Only A Memory Away

by Madeline St. Claire

  “Why would he do that? He could have learned to shoot in the service or the reserves or any number of other places, and he’s just rusty. The fact he doesn’t like guns was plain when you offered it to him. And it just occurred to me—” she slapped the table “—the man or men who robbed him may have used guns. It could be a big part of the reason he blacked out in the first place, if they really threatened to shoot him. I hope we haven’t unwittingly traumatized him again!”

  She told Ed everything she’d learned about Judd up to last night. When she finished, Ed asked, “Do you have any information that would suggest why he was parked there on the shoulder of the highway, or what caused the amnesia?”

  She was reluctant to mention Judd’s fight with his boss. She’d just witnessed how suspicious Ed could be, probably a result of having spent most of his life chasing insurance defrauders and unfaithful husbands. However, there wasn’t any way to avoid it. She told him what Howie had revealed about Judd’s movements Friday night. “The point is,” she concluded, “someone could have overheard their conversation at the station and watched Judd take off with a wallet full of cash. The robber could have followed him and run him off the road, then forced him to hand over the money at gunpoint”

  Ed rose to get himself another coffee. “It’s a neat theory. I suppose having someone threaten to blow your head off would be terrifying, but it happens somewhere every day, and the victims don’t usually react by forgetting their entire past lives. More?” He held the pot up to Karen, who checked her watch and shook her head. He continued, “Your scenario fits the facts, but we have to ask why he was in such a hurry to get the cash. Apparently it was important enough that he was willing to give his job up for it. It sounds like he was in some kind of big trouble—blackmail, or drugs maybe.”

  “Oh, Uncle Ed. Surely it’s obvious that Judd is the victim here, not the bad guy. You don’t have to be suspicious of him. Even if Judd was hiding the fact he can use a gun, there could be half a dozen good reasons for it.”

  Ed narrowed his eyes at her. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say there’s a good reason for lying. Maybe you’d better ask someone else in your office to handle this case.”

  Darn, Karen thought. He was sensing her attraction to Judd. She didn’t want him worrying about her, or adding to the ridiculous seed of doubt he’d planted in her. “There’s no need for me to transfer the case,” she said in a detached, professional tone. She checked her watch again. “I’m sorry, Uncle Ed, I’ve got an appointment in Granite at one, and I’m already late.”

  As Ed showed her to the door, he said, “Even though he hasn’t hired me, I can see what I can dig up on Judd’s past, try to locate his ex-wife or something, if you still want me to.”

  She recognized his treatment of her as an adult to be an olive branch. She gave him a brief hug. “Yes, I’d appreciate that. Judd needs your help, and I’m sure he was just too flustered by the target practice to ask for it. I’ll wait for an opportune moment and tell him I gave you the go-ahead.”

  He paused with one hand on the doorknob. “I know you feel sorry for this fella, honey, and you’ve got a heart of gold for folks in trouble, but do something, for me. Be cautious. I’ve been in the PI business for almost thirty years, and instinct tells me there’s something not right about Judd Maxwell.”

  Chapter Five

  Karen’s entire day got turned around when she returned home for a quick lunch. There was a message on her answering machine from the receptionist at her office, saying that her one-o’clock appointment had been canceled. Karen called the office and found she had no other messages.

  Before hanging up the phone, she decided to put in a call to Dr. Bergman at St. Mary’s. To her good fortune, the doctor was in and had ten minutes to spare. To satisfy her uncle’s fears, she asked Bergman if Judd could be faking the amnesia out of some ulterior motive. The psychiatrist answered that, in his best medical opinion, Judd was not malingering.

  The canceled appointment having left her afternoon free, she ate a leisurely lunch and decided she’d better deposit her paycheck and run some errands while she had the chance. She was leaving her bank on Main Street when she spotted Judd Maxwell’s car, parked half a block away.

  Her pulse quickened at the thought he was nearby. What were her chances of “running into him” if she tried to find him? She crossed the street and began looking in the storefronts.

