The Memory Thief

by Don Donaldson

  “One of my colleagues at the hospital didn’t believe me when I told her the patient who escaped showed up in my bedroom. I called you to prove it. She was listening in when we spoke.”

  Clay’s face took on a troubled look. “Isn’t that illegal . . . violation of a wire tap law or something?”

  Marti sensed her face flush. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d mind . . . you didn’t say anything sensitive about yourself . . .”

  Clay grinned. “Just kidding. Why would I care about that?”

  The last few days at the hospital had been so intense, Marti had felt at times as though she was drowning in a vast and violent sea with no help in sight. So it wasn’t surprising she seized on Clay’s smile as a life preserver.

  Shifting to a teasing expression, she said, “So you’re a prankster in addition to your other qualities.”

  “I have qualities?”

  “‘Quality,’” Marti recited, “‘any trait or characteristic by which a thing may be identified.’ While in some usage it implies excellence, that’s not always the case.”

  “Perhaps I’d better not explore the point any further.”

  “A perceptive decision,” Marti said, playing along.

  “Interesting you should mention the fire . . . that’s actually why I’m here. I feel bad for running off when we were down at the creek.”

  “You didn’t really have any choice.”

  “Still, I’d like to make it up to you. How about I take you to lunch tomorrow and show you where my brother, Burke, and I practice our roping skills. If you’d like, we could even arrange for a little demonstration. If you’re interested, that is.”

  Marti should have realized her flirtation with Clay might lead to something like this. But she hadn’t. She’d just enjoyed the moment. Now, her first reaction was to make up some reason to beg off. But then she thought about the long weekend she was facing. With nothing to do, she’d spend the entire time worrying about how things were going to go on Monday. So why not do something to take her mind off that? And a steer-roping demonstration sounded like just the thing.

  “You’re on. What time?”

  “I’ll pick you up at noon.”

  As Marti watched Clay’s truck head down the drive toward his own house a few seconds later, Marti’s inner voice issued a stem warning. Do not become involved with this man.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she responded. “He’s only a diversion to help the time pass, nothing more.”

  And with this assurance, the voice was stilled.

  LUNCH AND an afternoon of steer roping . . . even though she wouldn’t be the one doing the roping, it sounded to Marti like she ought to wear something she wouldn’t mind getting dusty. So when Clay picked her up on Saturday, she was wearing a pair of boot-cut khaki stretch twills over a pair of brown boots and a beige short-sleeved drifter, an outfit much better than she should have been able to come up with, considering she’d left most of her clothes in storage in LA. Since Clay was accustomed to seeing her in glasses, she made sure she was wearing them as well.

  Adding to his growing mythology with Marti as a man with few peers, Clay said just the right thing when he first saw her.

  “I don’t know if we can do any roping today. The horses see how good you look, they aren’t gonna pay any attention to me or Burke.”

  “Yes, I have quite a following among horses. They just seem to sense that I’m oh so country.”

  They ate lunch at The Happy Pig, a barbecue place that seemed willing to barbecue anything. They even had barbecued baloney on the menu, although Clay said he couldn’t recommend it.

  “I like their retro fifties look,” Marti said, as they showed themselves to a chrome dinette table and chairs.

  “It’s not retro,” Clay replied. “It’s the same furniture that’s been here since they opened.”

  Marti shrugged. “Why mess with something that’s working.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But the name . . . The Happy Pig—”

  “Yeah. The customers are happy, but I’m pretty sure the pigs have been working on a list of grievances.”

  Clay’s comment about the pigs personified them in Marti’s mind, so when it came time to order, she got the barbecued chicken. When the waitress brought their iced tea, it came in plastic glasses so big Marti could barely get her hand around hers, so she had to hold it with both hands like a little kid.

  “I guess I didn’t make it clear to her that I wanted a large tea,” she quipped.

  “The next size comes in a twenty-gallon keg,” Clay replied. “Be glad to get you one.”

  Clay was sitting facing the door with Marti opposite him. Had their positions been reversed, she would have seen Oren Quinn come in. As it was, Quinn crossed the room and slid into one of the high-backed booths along the left wall without seeing her either.

  When it came, Marti’s food was wonderful, but so spicy she knew why the drinks were huge. Even so, unsure of when she’d next have access to a bathroom, she rationed her tea.

  On their way out, when Marti and Clay stopped at the counter by the door to pay the bill, Quinn spotted her for the first time. Just before they left, he managed to get his server’s attention. “The couple by the register,” he said in a confidential tone. “Do you recognize the man?”

  She looked in that direction. “Sure, it’s Clay Hulett. He’s the caretaker of Blue Sky Farm, that big piece of land next to the nut house. He lives there, just off the highway. Beyond his place there’s a cute little cottage they rent out. I heard it’s been leased to a new psychiatrist over at the hospital. You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s who’s with him. I’ve never seen her around, so that could be who it is.”

