Lethal Discoveries

by Erica Pensini

  “I collected your things and the doctor has signed the documents already, so we can go…”

  “Do you know where my clothing are?”

  “I brought you one of my clean shirts”, Jack told me with a half apologetic, half amused tone, pulling out a short sleeved button-up from a grocery shop plastic bag

  “Ok, wait a moment for me to wash and dress”, I said, laughing at the look and size of the shirt I would have to wear

  The more I scrubbed, and moved and felt the water run on me, the healthier I felt, and I thought with anger at the nurse obsessively repeating “You should rest”. Three days in this place had gotten me into a larval state, and now that I was beginning to move around the lymph of life was starting to flow in me again.

  I stepped out of the bathroom fresh and energized

  “Let’s go! Ready?”, I told Jack, tugging his hand playfully.

  “Ready”, he said smiling at me

  We walked through the white air-conditioned hallways, and when the elevator opened to the reception I felt an exhilarating rush, an excitement for the world and I laughed.

  “What?”, Jack asked

  “Nothing, I am just happy”, I said

  Jack shook his head and smiled, opening the doors for me. The air outside was burning hot and the light was intense, almost blinding when coming from inside.

  “Boy, I had forgotten what summer feels like”

  “There’s no need to be so theatrical now, you’ve only been in the hospital for three day!”, Jack said, but he was squinting too

  “I know, but it’s weird how I lost track of time…I could have been there for a week, or a month, or longer”

  “What about we go have lunch at my place? I have everything packed already, so we can go to your house to prepare your luggage after lunch. Sounds?”

  I nodded, and took Jack’s hand, swinging it back and forth. I had forgotten how to be childish for a long time, but Jack was reviving the kid in me, the bubbly flow of cheerfulness, the carefree playfulness.

  Chapter 56

  When Jack and I reached my place after lunch it was about 3 in the afternoon, and John Wheeler should have been at work. But as Jack was pulling up in front of my house I saw him moving some boxes in the garage. He waved at me, and I waved back with the friendliest smile I could produce, but then I turned to Jack and gave him a meaningful look.

  “I’ll stop say hello to John”, I said

  Jack studied my face trying to guess what I had in mind, and I could see worry in his eyes. He kept them on me for a long moment, without speaking, because the windows of the car were open and John wasn’t far from us.

  I slipped out of the car before Jack turned off the engine, and said, “I’ll be just a moment”, handing him the keys of house.

  But Jack walked towards my house and sat on the steps, his gaze following me.

  “Hey John!”, I exclaimed walking towards him

  “Hello”, he said, raising his eyes and wiping the sweat off his forehead with a towel

  “Are you guys packing up already? We should have another get together before you leave. But you aren’t leaving till the end of the month, right?”

  “Yeah, but it takes a while to pack up a whole house”

  “I hear you”

  “I am home too today, just got out of the hospital…”

  “Why, what happened?”

  “I had a car accident, and induced car accident I would say…”, I said, observing John’s reaction carefully

  “An induced car accident?”, he asked, bugging his eyes, with an expression I couldn’t fully decipher. He looked puzzled, but there was a hint of some other worry on his face. Or was I making this up?

  “Someone literally tried to push us off the road”, I continued

  “And did you identify the car and the drivers?”, he asked, his frown tracing deep lines between his eyebrows

  “Not that well…”, I said vaguely, a rush of fear suddenly flooding the lower parts of my stomach

  “But you must have seen something?”, he insisted, and I wondered again if his insistence was that of a policeman used to asking this type of questions or if there was something else behind it. Why would he be walking with Sandeep and trying to hide it if the two of them weren’t connected in dark ways?

  “Not much…we were driving fast one moment and I was knocked unconscious the next...”

