Ashes and Bones

by Dana Cameron

  “Here’s the plan,” the uniformed officer said. “We’re going to take the camera and the extension cord. We’ll send someone over for prints later. But we’re going to have a look at whatever the camera’s been seeing, too.”

  “You remember, there’s been nothing transmitted from the camera through the network since we encrypted the wireless network,” Joel said to me. “About two weeks now.”

  The uniform put on some gloves, messed with some cables, and then plugged in a notebook computer to the camera. He typed a bit, and then an image came up. Surreally, I now could see two versions of the side yard of the house and the driveway. I watched fascinated as a car went down the street. Another one followed, and I shivered as I watched Brian’s truck pull into the driveway. Whoever had set this up could see our comings and goings easily. They could also see into the kitchen, back bedroom, and into the dining room.

  I thanked heaven that I was still scrupulous about pulling the blinds, even though there were no neighbors to pry. Sometimes being uptight is its own reward.

  After a moment, I said, “Can we, I don’t know…trace this back to whoever was looking at it? Can we find out where he is?”

  The uniformed cop and Joel both shook their heads. “No, it’s set to an address on the web. There’s no access log, so you can’t get at the address that way.”

  Brian joined us as the police were taking everything down and bagging it. He looked so alarmed that Bader stepped in immediately.

  “This is very good,” the detective said. “A tremendous break. We might be able to learn something from the equipment here, and we might get lucky and get some prints when our guys come by. In any case, you’ve really done some serious damage to this jerk. Good work, Emma.”

  After they left, Brian and I ordered takeout, and I tried to foster a celebratory feeling. The best I could do was that scrubbed and virtuous feeling you get from cleaning or paying taxes. Not fun, in and of itself, but satisfying. Something accomplished. The more I thought about it, the more I was uneasy and reassured at the same time: We’d removed a dangerous snake from the house.

  I even had the good grace to tell Brian that he’d been on the right track. He was gracious enough not to say “I told you so.”

  Maybe Tony’s getting desperate, getting sloppy, I thought, as I threw out the sushi containers. Maybe this means he’ll show his hand sooner rather than later.

  The next day, Saturday, I had an evening class with Nolan for the first time in several weeks. He’d gone on vacation just after we had. Going to a regular class after so long was good, felt normal, and I embraced it wholeheartedly.

  As I walked through the parking lot, I realized that I simply hate early fall. The acorns are starting to fall and make a racket and a mess, the weather is hot and humid, then cool, and you’re always dressed wrong. At least with spring, it’s like something’s struggling to become; with the end of summer, it’s like something’s in its death throes and can’t just get down to it. I hate indecisiveness in people; in seasons it’s worse. The ominousness, the portentiousness of it all—birds behaving differently, the leaves getting brittle but not yet turning color—might as well be three-headed cows and babies born speaking Latin backward, as far as I’m concerned. I’m itchy for something concrete to happen, even while I’m sweating and trying to get my lesson plans in order.

  The crickets were rasping like a fingernail against a comb, and there were patches of burnt-out color on the trees. I realized that I felt twitchy, like I was at the starting gate, conditioned by years of getting ready for the first day of school. It never goes away, that anticipation….

  Brian told me that feeling comes from the light changing and the days getting shorter, and I should take a nap or something. I was living on naps, these days, now that I was always waking up so damned early, and trust him to find the chemical reason for my anticipation of the school year. He also said that I might be projecting. I could believe that.

  Just fifty minutes later, nothing was farther from my mind. Somehow, Johanna’d done it again. I was pinned to the mat, and Johanna was sitting on top of me, and she’d managed to hold me down—somehow—simply by keeping my own left arm across my neck and tucking the wrist behind my head. I couldn’t get out. I tried bucking, but I was laughing too hard: Johanna had gotten me into this hold before and now she was laughing too, giving me a noogie, just to show off how much better at grappling she was than I.

  “If you two ladies are done playing and chatting here, perhaps we could save the rest of the coffee klatch for later and move on with the rest of the class?” Nolan was standing over us both, almost frowning, which meant trouble.

