by Paul Doiron
“Where is he?”
“At his house. Nat told me to check on him. I thought he was dead at first.”
He might yet be, I thought. “Just take me to him.”
Ariel said, “I’m going with you.” Before I could protest, she added, “Have you ever had someone OD in front of you? Because I have. Go start the truck while I put on my boots.”
35
We hadn’t been on the road for more than five minutes before I remembered the phones. Mine was collecting barnacles at the bottom of the Gut. Ariel’s was still plugged into the wall socket back at Gull Cottage.
“You left your phone,” I said.
She’d put on her Gore-Tex parka over her sweatshirt and pajama bottoms. “Should we go back for it?”
“The way Crowley’s driving, I’m afraid I’ll lose him. And I don’t know which house is Hiram’s.”
The young lobsterman’s Ford pickup had a big V-8 under its hood in comparison to the wimpy four-cylinder engine in the Datsun. I kept losing his taillights in the fog. Every time I sped up, the road seemed to take an unexpected and mischievous twist I didn’t remember having been there before. More than once I had to cut the wheel sharply to avoid a tree looming in the headlights.
“I need to call Radcliffe and have him get a LifeFlight helicopter out here,” I said.
“In this fog? I was embedded with the SEALs, Mike, and I know for a fact that choppers don’t fly in these conditions.”
I feared that she was right. “Maybe the Coast Guard can send a Response Boat.”
The sweetness of alcohol lingered on her breath, but amazingly, she seemed halfway sober. More likely, the adrenaline pumping through her bloodstream was masking the effects of the booze. “If there’s no Narcan on the island, that poor guy is probably dead already. He’s Harmon’s only son, right?”
“His only surviving son. Hiram’s older brother also died of a drug overdose. The Maine coast has been devastated by the opioid epidemic.”
“The Maine coast and every rural place in America.”
“When we searched Gull Cottage, we didn’t find drugs,” I said. “Did your sister use heroin as well as cocaine?”
“Miranda wasn’t into downers of any kind. Cocaine was her poison of choice. When she was manic, she wanted to stay manic, and when she was depressed, she used the cocaine to rev herself back up. She might’ve given him coke, but not opiates.”
“Unless he shot a speedball.” It was a combination of heroin and cocaine melted into a syrup and injected into a vein.
We passed the turn off to the Cider House B&B, which meant we were on the outskirts of the village.
“Has it occurred to you that this might be a setup?” Ariel asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Like Hiram isn’t really dying and Crowley was sent to lead you into a trap. And of course, I foolishly insisted on tagging along.”
“Whose trap?”
“For all I know, it could be everyone on this godforsaken island. Maybe the entire population here was in on Miranda’s murder. Like that old movie, The Wicker Man, with Christopher Lee. But you don’t watch movies.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Ariel, has anyone told you that you have a hyperactive imagination? You’re also kind of paranoid.”
“That’s what makes me a good journalist. I’m always seeing conspiracies. Sometimes they turn out to be real.”
* * *
Hiram Reed lived on the north shore of the village in a small blue bungalow with a screened porch and a single dormer window overlooking his junk-cluttered yard. As with the other fishermen’s residences on Maquoit, it was marked not by a street number or by his name but by a buoy tied to a tree. Hiram’s signature colors were blue and white.
He’d backed his truck, a blue Silverado, onto the dead grass that served as a driveway. In addition to his lobstering gear, he had an old washing machine rusting on a wooden pallet, a tower of worn tires, a soda keg, a long-dead potted ficus, and a cardboard box filled with warped and sodden paperbacks on which he had scribbled FREE FOR THE TAKING.
It had taken us nine minutes to get here from Gull Cottage. Add in however long it had taken Crowley to find me, and I didn’t know whether to expect a dying man or a fresh corpse. I commanded Kenneth to wait outside because I didn’t want him underfoot. I sensed that he was relieved.
Before we entered the house, I put on a pair of nitrile gloves and gave Ariel a set of her own.
