Final Breath

by Kevin O'Brien

  "Oh, um, Rikki, I'm sorry," she said. "I forgot to call you back--"

  "Please...come...I'm so afraid."

  Perplexed, Sydney wasn't sure whether or not Rikki was just being her old manipulative self. Whenever she used to call for money or a favor, Rikki had always sounded as if on the verge of crying--or dying. The voice Sydney had heard on the phone yesterday had sounded weak and sickly. But this one almost had a death rattle to it. If Rikki was putting on an act, it was a pretty damn good one.

  "You do sound very weak. Maybe you should call an ambulance, Rikki," she said. "Or let me call one for you."

  "No, please...I'm scared. Just--just come over, Sydney. Can't you, please?"

  Sydney glanced at Kyle, standing by the sink and staring at her.

  "Okay, Rikki," she said, a bit exasperated. "I'll come by. In the meantime, can you call a neighbor to come sit with you? If you're really that weak, someone else will need to buzz me in. I'm leaving right now." She paused. "Rikki?"

  There was no response. It sounded like she might have dropped the phone.

  "Rikki?" Flustered, Sydney hung up.

  "Is that Rikki Cosgrove?" Kyle asked. "Icky Rikki?"

  Grabbing her purse from the kitchen chair, Sydney nodded. "I forgot to tell you, she called yesterday. She sounds really sick."

  "She always sounded sick."

  Sydney checked to make sure she had her address book in her purse. "I need to get over there. She says she's dying."

  "Oh, yeah." Kyle rolled his eyes. "Better make sure you have your checkbook with you. That's what she really wants."

  Scowling at him, Sydney pulled her checkbook out of her purse to show him that she had it with her. "Just do me a favor and take my son to the beach. I won't be long."

  "Sucker," he murmured.

  Before she'd left to go see some sick old lady, his mom had told him to wear sunscreen, not to wander off too far with his new friend, and to keep checking in with Uncle Kyle.

  Wearing a blue T-shirt with Bart Simpson on it, and khaki shorts over his yellow trunks, Eli walked alongside his uncle toward the beach. He had a beach blanket, sunscreen, and a paperback copy of The Sword of Shannara in his backpack. He'd slipped the Number 11 bus schedule inside the book. The next bus downtown was at 1:50.

  Eli thought about confessing to Uncle Kyle that he had no desire to go to the beach today, that he really wanted to go to the library and find out more about the murder-suicide in their apartment back in 1974. But Eli didn't want it getting back to his mother.

  Madison Park Beach wasn't quite as crowded and noisy as it had been yesterday, and it was easier to see that certain people flocked to certain areas. Gay men seemed to occupy the majority of the north section. The section south of the beach house was crowded with families, kids, and teenagers. The middle section became sort of a smorgasbord of people. The water was choppy, and waves crashed against the concrete steps leading down to the lake. Only one boom box in the area was blaring, and it competed with all the screams and laughter from the swimmers.

  The sun beating down on them, Eli and Kyle stopped in the north area amid many a tanned and toned male body. "So I guess you want to pitch our blankets here, huh?" Eli warily asked his uncle.

  "Okay, okay, I get it," his uncle said. "You don't want to sit in Homo Heights. Well, I'm not dying to camp out amid all the families with those wet kids running around screaming. The beach is one of the only places where I really can't give someone a filthy look if their kid is making too much noise. Let's compromise. We can sit in the middle section."

  Eli squinted over toward all the families in the south section. "Hey, I think I see my buddy from yesterday," he lied. He waved in that direction. "That's him, that's my friend, Earl..."

  "Where is he?" his uncle asked. Adjusting his sunglasses, he gazed toward the crowded south section.

  Eli kept waving--to nobody. "He's over by that lady in the purple swimsuit under the umbrella."

  "I still don't see--"

  "Can I go sit with him, Uncle Kyle? Please? Then you can sit with the gays."

  "Is he the skinny pale kid in the red trunks?"

  "No, he's just a few people over," Eli lied. He pulled on his uncle's arm. "It looks like he's going into the water. I need to catch up with him. Please, Uncle Kyle..."

  "Okay, fine," Uncle Kyle nodded. "I'll be right around here. Check in with me in forty-five minutes."

  "Forty-five minutes?" Eli repeated, crestfallen. It would take almost that long just getting back and forth from the library. "Give me an hour and a half, at least. How do you expect me to have any fun if you make me check in every forty-five minutes?"