  He was standing at a teller’s window in the savings and loan. Karen smoothed the hair around her face in the reflection of the glass before entering the double doors.

  Judd was waiting for the absent teller to return, but rather than lounging against the counter in a relaxed manner, his legs were spread and back straight, like a Marine at ease.

  He turned at her approach, and a smile split his face. He’d removed his sunglasses, and the warm greeting in his eyes, so unfamiliar and unexpected, made her heart take flight.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “I was about to ask you the same thing. I saw your car outside. My afternoon appointment came down with the flu, so I didn’t have to go in to Granite after all. Do you have an account here?”

  “Yes, thank goodness. Why does such a little town need seven banking establishments? I’ve been making the rounds, asking at each one if I’d ever done business there.”

  “How many have you already been to?”

  “Six.”

  Karen laughed, sharing in the happy relief his wry expression conveyed. It struck her afresh how anxious she was to see Judd get back on his feet. Dr. Bergman had encouraged her to continue firmly but patiently offering Judd her friendship and understanding. She hadn’t mentioned it to the doctor, but she had a definite feeling there was a stable, very personable character behind Judd’s changeable, often wary exterior. Thank goodness she hadn’t allowed herself to get discouraged by his moods! If she’d hesitated to look for him when she spotted his car, they wouldn’t be sharing this moment of discovery.

  “Thank you for waiting,” a middle-aged woman said as she joined them on the other side of the counter. “I have your signature card here, sir.” The teller compared Judd’s penmanship with her sample, then typed some information onto her computer screen. “You have a regular checking account with us, no other accounts. The checking balance is two dollars, three cents.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Yes, not including any deposits made today.”

  “I haven’t made any.”

  The teller glanced up, noted Judd’s stunned expression, then hit the scroll key. “The most recent activity on the account was…last Friday. Three hundred eighty dollars was withdrawn from the ATM.”

  “What time Friday?”

  “Um, 6:32 p.m.”

  “Thank you.”

  Judd’s whole countenance had fallen, and it made Karen feel sick. She touched his arm as they walked through the lobby. “I know that’s not news you wanted to hear, but you won’t be broke forever. I’m sure, with your skills, we can find you another job—”

  He stopped and turned to face her with hard eyes. “That’s not the problem.”

  “It’s not?”

  Judd glanced about sharply, but there was no one near to overhear. He dropped his voice. “Haven’t you wondered why I demanded my pay from Summers Friday night? Why I drained my bank account at the same time? Why they didn’t find even a suitcase in the trunk of my car? I was in one big hurry to get out of town, Karen. I was, probably still am, in some kind of deep trouble.”

  It took her a moment to formulate an answer. Though she’d found Judd’s physical presence somewhat menacing in the first minutes she met him, it had never occurred to her he might have a police record. He just hadn’t struck her as that type of man.

  “But surely,” she began, “if the police wanted to arrest you, they would have done it as soon as they identified you at the hospital.” His fevered look warned her he was ready to bolt, and she talked faster. “Lis
ten, there are a lot of perfectly good explanations why you could have needed that money on the spur of the moment. Maybe you got a call that your mother was very sick and you needed a ticket on the first flight out When my mom came down with cancer a couple of years ago, I would have begged, borrowed or stolen to get to her side.” She immediately regretted the choice of words, but hoped he would overlook it and consider her point.

  “Karen.” He took her earnestly by the forearms, his big hands clasping her skin beneath the short sleeves of her blouse. She didn’t look down, but every nerve ending in her body seemed wired to her arms. His palms were damp with anxiety, but his grip was sure and the pressure of his fingers overwhelmingly masculine.

  “You’ve been wonderful to me, and I appreciate your desire to help me. But you don’t understand everything that’s going on here.” His gray eyes riveted her with earnestness. “Despite what you feel for me, whether it’s compassion, or duty, or something more personal—”

  Karen blushed, understanding perfectly his meaning.

