December's Thorn

by Phillip DePoy

  I stood. “That’s great! How many? I mean, how many people’s prints, can you tell?”

  “Hard to tell,” Skid answered, “but more than one.”

  “That’s great,” I said again. “You’ll find out who the kid and the woman are!”

  “Maybe,” Skid said. “What are we drinking?”

  “You want you some apple brandy?” Lucinda asked, getting up and going to get another glass.

  “So I’ll go ahead?” Melissa asked again.

  “Would you like a little something to warm you up?” Dr. Nelson asked Melissa. “Before you go?”

  “Well,” she answered hesitantly.

  “You’re on duty,” Skid growled.

  “Right,” she answered quickly.

  Without another word, she was gone.

  “Aren’t you on duty too?” I asked him.

  “Let me see.” He looked at his watch. “It’s just— wait, three seconds to— okay, I’m off. Pour.”

  “Oh, that’s nice,” I complained. “You just sit here and drink while Melissa does all the work.”

  Lucinda poured a healthy glass. Skidmore drank it all down in one shot.

  I looked at Dr. Nelson. “Do you see the effect you have on my friends? Lucinda never drinks during the week, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen our sheriff, here, knock one back like that. I hope you’re happy.”

  She smiled. “I’m pretty happy.”

  Skidmore blew out his breath, unaccustomed as he was to the single-shot-drinking mode. “I wanted to get Melissa out of the room. I didn’t want her to hear what I’m about to say, or to see what I’m about to show you. Not just yet. She gets upset about stuff like this.”

  All eyes turned his way.

  “Stuff like what?” I asked.

  “Fever,” he continued, not looking at anyone, “I found something in the cave down there that I think you should see right away. Melissa don’t know I got it. Have you a look.”

  He reached into his coat pocket and slapped something down onto the kitchen tabletop. It was an older, three-by-five photograph. I squinted, and then my head snapped back. Lucinda covered her mouth with her hand. Dr. Nelson, at last, stopped smiling.

  The photograph was a picture of me, much younger, with my arm around a young woman.

  “Is this, by any chance, the woman who came into your house last night?” Skidmore asked quietly, tapping his finger on the photo.

  For a second I couldn’t breathe, and then I couldn’t remember words—any words. At last I was able to nod and say, “That’s the woman exactly, the woman from last night.”

  “Uh-huh,” Skid said, barely audible. “Turn it over.”

  I did. On the back, in neat block printing, was written:

  # 173, Dr. F Devilin with Issie Raynerd (1972–1999)

  12

  We all stared at the writing for a moment before Dr. Nelson spoke up.

  “So, are we to infer,” she asked, “from these parenthetical dates, that Issie Raynerd passed away over a decade ago?”

  “That’s what it looks like,” Lucinda said softly.

  “Well then, Dr. Devilin,” Dr. Nelson continued, “if that is the case, you’d have to admit that she probably wasn’t here in your house last night—as you originally supposed.”

  “But,” I said back to her, “it’s not just my— my supposition that she was here last night. You found threads from her black dress caught on a branch of mountain laurel just up the hill.”

  “We discussed that, remember?” Dr. Nelson reached into the front pocket of her jeans. “I had the foresight to bring them with me.”

  She set four or five strands of black thread on the table beside the photograph.

  “And you still think these came from this woman’s dress?” Skid asked.

  “They did,” I said, only a bit belligerently.

  “I didn’t think about it, really, but you should have a look at this.” Skid opened his coat and untucked his scarf. “Couldn’t be from this?”

  The scarf was black, and frayed, and the loose threads on it looked exactly like the threads on the table.

  “Jesus,” I whispered, sitting back.

  “Fever,” Skid said firmly, “you’re going to have to come to grips with the fact that you’re not right in the head. I mean, more than usual.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Lucinda added, “but he’s right.”

  I shook my head. “But you both saw two sets of footprints in the snow,” I said, “and then you saw that one of them was gone.”

  “Maybe,” Skid said.