  Uncle Kyle lowered his sunglasses for a moment and glared at him. "Okay, an hour, that's my final offer, bub." He glanced at his wristwatch. "And if you don't check in with me by the time the lifeguard announces it's three o'clock, I'll hunt you down and drag you home. Then I'll sic your crazy mother on you. Understand?"

  He nodded. "Okay, Uncle Kyle." Eli ran toward the south section of the beach. He remembered to wave and even yelled, "Hey, Earl, wait up!" for his uncle's benefit.

  Weaving around blankets, dodging and sidestepping all the other beachgoers, Eli kept running until he figured he was out of his uncle's range of vision.

  He only had a few minutes to catch the 1:50 bus downtown.

  Sydney found Rikki's apartment building on Thirteenth Street in Capitol Hill. It was a slightly run-down, ugly nine-story concrete edifice with old aluminum-frame windows. She found parking close to the building, hurried up to the front door, and found R. Cosgrove--808 on the intercom panel. Sydney pressed the button, and then waited.

  No answer.

  She buzzed the apartment number again. Still nothing.

  Sydney caught her own haggard reflection in the finger-print-smudged glass door. She tugged at the handle. Locked. Then she shielded her eyes and moved close to the door. The stark, slightly grimy lobby was empty.

  She buzzed a few other apartments on the eighth floor. For a moment, she remembered the first time she'd randomly buzzed the apartments of Rikki Cosgrove's neighbors, trying to alert them about the fire.

  "Yes? Who is it?" someone finally answered.

  Sydney leaned in close to the intercom. "I'm trying to get ahold of Rikki Cosgrove in 808. I think she's sick. Could you buzz me in?"

  There was no response.

  "Hello? Are you--"

  The front door let out a low mechanical drone.

  "Thank you!" Sydney called--probably to no one. Then she pulled open the door. Hurrying into the lobby, she rang for the elevator. She wasn't sure how to get inside Rikki's apartment if Rikki wasn't answering the intercom. Maybe this was no false alarm. Maybe Rikki was seriously ill this time.

  It smelled like someone had thrown up in the elevator, which made her ride up seem even longer. As Sydney stepped off on the eighth floor, she saw an older woman with glasses, a pink sweatsuit, and a three-pronged cane standing in the hallway. She was knocking on the door marked 808. "Rikki!" she called. "It's Arlene from next door! Can you hear me?"

  Approaching the woman, Sydney noticed a hearing aid in her ear. "Aren't you having any luck?" she asked.

  Startled, the old woman turned and gaped at her.

  "Rikki phoned me about twenty minutes ago," Sydney explained to the woman--loudly. "Is the building manager in? Is there anyone who might have a passkey?"

  Arlene shook her head. "I already tried calling them."

  Sydney pounded on the door, and rattled the knob. "Rikki!" she yelled. "Rikki, it's Sydney Jordan!"

  "Rikki phoned me, too, about ten minutes ago," the woman said. "She sounded horrible. She mentioned something about expecting her son this afternoon. Then it sounded as if she'd fainted or something."

  Sydney took her cell phone from her purse, then dialed 9-1-1.

  "I'm trying to get inside the apartment of a very sick woman," she told the operator. "She's not answering her door. I think she might need an ambula
nce. I'm at..." She glanced at Arlene. "Um, what's the address here again?"

  The old woman told her, and Sydney repeated it for the 9-1-1 operator. The ambulance would be there in five minutes, the operator said. Sydney had a feeling they were already too late.

  Putting away her phone, she pulled her wallet from her purse and dug out a credit card. Her hand shook as she tried to jimmy the lock. She kept jiggling the doorknob at the same time. She wondered if this was all in vain. Maybe Rikki had dead bolted the door. "Rikki? Rikki, are you in there?" she called.

  She felt the credit card slip through, and she turned the knob. A click sounded.

  As she opened the door, Sydney was hit with a wave of heat and stench. The window blinds were open, and sunlight streamed into the messy living room--catching all the dust floating through the air. Several magazines and newspapers littered the stained beige carpet around a well-worn easy chair. The chair seemed aimed at the television, and beside it stood a cluttered TV table and a bathroom wastebasket with a rose pattern on it overflowing with garbage. Flies buzzed around the room.

