December's Thorn

by Phillip DePoy

  “A lot’s happened.” I blew out a long breath. “A lot to tell.”

  Lucinda went first into the kitchen; I followed.

  We all sat at the table. I poured another glass for Ceri and one for myself, and then looked at Lucinda.

  “Not for breakfast,” she said.

  Then Lucinda studied my face. After a moment she turned to Ceri and studied hers. She nodded, her eyes slightly closed.

  “You two are peas in a pod now,” Lucinda said finally. “I can see that. You’re just alike. I mean you have so much in common. In some ways, you’re meant for each other.”

  I had no idea what kind of feminine intuition or psychic power Lucinda had employed, but she was absolutely correct. Ceri and I had grown completely comfortable with each other. We were, in most objective ways, made for each other, and we both knew it.

  “You’re right,” I said plainly. “I think we’ve found that out over the course of this very long, very weird couple of days and nights. In almost any way you can imagine, we belong together.”

  “Oh,” said Lucinda, looking down at her hands. “I see.”

  “Except for one thing,” I said, leaning toward Lucinda, my elbows on the table. “I’m in love with you. And that’s really the only thing that matters. By the way, you’re in love with me, too. That’s what you and I have in common. And it beats everything else.”

  “By a mile,” Ceri added, smiling. “And besides, Fever and I are more like— more like brother and sister.”

  The brandy, in combination with a very long night and a significant number of shocks to the system, took over completely. Ceri and I dissolved in ridiculous, drooling, gasping, uncontrollable laughter.

  It wasn’t fair to Lucinda, who was baffled, and uncomfortable, maybe even embarrassed, and certainly feeling left out. But there was nothing for it. I could not have stopped laughing if there had been a gun to my head.

  At last I managed to say, “I have a long, odd story to tell you. And I don’t even know the whole thing. But you’d better keep your seat. And I’d recommend that you join Dr. Nelson and me in the conspicuous consumption of this beverage. I think you’re going to need it.”

  “The good news,” Ceri chimed in, still breathless from laughing, “is that Fever is not crazy. In fact, given everything I know now, it’s kind of amazing just how not crazy he is.”

  “Hey,” I said, “that means I win the bet!”

  “What bet?” Ceri asked.

  “You know what bet,” I said, grinning.

  Lucinda’s head tilted, and she stared at me. “What the hell happened here?”

  Just at that instant, the phone rang.

  Hoping it might be news about Skidmore, I nearly jumped at the phone and snatched up the receiver.

  Before I could speak, a strange voice said, “Fever?”

  “Yes,” I answered tentatively.

  “It’s Orvid. Orvid Newcomb.”

  “You have got to be kidding,” I said, eyes wide. “I’ve just been talking about you! And thanks, incidentally, for the most recent loaf of Poilâne—”

  “Look, Fever,” he insisted, “I’ve just gotten some very disturbing news.”

  “Are you calling from Paris?” I asked, a little shaken.

  “Yes.”

  How, then, I wondered, could he have found out about David and Issie so quickly?

  “What’s your news?” I asked.

  Lucinda and Ceri were staring at me. I mouthed the name Orvid but I don’t know if they understood me or not.

  “I think you might be in some danger,” Orvid went on. “I’ve just learned that a relative of mine, David Newcomb, fetched one of our weirder cousins out of the state mental hospital over there in Milledgeville, about a month ago, maybe. This David? He’s very, very troubled. And the girl?”

  “Before you go any further,” I said, “I want to tell you that I genuinely appreciate this call, Orvid. But everything is fine now. David and Issie were here. They almost killed the sheriff, tried to kill me, and David is dead. The girl’s in custody.”

  “Oh.” The line went so quiet I thought we might have been disconnected.

  “David tortured the sheriff with baling wire,” I went on clinically, “something that he claimed he learned from you.”

  Again: “Oh.”

  “Orvid?” I prodded.

  “David was a kind of— I don’t know,” Orvid mumbled into the phone. “There was a time when we were close.”