The interior door was ajar, and the room beyond was black and cold. The air smelled of unwashed dishes and unlaundered sheets. I didn’t bother fumbling for the light switch but followed the droning sound of a television up a set of low-ceilinged stairs.
Ariel followed close enough for me to feel her breath on my neck.
Hiram sat upright on the bed with his back braced against two sweat-stained pillows and his legs spread before him. His unshaven chin was down on his breastbone. He wore blue jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt from which black tufts of armpit hair protruded. His left arm was tied off with paracord, and as Crowley had warned us, the syringe was still stuck in the crook between the forearm and the biceps.
He’d been watching a documentary about the Vietnam War. The rat-tat-tat of a machine gun exploded through the speakers.
“Don’t touch anything if you can avoid it,” I whispered.
“Why not?”
“Because we don’t know what this is yet. And you can smear fingerprints with these gloves.”
I could see congealed blood around the spot where he’d plunged in the needle. He’d also dribbled saliva down his shirt like some raving animal. At first glance, I detected no signs of respiration.
I slipped my fingers along his throat to feel for a pulse in the carotid artery. After a long agonizing moment, I was rewarded with a faint heartbeat.
“He’s still alive.”
“Great.” Ariel breathed. “Now what?”
“Turn off that damned TV. Then go outside and tell Crowley to wake up Radcliffe. He needs to call the mainland and get medical assistance out here ASAP. Hiram’s breathing is shallow. I’m not going to start CPR unless his heart stops.”
Once begun, cardiopulmonary resuscitation needs to be continued until the victim can breathe regularly on his own or until help arrives.
After she’d left, I inspected Hiram more closely and saw that his lips and fingernails were blue. Doctors call the condition cyanosis, and it indicates low oxygen saturation in the blood. Because I didn’t want to take the chance he might vomit and choke, I decided to leave him sitting upright.
I removed the syringe and set it atop a stack of library books on the night table. The crook of his arm was a mass of purple bruises and brown scabs. When I loosened the cord, a bright bubble of blood formed at the injection site. As I watched, it grew from the size of a bead to the size of a gumball. Then it popped and oozed down his forearm.
I removed a handkerchief from my pocket and pressed it to the wound.
He’d dropped his lighter on the sheet, where it had charred the cotton. The burned spoon lay on the floor. I didn’t see the baggie or whatever he’d used to hold the drugs. Maybe it was under the bed.
It was all potential evidence that needed to be collected. But I had a feeling that the worst crime committed in this airless room had been Hiram’s assault on himself. I was also pretty certain that I knew what he’d been doing lurking around the airstrip. He’d been buying smack and maybe coke from the Washburns. In addition to their other misdeeds the brothers were almost certainly running drugs.
“Wake up, Hiram.” I squeezed his shoulder. “You need to wake up.”
His head lolled to the side. He gasped and sputtered, then fell silent again.
“Come on, Hiram.”
Ariel appeared, breathless, in the door. “The constable’s on his way.”
I glanced up from my patient. “You said you knew firsthand about overdoses. I’ve seen people who OD’d on heroin and oxycodone but n
ever cocaine. I’m not sure what to do here.”
“Miranda had a boyfriend who overdosed on coke when they were staying at my apartment. He was only twenty-five and a male model, but he had a heart attack. The guy lived, fortunately. I did a lot of research after that. With a speedball, people usually die from the heroin, especially if it’s laced with fentanyl or carfentanil. After the coke leaves their systems, there’s nothing to offset the depressive effect of the heroin.”
“The coke may be keeping him alive, you mean.”
“Ironically, yes.” She paused as if listening for a soft noise. “Have you checked to make sure he still has a pulse?”
“Not since you left.”
She put a gloved hand on his wishbone. Froth was caught in his chest hairs. She felt his neck for a pulse. Her eyes flashed at me. “Mike, I don’t think he’s breathing.”
36
Ariel pulled Hiram by the legs while I removed the pillows and did my best to ease him to a supine position. I began feeling for his sternum.
