I told myself to stiffen my spine. After all, I'd handled that okay. I hadn't screamed or cried or lost my dignity. I'm not a weak person, I told myself. I just get rattled sometimes. And then there was the physical stuff left over from the lightning strike. One of those symptoms struck now, a headache so vicious I had trouble fitting my plastic key into the slot and getting into my room.
I opened my medicine bag and took a handful of Advil, and then I yanked off my shoes. I knew from experience how comfortable the bed was, and I knew in ten minutes I would feel better. I promised myself that. Actually, it took more like twenty minutes before the pain subsided to a bearable level, and then I looked at the ceiling and thought about Dr. Nunley and his temper until I fell asleep.
Tolliver woke me up a couple of hours later. 'Hey,' he said gently. 'How are you? They told me when I came in that you'd had a problem with a man in the lobby, and some knight in corduroy had shown up to rescue you.'
'Yeah.' It was taking me a minute to gather up my senses. Tolliver had turned on my bathroom light, and he was a silhouette sitting on the edge of my mattress. 'Nunley was waiting for me, and he was all 'How did you do this, you imp of Satan?' and so on. Well, he didn't go into the evil stuff so much. He just thought I was dishonest. But he clearly thought I was a big fraud, and he was mad you'd called him, and he wasn't nice about it.'
'Did he hurt you?'
'Nah, grabbed my arm, but that's all. You remember that older man in the class, the one we were wondering about? He was in the lobby, too, waiting for me to come back. He stopped Nunley, and the guy from the desk sent him on his way. Then he told me some interesting information. The only thing is, after that I got a hell of a headache, so I took some medicine and dropped.'
'How's the leg?'
One problem often triggered another. We'd been to maybe ten doctors, and they all said that my problems were psychological—whether or not we told them about the body-finding thing. 'The effects of a lightning strike are over when you leave the hospital afterward,' one particularly pompous jackass had told me. 'There are no well- documented long-term effects.' Sadly, the problems I had with the medical community were common among lightning strike survivors. Very few doctors knew what to do with us. For some of us it was much harder—the ones who couldn't go back to work and were trying to get workmen's comp or disability payments, for example.
At least I didn't have tinnitus, which affected so many survivors, and at least I hadn't lost my sense of taste, another common problem.
'The leg's a little shaky,' I admitted, feeling the muscle weakness as I tried to achieve a leg lift. Only the left leg rose. The right one just quivered with the effort. Tolliver began to massage it, as he often did on the bad days.
'So, tell me the interesting information about the man from the class.'
'He's a private detective,' I began, and Tolliver's hands stopped moving for second.
'Not good,' he said. 'At least, depending on his goal.'
I tried to recall everything Rick Goldman had said to me, and Tolliver listened to it all with absolute attention.
'I don't think this really has anything to do with us,' Tolliver said. 'He may not believe you're a genuine talent, but since when did that matter? Lots of people don't. He just hasn't needed you yet. As far as the board of trustees, or whatever, you've already been paid a retainer by the college. It wasn't much, anyway. This was more for the good buzz than anything else.'
'So you don't think Goldman can hurt us?'
'No. And why would he?'
'He didn't seem really angry or upset,' I admitted. 'But he might think we were defrauding the college.'
'So, what's he gonna do about it? He's not the guy who writes the checks. We were hired to do something, we did it.'
I felt a little better about Rick Goldman after that, and I decided not to think about Clyde Nunley any more, though I knew Tolliver had a slow burn going about the professor being rough with me. Maybe we wouldn't run into him again. To change the subject, I asked Tolliver how his Beale Street jaunt had gone.
While his long fingers worked on my leg muscles, he told me about Beale Street, and his conversation with a bartender about the famous people who'd come to the bar to hear the blues. I grew more relaxed by the moment, and I was laughing when there was a knock at the door. Tolliver looked at me, surprised, and I shrugged. I wasn't expecting anything or anyone.
A bellman was there, holding a vase of flowers. 'These came for you, Ms. Connelly,' he said.
Who doesn't like to get flowers? 'Put them on the table, please,' I said, and glanced at Tolliver to see if he had the tip. He fished out his wallet, gave me a nod, and handed the bellman some bills. The flowers were snapdragons, and I didn't think anyone had ever sent me snapdragons. Actually, I didn't think anyone had ever sent me flowers before, unless you counted a corsage or two when I was in high school. I said as much to Tolliver. He pulled the little envelope from the plastic prongs in the foliage and handed it to me, no expression on his face.
The card read, 'You have given us peace,' and it was signed 'Joel and Diane Morgenstern.'
'They're very pretty,' I said. I touched one blossom lightly.
'Nice of Diane to think of them,' Tolliver said.
'No, this was Joel's idea.'
'Why do you say that?'
'He's the kind of man who thinks of flowers,' I said positively. 'And she's the kind of woman who doesn't.'
Tolliver thought this was foolishness.
'Really, Tolliver, you've got to take my word on this,' I said. 'Joel is the kind of guy who thinks about women.'