  “This isn’t a coffee klatch!” I said, breathing hard. “Get off me, you cow!”

  Johanna gave me another set of noogies, just for good measure, and jumped up lightly. “Me, cow? You’re the one who always gets trussed up, Bessie.”

  I got up, and pretended to stumble, then threw a round kick at her. Johanna scooted back, only just in time. Under Nolan’s impassive—and somehow, at the same time, disapproving—gaze, we got back to our knees, touched hands, then started another bout of grappling.

  This time, instead of my usual few moments of feinting and sizing her up, I immediately faked a shot high to her shoulder, then tackled her at the waist. She went back, with me on top of her, and I got into the mount, sitting on her chest. We were both too tired to do much of anything—it was the very end of the class—but I did know that Johanna had a weakness for the very dangerous backdoor escape. I pretended to fumble, giving her the indication that I was going to try for side control, and gave her the hint of an opening that I knew she was looking for. She rolled over and tried to scuttle out backward between my legs, but this time I was ready for her. Instead of following through with the side mount, I waited until she was just about to move, and I got my hooks in. Now she was trapped on her stomach with me on her back, and my feet hooked under her legs. It was about the worst position you could be in. Even worse than being pinned down with your own arm and given noogies.

  “Moo for me, Jo,” I said.

  She couldn’t moo; she was laughing too hard, which bounced me around, but only pressed her into the mat harder.

  “Time! Line it up!” Nolan shouted to the class, studiously ignoring us.

  We hustled off the floor, into the lineup with the other four students, and bowed out for the day. While the others packed up their pads and gear, I caught Nolan heading back to his office. “Got a minute?”

  “Just one. Shoot.”

  “That hold that Jo always gets me in? How the hell do you get out of it?”

  Nolan frowned again. “You can’t really; you have to act on it as soon as you feel her intent. Anticipate it, and don’t get into it in the first place. Don’t give her the opening.”

  “Easier said than done,” I muttered.

  “That’s why I’m here, Red. To beat your bad habits out of you. You’ve already got the instinct. You’re starting to set Johanna up, exploiting her bad habits; you got her good because you just wanted to beat her badly enough. You didn’t stop to think. And don’t I keep telling you? Fighting is like sex or chess: once you get in the groove, you’re better off not over-thinking it. But not too shoddy, tonight, Red. Not too shoddy.”

  I was almost wiggling, I was so pleased with his praise. “Thanks, Nolan.”

  He grinned a wolf ’s grin. “All you have to do now is improve yourself.”

  “Oh, great. Very helpful, thanks. See you Thursday.”

  “Thursday it is, Red.”

  I ignored his use of my hated nickname—Nolan not only could isolate your physical weaknesses, he could also pinpoint your emotional Achilles heel as well—and went out onto the floor to collect my towel, water, and gear. I met Jo on the way out.

  Just then a gaggle of students from the aerobics class burst into the hall by the door to the gym.

  “Man, is Sheila tough or what? I thought she was going to set her Ly
cra on fire!”

  “She’s been pushing us really hard lately,” another agreed. “I’ll be feeling this tomorrow.”

  Jo and I exchanged a glance, smiled to ourselves. Yes, the aerobic class looked like they’d had a good workout, but if they’d been training with Nolan, they’d be puddles of paté by now.

  “Catch you Thursday?” we said at the same time, and then nodded in unison.

  I stopped for a drink of water before I hit the parking lot. The evening air was warm heavy with humidity, yet still fresher than the sweaty, air-conditioned gym. The light was starting to fade finally from the sky, and the damned crickets were at it already. Still. I hate crickets; they always seem to be telling me how late it is.

  I’d almost reached my car, parked beneath one of the lampposts, when I heard someone call my name. I turned; it was Nolan.

  I furrowed my brow. Seeing Nolan outside the gym seemed wrong, somehow, like seeing Superman at the mall picking out tights.

  “Dr. Fielding! There’s a call, they said it was urgent”—he trotted over to me—“I’m glad I caught you. He said it was Brian, that he—” Then he suddenly stopped, frowned. “Why did they call me? Why not your cell phone?”

