Praying for Sleep

  "Within the last couple hours. I was on the radio." He pointed to his squad car as if trying to lead Owen's fury off track. "I was speaking to Don Haversham. With the state police?" He added significantly, "He's a good man. He's a captain."

  "Oh, a captain. My."

  Lis found herself staring at the sheriff's feet; in his heavy, dark boots he appeared less a civil servant than a man of combat on a combat mission. A breath of air stirred, reaching damply into her blouse. She watched a dozen leaves fall straight from the branches of a towering maple as if seeking cover before the storm arrived. Lis shivered and realized the kitchen door was ajar. She closed it.

  Footsteps sounded suddenly and Lis glanced at the doorway to the living room.

  Portia paused then entered the kitchen, still dressed in her thin, sexy outfit, her abundant breasts provocatively defined by the white silken cloth of her blouse. The sheriff nodded at the young woman, who smiled indifferently. The lawman's eyes dipped twice to her chest. Portia's Discman was stuffed into the pocket of the skirt and a single earplug was stuck in one ear. A tinny chunka-chunka sound came from the dangling plug.

  "Hrubek's escaped," Lis told her.

  "Oh, no." The second earplug was extracted and she flung the wire around her neck the way a doctor wears a stethoscope. The raspy sound of rock music was louder now, shooting from both tiny plugs.

  "Say, could you shut that off?" Lis asked, and Portia absently complied.

  Lis, Owen and Portia stood on glazed terra-cotta tile as cold as the concrete stoop outside, all in a line, arms crossed. Their formation struck Lis as silly and she broke ranks to fill a kettle. "Coffee or tea, Stanley?"

  "No, thankya. He's just wandering around lost, they say. He got away in Stinson, nearly ten miles east of the hospital."

  And fifty miles east of where they now stood, Lis thought. Like having a full gas tank or two twenty-dollar bills in your pocket this was a comfort--maybe insubstantial, maybe useless, but a comfort nonetheless.

  "So," Portia said, "he's heading away from here."

  "Seems to be."

  Lis was remembering: The madman bursting to life, hand and foot shackles jingling, his eyes molesting the trial spectators. And she was the person he undressed most eagerly. "Lisbone, Lisbone . . ."

  Lis had cried then--in June--hearing his hyena-pitched laugh fill the courtroom and she wanted to cry now. She clamped her teeth together and turned to the stove to make a cup of herbal tea. Owen was still firing angry questions at the sheriff. How many men are out looking for him? Do they have dogs? Did he take any weapons? The sheriff endured this cross-examination gamely then responded, "The fact is they're not doing a whole lot about it. It went out as an information bulletin only. Not an escape-assistance request. I myself'd guess they've pretty much cured him. Shocked him, probably, like they do. With those electrode things. He's out wandering around and they'll pick him up--"

  Owen waved his hand and started to speak but Lis interrupted. "If nobody's worried about it, Stan, what are you doing here?"

  "Well, I come by to ask if you still got that letter. Thought it might give 'em a clue where he's got himself to."

  "Letter?" Owen asked.

  Lis, however, knew exactly which letter he was referring to. It'd been her first thought this evening when the sheriff had said the word "Marsden."

  "I know where it is," she said, and went to get it.

  6

  Mrs. Lis-bone Atcheson:

  I am in this room I can't breathe I can't hear. I am held here unfAIRly and thEY, yes thEy are stopping me from what I MUST DO. This is very Important. they are holding me and have told lIes About Me to waShingtOn and the enTIRE worlD. they think that I am dANGERous etc but this is their excUSE and EVErybody beliEVEs it. That is beliEVEs "them". they are very Strong & we Must fear them, they arE eVErywhere.

  It is a CONSPIRACY. CON + S + PIRACY.

  and I know YOU are in it!!!!

  Revenge is mine it is not the LORDS because the LORD knows what I have Done and will not let ME rest. He shoots me in the hEAd every nighT!!! I accept my fATE and YOU who are bEAuTiful mUSt too. Come to me for eternal rest forever.

  EVErywhere. forEVEr. rEVEnge.

  EVE the woman

  COME to ME.

  i your lover

  Michael Hrubek's penmanship featured green, black and blue ink.

  And for her name, and his "signature," red.

