Absolute Zero

by Chuck Logan

  Amy squeezed his arm. “Everybody gave up on him but you. You couldn’t leave it alone.”

  “Easy, Amy. I don’t buy the death of his accountant . . .”

  “No, you never accepted what happened. You fought against it.”

  Perhaps. But Broker’s core skepticism warned him to curb his wishful thinking. Go slow, he told himself ironically as he raced under clotted black clouds.

  “Let’s just calm down and take it one step at a time,” Broker said as he swerved down the dead-end road that led to Hank’s house and then eased down the twisting drive and parked in front of the garage. The sky shut over them and it was almost night in the dense white pines. They hurried up the steps.

  Jolene opened the door and was on the verge of embracing Broker when she saw Amy. The two women looked each other up and down with an elaborate suspicion that cranked the urgency up a notch.

  “Jolene, this is Amy. Amy’s a nurse,” Broker said.

  Jolene and Amy did not shake hands.

  “She is,” Jolene said slowly.

  “Hennepin County Emergency room, three years,” Amy said. Which was valid, Broker observed, but not necessarily accurate, under the circumstances.

  “This way,” Jolene said.

  Okay, who’s coming now. Hank could hear the scurry of several pairs of feet coming through the bedroom. Jolene, Broker, and . . . he saw the white-blond hair and the sassy gray eyes and the freckles . . .

  The lynx.

  He instantly recognized Amy, the nurse from Ely. Her face had been his last pleasant conscious memory.

  Amy, whom Allen smugly let take the blame for his willful mistake. And the moment Amy entered the room and saw him, her eyes glistened, filled with tears.

  She thinks she did this to me.

  Seeing the full burden of his condition projected on her face, he felt his own eyes flood with moisture.

  Seeing the bright rush of tears come to Hank’s eyes, Jolene, Broker, and Amy froze.

  Amy said, “Jesus, he’s looking right at me.”

  She reacted swiftly by focusing both eyes down toward the floor. Hank imitated the eye movement. She rotated her eyes up toward the ceiling. Hank matched her. She went left and right. So did he.

  “Jesus.”

  Amy looked around the study, walked to the desk, took a piece of paper, picked up a pen, and wrote something. Then, with the paper behind her back she approached the bed.

  “Hank, if you can hear and understand me, I want you to blink twice for yes, once for no.” She held up the piece of paper on which she had written YES and NO.

  She pointed to YES.

  Hank was initially distracted by the salty taste of his tears which trickled down his cheeks and pooled on his lips.

  Okay. This is it.

  He had to go with Broker and Amy. It was game time. But how much time did he have? How many thoughts did he have left. How many words remained in him? He had wanted to be a writer, to make his mark with words. Now he was down to his last words and, like hoarded bullets, he had to aim them very carefully. He blinked twice and was shocked at the effort it took.

  Amy immediately sat at the desk and printed blocky letters on a fresh sheet of paper.

  “What?” Broker asked as Jolene hung on his arm, wide-eyed.

  “Alphabet board, a crude one, but it’ll work,” Amy said without looking up. She was all business, totally focused on arranging the letters of the alphabet into five groups:

  ABCDE

  FGHIJ

  KLMNO

  PQRST

  UVWXYZ

  “Okay,” Amy said, flushed, eyes bright. “I point to a group until he blinks twice, then I tap each letter in the selected group until he blinks again. We write that letter down. Then we start over until we get a word. I’ll tell him to shut his eyes for three seconds to indicate a new word.”

  Jolene studied Amy through a rippling curtain of shock. An expression was forming on her face that groped toward a question: Who is this woman and what is she doing in my house?

  “You mean he can talk to us?” she asked, disbelieving.

  “Yes,” Amy said, getting up and returning to Hank’s bedside.

  Jolene followed her, getting the distinct feeling that she was the spare wheel, that Broker and this Amy were some kind of team. She looked to Broker for reassurance but his attention was riveted to Amy and her attempt to communicate with Hank.

  Amy was speaking to Hank now, patiently explaining the sheet of paper in her hand. When she finished, she asked him. “Do you understand?”

  Too many things mobbed his thoughts—everything that had happened recently and in his entire life, all the people he’d known.