  The counter that separated the kitchen from the living area was full of dirty plates and glasses. Most of the food on those plates remained uneaten. Empty frozen food boxes, microwave trays, crumpled napkins, and a barrage of prescription bottles also cluttered the counter.

  "Rikki?" Sydney called. She tried to hold her breath. The place smelled of sour milk, rotten fruit, and shit.

  She realized the source of that last smell when she stumbled into the dark, sweltering bedroom. The shades were drawn. Sydney almost ran into a wheelchair. Beyond it, an emaciated Rikki lay motionless on top of the bed in a soiled nightgown. The bedsheets were covered with excrement. Flies hovered around her.

  "Oh, my lord," the old woman gasped. She was standing behind Sydney. "I had no idea she'd gotten this bad..."

  On Rikki's nightstand were three water glasses, some prescription bottles, and a telephone with the receiver off the hook. The pulsating alarm tone could be heard across the room.

  "We're too late," Sydney murmured, approaching the bed.

  Rikki's eyes were closed, and her mouth was open. A fly landed on her lip. Her face looked like a skeleton's head with gray-tinged skin stretched across it. Sydney could see right through the thin mousey-brown hair to her scalp. Rikki's hands and arms were bony with signs of decay already eating away at the flesh.

  Sydney tried not to gag. One shaky hand covering her mouth, she reached toward the nightstand with the other. Picking up the receiver, she replaced it on the phone cradle. Then she turned to glance once again at the corpselike thing on the bed.

  Rikki's eyes opened.

  He found something. He'd been sitting at a computer desk between racks of newspapers, magazines, and other periodicals in the central library's reference room for forty minutes now. Eli was using the digital scanner to search through the microfilm files of old Seattle Post-Intelligencers starting on November 1, 1974.

  The last time he'd looked at the clock, it had been 2:50, and the next bus to Madison Park was at 3:07. He was already in a heap of trouble.

  Maybe if he apologized enough to his uncle for being late, all would be forgiven. Or maybe Kyle would forget about the three o'clock check-in. Was that too much to hope for?

  In fact, Eli had been about ready to give up any kind of hope when he spotted the headline on page 2 of the Monday, November 11th edition:

  MURDER-SUICIDE SHOCKS MADISON PARK RESIDENTS

  Teenage Boy Slain While Sleeping, Mother's Shooting Self-Inflicted, Police Say

  Eli studied the grainy newspaper photo of Loretta Sayers posing with Earl in front of a church. "HAPPIER TIMES," said the caption. "Victims of what police call a 'possible murder-suicide,' Earl Sayers and his mother, Loretta Sayers, celebrate her wedding to Robert Landau of Seattle on May 26, 1973. Sayers and Landau separated earlier this year."

  Loretta looked attractive in her frilly white dress, with a crown of flowers in her hair. Her shoulder-length hair appeared blond in the black-and-white picture. She had her arm around Earl, who was as tall as his mother. His hair was the same light shade as Eli's--only it was long and messy. His outfit was pretty goofy-looking, too: a dark suit with a dark shirt and a fat white tie. Earl grinned as if he were about to laugh. Eli could see a resemblance between Earl and himself--if he had a real dorky haircut.

  He couldn't help thinking about reincarnation. Didn't Marcella mention something along those lines? Is that why he felt this weird connection with Earl?

  He anxiously scanned the article:

  SEATTLE: An elegant, lake-view town house apartment in affluent Madison Park became a grisly death site early Sunday morning as police discovered the bodies of residents, Loretta Sayers, 38, and her son, Earl, 15, in an upstairs bedroom and bath. The teenage boy was stabbed while sleeping in his bed. His mother was found in the bathroom with a fatal gunshot wound. A revolver, registered in her name, was found near her body. Police discovered a bloodied knife in the upstairs hallway by the boy's bedroom...

  Eli kept reading. Except for saying Earl had been "stabbed," the two-page article was pretty close to what Vera Cormier had told him. He figured maybe they didn't want to say "throat slit" in the newspaper. Either way, it was still a laceration.

  Loretta's estranged husband--and Earl's stepfather for less than a year--was fifty-three. Robert Landau had three children of his own, their ages ranging from eighteen to twenty-six. Landau's first wife had died in an auto accident. Eli wondered if Robert Landau had done something to his first wife's car. Maybe he'd "staged" the car accident the same way he could have staged the murder-suicide scene later. Or had Loretta Sayers indeed killed her son and herself?

