The Eulogist

by Liz McKinney Johnson

  "Completely."

  "But now I’m stuck again. It’s like those Russian dolls that come apart. You open one and there’s another one inside of it to open."

  "You got this far, we ought to be able to figure it out from here."

  Her hand slides down my arm and she takes my hand in hers. Her skin is cool and soft. I feel her wedding ring slide across my palm. She pulls me into the room and over to the desk, finally releasing her grasp with a flourish, launching me into the chair in front of the computer monitor.

  "Look."

  I look at the monitor. There’s a standard Outlook appointment window on the screen.

  "I’ve been opening up each date that had an appointment time listed and the same box thingy comes up on each one," Lily says from over my shoulder. "Close that one and try it for yourself."

  I follow her directions and close the window. Behind it is the main calendar. I slide the cursor to a date, December 3rd, and click. A new window pops up with the name Clyde McDonald. The date and time are listed but no location. There’s also a hyperlink in the notes section.

  "You’re right," I say, staring at the flickering screen. "There are a few more dolls we need to open up. What happens when you click on this link?"

  "What link?"

  "This one."

  I move the cursor to the link s:researchclydemcdonald.txt. When I click, an error message comes up telling me, The folder or file could not be opened. Path does not exist. Make sure path is correct.

  Lily sighs. I feel her breath hit the back of my neck, hot and smelling slightly of cinnamon. "Do you know what that means?"

  "I’m not sure." I click okay and the message disappears. "Have you found any names you recognize?"

  "Nope. Not a one. I’ve been writing them down on a piece of paper."

  She steps around my chair and shuffles through some loose papers on the desk, pulling out a piece of yellow notebook paper. She hands it to me. There are twelve names written in her loopy cursive.

  "Eight men and four women," she says. "About the only thing I can come up with is I think they’re older, at least judging by the women’s names."

  I glance at the paper. The first name is Myrtle Olcott. Lily’s right. I doubt we’ve produced any new Myrtles since about 1910. There are dozens of perfectly good names no one uses anymore: Edna, Roberta, Edith, and my favorite: Thelma. On the other hand, we can probably afford to cut back on the Brittanys, Sarahs and Katies.

  I continue to scan down the list, screeching to a halt at name number 11, Jake Tucker. My throat goes dry and a single gasp escapes.

  "What?" Lily asks, leaning back in to see the names on the paper.

  "I know this guy."

  "What guy?"

  "This one," I say, pointing at the paper. "Jake Tucker. I just met him earlier tonight."

  "What do you mean you met him?"

  "At Blue Lake."

  "Blue Lake? You’re sick; what were you doing at the Lake?"

  "I thought a walk would help clear my head, so I went down to the lake."

  "You’re going to get pneumonia. What was this guy doing at the Lake?"

  "He was lost. I helped him get back to the parking lot and then his daughter showed up to get him."

  "How old is this guy?"

  "I don’t know, 85, 88, somewhere in there. He’d wandered away from his daughter’s house."

  I see a light bulb, and then an entire chandelier flash on over Lily’s head.

  "Alzheimer’s?" she asks, looking at me in amazement. "He’s one of them, isn’t he? He’s an original test participant, isn’t he?"

  "Yes."

  "Then that must be it," she shouts, grabbing the paper out of my hand. "That’s who these people are. They’re original test participants. Michael was meeting with them one by one."

  "Maybe," I say, although this is exactly the same thing I am thinking. "I don’t know any of the other names. It could just be a coincidence."

  Lily drops the paper and stares at me.

  "What else could it be, Albert?" she asks, very slowly, as if I have lost my ability to reason.

  "I don’t know."

  I lean back in the chair and close my eyes. I see Jake Tucker sitting in the Volvo, staring out through the rain splattered windshield. I see Mary Anderson’s eyes pleading for understanding.

  "Why are you being so weird about this?" Lily asks. "We just figured out Michael spent a huge amount of time during the last few months of his life interviewing the original test participants. He was looking for something. Don’t you want to know what he was looking for?"

