by Susan Gloss
There was a rustling sound behind him and then Nell said, “Hey, you.”
Odin looked back toward the couch, where Nell was now sitting up, stretching.
“Sorry if I woke you,” he said.
“No, I needed to get up anyway. I can’t believe I fell asleep here.”
Odin noticed that her hair was matted to her face on one side—bedhead. An image flashed through his mind of being in bed with her, her dark hair splayed across the pillow, the sheets playing peekaboo with her soft curves. He blinked hard to get the image out of his head.
Nell rubbed her eyes and riffled through the papers next to her. “I was going through some of Betsy’s things, so I pulled your application out for you,” she said. “Thought you might want to see it.”
Nell held out a packet of papers to him. He took it and said, “Thanks. Is it okay if I read it later?”
“Sure. I should probably get home.” Nell pushed the blanket off her legs, gathered it in her arms, and got up from the sofa. “It was really good to talk with you earlier.”
“I was thinking the same thing. There aren’t many people I can talk to like that.”
“Anytime.” She held out the blanket to give it back to him. As he reached for it, their hands touched inside the folds of the soft cotton fabric. Nell looked at him with still sleepy, heavy-lidded eyes. He closed his hands, callused from the long day’s work, over her smaller ones. He felt the same jolt of attraction he’d felt when they’d touched earlier that day, sitting side by side on the bench. Except that this time, it was stronger. She was closer.
A voice inside his head told him he’d probably crossed the line. He tried to silence it, but the voice only became more persistent. Reluctantly, he loosened his grip on her hands.
But she tightened hers. “It’s okay . . .”
This time, Odin couldn’t stop himself from bending his face down toward hers. She leaned closer to him, tilting her chin up. Then, just as their lips were about to touch, Nell looked down, and his mouth landed awkwardly on her forehead, at her hairline. Instead of the wet press of her lips, he got a whiff of flowery shampoo.
Nell covered her face with her hands.
“I’m sorry,” he said, taking a step back. “I thought you were trying to . . .”
Nell dropped her arms to her sides, and he could see that her cheeks were bright red. “I don’t know what I was doing.” She shook her head. “I wasn’t thinking. I’m so embarrassed.”
“You don’t have to be embarrassed,” Odin said. “It was stupid of me. I think I’ve been spending way too much time alone. It’s messing up my judgment and I misread—”
Nell hoisted her bag onto her shoulder. “You didn’t misread anything.” She looked him directly in the eye, her expression earnest. “But my judgment has been screwed up lately, too. I should really get home.”
She left the room, and her footsteps clicked on the tile floor of the hallway. The sound stopped suddenly and, for a few quiet seconds, Odin wondered if Nell had changed her mind about leaving. His heart pounded with desire and anticipation.
But then the sound of a siren at close range broke the silence.
Chapter Eighteen
Nell
PIECE: Erté (Romain de Tirtoff), Justice. Bronze art deco sculpture. Edition: 15/1200.
Nell would never forget the flash of red and blue lights reflected on the marble floor of the mansion’s foyer, or the sight of Annie running barefoot down the wet driveway while paramedics loaded a woman into an ambulance on a stretcher. A policeman shouted questions over his shoulder as he climbed into the back of the ambulance.
“Are you sure you don’t know what she took?” he yelled. “Or how much?”
By the time Nell and Odin reached Annie, she was standing in the middle of the street, shaking her head and staring after the ambulance as it sped away, followed by a squad car that had been parked behind it.
Nell put an arm around her. “What happened?”
Annie turned and gave her a bewildered look before saying, “Caroline—one of my subjects—was acting strange and having trouble breathing.” She choked back a sob. “I called 911. I wanted to go with her to the hospital, but they wouldn’t let me in the ambulance.”
“Put some shoes on,” Odin said. “I’ll drive you there.”
Annie shook her head. “The paramedics said we should stay here. More police are on their way to investigate. They have to with overdoses.”
Nell thought she must have heard wrong. Or maybe she was still asleep on the couch and this was all a nightmare. She opened her mouth to ask questions, but Odin started talking first.
“Let’s go inside,” he said. “It’s freezing out here.”
In the house, Odin led Annie to the living room couch. He left and came back with the same blanket that had been covering Nell just a few minutes earlier. Those moments in the office, alone with Odin, now seemed fuzzy and unreal in Nell’s head.
Odin gave the blanket to Annie and she draped it around her shoulders, shuddering.
Paige came running downstairs just then, followed by a guy with a shaved head and a goatee.
“Who’s that?” Odin whispered.
Nell shrugged. She had never seen the guy before.
“What’s going on?” Paige asked.
When Nell explained that someone had been taken away by ambulance and the police were on their way, Paige’s friend said quickly, “I’d better go.”
Paige raised an eyebrow. “What, do you have an outstanding warrant or something?”
“Something like that.” He gave Paige a kiss on the cheek and practically ran out the door.
Nell had the sick sense that she was way out of her depth. But now, with the three residents staring at her as if they expected her to know what to do, she snapped out of her shock and found her voice.
“Annie,” Nell said. “What do we need to know before more police get here?”