  It was not the time to overwrite.

  Time to pick the first right word.

  What’s the most important thing he had to tell them?

  Amy was waiting for his response. Okay.

  He blinked twice.

  “Here we go,” Amy said. Her finger pointed to the first letter group. No response. She moved to the second. Again, nothing. Number three.

  Hank blinked twice. Her hand moved to the first letter in the group. He blinked twice.

  “K,” Amy said. Her finger moved back to the first group and they started over. Nothing on the first group. Then two blinks on the second and two more on the fourth letter in the group.

  “I,” Amy said. She did not start over at the top but went to the next group down and got a response on the second letter. But Hank blinked four times.

  “L,” said Amy. She turned to Broker and Jolene. “Four blinks, what do you think?” she asked.

  Jolene felt the bottom start to fall out but she was good at puzzles, so she said, “He means twice.”

  “Could be,” Broker said.

  “L,” Amy said. She and Broker locked eyes. The letters materialized like a cold draft coming off of Hank and they raised the short hairs on Broker’s forearm. He realized he was holding his breath.

  Amy went down through the groups getting no response and went back to the top and got a hit. Scanning across, Hank’s eyes selected the fifth letter:

  “E,” Amy said.

  They could hear each other breathing as Amy worked through the groups. The next stop was on the third letter of the fourth group.

  “R,” Amy said.

  Broker put his hand to his forehead, and his palm came away damp with sweat. He and Amy locked eyes again.

  Seeing the two of them react, Jolene started backing away from the bed.

  “Keep going, he hasn’t shut his eyes,” Broker said.

  “Right,” Amy said. She pointed through the last group, returned to the top, worked her way down, and Hank blinked the fourth group again. Fourth letter.

  “S,” whispered Amy as Hank shut his eyes. She printed killers on the bottom of the sheet of paper.

  Broker counted under his breath—one, two, three. Hank’s eyes popped open.

  “New word,” Amy’s voice rasped. Their eyes met, glanced away. Life and Death Charades.

  “N,” Amy said.

  “O”

  “T”

  Hank shut his eyes. And Jolene felt like Hank, Amy, and Broker were slowly forming her firing squad. Fucking Earl. Should have never . . .

  “A”

  “M”

  “Y” Amy’s voice was barely audible. The hot yellow eyes clamped shut.

  “What?” blurted Jolene, “Amy? Her?”

  “Shhh, new word,” Broker said.

  “F”

  “A”

  “U”

  “L”

  “T”

  Hank shut his eyes. Sweat popped on his forehead, pooled in the wrinkles under his eyes, and dripped down his cheeks.

  “What are you two doing? Leave him alone,” Jolene said, moving forward, as she picked up a towel from the bedside table and mopped his face and chin. “He’s exhausted.” She threw down the towel, spun, and confronted Amy. “He means you?”

  Amy nodded.


  “How does he know your name? Just who the fuck are you?” The question was directed at Amy but Jolene’s eyes were suspiciously fixed on Broker.

  Gently, Broker took Jolene by the shoulders and moved her aside. “New word,” he said softly.

  “N,” Amy said.

  His concentration was shattered and he lost track of the letters, but he knew what he wanted to say. Not Amy and not the other nurse. Allen, he wanted to say. And Earl for Stovall. Fatigue was centrifugal, dragging his eyes back into loopy orbits. He had to fight it. Had to keep going. Where was he? Amy’s finger had moved to the last group.

  “U,” Amy said.

  Broker watched Hank’s eyes tremble, yielding to spasm. He reached out and to steady Hank’s shoulder and felt the loose, wasted muscles and wished he could infuse strength through his own arm.

  “R,” Amy said.

  “S”

  “E”

  He was lost, utterly spent and lost. He tried to blink sweat from his eyes and his lids stuck together, and when his eyes opened he was back on the Wild Mouse, his eyeballs rolling and lurching in their sockets. Then oblivion.

  Jolene stood back, her arms folded, her mind winding out. Hank could blink-talk. Wonderful. And all these days they’d been talking in front of him. He’d obviously overheard Earl and her arguing about what happened to Stovall. So he thought she was in on it. It would sure look that way. She’d needed the money and Earl went to try and get it for her.