  The sheriff sucked air between shiny white teeth in a loud, irritating way. "Does any of this make sense to you?" He addressed the question to Owen.

  Lis answered, "It's just babble."

  Owen glanced at her, then added, "We talked about it when it came but we thought it was a kid's prank."

  Lis taught sophomore English at Ridgeton High School.

  "I'm a tough grader." She laughed wanly. "I've been on my share of sixteen-year-olds' shit lists."

  " 'i your lover.' " The sheriff hitched at his gun belt. He stared at the letter for a moment. "Return address?"

  Lis flipped through the manilla folder where she'd filed it--in the Letters, Miscellaneous slot. Just past, she now noted, Last Will and Testament--Owen and Lis. She found the envelope. There was no return address. The postmark was Gloucester.

  "That's nowhere near Marsden," she pointed out.

  "Let me make a call." The sheriff glanced at Owen, who nodded at the phone.

  As she leaned against the counter, sipping the rose-hip tea, Lis remembered a hot Saturday in September, replanting a bush of hybrid tea roses, lemon yellow. Sweat was running along her nose with a tickle. Owen had been working all day and had just returned. About 6:00 p.m., the sun low and wan. He stood in the doorway, his large shoulders slumped, a piece of paper in his hand. Lis glanced up at him and the plant sank through her fingers, a thorn piercing her skin. Because of the sallow, grave expression on her husband's face she hadn't at first noticed the pain. Lis looked down a second later and saw a sphere of blood on her finger. She set the plant on the ground. Owen handed her this very letter and she took it from him slowly, leaving a bloody fingerprint on the envelope--like an old-time wax seal.

  Portia now read it. She shrugged, and announced to Lis, "I've got some stuff with me. Stop by the room, you want. It might relax you."

  Lis blinked and forced herself to appear blase. Only her sister, she reflected from an emotional distance, would offer a joint with one-fifth of the town's constabulary standing nearby (his squad car's bumper proclaiming, Ridgeton Says NO to Drugs). This was vintage Portia--playful, cunning, perverse. Oh, Portia--the hip, pale, French-braided younger sister with her Discman and her stream of thin-faced boyfriends. She'd been forced to endure an evening in the country, and she was blowing Lis one of the cold kisses her older sister remembered so well.

  Lis did not reply. The young woman shrugged and, with a glance at Owen, wandered out of the kitchen.

  The sheriff, who hadn't heard Portia's proposition and probably wouldn't have understood it if he had, hung up the receiver. When he spoke, it was to Owen. "Well . . . The long and the short of it is that she doesn't have anything to worry about."

  She? Lis repeated to herself. Was this me? Her face burned and she sensed even old-world Owen shift uncomfortably at the sheriff's patronizing attitude.

  "They said it didn't mean nothing. Hrubek's a schizo--they don't do well by people face-to-face. Too nervous to talk or something. So they write these long letters that're just nonsense mostly and when they do make a threat they're like too scared to act on it."

  "The postmark?" Lis asked firmly. "Gloucester."

  "Oh, about that. I asked. He may still've sent it. He got sent to this hospital there for some tests the first week in September. It's pretty low-security. He might've slipped away and mailed a letter. But, what I was telling you before, he's headed east, away from here."

  The sheriff and Lis both looked at Owen, who because he was the largest person in the room and the most grave, seemed to be in charge. "What if he isn't?" br />
  "Hell, he's on foot, Owen. The doctor said there's no way he can drive a car. And who's going to give him a ride, a big crazy like that?"

  "I'm just asking you," Owen said, "what if he isn't going east. What if he changes his mind and comes here?"

  "Here?" the sheriff asked and fell silent.

  "I want you to put a man on the house."

  "I'm sorry, Owen. No can do. We've got--"

  "Stan, this is serious."

  "--that storm coming up. It's supposed to be a whopper. And Fred Bertholder's in bed with the flu. Sick as a dog. Whole family has it."

  "One man. Just until they catch him."

  "Look, even the state boys're spread pretty thin. They're on highway detail mostly because of the--"

  "Fucking storm," Owen spat out. He rarely swore in front of people he didn't know well; he considered it a sign of weakness. Lis was momentarily shocked at this lapse--not at the cussing itself but the anger that would be behind it.

  "We got our priorities. Come on, don't go looking that way, Owen. I'll check in with Haversham every so often. If there's any change I'll be over here like greased lightning."

