A Face at the Window

by Sarah Graves

  "Mom," he said, his forehead creased with worry. With his dark, curly hair, long lashes, and lantern jaw, he was the very image of his late father, handsome and troubled. "You all right?"

  The question is, are you?But he looked sober, smelled that way, too, and his hands were steady as he reached out to hug her.

  "This place," said Bella Diamond as she came in behind Sam and began peering suspiciously around the assertively clean room, "is probably swarming with germs."

  Well, of course it was. Hospitals were full of sick people. But that wasn't the main reason Jake wanted out of it as soon as possible.

  Home, she thought yearningly. I want to go—

  "There, there, old girl," said Jake's father, slinging an arm around Bella. His injured foot was still in its big cast but it wasn't slowing him down any. "Pretty soon, you can scrub to your heart's content," he assured his new wife.

  "I left," Jake said guiltily, "a sinkful of dirty dishes."

  She'd meant to do them before Bella returned. She'd meant to finish sanding the glob of architectural putty she'd pressed into the mantelpiece, too.

  And she'd meant to complete the sidewalk repair. She opened her mouth to say something about it, but her father spoke first.

  "There'll be a backhoe over to the house tomorrow morning, get the drainage taken care of," he reported to Jake as if he'd been hired as a foreman on the job. "You need a culvert, not just gravel. And for the rest of it, Sam can go up on a ladder."

  For the gutters, he meant, because Sam up on a ladder was so natural and confident you'd think he'd been born on one, instead of in—almost; there'd been at least two minutes to spare— the cramped backseat of a speeding New York taxi.

  Momentum, she thought, smiling up at her son. He'd gotten his physical agility from his dad, she still felt sure, along with the awkwardness he always displayed in moments of feeling.

  She closed her eyes contentedly. Because they were all here, and she was alive and Helen and Lee were, too. Even Jody Pierce had just come out of emergency surgery and was expected to live.

  Or almost all of them were here. One was still missing—

  And then he wasn't. Wade strode in, shedding his jacket and wrapping his arms around her in one smooth enveloping motion.

  "Oh," he exhaled into her hair. "Oh, don't ever do this to me again. I'm not kidding, Jake, my heart can't take it."

  He smelled of the harsh soap they used on the boats and of the bag balm he used to keep his hands from cracking in the cold salt air. She pressed her cheek to the sandpaper of his jawline.

  "Where is this Ozzie Campbell person, anyway?" Ellie asked. She'd seen Lee and been reassured by the pediatricians that the child would be just fine. Now she examined her prettily polished nails, which if Campbell had been here she'd have used to remove numerous layers of his skin plus other important portions of his anatomy.

  Wade looked up alertly at the mention of Campbell's name. "Yeah, I'd like to have a word with him, too," he said evenly. Just then George Valentine came back from the pediatrics ward where he'd been sitting with Lee. A compactly built man with a small, stubborn chin, dark grease lines permanently etched into his work-hardened hands, and the pale white skin that ran in some of the old down-east Maine families, he looked exhausted.

  And he had news. "I just talked to Bob Arnold," he said. "Ozzie Campbell woke up in custody, got away and tried to run after Bob gave him over to the federal guys. Surprised the hell out of them, they said; the guy made as if he was pulling a gun on them."

  The .38, she realized, the one that Marky had been carrying. But…"What happened?"

  "They shot him. He's dead. They'd searched his place first, though," George went on, "last night. And…"

  So Trotta had lost his high-profile murder trial, and with it his run for attorney general, probably. And Campbell wasn't holding any random children as his unknowing hostages anymore.

  "Can they do that?" Ellie asked. "Just go in and—"

  "They can if they had a warrant, which Sandy O’Neill arranged on account of events here," Bob replied, coming in right behind George. "Seems he took your concerns a little bit more seriously than you thought, Jake."

  Of course, she realized; because I was the slam dunk, and he and Trotta already knew it. Bob seated himself in the remaining chair, his cop gear jingling on his belt.

  "And when they went through Campbell's place, they found he had backup plans. Fake passport, a plane ticket, fake ID. Lot of electronic equipment," Bob added, "eavesdropping gadgets and so on, cameras and recorders. And cash."

