Manner of Death

by Stephen White

  I explained what Reggie did, how he prepared and delivered food to shut-ins around the county.

  "That's very generous of you." Sawyer said.

  Sam nodded in the general direction of the La Connie and said. "Something sure smells good."

  I admonished him. "They're not exactly on your diet. Sam."

  He inhaled deeply, as though he could be nourished by the aroma alone, and muttered. "Shit."

  Reggie hadn't offered any refreshments, and he wasn't prompted to by Sam's infelicitous comment.

  Sawyer glided slowly around the kitchen, touching the La Cornue, examining the espresso machine, and grazing her fingertips along the marble and granite countertops, she asked kitchen questions. Reggie answered in a fashion that was more guarded than I would have expected from him.

  Finally, she chose a seat next to Sam and me at the counter. Reggie stood by the stove across the room. I felt a bit like a judge at a tribunal.

  Sawyer stunned me by asking, "I’ve always wondered. Mr. Loomis. Why do you think that D. B. Cooper requested four parachutes during the hijacking? I mean, we now know that he was working alone, right? And he had things impeccably planned, so why did he ask for four?"

  Sam blinked twice.

  Reggie looked at me and. I imagine, saw the incredulity in my expression. "What?" he managed to ask.

  Sawyer's voice was all casualness and curiosity. "Why four parachutes? You know the legend, right? After the airplane landed in Seattle, he requested two hundred thousand dollars in twenty-dollar bills, and he asked for four parachutes. Why four? Why not one? Why not two or three?"

  Reggie's eyes jumped from Sam to me and then back to Sawyer. "Why.., why are you asking me that?"

  "You were a security analyst. One of your things was anticipating terrorists, right? Figuring out scenarios, well, D.B, was like our first commercial domestic terrorist, and Alan says the whole D. B. Cooper thing was like a parlor game for the people where you worked. I'm just wondering what you guys came up with for an explanation of all the extra parachutes old D.B, requested."

  Reggie backed up against the La Comue. His voice as defensive as his posture, he demanded. "Why did you come to see me tonight? All of you?"

  Sam knew what role to assume when he was in situations like this with his detective partner, Lucy. But Sawyer's line of inquiry about D. B. Cooper had apparently left him speechless.

  Sawyer acted as if she expected an answer to her question. I didn't imagine it would be forthcoming.

  I said. "Corey Rand is dead."

  Two beats passed before Reggie said. "No. I'm so sorry. I'm just, so, so sorry to hear that." His words felt a little rushed.

  Sam glanced at me. If he were to score Reggie's lie. I don't think he would have given it more than a six point five. Why was Reggie pretending he didn't know Corey Rand was dead?

  I said, "You didn't know?"

  He turned and squatted and lowered the oven door, the aroma of cinnamon dough almost bowled me off my stool, he fussed with the pan and finally pulled it from the oven and placed it beside the one that was already baked. "Done," he said.

  "Would you like to know the circumstances of his death?"

  "My— ouch!" He yanked his hand back from the edge of the pan. "My, yes, of course."

  Sam kicked me on the ankle and said. "Car accident. Hit and run. No witnesses. Internal injuries."

  Were I a judge of Sam's fabrication. I would have held up a card that read nine point oh.

  Reggie walked across the room to the sink and started running cold water over his burned finger.

  Was he going to let Sam's lie stand?

  He asked, "Was it recent?"

  Sawyer and I stayed silent. Sam said, "Last year, around the holidays."

  He shut off the faucet before he said, "So Corey Rand isn't responsible for the recent deaths you three are investigating?"

  I was about to shake my head but was able to perceive the outlines of the trap Sam was setting in time to say, "Which deaths are those?"

  Reggie stared hard at me. His look was disdainful. It said, "Nice try, amateur." He dried his hands and responded. "The fire deaths, of course. In Kittredge, we discussed them, remember? The last time you were here, Doctor."

  I nodded.

  Reggie made himself busy cleaning the counter.

  Without facing us again, he said. "I'm afraid I'll need to excuse myself now. I'd like to prepare for bed."

  When we were back outside. Sam commended me. "Nice pickup in there. I wasn't even sure you were paying attention to what was going on."

