'Even off the record.'
'But you've got them?'
'Don't call me a liar, Gary.'
'I'm not. But you can make mistakes. You can see things that you want to see things. I mean, we all-'
She had felt the need for a little levity on this, a hot summer night. She did not feel the need to be reminded of things that she'd wrong about and had paid for with flesh, blood and spirit. Was paying for.
She hung up on him and didn't pick up when he called right back. When he called yet again, she picked up on the first ring and Brice started in again.
'Okay, I have a big mouth and a small brain. I'm sorry. You're the best investigator they've got and you know it. I love you always will.'
'Good night, Gary.'
'Cuddles.'
She clicked off, shaking her head.
Tim jumped up on the seat of Clark's recliner, bow in hand, defiant gleam in his eyes. 'Wicked Prince John is good!'
'He's wicked. And guess what, beautiful little man? It's bedtime.'
'Is not bedtime?'
After reading him three stories and carrying on a long conversation about who is real and who is a character, Merci fell asleep on the floor beside her son's bed. At midnight she awakened to find a pillow under her head and a light sheet over her. She gathered them up and took them to her room.
She lay down on her own bed, the door open to the hall and the distant light of the kitchen. She thought about Hess and wondered what they would be doing now if he'd lived. Who knew? She thought of him asleep in his chair in his Thirteenth Street apartment, the moonlight hitting his face and how she'd wanted so badly to touch the little white wave that grew in the thick gray of his hair. She thought of that hair later falling out in big handfuls and how she'd tried to put it back, tried to keep him from knowing. She thought of what she'd done next: made love to him, having convinced herself that it was a way of breathing life back into him but knowing it was mostly for herself, because she wanted every bit of him, from the twinkle in his eye to the cancer in his cells. She thought of him in his box in the ground now, an image she couldn't shake from her mind no matter how many times she banished it. Out. Out. She thought too of Paul Zamorra, lost in his Kirsten tonight, no doubt. And of Archie Wildcraft listening to the beeps of the monitors and the thumping of his heart. Of a fisherman's hand on her face. And of Tim, too, as always. Tim, connected to all of them but with little idea how, the youngest player in this minor history, a pure light in a world of shadows
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
That Sunday afternoon, Archie asked to use a telephone. A nurse was happy to help him out, in fact it looked like Archie could leave the ICU for a regular bed sometime very soon. His vitals were stable, there was no infection, and the edema had come down dramatically! He'd been regularly conscious for a day and a half. Just that morning they'd removed his heparin lock and replaced it with a small neat stitch. He'd been eating like a wild boar since Saturday morning.
When Archie was done with his call, he asked to shower. He didn't seem to need help to and from but they helped him anyway. He smile and thanked them for the plastic shower cap to keep his dressing dry. None of the staff had realized what a large, strong man he was during the five days he'd spent flat on his back with them. And they were amazed at how he'd come in with seemingly so little chance of living only to be shuffling around five days later like someone raiding the pantry. Life was a tenacious miracle.
At ten minutes past five, an attractive young woman who had visited several times before brought Archie a small suitcase. She was Gwen Wildcraft's sister, the one who had brought him the small framed painting of his murdered wife. Over the questions of the nurse Archie took the suitcase into a bathroom and a few minutes later came out dressed and smiling, smelling of aftershave and toothpaste. He checked himself out of the UCI Medical Center at five-forty. The nurses and doctors couldn't talk him out of it, the orderly and security guards were afraid to use force due to the bullet in his head. Not even Archie's doctor, Stebbins, who by phone ordered Archie back to his bed, had any effect at all.
At six, Archie and the young woman were down in the medical center pharmacy getting his prescriptions filled. Four Sheriff's Department deputies clunked into the pharmacy waiting area, but they had no warrant to arrest him, suspected him of no crime and found him to be in decent physical and mental condition. There were smiles, handshakes, pats on the shoulder and a lot of quizzical looks. One talked on the radio for almost five minutes.
At six twenty-five, the woman drove him away in a white four-door Saturn she'd left in the red of the curving main entrance.
Two Sheriff's Department black-and-whites fell in behind them, running without color, giving the Saturn plenty of room.
Archie felt a cool wash of sweat break over his forehead as Priscilla turned onto the street. Up the hill. Past the big Norfolk Island pine tree on the corner, past a blue house with the riding arena and hot-walker, then up to a vaguely familiar stretch of street. The sun was lowering and it shined bright yellow beyond the trunks of the date palms. He looked at Priscilla and her face was neither blue nor red, but a believable shade of violet. Funny how some colors registered as he knew them to be, while others were wild but convincing.
His driveway? Must be. It was distant but familiar. He couldn't remember a lot of particulars from those last few hours, not as many as he should. But he remembered enough of them-and had been told enough of them-to feel a dread of this place and of what had happened here.
Gwen.
'Thank you, Priss.'
'I'll come in for a while if you want.'
'I'm going to do this alone.'
'What exactly are you going to do, Arch?'
'I don't know,' he said, not taking his eyes off the closed garage door in front of them. 'I'm not sure. But it's important that I be here isn't it?'
'I think I understand. I'm going to call in one hour. Here, I had this made after you called. It wasn't easy, getting the locksmith out on a Sunday.'
He took the shiny new house key and smiled. 'I do need this.'
With that, Archie got out and retrieved his suitcase. He felt oddly strong as he pulled it from the trunk and set it down, which made him wonder if his pain receptors were damaged, as Stebbins said they might be. Or if it was just the strength that a week of bed rest can give you. He pulled out the long handle and started up the walkway.
He turned to watch Priscilla back out of the drive. When her car disappeared down the street, the two Sheriff's cruisers pulled along the driveway entrance and parked end-to-end so no cars could get into the Wildcraft driveway and none could get out.
Two of the deputies hustled down the drive to him. 'Need a hand Archie?'
'I've got it.'
'Rayborn told us it's still a crime scene. She's on her way. She said we can keep you out, legally.'
'It's my home, guys.'
As at the hospital, they smiled and nodded and looked at each other uncertainly.
'I'll talk to her,' said Wildcraft, starting toward the front door. 'Don't worry.'
They were right. The house was designated a crime scene by notice in a clear plastic envelope from the Orange County Sheriff Coroner Department. It was taped to the front door. There was no barrier ribbon or sentry. Archie saw the fingerprint dust heavy on the shiny lock and plate. He felt the roughness of the newly cut key in the lock, saw the little flash of sunlight play off the alloy and onto the varnished oak. He stood in the living room and looked at the loose pile of gift. Gwen's birthday, he knew, and remembered that there had been party. Then his eyes moved to the black electrician's tape marking rough circle in the middle of the room, where the rock had been.
