The Moon Stands Still

by Sibella Giorello

  I looked around the room. “Where?”

  “If you continue to address me with such insolence, I will have you punished.”

  “That’s already being taken care of.” I stepped around his foul bulk and headed for the nurse’s station.

  But like all bad stenches, he followed. I sped up. His flat bare feet slapped the white vinyl floor, loud enough that the nurse looked up from behind the high counter. I’d never seen her before. She was dark-skinned, young. And nervous. The name tag on her pink scrubs declared, Hi, I’m SADIE.

  “Sadie, I’m Raleigh Harmon. I usually bring a dog for Nadine but today—”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. Everybody showed up at once, I couldn’t stay by the door.”

  “It’s fine, really.” I tried to smile but Sir Post-it’s odor was making my eyes water. “Do you know where my mom is?”

  “She was upset.” Sadie tilted her head. “Maybe you could talk to her?”

  I walked down the sterilized hallway, my heart holding back a horde of barbarians, every single one of them pounding-pounding-pounding on the gate. Behind me, the flat bare feet slapped the white vinyl.

  The door to her room was open. Night and day doors stayed open. Because these people were a threat to their own lives. Her narrow bed was pushed against the plaster wall, and she lay curled up on the mattress like a sick child with a bad stomachache. On the wall above, words had been scrawled in black marker. Ordinary words, spreading with a panicked handwriting.

  Tuesday.

  So they say.

  And below that, beside her pillow, my father’s name. David.

  I pried apart my jaw, willing my heart to quit punching me. But Sir Post-it got there first.

  “The court jester has arrived!”

  My mother didn’t move.

  I spun around, baring my teeth.

  The note on his first chin quivered. “If you touch me I’m telling!”

  I lifted my hand.

  He ran away. “I’m telling, I’m telling!” His voice echoed down the hall.

  My mom still hadn’t moved. I walked over to the bed and felt a memory crawl from the back of my mind. Second grade, home from school. Stomach flu. I lay in bed and my mom sat beside me. All day. Loving, kind. I wanted to be sick every day, so my mom could be normal.

  “Mom?”

  Her eyes were open, staring at the wall.

  The world’s dullest knife carved its way through my chest. “I’m sorry, Madame couldn’t come today.”

  She blinked.

  “She’s not feeling well. I took her to the vet.”

  She rolled her head toward me. Dry lips, faint as pink quartz. “What day is it?” she asked.

  “Saturday.”

  “The date.” She rolled back toward the wall. “The date, what’s the date.”

  I searched for meaning. Every simple word spoken in here had some other meaning. The date. I stared out the iron-barred window, seeing gray upon gray, and the dull knife twisted again. Today. The date. Five years ago my dad shrugged into his overcoat and walked to the store. He didn’t come back. He was shot, left for dead on the frost-tinged cobblestones of a Richmond night. Two days later, David Harmon died.

  The date.

  “Yes, today,” I said. “You remembered.”

  My mother rolled her head toward me. Her hair was the color of cold campfire ash. “You hurt her.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Madame. What did you do to her?”

  “I took her to the vet.”

  “You’re lying. I saw her.”

  “Madame?”

  “No.” The smile crept across her face. “That woman.”

  “What woman?”

  “The woman who stole Madame.”

  “Nobody stole Madame.”

  “Who is she?”

  I rifled my mind for answers. “Mom, I don’t—who—”

  “Stop lying.” She sat up, slowly, the way a snake rises from its coil. “I saw her with my own two eyes. That woman took Madame.”

  “When?”

  “She wore black boots—shiny black books. Her clothes were red. Blood red.”

  Oh, dear. God.

  Wednesday. I went to see the geologist, Eleanor brought Madame here, wearing that stewardess costume. I glanced toward her window. It overlooked the parking lot. “Mom, that woman’s a friend. She was doing me a favor.”

  “Why did she take Madame?”

  “Because I couldn’t get here.”

  Her green eyes were wild and dull all at once, like every pharmaceutical in her system was trying to smother the paranoia, only for the crazy thought to rise again. “Who are you?”

