He writes, saying, “Are you aware if such a hate group exists on Waytansea Island?”
Her headache tap, tap, taps the nail into the back of her head.
Somebody at table five waves, and Misty says, “Could I get you some coffee?”
And Detective Stilton says, “Are you okay? You don’t look so hot right now.”
Just this morning over breakfast, Grace Wilmot said she feels terrible about the spoiled chicken salad—so terrible that she made Misty an appointment to see Dr. Touchet tomorrow. A nice gesture, but another fucking bill to pay.
When Misty shuts her eyes, she’d swear her head is glowing hot inside. Her neck is one cast-iron muscle cramp. Sweat sticks together the folds of her neck skin. Her shoulders are bound, pulled up tight around her ears. She can only turn her head a little in any direction, and her ears feel on fire.
Peter used to talk about Paganini, possibly the best violin player of all time. He was tortured by tuberculosis, syphilis, osteomyelitis in his jaw, diarrhea, hemorrhoids, and kidney stones. Paganini, not Peter. The mercury that doctors gave him for the syphilis poisoned him until his teeth fell out. His skin turned gray-white. He lost his hair. Paganini was a walking corpse, but when he played the violin, he was beyond mortal.
He had Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a congenital disease that left his joints so flexible he could bend his thumb back far enough to touch his wrist. According to Peter, what tortured him made him a genius.
According to you.
Misty brings Detective Stilton an iced tea he didn’t order, and he says, “Is there some reason why you’re wearing sunglasses indoors?”
And jerking her head at the big windows, she says, “It’s the light.” She refills his water and says, “It hurts my eyes today.” Her hand shakes so much she drops her pen. One hand clamped to the edge of the table for support, she stoops to pick it up. She sniffs and says, “Sorry.”
And the detective says, “Do you know an Angel Delaporte?”
And Misty sniffs and says, “Want to order now?”
Stilton’s handwriting, Angel Delaporte should see it. His letters are tall, soaring up, ambitious, idealistic. The writing slants hard to the right, aggressive, stubborn. His heavy pressure against the page shows a strong libido. That’s what Angel would tell you. The tails of his letters, the lowercase
Detective Stilton looks at Misty and says, “Would you describe your neighbors as hostile to outsiders?”
Just for the record, if you have masturbation down to less than three minutes because you share a bathtub with fourteen people, take another drink.
In art theory, you learn that women look for men with prominent brows and large, square chins. This was some study a sociologist did at West Point Academy. It proved that rectangular faces, deep-set eyes, and ears that lie close to their heads, this is what makes men attractive.
This is how Detective Stilton looks, plus a few extra pounds. He’s not smiling now, but the wrinkles that crease his cheeks and his crow’s-feet prove he smiles a lot. He smiles more than he frowns. The scars of happiness. It could be his extra weight, but the corrugator wrinkles between his eyes and the brow-lift wrinkles across his forehead, his worry lines, are almost invisible.
All that, and the bright red horns on his forehead.
These are all little visual cues you respond to. The code of attraction. This is why we love who we love. Whether or not you’re consciously aware of them, this is the reason we do what we do.
This is how we know what we don’t know.
Wrinkles as handwriting analysis. Graphology. Angel would be impressed.
Dear sweet Peter, he grew his black hair so long because his ears stuck out.
Your ears stick out.
Tabbi’s ears are her father’s. Tabbi’s long dark hair is his.
Yours.
Stilton says, “Life’s changing around here and plenty of people won’t like that. If your husband isn’t acting alone, we could see assault. Arson. Murder.”
All Misty has to do is look down, and she starts to fall. If she turns her head, her vision blurs, the whole room smears for a moment.
Misty tears the detective’s check out of her pad and lays it on the table, saying, “Will there be anything else?”
“Just one more question, Mrs. Wilmot,” he says. He sips his glass of iced tea, watching her over the rim. And he says, “I’d like to talk to your in-laws—your husband’s parents—if that’s possible.”
Peter’s mother, Grace Wilmot, is staying here in the hotel, Misty tells him. Peter’s father, Harrow Wilmot, is dead. Since about thirteen or fourteen years ago.
Detective Stilton makes another note. He says, “How did your father-in-law die?”
It was a heart attack, Misty thinks. She’s not sure.
And Stilton says, “It sounds like you don’t know any of your in-laws very well.”
Her headache tap, tap, tapping the back of her skull, Misty says, “Did you say if you wanted some coffee?”
DR. TOUCHET SHINES a light into Misty’s eyes and tells her to blink. He looks into her ears. He looks up her nose. He turns out the office lights while he makes her point a flashlight into her mouth. The same way Angel Delaporte’s flashlight looked into the hole in his dining room wall. This is an old doctor’s trick to illuminate the sinuses, they spread out, glowing red under the skin around your nose, and you can check for shadows that mean blockage, infections. Sinus headaches. He tilts Misty’s head back and peers down her throat.
He says, “Why do you say it was food poisoning?”
So Misty tells him about the diarrhea, the cramps, the headaches. Misty tells him everything except the hallucination.
He pumps up the blood pressure cuff around her arm and releases the pressure. With her every heartbeat, they both watch the pressure spike on the dial. The pain in her head, the throb matches every pulse.
Then her blouse is off, and Dr. Touchet’s holding one of her arms up while he feels inside the armpit. He’s wearing glasses and stares at the wall beside them while his fingers work. In a mirror on one wall, Misty can watch them. Her bra looks stretched so tight the straps cut into her shoulders. Her skin rolls over the waistband of her slacks. Her necklace of junk jewelry pearls, as it wraps around the back of her neck, the pearls disappear into a deep fold of fat.
Dr. Touchet, his fingers root, tunnel, bore into her armpit.
The windows of the examining room are frosted glass, and her blouse hangs on a hook on the back of the door. This is the same room where Misty had Tabbi. Pale green tiled walls and a white tiled floor. It’s the same examination table. Peter was born here. So was Paulette. Will Tupper. Matt Hyland. Brett Petersen. So was everyone on the island under the age of fifty. The island’s so small, Dr. Touchet is also the mortician. He prepared Peter’s father, Harrow, before his funeral. His cremation.
Your father.
Harrow Wilmot was everything Misty wanted Peter to become. The way men want to meet their prospective mother-in-law so they can judge how their fiancee will look in another twenty years, that’s what Misty did. Harry would be the man Misty would be married to in her middle age. Tall with gray sideburns, a straight nose, and a long cleft chin.
Now when Misty closes her eyes and tries to picture Harrow Wilmot, what she sees is his ashes being scattered from the rocks on Waytansea Point. A long gray cloud.
If Dr. Touchet uses this same room for embalming, Misty doesn’t know. If he lives long enough, he’ll prepare Grace Wilmot. Dr. Touchet was the physician on the scene when they found Peter.
When they found you.
If they ever pull the plug, he’ll probably prepare the body.
Your body.
