by G. H. Ephron
“Right, right, plenty of people,” I said.
“Do you …”
I shushed her. “Don’t talk. Breathe.”
She put her hand over her mouth and closed her eyes. Her breathing slowed.
“Take it easy.” Her color was returning to normal. “That’s right, nice and easy. Inhale. Exhale.”
Jess leaned back in the chair, put her hands in her lap, and took a deep inhale.
“That’s good. Did you see who was out in the hall?”
Jess licked her lips. “Only Dr. Smythe-Gooding. She went back and forth a couple of times,” Jess said. “Do you think she heard what I said? About her being incompetent? I shouldn’t have been talking so loud. I wasn’t thinking.”
Of course, Daphne must have heard. But why lock us in?
I was about ready to try hollering out the window when there was a knock. “Peter, you in there?” It was Annie.
Jess threw herself against the door. “We’re trapped in here!” she cried.
“Annie?” I called. “Boy am I glad to hear your voice. How’d you find us?”
“Gloria. When you didn’t come back …”
Thank God for Gloria. “Can you get us out of here?”
There was a pause. “Sure. Looks trivial.” She jiggled the padlock. “Need some tools, though. Hang on, I’ve got them out in the car.”
“Hurry back!” I said.
“Who’s that?” Jess asked.
“A friend of mine who can get us out of here.”
“Soon, I hope,” Jess said.
“She’s probably parked up by the Neuropsychiatric Unit.” I could picture the distance—down three flights of stairs, about a quarter mile uphill and back down, up three flights. I leaned against the wall, slid down to a squat, and settled in to wait. Jess seemed calm, now that she knew we were going to be sprung.
“Where’s that necklace you were wearing?” I asked.
She touched her fingers to her neck. “My necklace?”
“Yours?”
“I gave it to Olivia,” Jess whispered.
“Do you want to tell me about the necklace?”
Her face turned pinched. “It was Channing’s. It belonged to her mother.”
“Channing gave it to you?”
“It was in her study. When I took the diary …” She sobbed. “I was only borrowing it. But I never had a chance to put it back.”
“You gave it to Olivia?”
“Yes.”
“How did you explain …”
“I lied. I told her Charming had let me borrow it and I hadn’t had a chance to give it back. I said I was her mother’s friend.”
“Special friend?” I asked.
“Special friend,” she echoed.
“Was that a lie, too?”
Jess didn’t answer. She reached for Channing’s red silk scarf and held it up to her face.
I stood and stared out the window. After a few minutes, Annie appeared, running down the hill toward the building. “Here she comes,” I said.
“Thank God,” Jess said quietly.
A few minutes later, there was a tap at the door. “I’m back,” Annie called.
Jess sprang up and pressed her body against the door. “You’re going to get us out of here?”
“I’m working on it,” Annie said.
There was silence. Then the sound of metal on metal. “Shit,” she said. More scraping. It felt like being at the dentist, wishing that he’d stop gouging away at a particularly sensitive spot, feeling the seconds tick, waiting to be liberated from the chair.
“Goddamnit … .” Annie said. There was a minute of silence. Then, “Here goes,” followed by a few scrapes, a grunt, and the sound of wood splintering.
The door pulled open. Annie was standing there holding a crowbar. An assortment of metal picks were scattered at her feet.
Jess fled into the hall.
“Am I glad to see you,” I said. I eyed the crowbar, the hasp now wrenched out of shape. I touched the woodwork, which was split where the screws had been ripped away. “I guess when finesse doesn’t work, there’s something to be said for brute force.”
“My sentiments, precisely,” Annie replied. “How’d you get locked in?”
“I think it was Daphne Smythe-Gooding,” I said.
“It’s my fault,” Jess said. “I was blabbing away about how Dr. Smythe-Gooding wasn’t—” Her mouth snapped shut, and she glanced anxiously toward Daphne’s office.