  I open my eyes. Lily is standing over me, looking down; her eyes demand an answer. She is unusually close. Her hair falls forward creating a curtain around her face. Her breathing is a bit erratic with the excitement of our discovery. I want to reach up and touch her, rest my hand on her chest and feel it rise and fall. When I don’t answer immediately, she snaps her head up and steps back, crossing her arms, camouflaging the movement of her chest.

  "What is with you? This is a big deal!"

  I rub my hands over my face and sit up again.

  "Nothing’s wrong," I say. "I know it’s a big deal. I’m just trying to make sense of it all. I’ve had a rough night."

  Lily sets the list of names back down on the desk. Her face is calm again. She probably figures since shouting isn’t getting her anywhere, she’ll try to talk me in off the ledge.

  "Tell me about Jake Tucker," she says. Her voice is quiet, composed.

  "He’s dying," I answer, looking directly at her. "He has Alzheimer’s and now he’s dying."

  She reaches up and pulls off the red headband, stretches it between her hands once, twice, three times, then loops it around one wrist.

  "From the Alzheimer’s?"

  "I don’t know. Complications. His daughter wouldn’t tell me. Couldn’t tell me. Said it would mean the cancellation of his medical coverage if she talked to me."

  Lily crosses the room and looks out the window. She can’t possibly see anything. It’s too light inside and too dark outside. But still she looks.

  "I couldn’t get her to tell me very much," I continue. "He looked healthy enough, but that doesn’t mean anything."

  "Who?" Lily asks, not moving from the window, still staring into her own reflection. "Who would cancel his medical insurance?"

  "Nesler. She said they were paying for all his medical bills but everything was confidential."

  Lily finally turns back toward me, her hands at her hips. Her hair swirls around her shoulders. She’s biting her bottom lip. If I wasn’t already sitting down, my knees would buckle and topple me like two scoops of Jamoca Almond Fudge on a hot day. Wait, is she speaking again? Concentrate.

  "Something’s not right, Albert. Michael would never have spent so much time with all these people unless it was really important. My husband was altruistic and caring and forever curious, but he was also a perfectionist. He didn’t like it when he couldn’t understand something. He approached everything like a science experiment. Used to drive me crazy sometimes, but it almost always worked. He’d methodically go through all the options one at a time until he had an answer to his question. He didn’t chase dead ends."

  "You think he was trying to figure something out?" I’m struggling to stay in the moment but I still can’t see straight. Now I’m imagining Lily eating ice cream, slowly, catching all the drips.

  "I know it. I don’t know what it was, but I know he was searching. Wasn’t he like that in school?"

  For an instant, the question throws me completely. Why would I know what he was like in school? And then, just as quickly, I remember I am supposed to be Michael’s old college buddy.

  "Focused is a good word. Pit bull would also be a good description."

  This makes Lily smile, which I love, but she’s not smiling at me, she’s smiling at a memory of Michael, which I hate.

  "Maybe we should get a hold of Howard and confirm these names," Lily suggests. "
He might know what Michael was doing."

  "I don’t think so. I didn’t know anything about it. I think Michael was doing this on his own."

  "Why?"

  "I asked Howard directly if Michael knew or had talked with the original test participants. He said Michael had maybe talked with a few, but definitely not all."

  Lily tugs at the sleeve of her sweatshirt, as if she could pull out the answer like a magician’s bouquet of flowers.

  "Maybe these aren’t all the people."

  "You don’t understand; the question didn’t faze him. If Michael was doing such methodical interviews and Howard knew about it, he would have flinched. It would have been almost imperceptible, especially given Howard’s demeanor, but believe me, I would have seen it."

  "How can you be so sure?"

  Poor Lily. You are so trusting, so lovely and so trusting. I’m sure because I know how I’d do it. Poor Lily. If you knew how much Charlie wanted to come out right now and grab you, kiss you, touch your hair, your face, every inch of your body. If you knew the turmoil right below the surface, you’d be impressed. You’d understand how I can be so sure. I know what it takes to pull one over, to throw in a pile of chips when all you’re holding is a pair of threes. I know how because I’ve done it, because I’m doing it right now.

