There had been arguments, typically of the style, "But I want you to paint it this way."
And I had answered simply, "When I am doing design, I must produce what the client demands. I do these pieces for the love of creating them. But it is my love that is necessary, not yours. And maybe you will love what I produce, but I promise you that no one will love what I did not love producing."
Sometimes they decided I was the wrong person. Sometimes they immediately handed me a down payment and asked when I would stop by to see the final setting in person.
I'd been flown to some interesting places so I could visit in person.
All this is a long way to say this: I was left with not necessarily an affluent lifestyle, but a comfortable one. I met a variety of people and was well traveled.
I felt like I was on the top of the world.
A Mistake
My home was a quarter of the top floor of a warehouse building that had been converted to apartments. I had a comfortable living space and a large studio. The building had a center courtyard that went from the ground floor to the roof, and that was how some of my larger pieces moved in and out of my studio. The landlord had given me permission to install a hoist from the overhead beams, and I could raise or lower something weighing as much as a ton that way. However, I didn't do sculpture at home, so even my heaviest pieces weren't all that heavy, they were just bulky and awkward to move. The shipping crates might weigh more than the art did. I would simply crate up the piece, roll it out to the balcony surrounding the courtyard, hook it to the crane, then lift it up and push it over the railing. A couple of assistants would help guide it to the floor as I carefully lowered it with the hoist.
Over the years, I'd made friends with most of the long-term residents of the building. A doctor and her husband lived across the courtyard from me. Next to me in one direction were a couple of architects. In the other direction was a travel agent.
But my favorite resident was Mrs. Benchley. Mrs. Benchley lived on the first floor right off the main entrance. She was practically ancient, and it didn't take much to get her talking about her younger days, the days before the vampires became public, before the wars, before the world changed. Mrs. Benchley kept a dog, a twenty-pound mutt named Livingston, of all things. There was a small, fenced-in yard behind the apartment building, and that was where Livingston did what dogs need to do. Mrs. Benchley paid a young boy of the neighborhood to clean up after the dog daily. The boy changed every few years, and the dog changed from time to time, too, which was always sad, but it was never long before there would be a new Livingston.
Mrs. Benchley had long grown too old and frail to walk her dog. Oh, for her years, she was doing pretty good, but getting much past the front steps had become a challenge for her, and so I had taken to walking Livingston for her. She saw to his trips to the back yard, but I gave him more exercise, taking him for runs around the neighborhood and through the park when the weather was kind.
And so it was that on a Thursday in early May my story really begins.
Spring was well in hand, the last lingering snow long gone, and the trees budded and turning green. Nights could remain crisp, but the days were pleasant.
I arrived home, having stopped by the grocery store on the way. Mrs. Benchley's door was open, and she was waiting for me. She called out to me while I was collecting my mail.
"Melissa, can you walk Livingston for me today?" she asked. "He's been so cooped up and he's just full of piss and vinegar."
"Sure, Mrs. Benchley," I told her. "I'm going to carry my groceries upstairs and unwind for a little bit, then I'll take him for a nice run. Give me a half hour."
"You're a sweet girl," she told me. I guess when you're as old as she was, someone my age was still a girl, but I hadn't felt like that for a very long time.
I took the stairs, happy for the exercise, carrying my sack of groceries with my mail dropped in the top. I arrived at my apartment, stepped in, and proceeded to put the food away, leaving the bottle of wine on the counter. For me, it was the beginning of the weekend, and a glass of wine would go well right about now. I opened the bottle, poured a glass, then recorked the bottle. I carried the glass through the apartment as I headed for my bedroom to change.
I dressed like an artist. It was expected. More importantly, it was comfortable. I took off my clothes, changing into running clothes, then I moved out to the living room and slowly drank the wine while looking through my mail. It was the usual assortment of bills, which would be automatically paid, a few catalogs, and a couple of offers to sign up for credit cards. I wasn't interested. I left the catalogs on the coffee table, filed the bills, and tossed the credit card applications. I finished the glass of wine, grabbed a fanny pack with ID and my keys, and headed downstairs.
This incarnation of Livingston was still a moderately young dog of maybe three or four years. He was usually full of energy, and he greeted me at the door with his usual jumps and twirls. He seemed to know I was there to take him for a run.
"I'll take him through the park, Mrs. Benchley, and get him real tired out."
"You're a dear girl," she said. "I don't know what I'd do without you."
I clipped Livingston's leash in place and we headed out the door.
It was a nice evening for a run. I let Livingston water a few trees before stepping up the pace. We arrived in the park and stepped it up further. He was an easy dog to run with; he'd learn to stay next to me, close enough not to be a tripping threat to people passing us in the other direction but not so close I found myself tripping over him, either.
We ran my normal, four-mile run, returning to the apartment with both of us winded and tired. I let myself into Mrs. Benchley's apartment, releasing Livingston from his leash. The dog panted his way to his water dish in the kitchen, and I stepped in and refilled it for the grateful dog.
"We're back, Mrs. Benchley."
A moment later, she appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. "You are such a dear, Melissa." She told me all the time what a dear I was. "I hope you can help me with something else."
"Of course, Mrs. Benchley. Anything."