  Owen walked to the window and looked out over the lake. He was either paralyzed with anger or deep in thought.

  "Why don't you go to a hotel for the night?" the sheriff suggested with a cheerfulness that Lis found immensely irritating. "Hey, that way you'll get yourselves a good night's rest and not have to worry 'bout nothing."

  "Good night's rest," Lis muttered. "Sure."

  "Believe me, folks, you got nothing to worry about." He glanced out the window into the sky, perhaps hoping for a searing streak of lightning to justify his deployment of deputies this evening. "I'll stay on top of it, yessir." The sheriff offered a rueful smile as he stepped to the door.

  Only Lis said good night.

  Owen paced beside the window, gazing out to the lake. He said matter-of-factly, "I think we ought to do that. A hotel, I mean. We'll get a couple rooms at the Marsden Inn."

  A quaint little bed-and-breakfast, lousy (Owen's word) with dried flowers, Shaker furniture, country wreaths and dreadfully sincere paintings of live horses, dead birds and glassy-eyed nineteenth-century children.

  "Not exactly the best hideout from a crazy man, would you say?"

  "It doesn't sound like he could even get halfway to Ridgeton, let alone find a hotel we're staying at. . . . If he was inclined to find us in the first place. Besides, the Inn's only two miles from here. I don't want to have to go far tonight."

  "We need to finish the dam and the taping."

  Owen didn't speak for a moment. He asked in a distracted voice, "Where do you think he is?"

  "I'm not leaving till we get that levee finished. The sandbags, the--"

  Owen's eyes flashed. "Why are you arguing?"

  Lis blinked. She'd learned to tolerate his temper. She knew it was usually misdirected. Her husband was angry now, yes, but not at her--at the sheriff. Most times she blustered right back at him. But tonight she didn't raise her voice. On the other hand she wasn't going to back down. "I'm not disagreeing. The hotel's fine. But I'm not leaving until we've got at least another foot's worth of sandbags."

  His eyes again looked out onto the lake while Lis's dipped to the letter, resting on the butcher block. Lis smoothed it, then folded the paper. It made a crinkling sound and she thought for some reason of dried skin. She shivered and tossed it onto a stack of bills to be filed.

  Lis pulled on her jacket. Was he going to argue, or agree? Unable to anticipate his reaction she felt her stomach twisting into a knot. Cautiously she said, "It shouldn't take more than an hour." Still he said nothing. "You think we can get enough bags piled up by then?"

  Owen finally turned from the window and asked what she'd just said.

  "Sandbags? Can we stack enough in an hour?"

  "An hour? I'm sure we can." His serenity surprised her. "Anyway I don't think it's going to be as bad as they say. You know weathermen around here--they're always sounding false alarms."

  The driver downshifted to the lowest of his thirteen gears and nudged the huge white tractor-trailer past the restaurant and into the parking area. He locked the brakes and shut off the diesel, then checked a map, spending more time than he thought normal for a smart man like himself to calculate that he'd be in Bangor by four the next afternoon.

  A young man, the driver wore his Dolphins cap backwards and Nike Pumps on his feet. In the Blaupunkt was a grunge tape, backed up by a half dozen rap and hip-hop cassettes (a secret never to be shared with any blood relation). He climbed out of the cab, pausing long enough to glance in the side mirror with discouragement at the constellation of acne on his cheek, then dropped to the ground. He was halfway to the diner when the voice barked, "Hey, John Driver!"

  The huge man was suddenly next to him, hovering on legs like tree trunks. The driver stopped, astonished, as he looked up into the glistening round face, the spit-flecked grin, the eyes as excited as a kid's at a ball game.

  "Howdy," the driver stammered.

  The big man suddenly grew awkward and seemed to look for something to say. "That's quite a machine, it is," he offered though he didn't look toward the truck but kept his eyes fixed downward on the driver.

  "Uhn, thanks. You excuse me, I'm pretty beat and I'm gonna get some chow."

  "Chow, chow. Sure. It's lucky seven. See. One, two, three, four, five, six . . ." His arm was making a circuit of the vehicles in the parking lot. "Seven." The man adjusted the wool tweed cap that was perched on his bowling ball of a head. He seemed bald and the driver wondered if he was a Nazi skinhead. He said, "Lucky," and laughed too loud.