  “Were you alone in the car?”, John asked

  A normal question would have been “So how are you feeling now?”, but it hadn’t come yet and now the anger began to compete with the fear. I hoped John never tried to be an agent under cover, because if he was playing a hide and seek game his skills were terrible

  “Thanks for asking me if I am doing well, by the way”, I said, with a pitch in my tone higher than I intended

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that I cannot believe that someone pushed you out the road on purpose, why would anybody do that?”, he said, opening his arms in incredulity, making his solicitous neighbour act more credible. But was he acting?

  “No clue”, I said lying

  “Are you taking a few days off?”, John asked, his expression almost plain now, with only the hint of a frown

  “Yes, Jack has a cottage close to the sea and we are going to spend a few days there”, I lied again, and I was surprised at the ease with which my answers came

  “I never asked you by the way…you’re still going to be a policeman, aren’t you?”, I asked, trying to sound as casual and innocent as I could

  Deeper frown lining John’s forehead

  “Maybe you can help me figure out who tried to kill me once I get better”, I added

  “Did you report this to the police?”

  “Of course…they actually came to talk to me at the hospital, but you and I know each other well and I would rather have someone I trust investigate on this”

  “Do you remember who you spoke to?”, John asked in return, eluding my question for the second time, and pressing me for more information instead

  “Not really…”

  “A woman or a man? Did they leave you their business card? I am asking because I know the people who work in the police, of course, and I can try to ask them if they are finding anything”

  “So are you still going to be in the police? Are you just relocating to another office or changing job altogether?”, I asked, eluding John question and cornering him

  “I’ll be with the police for another couple of weeks and then I’ll quit”

  “Why are you quitting?”, I asked

  “Because I am tired of seeing crime I suppose”, he said. I sensed a genuine not of surrender and disappointment in his voice, and saw sadness in his lowered eyes.

  I nodded, wondering if I had misjudged him earlier, hoping I had

  “I can understand that. And what are you going to do, John?”

  “A simple administrative office job”, he said, shrugging

  I nodded again, thinking at the contrast between John’s version of the facts and what his wife had been telling me when she announced their move, finally understanding his embarrassment, his silence and his lowered eyes throughout the evening. But why had she lied? Was it pride? Or had she been lied to? Certainly she would get to know his real income and eventually finding out about his job.

  “But why are you moving so far?”, I asked, feeling sorry to push him now, but too desperate to see clear through what was happening.

  “If you change life you might as well do it in grand style, no?”, he shrugged, giving me a sad smile

  “I suppose so”, I smiled, giving John a pat on the shoulder and waving again as I walked to my house, where Jack was waiting for me, still sitting on the steps, listening to the conversation from a distance.

  Chapter 57

  I opened the door and the dimness of my home’s atmosphere, filled with familiar smells, enveloped me.

  “Do you trust John?”, Jack asked

  “I still ha
ve to decide”, I said.

  I looked around, it felt good to be home again.

  “I wish I didn’t have to pack now, that we could be here for another day or two…”, I said

  Jack shrugged and smiled, looking at me with sparks on warm eagerness in his eyes.

  “It’s now or never, so let’s get your stuff packed and ready for tomorrow”, he said

  “You are excited to go”, I said, stopping to observe him, my eyes fixed on his

  He shrugged again, hiding a smile

  “Why are you shy to tell me?”

  “I am not shy”

  “Ehm…let’s go pack”, I said, still looking at him, my lips bent in a mischievous smile now, ready to poke him again and free the flow of images he had in his mind, about Milan, and Italy and this trip, and let him rub me with the excitement of discovery the days at the hospital had denuded me of.

  I grabbed his hand and rushed up the steps, but when I was almost upstairs my head spun, and I had to stop, heart beating fast, pearls of sweat on my forehead, holding on to the handrail.

  “Hey…”, Jack said in a worried tone, wrapping an arm around my waist. My vision had gone black, and I let my body lean on him. After a moment the image of the room came back to me, bleached and flaky, and I smiled, trying to reassure him, feeling waves of cold and heat at each movement I made.