In a few strides, I was there. The door was open, but the room was empty. There was a pall of cigarette smell. What I remembered as orderly piles of paper on her desk had turned into drifts, and an Acu-Med mug served as a paperweight. The African violet on the windowsill was now beyond help. The pot of water she’d brought back from the bathroom stood forgotten in the seat of a chair.
Alongside the window, a square on the wall seemed to glow whiter than the wall around it. There was a picture hook in the middle of the space. Daphne had taken down the photograph of her husband. Below was a dark, wide bookcase with glass doors. One of the shelves held about two dozen journals, each with a number hand-lettered on the spine. Years.
I pulled one of the doors to the bookcase open. I was about to reach for a journal when I hesitated. Annie and Jess were out in the hall. I went out to them. “Just give me a minute,” I said, and shut the door. I’d run out of ways to rationalize looking through other people’s personal property. At least I could do it without implicating everyone else.
I took out the last journal. I flipped through. The pages were dated, each one in a dense, neat hand. I turned to the days surrounding Channing’s death. The day after Channing’s party, the entry began:
My own special child. Brilliant. Beautiful. Now she turns on me, like a viper. Like her own daughter turned on her. Like her own mother, her game. Shame. Suicide. Shame. Suicide.
Robert and I. We will do it together.
Quickly I scanned the pages that followed, the days leading up to Jensen’s death. They were filled with the pain of loss. Daphne wrote her memories of Channing, her protégé. The words brilliant, insightful, honest, scrupulous, peppered the pages as she turned Channing into a saint. Then:
It’s begun. Her papers are missing. I can only imagine what they are up to.
There was a knock at the door. “Peter?” It was Annie.
“Give me a minute more,” I said.
I pulled out the book from the previous year. Robert had died in early August. There I found what I was looking for.
Saturday
I am home. I sit alongside, Listening to the shallow breathing. The sour smell of urine and decay seems to cling to the wallpaper, to the drapes. I can’t bear to look. So much substance-personality, brilliance, strength, wasted away. His face stretched thin across the skull, a membrane crisscrossed with blue veins. Eyes recede.
I try to read but I am nodding off. So I write instead, listening, rocked by the quiet inhale, exhale. Then for a few moments, nothing. My heart stops. Is it over? A snort, a weak cough. And I am angry at the relief that floods me. What am I without you? And yet, that’s what must be.
He stirs. Eyelids flutter. Holes of darkness stare back at me. This person who cannot walk, can barely sit, still can struggle upwards on stick-thin arms, head wobbling on a slender stalk.
He stares at me. The voice I once loved and now can barely hear. Taunting me for being weak. I know, we agreed. I will, I tell him. Soon. Still his look scorns me.
I touch his hand, trying not to apply even a small amount of pressure for fear of bruising, of tearing. Eyes close. Is that a grimace of pain or the edge of a smile? Then, the spirit goes under again.
It must be now. Last night, I dismissed the night nurse. Cancelled the day shift. Why do I sit here, doing nothing? Why do I still wait, counting breaths, writing instead of taking action, hoping God will do what I promised? It is up to me now.
I open the drawer alongside the bed. There lies the gun. A gift, �
�borrowed” from a disapproving friend. Cold and hard, how neatly it fits the hand. A single sqeeze and it’s done, God willing.
Or perhaps the feather pillow. I see myself, pressing gently. But no, gentle will never do. How long will it take and can I last? Last.
Pills? How easy to wash them down. Neat and tidy. I take a pill myself. I wait. I cannot stand the waiting. I take another.
Sunday
Thank God, it is over. Now, what am I?
Of course, this was what everyone knew without asking. Robert Smythe-Gooding had died before he was ready. Not the slow wasting away of cancer. But not by his own hand either, as many suspected. Daphne had killed him.
It was starting to come clear—why I kept seeing a tangle, no matter how I examined what was going on: Assisted suicide. Unreported death. Channing’s murder. Stolen diary pages. Jensen’s murder. Research tampering.