  “I don’t know—what about Brian?” I asked.

  That’s when the first shot rang out.

  Chapter 13

  NOLAN SHOVED ME HARD, BACKWARD.

  Time slowed down. The light from the lamp dimmed, narrowed. It seemed that I could count the instants it took me to fall. I tried to fling my arms out to break my fall, but the pavement came rushing up all too fast.

  Another shot followed the first.

  “Get down!” Nolan shouted as he threw himself on top of me.

  I couldn’t believe how hot it was outside. The sweat was pouring down me in rivers, it felt like, and my head and back hurt like hell, but was fading to numbness.

  All I could hear were the damned crickets. A door slamming somewhere in the distance. The squeal of tires.

  Maybe it was another trick of time, but Nolan was taking a long time to get off me.

  “The car…we should try to get cover,” I could hear myself saying from a very long way off.

  Nolan didn’t say anything I could understand. The sweat continued to pour off me in torrents. I thought I saw his eyes flutter, but it was so dark. Had I imagined it? Could he see me?

  “Someone’s out there, we should…” I shook him. He didn’t move. A dead weight.

  “Shit! Nolan…Nolan!” I thought I heard a low groan, but it might have been me. I shoved harder, now squirming to get out from underneath him. “Nolan, Nolan, come on, man! You gotta wake up…”

  He stirred, this time.

  “What was that, Nolan?”

  “…nothing at the post office…”

  “I don’t understand! What?”

  “…hurts like the devil…”

  Someone screamed. Nearby. It wasn’t Nolan. I didn’t think it was me—

  “Holy Mother of God!” It was a woman, one from the aerobics class. Her mouth was hanging open. She dropped her gym bag. “What…what?”

  The look of horror on her face woke me up, somehow. “You need…get back inside! Someone’s shooting out here! Call the cops, call an ambulance!”

  She stood there, shaking her head, staring at us, at all the blood.

  Nolan groaned, a horrible noise that sounded nothing like him.

  “Go now!” I screamed. “Call an ambulance! Move!”

  She backed up a few steps, then finally turned and ran. Her hysterical cries stopped at the door to the gym, where I heard other voices rise in concern and fear.

  Good; that would keep the rest of them inside.

  “Okay, Nolan, I don’t know whose blood this is, but I’m moving and you’re not doing so hot, so we’re going to guess that it’s you, okay?” I felt his body move off my legs, with a sick, lifeless sort of roll. My stomach heaved. I tore open my bag, grabbed one of my shin pads, and stuffed it under his head. I looked at him, there was blood everywhere. Most of it seemed to be on his right arm and chest. Damn it, near way too many arteries.

  “Nolan? Nolan? If you can answer me, I wish you would. Can you talk to me? I can’t see too good, but I’m going to try to slow down some of this bleeding, if I can!”

  He muttered something, but I couldn’t make it out. I had to act.

  Oh God, where do I start? Upper body first, more organs there. Blood soaked his sweatshirt, torso, and sleeves, blood was spattered on his face. My fingers kept slipping; I was coated, too. I pulled out my workout towel and pressed it where I saw the most blood on his chest. The white terrycloth blossomed, instantly turning reddish black in the odd orange light of the streetlamps. I took off my T-shirt, and pressed that down on top of the towel. It too was soaked through in a heartbeat. I kept pressure on it while I tried to think. My sweatshirt was in my bag, buried down the bottom, saved from early spring. I grabbed that, used that next. Nothing seemed to stem the flow of blood.

  “Nolan, I don’t know what else to do, I don’t have anything that will help…”

  He wasn’t even moaning anymore.

  The aspirin, antacids, and bandaids I kept in the car were laughably useless. “I’ll try to call someone, I think that woman was too scared, maybe she didn’t—”

  But I heard sirens in the distance, and for once, prayed they were for me. They grew louder, until I could see the strobe of red and blue lights on the road that ran alongside the gym parking lot.

