.

  “Were you going to see him the other night?” Tommy asked. “Abbie? Abigail? Were you going to see your son?”

  She didn’t answer. Tommy worried that he might be pressing too hard. “You have the board, Abbie,” he said.

  “World Religions for four hundred.”

  Tommy looked at Carl for reassurance. “This name, translated from the Latin, ironically means ‘bringer of light.’ ”

  He waited. There was something about her that seemed entirely present and mentally accounted for, a method to her madness, as the saying went.

  “Lucifer!” she said, snarling as she spat the word out. “Whose wings freeze the world.”

  “Well done,” Tommy said, sensing that Abbie was on edge and wary now. He exchanged a quick glance with Carl. “You have the board.”

  “World Religions for six hundred,” Abbie said, her voice rising in volume.

  “The Book of Revelation prophesies—”

  “The Beast!” Abbie said. “The Beast and the antichrist. The false prophet and the false teacher. You’d better be on your toes, Alex. They stand on their heads by the crossroads at the foot of Mt. Maggedo with the 999 and think they’re fooling us! They think we don’t know the war has already started! That the Tribulation is just the school of hard knocks! Ha!”

  Tommy wasn’t sure what to make of her answer.

  “We’re going to have to go to the judges,” he said, pointing at Carl.

  “Aramaic for Mt. Maggedo is Har-Maggedon,” Carl said. “Armageddon. The location of the final battle. And if you stand 999 upside down, you get—”

  “666,” Tommy said. “The mark of the Beast.”

  He turned back to the old woman. “The board is still yours, Abbie.”

  “World Religions for eight hundred, Alex,” she said.

  Tommy thought. He exchanged glances with Carl, hoping his friend could guide him, but Carl just shrugged.

  “This son of Abraham was sacrificed …” Tommy began.

  “Not a son!” Abbie said. “A daughter! A virgin girl. You’d think we would have done away with human sacrifice by now. After all, we’re not Aztecs. We don’t eat the hearts of those we capture—though we might poison them just a little bit.”

  “Are you talking about the girl on Bull’s Rock Hill?” Tommy asked her.

  “World Religions for a thousand, Alex.”

  “Abbie, tell me what you mean by—”

  “World Religions for a thousand, Alex!” she repeated. “Anyone for a little game of dodgeball? Dodge one, Dajjal.”

  “Please remember to put your answers in the form of a question,” he said softly, hoping his quiet tone might soothe her. He leaned back from her on the chance that his proximity was adding to her distress.

  “World Religions for a thousand, Alex!” Abbie shouted. “It’s both the question and the answer, Alex. The beginning and the end—what more do you need to know?”

  Abbie had become agitated. Tommy tried to take her hand, but she pulled it away. She seemed suddenly terrified of him. “Get away from me!”

  He pushed his chair back.

  “Don’t you dare,” she said.

  Two male nurses came to hold her down; yet somehow the old woman was able to break free of both of them and rise to her feet before being wrestled back into the rocker. A third male nurse arrived with a wheelchair, and together they lifted Abbie into it and wheeled her to her room while she muttered incoherently under her breath.

  “Potpourri for one hundred, Alex—this common element is something you pass, but that’s asking a lot … Make your way with all haste and look not behind you, ’cause you never know what’s sneaking up on you, Satchel Paige! Baseball for two hundred, Alex—this Sultan of Swat is the boy’s best chance! Native Americans for five hundred, Alex—this Native American sorcerer’s black magic killed the daughters of Hiawatha …”

  When she was out of earshot, Tommy looked at Carl. “How crazy is she?” he asked. “In your opinion.”

  “I believe the medical term for it is bonkers,” Carl said. “But I’m not a doctor.”

  “Ruth said she was a brilliant woman, back when she had all her marbles.”

  “Smart doesn’t help,” Carl said. “Some of the smartest people in history were also the craziest. It’s like the crazy part has more to work with. More fuel. But cut her some slack. What is she, 102?”

  “My aunt said William Howard Taft kissed her when she was a baby during the 1908 presidential campaign,” Tommy said, zipping up his motorcycle jacke
t. “You gotta be really old if you were kissed by William Howard Taft.”

  The two men walked to the parking lot. It had gotten colder, a temperature drop of at least ten degrees. When Carl asked Tommy why he was riding the Harley, Tommy said only that he’d had a problem with the Mustang’s carburetor. He didn’t want his friend to worry.

  “I’m thinking maybe me and vintage Mustangs don’t mix,” Tommy said.

  “I’m thinking I need to wash my car,” Carl said, drawing a line in the dirt on his windshield.

