“There’s a backup generator.”
“And if that goes? Those cells will open.”
“It’s an island,” Cawley said. “Where’s anyone going to go? It’s not like they can catch a ferry, scoot over to Boston, and wreak havoc. If they’re in manual restraints and that facility floods, gentlemen, they’ll all die. That’s twenty-four human beings. If, god forbid, anything happens in the compound? To the other forty-two? I mean, good Christ. Can you live with that? I can’t.”
Cawley looked up and down the table, and Teddy suddenly felt a capacity for compassion coming from him that he’d barely sensed before. He had no idea why Cawley had allowed them into this meeting, but he was starting to think the man didn’t have many friends in the room.
“Doctor,” Teddy said, “I don’t mean to interrupt.”
“Not at all, Marshal. We brought you here.”
Teddy almost said: no kidding?
“When we spoke this morning about Rachel Solando’s code—”
“Everyone’s familiar with what the marshal’s talking about?”
“The Law of Four,” Brotigan said with a smile Teddy wanted to take a pair of pliers to. “I just love that.”
Teddy said, “When we talked this morning you said you had no theories about the final clue.”
“’Who is sixty-seven?’” Naehring said. “Yes?”
Teddy nodded and then leaned back in his chair, waiting.
He found everyone looking back down the table at him, baffled.
“You honestly don’t see it,” Teddy said.
“See what, Marshal?” This from Cawley’s friend, and Teddy took a look at his lab coat, saw that his name was Miller.
“You have sixty-six patients here.”
They stared back at him like birthday-party children waiting for the clown’s next bouquet.
“Forty-two patients, combined, in Wards A and B. Twenty-four in Ward C. That’s sixty-six.”
Teddy could see the realization dawn on a few faces, but the majority still looked dumbfounded.
“Sixty-six patients,” Teddy said. “That suggests that the answer to ’Who is sixty-seven?’ is that there’s a sixty-seventh patient here.”
Silence. Several of the doctors looked across the table at one another.
“I don’t follow,” Naehring said eventually.
“What’s not to follow? Rachel Solando was suggesting that there’s a sixty-seventh patient.”
“But there isn’t,” Cawley said, his hands held out in front of him on the table. “It’s a great idea, Marshal, and it would certainly crack the code if it were true. But two plus two never equals five even if you want it to. If there are only sixty-six patients on the island, then the question referring to a sixty-seventh is moot. You see what I mean?”
“No,” Teddy said, keeping his voice calm. “I’m not quite with you on this one.”
Cawley seemed to choose his words carefully before he spoke, as if picking the simplest ones. “If, say, this hurricane weren’t going on, we would have received two new patients this morning. That would put our total at sixty-eight. If a patient, God forbid, died in his sleep last night, that would put our total at sixty-five. The total can change day by day, week by week, depending on a number of variables.”
“But,” Teddy said, “as of the night Miss Solando wrote her code…”
“There were sixty-six, including her. I’ll grant you that, Marshal. But that’s still one short of sixty-seven, isn’t it? You’re trying to put a round peg into a square hole.”
“But that was her point.”
“I realize that, yes. But her point was fallacious. There is no sixty-seventh patient here.”
“Would you permit my partner and me to go through the patient files?”
That brought a round of frowns and offended looks from the table.
“Absolutely not,” Naehring said.
“We can’t do that, Marshal. I’m sorry.”
Teddy lowered his head for a minute, looked at his silly white shirt and matching pants. He looked like a soda jerk. Probably appeared as authoritative. Maybe he should serve scoops of ice cream to the room, see if he could get to them that way.
“We can’t access your staff files. We can’t access your patient files. How are we supposed to find your missing patient, gentlemen?”
Naehring leaned back in his chair, cocked his head.
Cawley’s arm froze, a cigarette half lifted to his lips.
Several of the doctors whispered to one another.
Teddy looked at Chuck.
Chuck whispered, “Don’t look at me. I’m baffled.”
