by Neil Mcmahon
From there I started with the house, striding around the outside to see if he might have gotten in. But the doors and windows were covered with plywood screwed on tight and undisturbed. As I went I swung the flashlight in arcs to search the surroundings, but came up empty there, too. That left the stretch of headlands out toward the cliffs. If he wasn’t there, he was gone, and I didn’t see any reason why he would be. Nick was not given to nature walks, day or night.
By now I was coming up against the fear that I’d made a crucial mistake—I should have called 911 right away.
I started zigzagging across the rocky ground, swinging the flashlight beam and shouting his name. Then, finally, I got an answer that cut into me like a razor slash.
A high-pitched keening howl, wild and desperate, came swirling around my ears with the wind. I’d only ever heard anything like it a few times before—back when I was working as a clinician with seriously insane, and often dangerously violent, patients at the state mental hospital in Napa.
I broke into a run.
I still couldn’t see him, and the wind made it hard to judge the sound’s location—all I could tell was that he was out toward the cliff. But a few seconds later another howl came, and this time I got a better fix.
He wasn’t just at the cliff—he was on the brink. The drop-off beyond it was almost sheer, sloped like a church steeple, eighty feet down a rock face to the ocean below. I slowed back down to a cautious walk. If a shape suddenly appeared out of the fog charging toward him, he might panic and take off in the wrong direction.
When Nick came into sight, my first instant impression was of a caricature madman in an old black-and-white movie, like Jekyll after drinking the potion that turned him into Hyde—bent forward and pacing with one hand clenched in his tangled hair. His other hand, waving around frantically, was holding something, but I couldn’t tell what it was.
I edged closer, hugely relieved that he was alive and at least physically intact—but now facing the problem of how to deal with this. It crossed my mind to tackle him and get him away from that edge, but he was too near it; and for all the damage he’d done to himself, he was still a big, powerful man. We’d been about the same size as we matured, around six-one, one-eighty, but while I’d stayed at that weight, he was well over two hundred by now. It wasn’t good extra weight, and would make him harder to handle still.
He hadn’t seen me yet, and I decided it would be best if he heard me first; he’d recognize my voice instinctively, before he even had time to react, and with any luck, it would start soothing him.
“Nick, it’s Tom,” I called, trying to sound upbeat and free of the strain I was feeling.
He spun around toward me. His face was pale—he must have been cold, wearing just a T-shirt, below-the-knee shorts, and flip-flops—with staring eyes and bared teeth.
“Stay calm, brother,” I said. “I’m here for you, like we talked about a little while ago. Remember?”
His stare stayed riveted on my face.
“There. Are. Worms. Eating my brain,” he declared in a chilling hoarse croak—the kind of flat-affect certainty I’d seen in psychotics whose inner voices goaded them to sudden assaults, arson, or murdering their infant children.
“Come on, Nick. Let’s head to my place, have a beer, and figure this out.”
“That’s just feeding the worms, Tommy,” he said in the same distant but definite tone, like he was explaining something I was too dense to get. “All I am now is worm food.”
He unclenched his hand from his matted hair and smacked his palm against his temple.
“You just need to smooth out a little,” I said. “Hey, how about a Valium? I’ve got some in my car.”
Quick as an eyeblink, he made a stunning change, with his face turning shrewd and snarky.
“Is that the next step on your how-to-deal-with-wackos list, Doctor Crandall?” The words sprayed out of his mouth like piss in my face. “I crawl into a cage, pull a lever, and a pill pops into my mouth like an M ’n’ M? Don’t talk down to me, you motherfucker.”
Worse than the viciousness was his suddenly being very much in control—and very much more the real Nick. I was slammed by the thought that this whole thing was an act, something he’d cooked up to jerk me around or just vent his free-floating rage. It sickened me and brought my own anger flaring up, and I damned near gave in to the urge to walk away and leave him there.
