Mike approached the vascular surgeon, who filled him in on the pacer/defibrillator model and specs. Then Mike and Freddie assessed the reprogramming unit.
Was the embedded unit or the external one at fault? There was no substitute to try empirically, so Freddie looked the machine over, flipped back the cover, and studied the microprocessor circuits. His mind was racing.
Tio Eddie says a lot of times with complex equipment the simplest explanation is a loose or ill-fitted chip.
Carefully he manipulated each primary chip then looked at the loop antenna that would carry the changing signals to the unit inside the patient. He spotted a loose connection. He tightened it and closed the cover.
“Dr. Bakerson,” Freddie said, “please try reprogramming one more time.”
The surgeon looked questioningly at Mike, who nodded agreement. Then he set the external antenna over the patient’s left chest wall, where the unit was embedded in a pocket of skin. He activated the external programmer, and the surgeon keyed in the activating codes, while the anesthesiologist watched the heart monitor. Within seconds, the telltale spike of the internal pacer appeared on the screen, a metronome of life for the old man lying there.
“Geez, it’s midnight! The folks are going to be royally pissed when we get back,” Tonio muttered.
“Well, if La Belle Dame Sans Merci hadn’t spent so much time smooching with my tech partner after we got done, we would have been home in time,” Freddie groused.
“I did not smooch, mush head, and we are home! Keep quiet, and maybe we won’t get grilled for hours.”
The trio opened the door lightly, hoping that the oldsters had gone to bed. The light in the foyer switched on suddenly, and three obviously tired and stern-looking guardians stood there in pajamas and robes.
“We got a phone call,” Nancy said flatly.
“Actually we got four phone calls,” Edison added.
“Each of your department supervisors called, and then we received a conference call from the hospital administrator with Dr. Grimaldi on the line,” Galen said softly, looking intently at the kids.
“Each of you in some roundabout way saved a life this evening. And when all is said and done, that’s what counts. But in some way, each of you also broke rules that were established for a purpose. We will have to deal with that, but tonight you brought honor to the family. Now, go to bed. We’ll talk more in the morning.”
The teens, their ears red, started up the stairs when Galen called out, “Carmie, you have our permission to date Michael. He seems to have a good head on his shoulders.”
Now awake and well experienced with disruptions in their sleep routine, the adults sat in the living room. They needed to relax before heading back up to their rooms.
“Did we ever do stuff like that when we were young?” Edison asked.
Galen remembered the night the two of them had encountered the victim of an automobile accident, and the unorthodox—and unauthorized—treatment they had administered to restart his heart.
“Car battery,” he whispered.
Nancy saw Edison’s face turn beet red.
“Want to tell me about it?”
He shook his head.
“Tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 6
Suffer the Little Children
PART ONE
The flames climbed higher and higher, matched only by the crescendo of screams from his dying family. He felt the heat sear his face and arms, as he sought to rescue his loved ones. He knew it was too late.
Cracking walls and support beams drove him from the inferno that was once his home. He stood there watching the death throes of his life. He turned away and saw the boy, backlit in orange-red. The boy was smiling…
The old man awoke with a start and a cry of anguish. He lay sweat-soaked on the long-unwashed bed sheets, feeling the familiar onset of the tremors that would soon become uncontrollable shaking. He grabbed the half-empty bottle of grain whiskey lying on the unfinished wooden floor and began drinking from its open top. The dirty-brown liquid overflowed his trembling lips, adding its own unique hue to his sweat-yellow undershirt.
He fell back, the bottle slipping from his fire-scarred right hand. The alcohol-induced amnesia caught hold once more, and he did not dream this time.
She sat at the reception desk watching the minutes slowly tick by. It was almost noon. Her father had promised she would only have to work the morning shift to fill in for the girl who was sick.
Come on, Dad! I need to leave here soon.
Tony said he would try to come and get her, and he would take her to his home up on the mountain.
The phone rang. She sighed and picked up the handset.
“Still want to go, Betty?”
He hadn’t forgotten!
“Yes, Tony, I’m just waiting for Dad to get through interviewing the family of one of our new residents. I’ll meet you outside. ‘Bye.”
Come on, Dad!
“Tio Galen?”
“Yes, Tonio?”
He looked at the young man, now taller than he was, and thought how lonely he must be with his sister and brother away at college. Even his friend, Faisal, had left early to start at Juilliard. Hard to believe Tonio would be leaving for college soon, too.
“Tio Galen, could I invite my friend Betty over this afternoon? We thought we could … you know … walk around the mountain, and I could show her the wolves, and…”
Well, well! The boy has indeed grown up! He has a girlfriend now . Never thought I would be serving in loco parentis at this age.
“What’s Betty’s last name? Is she a classmate of yours?”
“Oh, yes, Tio! She’s the smartest girl I’ve ever met. We’ve worked together on projects in chemistry and biology, and she wants to be a doctor, too.”
Galen caught the word “too” at the end of the boy’s sentence, and his heart jumped.
He does want to follow in my footsteps!
His mind recalled the little boy following him, walking side by side in the woods, learning to read his journals and notes. Maybe, just maybe, he would have the son he always wanted.