"It's my blood pressure medication," she said. "I plum forgot to refill it. I called the pharmacy, but little Denny has already gone home, and they can't deliver it until tomorrow. But if I don't have my pill before bed, I get such horrible palpitations."
I thought perhaps her palpitations were all in her head, but who knew what type of medical problems someone of her age could have? Little Denny was six and a half feet tall and built like a linebacker. Mrs. Benchley was the only one who called him Little Denny. He handled deliveries for her pharmacy.
"No problem, Mrs. Benchley. I could use another run."
"Oh no, dear, you'll have to drive. They close at six tonight. You'll never make it."
I'd had that glass of wine. I glanced at the clock on her stove, then smiled. "No problem, Mrs. Benchley."
"Oh thank you, dear. They're expecting you, but you'll need to hurry."
Tolerance in a post-vampire world for drinking and driving was zero, and I'd had a glass of wine. I stepped out of Mrs. Benchley's apartment and knocked on Peter and Kim's door across the courtyard. Kim answered holding her own glass of wine.
"Hey, Melissa. What's up?"
"Oh. Um. Nothing. Mrs. Benchley needs an errand run, and I was hoping for help." But I nodded to the glass in her hand. "I suppose Peter's had one, too?"
"Sorry," she said.
"No worries. Sorry to bother you."
I tried a few more doors, but I didn't have any more time or I'd get there too late. Vowing to drive very, very carefully, I headed for the underground parking. I took the surface streets, staying at or below the speed limits and coming to a complete stop for every stop sign. I had to cross Beckins road, which was always a lengthy stoplight, and that almost made me late, but I stepped through the doors of Mrs. Benchley's pharmacy at two minutes before six.
"Just in time," said the girl behind the counter.
I almost ran home. I could get my car tomorrow. But it wasn't that far, and I'd only had one glass. I watched traffic and pulled out carefully.
I got to Beckins road again, going the opposite way this time, and stopped for the light. I knew I'd be here for a couple of minutes, and I relaxed, watching the traffic flow past in front of me. It wasn't heavy traffic, not even at the tail end of rush hour, but it was a busy road with few breaks in the traffic.
I never saw the truck that slammed into me. I never saw the truck that slammed into the back of my car so hard it propelled me into the intersection. I did see the frightened expression of the driver of the oncoming car that slammed into the front of mine. I saw the expression of the woman who died.
But I didn't see the truck that, in an instant, ended life for me as I knew it.
Dazed
I sat in the ruin of my destroyed car, dazed. I was in pain, but the airbags had deployed, and I was alive. I couldn't form enough cogent thought to even wonder if I'd been lucky. I couldn't form enough thought to wonder what had happened.
Emergency services arrived: police and an ambulance, then a second ambulance. I sat numbly in my car, staring ahead, dull, as an officer leaned in through the smashed window, trying to talk to me. I vaguely remember someone touching me, asking me if I was hurt, asking me if I was okay.
Someone asked me what happened. "I don't know," I said. "Mrs. Benchley's medicine. She needs her medicine."
They had to use some sort of saw to cut the car apart to extricate me. As soon as they pulled me free, I said, "Mrs. Benchley's medicine. You have to get her the medicine."
They put me on a stretcher, my neck wrapped in a brace, and lashed me down tightly. I looked up into a kind face.
"Please," I said. "Mrs. Benchley's medicine. She needs her medicine. It's in my car."
"We've got the medicine," she said, holding it up. "Is the address correct?"
"First floor of my apartment building," I replied. "I have to take it to her."
"You're going to the hospital," the woman said. "We'll get Mrs. Benchley her blood pressure pills."
"No," I said. "No hospitals. I'm fine."
"I'm sorry," she said.
A minute later, I was in the back of the ambulance, being whisked away.
The next few minutes were a blur. We arrived at the hospital under the flashing lights and a wailing siren. The paramedics pulled my stretcher from the back of the ambulance and were rattling off information even before I stopped moving. I heard some of it. "Automobile accident," and "rear-ended by a delivery truck, pushed into oncoming traffic." I heard my own health discussed clinically, and then I heard the words, "one fatality."
"No," I said. "No."
"Shh," said a voice.
They transferred me to another bed. They cut my clothes from my. I protested weakly, but they ignored my protests. There was fresh pain in my arm, and above me I saw an intravenous drip start.
And then a nurse was there, and I saw she was about to draw blood.
"No," I told her. I tried to take my arm away from her. "Please, no."
"It's required," she said. "Lie still now."
I fought her, and she called another technician over to help her. Together, they held me still while she pricked me with the needle, drawing the blood she needed, the blood she needed for the tests.
The blood that would spell my doom.
The entire time, I kept saying, "No, please, no."
But they took my blood from me anyway.
* * * *
Physically, I got off lucky. I had banged my head, and my face was bruised. Much of my body was bruised. But nothing was broken, and there was no sign of internal damage worse than the bruising. A doctor explained all this to me but said they would be keeping me "for observation".
I was transferred to another bed, wheeled through the hospital, and then transferred yet again.