Then, just as fast, the situation took another 180-degree spin. A new sound burst out of nowhere, so abrupt and jarring it made my body jerk—the loud pounding beat of rap music.
It was the ring of Nick’s cell phone—that was what he was holding in his hand.
I stared in disbelief while he raised it to his ear, as if the reality of what was going on here had stopped dead and we were standing on a golf course. He listened for maybe five seconds.
Then he threw back his head and let out another of those howls. They’d been bad enough from a distance. This close, it was outright terrifying. He flung his hands in the air, flailing wildly around his head like he was trying to fight off a swarm of wasps. I glimpsed the cell phone slip out of his grasp and go sailing over the cliff.
Next thing I knew he was lunging at me, snarling like a pit bull.
From there, everything became a desperate blur. His clawing hands got hold of my shirt, and he rammed his head forward to butt me. I jerked my face aside just in time, brought my knee up into his groin, and stomped on his instep. That slowed him down, but he kept his grip with manic strength. We wrestled around in circles, slipping on the treacherous pebbly soil and gasping for breath.
Every time Nick exhaled, it sounded like he was huffing, “Worms! Worms! Worms!”
Then a chunk of the cliff edge broke loose under my right foot and my foot went with it, kicking helplessly in space. I managed to get my other knee onto solid ground and drag myself back inland, digging my fingers into the earth to pull me along.
“Nick, no, we’re gonna die!” I yelled, rolling away from him.
And he stopped, just as suddenly as he’d attacked—let his hands fall and stood there inert, as if somebody had jerked his plug.
I scrambled to my feet, sucking air into my aching lungs and trying to think of a way to get on top of this, fast. He could light up again in another eyeblink.
Nothing came to me in those few seconds, but it didn’t matter. Without a hint of warning, Nick simply crumpled, like he was falling full length onto a bed.
Right over the edge of the cliff.
Three
I took off in an all-out sprint to the only place I could climb down after Nick, a narrow switchback trail that we’d played on as kids. The slope was gentler here but still damned steep, and I was no kid anymore. My footholds kept breaking loose, sending me into gut-wrenching slides. Sheets of spray lashed up from the pounding surf, slickening the rocks I clutched at and stinging my eyes. Then my feet found the small ledge we used to jump from.
Close to two minutes had passed since Nick had gone over. If he even survived the fall, he was probably unconscious. In the three summers I’d spent lifeguarding at Newport Beach I’d hauled out a fair number of drowners, revived some by CPR and lost others, and I’d been present at many more such incidents.
Two minutes underwater was a long time.
I jumped, aiming for the clear spot I remembered among the rocks and hoping to Christ that memory was right.
The numbing cold shock of the water washed over me as I hit, landing in a waist-deep trough but the next second swamped by a breaker. The incoming waves clashed with the rebounds off the cliff base, turning the surface into a maelstrom. I dropped down below it, tore off my sneakers, and came up off the sandy bottom in a lunging dive and another and another, each time swimming a few strokes through the roiling surf with my head up to scan for Nick.
Then I spotted his white T-shirt, tossing like a sack of trash that wouldn’t quite sink.
By the time I got my hands on his clammy fle
sh, we were pushing three minutes.
He was facedown, arms and legs hanging limp and hair floating like kelp. With a fall like that there was serious risk of central nervous system damage, and even touching him risked aggravating it, but nothing else was going to matter if I couldn’t get him breathing. I rolled him over gently, supporting his neck and trying to shield him from the breakers with my body, and jammed my fingers into his mouth to scoop out anything he might have hacked up. Then I pinched his nostrils shut and clamped my own mouth over his, forcing air into his lungs. Kissing a drowner was another thing I hadn’t done for many years, but that taste was something you never forgot. It came from deep within them and right through the salty overlay of brine—fetid, metallic, and hinting at death. Sometimes they were already there.