  "I can tell when someone is uncomfortable," I explain. "Howard breezed through that question without the twitch of an eye. Call it journalist’s intuition."

  "I still think Howard’s our best bet when it comes to unraveling all this," she insists. "Michael was working so closely with Nesler; I’m sure he would have let them know if he’d discovered something."

  "What if it was something bad?"

  Lily doesn’t skip a beat.

  "He would have shared that too."

  "Right away?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Michael was a scientist first and foremost. Didn’t we just agree on that? And if his credibility was on the line, wouldn’t he have wanted to prove his hypothesis before he brought it to someone else? He was a perfectionist; isn’t that what you said?"

  Lily doesn’t answer. Shit. I’ve hurt her again. I shove her into remembering Michael then kick out the supports. I stink at empathy. She crosses the room to the couch and sits down hard, head in her hands.

  I keep talking. I only want her to see the logic. I don’t want to make her cry. Michael must have been one hell of a guy. I wonder what it would be like to have everything go right in your life, to have everybody love you, admire you, name their children after you. Maybe the universe can’t keep that kind of lopsided life in balance. So much good and no bad. You’re throwin’ off the curve. You gotta go, make room for the rest of us average folks.

  "I think Michael was doing what he did best, researching a problem to find a solution."

  I get up and walk over to join her on the couch. I sit down next to her. It’s a bold move, which she doesn’t seem to register.

  "I think we need to keep looking before we bring anything to Howard’s attention. We need to know what Michael’s notes mean and we need to make sure these people are really the original participants."

  "How are we going to do that?"

  Lily looks up at me. Her eyes are full of concern, brimming with anxiety. I put my arm around her shoulders. She tenses for an instant and then lets go. I leave my arm there as long as I dare, as long as I can. I want to cut it off and leave it there forever. I give her a squeeze and drag my protesting arm back into my lap.

  "I don’t know how we’re going to do it." I say. "I think we’re just going to keep looking. I do know Jake Tucker had a friend named Martin who was also one of the original test participants. I don’t know his last name, but it’s somewhere to start. Let’s keep looking at the appointments and see if we can find Martin."

  "It’s getting awfully late," Lily says. She glances at the gold bracelet watch on her slender wrist. "It’s almost 1:00. Maybe we should give it up for tonight. I don’t want you to have a relapse."

  "Huh?"

  "I don’t want your cold to get any worse."

  Damn, forgot again. I make a few sniffling noises.

  "We can start up again in morning," Lily says. "Can’t we?"

  The morning. From the back of my brain an emergency warning bell sounds. Tomorrow morning is when I’m supposed to pick up Hugh Klein’s shoes. Tomorrow morning is when the guys in the lab are going to prove my icing-on-the-cake theory. Tomorrow morning is not good.

  "Sure, we can look at it again in the morning," I answer, lying through my teeth. "I’ll head out and we’ll touch base first thing."

  "Why don’t you just stay here?"

  This phrase is tossed out so casually I almost miss it. Stay here? She’s asking me to stay the night. A heat wave rolls through my system. Maybe I do have a fever, maybe I really am sick.

  "If we’re just going to start first thing, and first thing is only a few hours away, it doesn’t make sense for you to go all the way home. We have two perfectly good guestrooms. You can have your choice."

  Of course, she’s just being nice, not naughty. She is the good one. I am the evil one. I am the one who would do just about anything to touch her ass. Please, Lord, please give me strength or give me opportunity. Don’t keep me here in the middle.

  "I don’t want to be any trouble," I say, knowing I should leave, knowing there is only so much control any man can be expected to exert. "I don’t mind driving home. Really."

  "You’re being ridiculous. It’s no trouble. Beside, this way, we can get started at the crack of dawn. What do you say? I promise to get up first and make coffee."

  This is an image that sends me spinning. Lily, wearing a very short, very transparent nightshirt, in the kitchen, pouring two mugs of steaming coffee. Her hair is tousled, she is barefoot, and her toenails are painted bright red.