  “I see.”

  “And the girl,” he began slowly. “How much do you know about her?”

  “I know that she’s the daughter of your hero Tristan Newcomb, if that’s what you mean.” I didn’t want to reveal the nature of my relationship to Isolde Newcomb in front of Lucinda. That would take a bit more time and thought.

  But Orvid didn’t know that. “You know who her mother is?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fever?” His voice betrayed a genuine concern that I found oddly touching at that moment.

  “I— Lucinda’s here, and— and a friend of ours,” I stammered.

  “Ah,” he said quickly. “Understood. How are you holding up?”

  “Oddly well.”

  “Good,” he drawled. “It’s not like you haven’t had plenty of other bizarre revelations in your life before now.”

  “No,” I agreed. “It’s not remotely like that. But look, I’m serious about your trying to warn me: I’m very grateful.”

  “David,” Orvid said, “is very dangerous. Was very dangerous.”

  “Did he,” I began. “Did he learn that trick with the baling wire from you?”

  “Yes.” Orvid’s voice was placid. “Did he tell you what happened that day, way back when?”

  “He said that you and he killed a man by winding the baling wire so tightly around him that he— I don’t know, bled to death, or worse, I suppose.”

  “Ah, well, not exactly.” Orvid sighed. “Your— Issie’s mother learned that Hector Graves over there in Fit’s Mill had grabbed Isolde and tried to get fresh. Issie defended herself and got away, but Issie’s mother was outraged. She knew if she complained that Issie had been menaced and gotten away relatively unharmed, no one would do anything about Hector’s advances. So Issie’s mother did what she did best, I’m told.”

  “She lied,” I said quickly.

  “She exaggerated,” Orvid corrected, then lowered his voice. “This was a period in your mother’s life when she was drinking and using a lot of cocaine. But anyway, she called up Uncle Tristan—which, just let me say: our family has a flair for odd names, wouldn’t you say? Tristan, Fever, Isolde—Orvid.”

  “But to continue with your story,” I prompted impatiently.

  “But to continue with my story,” he responded, “your mother called Tristan and told him that Hector had raped Isolde. She wanted revenge. Tristan said he’d handle it and called me. He told me to put a good scare into Hector. But that’s all.”

  “So what happened?”

  “I went to get Hector,” Orvid went on, “and David wanted to come along. He was a teenager then, and kind of looked up to me the way I looked up to Tristan, I guess. But anyway, he said he wanted to learn from me, and I was younger then, too, and kind of enjoyed the adulation, I suppose.”

  “So the two of you got this man,” I urged.

  “We got him in his home, middle of the night. We tied him to his bed with the baling wire. I told him that I was going to tighten it until his brains popped out, I think that was my exact phrase. He was more terrified than I’d ever seen a man. Can you just imagine waking up to me and David in a situation like that?”

  “He must have been out of his mind,” I said.

  “Yes, and that was enough for me. I told him we were going to leave him in his bed like that until he realized how he’d made a young girl feel, how frightened. And then I sent outside for— well, frankly, for a bump of coke. I did a lot of that in those days, too. I didn’t realize what was happening unt
il I heard the screams coming from Hector’s house.”

  “Wait,” I said, “it was David who killed that man?”

  “I went tearing into the house and found David laughing and crying and shaking,” Orvid said quietly, “and Hector unconscious with baling wire imbedded into his head so deeply that you could see bits of his broken skull popping out his forehead.”

  “Christ,” I exhaled.

  “I grabbed David,” Orvid went on, “and we were gone. I called the cops, anonymous tip, but it was way too late for Hector. I tore into David. Told him I never wanted to see him again, and that he ought to avoid me. I may have said that I’d kill him if I ever saw him again, and that he should leave town. Which he did.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “Not sure, but he must have ended up in New Orleans with that branch of the family. I just know that he had himself committed to Milledgeville a number of weeks ago, not sure how many, and that he sprung Isolde. That may have been his intention all along, or it may have been a weird coincidence. Are you familiar with the concept of folie à deux?”