I started towing him, bucking the surf and blinding spray, digging my toes into the sand for traction when I could, and blowing air into him every few seconds. The only place anywhere nearby where I could get him out of the water was one of the big rocks that jutted above the surface, still splashed by the waves but not as much, and I could do heart massage.
I eased him up onto it and got down to a steady rhythm—thirty presses on his sternum with the heels of my hands, two breaths into his lungs, and then again. He twitched and made croaking sounds every time I shoved down on his chest. When I’d first done CPR, I thought that meant the victim was coming around. It didn’t.
But then Nick’s lips twisted in a sputtering cough that sounded real. I touched my fingertips to his carotid artery and felt the bump of pulse, thready but definite. I hovered there with my ear close to his mouth and my own heart hammering. Nature usually took charge once the lungs started working, but it was something else you couldn’t count on.
The coughs kept coming in spasms, his body fighting to blow out the water he’d inhaled and suck in air. My hands could almost feel him coming back to life as his breathing gradually got less ragged and more regular, his pulse stronger.
Now the problem was getting him out of here, and it was going to be a whole lot trickier because he showed no signs of coming back to consciousness. We couldn’t just wait until somebody came along and saw us. The closest accessible beach was a quarter mile away, and especially with the water so rough, I couldn’t risk towing him—avoiding spinal damage was top priority now, with internal injury also in the mix. The only choice I could see was to leave him here, call for help—I’d left my own cell phone in my car, thank God—and get back as fast as I could. I wrung out my sodden sweatshirt and covered his torso with it, hoping it might stave off hypothermia a little longer, and stayed with him another half minute to make sure his breathing and pulse were steady. Then I slid back into the ocean and raced for the switchback trail.
With the beating Nick had taken on his fall, it was no surprise that he was still unconscious. Concussion was almost a given, and it might be far worse. But there was another grim possibility I couldn’t ignore. Victims who came around after prolonged submersion sometimes suffered brain damage from oxygen deprivation.
Even if he survived his other injuries, I might have resuscitated a living corpse.
Four
It took maybe fifteen minutes to run to my car, make the call to 911, and get back to Nick. Help started arriving very soon after that, by land, air, and sea. A team from Malibu Search and Rescue—volunteers who risked their necks for nothing but the satisfaction of saving lives—came rappelling down the cliffs; the Coast Guard sent an MLB, a fast, tough boat designed for dangerous operations in heavy surf; and overhead, the lights of a helicopter from UCLA Medical Center appeared through the fog.
The personnel were just as competent as they were quick. Within another few minutes, they’d hoisted Nick by sling to the hovering copter and gotten me on board the boat, wrapped in blankets with EMTs checking me over. I was a little bruised, but intact; the only things I really felt were my scraped-up bare feet.
The sky was starting to lighten as the MLB pulled up onto Westward Beach, the closest place with vehicle access. I told the crew again how terrific they were and climbed out of the boat. Right away, I saw several media vans and a knot of reporters in the parking area. I hadn’t expected that; these kinds of incidents usually didn’t attract so much attention. But as soon as I thought about it, the reason was obvious. These kinds of incidents usually didn’t involve the bad-boy son of a prominent family.
There were also a couple of L.A. County sheriff’s deputies and a man waiting for me who had the look of a plainclothes cop—late forties, solidly built, with a face that seemed friendly but suggested that you wouldn’t want to meet him in an interrogation cell.
I should have expected this; of course the police would want my account. I took my time hobbling across the beach to him, trying to get my story together. With the situation turning so serious, my hiding the dope from Nick’s car was also more serious, and I wasn’t a quick-witted liar.
But another ugly possibility was rising in my mind—that I might be under suspicion for assault or even attempted murder. The scenario was easy to construct. My anger at Nick had grown over the years of trouble he’d given me, and tonight was the last straw. We’d quarreled, and I’d lost my temper and shoved him over the cliff, but then, stricken by fear or remorse, managed to drag him out of the water. It was entirely plausible. Violent incidents where people gave in to bursts of rage, followed by equally sudden changes of heart, were common.