  “I’m more interested,” Dr. Nelson said, in a somewhat affected manner, “in the fact that we have before us a photograph of you with your arm around this woman. You said that she claimed to be your wife but you’d never seen before. So that’s not quite accurate.”

  “Yes,” said Lucinda, eyes locked on me, “what about that?”

  “Well,” I offered, “it’s absolutely possible that she was a student of mine. This is about how I looked—I mean the way I look in this photograph is about how I looked when I first started at the university. I taught a lot of big lecture classes then, a hundred and twenty, even a hundred and fifty students. They knew me but I didn’t know them. It happened a lot: I’d be walking down the hall and some student would say hello as if I ought to know who they were, and I developed a very convincing way of answering back that seemed genuine when, in fact, I was only confused.”

  “But,” Lucinda pressed, “you have your arm around her. You’re smiling.”

  “You do look like you know her,” Dr. Nelson said.

  “Hold on,” I responded. “What’s the implication here? That I knew her, that I know her now, and I’m lying to all three of you? Lucinda, have I ever lied to you?”

  “Not that I know of,” she answered, uncertainly.

  “This can’t be,” I complained, volume growing. “You can’t tell me that I imagined the woman, and then in the next breath tell me I’m trying to hide my secret marriage to her.”

  “We’re just trying to make sense of it,” Skidmore ventured.

  Dr. Nelson turned the photograph back over. “Have a good look at her face now,” she suggested. “And try to concentrate on the name Issie. It’s a very unusual name, and you said that you couldn’t remember it.”

  “And I suppose that’s suspicious too?” I snapped.

  “A little,” Dr. Nelson fired right back.

  “Christ!” I said, throwing up my arms.

  “Just look at the picture,” Dr. Nelson encouraged.

  I didn’t really want to, but I acquiesced. As would be the propensity for most people, I looked at myself first. My hair was longer. I looked so much younger. I’d never felt that I’d gained much weight over the years, but the younger man in the photo was thin. Very thin. And he was smiling—using facial muscles that I rarely used in my current life, I realized.

  Then I looked at the woman. She did seem vaguely familiar, but that was all. It was like looking at a high school yearbook picture of someone I had barely known. Twenty years later, who could remember the tangential acquaintances of adolescence? Maybe she’d been my student.

  I cleared my throat. “I don’t know how to say this, what I’m about to say, without sounding—I don’t know, something. But in my first years at the university, I was a relatively popular professor. A lot of students liked me. I was eager to make them love folklore studies as much as I did, and I was very enthusiastic about the course work. And, in those days, I would often play music or tell stories in class. I’ll admit I was a bit of a performer, and probably more interested in my own appeal than in the actual teaching.”

  “It was more important to you that the students like you than it was for them to learn anything,” Dr. Nelson suggested.

  “It wasn’t quite that bad,” I said, “but, yes, it was very important to me that I was the most popular professor. In fact, that was my initial association with Andrews. He was my rival in that regard
, and better looking. Initially we met to size each other up. It was luck, really, that we ended up liking each other as much as we did—as much as we do.”

  “Yes, about Dr. Andrews,” Dr. Nelson began. “Shakespeare scholar, your best pal at the university—but, sorry, has there ever been any suggestion that the two of you might have had a more intimate relationship?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” I snarled.

  Lucinda giggled, and Skid laughed out loud.

  “Okay,” said Dr. Nelson right away, seeing the reaction she got from all of us, “that’s out. It is my job to ask questions like that, you understand. So. No intimate relationship. But you are close, you and Dr. Andrews.”

  “Yes,” I said. “He’s the one person, really, from the university— what should I say?”

  “He’s your only real friend from your city days,” Lucinda ventured.

  “All right,” I agreed.

  “I was just thinking, then,” Dr. Nelson went on, “that you might consider giving him a call to see if he remembers this person, Issie Raynerd.”

  I blinked. “Actually, that’s a great idea. His memory has always been better than mine. Especially where attractive women are concerned.”

  “Absolutely,” Skidmore said. “Call him.”

