The Edge

  “Oh, yes,” she said, and managed a small smile. “You were very real. The others weren’t. Everyone else who came in here was a white shadowy thing, but not you, Ford, not you. You were all here. You touched my hand and I felt warmth. Thank you.”

  I wasn’t surprised, but I did wonder if I hadn’t gone off the deep end after the car bomb in Tunisia. Psychic communication with my sister? I wondered what the FBI profilers would say about that.

  I heard shouting and running feet. Two nurses and a doctor all tried to squeeze through the doorway and into the room at the same time. I nearly laughed, remembering the Three Stooges.

  Things quickly degenerated from there.

  Dr. Sam Coates had a 1930s black pencil-thin mustache and a bald head. He said, “We’ll be running lots more tests, but given how she appears now, I’m just about ready to say she’s pulled through this with no physical or mental deficit.” He sounded all cool and professional, but I could tell he was pleased beyond anything, the nurses too. They were hopping about beside him, nodding, smiling, looking ready to burst into song, probably the “Hallelujah” chorus. Dr. Coates continued, gesticulating with his hands, unable, I guess, to keep himself quiet, just like the nurses. “It really is a miracle, you know, Mr. MacDougal. No other way to say it. A miracle and we were all here to witness it. I’ve seen this complete recovery before with a drug overdose, but not after a head trauma. I’d begun to believe she wouldn’t wake up.”

  He stuck out his hand and I obligingly shook it. I was grateful to all of them. Jilly’s room was filled with people. Maggie and Paul had arrived not fifteen minutes before. I watched Dr. Coates shake Paul’s hand. He nodded to Laura Scott and said to Maggie, “Sheriff. Now, I suggest all of you go home. Mrs. Bartlett will sleep soundly until morning. Go home.”

  “But what if she doesn’t wake up again?” I asked, terrified when I’d seen Jilly close her eyes, her head falling to the side.

  “Not to worry,” Dr. Coates said. “Trust me on this. A coma’s like a nightmare. Once you wake up, it’s over. Memories of the nightmare or the coma might remain but it rarely comes back. Really.”

  Maggie said, “You’re wrong about that, Doctor. Nightmares do come back.”

  Dr. Coates just shrugged. “Sorry, I’ll have to dig up another analogy.”

  “It’s still great news,” Maggie said, and shook his hand again. She said to Laura, “Why don’t you come home with me? It’s pretty late.”

  “No, thank you, Sheriff,” Laura said. “My cat needs his medication. Also I have to work tomorrow.” She walked to Paul, and I wondered if she was going to hit him. But she didn’t. She just frowned at him for a moment, then stepped back. I watched her walk out of the room. I was right behind her. I said over my shoulder to the doctor, “I’ll be back in a moment.”

  I waited until Paul and Maggie were out of hearing distance, then I gave Laura’s hand a tug and stopped her. I pulled her over to a window. “You said you weren’t sleeping with Paul. Either you are a remarkable actress and liar, or you’re really not sleeping with him.”

  “I’m a decent actress and liar when I have to be. One more time, Mac. I didn’t sleep with Paul. I can’t imagine sleeping with Paul.”

  I believed her and that raised more questions.

  “Ask Paul.”

  “Yes, I will.” I forced myself to walk away from her. I stopped to look out the window at the cloud-strewn dead sky. A stand of spruce stood beside the parking lot, thick leaves rustling. The wind was rising. It was pitch-black out there.

  I heard her walking toward me. I could feel her. She vibrated with life. I wondered what she’d feel like if I touched her, really touched her.

  “Good night, Mac. I’m glad Jilly woke up.” She lightly patted my cheek, turned, and walked away. I watched her push open the exit door and ease through a small crowd of off-duty hospital personnel and a couple of late visitors. I couldn’t stop myself. I came up behind her, my hand out to stop her when she suddenly turned back to me and said, “I understand from the sheriff that you’re FBI. You’re a big federal cop. She said you were here to help find out what happened to Jilly that night. Ask her. Find out what happened. Then tell me, please. You might consider believing me about Paul. Actually, truth be told, the only man I’ve met in the past year or so that I’d even consider going to bed with is you. Good night. Grubster is waiting for his pill. Nolan has probably torn the bars off his cage.”