  That Clay lived close to the newest member of the Gibson staff was information currently of no use to Quinn. But great minds do not gather data only when the need is obvious. They collect and store facts constantly so they may respond more rapidly than the unprepared to changing conditions. It’s not the meek who shall inherit the earth, but the flexible and quick. And there was still something about Marti Segerson that just didn’t add up.

  “He do anything other than manage the farm?” Quinn asked.

  “Teaches history at the college, and he’s a volunteer fireman.”

  “Interesting.”

  As Quinn turned his attention back to his food, he decided that some night soon, late enough that he wasn’t likely to run into anyone, he’d drive over to Blue Sky Farm and check things out.

  THE VENUE where Clay practiced his roping skills was on the far side of Blue Sky Farm, where he and his brother had a twenty-acre compound devoted to the sport. As they drove up to the large, well-maintained barn, Clay’s brother, Burke, was waiting for them. Shorter than Clay and stockier, Burke looked as sturdy as a concrete fence post.

  As they pulled to a stop, Burke headed for Marti’s side of the truck, so when she got out, he was right there to meet her.

  “Burke Hulett,” he said, thrusting out his hand. “You must be Marti.”

  Taking his rough hand, Marti admitted she was.

  Turning to Clay, who was coming around the truck to join them, Burke said, “Little brother, I thought you were exaggerating when you described her, but you weren’t.”

  Marti looked at Clay and said, “Have I been the subject of rodeo gossip?”

  That actually made Clay blush.

  “Don’t be upset with us, Marti,” Burke said. “When God is good to someone, like he was you, it ought to be commented upon.”

  Generally, Marti’s scarred psyche would have caused her to silently challenge a statement like that, but remarkably, today, it never crossed her mind.

  “There’s no shade out by the corral,” Clay said, producing a wide-brimmed straw hat he’d apparently broug
ht along. “So you’ll probably want to wear this.”

  “You bought this for me?” Marti asked, taking it from him.

  “Nah, it belongs to one of the horses. I just borrowed it.

  Marti looked the hat over. “So where are the ear holes?”

  Burke grinned and said, “See, that’s what happens when you keep company with an educated woman.”

  “Don’t assume from my comment about the hat that I know anything about what you guys do.”

  “Let’s head out to the corral and we’ll show you,” Burke said. “Best way is through the barn.”

  They all went into the barn, which had many horse stalls and was as clean as Clay’s house. Halfway down, they exited by another big door into a fenced area well trampled by hoofed animals. Straight ahead and through a gate, Marti saw a dozen steers standing head to tail in a narrow chute that led to a big corral. In the corral, two saddled horses stood waiting.

  When they reached the horses, Marti found a nice clean folding metal chair waiting for her inside the fence.

  “Usually Burke is the header,” Clay said. “It’s his job to rope the steer around the horns. I’m the heeler. I’m supposed to keep the steer running straight. Once Burke gets his rope on the horns, I put a loop on the hind legs. We pull our ropes tight, the steer is immobilized, and the event is over.” He looked at Burke, who was already mounted. “You ready?”

  “That’s why I’m up here.”

  Clay gracefully swung up into the saddle of the other horse and maneuvered the animal around to the far side of a chute that held one steer apart from the others. Clay pulled a rope, and the door of the chute clanged open. Apparently eager to be free of its confinement, the steer bolted from the chute. With a surge of rippling muscle, its hooves throwing up dirt, Burke’s horse shot forward, after the steer. At the same instant, Clay’s horse bolted into the fray.

  In seconds, Burke threw a perfect loop from his rope over the steer’s horns. Marti had imagined that Clay would have to dismount to do his part, but he made a magician’s throw from the saddle and somehow got his loop around the animal’s hind legs; it was all over so fast it didn’t seem possible.

  The two men dismounted and freed the steer. Both then climbed back on their horses. While Burke herded the animal out a gate into an adjacent pasture, Clay rode back to where Marti waited.

  “How did you ever get that rope on his hind legs?” she said.

  “I ought to quit right now, so you’d think it always goes that well. And I would, but I promised Burke we’d do all ten steers. Do you mind?”

  “Not at all. You keep these steers just for practice?”

  “No other way to do it.”

  “Doesn’t that make it easier than when you do it in competition? I mean you get to know these animals and how they behave.”

  Clay shook his head. “Makes it harder. They get to know us, too, and they learn when to duck. Kind of makes you wonder which of us is smarter.”

  Clay and Burke performed just as flawlessly with the rest of the animals, but they let one bolt from the chute without pursuing it. When they were finished, that was the first thing Marti asked Clay about when he led his horse over to where she was waiting.

  “When we do these practice trials, we’re training the horse as well as ourselves. In competition, there’s a laser that shines across the path of the steer a few feet from the chute, and another that shines across the ropers’ paths. If we cross our line before the steer crosses his, we’re disqualified. So we can’t have the horse deciding when to go. By letting an occasional steer loose without chasing it, we teach the horse to wait for our signal.”

  “Is it okay to pet him?”

  “Sure.”