  “Believe me, it’s not worth you staying involved with me.” He paused a moment, grinding his jaw. “There’s nothing that says I have to accept social services’ help, is there?”

  “No,” she admitted.

  “Then in that case, I’m hereby refusing any further assistance. And I don’t want you coming around on your time off, either,” he added, perhaps reading her mind.

  What could she say? The steel in his eyes told her she’d better not argue, and causing a scene here in the bank would only embarrass him.

  However, the thought of letting him go was almost unbearable. Until he’d come out and put it into words a few moments ago, she hadn’t realized how personally attracted she was to him.

  For the first time, his gaze faltered. He looked down, then back up, but couldn’t quite meet her eyes. “Goodbye.” And with that he left.

  Karen’s throat ached as she watched him go. To manage her crushing disappointment, she told herself fiercely this wasn’t the end. She wasn’t about to stop checking on him just because he was confused and imagined himself a burden to others. She shouldn’t take his rejection personally. After all, hadn’t Dr. Bergman warned her that feelings of unease, even paranoia, were normal for a victim of amnesia?

  As she walked to her car, Karen had to admit that some of the things Judd had learned were disturbing. Besides the mysterious business with the money, she herself had wondered why, with all his intelligence and obvious drive, he had worked only part-time as an auto mechanic. She’d wondered if he had a second job Howie didn’t know about, or did some kind of volunteer work in his spare time, or was a closet composer or something. But seen from Judd’s depressed perspective, his scant employment history might suggest he was an aimless drifter, even a troublemaker, without a taste for work or responsibility. It was a possibility, but Karen just couldn’t buy it.

  As she stepped into her car, she suddenly felt a terrific impatience for Judd’s memory to return. Once she knew who he was, she’d have a better idea where she stood with him. Part of her had tingled at every suggestion that he wasn’t attached, the same part of her that had avoided imagining him with another woman.

  Karen sighed and told herself she was asking for a letdown by falling for a man with an unknown past.

  “You should be doing better, resisting that magnetic pull of his,” she said aloud at the stoplight, “given all the experience you’ve had!” In twenty-six years, how many Mr. Wrongs had she sidestepped? She briefly went down the list of men she’d dated who were emotionally mature, responsible and well employed, but almost totally disinterested in doing anything but tending to their own success and comfort. Helping others had always been important to her, something she felt she owed to fellow members of the human family. Though she was getting older and the pool of marriageable men was shrinking, she still wasn’t ready to compromise and marry someone who didn’t share her values.

  JUDD LAY AWAKE for a long time that night. By his bed, the face of the cheap digital alarm clock glowed 1:05. The walls of the former motel were thin; he’d lain awake for the past hour, listening to the neighbor’s television after switching off his own. Now, apparently, the other party had gone to bed, too. In this quiet residential section of town, there wasn’t even the sound of a car passing on the street. Judd almost wished his neighbor had decided to pull an all-nighter.

  Judd got up in his boxers and padded quietly across the carpet There was no sound from the wrought-iron birdcage, covered with a dark cloth, as he passed. The lively cockatiel, whom Judd had christened “Trouble,” had proved to be an affectionate pet. He constantly begged to be let out of his cage to ride companionably around the apartment on Judd’s shoulder. But with the setting sun, Trouble had rested his head on his back and tucked up one leg like a flamingo, ready for slumber. Judd had whispered “Good night” as he carefully arranged the cage cover and received a sleepy peep in response.

  Had Trouble stirred now, Judd probably would have taken him out for company. But the bird had been kept awake much of last night by his owner’s noisome nightmares, and Judd felt the poor cockatiel deserved a rest.

  Judd drew himself a glass of water in the kitchenette, then stood at the crack in the front curtains, staring out at the scraggly lawn and deeply shadowed street. He felt so alone. Alone with a thousand questions that wouldn’t let him sleep. Alone without even himself for company. Who was he?