  “He’s sure been on those pills a long time,” I called after her.

  “Now you’re a veterinarian? Give it up, Mac. I’ll be back tomorrow to see Jilly.”

  “Why didn’t Paul call you to tell you what had happened to Jilly?”

  “I don’t know,” she shouted back, not turning. She kept walking. “Ask him. He’s your damned brother-in-law. Don’t you know him?”

  I let her go. What else could I do? I watched her walk to her car without another word, without a backward glance at me. She was looking down as she walked, her shoulders slumped. I stood in the middle of the parking lot, staring after her until her Toyota turned out of the gated opening and disappeared into the night.

  I found Paul in Jilly’s room, sitting beside her bed, holding her hand. “I wish they’d kept her awake,” he said. “It’s like she’s back in a coma. It’s like she’s gone again. I don’t care what Dr. Coates said. I don’t think any of them know much of anything. Why didn’t you stop them, Mac?”

  “She had a killer headache, Paul. They hadn’t expected her to fall asleep so quickly, but Dr. Coates said it wasn’t anything to worry about. Knowing the hospital routine, they’ll be here to give her a shot in the butt at about three A . M .”

  “Yeah,” Paul said, looking up at me. “You’d know, wouldn’t you? How long were you in the naval hospital in Bethesda? Two, three weeks?”

  “Too long, however long it was,” I said, knowing that it was exactly eighteen days and eight hours. “I don’t like to think about it. Jilly’s awake now, Paul. Everything will be all right.” He looked so painfully hopeful that I dropped my hand to his shoulder and squeezed. “Jilly’s back with us. She’ll tell us exactly what happened. It’s over now, Paul.” He looked like he was going to cry. For the life of me, I couldn’t bring myself to demand that he explain Laura.

  “Well, you look tired yourself, Mac. It’s been a long day. You’ve been pushing yourself too hard. Why don’t you have the doctors here check you out?”

  I declined and sent Paul home. He looked ready to pitch forward onto his face. I’d nail him about Laura tomorrow. I wanted to know about the damned party on Tuesday night, the same night Jilly drove her Porsche off the cliff.

  I realized that I didn’t have to know any more about anything right now. Who cared what Paul had told me, what Laura had told me? It didn’t matter. Jilly would live. She was the only reason I was here.

  I was so tired my eyes hurt but I was too restless to sleep. I ended up wandering the hospital corridors, looking into every room that had windows, except for the morgue in the basement. I had a tough time dealing with the morgue anytime, but now, not a chance.

  I went back to Jilly’s room a little after one A . M ., still wide awake, still restless. I sat down at the small table in front of the window, pulled out my notebook, and began to write. I wrote down what people had told me. I wrote down some of the questions I still had.

  I laid down my pen. I shook my head. My written questions sounded like a soap opera. Was Jilly sleeping with some other guy? Who is Laura Scott, really?

  I wrote one final question: Jilly’s awake. What the hell am I still doing here?

  When Jilly awoke at two A . M . I was in a semi-stupor,
feeling a strong pull from my cracked ribs because I was stretched out in a long deep chair pulled from the doctors’ lounge, alongside her bed. I was holding her hand.

  “Ford?”

  It was her voice and it sounded to me like old knotted threads, ready to unravel at the first pull. She spoke again, and I knew she’d heard the weakness in her own voice and was concentrating on sounding stronger. “Ford?”

  I gave her a big smile, which I didn’t know if she could even see because the room was shadowy, with only a lamp in the far corner of the room lowered to dim. But my eyes were used to it. I could see her clearly. “Jilly, hi.” I squeezed her hand, leaned up and kissed her forehead.

  “You stayed with me?”

  “Yeah. Paul looked ready to drop so I sent him on home. You want me to call the nurse?”

  “Oh, no, I just want to lie here and be alive and start to believe it. The headache’s gone. I just feel sort of weak, nothing more.”