  "I won’t take no for an answer," she says. "I just know we’re on to something."

  Oh, I’m on to something all right. That’s my problem. I’m on and I can’t get off.

  "If that coffee’s a guarantee, then how can I say no?"

  "Perfect. Come on upstairs and I’ll show you the rooms."

  She hops off the couch and is out the door before I’ve had a chance to gather my extremely rattled thoughts.

  "Come on," she calls from the hallway.

  I drag myself to my feet. I look at my hands. They are not shaking, but they glisten with sweat. I wipe them on my jeans once and then once again. I don’t have a cold, but I am horribly sick.

  SIXTEEN

  I turn to look at the radio alarm clock on the nightstand for the fourteenth time in the last fifteen minutes. It is 3:03 AM. I have been awake for over two hours. Actually, I never went to sleep, so if you count yesterday, I’ve really been awake about eighteen, almost nineteen hours. There is a low hiss coming from the heat vent, but that’s not keeping me up. There’s the rain outside, clicking against the window in three-quarter time—probably a leaky gutter. But that’s not keeping me up either.

  The king size platform bed with its poofy goose down comforter and Egyptian cotton sheets is quite comfortable. The entire post-modern, blond-on-blond guest room is comfortable. I am the only thing hellishly uncomfortable. I don’t belong here. A feather is poking out of the comforter cover right in front of my nose. I reach out to grab the pointy little end and pull. The feather pops out and I hold it between my thumb and finger, twirling it to fluff up the downy wisps. It didn’t leave a hole. Of course, it’s dark, there could be a tiny hole, but I don’t think so. I think it’s magic. It has to be magic because you can’t put it back into the comforter without making a hole. It’s stuck out here now with me. Can’t go back. Can’t sleep. I drop the feather off the edge of the bed. It takes a long time to fall.

  Down the hall, at the other end of the oriental carpet runner, Lily is sleeping, probably stretched out across the bed she once shared with Michael. Or not. I’ve heard it can take a person months, sometimes even
years after the death of a spouse to get used to sleeping alone. The surviving husband or wife will continue to sleep within the confined space of his or her original side of the bed, not venturing out, not even ruffling the covers on the other side.

  I flip onto my stomach, bury my face in the pillow and breathe deeply, sucking the 400-thread-count cotton in and out my nostrils. My shoulders and neck ache, which I believe is what happens when you have a high level of stress. Stress and guilt and regret and anxiety. Toss in a little despair and that should be enough to make me blow my brains out all over these pretty white sheets.

  I roll over again and stare directly at the clock. The red digits roll over to 3:04. I think this is what my physics professor in college was trying to explain to me. Time is entirely relative. It can fly by like a peregrine falcon or crawl by like a banana slug. But you can’t stop it, and you can’t train it to land on your arm.

  3:05. I sit up. I’m wearing only boxers and the cool air in the room raises a map of goose bumps down my arms and legs. In just a few hours, I am going to have to come up with some excuse to leave. I can’t let my opportunity to nail Klein fall through. He’s good enough at his scam that I’m unlikely to get another chance. But what Lily and I discovered in Michael’s appointment book is also crucial. We’re so close. To what, I don’t know, but we’re close. There’s no way Lily is going to let me leave without a hell of a lot of questions.

  I try to picture Michael’s computer calendar in my mind. It’s a simple page of squares with dates. We organize our lives into these little squares, increasingly diminishing squares. One giant square for a year, each month smaller, each week smaller still, each day a bite-size chunk, each hour sliced into smidgens. When the squares get too tiny, then what? Like Michael, do we die? Experts say without some kind of organization, we’d die anyway. Our lives would be a whirlwind of millions of tiny squares, too random to fit together, too chaotic to exist. We need orderliness to survive, or at least to make it to the dentist on Thursday. The answer is there. The answer is in the order.

  Why don’t I just get up and have another look? There’s no sleep in my future. I’m too restless, which, by definition, means without rest, without a chance in hell of settling down. I don’t think they use the word "hell " in the dictionary definition, but they would if they could.