by Carter
“Myron.”
It was Billie’s voice. Opening my eyes, I found myself on the floor, face pressed against vinyl padding and drenching it with my slobber, arms pinned under me. I tried to move my arms and couldn’t. I rolled onto my back, squinting into the row of fluorescent lights, the room beginning to come into focus. I was in a small room indeed, not more than eight feet square, all the walls padded with the same gray vinyl as the floor, a small inset window on the similarly padded door. The reason I couldn’t move my arms was that I was wearing some kind of straitjacket.
“Myron,” she said again. “Over here.”
It took some doing, but with a groan I managed to rock myself to a sitting position. There she was, not by the door but crouching in the corner—in gray cargo pants, heavy hiking boots, and a green wool sweatshirt with the collar turned up. Mud smeared her pants and clung to the heavy treads of her boots. Her long black hair lay matted and tangled against the sides of her face, as if she’d been caught out in the rain. She hadn’t worn her hair that long in years.
“Where have you been?” I asked.
It was the only thing I could think to say, and her response was to shrug. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen her. I remembered somebody saying something about her being gone, but when was that? Pulling any kind of memories out of my addled brain was impossible, and yet I saw both the room and her with vivid clarity. It was like being drunk and sober at the same time.
“I could have used some help,” I added.
“Sorry,” she said, but she didn’t sound sorry. She sounded angry.
“What is this place? An asylum?”
“Kind of,” Billie said.
“I didn’t think we had asylums in Oregon anymore.”
“It’s a private facility. Shady Grove Care and Treatment Center. It’s in Lake Oswego—nice place, lots of trees. Not far from where your parents live. Most people come here for drug abuse, I think.”
“Is that why I came here?”
“Think, Myron. You know why you’re here.”
I thought. Nothing came to me. I thought some more. The edge of a memory, like the brush of a bird’s wing, fluttered past my mind. I remembered the priest, the long, tortured nights in the hospital, the strange guests, the intervention led by Alesha and some of the cops to get me to this place. I remember asking for it. I remember them saying I could only go if I volunteered.
“Are you real?” I asked.
“What do you think?”
“Just answer the fucking question, Billie.”
“It’s not the right question.”
“Well, what is the right question then?”
“The right question is whether I’m alive or dead.”
I glared at her, biting down on my lower lip, saying nothing.
“Well?” she said. “Are you going to ask or what?”
“Why don’t you just tell me?”
“I think you already know the answer, Myron. I just didn’t know if you knew the right question.”
“Is this a game to you? You abandoned me for … for weeks, for weeks on end, and then you want to show up and play riddles?”
She sighed. “I didn’t abandon you, Myron.”
“Yes, you did. You fucking abandoned me!”
“Calm down.”
“You calm down! Look at me. Just look at me!”
“Myron—”
“I’m in a straitjacket, Billie! I’m in the loony bin!” I flapped my one long arm and jerked and thrashed about with abandon. My cloth prison felt as if it were shrinking and tightening, squeezing the life out of me. I could barely breathe. “The loony bin!”
“If you don’t calm down, the nurses will come.”
“Fine! Let them come!”
She shook her head and stared at the floor. “Maybe I should go. Maybe this was a mistake.”
“No,” I begged. The thought of her leaving again terrified me. “No, please don’t go.”
“I’m dead, Myron.”
“I know, I know.”
“You know I’m dead?”
“Somebody told me. I don’t—maybe it was Alesha. Or maybe it was your dad. Yeah. He flew in from Maine—”
“My dad passed away eight years ago,” Billie said. “We went to the funeral. Don’t you remember?”
I stared at her. I did remember. I remembered it clearly, the few bits of snow remaining on the grass, the rage in Billie’s eyes, how she said she was glad he’d drunk himself to death because now he couldn’t hurt anyone anymore, not even himself. But I also remembered her father, ruddy-faced and smelling of scotch but perfectly healthy, sitting at my bedside in the hospital explaining that my wife was gone and he’d come out to pay his respects. He’d wanted me to come to the funeral. I’d told him that wouldn’t be possible. The conversation had happened. I was sure of it.
“He was dead, too, wasn’t he?” I said.
Billie regarded me the way she might regard a strange insect she’d trapped in a glass jar. “You really can’t tell us apart, can you?”
“No,” I said miserably.
“Amazing.”
“It’s a damn nightmare, that’s what it is.”
“You didn’t even believe in any of this stuff, and now you’re forced to live it every day. It’s almost cruel.”
I glared at her, resenting the careless way she spoke about my condition. If one of us had a cruel streak, it was her, and that wasn’t a new quality at all. “Why did you kill yourself?” I shot at her.
“Ah,” she said, her gaze turning distant, “you remembered that, too.”
“They said you did it with pills.”
She took a moment to respond, and when she did, her voice grew increasingly soft, trailing into silence. “It’s a relatively painless way to go. You just … fall asleep.”
“Painless,” I said.
She said nothing.
“I’m so glad it was painless,” I said.
