“None taken.” There was a pause, and then I said, “You ever read The Great Terror by Robert Conquest?”
“No.”
“The Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn?”
“No.”
“Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler? 1984 by Orwell? Have you even heard of any of those books, Haleigh?”
Her face was red, and she looked like she was about to step away from the counter, and I shook my head. “Sorry. My turn to apologize. It’s just that … well, for decades, no matter what the Bronson Toleses of the world have to say in their coffee shops and music halls, there was a group of hard, dangerous men who killed millions and spread an ideology devoted to tyranny and murder—and to this day, we’re still dealing with the toxicity of what they stood for.”
“But Russia’s evolved, it’s—”
“They’re still an imperial power threatening to turn off natural gas supplies to the Europeans if they don’t vote the right way in the UN—and when the, quote, evil empire, unquote, was at its height, it spent billions spreading hate and discontent among a number of ethnic groups and terrorist organizations, some of which are still raising merry hell. Including the merry hell that came from their 1979 invasion of Afghanistan.”
I got up and picked up both of our plates. “My apologies again. I was lecturing. Not a good habit for a host, especially when the guest attends the local university. I’d guess you get lectured there enough without having it shoved at you after dinner.”
She smiled, picking up the glassware and silverware. “No problem. I think you’d like my dad. He’s in the air force.” I started washing, and she started drying. “Oh, he’s not a pilot or anything. A senior master sergeant in maintenance.”
“What does he think of his counterculture daughter?”
She placed one dry plate upon another. “He tells me to keep on raising hell. That maybe whatever hell me and the others raise will cause people to change their minds and the way they do business. Because the status quo won’t work.”
I rinsed off the glassware. “What status quo is that?”
She sighed. “The one that keeps him on deployments, year after year, from Iraq to Afghanistan and points in between. One of the reasons why my mom and him broke up.”
“Oh. Sorry to hear that.”
Haleigh focused on drying off the silverware. “It happens, Lewis. It happens.”
* * *
Later the rain was coming down even harder, with the wind whipping off the ocean, splattering rain against the windows and the sliding glass doors. I made a small fire in the fireplace to lighten up the living room and cut some of the dampness, and I opened up the couch, put down some sheets and blankets, and came back from upstairs with a simple blue-and-white-checked cotton nightgown.
“For you, if you’d like,” I said.
“Thanks,” she said, and then she teased me. “You always have women’s clothing stashed away for unexpected visitors?”
“Only for one,” I said.
“Your girlfriend?”
“I suppose so, although saying that makes me feel like I’m back in high school.”
Haleigh said, “I take it you’ve been out of high school for a while.”
“College, too,” I said. “If you must know, I’m ancient.”
“How ancient is that?”
I said, “I only wear baseball caps with the bill facing forward.”
She smiled at what I said, unfolded the nightgown, and laid it out on the couch. “Where is she?”
“In Virginia.”
“Doing what?”
“Working on the presidential campaign of one Senator Jackson Hale.”
Haleigh yawned. “You know, the next time you talk to your woman friend, maybe you could tell her that the senator should really change his position on high-level nuclear waste disposal and—”
I gently touched the side of her cheek, just for a moment. “The time for debate, protests, and counterpoints is over, Miss Miller. Time to go to bed.”
She blushed, and I went upstairs.
* * *
I slid into my own bed, switched on the light, and read for a while, a hardcover edition of John Keegan’s latest military history. I read a couple of chapters and then switched off the light, even though I wasn’t particularly tired. It had been a long, long day.
In the darkness I listened to the rain and the wind slapping its way around my century-old house. There was something special and satisfying about being in a warm and dry bed in the dark and listening to the wind and rain, knowing that I would be comfortable and safe for the next several hours. I thought of my guest downstairs, hoping that she felt a bit safer and happier in a dry foldout couch instead of a damp sleeping bag and wet tent. And my Annie? Not much sleep for her, I was sure, in whatever strange hotel or motel room she was residing in, down there in Virginia.
Then there was Paula. A scared, traumatized Paula Quinn, alone in a hospital room, no doubt shuddering and dreaming through the night of nearly being killed, of being splattered with the bloody bits of what had been a living, breathing, and thinking man.
It took a while for me to fall asleep.
CHAPTER SIX
In the morning, the couch was a couch again, the sheets and blankets neatly folded, as well as the nightgown. A note had been left on top of the nightgown:
Lewis—
Thanks for saving me, thanks for the hospitality. It was a wonderful night, and no more apologies for either of us, all right?
Now, back to Falconer, and the battle … not yours, I know, but the one I have chosen and must see to the end.
—Haleigh
The rain had stopped, but heavy gray clouds were still threatening, their color the same as the relentless ocean out there, and after a quick breakfast of tea and toast, I drove out to Exonia and its hospital.
* * *
At the hospital, there were a lot more empty parking spaces than the previous night. Only one satellite news truck from Boston had set up shop and, along a concrete planter near the entrance to the emergency room, the remnants of lit candles stood stuck there in the gray cold, the colors of the melted wax muted and dull. I strolled in, and after a minute or two at the reception desk, I took an elevator up to the third floor, carrying Paula Quinn’s purse in one hand, and I think it’s a tribute to my confident sexuality that I didn’t mind holding on to it.
