The Borrowed and Blue Murders (The Zoe Hayes Mysteries)

by Merry Jones

  A young guy with a shaved head and a dozen metal face piercings ran over to her, exhaling clouds of gray. He interrupted her, asking about her dishes. “Hey—did you get the plates?”

  No, she shook her head. She hadn’t. She hoped he had. But he hadn’t, either. Damn. Nobody had the plates. Then they discussed color. Of what—the plates? Blue? White? I had no idea what they were talking about; it didn’t matter. I wanted to sit down. No, to lie down. When my hands were smudge free, I picked Luke up and held on to him, buried my face in his jacket.

  “I think it was a Bronco.” The woman couldn’t stand still, seemed to hop from foot to foot.

  The kid frowned, not sure he agreed. “Looked like an Explorer to me.” He had no coat on, just a T-shirt and jeans with studs in them.

  I watched them, my brain functioning in slo-mo. Bronco. Explorer. Oh—cars? Of course. They were talking about the car. The license plates. The make and model. I saw it again, coming out of nowhere, accelerating, speeding right toward us as Bryce pushed us—wait. Bryce? Where was Bryce? I turned, searching the sidewalk.

  “Bryce?” My throat felt like sandpaper. “Bryce?” I spun around too fast, suddenly felt dizzy, nauseated. I held on to Luke and closed my eyes to steady myself, and remembered.

  SEVENTEEN

  BRYCE HAD BEEN HIT. The impact catapulted him a good twenty yards, and he’d landed in the vestibule outside Baby Gap. He lay there, his skull beside a cornerstone, caved in on one side. His forehead was wet and purple, his blood still pouring onto the sidewalk. His face seemed unbalanced, his features distorted, and his hair was slick, matting with crimson clumps.

  “Bryce—” I put Luke into the carriage and knelt beside Bryce, saying his name, but he didn’t respond. I took his hand, but it was limp, indifferent to my touch. Oh God. The woman and the pierced guy were pacing around, talking on their cell phones, and other people had begun to gather, gawking at us, murmuring.

  I touched Bryce’s face to comfort him, stroked his cheek. “It’s okay, Bryce,” I assured him. “You’ll be fine.” I held on to his hand, feeling useless, unable to recall my first-aid training: What were you supposed to do for head injuries? Should I cover him? Yes, of course. Probably. Keep him warm. I took my jacket off, laid it over him, held his hand again, not releasing it until the deafening sirens had quieted and the paramedics made me move away.

  Dazed, I tried to answer a police officer’s questions. No, I wasn’t Bryce’s wife. He was a colleague from work. I recounted the way the car had come up onto the curb, right at us, how Bryce had pushed me and Luke away, had been hit himself. He’d been a hero.

  The questions wouldn’t stop. I kept answering. No, I didn’t need to go to the hospital. I was fine. So was the baby. No, we didn’t need to be checked out.

  The paramedic didn’t know, of course, about the lump growing on the back of my head. Or how his face shimmied when he moved, doing a blurry dance. There was no reason to tell him; I’d had concussions before. I knew the drill. I just needed to rest and it would get better. Bryce was the one to worry about. He’d saved us from being hurt. If he hadn’t come running, pushing us away, who knew what might have happened?

  The witnesses stepped up, telling the police what they’d seen. The woman who thought the car was a Bronco said that she’d seen the whole thing; the driver had aimed right at the three of us. She thought the driver was a woman. No, she didn’t know how old. Hadn’t noticed her race or hair color. She’d just glimpsed her briefly, had seen the outline of wavy, shoulder-length hair. But there was no question that the driver charged up the sidewalk on purpose.

  The pierced kid hadn’t seen the actual impact; he’d heard it and come running out of his shop in time to see a dark red Explorer disappearing down South Street.

  “No, it wasn’t red.” The woman crossed her arms. “It was dark green, or maybe blue.”

  “Sorry.” The kid was emphatic. “Red.”

  The officer turned to me. “Do you remember the color of the car?”

  I tried to. I closed my eyes, replaying the scene. Bryce running, shouting. The sound of screeching tires. Bryce taking off, flying off the ground, shoving me aside—and then, a terrible thunk and a flash of light. Maybe silver? Or no, white?