  "Thanks. It didn't work, though, he saw it coming."

  "That's just it, he did see it coming, and that tells us exactly what we need to know."

  "Which is what?"

  "That he knows more than he's letting on to us about Corey Rand and about all your dead colleagues." He turned to Sawyer. "And, pray tell, what the hell was all that D. B. Cooper shit about?"

  Sawyer was climbing into the backseat, she settled herself and caught my eye in the rearview mirror. I shook my head just a little, she smiled.

  "Sorry/ she said to Sam. "I can't tell you. Confidentiality. I'm sure you understand."

  Sam muttered. "No. I don't understand, and Alan will be happy to tell you I'm not much of a fan of shrinks and confidentiality." He pulled his seat belt around his waist and clicked it into place before he yanked the rearview mirror his way and focused it on Sawyer in the backseat. "And here I've been thinking that you and I were going to get along, anybody hungry but me?"

  No one was hungry but him.

  I wanted to know what we were going to do next, and all Sam would tell me was that he wanted to talk to some people he knew from Rocky Flats, see if he could discover a reason for Reggie Loomis to be so slippery with us. I assumed he would learn about the D. B. Cooper rumors as soon as he started sniffing around at the nuclear weapons facility.

  "When will you get final word on whether somebody tampered with our furnace?"

  "I'll ask Scott. But I'm not holding my breath. If they say it was tampered with, what does that tell us that we don't already know? If they say it wasn't, are either of you suddenly going to feel any safer? I don't think so."

  "It will give Simes and Custer something to take back to the FBI, though: right?"

  "Wrong, the FBI is looking for something that ties two of these things together, with only one point to work with, you never get to draw a straight line."

  On the rest of the short drive back to downtown. Sawyer quizzed me about property values and seemed disappointed that the desirable parts of Boulder were almost as expensive as Santa Barbara. Twice she said about Loomis's shack. "His little house would really cost that much?"

  Sam muttered something about trying to live around here on a cop's salary; and Sawyer wisely dropped it.

  As I parked near the hotel. Sam asked. "So where are you sleeping tonight? Is your new furnace in yet?"

  "It's in the house, but it's not quite in the basement. I have a room here, too, at the Boulderado."

  As I looked up. I noticed that Sawyer was staring at me in the mirror in a way that made me uncomfortable. I glanced quickly over at Sam, hoping to stifle an invitation to sleep at his house. "I'll be safe here, he's not going to take out a hotel full of people, is he?"

  Sam didn't answer immediately. "Well, is he?" I repeated.

  "No, probably not, a wing, a floor, maybe. Not the whole hotel. What room are you in? I'll call early tomorrow."

  Before I could recall my room number for Sam. Sawyer said. "Sam, are you with us on some kind of... I don't know, official basis? Don't you have other responsibilities?"

  He smiled sideways at me before he responded. "I'm terribly sorry. I can't tell you. Confidentiality, you know. Listen, anybody want to do breakfast tomorrow? That egg-white thing I had for dinner wasn't half bad."

  I said that I had to be at my office early. Sawyer said she was going to sleep as late as she could.

  At Sam's beh
est. I agreed to accompany Sawyer up to the suite she was sharing with A. J, the elevator ride up was particularly awkward.

  "You never told him what room you were in," she commented as the doors swooshed shut.

  "No:" I said. "I guess I didn't."

  "Well, in case I need to reach you, where are you? You know that A. J, and Milt are going to want to know."

  I felt in my pocket for the plastic card key. "Two eighteen. It's small, and dark, and not particularly charming. It may have the same address as your suite but it's certainly not in the same neighborhood."

  "But then you don't have to share your room with an ex-FBI agent with an attitude who gives you the third degree every time you want to use the toilet."

  "That's true. I don't."

  We exited the elevator at her floor. I stopped in front of the door to the suite. "Your plane will be ready tomorrow? Is that true? They can fix it that fast?"

  "Maybe, there wasn't that much damage, a little sheet metal to replace. Test the damn landing gear."

  "Are you ready to go home?"