  “I am fine, I just got dizzy for a moment…”

  “Why don’t you sit on the bed for a while”, Jack said, walking me to my room, his arm still around my waist

  “Nah, I am fine now, let’s pack!”, I said, with the rush of high following pain or physical discomfort

  I’ve never been a careful packer, I throw in the luggage what occurs to my mind in less than half an hour, no matter where I am going and for how long. After all if I forget something I can either buy it or go without it. Apart from the documents and the money for the food and the hotel rooms nothing else is strictly necessary.

  “Done”, I said after a record time of 15 minutes

  “Are you sure?”, Jack said, tilting his head and arching his brows

  “Yep. Do you want to go to the lake?”

  “To the lake?!”, Jack exclaimed, and then burst out laughing. “Why would we be going to the lake now after you just got out of the hospital and almost fainted less than half an hour ago?”

  “I don’t know…”, I said, and I really didn’t, but I felt the irrational urge to go, all of a sudden.

  The picture of a dead body floating on the water flashed through my mind, and then a girl, the sweetness of her smile, and her eyes looking at me. I closed mine and shivered

  “What is happening?”

  “The girl drowned in the lake…who was she? Do you know what she looked like?”

  “Why? All I read was a column on the paper…and her picture was black and white, poorly printed”, Jack frowned

  I walked to my studio and turned on the PC, punched in the password with febrile fingers. Jack followed me with a puzzled expression

  “What are doing?”

  “I want to find the column of the paper online and see a picture of the girl. She was Mirth’s babysitter, Mirth told me about it that one time I met her at the lake”

  “Mirth?”

  “The detective’s daughter, remember? I told you I had met her at the lake and she had said about how her nanny had died in the lake, drowned”

  “Now I remember…so what about this girl?”

  “I had a flash of a girl’s face, and of a drowned body…”

  Jack’s frown deepened on his forehead, and he bugged his eyes, still not understanding what was going on in my mind. I didn’t either as a matter of fact, all I knew was that my senses were alert, protended towards this girl I had never met.

  “Do you remember where you found the article?”, I asked

  Jack kneeled besides me and ran few searches, while I sat on the edge of the chair, neck craned towards the screen, holding my breath.

  “Here”, he said at least

  Tragedy at Hepburn Lake

  On Monday night 23 years old Julie Larson was found drowned at Hepburn Lake. It was Mirth Morrison, a 10 years old kid, to make the dramatic discovery. Mirth walked out alone to the lake after waiting for Julie Larson, who was babysitting the kid during the evenings, and found Julie’s body floating on the water, face down.

  Julie Larson was a brilliant college student, apparently in good health, with no drug abuse or alcohol problems. Although the causes of the death still have to be ascertained, it is likely that a sudden illness caught her while she was swimming, resulting in the lethal accident.

  The short description was followed by a picture. A girl, warm eyes and a sweet smile, light brown hair hastily gathered in a pony-tail. I looked at the familiar face I had never met but imagined, touched the screen seeking an impossible physical contact and wondered “Why?”, out loud. Why did I know her, and why had she died…it was impossible to imagine the youth of those features gone, swollen by the crystalline water of the lake, swallowed by the earth.

  “What are you wondering?”, Jack asked after a moment

  “I feel like I know her, do you see what I mean? Why? I never met her…can you see the strange pattern in the events? I go to the lake and meet Mirth one night, she tells me about this girl to whom I know I am connected. I know it in an irrational and intuitive way. Why did I picture her face now, coming out of the hospital? And your girlfriend? Her name is Julie too…”

  “You are imagining too many things”, Jack said, but there was a broken note in his words, a doubt he wanted to hush, a wound he did not want to re-open.

  “Can we go to the lake?”, I said, turning my face up to Jack.

  I seldom saw him from this angle, and it felt reassuring to be looking up at him from below, it filled me with a sense of protection and sheltering warmth. Jack looked back at me for a moment, then he twitched his brows in an expression I had never received from him before, of indulgent tenderness, like the one a mother could have for her kid.