  Wade frowned. "I don't get it. He must've been crazy to do all this. Set it up, take the risks…"

  "Maybe he was." Bob looked at Jake again. "Seems this trial he was scheduled for was just the tip of the iceberg. His wife passed on, not long ago. And he had money troubles, doctor and lawyer bills. His bar was going downhill, fast."

  Bob sighed heavily. "Lot of his customers had legal problems themselves. And they didn't like hanging out in a place where the owner was under indictment for murder. Wrong kind of attention."

  Campbell's voice echoed in her head: After all I've been through… She tried imagining the pressure on him, couldn't.

  "The cash he had hidden, that was probably all he could get his hands on," the Eastport police chief finished. "Guy was dead broke."

  So no one else would be coming after her…"Bob, what about the gun?" she asked. "How did he—"

  "He didn't." Bob met her gaze. She'd never mentioned the .38 Campbell had had on him out there on the bluffs. She hadn't had the chance.

  "I found it and took it off him after I—that is, after you apprehended him," Bob explained. "He just wanted the officers he turned on to think he was armed."

  So they'd be forced to shoot him: Campbell's final backup plan, she supposed. The one he'd saved for if he didn't win.

  Plans within plans… "He made it all look so easy," she began, then stopped. Ellie was still listening alertly

  Bob caught Jake's eye. "What, his tightrope act out on the Knife Edge? Yeah, I saw part of that."

  He turned to Ellie. "The guy led Jake in a little song-and-dance routine out onto the Knife Edge," he said smoothly.

  Thank you, Jake thought at him. "As for making it look easy, for him it was," Bob went on.

  "Because," he explained, looking around the room, "it turns out the construction work Campbell used to do wasn't the hammer-and-nails kind. They found an old union card and a lot of other papers among his things when they went in."

  He got up and looked out the window to the hospital parking lot. "He was an ironworker, all right, back in his youth. But not in a factory."

  Bob turned back to the room. "On skyscrapers."

  "Oh," Jake breathed comprehendingly "The kind who—"

  "Yup. The kind of guy who walks along those high beams, puts the fasteners in. Eats lunch up there, a hundred stories in the air. ‘Course, those guys all wear safety harnesses," he added. "But if you're afraid of heights, you don't have that kind of job in the first place, I guess."

  No kidding, she thought, feeling again that awful yawning emptiness at the edge of the precipice. "Wait a minute, the federal marshals told you all this?"

  Bob looked wise. "Well, not all of it. Week or so ago I got in touch with that Sandy O’Neill fellow. Nice enough guy, and just for fun I figured I'd fatten up my knowledge base in the Ozzie Campbell department."

  Ten percent doing, ninety percent knowing…

  "And Sandy was very helpful," Bob added. "Once I convinced him I'd go down there and drop-kick his butt right into the East River if he wasn't."

  "I see," she said evenly, wishing she'd been a fly on the wall for that conversation; Sandy helped his boss chase big-time criminals for a living, and was not precisely a pushover.

  "Well, however you did it, it's a good thing you showed up when you did and caught him, isn't it?"

  Or I might have killed him myself, she added silently, and from his answerin
g look she saw that Bob understood that, too. The question of exactly who'd saved whom from whom might never be fully settled, she thought. But maybe it didn't have to be.

  "Guess so," he agreed. "Even better thing, that little girl was never in a position to have to be out there with him."

  There was a small silence in the room, everyone thinking of what might've happened and hadn't. In her mind's eye Campbell's face appeared once more, but transparent, now, like an apparition glimpsed briefly in the window of some old, long-empty house.

  Bob headed for the door. "Okay, then. Guess it's time I went an’ had another confab with the feds, the state guys, the county guys, my guys—best we get all our ducks right out in a row for the news conference later."

  Alarm pierced her. "Bob, can you keep me—?"

  "Out of it? Oh, you bet," he assured her. "I doubt the feds and the state boys'll mind soaking up all the credit, do you?"

  "No. Thanks, Bob," she said, and when he'd gone she sank back stiffly against the pillows. Every part of her was sore despite the painkillers they'd given her; by tomorrow she'd be in a world of pain. She didn't like staying in the hospital overnight, but the doctors insisted. Exhaustion, dehydration, and her inability to keep even the smallest amount of food or water down-nerves, she supposed, though she hated admitting it—had made them adamant.