  “Sorry.” I simply had no idea. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I remember the car? If not the make, at least the color. Why hadn’t I looked at the driver? Oh God. A paramedic handed me my jacket, warning me to keep warm, telling me about shock. I put it on, ignoring the wide scarlet stains, watching them lift Bryce’s gurney into the ambulance. He showed no sign of life.

  EIGHTEEN

  BY THE TIME THE ambulance pulled away, the police had finished taking my information, and the crowd had begun to disperse. Assuring the police that we didn’t need any help, I continued our walk. Without thinking about it, I headed three blocks west and a couple of blocks north, straight to the hospital. I rolled the carriage through the emergency entrance and up to the registration desk, where I identified myself as Bryce’s cousin. The woman behind the desk had a slightly out-of-focus face like the paramedics and the police, and her frown slithered snakelike above her chin as she told me that Bryce had already been taken upstairs for surgery. She had his wallet and was filling out his insurance information, wondered if I had the phone numbers of his wife or other next of kin.

  I stammered, embarrassed, that no, I didn’t. Not on me. I apologized, complicating my lie, explaining that I had all the family numbers at home. But it worried me that she’d asked. Did she need to contact them because Bryce was dying? Oh God. I saw him again, lying on the concrete in puddles of blood. Damn. Why hadn’t I just turned around and met him on the other side of the street? If I hadn’t made him chase us, we’d all have been unharmed. The car would have smashed a trash can and hit a brick wall. Nobody, except maybe the driver, would have been hurt. But what about what the witness had said, that the driver had deliberately targeted us? That made no sense; why would someone try to run us over? She had to be mistaken. The fact was that if I hadn’t been avoiding Bryce, we wouldn’t have been in the way of the car and he’d be completely fine. It was my fault he might die. I paced the waiting room floor, guilt ridden and worried, until Luke began to fidget hungrily. I pushed the carriage into a corner, collapsed onto a chair and, covering myself with my bloody jacket, let him nurse.

  As always, as I fed Luke, the world around us seemed to fade. Luke’s hunger, his fervent sucking, his needs, overtook all else. Holding him, I felt the turmoil of the last half hour settle down and my brain stop sizzling. I rested, leaned my sore head back, closed my eyes, felt my breathing begin to slow. When I opened my eyes again, for the first time I noticed other people waiting with us. A dark-skinned woman clutched her right side, moaning softly as an older woman, probably her mother, touched her back, cursing the doctors for making them wait. A man in a wheelchair sat pale and expressionless, as if waiting were his permanent condition. A mini-skirted blonde in leopard-patterned high heels strutted back and forth near the doorway, talking into her cell phone.

  I held on to Luke, suddenly disoriented. What were we doing here? We’d been out for a walk, and then—poof. We’d been plucked from our lives, transported to the hospital emergency room, plopped among strangers. In fact, Bryce Edmond was basically a stranger, someone I barely knew with whom I’d never even shaken hands. And now, unpredictably, that casual acquaintance had become my responsibility. But what was I supposed to do? How could I help him?

  Maybe I should call the office and tell them what happened. But it was Sunday. The administrative staff wouldn’t be there; their office was closed Sundays due to budget cuts. Okay, then I should call his family. But I didn’t know his family. And surely the hospital would notify his wife. If he had a wife. Did he? I didn’t know. In fact, I didn’t know anything about Bryce Edmond except that he worked at the Institute. I certainly didn’t know what he’d been doing on South Street. Or why he had been chasing us. Or what he’d so despe
rately wanted to tell me.

  Again I pictured him, running, waving, calling my name. And again I realized what would have happened if he hadn’t been there to push us out of the way. There was no doubt; by whatever circumstances, by chance or coincidence, Bryce Edmond had saved our lives. And for that reason alone, he was now my responsibility. I wasn’t sure what that meant. But at the very least, it meant I would stay there, keeping a vigil for him.

  Luke’s tummy got full, and he fell asleep. I tucked him into his carriage, dug around in the diaper bag for my cell phone and called Nick to tell him where I was and why. Alarmed, he came right over, insisting on taking us home. But I refused to budge. So while Luke napped, Nick and I both took seats opposite the man in the wheelchair, and after I explained to Nick what had happened, we stayed there, cell phones turned off, staring at the wall or the television hanging from the ceiling or the sleeping baby or our joined hands.

