DONE GONE WRONG

by Cathy Pickens

  “Jeez, Eddie. She stinks to high heaven. Why don’t we go call somebody to come get her? If you think Am—”

  “Shut up, Deely” was the last thing I heard. I only faintly remember the trip, my head bouncing against the bottom of the pick-up bed, the smell of tire rubber and old bait, streetlights flashing past overhead.

  I came to when Eddie and a guy in a lab coat, a limp stump of a cigar sticking out of his mouth, let down the tailgate. They studied me as if I were a beached porpoise, then grabbed either comer of the flowered bedspread I lay on and pulled me out where they could maneuver me onto the wheeled stretcher.

  A red sign overhead read EMERGENCY MED. Great. A doc-in-a-box. Eddie chose not to stick around for lengthy explanations. He told the gray-haired cigar chomper where my wrecked car was sitting, butt-end skyward, and climbed into his track.

  As he fumbled for his keys, his track door hung open just long enough for me to catch Deely’s petulant proclamation. “If you think I’m doing anything back there after she’s stunk it up, you got another think coming. I don’t care what you found in the condom machine at—”

  The door slammed shut before the inevitable “Shut up, Deely.” The gurney wheels bounced my aching skull over the rough parking lot and into the fluorescent-lit hallway. I zoned out for another little while, but came to when a woman with dandelion hair began scrubbing the mud off my feet and legs. She and my feet seemed far away, and she didn’t look too disgusted by the task. I couldn’t talk around my swollen tongue well enough to answer any of her questions. I floated away again into a cold dream.

  When I woke up, I knew for sure I’d been asleep, because I was clean and warm, wearing a paper dress, and wrapped in a cotton blanket. A police officer stood over me. The nurse gently called, “Miss? Miss?”

  I tried to sit up. Talking to a guy with a starched uniform and the requisite Dick Tracy jawline intimidated me enough without doing it flat on my back. The nurse tried to dissuade me, but I fought her as well as my own lethargy.

  As soon as I sat upright on the narrow table, I wished I hadn’t won that fight. My body seemed made of gelatin and string, and my stomach churned violently. But this beachhead had been hard fought; I decided to stay upright if it killed me.

  “Ma’am, if I could ask you a few questions.” A statement, not a question. What is it about cops? Do they all come that way? Or do they become looming and stem after they become cops? Another imponderable.

  “We’ve had your car towed from the creek. Here’s the address of the garage. You’ll need to call them in the morning and let them know what you’d like to do. Do you understand?”

  I nodded. He wasn’t being rude. Just observant, since I was staring at the business card as if I’d never seen one before. The card sported a cute little color picture of a wrecker.

  “Can you tell me what happened?”

  “Not sure.” I shook my head and wished I hadn’t. “These two men... I was getting a headache. I think they might have run me off the road.” Even I knew how disjointed that sounded, and I was the one talking.

  “Ma’am?”

  I tried again, willing my tongue to work. “There were two men. It’s—I think they bumped my car. As I started into that turn. They ran me off the road.”

  “When did this happen? How do you know there were two men?”

  “It was getting dark. They came over to my car.”

  “Did they help you out of the car? Can you describe these men?”

  He held a flip-top black notebook, small in his large knotty hand. He looked too young to be a cop, but most of them do, until one day they look too old.

  “No. No, I was out of the car. They didn’t find me.” Mark Tilman flashed into my mind. “I must have crawled out myself, before it settled into the riverbank. They didn’t find me.”

  “Why not? Were you far from the car?” He looked skeptical.

  “They must have taken a while to get across the marsh grass. I got out and fell in the grass. They didn’t see me.”

  “Did they bring you to the doctor’s office?”

  My brain and my tongue were slowly beginning to work. “No. I said they didn’t find me.”

  The creases around his mouth conveyed his cynicism, or his loss of patience with me. I felt strangely distanced, numb.

  I hesitated, not wanting to sound silly and melodramatic. “I just kept quiet.”