Tease apart the pieces. It was like one of my psychological tests. Put together the things that go together. Then name the groups. I came up with two: murder and character assassination.
Two crimes. Different criminals? Of course. And if I didn’t hurry, there would be another killing.
I picked up the phone and called Destler’s office. I prayed that Virginia would still be there. When she answered, I barked, “Is he there?”
“Hello, Peter. Sorry, no he’s not. He seems to be very much in demand this afternoon.”
“Was Dr. Smythe-Gooding looking for him?”
“As a matter of fact …”
I cut her off with, “Did you tell her where he is?” I knew I was being rude, but Virginia was a very forgiving soul.
“Of course.”
“And where is that?”
“Well, let’s see, he was at a meeting that should have ended at five-thirty. Then he usually goes over and …”
Much as I like Virginia, if she’d been in the room with me I’d have strangled her then and there. I interrupted the stream of consciousness. “Where do you think he is right now. Please, it’s quite important.”
“Oh, my. He’s probably over at Albert House. He took the plans for the renovation with him, and he was going to check up—”
“Is there any way to reach him?”
“I could beep him. But there aren’t phones over there—”
“I’ll find him,” I said, and hung up.
I burst out into the hall. Annie had packed away her tools and was carrying the crowbar. “We’ve got to get over to Albert House. Destler’s over there, and Daphne’s gone looking for him.”
“I’m coming with you,” Jess announced, as Annie and I started for the stairway.
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” I said.
“Please? I’ve screwed everything up. Trusting Dr. Jensen. Shooting my mouth off here.”
We hurried down the stairs, past the spot where Jensen had fallen to his death. A piece of plywood had been fastened across the broken spindles. Jess struggled to keep up. Her high heels and straight skirt weren’t designed for speed. She was still carrying Channing’s scarf.
“It could be dangerous,” I said.
“There has to be a way I can make up for the mess I’ve made,” Jess insisted.
We were outside now, on the steps of the Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation Unit. “We should get security to meet us over at Albert House,” I said.
Jess said, “I’ll do it. I’ll get them and meet you there.” She hurried back inside.
27
ANNIE AND I cut across aboveground to Albert House. It was faster than taking the tunnels—straight instead of zigzag. And it was all downhill. I ran flat out, Annie matching me step for step.
Despite the spotlights at the upper corners, Albert House looked derelict. The circular drive was sprouting thigh-high weeds. At one side of the building was a Dumpster. Some of the trademark windows were covered with plywood. A NO TRESPASSING sign was hanging crooked, and the massive oak door was padlocked shut. I borrowed Annie’s crowbar, wedged it in, and leaned into it. Wood splintered as the screws pulled away, until the hasp was hanging, the padlock dangling from its ring.
The door swung open. Annie flashed her light around the entryway. We peered into the gloomy interior. There were wide steps up into the lobby. The embossed ceiling was etched with cracks, some so deep that you could see up into the dark space between the ceiling and the floorboards above.
We started in, past a large rubbish bin loaded with old lath and plasterboard. The sharp smell of turpentine rose from some rags lying on the top. Alongside were crates of miscellaneous pipe. There was a pile of broken two-by-fours, along with a giant wooden spool of electrical wire.
Annie flashed the beam across the main lobby and up into the ceiling. The two-story space had once been imposing. There was a wide staircase going up, and overhead hung a huge brass chandelier, dull with dust.
“Feels more like a mausoleum than a mansion,” Annie said.
The place smelled of dry rot, and the floor felt spongy in places. I wondered how much they’d be able to salvage. Annie was making her way over to a panel of light switches.
“Be careful,” I said. “The floor’s not …” Just then a floorboard cracked under Annie. She pulled away to solid footing and advanced more slowly toward the wall panel.