Cawley said, “The warden didn’t tell you?”
“We’ve never spoken to the warden. We were picked up by McPherson.”
“Oh,” Cawley said, “my goodness.”
“What?”
Cawley looked around at the other doctors, his eyes wide.
“What?” Teddy repeated.
Cawley let a rush of air out of his mouth and looked back down the table at them.
“We found her.”
“You what?”
Cawley nodded and took a drag off his cigarette. “Rachel Solando. We found her this afternoon. She’s here, gentlemen. Right out that door and down the hall.”
Teddy and Chuck both looked over their shoulders at the door.
“You can rest now, Marshals. Your quest is over.”
11
CAWLEY AND NAEHRING led them down a black-and-white-tiled corridor and through a set of double doors into the main hospital ward. They passed a nurses’ station on their left and turned right into a large room with long fluorescent bulbs and U-shaped curtain rods hanging from hooks in the ceiling, and there she was, sitting up on a bed in a pale green smock that ended just above her knees, her dark hair freshly washed and combed back off her forehead.
“Rachel,” Cawley said, “we’ve dropped by with some friends. I hope you don’t mind.”
She smoothed the hem of the smock under her thighs and looked at Teddy and Chuck with a child’s air of expectation.
There wasn’t mark on her.
Her skin was the color of sandstone. Her face and arms and legs were unblemished. Her feet were bare, and the skin was free of scratches, untouched by branches or thorns or rocks.
“How can I help you?” she asked Teddy.
“Miss Solando, we came here to—”
“Sell something?”
“Ma’am?”
“You’re not here to sell something, I hope. I don’t want to be rude, but my husband makes all those decisions.”
“No, ma’am. We’re not here to sell anything.”
“Well, that’s fine, then. What can I do for you?”
“Could you tell me where you were yesterday?”
“I was here. I was home.” She looked at Cawley. “Who are these men?”
Cawley said, “They’re police officers, Rachel.”
“Did something happen to Jim?”
“No,” Cawley said. “No, no. Jim’s fine.”
“Not the children.” She looked around. “They’re right out in the yard. They didn’t get into any mischief, did they?”
Teddy said, “Miss Solando, no. Your children aren’t in any trouble. Your husband’s fine.” He caught Cawley’s eye and Cawley nodded in approval. “We just, um, we heard there was a known subversive in the area yesterday. He was seen on your street passing out Communist literature.”
“Oh, dear Lord, no. To children?”
“Not as far as we know.”
“But in this neighborhood? On this street?”
Teddy said, “I’m afraid so, ma’am. I was hoping you could account for your whereabouts yesterday so we’d know if you ever crossed paths with the gentleman in question.”
“Are you accusing me of being a Communist?” Her back came off the pillows and she bunched the sheet in her fists.
Cawley gave Teddy a look that said: You dug the hole. You dig your
way out.
“A Communist, ma’am? You? What man in his right mind would think that? You’re as American as Betty Grable. Only a blind man could miss that.”
She unclenched one hand from the sheet, rubbed her kneecap with it. “But I don’t look like Betty Grable.”
“Only in your obvious patriotism. No, I’d say you look more like Teresa Wright, ma’am. What was that one she did with Joseph Cotton, ten—twelve years ago?”
“Shadow of a Doubt. I’ve heard that,” she said, and her smile managed to be gracious and sensual at the same time. “Jim fought in that war. He came home and said the world was free now because Americans fought for it and the whole world saw that the American way was the only way.”
“Amen,” Teddy said. “I fought in that war too.”
“Did you know my Jim?”
“’Fraid not, ma’am. I’m sure he’s a fine man. Army?”
She crinkled her nose at that. “Marines.”
“Semper fi,” Teddy said. “Miss Solando, it’s important we know every move this subversive made yesterday. Now you might not have even seen him. He’s a sneaky one. So we need to know what you did so that we can match that against what we know about where he was, so we can see if you two may have ever passed each other.”