  After the disastrous episode at the private investigator’s house, he’d come home and tried to eat something, tried to relax while he regrouped. But the apartment itself disturbed him. By all accounts, he made barely enough money to live on, yet his personal possessions were expensive. The British-made CD player, amplifier and mahogany speakers showed no signs of wear and convinced him he’d acquired the pieces quite recently. Had he purchased them from some high-end stereo store in Granite, or had they “fallen off a truck”? Was he a thief or a masked robber of convenience stores? An escaped criminal with the law on his heels? If so, why were the authorities allowing him to roam free?

  His lunch of canned beans half-eaten, he had grabbed his car keys and gone downtown to look for his bank, armed with his temporary, replacement driver’s license, hoping the tellers would accept it as identification.

  The helpful clerk at the highway-patrol office had issued the license to him that morning. It seemed everyone in the small outpost, which also served as a Department of Motor Vehicles, was familiar with his case. The clerk had helped him with the paperwork and looked up his driving record. That’s when she’d given him the news he had a driver’s license in three other western states.

  The status of his checking account had been even more ominous. Knowing he had needed money Friday night, he had been prepared today for the worst as he made the round of the banks and savings and loans. But when Karen walked up with that roomlighting smile, he’d suddenly been swept away by the illogical, but powerful, notion that nothing could go wrong while she was with him. If only!

  What threat had caused him to gather every dime he had and take off Friday night? Who or what had he been fleeing from on Highway 18? If he could just find out his movements between seven-fifteen, when he left Howie’s garage, and midnight, when the officers found him, he might be able to recall everything.

  Judd ran a hand through his hair. Virtually nothing had jogged his memory so far. It was like the damn brain cells that held the information had just died. Today, when Ed Thomas handed him that gun…God help him, he’d felt genuine terror. Staring at the manshaped target, he knew he could hit it directly through the heart, or the abdomen, or anywhere else he chose. He’d been filled with irrational fears as he raised the gun, afraid if he pierced the silhouette that blood would spew forth!

  Judd leaned his sweating forehead against the cold glass, his breath heavy and ragged in his ears. Heaven help him, was he going insane?

  He finally staggered back to his bed and fell down on it.

  And then he
started suffocating. He was alone, in a dark, impenetrable, very humid place. Lights—vague, fuzzy balls—appeared in the distance and slowly grew. He tried to make out what they were. They appeared to be the flattened shapes of women, with their arms out He didn’t want to look at them anymore, but they kept advancing, like paper targets being retrieved on a wire. The women frightened him, and he closed his eyes, began shooting. When he dared look again, he realized the first bloody target had come to rest before him—it had Karen’s smiling face.

  IT WAS MIDMORNING, and the burly apartment manager knew he was about to be throttled. Judd saw the fear in the other man’s eyes, the whites standing out in the East Indian’s face. Judd gave a laughing snort and inched closer to his landlord, who stepped back. “You don’t have the guts to throw me out, do you?”

  “Mr. Maxwell, I will call the police if you continue to threaten me.” He had a precise way of speaking and a slight British accent, thickened now by his anxiety.

  “If you make it to the phone fast enough.”

  “Mr. Maxwell, please!”

  The door of a nearby unit opened three inches, revealing a mother with a small child at her knee. As the woman watched them anxiously though the crack, Judd lowered his hands to his sides, forced his fists to unclench.

  The landlord, having also noticed the woman, raised his voice. “I desire no trouble. If you have the rent money now and give it to me, I will allow you to stay.”

  Judd’s irritation flared again. “I told you, I haven’t got the money. Not any of it.”

  “But you promised me a check would come for you last Friday, so I gave you the extra time. The rent is now over two weeks past due, and the neighbors are complaining about your nightmares. They cannot sleep the last two nights, with your moaning and calling out and your pet bird screeching.” The Indian looked sympathetic, in spite of himself. “It is frightening to them, Mr. Maxwell. I cannot afford to let you stay on without paying, and risk losing other tenants if your night terrors continue.”