On the third floor I went past a busy nurse’s station and then found myself at Room 301, and in this double room was Paula Quinn, on her side, staring blankly out a large window.
Her hair was a mess, pulled over to one side. I dragged a chair over and sat down and put her purse on the floor. Her eyes blinked at me; her head was resting on folded hands. An IV tube was still running into one wrist.
“Hey,” she said, her voice faint.
“Hey,” I said, reaching out, taking her warm and dry hand.
She blinked twice and said, “Oh, Lewis.”
“Shhh,” I said. “Take it easy.”
Tears welled up, and she said, “They’re busy here, I understand, and they promised they’d get to me in a while … but Lewis, I think … I think some of Bronson Toles’s blood … it’s still in my hair, Lewis…” and she stopped talking and her chin trembled and she started crying in silent, gasping heaves. I went over, kissed the top of her head, and looked to the nightstand, where I found a plastic washbasin and some shampoo. I ducked into the room’s bathroom, ignoring the sign that read FOR PATIENT USE ONLY, and filled the basin halfway with warm water. There was a sharp moan, and I looked back and noticed Paula’s roommate, a woman probably in her late seventies, steel gray hair, asleep against a pillow, mouth open.
I went back and spread out a towel underneath Paula’s head and raised the bed some—after a fumbling few moments of trying to figure out the controls—and she started talking, and I said, “Shhh, just be still for a while, okay?”
Paula nodded, and for the next several minutes, I washed, rinsed,
and then rewashed her long blond hair, and when I was done and had dumped the water, I dried off her hair as much as I could with a couple of towels, and when I sat down again, she offered me a tired smile.
“That … that felt so good.”
“Glad I could help,” I said. “How are you doing?”
She took a deep breath. “I … I didn’t sleep well. The doctor came in, a nice Pakistani woman, and I didn’t have much to say to her … seems like … oddly enough … I suffered a trauma yesterday, seeing what happened to Bronson, feeling what happened…”
Her eyes teared up, and I handed over a tissue box, and she dabbed at her eyes. “I … I guess I can go later today. Which would be great—but after that, I just don’t know … I just don’t know.”
I took her free hand, squeezed it. “Then worry about that when the time comes.”
Her face colored. “You don’t understand. You’re not listening to me.”
I squeezed her hand. “I’m listening now, and I’m trying to understand.”
Another deep breath. “What I’m saying is that the Paula Quinn from yesterday is gone, all right? The journalist Paula Quinn. The assistant editor Paula Quinn. The tough-as-nails reporter who loved crime stories, the bloodier the better … I thought I could be above it all, until yesterday, when Bronson was murdered next to me.”
She shifted in her hospital bed so she could look at me better. “Something just snapped, Lewis. Snapped hard—and I was scared, and I was terrified, and more than that, I was ashamed. I remembered all the stories I had done before, about arsons, murders, and rapes … and other violence … and all I cared about was getting the story first, and getting it right.”
“That was your job.”
“I know,” Paula said, the tears coming back, “and I was damn good at it … and I thought about the fishing co-op, with that union guy giving a speech, and then that mini riot breaking out. Some kids trying to make a stand in the lion’s den, and for their bravery and their troubles, guys twice their weight and twice their ages tried to break them into pieces … and all I cared about was taking a good photo.”
The woman in the next bed, separated from us by just a curtain, coughed and moaned again. “The same thing yesterday … I saw those other kids, up on the stage, challenging Bronson, and I wanted to get up there, too, to get a good photo if and when the punches started being thrown. They weren’t real. None of them were real. They were just props for my tales, that’s all … that’s all everyone has been, from my very first news story, back in college…” Another moan from Paula’s neighbor. “Now … I don’t know. I don’t think I can do this anymore, Lewis. The old Paula … she’s gone … and I don’t know what the new Paula is going to be like … and that scares the shit out of me.”
I took her hand in both of mine. “Well, you won’t be alone, I guarantee that.”
I felt her hand squeeze back. “I’m glad to hear that. That’s about the only cheerful thing I’ve got going for me.”
I looked around the sparse room and said, “Your Mark been by yet?”
She pursed her lips. “No.”
“Oh.”
Paula said, “He said he’d be along shortly … but that he had a court hearing he absolutely, positively couldn’t miss. So I’m sure I’ll see him later today.”
“Oh.”
“Lewis, my boy, it’s permissible to say more than ‘oh.’ Got it?”
“Got it.”
So we talked again for a while until one of the overworked nurses came in and checked her vitals, and Paula yawned and said, “You know, I just might take a nap.”
“Good for you,” I said, and I got up to kiss the top of her head, and she moved a bit, so that my lips touched her cheek instead.
* * *
Outside in the cold, breezy parking lot, my brand new cell phone chimed, making me start for a moment. I ignored the persistent ringing until I got into the shelter of my Ford Explorer and worked the unfamiliar buttons and said, “Hello?”
The woman’s voice was brisk. “Lewis? Denise Pichette-Volk here.”