  She shrugged. "Milt says I shouldn't, doesn't think it's wise. If I do go back, he wants to hook me up with a bodyguard, somebody he knows from his days in Chicago. Sounds awful. I don't know what I'll do. Sometimes the night tells me things. So when my head hits the pillow, I'll be listening to the whispers."

  She leaned forward slowly with her eyes locked on mine, her lips slightly parted, she moved toward me, at the last moment tilting her head to the side, she kissed me on the cheek.

  I said. "Good night."

  After waiting for the elevator to arrive for a good three minutes I finally realized I hadn't hit the "down" button.

  THIRTY-SIX

  With the curtains closed in my hotel room I was able to convince myself that I was actually ensconced on the top floor with a stunning view of the Flatirons. I wanted to end the day with another vodka, but the urge was not quite strong enough to motivate me to once again confront the mime lurking in the Mezzanine Lounge, the conundrum, I decided, was that I would only be able to find her act tolerable after I consumed more drinks than I would ever be able to tolerate her serving to me.

  I could have walked over to one of the half-dozen bars close by on the Mall. I didn't, the minibar provided a tiny shot of Absolut that I sipped straight from the bottle while I flicked on the TV. I found a movie with Nicolas Cage on HBO, and stared at a nine-dollar jar of pistachios for much longer than I really needed to before I started getting ready for bed.

  The bedside clock argued forcefully that it was too late to call Lauren, so I checked my pager to make sure the battery was fresh in case the hospital needed to reach me, then I sat down next to the clock radio to maka certain that the previous guest in this room wasn't a prankster who would get a sadistic chuckle from leaving the alarm set to wake me at some ungodly hour, the alarm was indeed set, the time the little jester had chosen to jolt me out of bed to the not-so-soothing sounds of KYGO was 3:48 A.M. I unset the clock, stripped off my clothes, and walked into the bathroom to take a shower.

  There was a part of me that knew she would come, a part of me that welcomed her visit, avoiding this moment would have been easy. I could have taken a room at the Golden Buff across town.

  And there was a part of me that dreaded her visit, the dread wasn't actually about the visit, the dread was about how I would deal with it.

  Does falling in love with one woman clean the slate and erase the love that was once so passionate for another woman? Does it?

  Because I was living proof it doesn't.

  Do I send her away? Tell her that her visit is inappropriate?

  Because it is.

  Do I tell her I'm not interested? Tell her that was a long time ago and my feelings have changed?

  Have they?

  Do I act as a friend might act and offer a shoulder so that she can begin to untangle her anger and unburden

  herself of all the feelings that are surfacing about her daughter's death?

  Because a friend would.

  As an intellectual exercise. I could enjoy the quandary. In fact, in my office on Walnut Street, with a patient across the room from me. I could have examined the facets of this therapeutic diamond for the full duration of many forty-five-minute hours. But as a married man naked in a hotel room with an ex-lover trilling her fingers across my door. I wasn't much enamored with the puzzle.

  I was edging down the dark tunnel toward sleep when the tapping started, and it took me a while to separate the rhythmic sounds I was hearing from the comfortable reverie of pre-dreaming. Finally awake. I said. "Wait, wait. Just a minute." jumped from the bed, and immediately ran into a wall. I made my way to the closet and pulled on the robe that the hotel had provided— according to the card that was attached to the belt— for my "comfort and pleasure." Apparently, hotel management was under the mistaken impression that I would somehow be most comfortable pretending that I was five foot four and, say, one hundred and twenty pounds.

  The full-length mirror adjacent to the closet let me know that three-quarter-length sleeves and an above-the-knee hem were never going to be my most alluring look in

  boudoir attire.

  I winked into the peephole.

  It was Sawyer, she was smiling, but she didn't look happy.

  In my hotel room, there was one chair and there was the bed. In my comfortable hotel robe. I could sit modestly on neither, after inviting Sawyer inside. I excused myself and retreated to the bathroom to pull on jeans and a T-shirt.

  She had chosen to park herself on the bed, on the side that was mostly still unruffled, she was wearing red and black animal-print tights and a matching top that accentuated her breasts, her hair was casual and she hadn't retouched her makeup since we'd said good night earlier, she didn't look a day younger than she was, and I found her incredibly alluring.