  But for now…She settled more comfortably as the others began gathering themselves to leave. "See you later," Wade said, bending to kiss her. "Get some rest. I'll be back soon."

  "Later," Sam echoed from the door. Behind him stood Bella, running a finger disapprovingly along a length of woodwork.

  "I'll bring a dust rag," she promised, ignoring the insulted look of a nurse passing by in the hall. Her new husband had already stumped away toward the orthopedics department, bent on getting that cast off, finally. "And," Bella added, "Lysol."

  Ellie leaned down to hug Jake. Her hair still smelled like the interior of an airplane but Jake inhaled it gratefully before releasing her friend. Then it was George's turn.

  "I don't know what to say," he told her, holding his cap in front of him awkwardly in both hands. "You got her back for us. Thanks don't seem like enough."

  "They are, though, George. More than enough. And…you're welcome," she told him and then he went out, too, leaving her to rest in this calm, quiet place.

  She wanted to go home, but tomorrow would be soon enough.

  Tomorrow…her eyes drifted shut.

  •••

  Helen Nevelson sat in a wheelchair just inside the ambulance bay, pressing a towel-wrapped ice pack to her face and waiting for her mother to return with a suitcase full of the things Helen would need in the next few days.

  Around her, aides and nurses in hospital uniforms bustled purposefully, carrying thick charts, pushing medical equipment on wheels, or escorting patients. She'd already had one surgery to stop the bleeding; next, an oral surgeon in Bangor would fix her jaw.

  Nervously, she wondered if it would hurt much. A tear leaked down her face, a hot, stinging runnel through the cold numbness of the ice pack. "Hey, there," someone behind her said.

  It was the purple-car woman, smiling and carrying something in one hand that she kept tucked a little behind herself so Helen couldn't see what it was.

  Now wearing the white smock that Helen had last seen hanging in the purple car, the woman had pinned her dark brown hair back tightly and refreshed her red lipstick. She crouched in front of Helen and took her hand reassuringly.

  "Don't try to talk. I work here," she added, her voice low and gentle as if she knew just about anything might terrify Helen at the moment. "That's why I can barge right in anywhere."

  She put a pink zippered bag into Helen's hands. "I thought you might want a few treats like this for later," she said. "For after surgery, when…"

  Slowly, Helen unzipped the bag. In it were a dozen or so small, pretty samples of expensive cosmetics whose labels she'd seen in magazines: Lipsticks, soft pointy colored crayons for her eyes, a mascara wand and a mirrored compact containing pale pink blush powder and a lush, soft makeup brush…

  And a flat disk of pancake makeup with a sponge applicator. Helen looked up.

  "You'll have bruising," said the woman matter-of-factly. "So you might want some cover-up for it. And anyway," she added, "you deserve a little something to make you feel better."

  Thank you, Helen tried to say. "Now," the woman went on as if not noticing Helen's fresh tears. "There's someone who'd like to get a look at you, before your next adventure."

  Without asking permission she seized the wheelchair handles and began rolling Helen from the waiting area. "Don't worry, they won't leave without you," she said.

  They rolled through the hospital lobby, down a corridor full of beeping EKG machines and empty gurneys, and into a room with a bed in it. Jody was in the bed, lying very still and surrounded by IVs that dripped clear fluids of various pale colors into him, covered to his neck by a white sheet. One arm lay exposed.

  His eyes were open. When he caught sight of Helen he smiled weakly and tried to speak. She was halfway out of the chair when the woman caught her.

  "Hey, hey, give him a break. He's just waking up from big-time surgery."

  He wiggled his fingers at her, unable to speak past the tube still in his throat. "Hi," she whispered, and he nodded faintly.

  "We can't stay," the woman said. "He needs to sleep, and you need to travel. But there's something else for you, and he wanted to give it to you, so…"

  On Jody's bedside table lay a box with the stylized outline of an apple on it. "Go on. He told your mother that he wants you to open it right away."

  So Helen did, while Jody watched her through eyes that kept drifting shut. "Oh," she said when she had the packaging removed.