“Shouldn’t you do rescue breaths first?” she said.
“The doctors keep changing the CPR guidelines. Now you’re supposed to start with compressions.”
I placed my hands on top of each other and interlocked my fingers. After I’d done thirty compressions, I tilted his hairy head back, felt around the inside of his mouth to be sure nothing was in the way of his breathing, then pinched his nostrils shut. I placed a synthetic CPR mask over his mouth, pressed my lips around the attached tube, and blew air into his lungs until his chest rose.
“Come on, Hiram,” I said. “This is all up to you, buddy. You’re going to need to help us out here.”
I lost track of how much time passed or how many cycles I completed.
But suddenly Ariel glanced up at me with wide-open eyes. “He’s doing it! He’s breathing on his own.”
Through the closed windows, I became aware of motor vehicles arriving outside the house. I heard doors slam and men’s voices raised in tense conversation. Heavy boot treads on the stairs.
Radcliffe poked his curly head through the half-open door. “I’m here,” he announced as if it weren’t obvious. “How is he?”
“Alive, but just barely,” I said. “Did you call LifeFlight? The Coast Guard?”
“Not yet.”
“You stupid fuck,” Ariel said. “This man’s going to die. He would have died if Mike hadn’t given him CPR.”
Radcliffe seemed confused. “But he’s breathing now, you said.”
I wanted to punch him. “Don’t you get it, Andy? Hiram needs to be evacuated to a hospital.”
“I understand. But we need to wait.”
Ariel was beside herself. “What are you talking about?”
Then another loud voice echoed up the stairwell. “Get out of my way for Christ’s sake! I need to see my boy.”
Instead of phoning the mainland, the constable had called Harmon Reed. That was why Radcliffe had been stalling. He was under orders not to act until the patriarch of Maquoit Island arrived.
Harmon bulled his way into the room. He was wearing his raincoat over long johns and rubber boots. He’d left his signature Greek fisherman’s cap at home. It was the first time I’d seen his full head of curly white hair.
“Hiram’s had an overdose,” I said.
Harmon’s nostrils flared. “You think I can’t see that?”
“He almost died, Mr. Reed,” Ariel said.
He gave her a look of utter contempt. “You should have let him.”
Only Radcliffe of all people seemed capable of speech. “Now, Harmon—”
“Get out! All of you! Get out of this house and leave me alone with my boy.”
“I can’t do that, sir,” I said.
Harmon raised his arm as if to deliver a backhand blow to my face. “How dare you.”
“It’s a medical emergency. And I would lower your arm, sir, if I were you.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” Harmon snarled, turning on Ariel. “Neither of you should be here. None of this would have happened if not for your damned sister.”
“Mr. Reed, you need to calm down,” Ariel said with more patience than I could have managed. “You need to give us room to help Hiram. Go call the Coast Guard, please. You can still save your son’s life.”
“Let him die! The coward! We’d all be better off if he died.”
The next voice I heard was a woman’s. “Step aside, Harmon.”
I hadn’t noticed Martha Reed on the threshold. She was wearing a puffer vest over her nightdress. Crowley had snuck in behind her and loomed in the doorway.
“Stay out of this, Martha.”
“I can’t, and I won’t. Not again. I’m not losing my one remaining son to your pigheaded pride.”
Reed seemed incredulous that his wife had talked back to him.
The old woman approached the bed. In her hand was an odd-shaped piece of white plastic.
“Is that Narcan?” I said.
“Prop him up, will you?” She cradled his head with one hand and placed the tube part of the injector under one of her son’s nostrils. “I hope I remember how the nurse said to do this.”
“Where did you get that?” her husband asked shakily.
“The Star of the Sea. I have had it for years hoping I’d never have cause again to need it.”
With her thumb, she pressed the plunger and shot a mist of medicine deep into Hiram’s sinus cavity.
The effect was nearly instantaneous. His eyes shot open, and he began coughing so hard it seemed he might vomit up his internal organs. His arms thrashed and he kicked his legs, catching his father in the thigh.