  “Actually, I am. It’s a madness shared by two people.”

  “Folie à deux,” Ceri said, actually slapping her forehead. “God. Of course. Damn it.”

  “What is it?” Lucinda asked, glancing apprehensively between Ceri and me.

  “That’s what I was worried about,” Orvid continued, unaware of the secondary plot unfolding in my kitchen, “when David and Issie got together. David, see, was sweet on Issie. I found that out. He had been for years. He would do anything she said. When I heard they were together, I knew you’d be in trouble.”

  “I was,” I said. “But it’s over now. How did you find out that David had gone to Milledgeville?”

  The phone was silent for a moment. “Family” was all Orvid would say on the subject. “Look, I’d like to hear all the details of this thing, but I sense there’s a situation there in your home that needs your attention right at the moment.”

  “God, yes,” I agreed.

  “So you’ll call me back later?”

  “Absolutely. And Orvid? Seriously, thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it. That is good bread.”

  “No, I meant—”

  “Good-bye, Fever,” he said, and I could hear that he was smiling.

  “Hey to Judy,” I told him.

  I could hear the phone shuffle and Orvid’s slightly muffled voice saying, “Fever says hey, sweetheart.”

  I could barely hear Judy’s lilting voice. “Hey right back.”

  “Call me,” he said into the phone, and then hung up.

  “Well,” I announced to Lucinda and Ceri, absently replacing the receiver, “that was Orvid Newcomb calling from Paris to warn me about Issie and David.”

  “Only a couple of days too late,” Ceri said affably.

  “But he did relate some valuable information,” I told her, returning to my seat.

  “All right, look,” Lucinda said strongly, “I’ve had just about enough of not knowing what’s happened here. I want to know and I want to know right this minute.”

  “That’s fair,” Ceri said, standing.

  “What are you doing?” I asked Ceri.

  “I’m going to borrow your beat-up old green pickup truck,” she answered, “and drive on down to the sheriff’s office, see if I can talk Melissa Mathews into letting me stay with Issie, who should not be alone right now.”

  I started to protest, but if anyone could have talked Melissa into something, it would have been Ceri. And the look in Lucinda’s eyes made it clear that she and I needed to be alone.

  So I fished in my jeans pocket and produced the keys to my truck.

  “Watch second gear,” I advised her.

  “Like I’ve never driven an ornery truck before,” she said, taking the keys from my hand. “I’ll be back tonight. You guys should get some sleep after you talk.”

  And within the next few seconds she was gone out the door.

  29

  I rubbed my eyes and sighed, just as I heard my truck starting up.

  “I guess I never thought to ask her how she got to my house in the first place,” I said absently, “or where her car was. I assume you brought her here. Did you know that her first name is the same as the Lady of the Lake in some of the Arthurian stories?”

  “You mentioned that,” Lucinda said tersely. “And her car’s at the hospital. I brought her here. This is not what I want to talk about now, especially not what her name is.”

  “It’s just that it’s a coincidence because of what happened subsequently,” I began.

  “Fever.” She gave me her most commanding look. It worked.

  “I know,” I said. “I have a lot to tell you, but should we sleep first or talk first? I’m just about as tired as I’ve ever been in my life and my bones hurt.”

  “I’m tired, too,” she admitted, “but I don’t know that I can sleep until I know at least a little about all this mess. I can wait for the details, I guess, but you’ve got to let me in on some of it now.”

  “All right.” I nodded. “Where to start?”

  And with that, the phone rang again.

  I sighed.

  “Go ahead,” she told me, looking away. “It might be about Skidmore.”

  I dragged myself over to the phone again. “Yes, hello?”

  “Fever!” Andrews bellowed. “It’s me.”

  “Timing is everything,” I muttered.

