“No, I won’t keep my voice down. That means he’ll be handicapped forever, just because you wanted good orgasms.”
The other diners were now muttering to each other and scowling at Rachel. Suddenly she recognized neighbors, acquaintances, and other members of the Dells. Even the minister from the Hawthorne Unitarian Church and her husband, the choirmaster. “How could you?” someone said. “Shame!” cried another. “Pigs like her shouldn’t be allowed to have children.”
“I didn’t know,” she said to Martin. Then to the others. “Really, I didn’t know. I was young.”
The entire balcony was glowering at her, their large rubbery mouths jabbering condemnations.
“You didn’t know because you’re
“I’m sorry. I’M SORRY. I’m SORRY …”
“Sorry? SORRY? You bet you’re sorry,” he said and picked up the kerosene lantern with the burning wick and smashed it on her head.
Even before the cutting pain registered, her head was engulfed in flames, burning hair dripping onto her dress and sizzling her eyes.
“SORREEEEEE!”
It was her own scream that woke her, and she bolted upright gasping to catch her breath.
It was Lindsay. Greg could not recollect the details of the dream, but he woke filled with the sense of her.
But as much as he tried, he could not recapture the scenario—just the afterglow of her presence, like the fast-fading image of a TV. He sat at the edge of the bed, wishing he could put the moment on rewind. He had had dreams of her in the past, lots of them—odd, disjointed scraps, floating images—sometimes of her alive and vibrant, sometimes of her on Joe Steiner’s table. Once he had dreamt of her and their son—but not as a baby, but a little boy.
As he sat there thinking about the day, he felt the old sadness spread its way through his soul like root hairs. He knew if he let himself loosen a bit he’d dissolve into deep wracking sobs—the kind that had left him reamed out and barely functional. He had had enough of those and fought back the urge, telling himself that he didn’t want to be one of those widowers who went through the rest of his life embracing his grief like a mistress.
A photo of Lindsay smiled at him from his bureau. It was taken in Jamaica on their honeymoon six years ago. She was dressed in white with a large red hibiscus behind her ear and smiling brightly at the camera in a tangerine setting sun. With her shiny black hair and large brown eyes and honey skin, she looked like a vision in amber. They had been crazy in love.
Greg got up.
It was nearly eleven, and the sun was pouring through the window. Although he had slept for nearly six hours, he felt fatigued. It had been four days since they put him on night shift, and he still could not get used to sleeping in the daytime. Most of the time he felt low and out of focus, as if he were suffering permanent jet lag. But it was worse when he was drinking. He had stopped fifteen months ago. He had been disciplined then, too, because he had showed up late for work and was nearly useless on the job. After a second verbal warning, he quit the booze cold turkey—a victory of which he was proud, telling himself that he had done it for Lindsay. The only strategy that worked. But there were nights when the craving made his body hum.
He pushed himself off the bed and headed into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of orange juice. He put on a pot of coffee, thinking how the caffeine would pick him up, maybe even shock the fur off his brain.
He wasn’t sure how he’d spend the rest of the day. He knew he should check out some leads on the high school break-in, but he had done very little on the Sagamore Boy case over the last week beyond scanning the latest missing-children reports. No leads, as usual. The boy had been missing for over three years, and all that came in were bulletins of recent disappearances. The Dixon case had iced over also. He had nothing but faint hunches and colleagues who thought he was nuts.
The red light on his answering machine flashed.
It was probably Steve Powers calling to see if the kids he interviewed the other night had given him anything on the school break-in. Unfortunately, the security cameras in the damaged area weren’t functioning. All he had was names, some with prior records. He hit the button.
“Detective Zakarian, this is Adrian Budd, radiologist from Essex Medical. I’m not sure if this is significant, but after we talked the other day, it dawned on me why those holes kept bothering me. They just didn’t seem random, nor did they look like all the needle-bore nuclear seedings of tumors I’d seen. Also, the number threw me. So I checked with some neurospecialists here at the center, and they confirmed my suspicions.
“Those skull holes—like the perforation scars of the patient you came about—form a neurotopographical pattern. They seem to trace out the surface area of the sulci folds of the cortex. And there are so many because the cortex folds in on itself, with deeper pockets of surface tissue—which is why cortex folds exist in the first place: to have a broad surface area. Otherwise we’d all be Coneheads.
“The long and the short of it is that the holes appear to trace the sulci of the cortical surface known as the Wernicke’s Brain.
“I don’t know what it means, but that’s the area associated with memory and intelligence.
“I can’t tell you the patient’s name, and I’m not even supposed to divulge this, but the individual whose X ray you saw apparently has a remarkable memory. Nurse Porter thinks he may be a savant. Hope that helps.”
And he clicked off.
27
Ashiny red Porsche Carrera with New Hampshire plates sat in the slot reserved for L. Malenko. A sticker on the rear window read CASCO BAY YACHT CLUB.
It was the following Thursday, and she was here for her eleven o’clock appointment. She had to wait only a few minutes before the receptionist led her down the hall to a corner office.
Lucius Malenko was not wearing a physician’s smock as Rachel had expected, but casual whites—shoes, pants, and cotton pullover—all but for a lavender polo shirt whose collar stuck up around the back of his neck like a flower. He looked as if he’d dressed for a day of yachting or golf. Maybe the “casual Friday” trend was full-time here, a way of being less intimidating.
“Please, come in,” he said pleasantly. He had a surprisingly small sharp hand, probably an asset in neurosurgery. The office was a bright open room with windows on two sides overlooking the greenery of the building’s rear. “Where is Mr. Whitman?” he asked, peering down the hall.
“I’m sorry, but he couldn’t make it.”
“No?” Malenko closed the door. “I’m sure Dr. Samson explained to you that we like to involve both parents where possible—right from the beginning.” He spoke in an accent that sounded eastern European—perhaps Slavic or Russian.
Dr. Samson had explained that. “I’m sorry, but there was a last-minute conflict.” That was the best she could do, hoping that the subject would be dropped. Rachel looked away, pretending to take in the office decor.
Malenko took his chair behind his desk, fixing her with his stare. “May I be so bold as to ask if Mr. Whitman knows you’re here?”
“Well,” she began, thinking how she didn’t want to begin with a lie. She chuckled nervously. “Is it really that important?”