Martha Reed bent over her sputtering son, her long gray hair falling like a privacy curtain around both of their faces. “Mother’s here, Hiram. Mother’s here. You were away from us, but you’re back, and everything’s going to be all right.”
What little I knew about naloxone hydrochloride was that it not only counteracted an overdose, it also deactivated the opiates in a person’s system. Narcan, in other words, sent an addict into immediate and painful detoxification.
Hiram Reed lurched upright. He pushed his mother away and swept his gaze over all of us in the room. The blueness was gone from his lips, but now his face shone with greasy perspiration. He looked confused, half-crazed, as if he might bite off your hand if you presented it to him. A second later he started to retch. He hung his head over the side of the bed and vomited.
Harmon was shaking his head, as if in disbelief. “You hid that drug from me.”
The old woman stood her ground. “I knew you’d never allow me to keep it, Harm.”
“God damn you for disobeying me, Martha. God damn you to hell.”
Radcliffe gave his usual feeble refrain: “Now, Harmon—”
Reed shoved the constable against a bureau. An empty bottle of tequila overturned and rolled to the floor. “He’s alive, isn’t he? My son’s not going to die. That’s what you wanted. It means you can all leave now.”
“Come on, Ariel,” I said. “Radcliffe. Crowley. Let’s go.”
Soon all four of us were standing outside in the cold, clinging mist.
“Will he be all right?” Kenneth asked. He sounded about thirteen years old in that moment.
Ariel said, “He’s not dying, but he’s going to feel like he’s dying. Coming down off heroin is as bad as it gets.”
“But I don’t need to call LifeFlight,” Radcliffe said tentatively.
I’d had enough of the Maquoit constable. He wasn’t wearing a toy badge, but he might as well have been. “You’re a son of a bitch, Radcliffe. I just wanted to say that for the record.”
He tried to win me back with a smile. “Mike, I understand why you’re upset.”
“I don’t think you do, Andy. You risked Hiram’s life because you were afraid of disobeying his father. If he died, it would have been your fault. I’m done with you, Radcliffe. I won’t be calling on you again.”
“Come on, Mike. You don’t mean that.”
“I’m pretty sure he does,” said Ariel. “But I’ll want to interview you for the book I’m writing.”
“Book?”
“About my sister’s murder. I’ll need to address how your incompetence nearly sabotaged the investigation. I expect you’ll want to offer some sort of defense. I’ll be in touch to set up an interview.”
“You have a gift for twisting the knife,” I whispered as we walked to my truck.
“It’s easy when someone deserves it as much as he does.”
A sudden movement over her shoulder brought me to attention. It was Kenneth Crowley, jogging toward us on those gangling moose legs.
“Hey, you two!”
I expected him to thank us for saving his friend’s life. Instead he glared at Ariel. His face was pinched with childish rage. “This is all your fault.”
“Excuse me.”
“Everything that’s happened here is because of you and your sister. You should leave now before something happens to you, too.”
I got into his face. “That better not be a threat, Kenneth.”
“It is what it is.”
One thing I’d learned about Ariel Evans was that she would not be cowed. “I’m not leaving before I find out who killed Miranda,” she said. “I don’t mind if you tell people that. I want the person who killed her to know I’m coming for him.”
A stray thought came into my head. “Why did you drive to Gull Cottage looking for me tonight, Kenneth?”
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
“What made you think I’d be there and not back in my room at the Wight House?”
He practically spat out the words. “Everyone knows you two are fucking.”
I wasn’t sure what I found more galling. That I’d become the subject of Maquoit sexual gossip. Or how hard Ariel laughed at the absurdity of the suggestion.
37
It was about two o’clock in the morning when I dropped Ariel back at Gull Cottage. She made a joking suggestion about my coming in for a nightcap, a reference to Crowley’s remark that she and I were sleeping together, but my mood had turned sour. She should have known that kind of a rumor could be toxic to my career. I told her I’d swing by in the morning after I’d checked in on Hiram Reed.