shelves dense with books, an intricate carpet from some country where rugs have meaning.
I said, 'He was manic, spinning. Is he any better?'
'Overall? We try to keep him stable, Carson. Never think he'll be better, not in the usual sense.' She paused. 'He wants to talk to you.'
'You mean now? I have a friend due any minute, Dr. Prowse.' ill 'It's Vangie, Carson. You mentioned you'd stay in contact? I'd hoped to hear from you more often.'
'I'll call back. Now's just not a good time.'
'Jeremy wanted me to say it's been a long time since you two connected?
He also says he thinks you both have current events to discuss.'
'I'm very busy right now, Vangie. Seriously.'
Her voice dropped away. Never try to match silences with a shrink, they'll wear you down every time. I finally said, 'I have a few minutes.'
'Thank you, Carson. If he can't speak to you he'll start obsessing, and that creates problems. I'll have him brought to a room with a phone? Hang on.'
She put me on hold. Three minutes passed. Five.
The line clicked open. I said, 'Jeremy? Is that you?'
'Jeremy is that you?'
Like an echo my voice returned to me; he was a brilliant mimic of men or women, a mynah. Then his true voice, midrange, musical, a wet finger making a wineglass sing, one octave lower.
'Yes, it's me, Carson. How nice of you to remember someone with whom you once shared a womb. A few years apart, but shared nonetheless.
Cold in there, wasn't it?'
'How've you been?' The words sounded ridiculous as I spoke them.
Jeremy cupped his hand over the phone as if talking to someone in another room. 'He asks how I've been.' A different voice called back, but still his. 'Tell him the cookies were delicious.'
He took his hand from the phone. 'The cookies were delicious, Carson.
But I can't quite get it clear in my head, brother did you send them on the first or third year I was here?'
'I've never sent cookies, Jeremy.'
'No cookies?' pouted a little-girl's voice. 'Don't you wuv me?'
'I'm busy here, Jeremy. Can I call you back tomorrow?'
'NO! YOU CAN NOT CAN NOT CAN NOT! Holding this fear-crusted, sweat-dripping phone is the first freedom I've had in A YEAR! Speaking of that, we have to talk. How does one get ahead in the world, Carson?'
I sighed. 'I don't know, Jeremy. How?'
'A knife is always helpful.' He laughed. 'Get it? A knife's helpful to get… a… HEAD! It zeems to me like you haff a leetle problem in Moe-byle, Carson. A free spirit. Need some help? If one is traveling to Iceland, one should take along someone who speaks ice, nest-ce pas?'
'Jeremy, I don't think '
'Our first dead lad was or perhaps still is, depending on various philosophies one Jerrold Elton Nelson, age twenty-two, beheaded in Bowderie Park, sharp instrument, body dressed in et cetera, et cetera … the Mobile Register offered such a sterile recitation. COLORLESS!
Then yesterday I find another poor boy's gone to bed without his head.
A French name Duchamp? I hope he didn't lose his beret as well. It was on the news for all of ten seconds. Are they your cases?'
'I can't discuss '
He banged the phone on a hard surface. 'Hello? Hello? This is your reality check service.' He put a hand over his mouth and made hissing radio-interference noises, abruptly stopping.
'There, Mr. Ryder, your lines are CLEAR. How about your conscience?
You can't discuss, can't discuss?… dear sir, did we not spend hours and hours hotly discussing a previous incident? Does the name Joel Adrian come to mind, dear sir, esteemed sir? Was
I not of some simple, humble help to you in that instance, good sir, dear sir, most honored sir? Did I not solve the bloody fucking case for you, Carson?'
I listened to my heart. What seemed like a thousand beats later, I said, 'Yes.'
'We're going to have so much fun on this one. I can hardly wait. I'm thinking of having a decorator in, redo the place, get it all nice and cozy for your arrival.'
'Jeremy, I'm not '
'You can bring all the photos and files and we'll pore over them like happy old ladies looking at scrapbooks of friends who've passed away.'
'I'm not planning on '
'Don't interrupt, Carson, I'm working a tough room here… You'll have to call Dr. Prowse, Prowsie, Prussy, Pussy, and let that dried-up old pussy know you'll soon come a-calling.'
'I won't be up, Jeremy,' I said. 'Not for a while.'
'Oh, yes, you will,' he stage-whispered. 'You've got a boy down there on the old reverse diet, one I know so well.'
'You're talking past me, Jeremy.'
'Reverse diet? It's real simple, Carson. The more you eat, the hungrier you get. See you soon, brother.'
He hung up. I looked out the deck door. The day, bright and beaconing minutes ago, seemed overwhelming, the sunlight a too-loud voice, raucous and grating. I walked window to window, shutting the blinds.
'We're going to have so much fun on this one…'
I cranked up the AC just to hear it spill into the quiet. Boxing myself in again. Retreating into my Mesmer box. Jeremy's phone call hung in my head like wet smoke.
'… come up and visit…'
I started the horrible tumble back in time, walking down the dark hall, six years old… my mother at the sewing machine…
I was pulled from my dark time travel by the sound of tires on sand and shells. I looked out the window. A white Camry pulled across the drive to the twin parking spots beneath my stilt-standing home. The car stopped. The door opened and closed.
Ava Davanelle.
'Hello? Detective Ryder?' she called out from below, feet kicking through crushed shells. 'Hello?'
I ran to open the shades in the kitchen, pulled the curtains open to the deck. Yes! I ran to the bathroom for gargling and spitting as tentative footsteps began the wooden ascent to the small porch on the land side. of my house. Yes! One last swipe of rag across the counter as I moved toward the door, past the mirror, seeing me square grinning face brown from the sun, shadow of beard that never disappears, khaki shorted, aloha shirted, pulling off the faded Orvis cap to slap sprigs of untamable black hair.
Feet on the porch planks, outline through the curtains on the door. I turned from the mirror, smiling. Frightened?
Knocking on the door.
A woman I barely know swam fifteen years into the past, grabbed my collar, and pulled me back to thankyouthankyou now.
'Hello? Anyone home?'
I opened the door to find a smile as wide and bright as a mid-summer sunrise. I gestured Ava inside, sniffing in her wake a whisper of perfume and mint. Her motions were music, her hair shone. A blue, short-sleeved shirt tucked into a white skirt touching modestly at her knees. She walked on the long and shapely legs of a figure skater.
There was bounce in her steps, the air wanting to carry her. Was that a hint of shyness in her eyes?
I was breathless at the transformation: Was this the dour-faced woman in the floppy lab coat?
Ava nodded at my interior decor of posters and driftwood and shells and walked to the doors opening to the deck. The Gulf was slate blue with waves burnished amber by the low western sun. A dark tanker dotted the horizon.
'What a view. This place is yours? How do you ever affor ' She caught herself and turned, touching pink