There was a police officer waiting, and as soon as I was settled in the bed, he wrapped a cold handcuff around my wrist, attaching the other end to a sturdy support on the bed, undoubtedly put there specifically for that purpose. They raised the sides of the beds so I couldn't fall out, and then the officer said, "Melissa Walsh, you are under arrest for operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol."
I'd had one glass of wine. One glass. I had driven carefully. And my life was over.
I began sobbing.
* * * *
Justice was swift.
I remained in the hospital for twenty-four hours. Friday evening, I was released into the custody of a pair of police officers. They collected and cataloged my personal effects, what few things I had with me. They searched me, although there was little to find underneath the hospital gown, and they gave me a dull orange jumpsuit to change into. The female officer watched me carefully as I changed into the clothing, the male turning his back. Then she turned me around and cuffed my hands behind my back.
I suffered through it all dully, barely responsive. I did what I was told and answered only the questions I was required to answer. The officers took me by the arms and led me through the hospital to their waiting squad car. They pushed me into the back seat then drove me to the county lockup.
There, I was processed. They sat me in a chair and confirmed my identity, both verbally and by taking a DNA sample. They didn't ask any other questions. I was very carefully searched a second time and my shoes taken from me, replaced by a pair of soft slippers.
They told me I could make a phone call.
"I need a lawyer," I said. "It's Friday night. Who is going to answer?"
Still, they handed me a phone, and I scrolled through the directory. "May I please make two calls?" I asked.
The officer was kind. From the way I was being treated, she knew the facts. "Yes," she said. "Please do not abuse them."
I called my lawyer. I didn't have a criminal lawyer, but I occasionally needed an intellectual property lawyer. Of course, he didn't answer. I left a message telling him only in the briefest of terms what had happened and begging for his help.
Then I called Tegan. She answered. I began crying immediately.
"Melissa?"
"Tegan, I've been arrested. There was an accident. I'm in real trouble."
"Oh no! Are you all right?"
"I guess. Look. Um. It's bad. If. Um. If. Um. Mrs. Benchley has a key to my apartment."
"Oh Melissa," she said. "I'll take care of everything. Don't you worry. Where are you now."
"Police," I said. Then I was started crying too hard to say anything else.
The police officer was kind. She took the phone from me and talked to Tegan for a while, offering a few more details. Then she hung up and offered me tissues.
"Your friend will take care of everything. I'm sorry this is happening to you. The accident wasn't your fault, but we don't have a choice."
I nodded, and then she led me to my cell.
* * * *
The lawyer arrived Saturday afternoon. I didn't recognize him. The police led me to an interview room, and a few minutes later he walked in. He gave me his card and said, "I'm Hugo McGuire. I work with Andre Gleason." Andre was my intellectual property lawyer. "Andre wanted to be here, but he is out of town."
He had a copy of my case file and he looked through it. Then he told me to tell him what happened.
I explained everything, starting with the moment I got home. He went over it all with me, then he looked at me with pity.
"You have no case," he said.
"I know."
"They have your blood sample. You were taken from your car and were in the presence of emergency personnel the entire time until the sample was taken."
"I know."
"A woman died. You are not being charged with her death. You are not deemed responsible for th
e accident. You were properly stopped at a red light and were struck firmly from behind by a large delivery van."
I hadn't known that.
"However, you were operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol, and that is a crime."
"I know."
"Your only hope is to throw yourself on the mercy of the court. I know that is a cliché. You are a productive member of society, you have absolutely no history, and you made your best effort to avoid breaking the law while also seeing to the needs of your elderly neighbor. Frankly, I don't believe it's going to save you, but it's all I have. I'm sorry."
The vampires didn't believe in legal tricks, not like you could read about in the old books. Justice was swift, and justice was sure. If you broke the law, and there was solid evidence to prove it, justice was swift indeed.
"Will you be there?"
"The hearing is Monday," he said. "I'll be there. After the hearing, I'm sorry."
I nodded. I told him about Tegan and my apartment. "Can you see to it?"
He gave me papers to sign granting Tegan power of attorney to handle everything for me subject to Andre's approval as well.
"How about a will?" he asked.
"My-" I bit back a sob. "My mother is still alive. Everything should go to her. There's a lot of art, and it's worth something."
"I'll have papers for you on Monday then."
* * * *
For the next two days, I cried a lot, sitting in my cold cell wearing the orange jumper, my knees drawn to my chest and my arms wrapped around them.
It All Changes
They came for me late in the morning on Monday. They led me to the showers, where they took everything from me. I showered and dried, and then I was subjected to another invasive search, but it was delivered with a certain amount of kindness. They gave me a fresh orange jumpsuit. I wore nothing below it. On my feet was a fresh pair of the paper slippers. They cuffed my hands in front of me attached to a chain about my waist. More cuffs were wrapped around my legs, and all I could do was shuffle along the hallway after that.
The courthouse was in an adjacent building. We traveled between the two buildings via an underground tunnel, moving as quickly as a prisoner could shuffle. There were two police officers, one on each arm. They were firm but not cruel. They took me to a waiting room in the courthouse building and set me in another holding cell, closing the door behind me. I sat down on the cold metal bench and glanced up at the camera watching me.
Blood Slave Page 2