  Killers, he’d said.

  Plural.

  Two killers.

  If this blink business continued, he was going to implicate her, along with Earl, in a murder. And she thought fervidly, Hank, honey; I’m really trying to do it your way, I really am—but if you keep this up I’ll never get the chance.

  Jolene was so absorbed that she momentarily forgot the Amy-Broker show going on at the foot of Hank’s bed. They huddled over the brief message printed at the bottom of the sheet of printer paper. KILLERS—NOT AMY FAULT—NURSE, it said.

  “Nurse? Nancy Ward’s the only other nurse . . .” Amy puzzled.

  Broker tried to remember the tired, dark-haired recovery-room nurse in Ely. “Could he mean . . . ?”

  Amy squinted at Broker, heaved her shoulders. “Killers? I don’t know.”

  “Is he trying to say . . . the other nurse somehow . . . ?” Broker said.

  “Deliberately?” Amy whispered. “She’s still working. I took some leave. But she needs the money.” Amy paused, Broker caught her hesitation, and they both looked up.

  Jolene regarded them through wary eyes, arms still crossed. “What’s the deal, guys? I feel kind of left out.”

  Broker said, “We were just thinking: what if there’s a possibility what happened to Hank wasn’t an accident.”

  “We,” Jolene said, pointing first to Broker, then to Amy. “Who the fuck is she?”

  Amy stepped forward and Broker held up a cautioning hand. But Amy waved him off and squared her shoulders. “Mrs. Sommer—Jolene—I’m Amy Skoda. I was the anesthetist who attended Hank during and after surgery in Ely.”

  “Uh-huh,” Jolene unfolded her arms, recrossed them, and folded them tighter. “Let me get this straight, honey. I’m suing you, right?”

  Amy bit her lower lip, nodded.

  “Okay,” Jolene said, swinging her eyes to Broker. “And you two know each other from up north?”

  “That’s right,” Broker said.

  “And you came down together?”

  “Yeah,” Broker said.

  “In Hank’s truck?”

  “Right again.”

  “And you’ve been staying together at the ostrich farm, huh?”

  Amy spoke up quickly. “It’s not like that.”

  “Of course it isn’t,” Jolene’s eyes briefly thrashed Broker, moved back to Amy. “So what’s this deliberate stuff about?”

  Broker shrugged. “What if the nurse in the recovery room acted with intent when she turned off the monitor. Hank might have seen her do or say something . . .”

  Hope gripped Jolene and untied the knot of her crossed arms. Freed, they floated up; her hands opened, questioning: “But he said ‘killers,’ like more than one?”

  “He’s not exactly dotting all his i’s, is he?” Amy said.

  Jolene speculated on this new option for a few beats. She smiled sweetly at Broker. “You’re a regular Crusader Rabbit. First you send Earl packing. Now you’re trying to clear her?”

  “Hey, Jolene, c’mon,” Broker protested.

  “No, this is good. So, what happens if I pick up the phone and call my lawyer.”

  “I’m in a lot of trouble,” Amy said.

  “Let me think a minute,” Jolene said.

  Arms folded across her chest again, she paced across the room; the room in the big house that wouldn’t be hers anymore if Hank got down to serious testifying.

  Okay, what Jolene knew was this: The legal system in America was based on the presumption of innocence. And the American criminal system was based on the principle that if you don’t have a witness you don’t have a crime.

  So. This Amy was gaga with authorship; she had “discovered” Hank. And she and Broker were cooking up a theory about a nurse in Ely.

  When the idea hit Jolene, it was better than the movies. First, she needed time. She needed to get Hank and these two isolated from cops and lawyers until she figured out how to put Hank out of commission. Keep him breathing but not blinking. And for that she needed Earl, broken arm and all. And since Broker and his natural pale blonde were getting off on playing detective so much—why not rev them up?

  “This nurse,” Jolene said. “Are you sure she’s up there working?”

  “Pretty sure,” Amy said.

  Jolene pointed to the phone on the desk. “Find out.”