And that would further explain the strong media presence. An implication of foul play would make for an even juicier story.
“Dr. Crandall, I’m Detective Sergeant Drabyak,” the waiting man said, flipping open a wallet badge. “Are you sure you don’t need medical attention?”
“I’m okay. Thanks.”
“You could stand to warm up, I bet. Let’s get you in my car.”
“That would be great. But I could really use some dry clothes. I’ve got some in my own car, if you wouldn’t mind taking me to it.”
“Glad to,” he said. “Just out of curiosity, why’d you bring spare clothes?”
Drabyak wasn’t wasting any time.
“Just old habit,” I said. “If I’ve been running, swimming, a hike out in the foothills.”
Drabyak nodded, apparently satisfied. Apparently.
As we walked toward the parking area, the media cameras started flashing and the reporters closed in, thrusting microphones at me. Their faces loomed forward out of the mist with moving mouths that seemed to have a lot of teeth, and the questions came so fast I only half caught most of them.
“Dr. Crandall, that must have been a harrowing rescue. Can you tell us—”
“Sir, what caused your brother to—”
“Was there a struggle?”
“ . . . drugs involved?”
I held up a hand, palm first. “I don’t have anything to say right now.”
“Come on, people, give him a break,” Drabyak called out more forcefully. That stopped the questions, although they still walked along with us, cameras flashing.
We got into his car, a Ford sedan that was unmarked but had door-to-door dashboard electronics, a squawk box emitting bursts of copspeak, and a racked shotgun. Still, the peace and warmth were comforting.
“Ever see that movie Night of the Living Dead?” he said wryly, jerking his head toward the figures milling around us.
In spite of it all, I couldn’t help smiling.
“How about some coffee?” he said, rummaging under his seat. “Station house crap, but it’s hot.”
“You bet.”
He came up with a battered steel thermos and filled two foam cups with the steaming brew. It was crap, all right, but maybe the most welcome crap I’d ever tasted.
“You’ve had a hell of a night,” he said. “Sure you’re feeling all right?”
“I’m sure.”
“A lot of people wouldn’t be so steady. But I guess it’s not the first time you pulled somebody out of the water.” He was watching me
without seeming to—feeling around.
“It scared the shit out of me every time I did, Detective, and nothing in my life ever scared me like tonight,” I said. “But yeah, you get thick-skinned. I’m sure it’s the same for you guys, only a lot worse. Nobody was ever shooting at us.”
Drabyak exhaled, a sound that seemed both sad and grimly amused.
“There’s an upside—we’ve usually got solid ground under us and air to breathe.” He put the car in gear, and we started out. I thought the reporters might follow us, but they didn’t; I was sure they weren’t done with this, but the immediate high drama was over.
“Dr. Crandall, we might as well get clear right away,” Drabyak said. “I need to know what happened between you and your brother. Why don’t you give me a rundown while we drive?”
I knew I didn’t have to agree—I could have insisted on having a lawyer before I said a word. But that would raise a red flag. I took the gamble that the best way to tamp this down was to talk like I was willing and even eager to. I told him the story, leaving out only the part about the dope in Nick’s car.
Drabyak drove slowly, his right wrist hooked over the wheel. Dawn was coming on now, with the early light suffusing the fog.
“Let me confirm a few things,” he said. “You and Nick weren’t still scuffling when he fell, is that right?”
“Yes. We were a good ten feet apart.”
“You never provoked him or tried to harm him? Didn’t threaten him in any way? Yell something angry, act like you wanted to keep fighting?”
“Nothing like that. Like I said, I was trying my damnedest to get him calmed down and safe. I’ve been annoyed at Nick plenty—no question there. But I’d never do anything to hurt him, and in general, I never blow up. If I couldn’t control myself, I’d have dropped out of psychology a long time ago.”