Old Chaos (9781564747136)

by Simonson, Sheila

  “He’s not absolutely sure, but he believes the building won’t be flooded. The grounds, yes. There may be a surge. Water is already eroding the ditch they’ve dug.” Patrick beamed. “I checked the creek bed. The flow looks normal for this time of year.”

  Kayla frowned. Normal meant high. But the creek was at least partially dammed. She wondered if Wessel had actually left the building. If so, it was unprecedented exertion. Kayla gave him an encouraging smile, but not too encouraging. “Shall I unload the bus?”

  “Oh, er, yes, maybe you should.”

  “Maybe?”

  “Definitely.”

  She headed toward the bus. “Mr. Bunsen is still missing.”

  He tsk-tsked, his face sad. “We must expand the search then. When you’ve unloaded the other patients. Spare no effort.” He meant that she should expand the search.

  “Double overtime,” she murmured. She was now halfway through a second shift and bone-tired. She would search for Flash Bunsen anyway, but organizing the entire evacuation effort was not in her job description.

  After a pained moment, he nodded. “Double time.” He checked his watch. “From now—”

  “From the beginning of the shift.”

  He heaved a sigh and strolled back to his office, no doubt to revise the monthly budget. Salisbury steak for all hands. Oddly enough, most of the residents liked it.

  Kayla and the two aides took the nine patients back to their rooms, two at a time, with soothing commentary. The blessing was that by dinner half of them would have forgotten the interruption to their routines.

  She called the facilities to which the first five patients had been taken, then sent a bus and two aides for them. They would be back in time for dinner. That would save several thousand dollars. Patrick would be pleased.

  She kept thinking about Mr. Bunsen. By that time, the building had been thoroughly searched to no avail. It was still raining. Surely he wouldn’t have gone outside.

  Her cell rang. “Hi, Charlie. I hear they lowered the lake.”

  He chuckled. “I thought I was going to give you the good news.”

  “It is good, but we have a patient missing. I think he’s outside.” She peered out a window that overlooked the creek and saw movement on the bank. Maybe it was just something in the water, a log. Wind whipped a squat rhododendron in the foreground and tossed a plastic bag into the air. “Uh, how’s the search?”

  “All the McCormicks are accounted for, and so is a house sitter whose cat disappeared.”

  “They’re alive?”

  “They are. Rob is pretty sure the people who lived up near the road are gone, though. He’s at that house now, helping with the digging. Listen, Kayla, there’s going to be a surge of water in the creek bed—”

  “I see him!” Kayla interrupted. “My patient! He’s heading for the creek. Talk to you later.” She stuffed the phone into her pocket and ran toward the nearest emergency exit. “It’s Flash!” she yelled to a passing aide.

  She burst out into drizzle that made everything dim and indefinite, but she kept her eyes on the blue jacket. Mr. Bunsen moved fast for a man of eighty-seven, and he had gone fairly far upstream. What was he doing?

  “Chester!” she called. That was his given name. He paid no attention or perhaps didn’t hear. The creek was roaring. Kayla took pride in her fitness, but she was panting by the time she reached him. He looked at her with mild blue eyes. So intent was she on not alarming him, she didn’t see the wall of water coming.

  ABOUT THE TIME searchers at the Gautier place uncovered the first body, the sheriff’s office got a phone call from a David Vanderbrook to say that he, his wife, and their ten-year-old daughter were skiing at Timberline Lodge. The Vanderbrooks owned the last house in the Prune Hill development to be accounted for. Rob didn’t find that out until noon, when he called to tell Earl about the body.

  Earl sounded almost exuberant. Rob was so relieved to hear of the Vanderbrook’s survival, he felt as if someone had knocked the wind out of him.

  He gathered his wits. After he let Earl know they’d found a dead woman, perhaps the Gautier mother-in-law, the undersheriff assumed a properly solemn tone. “I’m sorry to hear it. You don’t know for sure it’s the mother-in-law?”

  “We’re sure it’s a woman, but not sure of the age.” And it would be nice to know her name.

  The corpse had been found at the point of maximum impact, where tumbling boulders, mud, and broken tree limbs had exploded the two-story house. Still queasy from what he had helped to uncover, Rob watched an ambulance drive away with the mangled body.

