by Sue Grafton
“Tell me what you remember about the parcel.”
“There isn’t much. I only glanced at it once. Brown paper. No string. Block lettering, done with a Magic Marker from the look of it. I saw it upside down.”
“The address facing the door,” he said. He took out a little spiral-bound notebook and a pen.
“Right.”
“Who’s it sent to?”
“Terry, I think. Not ‘Mr. and Mrs.’ because the line of print wasn’t that long. Even upside down, I’d have noticed the ‘O’ in Olive’s name.”
He was jotting notes. “Return address?”
“Uhn-un, I don’t remember any postmark either. There might have been a UPS number, but I didn’t see one.”
“You’re doing pretty good,” he said. “The regular mailman says he only delivered hand mail yesterday, no packages at all. UPS had no record of a delivery to that address. They didn’t even have a truck in the area. You didn’t see anyone leave the premises?”
I tried to think back, but I was drawing a blank. “Can’t help you there. I don’t remember anyone on foot. A car might have passed, but I can’t picture it.”
I closed my eyes, visualizing the porch. There were salmon begonias in big tubs along the front. “Oh, yeah. The newspaper was on the doormat. I don’t know how far up the walk the paperboy comes, but he might have seen the parcel when he was doing his route.”
He made another note. “We’ll try that. What about dimensions?”
I could feel myself shrug. “Size of a shirt box. Bigger than a book. Nine by twelve inches by three. Was there anything left of it?”
“More than you’d think. We believe there was gift wrap under the brown mailing paper. Blue.”
“Oh sure,” I said, startled. “I remember seeing flakes of brown and blue. I thought it was snow, but it must have been paper particles.” I remembered what Terry had said to me. “Something else,” I said. “Terry was threatened. He talked about it when I was there the night before. He had a phone call at the plant from a woman named Lyda Case. She asked him when his birthday was and when he told her, she said he shouldn’t count on it.”
I filled him in on the rest, unburdening the sequence of events from the first. For once, I loved offloading the information on him. This was big time… the heavy hitters… more than I could deal with by myself. When it came down to bombs, I was out of my league. Lieutenant Dolan was scratching notes at a quick clip, his expression that mask of studied neutrality all cops tend to wear ��� taking in everything, giving nothing back. He talked as if he was already on the witness stand. “So there’s a chance she’s in Santa Teresa. Is that what you’re saying?”
“I don’t know. He seemed to think she was coming out, but he was pretty vague on that point. He’s here, too?” I asked.
“This floor. Other end of the hall.”
“You care if I talk to him?”
“No, not a bit. Might help jog his memory.” After Lieutenant Dolan left, I eased into a sitting position on the edge of the bed, feet dangling over the side. My head was pounding at the sudden exertion. I sat and waited for the light show inside my head to fade. I studied as much of my body as I could see.
My legs looked frail under the lightweight cotton of the hospital gown, which tied at the back and let in lots of air. The pattern of bruises across my front looked like someone had taken a powder puff and dusted me with purple talc. My hands were bandaged and I could see an aura of angry red flesh along my inner arms where the burns tapered off. I held onto the handrail and slid off the bed, supporting myself on the bed table. My legs were trembling. I could almost bet they didn’t want me getting up this way. I didn’t think it was such a hot idea myself, the more I thought of it. Nausea and clamminess were chiming in with the pounding in my head and a fuzzy darkness was gathering along the periphery of my vision. I wasn’t going to win an award for this so I sat back down.
There was a tap at the door and the nurse came in. “Your husband’s out here. He says he has to leave and he’d like to see you before he goes.”
“He’s not my husband,” I said automatically.
She put her hands in the pockets of her uniform ��� a tunic over white pants, no cap. I only knew she was a nurse because her plastic name tag had an R.N. after her name, which was Sharie Wright. I studied her covertly, knowing how much Daniel liked women with names like that. Debbie and Tammie and Cindie. Candie loomed large in there, too. I guess Kinsey qualified, now that I thought of it. Kinsie. Infidelity reduces and diminishes, leaving nothing where you once had a sense of self-worth.
