Life Everlasting

by Robert Whitlow

  He next found himself on a table underneath bright lights. His vision was blurry, but he could make out a nurse standing beside his bed adjusting an IV bag.

  “What happened?” he asked in a slurred voice.

  The nurse looked down at him. “Don’t try to move. I’ll get the doctor.”

  He closed his eyes and groaned. As he became more aware, he moved the fingers on his left hand. He lifted his hand a few inches from the bed, but it was connected to the IV. He commanded his right hand to touch his nose, which was swollen and sore. His hand slowly came up from his side but missed his nose and poked his left eye. A female voice spoke.

  “That’s good, Detective Bridges. I’m Dr. Garinger. Move your left fingers.”

  Bridges complied and then cooperated with a series of commands. He wiggled his toes and answered some simple questions. The doctor shone a light in his eyes.

  “You’re neurologically intact,” she said. “You have a concussion and a broken nose, but your neck seems fine.”

  Bridges began to tap the memory of where he had been and what had happened.

  “Quinton,” he said.

  “What?” the doctor asked.

  “Quinton? Did they catch him?”

  “I’m not sure whom the police arrested. All I know is that you were struck in the head and face and knocked unconscious. You arrived at the Santee hospital in an ambulance about an hour ago.”

  “An hour?”

  “Yes. We ran a CT scan of your head and neck. It showed evidence of the concussion and broken nose but nothing that shouldn’t improve in a few days. You have no damage to your spinal cord.”

  “What about my wife?” Bridges asked in alarm. “Does she know where I am?”

  “She’s on her way. I already told her about the results of the CT scan.”

  Bridges sank back into the bed and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, Byron Devereaux stood beside his bed. His supervisor’s thin bespectacled face was filled with concern.

  “Welcome back,” Devereaux said. “You had a close call. How do you feel?”

  Bridges felt better but credited the drugs dripping into his left hand. Underneath the numbness lurked pain.

  “I’ll make it. How’s your father?”

  “He’s going to be okay. I was on my way up here when I received the call.”

  “Did they catch Quinton?”

  Devereaux nodded. “Yes. Two of the men got away. They found Quinton hiding underneath a car.”

  “I heard a gunshot. Was anyone hurt?”

  “Only you. I don’t know about the gunshot. Quinton is on his way to Charleston in the back of a patrol car.”

  Bridges winced. “How does my face look?”

  Devereaux tilted his head to the side. “Like you kissed a windshield at fifty miles an hour, but the doctor says you’ll be fine. Were you trying to make an arrest on your own? That’s not very smart.”

  “No, just trying to get Quinton’s plate number.” Bridges gave Devereaux a brief account. “I don’t know why the Santee deputies stopped the van. I hadn’t mentioned it when I called the dispatcher.”

  “The driver was in too much of a hurry. He just seemed suspicious.”

  Bridges closed his eyes. “That was close. If the guys from the bar had taken me someplace . . .”

  Devereaux sighed and looked at the floor. “I’m going to ask the solicitor to keep Quinton here instead of shipping him up to Rhode Island. He’s killed one of our deputies and came close to killing you. I’d rather see him on death row in South Carolina than anywhere else I can imagine.”

  Alexia was scooping out a bite of grapefruit for breakfast when the phone rang. She looked at the caller ID. Weekend calls from Rena never brought good news, but Alexia wouldn’t dodge a problem on Sunday if it stood any chance of growing bigger by Monday. Rena probably wanted a detailed account of the evening with Jeffrey. Alexia answered.

  “Did you watch the news this morning?” Rena asked excitedly.

  After dropping off Ted, Alexia had crawled into bed. The only sounds of her morning had been Boris barking as he ran through the marsh grass and a few chirping birds perched near her deck.

  “No, what is it?”

  “They caught the man who stole my convertible,” Rena said. “He was at a bar on the coastal highway.”

  Alexia remembered the flashing lights. “Was it the Beachcomber Club on Highway 17?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. He attacked a policeman from Charleston. The TV reporter just interviewed the detective who talked to us after the car was stolen. He said that they’re going to hold the man on multiple charges.”