  For one of the few times in our relationship, she was as uncomfortable as I was. "This isn't, um... I need.., we can go someplace else if you'd... I just need to talk. I think. I don't want you to ... I mean. I hope—"

  "It's fine. Sawyer. Can I get you something?" I parked my butt on the chair by the window and waved at the minibar as though it contained a genie ready to meet any of her desires.

  "No, thank you. I'm grateful to you just for openina the door to me. It's more than I expected. More than I deserved, for sure."

  The tension in the room was so dense that it felt as if it could crush the air from my chest. To lighten the mood. I said. "I need to tell you that I was. I don't know, touched— deeply— by what you decided to share with me earlier, about your marriage and your daughter."

  "Simone." She spoke the word with such reverence that if love were helium, it would have been enough to float her baby girl from her grave.

  "Yes. Simone. I only wish I had known about her. You know, back then."

  She fiddled with the hem of the bedspread. "I wasn't ready to grieve with everyone, with anyone, really. I knew if I told people, everyone would treat me differently. Remember that resident who had the osteosarcoma? What was his name? I don't know; it doesn't matter. But everybody had an opinion on what kind of cases he should be allowed to take. I just wasn't ready for that kind of scrutiny. I convinced myself that I needed to work, that.., that was best for me, working, the harder the better, not thinking about what Kenny did to my baby."

  I was suddenly aware of my posture. I asked, "And keeping away from men— that was best for you too?"

  "No,” she said, her eyes fixed on her hands. "Men were candy for me. I'd pick one and take a tiny bite and throw away any flavors I didn't like. I hurt a lot of men a little during those few months, and that felt... I don't like this about me, alan, but it felt good. I loved attracting men and flirting with them and.., nibbling at their centers and then.., moving on. I had planned to do the same with you, and then you came along and you didn't seem to want to just play the game. I didn't feel like I was a conquest to you. You actually wanted me."


  "And.., you felt, needed you."

  "Yeah, that was your mistake." She smiled to herself, not to me. "Needing me. When I felt you begin to need me, it scared me. I started seeing Kenny in your eyes and..."

  "You left Denver because of me? I'd always assumed that your leaving Denver showed how little you cared about me."

  She shook her head. "See, that's your insecurity." She shivered as though recalling an unpleasant memory. "But that wasn't it. You're forgetting about Elly." She stood up, took two baby steps, and faced the window, she parted the curtains, using both her hands, her perfume sifted through the still air in the room and reached me, settling around me as though I were holding a bouquet of fragrant flowers. "Nice view,” she said.

  "Thanks, they charge extra for it, but I'm into the urban alley experience, so I figured what the hell." I stood then, too, and immediately wondered why. I figured I would regret getting up, but sitting right back down didn't feel right either. "Elly lost a daughter, too."

  "Yes. Elly lost a daughter, too, she was another gorgeous baby. I doubt if you remember— why would you?— but her daughter's name was Priscilla. During those weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I somehow taught Elly how to begin to grieve her loss, how to let go and move on, and, somehow, she .., returned the favor and showed me it was okay for me to begin to grieve, too. But she was way ahead of me, after those weeks with her, I couldn't keep it in any longer— the pain, the anger. I talked to Susan about it for a long time, and my therapist, too, of course, we all agreed it would be best if I left the residency and went back to Raleigh and dealt with.., my feelings about Simone, maybe I'd come back and finish up in Colorado later, maybe I wouldn't."

  "You didn't say goodbye to me. You never explained why you were leaving." My tone surprised me, these words weren't an accusation on my part, they were a plea for her to help me understand.

  "I convinced myself that since I hadn't let anyone in the door, I didn't owe anyone the courtesy of a good-bye, that was mv rationalization, anvwav, the truth is sadder.

  J S J J

  The truth is that I didn't want to see how much I had hurt you. Because I knew you cared, and I feared you cared too much, and I knew I was going to hurt you, deeply. By leaving, by my dishonesty, by everything I'd done. I didn't want to witness it. Part of it was cowardice, and part of it, the bigger part, was that... I was too afraid of what men could do when they're hurt."