  Amy looked to Broker, who shrugged—sure—so she went to the phone and punched in a number. “Judy? Yeah, Amy. How’s it going. Nah, I’m down in the Cities, doing some shopping. Is Nancy working tomorrow? She is. Just curious how she’s holding up. Yeah, there’s a lot of that going around. I’ll probably see you guys, Monday. Yeah. Bye.” Amy put down the phone.

  They all took a few beats to absorb Amy’s phone conversation. Then Jolene gauged their eyes and said, “So, let’s take a drive and test your theory.”

  “What do you mean?” Broker asked.

  “I mean, I’ll put off calling Milt and give you one chance to prove it. Twenty-four hours. We take Hank on a car trip.” She walked to the phone on the bed stand and placed her hand on the receiver. “Take it or leave it.”

  “Up north, in his condition?” Amy asked.

  “To Ely,” Jolene nodded.

  “I don’t think so, unless he’s in an ambulance,” Amy said.

  “You know what an ambulance costs?” Jolene set her jaw.

  Amy looked to Broker who said, “Jolene, it’s pretty risky.”

  Jolene picked up the phone. “They said I couldn’t bring him home from the hospital. But I did. So how’s it more risky than her—” she pointed the phone at Amy—“coming over here and inviting all kinds of legal hell? Look, Hank’s beat, he’ll sleep for eight hours. It’s cold but the roads are dry. The only thing is, Earl took the Ford. His van’s here but I don’t have the keys. And my Accord isn’t big enough. How reliable is the Jeep.”

  “The Jeep’s okay,” Broker said.

  Jolene returned the phone to the cradle. “So? We have a cell phone, we have a nurse. What do you say?”

  “Four hours, maybe we could do it,” Amy said.

  “He’d just be asleep?” Broker said.

  Jolene nodded. “We’ll be on main roads. Hell, with you guys along, he’ll be in better company than alone here with me. So c’mon, let’s load him in your car, drive up to Ely to your lodge. Rest up, and first thing in the morning, let’s confront this nurse. If you’re right, Amy’s off the hook, you get to be a hero, and I’ve got a stronger case.”

  Jolene’s st
raight-ahead energy was infectious. Broker looked at Amy who held up the paper with the alphabet blocks. “It would really be something,” she said.

  “C’mon,” Jolene encouraged, “a little adventure, for Christ’s sake.”

  Broker studied Hank, asleep in a blue gown. “He can’t travel like that.”

  “No problem,” Jolene said. “I’ll put him in a fleece sweat suit. We’ll build up the back of the Jeep with blankets and pillows so he can recline, like in his bed. One of us will have to ride in back with him and move him from side to side.”

  “We’ll trade off,” Amy said and her eyes swung hopefully to Broker.

  “See,” Jolene said. “We can pull it off.”

  Broker thought about it. He thought about how guys like J.T. were always telling him all he could do was entrap people; how he never solved anything. “Okay, let’s do it; show me where the blankets are.”

  “We’ll bring the blankets, and pack a diaper bag, with some Ensure for his tube; you go out through the garage, open the door, and back the Jeep in.” Jolene bristled with efficiency.

  Broker went to move the Jeep. Amy helped Jolene pack a travel bag from the bed table. Hank was fast asleep.

  “So, how’s an upright lady like you wind up with a rough-trade guy like Broker?” Jolene asked casually when they were alone.

  “Oh, he’s not really like that, that’s just an act,” Amy said.

  “Convinced me,” Jolene said dryly. “So, you suspected this other nurse or what? Is that why you came down?”

  “No, no. That was Broker, he was suspicious about the timing of your accountant’s death so close after Hank’s accident. But he checked it out with the Washington County sheriff’s department . . .”

  Jolene stiffened up. “He did?”

  “Actually, J.T. did. He’s the guy we’re staying with. He’s a retired homicide detective. They were all rookies together in St. Paul; J.T., Broker, and John Eisenhower, the Washington County sheriff. And Wash-Co said there was no foul play involved with Stovall. Just that he had some pretty weird hang-ups and they got out of control. Broker is having trouble accepting that. He hates being wrong.”

  “Rookies?” Jolene wondered. “You mean, like cops?”

  “Well, Broker was never a proper cop. He worked lots of undercover for the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.”