  “Something better would be for you to scan this photo,” Dr. Nelson suggested, “e-mail it to Andrews, and then call him. Right?”

  “Excellent,” I agreed. “I’ll scan both sides.”

  I grabbed the photo and dashed upstairs in a flash.

  The office was spare but extremely efficient. The desk sat against the wall facing out the window. The vista was spectacular, no matter what time of year. Besides the desk, which was an oak antique, something from my great-grandfather, only a tall filing cabinet and two floor-to-ceiling bookshelves occupied the room.

  I went to the desk, scanned the photo in an instant, and attached it to a quick e-mail to Andrews: “Sorry no time for small talk. Very important that you look at the attached photo and tell me if you know, or at least recall, this woman. E-mail or call immediately. Fate of world hangs in balance. FD.”

  No point in underestimating the importance of the missive.

  I hit SEND before I realized I hadn’t scanned the back of the photo. I sat for a second trying to decide if I should send another e-mail, thought better of it, sat for a moment to see if he’d respond, and when he didn’t, scurried back downstairs.

  “We should hear from him soon,” I called from the bottom of the stairs. “He checks his e-mail obsessively.”

  I appeared in the kitchen doorway to see all three people at the kitchen table looking at me with a mixture of patience and concern. I found it extremely irritating.

  “Stop it,” I said instantly.

  “Stop what?” Skidmore asked, very genuinely.

  “You know what,” I said, coming into the room. “Stop looking at me as if I were a problem patient.”

  “Ceri was just telling us her theory,” Lucinda said, a bit stiltedly, “that you’re a kind of magnet for odd things.”

  “She says you’ve always been that way,” Skid added. “And without a doubt, I’d have to agree.”

  I glared at Dr. Nelson. “Really? You have to scare my oldest friend and my fiancée with that? Is that remotely professional?”

  “Yes.” That was all she said.

  “No, I mean—” but I trailed off. Because what I meant was that Skidmore and Lucinda weren’t equipped to deal with the concepts that Dr. Nelson was scattering around my house like evil seeds.

  That made me realize that I considered myself the intellectual superior of my oldest friend and my fiancée. That realization was very disturbing, because no matter how I tried, I couldn’t seem to chastise myself for that feeling of superiority.

  Instead, I began to have a very uneasy sensation of alienation. I sat down at the table and my mind began to seesaw. I watched myself, as if from above, a third-person observer. But I not only saw my present self, I could see my entire life, the way some people describe seeing themselves on an operating table when they’ve been pronounced dead. I saw myself at age nine, when boys at school began to make fun of me. I saw my teenaged years, when I was absolutely convinced that everyone in the world knew something that I didn’t know, some key element to the general process of living. I saw my first year at college, younger than anyone in any of my classes, certain that everyone was smarter, more attractive, better read, from a much better family, and, in general, superior to me in every way.

  When had that deflated self-perception reversed itself? When had I started thinking that I was smarter, more perceptive, and more capable than anyone I knew?

  I was shaken from this pestilence by Lucinda’s voice.

  “Fever?” she whispered. “Are you all right?”

  I looked around at them, all three, as if I’d never seen them before.

  “No,” I answered weakly. “I don’t think I am all right. Something— something’s going on.”

  Lucinda started to stand, but Dr. Nelson placed her hand on Lucinda’s arm.

  “He’s going through a transitional moment,” Dr. Nelson said. “He’s been presented, by circumstances and by me, with a lot of distressing information. He may be making some discoveries, or coming to some conclusions about— something.”

  I blinked. “I can’t make up my mind if you’re really good at what you do,” I said to Dr. Nelson, “or you’re a complete charlatan. What kind of a diagnostic comment is ‘He may be making discoveries about something?’”

  “A vague one,” she answered proudly. “One that’s almost impossible to prove or disprove. The cornerstone of side-show mentalists and psychiatric professionals.”

  I laughed in spite of myself.

  “What were you thinking about?” Lucinda asked, much less amused. “Your face was so strange.”