“Like ships in the night?”
“Exactly. So you understand?”
“Oh, I do.” She sat up on the bed and tucked her legs underneath her, and Teddy felt her movements in his stomach and groin.
“So if you could walk me through your day,” he said.
“Well, let’s see. I made Jim and the children their breakfast and then I packed Jim’s lunch and Jim left, and then I sent the children off to school and then I decided to take a long swim in the lake.”
“You do that often?”
“No,” she said, leaning forward and laughing, as if he’d made a pass at her. “I just, I don’t know, I felt a little kooky. You know how you do sometimes? You just feel a little kooky?”
“Sure.”
“Well, that’s how I felt. So I took off all my clothes and swam in the lake until my arms and legs were like logs, they were so heavy, and then I came out and dried off and put my clothes right back on and took a long walk along the shore. And I skipped some stones and built several small sand castles. Little ones.”
“You remember how many?” Teddy asked and felt Cawley staring at him.
She thought about it, eyes tilted toward the ceiling. “I do.”
“How many?”
“Thirteen.”
“That’s quite a few.”
“Some were very small,” she said. “Teacup-size.”
“And then what did you do?”
“I thought about you,” she said.
Teddy saw Naehring glance over at Cawley from the other side of the bed. Teddy caught Naehring’s eye, and Naehring held up his hands, as surprised as anyone.
“Why me?” Teddy said.
Her smile exposed white teeth that were nearly clamped together except for a tiny red tip of tongue pressed in between. “Because you’re my Jim, silly. You’re my soldier.” She rose on her knees and reached out and took Teddy’s hand in hers, caressed it. “So rough. I love your calluses. I love the bump of them on my skin. I miss you, Jim. You’re never home.”
“I work a lot,” Teddy said.
“Sit.” She tugged his arm.
Cawley nudged him forward with a glance, so Teddy allowed himself to be led to the bed. He sat beside her. Whatever had caused that howl in her eyes in the photograph had fled from her, at least temporarily, and it was impossible, sitting this close, not to be fully aware of how beautiful she was. The overall impression she gave was liquid—dark eyes that shone with a gaze as clear as water, languid uncoilings of her body that made her limbs appear to swim through air, a face that was softly overripe in the lips and chin.
“You work too much,” she said and ran her fingers over the space just below his throat, as if she were smoothing a kink in the knot of his tie.
“Gotta bring home the bacon,” Teddy said.
“Oh, we’re fine,” she said, and he could feel her breath on his neck. “We’ve got enough to get by.”
“For now,” Teddy said. “I’m thinking about the future.”
“Never seen it,” Rachel said. “’Member what my poppa used to say?”
“I’ve forgotten.”
She combed the hair along his temple with her fingers. “’Future’s something you put on layaway,’ he’d say. ’I pay cash.’” She gave him a soft giggle and leaned in so close that he could feel her breasts against the back of his shoulder. “No, baby, we’ve got to live for today. The here and now.”
It was something Dolores used to say. And the lips and hair were both similar, enough so that if Rachel’s face got much closer, he could be forgiven for thinking he was talking to Dolores. They even had the same tremulous sensuality, Teddy never sure—even after all their years together—if his wife was even aware of its effect.
He tried to remember what he was supposed to ask her. He knew he was supposed to get her back on track. Have her tell him about her day yesterday, that was it, what happened after she walked the shore and built the castles.
“What did you do after you walked the lake?” he said.
“You know what I did.”
“No.”
“Oh, you want to hear me say it? Is that it?”
She leaned in so that her face was slightly below his, those dark eyes staring up, and the air that escaped her mouth climbed into his.
“You don’t remember?”
“I don’t.”
“Liar.”
“I’m serious.”
“You’re not. If you forgot that, James Solando, you are in for some trouble.”
“So, tell me,” Teddy whispered.
“You just want to hear it.”
“I just want to hear it.”
She ran her palm down his cheekbone and along his chin, and her voice was thicker when she spoke:
“I came back still wet from the lake and you licked me dry.”