  It was an iPod, exactly the one she'd wanted forever, just to have because it felt special, luxurious and so…well, she'd just wanted it, that was all. But from Jody she'd heard again and again that it was silly, too expensive, too…

  Biting her lip, she met his gaze. Thank you, she mouthed as well as she could, and felt he understood. But there was more she had to tell him, and on the bedside table also was a small white notepad. She leaned over and grabbed it, and the pen with it.

  Music. Good for canoe trips, she wrote. Long trips. She held the pad up; his eyes smiled happily. Proudly.

  Then they fell closed once more. Helen turned, frightened.

  "It's okay," said the woman. She sounded as if she knew what she was talking about; Helen relaxed. "He's full of anesthesia, still. He'll sleep now, and by the time he really wakes up you'll have had your own surgery, and we can tell him you're fine."

  Urgently, Helen wrote again. His daughter. Tell my dad that his daughter is fine.

  The woman smiled. Helen wondered if after this, she would ever see the woman again.

  Maybe. Maybe not. "I will. I'll be sure to tell him his daughter wants her father to know she's come through with flying colors. Again," she added lightly.

  Content, Helen let herself be wheeled away, not noticing the pair of eyes from one of the other rooms they passed fastening upon her as she went by, narrowing with recognition at the sight of the bright braid piled atop her head.

  Recognition, and the beginnings of a plan.

  •••

  Bad dream Jake woke suddenly to the choked, smothering feeling of a hand clamped to her mouth. Hot, sour breath gusted into her face.

  "You're not gonna freakin’ testify against me about Marky."

  That voice—her eyes snapped open in disbelief.

  Anthony Colapietro's bruised, bloody face loomed over her, his expression murderous. "The girl's alive. I didn't kill her. And I didn't kill the guy in the driveway, neither. I was s'posed to, but I—"

  His hands closed around her throat. She couldn't breathe…

  "They say three minutes is all it takes, you know? Hey, you were hurt worse than they thought. So you stopped breathing. They should've c
hecked you better, is what they'll think."

  It wasn't. They wouldn't. Autopsy evidence would show she'd been strangled, and he'd be the obvious suspect. But he was just a dumb punk who didn't know anything except how to kill.…

  She tried throwing him off, tried reaching the call button, knocking the telephone off the bedside table so its crash might summon someone—all useless. And he'd closed the door.

  Stars swarmed in her vision, bright pricklings in the encroaching blackness. Suddenly a ripe thump! sounded nearby. As Anthony toppled away, she surged up, gasping, sucking in air. When her vision cleared her father stood there, gripping a heavy white plastic molded cast shaped like a foot.

  Groaning, Anthony Colapietro shifted and tried to get up. Her father looked down at the bandaged, hospital-gowned form with its orange antiseptic stains and bloody trailing IV tubes.

  "Don't you move," Jacob Tiptree told Anthony. He reached out to lean on the wall-mounted emergency button.

  "Don't you move, goddamn it, or I swear I'll stand here and bash all the rest of your brains out."

  Whereupon Anthony Colapietro, seeming to understand the deep sincerity of this promise, didn't budge.

  Three days later, Jake sat at the oilcloth-covered table in the kitchen of her big old ramshackle house in Eastport, Maine, sipping a cup of tea. At the antique soapstone sink, Bella Diamond filled a bucket with hot water and soapsuds, all ready to begin scrubbing the back porch after the most recent onslaught of visitors and well-wishers.

  Too bad she couldn't scrub away the current one. "Jake, I'm so sorry," said Billie Whitson, pushing back her strawlike hair with her red-tipped claws. "This was my fault. If I hadn't shown him around…"

  Because that, it turned out, was how Campbell had gotten the lay of the land; he'd found Billie's real estate Web site, come to her and faked interest, and let her drive him around looking at places—including the Jiminy Point house, whose owners she'd talked into listing "just in case there was a great offer."

  She'd even rented him a small cabin on her own property on the mainland, at the end of a driveway nearly as long as the one at Jiminy Point. In it, Bob Arnold had found the ruby pendant to the earring Campbell had worn; recognizing what it must be, he'd neither mentioned it nor hesitated before slipping the thing into his own pocket, later handing it over to Jake's father.