  I wondered how honest I should be. I had, alas, just been touting my veracity, insisting to Lucinda that I’d never lied to her.

  “I was thinking,” I told them all, “about an unusual reversal in my life.”

  “Go on,” Dr. Nelson said, mostly to irritate me with another one of her vague impersonations of an analyst.

  “When I was younger, I felt inferior to everyone,” I said quickly, “but at the moment I’m fairly convinced that there aren’t many people in the world more perceptive or more intelligent than I am. It’s a kind of dizzying feeling.”

  “Oh,” said Lucinda, and she sat back, greatly relieved. “Well, Fever, you are smarter than anybody else. Everybody knows that.”

  “Why do you think I tolerate your rude behavior?” Skidmore added, grinning. “Somebody’s got to be the brains of the outfit. Lucinda’s the caring, beautiful one; I’m the one who’s brave and strong. And good-looking. You’re the scarecrow.”

  “Scarecrow?” I asked.

  “Wizard of Oz,” Lucinda whispered, as if she were helping me to cheat on a test. “The Scarecrow wants a brain?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” I shook my head.

  “You felt guilty saying that,” Dr. Nelson told me, more seriously. “I mean you felt guilty saying that you were smarter than everyone else.”

  “No,” I said, but I didn’t look her in the eye.

  “Oh, if there’s one thing I’m really good at recognizing, it’s guilt,” she said. “And I think it’s sweet.”

  “Sweet?” I sighed. “I’m really sorry I said anything.”

  But I felt better. It felt better to say it out loud.

  Thank God the phone rang at just that moment, because it changed the subject.

  I sprang up, expecting to hear Andrews on the other end.

  “Andrews,” I said into the phone excitedly, “do you know her?”

  “Um, it’s me, Dr. Devilin. Melissa Mathews? Is the sheriff still there?”

  “Ah,” I said, contritely, “yes. He’s here.”

  I held out the phone.

  “Who is it?” Lucinda asked.


  “Sorry,” I said, “it’s Melissa.”

  Skidmore leaned forward and raked his chair backward, standing up, obviously a little in his cups. The apple brandy had done its work quickly.

  He took the phone from my hand and started talking before he got the receiver to his mouth. “You did the prints already?”

  He listened for a second and then turned around, eyes wide, to face the rest of us.

  “Don’t get out of the car,” he said sternly, “hit the flashing lights, lock the doors, and sit tight. I’ll be right there.”

  He hung up and started for the front door.

  “Melissa ran off the road and hit a tree,” he called out.

  We followed him.

  “She swerved to avoid hitting a boy,” he said, pulling open the front door. “There was a child with a hunting rifle standing in the road with his back to the car, staring down the mountain. She hit the tree and he ran off.”

  “I’m coming with you,” I said, reaching for my coat.

  “No you’re not,” he snapped harshly. “The three of you are staying in this house and locking all the doors. There’s a crazy boy with a rifle out there!”

  I nodded. “She’ll be all right, Skid.”

  He took in a breath, and then loped away, toward his squad car. The engine roared seconds later, all his lights were on, and he squealed and skidded away.

  We stood for a second in the living room.

  I rubbed my face. “God, what a day.”

  “Seriously,” Lucinda agreed. “I’m beat down to the ground. I really have to get some sleep. I’m supposed to take a midnight shift.”

  “No,” I objected immediately. “Call in. Get somebody else.”

  She smiled at me. “I’m in charge, sweetheart,” she said wearily. “There isn’t anybody else.”

  I realized, once again, how self-centered I’d been for a long while. Lucinda’s world at the hospital was increasingly difficult. The economics of the hospital were currently its guiding dictum. Costs were going up, public health care and the health insurance industry were in a shambles, and callous administrators were slashing budgets and wreaking havoc nearly every day. I found it hard to fathom how Lucinda could ever concentrate on actually caring for a sick person. But she did. She knew every patient’s name, knew their family members, details about their lives, spent extra time with them, always smiling, always warm. In fact, she was the caring, beautiful one of the group—or of any group I’d ever known.