“He’s been worried sick,” she said. “I know it’s none of my business, but he was here all night. I thought you should be aware.” She saw that I was struggling to get settled in the bed and she gave me a hand. I guessed that she was twenty-six. I was twenty-three when I married him, twenty-four when he left. No explanation, no discussion. The divorce was no-fault, served up in record time.
“Is there a way I can get a wheelchair? There’s someone down the hall I’d like to see. The man who was admitted at the same time I was.”
“Mr. Kohler. He’s in three-oh-six at the end of the hall.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Fine. He’s going home this afternoon.”
“The policeman who was here a little while ago wants me to talk to him.”
“What about your husband? He said it would only take two minutes.”
“He’s not my husband,” I said, parrotlike, “but sure. Send him in. After he goes, could you find me a wheelchair? If I try to walk, I’ll fall on my puss and have to sue this outfit.”
She didn’t think I was amusing and she didn’t like the reference to lawsuits. She went out without a word. My husband, I thought. I should live so long.
Chapter 16
*
He looked tired ��� an improvement, I thought. Daniel stood by my hospital bed, showing every minute of his forty-two years. “I know this won’t sit well with you,” he said, “but the doctor says she won’t let you go home unless you have someone to look after you.”
A feeling very like panic crept up in my chest. “I’ll be fine in a day. I don’t need anyone looking after me. I hate that idea.”
“Well, I knew you would. I’m telling you what she said.”
“She didn’t mention it to me.”
“She never had a chance. You were half zonked. She said she’d talk to you about it next time she made her rounds.”
“They can’t keep me here. That’s disgusting. I’ll go nuts.”
“I already told her that. I just wanted you to know I’d be willing to help. I could get you signed out of here and settled at home. I wouldn’t actually have to stay on the premises. That place of yours looks too small for more than one person anyway. But I could at least check on you twice a day, make sure you have everything you need.”
“Let me think about it,” I said grudgingly. But I could already see the bind I was in. With Henry gone, Rosie on vacation, and Jonah out of town, I’d be on my own. Truly, I wasn’t feeling that good. I just couldn’t make my body do what I wanted it to. The elderly, the feeble, and the infirm must experience the same exasperation and bewilderment. For once, my determination had nothing whatever to do with my proficiency. It was exhausting to sit up, and I knew perfectly well I couldn’t manage much at home. Staying here was out of the question. Hospitals are dangerous. People make mistakes. Wrong blood, wrong medication, wrong surgeries, wrong tests. I was checking out of this place “toot sweet.”
Daniel ran his hand across the top of my head. “Do what you want. I’ll be back later.”
He was gone again before I could protest.
I buzzed the nurses’ station on the intercom.
A hollow voice came on. “Yes?”
“Can Mr. Kohler in three-oh-six have visitors?”
“As far as I know he can.” The nurse sounded like she was talking into an old tin can, coughs and rustling
in the background.
“Can I get a wheelchair? I’d like to go down and see him.”
It was twenty minutes before anybody managed to find me one. In the meantime, I became aware that I was struggling with a depression generated by Olive’s death. It wasn’t as if we had had a relationship, but she’d been around on the borders of my life for years. I’d first seen her in high school when I met Ashley, but she’d left just before our junior year began. After that she was more rumor than fact… the sister who was always off somewhere else: boarding school, Switzerland, skiing in Utah with friends. I don’t think we’d exchanged more than superficial chat until two days before, and then I’d found my opinion of her undergoing a shift. Now, death had smashed her like a bug, the blow as abrupt as a fly being swatted on a windowsill. The effect was jarring and the emotional impact hadn’t worn off. I found myself turning images in my mind, trying to absorb the finality. I hadn’t been consulted in the matter and I hadn’t agreed. Death is insulting, and I resented its sudden appearance, like an unannounced visit from a boorish relative. I suspected the knot in my chest would be there for a long time; not grief per se, but a hard fist of regret.