“Hello, Denise.”
“Where have you been?”
“I’ve been in a parking lot, in Exonia. Next town over from Tyler. Where have you been?”
“At work. Doing my job. Something you should think about doing. For example, I left a message for you last night. Did you get it?”
“I did.”
“So why didn’t you call me?”
I said, “I hadn’t gotten around to it yet.”
“I specifically said for you to call me.”
“You certainly did,” I said, “but you didn’t say when. Now, Denise, you have my undivided attention. We can spend the next ten minutes or so going over my various and sundry faults, or we can get to the point. So. What’s the point, Denise?”
She chuckled. “My, what a piece of work you’re turning out to be, Lewis.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“And here’s what I’m telling you today,” she said. “I want a thousand words by noon today on what happened yesterday in Falconer.”
“A thousand words? By noon?”
“That’s right,” she said.
“Wait, when I started working on this … piece for Shoreline, it was for an issue in the spring. The deadline was at the end of the month.”
Another chuckle. “That was when you started working on this nuclear protest story, before Bronson Toles got murdered. Now things have changed. I’ve made an arrangement where in addition to writing for Shoreline, you’re going to be a special correspondent for an Internet-based news service that the magazine’s investors have a stake in. More bang for a little buck. Your deadline is noon today. A thousand words.”
I wanted to ask her more, but there was a click, and my boss had gone on to pick fights with other people.
* * *
I suppose I should have driven back home, but instead I made a quick phone call and then headed out of Exonia and to the south part of Tyler Beach, where I had been the previous day with Paula. I drove down Route 101, which bisected a wide stretch of marshland, and off to the right, I made out the center of all this controversy: the buildings of the Falconer nuclear power plant. Along the way I passed a few small straggling groups of protesters heading up to Route 1 like lost units of a distant army, struggling to meet up with their comrades.
At Tyler Beach I made a right, going south down Route 1-A past the closed motels, the closed restaurants, and the fire station and police station, and about ten or so minutes after that, I drove up to Tyler Harbor Meadows, a collection of condo units set in a horseshoe pattern that overlooked Tyler Harbor. I parked in a visitor’s spot, rubbed at my hands, and about sixty seconds later, I was knocking at the door of my best friend.
Diane Woods opened the door, looking tired. She had on a pair of blue jeans, old sneakers, and a dull blue pullover sweater. “Hey,” she said.
“Thanks for the time,” I said. “I appreciate it.”
She turned and I followed her upstairs, where we ended up in a wide living room and nice built-in kitchen. Windows overlooked the condo’s parking lot and the choppy waters of Tyler Harbor and, farther out, as if it couldn’t be avoided, the containment dome and buildings of Falconer Unit 1. The room was decorated with Shaker furniture, oval boxes, framed prints of Canterbury Shaker Village, and other bits of New England art. There were a couple of small bookcases, the usual television set and CD stereo, and some framed photos of a smiling Diane and smiling Kara. Another set of stairs went up to the third floor, and I could hear a shower running. I looked to Diane, and she said, “Kara’s taking a shower.”
“I see,” I said.
“Yeah,” she said, sitting down wearily on a couch. “You see, all right. She’s here for a meal, a shower, a change of clothes, and then back out to the protests.”
“How about you?” I asked. “When do you go back to Falconer?”
“Four P.M., my friend,” she said. “You?”
“Sometime today,” I said. “My new boss wants a story today, a thousand words, and maybe one tomorrow.”
“Two stories that quick, for a monthly magazine?”
I sat down across from her. “She’s managed to link up to some sort of Internet-based news agency, help bring in a new income stream to the magazine. Part of that means me writing more than just a monthly column.”
Diane frowned. “She sounds like a pistol.”
“Yeah.”
The shower upstairs stopped. Diane looked up and then looked down, back at me. “What else is going on?”
“The shooting yesterday,” I said. “I was there.”
“Ugh,” she said. “I heard it was a real horror show, some people in the audience got trampled. You get away all right?”
“I did, with some bruised ribs and an aching back,” I said. “One of your brother officers from Falconer tossed me off the stage when I went up to check on Paula.”
“Paula? Paula Quinn? What happened to her?”
I leaned forward and folded my hands together. “She was standing next to Bronson Toles, trying to get a photo, when he was shot. She was … well, she got some forensic evidence from his head splattered all over her.”
“Good God,” Diane said. “How’s she doing?”
“Physically? Just fine. No bodily injuries … but emotionally, mentally … it really shook her up, Diane. I’ve never seen her like this before. It’s like … it’s like she wants to stop being a reporter altogether, after all these years.”
Diane sat back on the couch. “Bloody and unexpected violence like that can shake you up. I remember the first time I responded to a violent domestic. I was the first unit there, at a trailer park up near Timberswamp Road. Husband and wife, both drunk, both screaming at each other. The wife had a fishing knife in her hand. I kept on telling her to put the knife down, put the knife down. She finally looked at me and nodded her head and said, ‘Sure, Officer, I’ll put the knife down,’ and then she buried it between her hubby’s shoulder blades.”
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