  Marti reached up and stroked the neck of Clay’s horse, which looked down at her with its big brown eyes. “I’ve never been this close to a horse before.”

  “Would you like to ride one?”

  “Could I?”

  “It’ll take a few minutes to get one saddled.” He looked at Burke, who was closing the gate after herding the last steer into the holding pasture, and shouted, “Marti wants to ride.”

  “Let’s give her Sammy,” Burke called back. “I’ll get him ready.”

  Ten minutes later, Clay and Marti were riding side by side on a trail that led through a woods that made the rest of the world seem very far away.

  “You can’t really appreciate how powerful an animal a horse is until you’re on one,” Marti said.

  “When you consider how much they can carry on their back, and that they even sleep standing up, they’re pretty incredible.”

  “Do you and Burke usually win when you compete?”

  “I just had a good day. Burke’s always nearly perfect. I’m off and on. He wants to do it professionally . . . to make his living at it. I’m not as serious about it. He has another partner he competes with a lot of the time. Those two eat and sleep roping. That’s all life is to them. I don’t think either one of them has had a date in the last six months.”

  Before Marti could censure herself, she said, “Have you?”

  Clay blushed. “Now that you mention it . . . except for today, no.”

  Until that moment, Marti hadn’t considered calling what they were doing a date. Of course it wasn’t. It was just . . . two people passing some time together. That’s all.

  The thought that Clay had the wrong idea about it almost made her want to suggest they turn around and go back to the barn. But this was so preferable to being alone with her thoughts, she said nothing.

  Chapter 15

  IT WOULDN’T be accurate to say that over the weekend Marti didn’t think at all about the effect Nadine’s suicide might have on Quinn’s decision to attend that EEG meeting. The worry just didn’t hit full force until she was waiting for Douglas Packard in the Memphis airport concourse. It was true that Quinn hadn’t seemed overly upset by Nadine’s death when they’d spoken on the hospital steps right after it happened, but he could have been more upset than he let on. And maybe he’d somehow found out she and Nadine had spoken shortly before Nadine jumped, or that she’d gone to Edwards Brothers and posed as Nadine’s sister. Any of those things might have caused him to cancel his trip.

  Stop it, rational Marti ordered. You’re just jumpy because the day you’ve waited for so long is finally here.

  No further thought on the matter was possible, because Douglas Packard came into the airport lobby looking even heavier and less fit than when Marti had last seen him, so that the collar of his white shirt seemed to have a death grip on his throat. When he spotted her, he barely showed any sign of recognition, about what you might expect from a man who’d lived the life he had.

  She moved toward him and met him halfway. “How was your flight?”

  “We all walked away from it, so I’d rate it a big success.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “I’m always hungry. That’s why I have to buy my suits at a tent store. But I already had breakfast, so I don’t need another one.”

  “You’ve got the pictures?”

  “Doctor, I didn’t come all this way just to leave the photos at home. Where’s Glaser?”

  “Don’t know. But his plane got in nearly two hours ago.”

  “You didn’t see him arrive?”

  “He said he was meeting a friend for breakfast. He’ll join us at the motel.”

  “He better.”

  Marti took Packard to her car, and he hoisted his small bag into the trunk. When they were settled in their seats, and he pulled his seatbelt across his suit coat, she could clearly see the outline of a gun in a shoulder holster. Even though it was a tool of his trade, she was surprised they’d let him on the plane with it.

  Neither of them spoke again until they were on the expressway heading east
.

  “How far is it?” Packard asked.

  “About seventy miles.”

  “Never been in Tennessee before. We gonna see any cotton fields?”

  “Can’t say. I have no idea what it looks like when it’s young.”

  “How’s our boy?”

  “Odessa?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Far too healthy for me.”

  “Hopefully we can do something about that.”

  They reached the Best Western in Linville a little before eleven o’clock and got Packard’s room key. Marti then asked the desk clerk, “Did Mr. Glaser arrive yet?”

  “About ten minutes ago. I believe he’s in his room. It’s three eighteen, right next to Mr. Packard, as you requested.”

  They went first to Packard’s room, where he dumped his bag on the bed and got a nine-by-twelve manila envelope from one of the outer compartments.

  “Are those the photos?” Marti asked, growing queasy at the thought.

  “Yeah. You gonna watch when we do it?”

  “Are they bad?”

  “Some of them.”

  “I’ll try, but I don’t know . . .”

  They left Packard’s room, went a few steps down the hall, and knocked on Glaser’s door. It was opened by a lean guy with a long face that gave him the look of a greyhound.

  “Dr. Segerson . . . Douglas . . . good to see both of you. Come in.”

  He stepped back, and they could see he was already at work with a laptop and scanner set up on the writing desk.

  “How are we doing on time?” Marti asked.

  “You wanted to begin testing at two?”

  “Yes.”

  “Shouldn’t be any problem . . . if Douglas has the—”

  Packard showed him the manila envelope.

  “That’s all I need,” Glaser said, reaching for the photos.

  “How long will it take to set up this afternoon?” Marti asked.