  My hands went numb. “I’m Raleigh.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “I took Madame to the vet, she’s really sick. Somebody in here must’ve given her someth—”

  “You.” She pushed her back against the wall, pressing her spine against those scrawled words.

  “Mom—”

  “Get away from me.”

  Down the hall, the bare feet came. Slap-slap-slapping. Other footsteps followed. I stood still, a pair of hands holding me underwater. I lifted my face, yearning for oxygen.

  “Get away from me!” my mother screamed. “Get away from me!”

  33

  In Eleanor’s kitchen, I filled Madame’s water bowl even though she wasn’t coming back tonight. And I walked into the dining room, even though nobody sat at the enormous oval table. I took a seat, bowed my head, and gave a guttural prayer that had no words.

  When I felt ready, I walked upstairs. A light glowed from under Eleanor’s bedroom door. I knocked, and found her dozing on the peach satin, ringed hands clasped over another Hollywood biography, this one about an Irish actor whose drunken escapades scandalized even people who trade in scandal.

  “Raleigh,” she said, eyes still closed. “Tell me about the dog.”

  “The vet’s keeping her overnight.”

  Eleanor reached for her glasses, resting beside the amber prescription bottles. The rhinestones framed an intense gaze that zeroed in on me. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “They don’t know.” I sat on the edge of the bed. “Yet.”

  “And you?”

  “What about me?”

  She gave me an imperious gaze. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “More mendacity.”

  In the silence that followed, her bedside clock ticked and ticked. The air smelled of cold cream. I glanced over. Eleanor’s face was as shiny as a polished stone. “I’m not like other people.”

  “Heavens, why would you want to be?”

  “I think about death too much.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “Eleanor, I’m serious. I can’t stop thinking about death.”

  “Raleigh, do you know the problem with most people?”

  “No. But you’re going to tell me.”

  “Most people don’t think about death enough.” Her chin rose. “Their lives are just trails of debris with nothing but death to clean it all up.”

  The question took effort. “Who said that?”

  “Mrs. Venable. Suddenly Last Summer. Act one, scene one. Which is precisely where you are right now.”

  “In summer?”

  “You’re at the beginning—act one, scene one. And if you’re already contemplating death, then chances are you will actually live.”

  “Eleanor, I’m really tired right now.”

  “Then listen.” She pushed herself higher, leaning toward me, the rhinestone sparkling in the lamplight. “Every morning, I would tell my beloved Harry, ‘Today, we’re going to die.’”

  “And he didn’t divorce you?”

  “Au contraire, Harry appreciated the daily reminder. And we truly lived.” She sat back. “I suggest you do the same.”

  “Tell myself I’m going to die today?”

  “Raleigh, stop pretending you’re obtuse.”

  My neck ached.
And a headache was splitting down the middle of my forehead. “Will you be okay for a couple hours? I’m going into the office.”

  “The office—now?”

  “You just told me to start living.”

  “Living, not working.” She peered at me, all pink shine and rhinestones. “You know what your problem is, Raleigh?”

  “Yes.”

  “No.” Her chin rose. “Your problem is you’re so lonely I can hear it.”

  I didn’t ask who said that.

  Because honestly, I didn’t want to know.

  34

  Late on a Saturday night, Seattle’s drizzle felt electric. I parked across from the Smith Tower, grabbed my pack from The Ghost, and stood at the crosswalk facing the park where Madame usually made her polite stop. Tonight the homeless had built tents from broken umbrellas and soggy cardboard boxes. Gathered together, dripping with rain, the umbrellas looked like crumpled bouquets cast aside by sobbing brides.

  The light changed. I lunged over a puddle and thought of my mother. How very close she was to living on the streets. Especially if Eleanor’s motto came true. Nobody else would take care of her. Sure, Aunt Charlotte would try—she would always try—but it would never work.