  “Okay, help’s here, Nolan, so you only have to hang in there a little longer. They’ll take care of you, I promise, I’ll make them. Just hang in there, just keep…breathing, keep breathing, okay?”

  I know that I kept babbling, telling him about the progress of the emergency vehicles, anything I could think of that might give him something to hang on to, something besides the pain, the fear he must be feeling.

  It also kept me from facing the fact that I hadn’t seen Nolan’s chest rise since the first sound of the sirens. In the near dark, I couldn’t for the life of me remember anything of long-ago CPR classes. Should I try using heart compressions, or would that only exacerbate his wounds? Break his ribs? Damn it, I’m not helpless, I’m better than this!

  Without letting up the pressure on his chest, I tried to feel for a heartbeat, then tried for a pulse, but couldn’t feel anything with my numbed and trembling fingers. If I tried mouth-to-mouth, would that cause more problems than it solved?

  At that point, I became aware that there were men, police, EMTs, pressing around me, asking me questions.

  “What happened? Are you hurt? How long ago was he shot? Did you see who did it?”

  I seemed to be losing track of reality. I couldn’t untangle the questions that seemed to come from every side at once. It took too great an effort of will to pick one and address it, so I settled for summarizing what I knew and saying it as clearly as possible. That helped me focus a little, trying to get my story out.

  “I don’t think I’m hurt,” I said. Things were happening too fast, so I held on to the questions as a lifeline. “I mean, I don’t think I was shot, but there’s an awful lot of blood, and my neck hurts a little. And my head. Where I hit it. I don’t know if it’s mine. The blood, I mean. I don’t think so.”

  I did as I was asked, I could handle that. Told the EMT I knew my name, the date, when he asked. They asked me questions about Nolan, and whether he had any medical issues I was aware of. I was ashamed to realize that I didn’t even know if Nolan was his first or last name. I noticed that the medic attending me had a large mole on his cheek, and that it lent him a kind of raffish charm, like he was wearing one of those seventeenth-century patches. Firm and incredibly gentle hands probed at the back of my head. I winced, but it didn’t feel to me like anything more than the effects of skull landing on asphalt. Not great, but not as bad as could be. Not as bad as—

  “Where is he going?” I asked. The ambulance with Nolan was pulling away. I tried t
o get up. “I should go with him.”

  The same hands that probed my skull held my shoulders down. “You’ll be there, soon enough. He’s in good hands. You have to help us, here, now.”

  Well, shit. Even dazed as I was, I could tell when I was being managed. But he wasn’t wrong.

  I went in the other ambulance. I remember bright lights, lots of questions, and feeling like the ambulance was going almost as fast as my thoughts were.

  “Do you have any idea of what could have happened?” he asked again; maybe he was trying to keep me from passing out. I didn’t feel faint, but I did feel a thousand miles away, glad someone else was driving. I had to work to focus on a face; the darkness was real now, and the light in the interior of the ambulance made it even eerier.

  Then we were at the hospital: more people asking me if I knew my name, my mother’s maiden name, then questions about my medical history. Then forms and more forms. I asked everyone who came to talk or clean me up or poke me or check my eyes or hand me another piece of paper to fill out whether Nolan was all right and got vague answers that were increasingly alarming as time went on: At last, one of the nurses told me it was very serious, he was in surgery, and did I know his next of kin…I cursed that I didn’t know, told her to try at the gym. Brian wasn’t home, wouldn’t answer his phone on the road.

  More sitting in the waiting room. And then a cop was talking to me. I vaguely recognized him as the guy who’d taken my statement after I’d nearly been run off the road: Franco. Even as I struggled to tell the story again, I began to feel the impact of it all and had to shove aside the denial that persisted.

  My eyes flicked over to a movement outside the window. I’d been staring, trying to pull myself together when I saw the face again. “Oh my God, it’s Tony!” I said. There was that same evil grin I’d seen at the airport. He vanished, as soon as he’d appeared. “The one I told you about—you have to…I have to go get him! He’s right there!” I tried to get up, but Sergeant Franco held me down.