  I gave her more water and rubbed my knuckles over her smooth cheek. “I was with you, Jilly. I was with you when you went over the cliff, when you hit the water. I felt that huge impact.”

  She said nothing, just looked up at me, waiting.

  “I was in the hospital myself, remember?”

  She nodded. “The car bomb explosion, in Tunisia.”

  “Yes. That dream or vision—whatever—was more than real. I came awake and I couldn’t breathe. It scared me shitless, Jilly. What I can’t figure out is why you hooked up with me. How you were able to connect to my mind. Were you thinking about me at all at the time?”

  She shook her head. “You told me about this already, Ford. I heard you clearly, that first time you came to see me. Do you believe me?”

  “Of course I believe you. I’d be pretty stupid if I didn’t, since I was with you in the Porsche, going over that bloody cliff.”

  “It’s all very confusing, Ford.”

  “Jilly, the truth now. Were you thinking about Laura?”

  I thought she’d pass out. She turned utterly white, her breath wheezed out, and she was shaking her head back and forth on the pillow. “You brought her here. She was with you. I saw her as clearly as I always saw you. No one else, Ford, just you. And then Laura was with you, and I saw her clearly too. And I started screaming—”

  “And you came out of the coma screaming,” I said slowly, my eyes never leaving her face. “You saw Laura and you couldn’t bear to have her here, and then you woke up. Was she the one who brought you out of it?”

  I didn’t think she was going to answer me, then she whispered, “I had to get away from her, that’s all I know. I just couldn’t believe she was still here. What were you doing with her?”

  Only the truth, I thought, but what was the truth? There were so many lies swirling about that I couldn’t be certain exactly where the truth lay, but I could at least tell her what I thought of things. “When I was here yesterday, I fell asleep holding your hand.”

  “I know. I saw you.”

  “We’ll talk more about that later. I awoke suddenly and heard you saying that Laura had betrayed you. At dinner last night I asked Paul about Laura, said that you’d told me about her. It took a while, but he finally admitted that he’d had an affair with her, once he admitted that she actually existed. Then he said he’d broken it off. He told me she wasn’t important. He didn’t believe that you knew about it. But you see, I knew that you had at least heard her name. I wanted to see her, so I went to the public library in Salem.”

  Suddenly, Jilly was nearly gasping for breath. She was wheezing. “Ford, you’ve got to believe me. Stay away from her. She’s very dangerous.”

  And I was thinking: I’ve never met anyone less dangerous in my life. What was going on here?

  “Did she sleep with Paul?”

  Jilly shook her head, her skin so pale I thought she would faint. Then she nodded. Was it a yes or a no or just more confusion? In any case, she was tired, upset, and I backed off. I patted her hand and covered her with a light blanket. I stood and felt my body creak. “You’re exhausted. It’s very late. I’ll let you rest awhile. Let me get the nurse.”

  I watched her for a moment, seeing the waves of fatigue wash over her, dragging her under into oblivion. The nurse could wait. All my questions could wait. She needed sleep. I turned to see Nurse Himmel standing in the open doorway.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t wake her up again. That’s what you were coming to tell me, wasn’t it?”

  I nodded and stepped back so she could come into the room. I liked Nurse Himmel. She was short, built solid as a Humvee, and she’d always been kind to me, and to Jilly. Like Midge, Mrs. Himmel would have brought me a beer.

  “She’s sleeping, Mr. MacDougal,” Mrs. Himmel said quietly as she gently pulled the blanket up to Jilly’s neck. “She’s just fine. Her pulse and oxygen level are normal. Goodness, it’s wonderful to see a recovery like this. She’ll be up and walking around soon. Now you should go home and sleep in your bed. You’re looking just a bit slack in the jaw.”

  “You’re right, my jaw could use a rest.”

  She just smiled at me.

  Whatever. I knew she was right. It was just that there was so much Jilly had to tell me. It could wait. It would be stupid if I got myself laid flat again. The people I called friends would never let me live it down. I could hear Quinlan, another FBI agent, calling me a wimp in that easy dark voice of his. I drove into Paul and Jilly’s driveway twenty minutes later. I shucked off my clothes, down to my boxer shorts, and was in bed only five minutes after that.