  I hadn’t admitted it, even to myself. She’ll wash out to sea with the tide. Those men planned to kill me. I clutched the sides of the examining table, my paper dress rustling as I started to shake. My teeth chattered. I clenched them shut.

  My obvious shock seemed to convince him I wasn’t lying, but he asked, “What did you have to drink this evening before the accident?”

  “Nothing.” No point in getting indignant. Even I knew I sounded drunk. The look he shot the doctor, with one eyebrow raised, and the doctor’s quick nod told me they’d already taken blood samples to test for themselves.

  “Two men, you say?”

  I didn’t know why. Those flashing ambulance lights in the swamp last night—no, night before last—kept strobing through my thoughts. And Mark’s body. “Things they said. I don’t know. I just know they—scared me. I stayed hidden in the grass. Until they left.”

  He stared at me longer than necessary, apparently hoping I would add something. I didn’t. I was still trying to remember past the fear I’d felt to what they’d actually said.

  “Who brought you here?”

  “I don’t know. Some kid and his girlfriend. In a pickup track. They found me at the side of the road. At the warning sign in the curve.”

  For a moment, I wondered why the doctor hadn’t tried to make Eddie and Deely stay. The doc, his damp cigar still clamped in the comer of his mouth, didn’t offer anything about Eddie.

  “And you say you can’t describe these two men?”

  I shook my head, but only once. The movement upset the jelly in my head and started the room slopping around. “I never saw them. I only heard them. I was hidden in the grass.”

  “Would you recognize their voices if you heard them again?”

  I thought about it. The whiny shithead’s voice pulsed memorably. “Ye-es,” I said. “I believe I could.”

  “Any reason why someone would wish you harm?”

  “No.” I hesitated. “You might want to talk to Casper Kirkland. He’s a Charleston cop.”

  “About what?” He wrote down the name, but didn’t look particularly excited about it.

  “He’s investigating another car accident. In a swamp, last night. No, night before last. Wednesday. On James Island.”

  His partially raised eyebrow said, So?

  “I don’t know why, I keep thinking about that accident. Probably nothing. A friend’s car wrecked in a marsh creek out on the island. He died.”

  While I talked, I convinced myself that I saw boogey-men where there weren’t any. The cop, his heavy knuckles wrapped stiffly around his Bic pen, scratched something in his notebook.

  Then he looked at me. My hands still clutched the sides of the examining table, but my teeth had stopped chattering. “You’re sure you’ve had nothing to drink. Taken any medication?”

  I shook my head, only once for each question, but firmly.

  “You understand we can check?”

  “I’m a lawyer. I know.”

  His right eyebrow—the most mobile one—crooked upward a notch, but he said nothing. He just stared, then asked, “Are your pupils usually so dilated?”

  I stared back. “I’m sure I don’t know. Maybe you should ask the doctor here what he thinks.” I’d managed to sit up this long without toppling over or throwing up, so some of my spunk was returning.

  The doctor surprised us both by speaking, his unlit cigar drooping dangerously. “Have you taken any prescription medication this afternoon, like a muscle relaxant?”

  “No.”

  He shrugged. “You seem groggy. And your muscle tonic
ity and reflexes are suppressed.”

  “I told you. I haven’t taken anything. I skipped lunch and ate too late, which gives me a headache. I was dizzy right before the accident. But I didn’t take anything.”

  Under the buzzing glare of the fluorescent lights, their stares were questioning, even accusatory. I wasn’t taking any more of this.

  “I’d like to get home now, if you don’t mind.” I wobbled and nearly fell as I got off the table, weakening the effect of my exit.

  Just as I wondered how I would pay my way out of this brightly lit inquisitor’s chamber, the cop—his badge said BREWTON—produced my satchel. “Your keys are inside,” he said. “I can give you a lift home, if you like.”

  While settling my bill and listening to instructions to call them if I had any questions or problems, which the receptionist had obviously repeated often, I tried to think of some other way across the Cooper River to my room. But whom could I call at two o’clock on Saturday morning? Anyone I knew acting his age would’ve fallen asleep in front of the TV hours before. Anyone still awake was having more fun than I was and wouldn’t appreciate the interruption.