  Seeing the dirt gave Tommy an idea. “Let me ask you something,” he said, drawing the symbol they’d found on the body of Julie Leonard in the dirt with his finger. “Does this mean anything to you?”

  Carl looked at the symbol, tilting his head at first one way, then the other. “You’re sure that’s it?” he asked.

  “When I saw it, I thought it was a double G,” Tommy said. “Do you know what it is?”

  “Well,” Carl said, thinking. “Maybe.” The older man took his phone from his pocket, opened a word processing document, and typed the letter Z in a 72-point font. “Now watch,” Carl said as he opened his font menu and converted the letter Z from the Latin alphabet into the Cyrillic.

  Z became .

  “Cyrillic is what?” Tommy asked. “Russian?”

  Carl nodded.

  “It means Z? As in Zorro?”

  “Not quite,” Carl said. “More like omega. The end.”

  “The end of what?”

  “Who knows?” Carl said. “Maybe the end of Julie Leonard?”

  24.

  Dani arrived at the East Salem Country Club early and decided to wait in her car rather than feel conspicuous waiting in the lounge. The clubhouse was a sprawling white Greek revival mansion with columns and gables, something like a massive rectangular wedding cake sitting on a green velvet tablecloth. She’d been to the clubhouse for a variety of fund-raisers and events and a few weddings, but she’d never gotten past the lounge or the dining room. Neither her father nor her grandfather golfed, and she had no affinity for the game.

  While she waited, she used her phone to check her office voice mail. Willis Danes had called to reschedule their appointment. Tommy left a message asking her to call him. The cleaning service she’d contacted had finally called back to say the price had doubled now that they’d had a look inside. She recalled how her mother used to look at Dani’s room and say, “Dani, if I wanted a pigsty, I would have built one behind the garage.” The word pigsty triggered a sudden recognition.

  She sent a text to her sister.

  U TALK?

  She waited for Beth’s response.

  NOT NOW. AT SCHOOL. GIRLS’ VIOLIN CONCERT.

  HOW IS IT?

  LOVELY. AT TIMES. U?

  HAVE YOU IDENTIFIED SPECIES OF BOTFLY INFESTATION?

  THIS HAS BEEN BOTHERING YOU? NO. WHY?

  LOOK FOR DERMATOBIA HOMINIS. JUST A HUNCH.

  DON’T YOU HAVE BETTER THINGS TO HUNCH ABOUT?

  I WISH. DERMATOBIA HOMINIS INFECTS HUMANS AS WELL AS HORSES, CATTLE, GOATS, ETC. SAW MULTIPLE INSTANCES IN AFRICA. LAYS EGGS UNDER SKIN. LARVAE GROW, BUMP IS RED, LOOKS LIKE BOIL. I INTERVIEWED TWO GIRLS WHO BOARD THEIR HORSES AT RED GATE FARM. BOTH HAD LARGE RED WENS ON LEGS, SCRATCHING.

  I HATE TO ASK. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN LARVAE HATCH?

  DON’T ASK. EMERGE FROM SKIN. IF I’M RIGHT, YOU’LL WANT TO CONTACT EVERYBODY WHO RIDES/WORKS AT FARM. LET ME KNOW RE. RAYNE KEPPLINGER AND KHETZEL ROSS.

  WILL DO. BELIEVE IT OR NOT, THIS SOUNDS PREFERABLE TO LISTENING TO 20 4TH GRADERS PLAY THE VIOLIN. ONE QUESTION—VECTOR? HOW DO AFRICAN BOTFLIES END UP IN WESTCHESTER?

  BEATS ME. GOTTA GO.

  L8R

  Her appointment was for five o’clock. She pressed the button to lock her car, walked to the front entrance, and stood by the portico. She waited a minute, and then a black Mercedes pulled up. The driver was a nice-looking young man in a white shirt and black tie, not the lawyerly type Dani was expecting. Then the lawyerly type Dani was expecting got out of the backseat.

  “Miss Harris,” the man said, extending his hand. “Davis Fish. Nice to meet you. I’m glad you could make it.”

  He was about forty, lean, clean-shaven, and wore stylish horn-rimmed eyeglasses that stopped just short of too much. He took off his black cashmere coat to reveal a black Armani suit, blue shirt, and red power tie. He was not a handsome man, had a nose that bent slightly to the left, thin lips, and a weak chin. His hairline had begun to recede, but to compensate he wore his hair long and swept back over his ears. Dani followed him to the dining room, where the maître d’ seated them. A waiter brought menus.