  Alexia could imagine the list: auto theft, murder of the policeman who stopped him for speeding in Rena’s car, assault against the officer who tried to arrest him, and anything else the solicitor’s office could tack on.

  “What’s the man’s name?” she asked.

  “I wrote it down. Uh, here it is. Henry L. Quinton. He’s from New Jersey and was driving a gray van with New York license plates.”

  The blood drained from Alexia’s face.

  “Which channel carried the story?” she asked.

  Rena told her. “Will I have to testify at his trial? It was horrible at the hearing about Baxter’s life support. I almost passed out.”

  Alexia picked up the remote control for the small TV she had in the kitchen and turned on the power. “Oh, it will be routine,” she said after a brief pause. “Don’t worry about it. You’ll have to identify your car and confirm that it was stolen, but you don’t know who took it so you won’t get an antagonistic cross-examination. No criminal-defense lawyer wants to create extra sympathy for a victim.”

  “I’ll still be nervous.”

  “We’ll rehearse if you want to. I’m just glad they caught someone. I want to watch the news myself. We’ll talk on Monday.”

  She clicked off the phone and turned in her chair to view the newscast. The rest of her grapefruit remained uneaten in a bowl on the table. The arrest of Henry L. Quinton led the broadcast. She stared intently at the mug shot; however, she’d not gotten a clear view of the driver of the van on the dusky evening she encountered him. When a photo of the vehicle briefly flashed on the screen, Alexia compressed her lips tighter. It was either the same gray van that invaded her territory or its twin. When the news anchor switched to a story about erosion on a barrier island, Alexia turned off the TV.

  Why would someone like Quinton be in the vicinity of her house? Almost no one trespassed on her tiny corner of the marshlands. And why did Quinton try to run her off the road? Alexia posed a threat only to recalcitrant husbands who wanted to rip off their wives. She’d never represented Mrs. Henry L. Quinton, and she could deduce no other possible connection between herself and a thief and killer. Her thoughts turned to Rena. Why would Quinton steal Rena’s car? Of all the fancy cars in the golfing developments that surrounded Santee, why hers? Alexia’s mind continued to spin, but her questions only led to other questions.

  She arrived at the Sandy Flats Church in a somber mood. Walking across the parking lot, she saw Mrs. Marylou Hobart. Ted had taken on Mrs. Hobart and her rambling, ramshackle house as an ongoing rehabilitation project. The older woman, dressed in a faded brown outfit that had probably been new when Alexia attended elementary school, waved happily.

  “Alicia!” Mrs. Hobart exclaimed as they drew closer together. “It’s good to see you.”

  The partially deaf woman hadn’t mastered the name Alexia, and Alexia was content to answer to anything close.

  She leaned forward and shouted, “Good morning, Mrs. Hobart!”

  “No need to holler, my dear,” Mrs. Hobart chided. “This is a good day. My euthanasia tubes are more open than usual.”

  The dark cloud over Alexia lifted, and she smiled at the woman’s mala-propism. “I’m glad you’re still with us. Maybe you can enjoy Ted’s playing. Last night, he performed at a benefit concert.”

  Mrs. Hobart nodded. “I alway
s benefit from being around him. He’s very handy around the house. He can fix most anything. I never thought I’d be able to get the toilet in my upstairs bathroom to stop running, but he put a rubber thing in it, and it’s been as still as a summer pond ever since.”

  Alexia helped Mrs. Hobart up the steps to the sanctuary. That the extraordinarily talented music minister was willing to hug the older woman’s toilet was proof of the practical effect of his faith. The two women sat on the right side of the church about halfway toward the front. Alexia knew from experience it was the best spot, acoustically speaking, in the two-hundred-year-old sanctuary.

  The room was three-fourths filled. The men wore suits and ties, and the women were clothed in nice dresses with a smattering of hats. Christian roots ran deep among longtime residents of the Santee area, and a church that traced its founding to the early settlers in the Lowcountry didn’t easily adopt casual, beachfront religion. Only the teenagers showed signs of breaking with tradition. Whether the young people would return to the formality of prior generations would not be answered until they reached adulthood.