  The rescuers paused and watched, too. Linda and Jake were still comforting the uninjured house sitter. Todd had gone off duty. Thayer was minding the radio. Earlier, Charlie had raced off in his pickup to see what was happening with Kayla downstream, now that the “dam” across Beaver Creek had given way.

  As Bat Quinn and his team turned back to work with their shoulders drooping, Rob filled Earl in on the flood, too, though he knew the engineer from the Roads Department had already sounded the alarm.

  Earl assured Rob that everyone who lived on the banks of the creek had been evacuated, or at least invited to leave. Corky Kononen was on top of things.

  “That’s good.” Rob scratched his unshaven chin. “I need a crane.”

  “So you can be on top of things, too?” Earl chortled at his own wit.

  “For lifting roof beams. The tow truck you sent isn’t heavy enough.”

  Earl said everything that could be done was being done. Rob doubted it.

  “How’s Mack?”

  “Well, you know hospitals. They aren’t saying. The surgeons operated to relieve the pressure on his brain.”

  Rob felt his stomach churn. “And Beth?”

  “They put pins in her leg. I guess her head’s okay, no fracture. The daughter has a skull fracture. I’ve got another call here, buddy.”

  “Right.” Rob signed off. He sent Jake and Linda to town with the house sitter and told them to go off duty. They’d done enough on top of a full night shift. Jeff Fong could take over Linda’s camera. So far they hadn’t been swamped with media ghouls, though the Channel 6 news helicopter had braved the rain for a flyover.

  Exhaustion dragged at Rob’s bones. Now that they knew how many people they were looking for, Jeff could take over, period. While he waited for his sergeant to show up, Rob went on digging, though he was pretty sure he shouldn’t. The muscles of his back had begun to cramp.

  Charlie O’Neill called Meg around 2:30. She was in the middle of a staff meeting. Since patrons were told to turn their cell phones off in the library, the head librarian was embarrassed when hers rang. She apologized and ducked out into the hall to answer.

  “What’s wrong, Charlie? Is it Rob?”

  “His back seized up. A deputy just brought him in to the hospital. I didn’t call about that.” His voice sounded muffled. “It’s Kayla.”

  Meg’s heart was jittering. “What happened?”

  He cleared his throat. “She went out to look for a runaway patient just before the flood surge hit the creek. She tried to save him.” He gulped, and Meg realized he was crying. “One of the aides spotted her and got to her, pulled her ashore. They lost the patient. The thing is, something hit Kayla’s face. Her cheekbone’s smashed. They think she’s going to lose her right eye.”

  “Oh, Charlie, honey.” The thought of Kayla disfigured sickened Meg. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Her eyeball was just lying on her cheek.”

  She swallowed nausea. “What can I do for you?”

  He took a ragged breath. “Her family, do you know anything about them?”

  “No, but I have a key. I could go into her house, look for her phone book. Wait, wouldn’t her employer have next-of-kin records?”

  “I can call the bastard who runs the place, I guess. Sorry to interrupt you at work.”

  “You phone the nursing home. I’ll come to the hospital. Are you in Emergen
cy?”

  “Yes. Thanks, Meg. I’ll stay here, and I’ll tell Rob you’re on your way. Uh, he’s kind of dirty. Can you bring him some clean clothes?”

  “Yes.”

  Charlie hung up.

  Rob’s back had seized up. What did that mean? Meg returned to a cloud of chatter in the staff room. Silence fell. Everyone looked at her with the blank expression of gossips in the presence of their victim.

  Meg turned to Marybeth Jackman, who looked even blanker than the others. “My neighbor has been seriously hurt. I’m going to the hospital.”

  Jackman raised her neatly penciled brows.

  Meg turned back to the other staffers, meeting their eyes. “You’ve reached item three on the agenda. I’m sure Marybeth here is capable of taking you through the rest.” She bared her teeth in a smile. They nodded. One or two smiled back. Meg turned to leave.

  “Which neighbor?” Somebody tittered.

  Meg stopped at the door and turned back. “Two of my neighbors and several of my friends are in the hospital right now. Elizabeth McCormick, for one, is a long-term Friend of the Library, so that should be of some concern to you. And surely, at a time like this, everyone is your neighbor.” She shut the door neatly behind her, but she was trembling, whether from this small confrontation or from anxiety for Rob and Kayla, she couldn’t tell. Unfortunately she couldn’t punch Jackman in the nose.