  “Please order dinner if you’d like,” Fish said. “I tend to eat early. The chef here used to work at the Four Seasons. Do you like food, Dr. Harris?”

  “Do I like food?” Dani said.

  The fact was, she was quite hungry, but her better judgment told her not to order. She saw the meeting as adversarial, if not confrontational. One party provisioning food for the other gave the provisioner an advantage, a social custom that went back thousands of years. It could be meant as a legitimate peace offering, the breaking of bread together, or it could be a tool for negotiation.

  “I like food just fine,” she said, “but only when I’m hungry.”

  “Good for you,” Fish said. “I applaud your discipline. Do you golf?”

  “No,” Dani said. “Never did.”

  “Neither do I,” Davis Fish said. “I think when I was born, the Sports Fairy skipped me and gave all the athletic talent in the family to my brother. What was it Mark Twain said? ‘Golf is a good walk spoiled’?”

  “That’s what he said,” Dani told him.

  The lawyer smiled and ordered a glass of Chateau Mouton-Rothschild 1982, asking Dani if she’d join him. She again declined.

  “Are you sure?” he said. “It’s $700 a bottle but worth twice that, in my opinion.”

  “That’s the thing about oenophiles,” Dani said. “To you, it’s worth that. To someone who prefers the taste of chocolate milk, it isn’t worth a nickel. But don’t let me stop you.” She ordered iced tea.

  So much for small talk.

  “I have to ask you why you wanted to meet with me,” Dani said. “I presume if you have business with the DA’s office, you’d speak to Irene Scotto or to one of her assistants.”

  Fish set his briefcase on the table, reached into it, and pulled out a folder, which he handed to Dani. When she opened the folder, she saw her résumé.

  “My business is with you,” he said.

  He smiled, insincerely, Dani thought, like a used-car salesman trying to sell a lemon.

  “Where did you get this?” she asked.

  “It is your résumé, is it not?” Fish asked. “I was hoping you’d look it over to make sure there aren’t any mistakes or corrections you think we need.”

  “Who’s we?” she said. “And why do you need it? Who gave it to you?”

  “A headhunter I know had it on file.” Fish smiled. “It’s their job to be aware of people like you. I’d like to talk to you about a possible position.”

  “I thought we were here to talk about Logan Gansevoort,” Dani said.

  “But we are,” Fish said, sipping his wine. “That’s the position I’m talking about. Mr. Gansevoort—Andrew Gansevoort—has made himself thoroughly acquainted with your talents and your résumé, and we’ve called a few references—”

  “What references?” Dani asked.

  Andrew Gansevoort was beyond wealthy. He’d made headlines the previous year when, during the worst economic downturn the country had seen since the Great Depression, he’d given himself a $65 million year-end bonus at the hedge fund he managed.

  “I believe the references asked for anonymity,” the attorney said, “but they all spoke quite favorably of you, which is why Mr. Gansevoort wants to hire you.”

  “To do what?”

  “To work with his son,” Fish said.
/>   “I can’t work with his son,” Dani said. “I work for the district attorney.”

  “Yes, of course,” Fish said. “You would have to leave your current position, but Mr. Gansevoort intends to make it worth your while. What do you bill now? $150 an hour? $200?”

  Dani didn’t answer. It wouldn’t be hard for anyone to guess.

  “Mr. Gansevoort is willing to pay you $750 an hour as a retainer.”

  She understood what they were asking for, but not why.

  “All right,” Fish said. “I’m authorized to go to $1,000 an hour. Equal to my own rate. I think your quality of life would improve immensely, whatever level you may think it’s at now. Did I say we were thinking of a full-time retainer?”

  “Full-time?” Dani said. “Forty hours a week at $1,000 an hour?”

  “It could be more than full-time,” Fish said. “If, for example, the family travels and takes you with them. Mr. Gansevoort thinks there may be occasions when Logan might need help around the clock.”

  “And what is it you want me to do, exactly?” Dani said.

  “Serve as his counselor,” Fish said. “His life coach. Guardian angel. What I’m telling you now is protected information—”

  “Nothing we say is protected or privileged, Mr. Fish,” Dani reminded him. “I work for the DA.”

  “I understand,” Fish said.

  Dani wondered if he was wearing a recording device. He’d just tried to trap her by giving her information that, if she used it against them later, could be thrown out because she hadn’t clarified her authority.

  “Then let’s just say Logan is a troubled soul. With a troubled past. A history of getting kicked out of schools, and a failure to govern his impulses. Mr. Gansevoort thinks Logan needs someone to stand at his side, for a therapeutic length of time, and guide him. Someone with your history of working with adolescents with personality disorders.”