  After checking my wallet and realizing I didn’t have enough money for cab fare, I graciously accepted Officer Brewton’s offer. The receptionist begradgingly loaned me a thin cloth robe to wear home over my paper dress. It went nicely with my bare feet.

  My clothes and shoes were decomposing in a plastic garbage bag, sealed tight. I’d have to throw them away, but I carried the bag anyway. I loved that deep-purple suit and matching silk blouse. Damn. And my Mustang—my grandfather’s Mustang. My stomach roiled at the thought of it wrecked and smelling of marsh mud. Best not throw up in the nice officer’s car.

  Officer Brewton and I didn’t talk. He dropped me at the side door of the inn. Light from the decorative street-lamps shone dim and shadowy. A passing car slowed, the driver gawking at the police car, maybe hoping to see some action. Or maybe my asylum-escapee wardrobe merited the longer look. Officer Brewton waited until I slipped through both the gate and the side doorway. I gave a good-bye wave and pushed the door shut until it clicked solidly.

  Exhausted, I took a long, soapy, hot shower to boil off the lingering smell of dead fish and disinfectant lotion, scrubbed myself with the thick Egyptian cotton towel, and crawled stiffly into bed.

  I set the alarm, knowing I wouldn’t want to get up in the morning. My body was beginning what I knew would be a full-scale protest. My head felt stuffed and numb.

  I was determined to find Tunisia Johnson or her family. They might not be able to tell me anything about Mark Tilman or his notes about her. Or why he’d mailed his journal to Sanda before he died. Maybe it wasn’t important, but I had to try to get some answers, and the only direction I knew to take was back over the twin Cooper River bridges.

  14

  SATURDAY MORNING

  I might as well have slept late, because I couldn’t rouse anybody at a car rental place until after 8:30. The first two I tried wouldn’t deliver a car and a third couldn’t deliver until noon.

  The bruises where the seat belt caught my breast and shoulder were already amazing. I could hardly wait for the Technicolor versions. The rest of the damage seemed limited: soreness that would get worse before it eased off, scratches, bug bites, some swamp mud under my fingernails—and probably places I hadn’t discovered yet.

  I studied my eyes in the mirror. Last night, the pupils had, despite my denials, been dilated. They now appeared normal. The headache that had crashed in like a hurricane tidal surge trickled as a memory.

  Warm sunlight beamed through the bay window. Below, a few dog walkers and joggers drifted by. Bathed in that sunlight, the memory of last night grew surreal. At the doc-in-a-box, I had denied the oddity of what happened, but today, aching and awake, I was forced to wonder what had caused my odd lethargy last night.

  A low-blood-sugar migraine explained part of it. The accident itself could have dazed me, but it had been more than that. Something I’d eaten? That had been the problem; I hadn’t eaten anything. Just iced tea, some coffee with Demarcos, more coffee with Ellin. The chicken bog Gladys gave me—uh-oh, maybe I’d gotten something that disagreed with me; no telling how that stuff was fixed.

  Maybe I’d call the cigar-chomping doc-in-a-box later and talk to him. If I could remember his name. Or where his office was. I couldn’t return the cloth robe he’d loaned me because I’d wrapped it in a plastic bag and limped across the street to toss it in a street-side trash can, along with my gorgeous purple suit. The paperwork from the doctor’s office was probably in the robe pocket.

  The car-rental delivery guy met me just outside the inn’s wrought iron gate to get my signature and present me with the keys to a boxy, nondescript toy car. The kind no one would weep over if it landed in a swamp.

  I checked my messages. Jake had called about 10:00 last night. “Av’ry? Didn’t finish seating a jury. Don’t know what we have yet, but I’m not feelin’ too good about a couple of them. Hope to hell you’ve thought of something useful. Let’s get together at the office. Judge Bream’s decided to reconvene court tomorrow. Saturday, no less. He wants to get this jury empaneled. He usually breaks at noon, so maybe we can touch base then.” He sounded tired.

  I faintly remembered the business card with the color picture of the wrecker and found it in my satchel. No answer, so I left a message.