  I dreamed I was a waiter in a nightclub, with a white towel over my arm, carrying a tray of drinks, but I couldn’t remember who had ordered them. I just kept walking around this huge room, looking and looking, not knowing, and I was getting frantic. There were dozens of customer drink-tables, all of them circular, people crowded around them. There was Jilly, tap-dancing from one table to the next. She was dancing like a pro. People were whistling and clapping. She was also stark naked except for her black tap shoes. A man whose face I couldn’t see clearly was running after her, holding a long cloak toward her, waving it at her actually.

  When I woke up it was nearly nine o’clock the next morning. I hadn’t slept so soundly since before I’d been blasted in Tunisia. For the first time I felt nearly back to normal. I stretched, flexed my muscles, even smiled at myself while I shaved. I didn’t look like oatmeal anymore, thank God.

  Paul wasn’t home. I imagined he’d gone to the hospital to be with Jilly. I could speak to him there.

  I was at the hospital a half hour later.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  As I was turning the corner to the third-floor waiting room, I heard Maggie Sheffield’s voice. “I can only tell you, Cotter, that someone hit Charlie Duck over the head and he died shortly after he managed to crawl over to Doc Lambert’s house.”

  “You’ve got no clues? Nothing?”

  “I’ll just tell you that it’s the damnedest thing, this murder of a harmless old man. It’s not like this is Salem or Portland, for God’s sake. This is Edgerton, small-town USA. I don’t know if a murder has ever happened here before, but someone killed Charlie Duck and then ransacked his house.”

  I came into the waiting room to see the sheriff speaking to a young man I’d never seen before. He was about my age, on the short side, built like a bull—obviously a weightlifter—with a manner and look that were dangerous. Strange that a guy would think that, but it was true. I disliked him on sight.

  “Cotter Tarcher,” the man said and nodded to me. “You’re Jilly’s brother?”

  “That’s right. Ford MacDougal. And you’re Cal’s brother?”

  “Yes. I forgot you met Cal. She wen
t over to Paul’s house and caught all of you there. You’re coming to the party tonight? It’s Miss Geraldine’s birthday and we always celebrate every year. My folks decided that we’d go ahead, despite Charlie Duck’s death.”

  “It was murder, Cotter,” Maggie said.

  “To be honest, I forgot all about it,” I said. “Jilly’s awake. I’ve been thinking about her.” Cotter Tarcher looked dark from his dirt-black hair to the heavy growth of beard on his cheeks. I bet that women sensed danger in him and were drawn to it. At the same time they’d be wary, if they had half a brain. Cal had said that he let the women he dated do the driving, to make them feel like they had the power. It was a smart move on his part, the prick. He would need to mellow them out. I remembered that Jilly didn’t like him either.

  “Of course,” Cotter said easily. “I saw Jilly just a little while ago. She’s looking really good. She got one of the nurse’s aides to wash her hair. She looks normal. It’s amazing.”

  I said to Maggie, “I heard you talking about Charlie Duck. It really is a shock for a little town like Edgerton. Did you bring in the crime-lab people from Portland? They’re top-notch. The medical examiner—Ted Leppra—is one of the best M.E.s on the West Coast.”

  She shook her head. “I know how he died. He got bashed on the head, his brain filled up with blood and smashed bone, and that was the end of him. I don’t see any need for an M.E. to translate that for me in medicalese—it’s a waste of time.

  “Poor old Charlie. He’s been here for at least fifteen years. The funeral’s on Tuesday. Everyone will be there at the League’s Christian church.”

  “The League?” I asked.

  Maggie said, “The BITEASS League, remember? Since everyone in town is a member, the League keeps up one central place of worship. Different religions can have the building at different times. In the case of funerals, it’s an interdenominational service. Representatives from all the religious groups will take a few moments to speak. Since old Charlie was an agnostic, everyone will get equal time. If he’d been a Baptist, say, they’d get the lion’s share of the time. Come if you can, Mac. You can meet the rest of the folk in town.