I wheeled myself down the corridor to room 306. The door was closed and Bass was standing in the hall. He turned his head idly as I approached. Bass had the smooth good looks of someone in an eighteenth-century oil painting. His face was oval, boyish, his brow unlined, his eyes a barren brown. His mouth was sensual, his manner superior. Put him in a satin vest, a waistcoat, breeches, and leggings, and he might have been Blue Boy, grown slightly decadent. His hair was fine and dark, receding at the temples, worn slightly long and rather wispy where it gathered in a point on his forehead. He should have had an Afghan at his side, some creature with silky ears and a long, aristocratic snout.
“Hello, Bass. I’m Kinsey Millhone. Do you remember me?”
“Of course,” he said. He bent down then and gave my cheek a social buss, more noise than contact. His expression was bleak. There was a dead time in the air, one of those uncomfortable stretched moments when you struggle to find something to say. His sister was dead. This was hardly the time for effusiveness, but I was puzzled by the awkwardness of our encounter.
“Where’s Terry?”
He glanced at the door. “He’s having his dressing changed. They should be done shortly. He’s going home as soon as the doctor signs the release. How are you? We heard you were down the hall.”
“I’m all right. I’m sorry about Olive,” I said, and I truly was.
“God, this is all so screwed up. I don’t know what’s going on.”
“How’s your mother doing? Is she holding up all right?”
“She’ll be okay. She’s a tough old bird. She’s taking it pretty hard, but she’s got a spine of steel. Ash is destroyed. She’s been leveled. She and Olive were always just like this,” he said, holding up crossed fingers. “What about you? You look like you took a beating.”
“I’m all right. This is the first time I’ve been out of bed and I feel like shit.”
“You’re lucky to be alive from what I hear.”
“Lucky is right. I thought about picking the package up myself, but Olive’s car pulled in and I went to help her with the groceries instead. Are you staying at your mother’s?”
He nodded. “I got in Thursday night and then Olive called yesterday and said she was putting the party together. Seems like years ago. I was having a swim before I got dressed when Ebony showed up at the side of the pool. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her. You know Eb. Always in control, never a hair out of place. Well, she looked like a wild woman. I pulled myself up on the side of the pool and she said a bomb had gone off at Olive’s house and she was dead. I thought she was making the whole thing up. I laughed. It was so far-fetched, I couldn’t help myself. She slapped the shit out of me and that’s when I realized she was serious. What happened? Terry can’t remember and the police won’t tell us much.”
I told him what I could, omitting the gruesome details of Olive’s injuries. Even talking about it made me shake. I clamped my teeth shut, trying to relax. “Sorry,” I said.
“It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have brought it up,” he said. “I didn’t mean to put you through it all again.”
I shook my head. “That’s fine. I’m okay. Nobody’s told me much either. Honestly, I think it helps. The blanks are frustrating.” I was looking for a narrative thread to hang fragments on. I’d lost the night. Everything from 4:30 on had been deleted from my memory bank.
He hesitated for a moment and then filled me in on events from his end. Ash had left. She was on her way to Olive’s to help set up for the party. As soon as he heard about the explosion, he pulled some clothes on and he and Ebony jumped in the car. They arrived to find Terry being loaded into the ambulance. I was being bundled onto a stretcher, semiconscious. Olive was still lying near the shrubs, covered by a blanket.
Bass’s recital of events was flat, like a news report. He was calm, his tone impersonal. He made no eye contact. I stared down the hall where a doctor with a somber expression was talking to an older couple sitting on a bench. The news must have been bad because the woman clutched and unclutched the purse in her lap.
I remembered then that I had seen, Bass… one of the faces scrutinizing mine, bobbing above me like a balloon on a string. By then, shock had set in and I was shivering uncontrollably, in spite of the blankets they’d wrapped me in. I didn’t remember Ebony. Maybe they had kept her out by the road, refusing to let her any closer to the carnage. The bomb had made tatters of Olive’s flesh. Hunks of her body had been blown against the hedges, like clots of snow.