Teddy placed his hands on her face before she could close the distance between them. His fingers slid back along her temples, and he could feel the dampness from her hair against his thumbs and he looked into her eyes.
“Tell me what else you did yesterday,” he whispered, and he saw something fighting against the water-clarity in her eyes. Fear, he was pretty sure. And then it sprouted onto her upper lip and the skin between her eyebrows. He could feel tremors in her flesh.
She searched his face and her eyes widened and widened and flicked from side to side in their sockets.
“I buried you,” she said.
“No, I’m right here.”
“I buried you. In an empty casket because your body was blown all over the North Atlantic. I buried your dog tags because that’s all they could find. Your body, your beautiful body, that was burned up and eaten by sharks.”
“Rachel,” Cawley said.
“Like meat,” she said.
“No,” Teddy said.
“Like black meat, burned beyond tenderness.”
“No, that wasn’t me.”
“They killed Jim. My Jim’s dead. So who the fuck are you?”
She wrenched from his grip and crawled up the bed to the wall and then turned to look back at him.
“Who the fuck is that?” She pointed at Teddy and spit at him.
Teddy couldn’t move. He stared at her, at the rage filling her eyes like a wave.
“You were going to fuck me, sailor? Is that it? Put your dick inside me while my children played in the yard? Was that your plan? You get the hell out of here! You hear me? You get the hell out of—”
She lunged for him, one hand raised over her head, and Teddy jumped from the bed and two orderlies swooped past him with thick leather belts draped over their shoulders and caught Rachel under the arms and flipped her back onto the bed.
Teddy
could feel the shakes in his body, the sweat springing from his pores, and Rachel’s voice blew up through the ward:
“You rapist! You cruel fucking rapist! My husband will come and cut your throat open! You hear me? He will cut your fucking head off and we’ll drink the blood! We’ll bathe ourselves in it, you sick fucking bastard!”
One orderly lay across her chest and the other one grasped her ankles in a massive hand and they slid the belts through metal slots in the bedrails and crossed them over Rachel’s chest and ankles and pulled them through slots on the other side, pulled them taut and then slid the flaps through buckles, and the buckles made a snap as they locked, and the orderlies stepped back.
“Rachel,” Cawley said, his voice gentle, paternal.
“You’re all fucking rapists. Where are my babies? Where are my babies? You give me back my babies, you sick sons-a-bitches! You give me my babies!”
She let loose a scream that rode up Teddy’s spine like a bullet, and she surged against her restraints so hard the gurney rails clattered, and Cawley said, “We’ll come check on you later, Rachel.”
She spit at him and Teddy heard it hit the floor and then she screamed again and there was blood on her lip from where she must have bitten it, and Cawley nodded at them and started walking and they fell into step behind him, Teddy looking back over his shoulder to see Rachel watching him, looking him right in the eye as she arched her shoulders off the mattress and the cords in her neck bulged and her lips were slick with blood and spittle as she shrieked at him, shrieked like she’d seen all the century’s dead climb through her window and walk toward her bed.
CAWLEY HAD A bar in his office, and he went to it as soon as they entered, crossing to the right, and that’s where Teddy lost him for a moment. He vanished behind a film of white gauze, and Teddy thought:
No, not now. Not now, for Christ’s sake.
“Where’d you find her?” Teddy said.
“On the beach near the lighthouse. Skipping stones into the ocean.”
Cawley reappeared, but only because Teddy shifted his head to the left as Cawley continued on to the right. As Teddy turned his head, the gauze covered a built-in bookcase and then the window. He rubbed his right eye, hoping against all evidence, but it did no good, and then he felt it along the left side of his head—a canyon filled with lava cut through the skull just below the part in his hair. He’d thought it was Rachel’s screams in there, the furious noise, but it was more than that, and the pain erupted like a dozen dagger points pushed slowly into his cranium, and he winced and raised his fingers to his temple.