Annie hugged the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “Caroline is an addict.” She shivered. “I’ve been working on a photo essay about addiction and recovery. That’s why she was here.”
Nell tried to remember how Annie had described her project on her application. “I thought you were working on a series about human pain.”
Annie waved a hand. “It’s all related, don’t you see? Pain, pain relief, addiction. All part of the same cycle. Caroline was addicted to prescription painkillers, but she’d been clean for a little while now.” Annie’s forehead contorted with worry. “As soon as she showed up tonight, I knew something was wrong. She was hours late. Her pupils were tiny and she was barely speaking coherently. The paramedics said it looked like opioid overdose.”
Nell took a deep breath, trying not to let on to the others how panicked she was. “Okay,” she said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to get in touch with Josh—he’s a lawyer and can help us figure how to handle things when the police get here.”
She stepped into the office and, with shaking hands, called Josh. The phone rang several times, and she wondered if he’d even pick up. She couldn’t exactly claim her marriage was in a good place. She and Josh had hardly spoken in the last couple of weeks. Since the night the debt collector called, he had been sleeping in the nursery-made-office. And tonight Nell had almost kissed Odin. She rubbed her forehead, remembering just how badly she’d wanted to. How close she’d come. Josh had every reason not to pick up the phone. But he did pick up, on the fourth ring.
“Nell?” he said. “Where are you?”
“I’m at the Colony,” she said. “I could really use your help.”
“What’s going on?” Alarm sounded in his voice.
“I don’t know all the details, but it looks like one of Annie’s photography subjects overdosed. The paramedics said they suspect opioids. There were already a couple of police officers here, but they went with the woman to the hospital. More police are on their way to ask some questions.”
“Okay, okay,” Jos
h said. Nell could practically see him bolting up to a sitting position. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Whatever you do, don’t answer any questions until I get there, got it?”
The police arrived shortly after Nell hung up. One male officer and one female officer came to the door.
“Evening, ma’am,” the policeman said to Nell. “I’m Officer Schultz with the Madison PD. This here is my partner, Officer Green. May we come in? We’ve had a call that a woman was taken from here by ambulance and we need to ask some questions.”
“Of course.” Nell said. She took a deep breath to try to slow her racing heart and stepped aside to let them in.
“Which one of you is Annie Beck, the one who placed the 911 call?” Schultz asked.
“I am.” Annie got up from the couch and came into the foyer.
“Do you live here?”
Annie nodded. “Is Caroline okay?”
The two officers looked at each other. Schultz nodded at Green, who said, “I’m sorry, but we’ve been authorized to tell you that she passed away en route to the hospital. We just found out from the officers who accompanied her there. The paramedics administered several rounds of naloxone, but their attempts to reverse the effects of the overdose were unsuccessful.”
Annie sunk to the ground and hugged her knees to her chest. Nell clapped her hand to her mouth.
“The cause of death is respiratory arrest from suspected opioid overdose and, with all these types of cases, we’re required to treat the place of overdose as a crime scene,” Green said.
Annie got up. “No,” she said, her voice insistent. “She didn’t overdose here. She was with me the whole time. She was already acting strange when she showed up.”
“So if we search the premises, we’re not going to find any controlled substances?” Green asked.
Annie paused. “You’ll probably find some pot,” she said. “Caroline liked to smoke pot to relax when I photographed her. But you won’t find anything else.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Green said. “Preliminary observations from the medical team who treated the deceased indicate that she was probably under the influence of heroin, given the existence of an injection site on the body. Overdose by IV tends to happen very quickly, so it’s likely she shot up here or somewhere very close by. So you can understand why we have some questions.”
Nell had spent many hours watching Josh practice lectures about constitutional law. She remembered a thing or two now, and she spoke up. “We’re happy to cooperate and give you whatever information you need, but if you don’t mind, we’ll wait until our lawyer gets here. He’s on the way.”
Green nodded. “Do you live here, too?” she asked Nell.
“No,” she said. “Everyone else does, but this is an artists’ colony. I’m the director, so I work here.” She cleared her throat, trying to think of how she might stall until Josh got there, or if saying anything would just make the whole situation worse. She decided she had to do something, anything, so she said, “Maybe you’ve heard of the woman who used to live here . . . Betsy Barrett? She was the founder of this artists’ colony. If you hold on a moment, I can show you the legal documents if you’d like. The house is actually owned by her trust.”
Nell went to the office. The serene, organized space suddenly seemed completely out of context with what had just happened elsewhere in the house. She heard footsteps behind her and turned around. Officer Green stood in the doorway of the office.
“I have to accompany you, since we haven’t done a protective sweep of the house yet,” she explained.
While the officer watched, Nell bent over to scoop up the papers from where she’d left them on the couch and put them back in the shoebox. Her hands were trembling, and when she stood up straight again, a bronze figurine on one of the bookshelves caught her eye. She’d noticed it before, this small statue of a woman draped in a gold shawl. But she hadn’t looked at it closely enough to realize, as she did now, that the objects the woman held in her hands were, on one side, a scepter and, on the other, the scales of justice. Nell shook her head and tucked the shoebox under her arm.