  In the main lobby, the guard’s chair sat empty while a small television played a show with a laugh track. The canned laughter ricocheted against the polished marble walls and tin ceiling, tumbling across the tile floor, false as synthetic gems. I started up the stairs, the laughter fading behind me. With each step, some of the afternoon’s pain dissipated. On the second floor, I prayed for Madame. On the third floor, I prayed for Eleanor. And above all, I prayed for my mother, half-wondering if God ever grew tired of my repeated stanza: Heal her, heal her, heal her.

  In my office, studiously ignoring the absence of the black dog on the leather couch, I made a pot of coffee and placed my USGS maps on the floor, the same maps on which I’d circled the areas that produced pegmatites. I re-read the rock profiles, drawn in the margins by the cartographers. The color-coded coring samples gave a vertical description of the minerals. I was halfway through the first coring when the coffee was ready.

  I took a mug from the shelf, all of them leftovers from Harry Anderson’s days in here, each mug bearing a different phrase. I picked the one that said, “You only live once. But if you do it right, once is enough.”

  Warming my hands on the cup, I searched the maps for any outcroppings of fluorite. But the mineral wasn’t abundant in western Washington. To the east, I found one area marked “public dig” near Mattawa, and another in Walla Walla, nearly in Idaho. Both of those fluorite deposits claimed powerful fluorescence—that black-light glow—but neither one was near Cooper’s jump, and neither had significant deposits of St. Helen’s ash.

  I kneeled on the floor, setting my cup beside me. The cartographer noted one smaller location, closer to the west. Lion Rock, near Blewett Pass in the Cascade mountains.

  Calcite with fluorescence.

  Blue-to-lavender hue.

  Was it possible that soil fluoresced with calcite instead of fluorite? Chemically, calcite was close cousins with fluorite.

  Possible…

  But possible didn’t mean probable. And I needed a highly probable source for that powerful fluorescence. Some geological location which also explained the presence of St. Helen’s ash on the stolen money.

  “No problem,” I muttered to myself, pouring a second cup of coffee. I carried that one to the window that faced Pioneer Square. My eyes felt gritty with fatigue, and from reading the map’s small print. I blinked. Rain turned the neon into prismatic sparkles. Down the street, the gospel mission for the homeless turned off its light, done saving for tonight. My mind drifted back to my mom. She remembered that today was the anniversary of my dad’s murder. And that was part of the problem. She missed him too much.

  I took out my phone. East Coast time three hours ahead, which meant it was midnight for my sister, Helen. The famous art professor.

  With one thumb, I texted her: Anniversary of Dad’s death today.

  I put the phone back in my pocket. But it vibrated. I pulled it out again. To my surprise, Helen actually texted back.

  How is Mom?

  I stared at the words, feeling a familiar annoyance with my sister. Setting down my mug, I started typing. Why don’t you call her and find out. She’d appreciate it. My mother would talk to Helen—she adored Helen. Me, not so much.

  I did call her. She refused to talk. What’s going on?

  Here it comes. Here comes Helen’s rant about me not doing enough, even though she does nothing to help. Mom’s sad, basically.

  Of course. You?

  I paused. Fine. You?

  Doing good. Gotta go.

  Helen Harmon, the dubious expert at burying the past. But at least she responded, a slight acknowledgement of the grief we all shared. This horrible anniversary none of us wanted. Love you, Helen.

  Love you, too, Raleigh.

  A fresh arrow added itself to the quiver of my heart. I scrolled through the phone for any missed phone calls but there were none. I thumbed my ring tone volume all the way up, in case Eleanor needed me, then dropped the phone back in my pocket and stared out the window. Down in the street, a yellow umbrella pinwheeled across the wet pavement. A stooped figure followed in shambling pursuit.

  I walked back to the quilt of maps. Lani’s analysis did find calcite in that Cooper soil. Blewett Pass had a calcite deposit with strong blue fluorescence. I knew that area, I’d just finished working a murder case in the Cascade mountains. With Jack. He and I were—no.

  Move on.

  Don’t think about him.

  Calcite. Stay on the calcite. I traced my finger down the map, moving from Blewett Pass in the center of the state to Mount St. Helen’s to the south, then to the waterways that fed the Columbia River, further south. Heavy agates in that area. And agates contained calcite and—

  I looked up.