  A few hours later when Bryce Edmond’s brother and sister-in- law arrived, we were still sitting in the waiting room, waiting for news.

  NINETEEN

  BRYCE FINALLY CAME OUT of surgery, but he was still unconscious, and his condition was critical. Gavin and Petra Edmond thanked us and promised to call as soon as there was any news. And just six hours after I’d begun my walk, Nick, Luke and I headed home. The lump on my head thumped a dull, persistent throb, and my vision was still not right. All I wanted was to disappear upstairs in a steamy scented bath. But as Nick pulled into a parking spot across the street from the house, I realized that the bath would have to wait. Anna, the wedding planner, was standing on the front porch in her high heels and Capri stretch pants, waiting. Even before we got out of the car, she started squawking.

  “Where have you been, Zoe? You were supposed to meet me here forty-five minutes ago!”

  I looked to Nick for support, but he darted out of the car and hid behind the open trunk, getting the carriage out of the Volvo. So I waved at Anna and, pulling myself out the passenger side and Luke out of his baby seat, crossed the street to face her.

  “Have you forgotten that your wedding is just six days away?” Anna met us at the curb, holding up six fingers, to demonstrate the number. “Six days. That’s all. We have deadlines to meet. Weddings don’t just happen by themselves. They take work. The chef needs final numbers. The florist needs a final decision. The cake—my God—you still haven’t chosen the cake. I picked your dress up, but you should try it on again so they can make adjustments if they have to….”

  She ranted on, and I watched her pink lips moving, emitting a jumble of noise. Somehow, I’d become completely detached from the wedding, didn’t even mind saying the word anymore. The wedding was a detail; it wasn’t important. Not when cars could come flying off the curb in an eye blink, not when strangers got filleted in your backyard. But Anna kept on ranting.

  “…unacceptable, Zoe—I’ve never had a bride as uncooperative as you are. If not for your houseguests, I’d have left half an hour ago. I simply can’t work like this. Without your full cooperation, I—”

  “How are you, Anna?” Nick interrupted. Finally, he’d rolled the empty carriage across the street. Eyes on Anna, he took Luke from my arms.

  Anna had stopped her harangue mid-sentence, mouth open. Taken aback by Nick’s good cheer, she tried to curl her bright red snarl into a smile.

  “Fine, just fine, Nick. Except that—”

  “Well, that’s good, Anna. Because, as it happens, Zoe’s not very well. Zoe’s had a rough couple of days, and she can use your support.”

  Anna’s mouth opened as if she were about to speak, but she didn’t.

  Nick lowered his voice and leaned toward her, speaking confidentially. “We’re just coming from the hospital,” I heard him say. And I heard the phrase “hit-and-run.”

  Anna shook her head. “Oh my. How horrible.” She covered her mouth with her French manicured fingers, looking from Nick to me, and back to Nick.

  But Nick wasn’t finished. He told her about the murder, too. “You probably heard about it on the news. The body was on our patio. Zoe found her.”

  “Wait—no. That—that happened here?” Anna actually gasped. “You mean the jogger? The one that was cut open?” She stared, unable to process the information. “Oh my God. I’ve been so busy, I didn’t pay attention—”

  Nick explained that given the circumstances, I hadn’t been as prompt as I should have been regarding the floral arrangements.

  But Anna wasn’t focused on the wedding anymore. “I saw it in the paper. That poor woman’s been all over the news. But good Lord. I never put it together. Wait—there was a picture. Of your house—I should have recognized it. And weren’t you in it? Of course you were. And it was on television, too. But I wasn’t paying attention—but, Zoe, poor dear, let’s get you inside.” Even in three- inch heels, Anna was significantly shorter than I was, and the arm she put around me circled my hips instead of my waist, but I let her guide me up the front stairs and into the house while Nick followed with Luke and the carriage.

  “Don’t you worry about a thing, Zoe. I’m here now, so you’ll be able to get some rest and collect yourself. All these shocks—you must be in a state. Oh dear. And you only have a few days to recover.”