“Dr. Destler!” I called out. I stared up into the darkness. I expected my voice to echo, but it didn’t. The pulpy walls and rotting floorboards seemed to absorb sound.
There was a click, and the chandelier flickered to life. Then two or three bulbs popped, sending off a shower of sparks. A bulb fell to the floor and shattered. The room descended into gloom again.
“Must’ve blown a fuse,” Annie said. “We could look for the box.”
“Forget about it,” I said as my eyes adjusted. “There’s no time. We’ve got to find them.”
Annie pulled something from the edge of the central staircase. “Looks like someone’s here.”
She handed me the tall roll of paper. I sniffed at it. No dust or mildew smell. I opened it while Annie held up the light. There were several sheets, rolled into one other.
I examined the top sheet. Architectural plans. The legend said “Albert House”—it was the main floor. The grand entrance hall remained, but it was no longer at the center of a harmonious symmetric layout. A new wing was getting added off to the east side, with its own entrance. It looked like the kind of space that could be used for outpatient therapy—a lobby, and medium-size interior spaces leading to smaller ones that could be offices or examining rooms. Most of the original building was to be gutted. The offices at one end of the first floor were being replaced by a lecture hall with a semicircular stage and stadium seating. In careful calligraphy the room was labeled Destler Hall.
I whistled. We were talking major capital campaign to pay for plans this grandiose. But as far as I knew, there wasn’t one under way. There had to be a donor—one with very deep pockets.
“Which way?” Annie asked.
She flashed the beam down the hall one way, then the other, then up the stairs, then in my face. I blinked away the light. She turned the beam aside. From somewhere upstairs, there were footsteps, scuffling sounds.
I dropped the plans, and we rushed up the curving stairs. We stood on the second-floor landing and listened.
“What’s that?” Annie asked, indicating down one of the stretches of hallway leading off the landing. A light flashed back at us from floor level near the end of the corridor. Annie got to it first and picked up a yellow hard hat with a light mounted to it. With a metallic ting, the filament in the bulb snapped. I ran my hand across a deep dent in the yellow dome. I hoped the head wearing it had fared better.
There were voices from farther down the hall. We ran. One of the office doors was open. In the gloomy twilight, Destler was backed up against the window. His face was in shadow. “Get away from me,” he growled at Daphne, who had a length of two-by-four aimed at his gut.
“Channing was right ab
out you,” Daphne said, her voice disdainful. “You’ll do anything to get what you want. You had to keep your pals over at Acu-Med happy, or else what would happen to this brilliant monument to your hubris?”
“I didn’t kill her,” Destler said.
I stepped into the room. “Daphne,” I said.
Daphne jerked her head toward me, but the battering ram remained pointed at Destler.
“Keep her away from me,” Destler demanded. “She’s out of her mind.”
“Go away, Peter. This doesn’t concern you,” Daphne said.
“If it’s about settling accounts, then it does,” I said. “He didn’t kill her.”
Daphne laughed. “Of course, he didn’t. He doesn’t have the balls to kill.”
“But he had no compunction about screwing her after she was dead,” I said.
Daphne took a step closer to Destler, her sweater sliding off one sloping shoulder.
“Keep away.” Destler bleated. “I have a gun.”
“You?” she scoffed. “That’s a load of rubbish. You’re nothing but a sodding coward.” Destler could have grabbed the end of the piece of wood. But he didn’t. He pressed himself against the window.
Daphne lunged at him. Destler reached into his pocket and pulled something out. He waved it around. I could just make out a small handgun.
“Destler, put that away,” I said. “You’ll get someone killed … .”
Daphne swung the two-by-four. Destler ducked, and it crashed into the window, breaking the glass. Then, with a thud, it connected with Destler’s hand. Destler howled as the gun skittered across the floor and into a corner. Daphne threw herself across the room and grabbed it. Destler ran past me and out of the room.
Daphne turned and confronted me. “Get out of my way,” she said. “He’s not going to get away with it.”