  The article quoted a friend of Earl's, Burt Demick, sixteen. He must have been the one who had often parked in the driveway, blocking Vera's car. He'd had dinner with Earl and his mother in the apartment just one night before the supposed murder-suicide:

  "Earl's mom seemed to be in a good mood that night," said Demick. "She made lasagna, then we ate in front of the TV and watched 'Sanford and Son.' All of us were laughing and having a great time. I just can't believe they're gone. I don't think Mrs. Sayers could have done what people say she did."

  Eli figured if Robert Landau was still alive, he was now eighty-seven. He wondered if Landau or any of his children were still in the Seattle area. He wondered the same thing about Burt Demick.

  Eli glanced at his wristwatch: 3:15. "Oh, shit," he muttered. His uncle would kill him.

  He deposited a quarter in a coin slot at the side of the scanner and pressed COPY. The machine started to make a humming noise. While Eli waited for the printer to spit out his copy of the article, he glanced up at the library's ceiling and the glass-and-steel angular walls.

  A shadow passed over the room as dark clouds filled the sky. It was almost surreal how the sudden weather change outside altered the lighting in this room. It had been so bright in here just a moment ago. Suddenly he noticed the illuminated computer screens at the other desks and the overhead lights. The tall shelves displaying magazines and newspapers seemed darker. Through the open shelving, he could see silhouettes of people on the other side of the periodical racks. Eli's gaze rested on one of them--a man, only a few feet away. Eli could glimpse only the top half of his face through the opening between the shelves.

  The man stared back at him with his one good eye.

  "Eli McCloud, Eli McCloud, please meet your uncle in front of the beach house!" the lifeguard announced into his bullhorn.

  Swimmers were making their way to the shore in droves. Dark gray rain clouds swept over the lake, and the temperature dropped five degrees within minutes.

  "Eli?" Kyle called over and over, roaming around the beach's family area as the crowd rapidly thinned out. People were rolling up their blankets and gathering their kids. Some food and candy wrappers fluttered past him as the wind kicked up.

  Kyle wandered back to the beach house, but there was sti
ll no sign of his nephew. This awful feeling swelled in the pit of his stomach. He kept calling out his name--and even his friend's name--Earl. He glanced out at the raft in the distance, rocking back and forth in the choppy waters. There were still about twenty people on it--mostly teenagers who were too stupid to swim in when it was about to downpour.

  "Who's Eli? Is he your son?"

  Kyle turned and gaped at a handsome man in his late thirties. He was lean and tan, with short black hair that was graying at the temples. He wore blue Hawaiian-print trunks.

  "Um, he's my nephew," Kyle said. He looked out at the raft again.

  The stranger followed his gaze. "I'll go swim out there and check around. What does Eli look like?"

  "He--ah, he's twelve, and thin," Kyle answered. He kept glancing around. "He's got short, light brown hair..."

  "What color are his swim trunks?" the man asked.

  Kyle shrugged. "I'm not sure. He had his shorts on over them when we came here. He went to meet a friend named Earl. He was supposed to check in with me a half hour ago."

  "Does he have any tattoos or piercings?"

  Kyle squinted at him. "He's twelve."

  "I'm kidding," the man said. "Be right back."

  Kyle watched him run into the water and start swimming out to the raft. The clouds on the horizon grew darker. He heard the distant rumble of thunder. The lifeguard up on his perch put on an orange windbreaker. The beach was emptying out. A few people on the raft were diving off and swimming toward shore. "Eli! Eli McCloud!" Kyle tried again.

  He saw the man in the blue Hawaiian trunks pull himself up onto the raft. Then he put his hands around his mouth. Kyle could almost hear him calling Eli's name. The handsome stranger wandered around the raft. He stopped to talk to one kid, then another and another. Each time, the kid shook his head at him. Finally, he walked back toward the edge of the raft, waved at Kyle, then shrugged and shook his head.

  "Damn," Kyle muttered. He felt some raindrops.

  The man in the blue trunks dove back in the water. Some more kids vacated the raft after him. There weren't many people still in the lake. Kyle didn't see Eli among them. He noticed that his Good Samaritan had stopped swimming and now stood in the shallower water. He put his hands around his mouth again and called out for Eli.