  "Uh-oh. That's eight." The fellow was pointing to another truck just pulling into the lot. His mouth twisted up in a smirking grin. "Always some fucker who ruins it."

  "That does happen. You bet." The driver decided he could outrun this bozo but was as troubled by the thought of looking like a fool in front of fellow truckers as he was of getting stomped. "Well. Yessir. G' night now." He sidled toward the diner.

  The big man's eyes flashed with concern. "Wait wait wait! Are you going east, John Driver?"

  The young man looked up into the murky eyes. "That's not truly my name," he said cautiously.

  "I'm going to Boston. That's the home of our country. I really have to get to Boston."

  "I'm sorry but I can't give you a lift. I work for--"

  "A lift?" the man asked with great curiosity. "A lift?"

  "Uhn, I can't give you a ride? You know what I'm saying? I work for a company and they'd fire me I was to do that."

  "No such luck, huh? No such luck?"

  "A rule, I'm saying."

  "But what am I going to do?"

  "They don't like it too much you try for rides in truck stops?" This wasn't a question but he was too frightened to offer the man a declarative sentence. "You might go up the road a spell and thumb?"

  "Up the road and thumb."

  "Somebody might pick you up."

  "Up the road and thumb. I could do that. Can I get to Boston that way?"

  "That intersection up there, see the light? That's 118, turn left, that'd be north. It'll get you to the Interstate and that'll put you in Boston in no time."

  "Thank you, John Driver. God bless you. Up the road and thumb."

  The big man started through the lot in a muscular, awkward lope. The driver said a short prayer of thanks--both for surviving this encounter and, equally important, for ending up with a good story to tell to his fellow truckers, one that needed hardly any embellishment at all.

  Peter Grimes returned to the hospital director's office and sat in a desk chair. Adler asked casually, "He did what?" as if resuming a conversation recently interrupted.

  "I'm sorry?"

  Adler slapped a green file folder. "The nurses' duty report. Hrubek was authorized to be in C Ward. He had access to the grounds. He just walked right into the morgue. That's how he got there. He just strolled into the f
reezer. Oh, Peter, Peter, Peter . . . This is not good." Adler had conceded the dankness of his office and was now wearing a beige cardigan into whose bottom buttonhole he poked his little finger.

  "And I found out why," Grimes announced. "He was part of Dick Kohler's program."

  "Oh, for God's sake, not the halfway house?"

  "No. Restricted to the grounds here. Milieu Suite and the work program. For some reason he had a job at the farm. Milking cows, or something, I suppose." The assistant gazed out the black window toward the part of the grounds where the hospital's nonprofit farm, operated by volunteers and staffed by patients, spread for some ten acres into the rocky hills.

  "Why wasn't any of this in the file?" Adler slapped the folder once again, as if disciplining a puppy.

  "I think there're some other files we don't have. I don't know what happened to them. Something funny's going on."

  "Did the board recommend Hrubek for the program?" Adler, as a member of the Marsden Board of Directors, prayed for one particular answer to this question.

  "No," Grimes said.

  "Ah."

  "Maybe Dick Kohler slipped him in somehow."

  " 'Slipped him in'?" Adler pounced. "We have to be very buttoned up about this, my friend. Did you mean that: 'slipped him in'? Think now. Think carefully."

  "Well, I don't know. Hrubek was always closely supervised. It's not quite clear who okayed it. The paperwork's sketchy."

  "So maybe he wasn't," Adler reflected, "'slipped in' after all? Maybe some other idiot here dropped the ball."

  Grimes wondered if he was being insulted.

  The hospital director breathed slowly. "Wait a moment. Kohler's not on staff. Does he have an office here?"

  Grimes was surprised Adler didn't know. "Yes, he does. It's part of the arrangement with Framington. We supply facilities for the attendings."

  "He's not an attending," Adler snapped.

  "In a manner of speaking, he is." With the trooper absent, Grimes inexplicably felt bolder.

  "I want to find out what the hell is going on here and I want to know in the next hour. Who's the E Ward resident on call?"

  "I'm not exactly sure. I think--"

  "Peter, you've got to get on top of this," Adler snapped. "Find out who it is and tell him to go home. Tell him to take the evening off."