  When she’d found Rob some clothes, she drove to the hospital and followed an ambulance to the Emergency entrance. It went on past the brightly lit area—to the county morgue, Meg supposed. She parked with careful attention, locked the car, and ran to the waiting room. Charlie was there, red-eyed and haggard. She grabbed as much of him as she could reach and hugged. He hugged back.

  “Kayla?”

  He sniffed and shook his head. “They couldn’t save the eye. They’re flying her to Portland for reconstructive surgery on her cheekbone.”

  Meg consoled him as best she could, herself mourning Kayla’s beauty. Finally, she said, “What’s this about Rob?”

  He rubbed his face. “Sorry, you must be worried. He hurt his back. They took him in for an MRI.”

  “That will take time.” Relieved that the news wasn’t worse, she patted Charlie’s arm. He had a lab to teach in Vancouver, more than an hour away, so he left almost at once, looking wretched.

  Meg had never been good at waiting. She made up her mind to check on the McCormicks while Rob was undergoing what she knew could be a slow procedure. She handed his clothes to an aide and had found the door of Beth’s recovery room when the surgeon came in to tell the sheriff’s wife and children he had died on the operating table during a second surgery. He had suffered a massive coronary.

  Maddie went to the hospital twice. The first time was shortly after Beth was brought in. The harassed hospital spokesmen were not giving out information. Maddie knew at least three nurses and half a dozen aides, however, so she was able to assure herself that Beth was not in immediate danger. The sheriff and his daughter were in critical condition, both in surgery. It was not the time to intrude on the family, all beginning to assemble, all stunned and bewildered, so Maddie went off to her favorite café in search of coffee and rumors.

  After a late lunch with Hank Auclare, who was depressed at the prospect of lawsuits and irritated with the acting sheriff for holding an impromptu press conference, she decided to return to the hospital. She was in time to catch Earl Minetti’s second press conference of the day.

  Ablaze with television lighting, one end of the hospital lobby rang with urgent media voices—clearly not an impromptu P.R. exercise. The acting sheriff sat at a table with Commissioner Karl Tergeson on his right hand and a man in surgical scrubs on his left. Reporters occupied a row of folding chairs. Minetti, his hair slicked back and his glasses polished, wore a suit and tie. Madeline did not approve of the ostentation—he wasn’t in court, after all—but she had conducted enough press conferences herself to take a critical interest in the setup.

  When he had caught everyone’s eye and the shouted questions subsided, he said, “I have the sad duty to announce that Sheriff McCormick died about an hour ago during a second operation. He had a long and distinguished career. I’ve summarized it for you on the green fact sheet. Our sympathies go to his family on this sad occasion.” He paused as a deputy handed out the sheets of pale green paper. Maddie took one with numb fingers. So Mack was dead. The king is dead, long live the king, wasn’t that what the Bostons said on these occasions? A sad way of looking at things, she thought.

  She looked around the lobby. Despite the chatter, she saw only half a dozen reporters she knew and one video camera. Relatives of patients and passing staff were taking fact sheets. She wondered if Minetti realized that the press turnout was less than spectacular.

  Minetti said, “I’ve asked Dr. Powell of the Latouche County Hospital to explain what happened.”

  Maddie tuned out as the surgeon began to speak in tongues. It was clear that Mack’s injuries had been hopeless. A mountain had fallen on his head. Why are they doing this, she wondered, staring at Minetti’s tight face. It’s like something off the TV, like the time that nut shot Reagan. But Mack was not president of the United States.

  Like a lot of white men, Minetti had an almost lipless mouth. Every once in awhile, as the doctor spoke, it quirked in a smile. Maddie had not loved Sheriff McCormick, but Mack had been a human being, not some kind of…

  She was a scrupulous woman, so she searched the archives of her own culture first for the right term for Minetti—witch, shape-shifter, ghost? Not really. Robot? No. What Minetti reminded her of was the superheroes of kids’ electronic games, the kind who solve everything by going Shazam! and zapping the bad guys. He had that kind of cartoon reality. And he was taking over.

