by John Moralee
I jumped over the side, grimacing as I landed hard. The leg wound reopened. No time to feel it, though. Boone was now sitting up, holding his head. “Don’t wait for me. I’m okay. Take my gun, but please don’t shoot her if you don’t have to.” Swearing, I made it to the cliff, looking for the way up. I could barely see where it was, but I climbed regardless. I slipped and fell a dozen times, but somehow I staggered to the top just in time to hear an unholy scream.
I couldn’t tell who made it, but it came from the dark house.
Half-limping, half-staggering, I got to the gate. The damned thing was locked, so I hitched myself over it and fell into the garden.
Another scream filled the night.
I got to the kitchen door and stumbled over a dead body.
I could see white hair. Joely.
Joely was dead.
“Mom?” she groaned.
“You’re alive,” I said, relieved.
Joely was alive, but in a bad way. The back of her head was wet with blood. She swooned as she opened her eyes.
“Michael? They … inside. Stop her. Stop her.”
There was another scream.
I didn’t like leaving Joely there, but I couldn’t stop while someone was screaming. I stepped over her and into the kitchen. The table and chairs had been smashed into one wall. The refrigerator was toppled, but it leaked light onto the floor. Cans and broken bottles were scattered all of the way to the far door.
Another scream, this one escalating in pitch, came from upstairs.
I rushed into the study, tripping on several books. Every shelf had been pulled down. Poking out of a mound of books, I saw Betsy’s face. Betsy struggled to get up, but she slipped and lay there. Blood ran from her scalp. Her eyes were open, but she was dazed.
“She hit me from behind,” she murmured. “She’s gone upstairs with the shotgun to kill Sarah.”
I ran up the stairs, not caring how loud I sounded, for the screams masked any noise.
The bedroom.
I had Boone’s gun in my hand.
The door to Sarah’s bedroom was closed. The screaming was louder than ever. But it got louder when I opened the door. Moonlight streamed into the room through the open window. Two figures were in the room, facing each other.
Sarah was standing by the windows, her hands up. She was trying to calm down Abby, who was waving around the shotgun and screaming. Abby stopped screaming when she saw me. Her sobbing and moaning sounded like she was unleashing twenty years of pent up guilt and self-loathing into a single sound.
“She doesn’t love you like I do,” she shrieked, turning towards Sarah. “I have to make her go away. Then we can be together. A family. Always. Tell him it was an accident, Hanna. Tell him I didn’t mean it.”
“I’m not Hanna,” Sarah said.
“LIAR!”
“Abby,” I said, “look at me.”
She shook her head.
I stepped forward. “Abby, look at me.”
She did. Her teeth were bared in a rictus grin, the cords of her neck standing out under the strain. She was shaking, her body in a near state of seizure.
Slowly, I placed my gun on the ground.
“There. I don’t want to hurt you. I want to help.”
“I’m confused,” she moaned. “Things in my head. They hurt.”
“I know. Put the shotgun down. Don’t point it at her.”
“Can’t. Must end the pain.”
“Abby, please.”
Abby looked back at Sarah. The shotgun was aimed at her head.
“Got to get her out of my head,” she said. “Love me! Forgive me!”
She made to pull the trigger.
“No,” I cried out, leaping at her, leaping for the shotgun.
We collided and crashed into the bed. Abby held onto the shotgun and brought it around to face Sarah. Sarah started to duck, but didn’t get far because things happened so fast. Abby’s strength was incredible - she pushed me off onto the floor. She aimed at Sarah’s chest. I grabbed for the barrel, trying to shove it sideways. Pushing. Pushing. Abby wailed. Her finger tightened on the trigger. Then the shotgun went off in the tight space like thunder and lightning.
“SARAH! NO!”
Epilogue
One year later, almost to the day, I stood outside a bright-white building that looked like a colossal wedding cake. It was the Mistral Mental Health Retreat, the premier psychiatric hospital on the island. From the outside – with its lush lawns, tennis courts and shaded gazebos – it could have been a luxury hotel from the beginning of the 20th century, where rich folks spent their vacations. And in many ways it was – its patients had everything taken care of for them, so they were not put under stress. Carefully arranged hedges hid the high perimeter walls. The walls kept the patients from escaping. Also, you could not see the security cameras hidden in the trees and on the roof.
But there was no escaping its purpose.
It was to keep the mentally ill locked up.
As I approached the entrance, I noticed the security men and women on the grounds looked like hotel staff. They looked after sixty patients ranging from borderlines to irredeemable psychopaths.
Abby Boone was inside - and had been since that terrible night.