  Ted and the senior minister, John Heathcliff, entered the sanctuary. Both men wore robes. Ted sat at the piano and played an excerpt from a Bach fugue as the prelude. Music was the heart language Alexia best understood, but other parts of the service also touched her spirit. When the congregation stood for the responsive reading, her soul echoed the antiphonal agreement with the words of David from the Psalms. On this Sunday, three-thousand-year-old poetry came alive in a small church in South Carolina.

  The sermon, a message about giving, was hard to follow, and Alexia wasn’t sure what Reverend Heathcliff wanted her to believe. If he’d been arguing a case in which Alexia served as a juror, she’d have sent word to the judge that she needed more information.

  After the minister pronounced the benediction, Alexia lingered while Ted played the postlude. She didn’t recognize the music and suspected he wrote it. The other people on the pew moved into the aisles and toward the back of the sanctuary. Mrs. Hobart tapped her on the arm.

  “Didn’t the preacher say amen?” she asked.

  Alexia nodded. “Yes ma’am.”

  “That means it’s time to go.”

  Alexia pointed toward the piano. “I’m listening to Ted.”

  Mrs. Hobart nodded, and the two women stood together in silence until the music minister’s hands lifted from the keys.

  Mrs. Hobart sighed. “It was the same way with my husband, Harry. I could listen to him play for hours.”

  “Did he play the piano?” Alexia asked in surprise.

  “Oh, no, but he could make a fiddle talk. You’ll think I’m crazy, but he could play songs, and I could see what he was a-playing. He could make flowers pop out of the ground and rain fall from the clouds.”

  “That’s beautiful.”

  “It sure was. There ain’t nothing like a man that makes music,” the old woman paused, then added with a twinkle in her eye, “especially one that can fix a stubborn toilet.”

  Ted the toilet fixer came up the aisle. He unzipped his dark robe, slipped it from his shoulders, and draped it over his arm. Underneath he wore a white shirt, yellow tie, and gray slacks.

  “Two of my favorite people!” he called out.

  Mrs. Hobart grinned. “You did good today. I could hear you a lot better than the preacher.”

  “We have a pew equipped with speakers connected to ear pieces,” Ted said, pointing to one of the front rows.

  The older woman shook her head. “I don’t like those things. They make it sound like I’m listening to everything through a seashell. It roars bad.”

  They walked to the back of the sanctuary. The congregation had moved to the parking lot. Parents with babies and toddlers were collecting their offspring from the nursery. Those without children were already on their way to the local restaurants.

  “Can you join me for lunch?” Ted asked Alexia.

  Mrs. Hobart thought the question was directed to her. “Not today,” she responded. “Ann Briscoe is taking me out to eat and then driving me home. She picked me up this morning.”

  Mrs. Hobart’s voluntary chauffeur saw her and motioned toward the car.

  “It’s good seeing you,” Alexia said. “Have a nice afternoon.”

  “I’m sure you will,” Mrs. Hobart responded. “Ted is a good cook. He brought me a piece of coconut pie that was almost as good as I used to make.”

  They watched Mrs. Hobart navigate across the fine gravel and crushed seashells that covered the parking lot.

  “She tells me you’re a miracle worker when it comes to toilets,” Alexia said.

  Ted nodded. “Yeah, that toilet was draining the water table for the whole eastern seaboard.”

  “I’ll add that to your list of talents.”

  They walked down the steps together.

  “Let’s eat at my place,” Ted said. “After all the rich food last night, I’d like something light. I bought some fresh shrimp yesterday. We can boil them and eat them plain or make a shrimp salad.”

  “With coconut pie for dessert?”

  Ted chuckled. “I didn’t make the pie. A lady in the church gave it to me, and I shared it with Mrs. Hobart. She was confused about where it came from, and it wasn’t worth the trouble trying to straighten it out.”

  Alexia noticed several heads turn and watch them cross the parking lot. After Ted first took Alexia to lunch with Mrs. Hobart, news of the music minister’s interest in the young lawyer had rippled through the congregation.