  I would wait to call Mom and Dad. After all the work Dad had put into fixing up that car, I dreaded seeing it in the daylight or telling him about it.

  Traffic over the twin bridges ran lighter but only slightly less frantic than rash hour the night before. The added challenge today was the tourists and day-trippers—mostly in minivans and bulky SUVs—cautiously picking their way across the Cooper, headed for Sullivan’s Island beaches or the ship museum at Patriot’s Point. They would have a nice day, not too cold.

  I retraced my route from last night, realizing how little of the trip I remembered. I’d had migraines before, but that headache was a new dimension.

  The fair-haired Jesus stared from the church’s shingles. That hadn’t been a hallucination, though it looked odd on what had to be a black church, given the neighborhood.

  The warning sign stood big as a billboard, but not as orange as I remembered it reflected in my headlights last night. The expanse of marsh grass carpeted the tidal creek with a wide border. Faint tracks where my car had been pulled out were evident.

  I navigated the ninety-degree turn at the warning sign and easily found Tunisia’s address in a clump of houses a half mile farther down the road. The street number was painted in bright blue letters on a cement block at the edge of the drive.

  A young black woman answered the door, a baby with a crusty green-pea-stained mouth balanced on her hip. “Tunisia itn’t here.”

  I studied her closely, wondering if she could be Tunisia, afraid I was Child Services or a bill collector or other undesirable. But she didn’t look more than fifteen or sixteen years old, and she didn’t look like she was lying. I hoped that baby wasn’t hers.

  An older woman appeared behind her, her expression more cautious, more questioning. A little girl about three clung to her skirt, one of those angelically attractive little girls who make even child-phobic lady lawyers take pause.

  The little girl wore an electric pink play jumper and matching canvas shoes, and she worked thoughtfully on a Tootsie Pop. Through the screen, I caught a whiff of grape.

  The teenager with the crusty-faced baby stepped aside as the older woman took her place at the screen door, but she continued to lurk in the background. Apparently I held a bit more interest than the flickering blue light of the television.

  The matronly woman wasn’t softened by my smiley faces at the little girl. “What egg-zactly is your business with Tunisia?”

  “Well—” I had prepared a plausible opening statement, but I’d expected a more cordial greeting. And I’d planned to be talking to Tunisia Johnson. �
�Are you—would you be her mother?”

  She hesitated, as if weighing how much trouble an admission could mean. She then nodded, almost imperceptibly, putting her hand on the little girl’s head and drawing her closer. For protection or assurance, I wasn’t sure which.

  She was more likely Tunisia’s grandmother, but at least she admitted kinship.

  “I’m a lawyer.”

  Her fingertips tightened on the wooden frame of the screen door.

  “I’m—uh—following up on a request by Dr. Mark Tilman. I believe Tunisia is a patient of his.”

  I chose my words carefully. Neither Mark nor his dad had given me any kind of retainer, and technically I had no right to dig around in the files or lives of Mark’s patients, which left me free-floating in ethical limbo land.

  The woman hesitated, then came to some decision about me. Probably the wrong one, since she unlatched the screen door and pushed it toward me. I followed her into the dimly lit living room where she flicked off the TV and motioned me toward a seat.

  To the teenager with the baby on her hip and the little girl crunching softly on the chewy center of her sucker, she said, “Layla, Tabitha, you all go on in the kitchen and start setting the table for dinner.”

  I got the sense there were others in the house, in the shadows down the hallway and in what looked to be the kitchen. The rustlings were quiet and the house dim.

  ‘Tunisia mentioned Dr. Tilman,” she said as she edged herself into a puffy corduroy chair that matched the sofa where she’d seated me. She waited for me to explain my visit.

  “I wondered if I could talk to Tunisia. I had a few questions I thought she could help me with. About a project Dr. Tilman was working on.”

  I spoke of Mark in the past tense, but I hesitated to tell her he was dead. I didn’t want to distract her before I got a lead on Tunisia.

  “She’s not here.”

  “Well, when might she be home?”

  She just shook her head, her lips pressed firmly together.