  The ding of the elevator outside my door echoed down the empty hall. I stared at the pebble-glass panel which still had the words Anderson Enterprises.

  Jack.

  Eleanor probably called him. Ordered him to come here. She was worried about me. I stood, but felt riveted to the floor, waiting for that muscular outline to appear on the other side of the glass. I heard his footsteps approaching. Any second now …

  35

  But Jack didn’t appear.

  I held still, listening. Someone was in the hallway alright.

  And they were crying.

  I cracked my door. A short man leaned against the psychologist’s door, forehead pressed to the glass. His wool coat dripped rain, splashing on the floor’s white hexagonal tiles. He was almost whispering Lezlee’s name.

  “Dr. Nyler—Dr. Nyler, where are you?” His hand gripped the doorknob, slowly twisting it back and forth, as if cracking the numeral code on a safe. “Hello, Dr. Nyler?”

  His desperation was palpable. A spear of disgust shot through me. Lezlee. The spaced-out psychologist, messing up her appointments again.

  I stepped into the hallway. “Excuse me, can I help you?”

  He gasped, backing away. “Who—” His ruddy face was slick with rain, tears, perspiration. “Who are you?”

  “Sorry.” I raised both hands, palms out. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “Where’s Dr. Nyler?” The coat’s dark brown wool hung from his frame like a soaked blanket. “She told me she’d be here.”

  “Did you try calling her?”

  He slumped against the wall. “I’m going to kill myself.”

  An avalanche swept through me, a crashing sensation that tumbled all my day’s sorrow and desolation into this man’s utter despair. It was what Eleanor said, loneliness so deep you could feel it. As I stood there, blinking at the sting in my eyes, he looked up. Tears welled in his bloodshot eyes. I tried to think of something to say, but my mind went numb. All I could think say was, “Can I get you a cup of coffee?�
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  His head dropping forward. I thought I’d offended him but he looked up again, running a hand over his chapped lips. “Coffee. Yes. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” I kept my voice steady. “Call Dr. Nyler, she probably got stuck somewhere.”

  “Yes, yes.” He dug through the folds of wet wool, hands disappearing into the pockets. “I’ll call her, you’re right. She’s always late.”

  Inside my office, I stared at the mugs. The slogans seemed dangerous now. I finally chose the one that said, “Life moves forward but only makes sense going backward.” I lifted the carafe. The coffee had distilled into an obsidian substance. I thought about making a fresh pot, but this guy needed it now. I grabbed sugar packets and creamers, and found him sitting on the floor outside Lezlee’s door.

  “Did you get ahold of her?” I asked, carrying the mug down the hall.

  “Yes.” He sighed. “She’s on her way.”

  “Good.” I held out the cup.

  He stood, hands shaking. “God bless you.”

  “I brought sugar, too.” I opened my other hand. “And creamer.”

  His hands closed around the mug, smothering the words only makes sense. I noticed his fingernails as he was lifting the mug to his chapped lips. Black with grime, skin cracked. Sores oozed on his knuckles. An alarm sounded at the back of my mind. I stepped back.

  Too late.

  The scalding coffee seared my face. I threw one arm over my burning eyes, my other hand clawing at my waistband. Gun. Get the gun. I pivoted.

  “Oh no you don’t!” He growled like an animal snapping open its cage. “Come here!”

  My gun—in the glovebox—

  I felt his hand snatch my right wrist. I threw a blind backhand with my left, missed, and suddenly his whiskers scoured my face. I twisted, broke free, ran blind.

  “No!” He grabbed my hair, yanking me backward, shoving me against the wall. Lights flashed under my eyelids. I swung my fists, half-blind. My left connected, I heard him yelp. I plunged my right hand into my pocket. Phone. It was there, I could feel it, my thumb swiping over screen—call 9-1-1—but as I was pulling it out, he smacked my wrist. My hand flew open. The phone hit the floor. He grabbed my wrists, pinning them above my head. I felt his breath on my skin, sour-milk breath. The wet wool odor of his coat. I held still, pretending to behave.