“And what’s her last name?”
“Oops, sorry, Tio, it’s Betty Orth. Uh … can I borrow your Jeep?”
The old man sat in the back of the courtroom, dressed in dirty-blue bib overalls. His hands clenched and unclenched, as the trial proceeded all the way to summation. He watched his boy, now a hard-faced man, backlit by the mixed, yellow-and-blue light of the worn-out, fluorescent tubes in the courtroom ceiling. He saw the jury reenter the room and the foreman hand the small paper to the court clerk, who then handed it to the presiding judge. He held his breath, as the judge nodded and handed the paper back to the clerk, who read the verdict.
“By unanimous vote of the jury, you have been convicted of the crimes of kidnapping, homicide, and interstate flight to avoid prosecution. You are hereby sentenced to mandatory life imprisonment in the United States Federal Penitentiary at Allenwood, Pennsylvania.”
Jesse Orth walked down the north corridor of St. Ignatius Home, as he escorted the family of its latest resident to the lounge. It had been a difficult session. Family expectations often exceeded the staff’s ability to treat and help the type of patients residing there.
He spotted his daughter sitting at the receptionist’s desk impatiently drumming her fingers on the counter. How like her mother! Betty was the spitting image of Hisayo—beauty, brains—and an iron will. He had been truly blessed with the women in his life.
“Okay, Betty, everything’s quiet. Now, tell me again, what are you doing this afternoon?”
His daughter’s delicate Amerasian features took on the universal exasperated look of teenagers, as her eyebrows rose in disbelief. She had told him twice already!
“Tony and I are going for a drive up the mountain to his house. He has some great stuff to show me, all of the tame wild animals and plants.”
“Tony who?”
“Tony Hidalgo,
Daddy, and you know it already. He’s on his way down to pick me up now.”
He looked at her, remembering the little girl riding horsey on his back and asking him to read to her at bedtime.
“Tony is one of Dr. Galen’s wards, isn’t he?”
She nodded.
He deliberately paused, holding back the laughter as he saw the anxious frustration in her face.
“Have a good time, honey.”
In one motion, the beautiful young woman stood up from the desk, smoothed her light-yellow blouse and tan skirt, kissed him, and ran out the door.
The old man sat in the stick-frame rocker staring out the front window of the ramshackle farmhouse. He had only partly rebuilt it after the conflagration that had robbed his life of meaning. A half-empty bottle of rotgut lay on the floor beside the chair.
The tremors weren’t too bad now. He could hold his hands outstretched to hug the ghosts of his wife and oldest boy, as his mind conjured up the image of that last day…
* * *
“Hey, Pop, let’s ping some, while Ma and Meemaw get the turkey ready.”
His boy was tall, like him, but with his wife’s delicate, Tennessee nose and eyes. He wanted to be a soldier like his dad, and he had always looked for an excuse to target practice on the tin cans they had hung up in the woods.
“C’mon Pop. Bet Granpaw’ll wanna come with us.”
“Ain’t yer brother comin’?”
“Nah, he’s readin’ his books again.”
In his memory the old man watched, as the back door opened, and his wife and mother stood framed in the doorway. He heard each of them call that Thanksgiving dinner would be ready soon. He saw his father squeeze past them and waddle out to where he and his son stood waiting. He grinned at hearing his father’s guffaw about escaping “the wimmin.”
* * *
The old man slumped in his rocker, haunted by ghosts. He began to cry.
Ben Castle’s lopsided grin grew broader, as he watched his daughter sketching and throwing clay, bringing to life the images her mind had captured in whatever universe it inhabited. The she-wolf sat beside her, a study in calmness contrasting with the restless energy the autistic girl could not control.
Ben was retired now. His stroke had made him ineligible for anything but permanent disability from the State Police. He could have taught at the academy, but he was not attracted to that classroom stuff. He felt perfectly fine in all ways, but the bureaucracy considered him damaged goods, at risk in the daily struggle of law enforcement.
The generosity of the Edisons and Dr. Galen still amazed him. They had provided a guest cottage and studio for Miriam and him at the base of the mountain property. Not only had they helped with the costs of the small, four-room residence, but they also had helped to build it, and they had even granted him and his daughter rights in perpetuity to live there.
Truth be told, Ben didn’t want to go back to work. He was with his daughter now, giving her the care and love he never had time for in the daily grind of police work.
The guilt was finally abating.
“Where’s Tonio going?”
Edison and Nancy had just walked out on the back deck, as Galen’s ancient red Jeep took off at warp speed down the mountain driveway. At first Edison thought it was Galen driving badly as usual, until he saw him standing in the shadow of the deck railing. Galen was quietly staring at the vehicle receding in the distance.
Nancy also saw Galen and recognized that distant look. She made a hushing sound to her husband and walked over to the old doctor.
“They do grow up before we know it,” she said softly.
Galen turned toward Nancy and Edison.
“You would think I’d be used to this, now that Carmelita, Freddie, and Faisal are away at school. But each time it’s just as bad. I wonder if it’s easier for younger parents, when their children want to leave the nest and fly on their own.”