  As Karl Tergeson launched into pious platitudes, Maddie edged away from the pool of light. She was shaking with rage. It took her three tries to speed-dial the governor.

  Rob lay on a gurney with his eyes shut, so still that Meg felt a stab of pure terror. She must have gasped, because his eyes flickered open, and he turned his head.

  “Hi. I guess Charlie called you.”

  “He did. I brought clothes. How do you feel?” She kissed Rob’s forehead and felt grit on her lips. Someone had swabbed his face and hands, but he was remarkably dirty, covered in a coat of pale dust, his hair dim with volcanic ash. He wore a hospital gown, and a blanket covered him.

  “I’ll feel dopey but numb when the morphine kicks in.”

  “Morphine! What have you done to yourself?”

  “Bad boy!” he mocked.

  She was almost in tears. “What happened?”

  “I bent down to lift a two-by-four and froze in place. Couldn’t straighten up. Jeff and the rescue people carried me to a patrol car, and Thayer drove in with me lying sideways in the back seat. We have to do a better job of cleaning those cars. Smelled like vomit.”

  “You are doped.”

  “Some. Stuff to dissolve the bruise, muscle relaxants, or I wouldn’t be lying on my back—”

  “What bruise?”

  “On my shoulders. It’s a long story. What’s going on, Meg? Everybody’s tiptoeing around.”

  Oh God, he doesn’t know.

  “It’s Mack, isn’t it?” His eyes, direct and gray, held hers.

  “I’m so sorry, love. He died about half an hour ago, on the operating table.”

  “Jesus!” His eyes clenched shut.

  Meg took his hand, which was superficially clean but battered, cut, and bruised. She didn’t say anything, and neither did Rob, for a long time. At last he sighed and scrubbed at his eyes with his free hand. “Well, it was in the cards. He looked bad when we found him.”

  “We?”

  “Linda heard the baby. Jake brought the car jack. We got the baby out first, then Mack.”

  Meg had the feeling that wasn’t the whole story.

  His frown deepened. “Who’s with Beth?”

 
“Their kids. I didn’t intrude.”

  “That’s good. What about Peggy?”

  “I don’t know, Rob. I’m sorry.”

  He brooded. “Charlie told me about Kayla.”

  “It’s so sad. He’s really torn up. I hope—” She broke off. She was going to say that she hoped the injuries wouldn’t destroy Kayla’s wonderful confidence, and perhaps Rob read her mind.

  “She’s going to be very upset that she couldn’t save her patient. That will matter to her.”

  And her appearance won’t? Meg didn’t say anything.

  He went on, “She’s not as superficial as she seems. I hope Charlie’s smart enough to see that.”

  If Rob felt protective of Kayla, Meg found that she had a strong need to defend Charlie. “And maybe he’s not as besotted as he seems.”

  A smile tugged at his mouth. “Hey, lady, will you take me home?”

  “They’re not going to admit you?”

  “Not if I have any say in the matter.”

  My home or yours? “The question is, do you want to lie for three days upstairs on my bed, or downstairs on the wonderful hide-a-bed?”

  “Three days?”

  “I once ruined my back lifting book cartons. The doctor made me lie flat for seventy-two interminable hours.”

  “Let’s hope some magic pill shortens the sentence. I have a lot to do.”

  “And I didn’t? Lucy was twelve when I threw out my back. She was in love with the pool maintenance guy at our apartment complex.” Lucy was her daughter, a Stanford freshman. “That was before she took up physics.”

  He said very seriously, “I love you, Meg.”

  She felt tears rise again. She kissed him, this time on the mouth.

  A care-giver bustled in. “I’m supposed to bathe you, Mr. Erm. Can’t do it out here in the corridor.”

  Face burning, Meg scuttled away from the gurney. She had been raised to avoid public displays of emotion.

  “Not a bath,” Rob said. “A shower.” The tips of his ears showed red through the caked ash.

  The aide was a big woman with a stubborn jaw. Meg observed the power struggle. Somebody showed up with the clothes Meg had brought. A volunteer came bearing a plastic bag with Rob’s dirty belongings. Passersby gawked. It was a good show but no contest. Meg was unsurprised when Rob emerged from the shower room, clean, clothed, and almost upright.