  “Have you ever been to a drive-in movie?” she asked as Ted pushed open the door.

  “Once or twice when I was a kid. Why?”

  “I feel like I’m on the screen, and the show is about to begin.”

  Ted looked past Alexia at the cars sitting in the church parking lot.

  “I see what you mean,” he said.

  Alexia stayed put on the front stoop. “Is it okay? I don’t want to cause you any problems.”

  Ted stepped into the house. “Don’t worry. The church secretary asked me about you last week, and I told her. She circulated the news, and it has probably reached the outer limits of the Sandy Flats Church universe by now.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “The truth.”

  “Which is?”

  “That you like classical piano music. She’s seen your car outside the sanctuary when I’ve been playing in the afternoon. I told her that you are a very interesting and unique person, and I wanted to get to know you better.”

  “That’s bland. Did it satisfy her curiosity?”

  “Probably not. But it’s all I gave her. Anything else floating through the drive-in movie crowd is as true as a rumor from Hollywood.”

  Alexia followed Ted through the living room to the kitchen at the back of the house. The old wooden floors creaked under their feet. They passed the picture on the mantel of Ted’s daughter, Angelica, at the time of her graduation from Juilliard. In the kitchen, Ted opened the refrigerator and took out a plastic bag filled with shrimp, their heads intact. He poured the shrimp into a plastic bowl and took out a knife and cutting board.

  “Cook them with the heads on,” Alexia said. “It will give them more flavor.”

  Ted stopped with the knife in midair. “Do you eat them with the heads on too?”

  Alexia sat down at the small table against the wall of the kitchen and propped her feet up on the opposite chair. “Yeah, most lawyers eat shrimp with the heads on. First they bite off the heads and then take their time nibbling away at the body. It’s one of the first things I learned in law school.”

  Ted returned the knife to the drawer. “No argument from me.”

  “Where’s the pot you use to boil them?”

  Ted retrieved it from underneath the counter. Alexia joined him at the sink as she filled the large pot with water. Their arms touched. Alexia looked up at him. The insecurity caused by Sarah Locklear faded as she spent more time wi
th the minister.

  “Thanks for inviting me.”

  Ted wrinkled his forehead and smiled.

  “I needed to be with someone today,” Alexia continued. “I didn’t want to go back to my house and spend the day alone.”

  Ted took the pot from her and put it on the stovetop.

  “Why not?”

  Alexia sat back down.

  “Do you remember the police cars outside the bar last night?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  Alexia told Ted about Quinton’s arrest and the phone call from Rena. When she mentioned her recent encounter with the gray van, Ted’s expression grew more serious.

  “I’ve lived alone ever since I moved to Santee,” Alexia said with a sigh. “And I’ve been in my house on the marsh for four years. This is the first time I’ve felt afraid, and I can’t shake it.”

  Ted dumped the shrimp into the boiling water. “It might not be the same guy. Can you find out more about him?”

  “I need to ask questions because of Rena’s situation, but I’d also like to investigate a few things myself. The detective might talk to me if I tell him my story. It’s just unsettling to think someone like that was near my house.”

  The shrimp instantly turned pink. Ted looked at his watch.

  “Ready in two minutes,” he said. “Yeah, you need to find out what was in Quinton’s head before the Charleston County prosecutor tries to bite it off.”

  15

  To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction.

  SIR ISAAC NEWTON

  After talking to Alexia, Rena tried to contact Jeffrey. She was nervous about his reaction to the arrest of one of his spies. He didn’t answer his cell phone, and she didn’t leave a message that might accidentally be retrieved by someone else.

  Rena went to her computer in the corner of the kitchen. Turning it on, she continued her Internet research into the nature and duration of comas. Her anxiety about Baxter’s return from the netherworld had abated somewhat when he showed no ability for complex communication. Medical information she located on-line reassured her that partial amnesia, particularly as to events immediately preceding an injury, commonly occurred in cases of severe head injury. Even if a person’s ability to speak returned, conversation was often disjointed and confused.