The three stood together and watched the Jeep make its descent to the highway, suspecting that its driver was feeling like a bird in flight.
“Lach, come in here! Look what Faisal sent us!”
Diana Douglass had opened the cardboard mailing envelope and removed a DVD carefully wrapped inside. She slid it into the player, and the two sat in front of the TV to watch and listen, as the image of the young man and the wolf that served as his seeing-eye dog appeared on the screen.
“Hello, everybody! One of my friends here at school is making this recording. Say hello, Jacob.”
The camera did a one-eighty and found another young man, dressed in Chasidic garb, black hat, and beard. He waved and pivoted the camera back to Faisal.
“He’s not supposed to show himself in pictures, but he wants to be a movie producer someday. Strange, isn’t it?”
Faisal knelt down and stroked the head of the wolf-dog at his side.
“Akela and I are doing well. They keep us pretty busy with music theory and actual composition classes. When we come home for Thanksgiving break, I’ll play some of my stuff for you. I hope maybe this year we can all get together on the mountain for the holiday dinner. I miss you.”
The brief scene did a slow fade, as piano music rose in the background.
Diana and Lachlan stayed silent for a while afterward, hands intertwined.
“Betty, I have something for you.”
The two youngsters sat at a side table in the little sandwich shop. Both had finished a lunch of veggie hoagies and root-beer floats and felt halfway between sugar-buzzed and contented.
She took the small, square box from his outstretched right hand and carefully opened it. Inside was a smaller, silver box with a songbird incused on the cover. She lifted the lid and the box began to play “Somewhere My Love.” Inside was a silver friendship ring.
They gazed at each other, as Tonio took the ring from the little music box and placed it on the third finger of her right hand.
The Pennsylvania mountain weather chilled rapidly soon after Halloween. The last flutter of fall foliage had fallen. The local stores already displayed Christmas decorations.
The old man sat nursing his bottle. Once there was a time when he would have been out hunting wild turkey, just like that Thanksgiving week when his life died. He could still hear his wife’s voice, as he and his oldest son had headed out that frosty morning, the scent of fireplace smoke lending its aroma to the chill November air…
Come on, Pop, them turkeys ain’t gonna wait fer us.
Ain’t Tommy coming?
Nah, you know how he is, Pop.
When he had turned toward the house, he saw the younger boy staring at them from the front-bedroom window. The boy’s jaw was clenched, his eyes fixed unmoving on his older brother.
“This place is beautiful in the fall, Tony.”
They walked hand-in-hand along the wooded path leading to the migratory bird pond and the wolf den. The leaves formed a scarlet-and-yellow carpet that crunched under their feet.
She wore his ring and told him that she would never take it off. He wanted to tell her that she looked beautiful, but he didn’t. That would sound too corny, he thought, and he didn’t want to seem stupid in front of her.
They stepped into the clearing and, one by one, the wolves appeared, led by the alpha male. They formed a half-circle around the two youngsters, taking in Tonio’s familiar scent and sniffing the new two-legged one to see if she was safe or not.
“Tony, these can’t be wolves. They’re so tame!”
She reached out to touch the head of the nearest one, a medium-size, gray-and-brown animal that sat on its haunches looking at her. But he backed away, ears down and whimpering.
Then all of the wolves followed suit keeping their distance and whimpering.
“Betty, I’ve never seen them do this. Did you handle any chemicals at the nursing home?”
“No, nothing, Tony,” she said nervously. “Let … let’s go up to your house. I’d like to meet your aunt and uncles.”
He stood t
here a moment, puzzled.
“Sure, let’s go—and if you’re real good, I’ll introduce you to Miriam and her father.”
He laughed, and she punched him on the shoulder and kissed him.
Ben was cleaning up the room where Miri did her drawing and sculpting. She seemed tired, more so than usual, and lay down on the floor mat that she used during the day to rest. He tried to move quietly around the sleeping girl and her wolf companion, as he picked up the sketch papers and clay figures she had generated during the day.
Normally he would look at the sketches and try to sort them by subject matter and file them away. But one charcoal drawing caught his eye. It was a picture of Tonio and a young girl, Asian by the looks of her, standing in the forest. The light filtering through the trees cast an ethereal illumination on the girl’s face.
“You know, Lach, Faisal’s idea is a good one. Why don’t we all get together at Safehaven for Thanksgiving dinner? Ben and Miri are up there now, and I’ll bet Nancy could use some help getting things in order for the kids when they come home. How about showing her the DVD and seeing what she says?”
Lachlan nodded—he had just been thinking the same thing. He also had been thinking about stopping by Ben’s place to see how his old partner was doing.
The tall state trooper, still in uniform, got up, stretched lazily, and then kissed his wife. As he headed for the door, the phone rang. Diana was nearest, so she answered, heard the voice on the other end, and then handed the phone to Lach.
“Douglass, the fit’s hit the shan,” he heard the gruff voice of his new sergeant say. “There’s been a breakout at Allenwood—three maximum-security prisoners.”
The Legend of Safehaven Page 11