Just thinking about it now made my chest tighten, my palms break out in cold sweat. Reaching for the shotgun … No, I could not think about that now.
Taking a deep breath, I walked up the marble steps into the hotel-like lobby. Only the locked Plexiglas doors into the patient areas indicated how secure the building actually was.
The receptionist saw me and smiled. She was not someone who feared my sheriff’s uniform, I was glad to see. Seven months ago, I had been elected sheriff in a landslide victory, thanks mostly to my celebrity status and the backing of my friends. It had felt like cheating using my movie star kudos as a vote-winning tool - like Jesse Ventura, Ronald Reagan and Clint Eastwood had before me – but now I had the job, I was determined to give it everything.
“Sheriff, are you on business?” the receptionist said. She looked worried.
“No. You can relax – I’m off duty as of five minutes ago. I’m here to see a patient.”
“The name, sir?”
“Abby Boone.”
“That’s room 307 in the west wing –”
“I know. Thanks.” She let me through into the corridor. The corridor was long and smelled of lilacs and disinfectant. The patients in this area were the least disturbed, requiring little supervision. I could see some watching TV soaps. I walked down the corridor and came to the next door. This door was always guarded from a station inside. VISITORS MUST WEAR THEIR GREEN BADGES AT ALL TIMES. My ID was checked, then I passed through it and another door (the doors forming a four-way junction into the four secure wings). I entered the west wing. The light blue carpet was soft under my feet. It was very quiet. Beyond the big, airy offices where private therapy was handled, I saw room 307 in the sunlight at the end of the corridor.
Tom Boone was standing there. He was expecting me. He looked different in civilian clothes, somehow more human. He’d given up being the sheriff so he could spend more time visiting Abby. After badly handling the Van Morgan matter and Scott’s death, he had felt he had no choice. It was a decision he did not regret. His time as sheriff had run its course. His misguided protection of his wife had allowed Richard Shannow to kill two people with impunity. Luckily for Boone, only he and I knew the full details, so nobody would be jailed for covering up the facts. Boone had suggested I apply for the position – on Mistral Island the job was an elected post, not requiring a college degree or extensive background in law enforcing. The potential candidates for election had been an uninspiring bunch of right-wing extremists and opportunists, so I’d put myself forward for the job, not really expecting the groundswell of support that my name generated. Doug Clark played no small part in promoting me in the pages of the Tribune, turning me into a credible candidate, then the only one worth voti
ng for. Sheriff Michael Quinn was born. Now I carried the gun and upheld the law. It was a funny feeling, as though I was playing the longest role of my acting career. But I liked being the sheriff. I liked feeling a part of the community. I liked making a difference. It was not much harder than playing a cop in a movie. Only I could make a difference for real. We shook hands.
“Congratulations,” he said. “I read about Van Morgan’s appeal getting turned down. That guy will never get out of prison.”
“Thanks. So … how is she?”
“Much better now she’s been seeing a new psychiatrist called Dr Blumfeldt. He says she’s making progress. She’s stopped hurting herself for four months, anyway. And she now accepts that she’s sick and needs to get well. Right now, she’s in the dayroom.”
The dayroom was a large and sunny conservatory. The roof was tinted with glass that made the sky look dark blue. The dayroom looked like a greenhouse with all of the flowers and plants in baskets and pots everywhere. The patients wore normal, comfortable clothes, like jeans and T-shirts. They sat around reading books and newspapers or playing cards or board games like draughts and Monopoly. Nobody looked insane.
Abby was wearing a pretty blue and white dress. She was reading a Harlequin romance, her legs tucked under her. She looked like a little girl absorbed in a good read.
Politically, it had been in nobody’s interest to prosecute a popular teacher for two deaths caused decades earlier when she was a teenager. Even the Devereauxs had wanted the issue to end with the death of Richard Shannow … as long as Abby was treated for her mental illness. And so another solution had been reached: a judge had agreed with the opinions of the psychiatrists who’d analysed Abby that she should be held in a secure psychiatric hospital until such time that she was no longer a threat to herself or to others. That could – and very probably would – be the rest of her life, but at least it wasn’t a prison. She would never be charged with killing my brother and Hanna Devereaux. All things said and done, here was the best place for Abby. She was among friends here. In the Mistral Mental Health Retreat, she could have visitors every day and live as a human being. The money she’d inherited from her father paid for her treatment.
“Honey,” Boone said, “you have a visitor - Michael Quinn.”
She put down her book. She smiled. It was a slightly disturbing smile, like that you see on rich old women after their fifth facelift. It looked forced … but at least she was trying to smile again. “It’s nice of you to see me, Michael.”