I put a hand against my face, feeling flushed with tears. Bass patted me awkwardly, murmuring nonsense, upset that he’d upset me, probably wondering how to get out of it. The emotion passed and I collected myself, taking a deep breath. “What about Terry’s injuries?”
“Not bad. A cut on his forehead. Couple of cracked ribs where the blast knocked him into the garage. They wanted him in for observation, but he seems okay.”
There was activity behind us and the door to Terry’s room opened. A nurse came out bearing a stainless steel bowl full of soiled bandages. She seemed enveloped in aromas of denatured alcohol, tincture of iodine, and the distinctive smell of adhesive tape.
“You can go in now. Doctor said he can leave any time. We’ll get a wheelchair for him when he’s ready to go down.”
Bass went in first. I wheeled myself in behind. A nurse’s aide was straightening the bed table where the nurse had been working. Terry was sitting on the edge of the bed, buttoning up his shirt. I caught sight of his taped ribs through the loose flaps of his shirt and I looked away. His torso was stark white and hairless, his chest narrow and without musculature. Illness and injury seem so personal. I didn’t want to know the details of his frailty.
He looked battered, with a dark track sketched along his forehead where the stitches had been put in. One wrist was bandaged, from cuts perhaps, or burns. His face was pale, his moustache stark, his dark hair disheveled. He seemed shrunken, as if Olive’s death had diminished him.
Ebony appeared in the doorway, taking in the scene with a cursory glance. She hesitated, waiting for the aide to finish. The room seemed unbearably crowded. I needed fresh air.
“I’ll come back in a minute,” I murmured. I wheeled myself out. Ebony followed me as far as the visitors’ lounge, a small alcove with a green tweed couch, two matching chairs, an artificial palm, and an ashtray. She took a seat, searching through her handbag for her cigarettes. She lit one, sucking in smoke as if it were oxygen. She looked totally composed, but it was clear that the hospital atmosphere unsettled her. She picked a piece of lint from the lap of her skirt.
“I don’t understand any of this,” she said harshly. “Who’d want to kill Olive? She never did anything.”
“Olive wasn’t the target. It was Terry. The package with the bomb in it was addressed to him
.”
Ebony’s gaze shot up to mine and hung there. A pale wash of pink appeared in the dead white of her face. The hand with the cigarette gave a lurch, almost of its own accord, and cigarette ash tumbled into her lap. She rose abruptly, brushing at it.
“That’s ridiculous,” she snapped. “The police said there was nothing left of the package once the bomb went off.” She stubbed the cigarette out.
“Well, there was,” I said. “Besides which, I saw it. Terry’s name was printed on the front, not hers.”
“I don’t believe it.” A wisp of smoke drifted up from the crushed cigarette stub. She snatched it up again, working the live ember out with her fingertips. She was shredding the remains of the cigarette. The strands of raw tobacco seemed obscene.
“I’m just telling you what I saw. Olive could have been the target, but the package was addressed to him.”
“Bullshit! That bastard! Don’t tell me Olive died because she picked it up instead of him!” Her eyes suffused with tears and she struggled for control. She got up, pacing with agitation.
I turned the wheelchair slightly, tracking her course. “What bastard, Ebony? Who are you referring to?”
She sat down abruptly, pressing the butts of both palms against her eyes. “No one. I’m sorry. I had no idea. I thought someone meant to kill her, which was horrible enough. But to die by mistake. My God! At least she didn’t suffer. They swear she died instantly.” She sobbed once.
She formed a tent of her hands, breathing hard into her palms.
“Do you know who killed her?”
“Of course not! Absolutely not! What kind of monster do you think I am? My own sister…” Her tone of outrage fell away and she wept earnestly. I wanted to believe her, but I couldn’t be sure. I was tired, too close to events to sort out the false from the true. She lifted her face, which was washed with tears.
“Olive said she wasn’t going to vote with you,” I said, trying the possibility on her for size.
“You’re such a bitch!” she shrieked at me. “How dare you! Get away from me!”