She mumbled something.
“You have to speak up,” I said. “The acoustics in here aren’t that great. It’s all the padding.”
“I said I’d explain if I could.”
“So you’re not going to tell me why?”
She shrugged. “What difference does it make now?”
“Are you serious? You decided to commit suicide, and you don’t think it would matter to me why?”
“Myron—”
“I think I deserve a reason, Billie.”
“Yeah, well, so do I.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” And when she didn’t answer, I pressed on. “Were you depressed because I was in a coma?”
“I was depressed for lots of reasons.”
“Damn it, Billie, you’re not helping here!”
“So sorry to disappoint you,” she said.
Now she looked at me, and it was a hard look, full of blame and anger and who knows what else, a look I’d seen plenty of times in all the years we’d been married and still didn’t quite understand. I stared right back, unflinching in my own rage. An orderly, a big black man who I remember said he’d played football at the University of Oregon, glanced through the window at me, then continued on his way. The room was so quiet, I could hear both me and Billie breathing.
I wondered about it, the breathing. Why did a ghost need to breathe, and how could I possibly hear it? There was so much about this new world I inhabited that I didn’t understand.
“You could have helped me,” I said, “if you’d been here in the beginning.”
The smoldering fire in her eyes softened—not completely, but at least a bit. “I’m here now,” she said.
“For good?”
“For as long as you want me.”
“Do you still love me?”
She swallowed hard. “Yes,” she said.
“You’re not just saying that?”
“No.”
“Because you know how much I love you.”
“I know.”
The
skin around her eyes quivered, tiny earthquakes, quicksands of the flesh. My own throat grew tight. The dam was about to break, I could tell. We weren’t the crying type, either of us, but we’d had our moments. I looked away, battening down the emotions, my face warm and tight. I heard the rustle of her cargo pants and the screech of her boots on the padded floor. I looked up to find her standing over me, not quite smiling but at least not scowling, gazing at me with those mysterious blue eyes that had gotten me to fall in love with her in the first place.
She reached for me, then let her hand fall idly to her side, shaking her head, laughing softly.
“I almost forgot for a second there.”
“It’s okay,” I said.
“I’d help you up if I could.”
“I know you would,” I said.
Chapter 7
The law firm of Heller, Kamen, and Thorne was on the top floor of one of Portland’s bigger high-rises, a sleek, thirty-two-story glass tower right next to the World Trade Center and a block from the Willamette River. The gray sky, like the dull side of aluminum foil, seemed somehow more attractive in the mirrored windows than the actual thing. The guard manning the entrance to the underground parking structure checked my driver’s license against his clipboard, then waved me through. Parking my lime green hybrid Prius among the Mercedes, Lexus, and other luxury cars, I consoled myself that they may have had better rides, but I was doing more for the environment.
“I thought Karen said her dad worked at a tiny little firm,” I said to Billie when we were riding up the elevator. It had mahogany paneling, gold rails, and abstract paintings that looked like something Picasso would have painted but wasn’t by Picasso. I was never a huge fan of abstract art, though I did have a special place in my heart for Picasso.
“To her,” Billie said dryly, “this probably is a tiny little firm.”
She wore a designer jeans and a tweed jacket over a NO WAR T-shirt, plus Birkenstocks that bared her black-painted toenails. After her attitude back at the office, I was both surprised and relieved when she volunteered to come with me to meet Bernie Thorne. Although she didn’t accompany me on all of my cases, or even the majority of them these days, I really liked it when she did. Having her around, in my world, was like being in a foreign country with a translator at my side rather than trying to go it alone.
I glanced at my watch. It was a quarter to noon, so we were on the early side. I’d called Bernie Thorne as soon as Karen had left that morning, explaining to his bubbly secretary that I was a private investigator who had a few questions about Karen Thorne’s death. After a two-minute wait, she returned to schedule my appointment for that Thursday afternoon.
It was almost too easy. I didn’t even have to use my trump card over the phone, the diamond-pony bit, and I was glad. I really preferred to see his face when I told him who my client was.
The elevator opened into a reception area that was a peculiar mix of granite pillars, marble countertops and floors, and mahogany paneling. It was a design choice that shouldn’t have worked but somehow did. Two perky blond receptionists greeted me simultaneously, I told them who I was, and after five minutes of waiting by the biggest saltwater tank I’d ever seen, one of the blondes escorted me down a hall to a smoked-glass door at the end.
“Fancy shmancy,” Billie said.
Beyond the door was another reception area, only smaller, with one blonde manning the desk instead of two. Rows upon rows of leather law books filled the shelves behind her. She took me immediately into the office, and there was Bernie Thorne behind a desk that could have doubled as an aircraft carrier. He looked like the kind of man who belonged at the helm of an aircraft carrier, too.