“How are you feeling?”
“I am feeling a lot better now, thank you. I can cope with a lot more things. Dr Blumfeldt says I am improving every day.” She held up her arms. They were clear of bruises. “See?”
“I see.” We talked for a time on subjects she wanted to talk about: books, the weather, her therapy. Her mood was considerably better than on my previous visits because her medication had been improved. She no longer clung to me as though I was the only thing in her life. She had Tom, and he was good for her. He would stay with her during the long and painful period of her illness, loving her. One day, perhaps, she would accept what she had done and move on, becoming a different person - someone unburdened by overwhelming guilt and shame.
I told her about what was happening in my life, which interested her immensely. Tomorrow my father was getting married to Grace. I was his best man. He was looking forward to starting his new life with Grace, Amanda and Elizabeth, his new family. Today, I had to make sure Wayne and Vernon had bought everything for the surprise party tonight. The three of us had been working on repairing my father’s boat ever since I wrecked it – we were going to have a party on it tonight, unveiling it as a big surprise. I showed Abby a photograph of it. My dad had no idea we’d finished it. He had been spending so much time with Grace that he didn’t know what we’d been doing in the barn when he wasn’t around. In my pocket, I carried the ring that I would give to my father in the morning during the ceremony. Abby cried when she saw the ring, saying it was so romantic that my father could find love again. The ring would seal his relationship with Grace and start a new life for them as a family.
We did not mention the night in Sarah’s house.
When it came time to leave, she thanked me for coming, giving me a light kiss on the cheek.
“I’m truly sorry for everything,” she said. Tom held her hand.
“I know,” I said. “I know.”
I left Tom and Abby holding hands, looking to the world like a couple very much in love. When I was almost out of the dayroom, I heard Abby say in a whisper, “Who was that, Tom?”
I walked down the corridors back to the reception area in a sudden hurry. I paused to control the mixed emotions. Then I walked outside.
It was a startlingly bright day. The grounds looked so green and vivid. I could smell the ocean, salty and intense. I put on my sunglasses and walked towards the visitor’s parking lot outside the entrance gates.
My MG was parked in the lot. I waved at the beautiful woman sitting on the hood of the car like a supermodel posing for a photo shoot, her sandals resting on the fender. She was dappled with the shadow of a large oak, the bright green leaves of which shook in the breeze. She slid down and waited for me to cross the parking lot, hands on her hips.
“Hey, my favourite cop, you see her?”
I nodded.
“How is she?”
I avoided answering by kissing her. “Let’s go.”
We got into the car. I started the engine, but my foot didn’t press down on the accelerator. Instead, I looked at the hospital and thought of the good times with Abby that were just an illusion. And then I looked at the new woman I loved.
I was so grateful Sarah was alive.
“You forgive her?” she said.
“Yes,” I said, and it was the truth, “but I don’t think she’ll ever forgive herself. She nearly killed you, but I don’t think she meant it. If she’d wanted to kill anyone, she would have killed Joely and Betsy instead of knocking them out. And she wouldn’t have waited for me to get there before firing the shotgun. I think she wanted to be stopped, but didn’t know how. That’s why her aim was so off.”
Sarah wrapped her fingers over mine. Her touch felt like a dip in cool water. She was wearing a red silk scarf to cover the white marks on her neck, where the shotgun blast had struck her a glancing blow as it took out the window. Personally, I did not think the marks looked bad. To me, they were just like areas where her skin had not tanned, but Sarah sometimes covered them up when we went out in public. “It’ll take me some time to forgive her. Her aim was only just off. An inch or two more and … Well, she only missed thanks to you. That was some leap you made. Like a demented frog.”
“Shucks. You’re making me blush. I love being compared with a demented frog.”
“A cute demented frog,” Sarah said. “Come on, we have to leave now.”
She was right. We had things to do and people to see.
But there was something I had to do before starting up the car.
“Just one minute,” I said.
“What?”
“I can’t drive without doing this first.”
I leaned towards Sarah and kissed her. I thought of the future. Our future. The concept sounded good. Our kiss lasted more than a minute, but then it was definitely time to leave.
“You don’t kiss like a frog,” she said, grinning.
Lips tingling, I drove out of the hospital grounds into dazzling afternoon sunlight, taking the slow route back to Cape Mistral. I had a special question to ask Sarah, but it could wait for tomorrow, when the time was perfect, when I would give her an engagement ring engraved with a diamond-encrusted dolphin and ask her the ultimate question.
THE END
John Moralee © 2011 Revised 2014
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