“Everything’s in here,” she said. She realized she probably looked like a crazy person, with her jumbled papers and cardboard box, but if it bought them some time until Josh arrived, she could live with it.
Green followed her back to the foyer where, to her relief, the others were still standing around, but not talking. Nell plucked the envelope containing the trust from the box and held it up. “Here’s the legal document for the Colony, if you need to take a look,” she said.
“Thanks, but I’m not sure that will be necessary,” Schultz said. He was peering over her shoulder. “I was wondering if we might take a look around.”
“Do you have a warrant?” Nell asked. She felt suddenly, fiercely protective of the Colony. She looked up at the portrait of Betsy Barrett over the stair landing. She couldn’t decide if the woman in the painting was judging her or silently sending strength.
“These are exigent circumstances,” Schultz said. “No warrant needed. So if you don’t mind stepping aside, we’d like to get started.” He held up his badge. “First, I’m going to ask you all to stay in one room, like the living room over there, while we do a quick walk-through to make sure the premises are safe. Then we’ll come back and let you know before we start the search.”
“Is it okay if we wait outside?” Paige asked.
“That’s fine,” Schultz replied. “Just don’t leave the property.”
Paige gave the others an apologetic look. “Sorry, I could really use a cigarette.”
“No, it’s okay,” Annie said. “I could use some fresh air, too.”
Nell and the artists grabbed their coats and went outside to wait while the officers walked through each room of the house. Paige sat smoking on the front porch, and Odin and Annie sat down on the steps next to her. Nell, though, couldn’t sit still. She walked around the house and down to the shore. The sleet had stopped, but a frigid wind whipped across the lake, still mostly frozen. Against the retaining wall, jagged ice heaves stuck up like sheets of broken glass. The moonlight filtered through them and cast shadows on the rocks that lined the bank. Local folks were saying it was the latest thaw Lake Mendota had had in years. Given the events of the night, Nell was grateful, for once, for the numbing cold.
With the shoebox still clutched in her hands, Nell stared up at the white, waxing moon. Betsy, she said silently, what do we do now?
Nell wandered back to the front porch and, after a few minutes, Officer Green opened the door and gave them the all clear to go back inside. The cops began their search in the basement while Nell and the artists stood in the foyer, unsure of what to do. There was still no sign of Josh, and Nell began to worry that maybe he’d had second thoughts about helping out.
Officer Schultz emerged from the basement a few minutes later holding Annie’s camera in one hand. In the other, he clutched a shiny wooden box covered in a mosaic pattern.
Annie pressed her hands together in a prayer position. “Not the camera, please. My work is on there, on film. I don’t have another copy.”
“So the camera’s yours?” Schultz asked.
“Yes.”
“And how about the box? Is this yours, too?”
Annie’s eyes drifted to the wooden box in his hands.
“Technically, the box isn’t mine,” Annie said. “I found it. In the basement.”
Schultz cleared his throat and nodded at Annie. “Would you mind opening up the container for me?”
“If you could just wait,” Nell said. “I think it would be better if she has a lawyer present.”
“It’s okay, I’ve already caused enough trouble.” Annie took the box from the officer and moved each side slightly and deliberately. “It’s a puzzle,” she said. “It only opens if you do it a certain way.” She slid off the top and handed the box back to Officer Schultz, who reached inside and held up a clear baggie full of m
arijuana.
Just then, Josh walked in. Nell felt an immense sense of relief. She knew Josh didn’t have to come as soon as she called, but she was grateful he did. Josh took off his glasses, which had fogged up from coming in from the cold. He rubbed them against the sleeve of his duffel coat, then put them back on. He looked from the drugs to Annie and then shot Nell a look that said, What the hell have you gotten yourself into? Nell wished she knew the answer.
“You must be the attorney,” Officer Schultz said.
Josh extended his hand. “Joshua Parker.”
“I was just about to tell Ms. Beck that we need to take her to the station for some further questioning. You’re welcome to join her if you’d like.” Schultz looked over at Green, who nodded. Then he looked back at Annie and said, “At this point I have to advise you that you have the right to remain silent . . .”
Josh waited until the officer had finished reciting the Miranda warning, then asked, “Just so I’m clear on what’s happening here, since I obviously missed quite a bit before I arrived, are you arresting her?”
“Not just yet,” Schultz said. “But we do need her to come in for questioning.”
“On what basis? Possession of marijuana is an ordinance violation in Madison, not a crime,” Josh said. “I’m not sure a little container of marijuana for personal use warrants taking an elderly woman to the police station.”
“I don’t see anyone elderly here,” Annie said. She understood that Josh was just trying to be persuasive, but the descriptor still stung.
“I’m well aware that simple possession is not a punishable crime,” Schultz said. “But that’s not what we’re dealing with here. Ms. Beck has admitted that the marijuana we found in the basement was hers, and that the deceased smoked marijuana on the premises. The DA’s office is under direction from the attorney general to investigate all opioid overdose cases with the utmost diligence, to ferret out the source of the drug. We have reason to believe that Ms. Beck not only provided the deceased with marijuana, but also may have information on where she obtained the opioids.”