He was big and broad in a dark blue suit, impressive even sitting, and when he rose from his swivel chair, he towered over me like a giant. At just under six feet, I was not exactly a short man, but as he approached, I felt as small as I did when I was sent to the principal’s office in third grade for pulling Melanie Baker’s hair. He had big bulldog cheeks, a close buzz of rusty red hair, and a fake salesman’s smile so unnaturally white it startled me. The smile lasted only a second before his face turned sober, as if he’d suddenly realized he shouldn’t be smiling to a man who’d come to see him about his dead daughter.
The floor-to-ceiling windows behind him offered a panoramic view of Waterfront Park, the Willamette River, and the Morrison Bridge. The city hardly seemed big enough for this man. Yet when we shook, his big hand engulfing my own, his grip was surprisingly soft.
“Myron Vale?” he said.
“The one and only,” I replied.
“Good of you to come,” he said, as if he were the one who’d invited me. His breath smelled strongly of peppermint. “Please, take a seat.”
He motioned to a black leather couch and two matching wingback chairs arranged by the farthest window. On the way, passing his desk, I noticed a family portrait with three twenty-something women and a teenage son sitting with him on the deck of a yacht, everybody dressed in white and smiling. Karen was one of the women, her sailor’s cap slightly askew.
Billie whistled. “Man, this guy is riiiiiiiich.”
I didn’t say anything in response, but Bernie glanced at me.
“Sorry?”
“Hmm?’ I said.
“Oh, I thought you said something.”
“Nope.”
“Well what do we have here,” Billie said. “Looks like this guy is a Sensitive.”
This time, Bernie didn’t say anything, just shrugged and continued to the couch. As we walked, Billie waved her hand in front of his face, but he didn’t react, and she made a pouty face. His ability was obviously very weak. I sat on the couch, Billie perched on the arm next to me, and Bernie sank his enormous frame into the wingback chair facing us.
“Well,” he said, “I’m told you have information about Karen’s death.”
“Well, questions, actually.”
He raised his eyebrows, eyebrows the same rusty red as his hair. “I looked you up. You’re a private investigator, so somebody had to hire you. Can I ask who you’re working for?”
“Well, here we go,” Billie said. “Strap yourself in.”
We’d reached the moment when I had to make a decision. If I told him the truth, that I was working for his daughter, it would forever change the nature of our relationship—whether he believed me or not. The trump card might not work. He might blow his top and throw me out of his office. Or he might believe me and become a sniveling wreck. If I withheld that information and lied about who my client was, it might give me an edge I wouldn’t otherwise have.
But I wanted his cooperation more than I wanted an edge, and the best way to get his full cooperation was to take the biggest risk.
“I’m going to tell you who I’m working for,” I said, “but first I want you to promise me that no matter how crazy it sounds, you’ll hear me out.”
His eyes narrowed. “This isn’t some kind of prank, is it?”
“No prank, sir.”
“Call me Bernie.”
“Bernie. Okay. Listen, I’m just going to lay it out there for you. I’m working for your daughter, Karen.”
For the longest time, he simply stared at me, his reaction so impassive that I wondered if he’d even heard me. Finally, the skin around his eyes twitched ever so slightly.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You said Karen. You must have meant one of my other—”
“I know you have other daughters, Bernie. It’s Karen. Karen is my client.”
A pink flush spread across his face. “Now, listen,” he said sternly, “I don’t know what kind of game—”
“Remember, you said you’d hear me out.”
“This is insane! My daughter is dead!”
“I know that. She wanted me to tell you she finally got that diamond pony.”
“If you think you’re going to wring some kind of extortion …” he began, before my words registered.
The effect was imme
diate and profound. It was as if I’d socked him in the gut as hard as I could. He gaped at me, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, all that pink color that had been blooming in his cheeks quickly draining away, leaving his face as white as the legal documents piled on his desk. I waited for the initial shock to pass, for him to ask the inevitable and annoying questions.
“How—how did you—” he stuttered.
“She told me, of course.”
“She told you.”
“She said it was something only the two of you would know.”
He stared at me, his pupils as dark as the buttons on his suit jacket. The lines in his face looked as hard and sharp as those on a cut diamond. In my experience, there were a couple of ways this could go, and none of them really had much to do with how good the information Karen had given me was. The outcome depended more on how much Bernie wanted to believe me. Grief was always a harsh mistress, and there was no telling how much of a hold she had over someone, or the games she was willing to play to get what she wanted.
He swallowed and licked his lower lip. When he spoke, his voice had lost all of its salesman authority, leaving only a broken and desperate man. “How—how can I believe you? How can I know you’re—you’re not just someone she confided in?”
“Do you really believe Karen would do that?”
“No. Not on purpose. But if she was drugged, maybe. If she—if she was not really herself—”
“Look, I’m going to be frank with you. I’ve done this sort of thing more than a few times. There’s really nothing I can say that will convince you if you’re really determined to believe I’m lying. All I can tell you is that I’m not after your money. I’m not out to blackmail you. My client—your daughter, Karen—she thinks maybe her husband is in trouble. He’s missing. And she also thinks somebody killed her, that maybe those two things are connected. She hired me to get to the bottom of things.”
“Nice speech,” Billie said.