  “Sure Iris, but we are going to swim close to the shore, if at all”

  “Absolutely”, I smiled, suddenly happy, shoved by the intensity of alternating moods and sensations, feeling extremely alive.

  Chapter 58

  It was late afternoon when we stepped out of my home, and opening the door I realized that plump dark clouds had crowded in the sky, suspending the burned summer air with the promise of a violent outburst of rain. I looked up smiling, enjoying the exhilarating feeling that precedes and follows summer storms, the strange expectation of some sort of revelation or unexpected change, the sense of freshness and freedom.

  “It will probably start pouring while we are out”, Jack said

  “Yes”, I agreed, still looking up

  “And the idea of getting soaked under the summer rain attracts you so, doesn’t it?”, Jack asked, brushing me with a sly look

  I laughed heartily spreading out my arms, palms upwards, eyes turned towards the turgid sky. Jack began laughing too, I knew he felt the way I did, and I loved him for that.

  He started the truck and we drove in silence, sharing the earthly sensation of the moment and looking at each other now and then. I fluctuated between Jack’s smile and the landscape, leaning out from the window, the moist air flapping against my skin and sticking to it, warm and summer-scented.

  “Let’s drive to your coast”, I said, remembering when Jack had driven me to the shore of the lake opposite to the one where I usually swam.

  Jack turned to me and nodded, and after a while I recognized the unpaved path few hundred meters from the shore where he had brought me before. The trees surrounded us from both sides, twisted roots poking the earth, exuding their smell. We parked and the sky shook with a baritone bellowing, but still held the rain within itself. I ran towards the lake in the small trail in the woods, not waiting for Jack who was locking the truck

  “Hey”, he yelled behind me, chasing me along and pl
ayfully, tugging my shirt when he caught up with me

  I stopped and turned to him with a grin, then ran on towards the lake, giggling wildly. The view of the water opened in front of me after the tunnel between the trees like a surrealistic painting, the clouds dark and the water dark from their reflection, but the air in between the two masses of darkness strangely animated by some sort of unexplainable light.

  We took off our shoes and sat on the rocks, thunders multiplying and lightning flashing at a distance, landing somewhere among the woods.

  And then the rain broke. Plump drops thumping, dry grains flying off the ground, soil pierced by the drops, water penetrating the pores of the land, drops hitting the lake, water against water, drops thickening, streaming in rivulets from the sky. Water in our hair, clothing and body, our feet dipped down into the lake, our hands and faces upwards, our mouths and eyes open in laugher, drinking the pure refreshing outburst pouring on us like sobs of relief.

  It probably last less than half an hour, and we took it all in, without ever thinking to leave. When the rain stopped we were soaked to the bones. It was then that I looked to the other shore, and saw Mirth walking towards the lake, opposite to our shore, the dog following her closely. She approached the water, and stood there for a moment, still, letting the rain soak her like we did, observing us. Then she raised her hand and waved, but before I could tell Jack that we should drive to the other coast and give her a ride back home she turned away, walking into the woods with the dog at her side.

  Jack saw the surprise on my face, the touch of worry. He shrugged.

  “All is fine. What about heading home?”, he said, and lead me to the truck, my hand into his.

  Chapter 59

  We showered together when we got home, lingering under the crystalline liquid again as long as the supplies of hot water from the old boiler allowed us, and rushed out laughing and cursing when it suddenly began to pour on us cold. We were rubbing each other dry when the phone rang.

  “Ah no…”, I said, not wanting to talk to anybody but Jack for reasons I could not tell

  “You’d better go…”, said Jack, pushing me out of the bathroom with a slight slap

  I wrapped myself in the towel and went to pick up the phone, sighting.

  “Iris? Am I annoying you?”, I heard Christine say on the other end of the line

  “Not at all”, I said, partly lying but feeling a slight positive shift in my disposition

  “Sure? You seemed unhappy when you answered the phone…”, Christine replied hesitantly, before adding, “But I have news to tell you!”, her tone turning excited, and all traces of worry about my mood vanishing