  Sam was in the kitchen among small mountains of empty bottles and unwashed dishes, making himself a sandwich of bananas and mayonnaise. Oliver yipped at Sam’s feet, nuzzling his ankles, hoping for a handout. They both looked up as we came in.

  “You,” Anna called to him. “Nick’s brother. What’s your name?”

  “I am Sam, ma’am. And you are?” He took a leisurely bite, smiling.

  “I’m the one who’s going to get your motor moving, Sam. Make Zoe a cup of hot tea and some toast with jam. Blackberry, if you have it. Or some orange marmalade.”

  Sam chewed, blinking with confused amusement at the short, officious stranger while enjoying the ample curves contained in her spandex pants.

  “We’ve only got grape and strawberry.” I wasn’t sure about the grape.

  “Well, that’ll have to do then. Strawberry. Bring it all upstairs on a tray—along with a glass of brandy. When you’re done with that, I’ll show you where the vacuum is. You can start to tidy up.”

  Sam took another bite. Oliver whimpered.

  “What’s wrong with you—didn’t you hear me? Get moving.”

  Sam put a hand up. “Okay, don’t get your panties in a knot.” He reached for the kettle.

  As Nick came in behind us, Anna called to him, “You’re in charge of the baby for now. Where’s little Molly?”

  “At a sleepover. She’ll be home soon—”

  “Good. You’re in charge of her, too. We don’t want any interruptions for at least two hours. Not one. I mean it.”

  As Anna led me down the hall, Oliver, apparently giving up on a bite of banana, barreled at Nick, yapping his greeting.

  “Oliver.” Anna didn’t stop walking or turn to look at him. “Be quiet and sit.”

  Immediately, the yipping stopped. I looked back; unbelievably, Oliver was sitting, wearing a broad, eager smile. Beside him, Nick stood next to the carriage, holding Luke, watching us, looking confused and abandoned.

  Tony was in the living room on his hands and knees, probably looking for his quarters again, this time under the recliner. When he saw us, he scrambled to his feet, grinning and sheepish.

  “Tony, if you need change, I have a dish of it upstairs. Help yourself.”

  “No, it’s no big deal. I just wonder what happened—you don’t think Oliver would swallow quarters, do you?”

  “Well, if he did,” Anna barked, “it’ll come out the other end. Eventually.”

  “Tony, this is Anna. Anna, Tony, another brother.” I realized they hadn’t met.

  “How do you do, Tony?” Anna gave him a charming, toothy grin and led me to the stairs. “Oh, and Tony? When I come back down, I expect that you and your brothers will have cleaned the mess in here and in the kitche
n, and that you will have begun preparing dinner.”

  Before Tony could respond, Anna pushed up the steps.

  I didn’t argue, didn’t resist. I surrendered completely, letting Anna guide me, obeying her orders to undress as she lit scented candles and ran my bath. At her command, I sunk into hot water, letting myself float, listening to silence and the soft popping of bubbles. Finally, unbelievably, I was alone, beginning to relax. But not quite. There was a knock at the door, and Anna stepped in.

  “Don’t get too comfy yet, dear. Not till I get your wine order and the final decision on the tablecloths. I’d go with the Zinfandel for dinner, the port with dessert. And I’m nixing the baby’s breath with roses. They’re a cliché—”

  “Anna.” I finally found my voice. “Do whatever you think best.”

  She seemed confused. Her perfectly penciled eyebrows rose, disappointed. “Really? But—”

  “I value your advice. You’ve got experience. I’m sure your choices will be excellent.”

  “But about the table settings—”

  “Your choice.”

  She hesitated. “The stemware—”

  “Anna.” I tried to sound firm. “You decide.”

  “All of it?”

  “All of it.”

  Shaking her head, she finally backed out of the room. I sunk into the water, stayed under the bubbles, soaking, until I needed to come up for air. I heard only a few sounds during the next hour. Molly coming home, with a tumult of Oliver barking and the front door slamming and loud shouting for “Mom.” Nick stopping her from coming to look for me, explaining that her mom was resting. The vacuum cleaner’s high-pitched whirring.

  And Nick on the phone in the bedroom, escaping Anna’s supervision long enough to leave a hurried voice mail for our babysitter, Ivy, confirming—no, begging her to come back to work on Monday.