  “Yes,” he shot back, obviously not listening to me, “I’m done with my grades and all my committee work so now I’m ready to come up there and help you with whatever it is that’s going on. Something to do with that Issie Raynerd, right? Man, was she a weird girl. I assume you want me to come right away. You can’t really take care of these things by yourself at this point. The car’s packed, I’ve had a bit of something to drink, but say the word and I’m set to shoot up there and settle the situation for you. Just in time for Christmas.”

  “Andrews,” I interrupted, because it was clear that he’d had more than a bit to drink and was prepared to go on talking for a while, “everything’s fine here. It’s all taken care of. I genuinely appreciate your calling, but my advice to you is to hit the hay, sleep until tomorrow—and then come on up here for a bit of Christmas. I’ll have a pretty great story to tell you.”

  “Oh,” he said, clearly stymied. “Well. Brilliant. Good. In fact, I could very well log a substantial number of Zs. I may have had a touch of some very good Armagnac that was a present from someone or other, and, well, there you are. Fine, then. I’ll ring back when I wake up, right?”

  “Perfect,” I assured him. “And Andrews?”

  “Hm?”

  “Thanks for the offer.” I smiled.

  “What? Of course. I know how you can’t really manage these things without me. See you in a bit.”

  “Right,” I said. “Good-bye.”

  And that was that.

  “Andrews,” I said.

  “I gathered,” Lucinda said.

  “How about if you and I trundle on up the stairs and I’ll hit the stupendously strange highlights of the past several days.”

  She sat for a moment, glanced at the plywood covering the kitchen window and then at the bandage on my upper arm. I could see that about a dozen sentences were forming themselves in her brain, but each one was so eager to express itself that it prevented the others from breaking into words.

  At last she gave up and just said, “I’m taking off all day Christmas Eve and Christmas day.”

  “Oh, thank God,” I told her and was suddenly very grateful she was there, and would be there. “When is that, exactly? I’ve kind of lost track of time.”

  “Let’s head upstairs,” she said wearily. “I’d like to have a look at that arm. What happened with that?”

  We stood and began to shamble out of the kitchen and up the stairs. “This? Gunshot wound. Just grazed. It’s stopped bleeding completely. I got dizzy though.”
>
  “We should go to the hospital,” she said, putting her arm around my waist. “Get you some stitches.”

  “Let’s get some sleep first, really. It’s not bleeding and I think I need sleep more than anything.”

  “Because you need to stitch up the raveled sleeve of care more than you do your arm,” she told me, yawning.

  I stopped dead still at the bottom of the stairs.

  “That’s Shakespeare,” I said, amazed.

  “Hamlet,” she answered. “I’m a small-town girl, Fever, but I learned how to read a long time ago and I have a wider range of tastes than, frankly, you ever give me credit for. I also know just about everything there is to know in this world about American hummingbirds, for example.”

  I grinned and stared into her eyes. “You do, huh?”

  She started up the steps. “Family Trochilidae,” she began. “The smallest is the Bee Hummingbird, in fact the smallest of all birds, only two inches long.”

  “I have a sister that I didn’t know about,” I responded as we began our way up the stairs.

  She froze on the steps. To her credit, she was only stunned for an instant.

  “I’d expect that’s one of those highlights you were just mentioning,” she said.

  “One of them,” I agreed. “You’re not bowled over by this strange revelation? You don’t seem that surprised at all.”

  She inclined her head a bit, thinking. “Sweetheart, there’s so much about you that’s odd, I believe I’ve come to think of any strange revelation as your normal day. That’s just you. And I like you just fine that way. That shouldn’t come as a surprise to you, should it?”

  In that moment I felt that Lucinda and I were, for all practical purposes, already married, and that state paperwork didn’t really matter. I found the feeling intensely comforting.

  “I guess that your news is going to be more interesting than hummingbirds,” she went on, “but I would appreciate your recognizing that I am, in fact, an expert on the subject.”

  “We’ll have to engage in a bit more investigation before I agree to use the word expert,” I told her, “but I will say that the initial evidence is very impressive.”

  “Is it that woman,” she asked as we continued to ascend the stairs, “Issie? She’s your sister?”