Beloved (57 page)

"
Unconscious
—
but that
'
s not unusual,
"
Mac added quickly when her face fell.
"
We have to wait and see. They can
'
t tell us anything now.
"

"
Jer,
"
he said, turning to his son,
"
be a pal and bring us coffee.
"
He gave Jerry directions to the coffee machine; when the boy left, Mac said quietly,
"
Harrow
told me about Cissy. I
'
m sorry it was you who found her.
"

"
We were all there,
"
Jane said.
"
If I
had
been al
one ..
.
"
Repressing a shudder, she shook her head.
"
I don
'
t know.
"

"
Harrow
said she slipped off the bridge? How?
"

"
Phillip didn
'
t tell you?
"
But then, you
'
d never ask him,
she realized.
"
A handrail gave way.
"

"
A handrail? There w
as nothing wrong with the hand
rails.
"

"
Yes there was. I saw the one my
self, lying underneath her
.
"
Jane stopped, closing her eyes, reliving it again, then pushed it away.
"
Is Bing okay?
"

Mac shook his head.
"
He
'
s taking it hard. He
'
s convinced that Cissy
'
s estranged husband is involved, and he
'
s been going on about it. Apparently she left behind a suitcase, as if maybe she got called outside unexpectedly. I
tried to slow him down, but ....  T
here
'
s going to be an autopsy, I
'
m pretty sure.
"

"
This is unbelievable,
"
Jane said, collapsing into a chair.
"
Last ni
ght everyone was so happy ...."

"
Not everyone,
"
Mac said in a low voice. His hands were in his pockets, his back to her, as he stared out the window at the thickening fog.
"
Obviously not everyone.
"

As usual, he was being ambiguous. She
thought
he was talking about himself and her, but she couldn
'
t be sure. This time she decided to ask.
"
What exactly do you mean, Mac?
"

"
About last night
... "

She was right.

He turned to her, his eyes dark with emotion.
"
I .
..
look, I got carried away, all right? I said things
—
"

"
Said
things!
What
things? You
never
say things!
"
she said, exploding with tension.
"
That
'
s the whole problem! A person has to be psychic around you! If you just
once
said how you really feel
—
"

"
I
'
m
telling
you how I feel,
"
he said, taken aback by her fury. His cheeks flushed with anger as he said,
"
I feel that that was the dumbest thing I
'
ve ever done.
"

"
I mean how you
really
feel,
"
she said, rejecting his answer. Whatever else it was, the kiss he gave her wasn
'
t dumb.

She wasn
'
t finished with him.
"
I can
'
t
imagine
how those who love you can survive,
"
she went on, frustrated beyond measure with him.
"
You
'
re like a sun that won
'
t shine, a fire that won
'
t burn. Don
't you see? A ..
. a boy needs to hear his father say he loves him!
"
she said, veering off and substituting shamelessly.
"
He needs it the way a tree needs water!
"

"
My
dad tells me he loves me. All the time.
"

Jane whirled around to see Jerry, a cup of coffee in each hand, standing there with a look of deep offense in his young face. The look said that Jane had crossed a line, that she had stepped inside a circle she didn
'
t belong. Oh, how she knew that face, knew that look.

Jane had shot from the hip many times in her life, but she
'
d never shot herself
through
the hip before. Truly mortified, she blurted,
"
I
'
m sorry. I shouldn
'
t be here,
"
and fled.

****

No heart can take such a pounding.

Jane was back at Lilac Cottage, nursing a massive headache along with her heartache. Still, she tried to put her pain in perspective.
She
hadn
'
t lost the one she loved to sudden death or to a stroke
.
Mac wasn
'
t even hers to lose. He
'
d looked her over and found her attractive, but not enough to make the leap over the chasm that he thought divided them.
So that
'
s that,
she told herself
—
over, and over, and over.

But every time she pushed the thought of Mac away, the thought of Cissy returned to fill the breach.  Someone so young, so sweet, so completely happy and alive  —  gone.  Cissy, gone?  It wasn't possible.

Jane was simply too numb to take it all in.

She dialed the number of the hospital reception desk another time and asked about Uncle Easy. When she wasn
'
t calling the hospital, people were calling her; word had whipped around the island like the back end of a hurricane. In the meantime she watched for cars: Mac
'
s, Bing
'
s, even Phillip
'
s. She never did see Mac return; but a little while after Bing pulled into his drive, she called him.

He was inconsolable, almost incoherent.
"
I
'
m going back to the City
tonight,
"
he said in a tense, distracted voice.
"
I know the Chief of Police.
He
'
ll
get me satisfaction. I
'
m not getting anywhere at this end. The least they
should
do here is shut down the airport and outgoing ferries for a few days. But no; all they
'
re doing is watching for Dave and his car.
"

Considering the circumstances, that sounded reasonable. But Bing didn
'
t want to hear it. He hung up angrily; tomorrow he probably wouldn
'
t remember talking with her.

Jane sighed and called the hospital again. Still no change in the patient
'
s status. It was late. She hadn
'
t the energy
— and when it came right down to it, she hadn
'
t the heart
—
to call Phillip and console him for his loss.

****

Overnight the fog moved on, leaving the island bathed in bright May sun. It was impossible not to think that things would get better
—
they couldn
'
t get much worse
—
and when Jane called the hospital first thing, the news was good. Uncle Easy was conscious and in stable condition. That was all she knew until Billy B. arrived for work.

"
It just goes to show,
"
Billy said, shaking his head thoughtfully. He didn
'
t bother finishing the sentence; presumably Jane already knew what it went to show.
"
But Dr.
Braun does seem pretty optimistic about Uncle Easy, at least,
"
he added.

"
How do
you
know? They won
'
t tell me a thing.
"

"
My cousin works at the hospital,
"
he said with a shrug.
"
So that
'
s the good
news. The bad news, though ..
. boy, she was young. Do you think there
'
s something to this crazed-husband theory?
"

"
How do you know about
that?
"

He shrugged again.
"
Carol
'
s uncle is a cop.
"

"
I did see a squad car come through first thing,
"
Jane mused.
"
They were back there a long time. They must be taking it seriously.
"

"
Let
'
s look around ourselves,
"
Billy said with a gleam in his eye.
"
Who knows? We might find something.
"

"
You can
'
t go tramping through a possible scene of a crime,
"
she reminded him.

"
We can if it
'
s not taped off.
"

It
was
taped off
—
at least, the immediate area around the bridge was. There were several possible reasons for it, but none of them mattered to Jane then. She was staring at the trampled wet grass where the two men had hovered over Cissy. She was seeing Cissy, reliving the horror. She started to walk away, then forced herself to come back. If this was Judith
'
s work, then Jane needed to know.

She took off her shoes and socks and rolled up her pants so that she could walk the two giant steps through the gully to get to the other side of the bridge. Nothing looked criminal to her on that side, either. They waded back.

Billy stared over the tape at the fallen rail and said,
"
It looks like the bolt worked its way out of the upright. None of the bolts have nuts on
'
em—probably never have had nuts. See how the bolts are rusted their whole length?
"

"
But you wouldn
'
t use sideways force just to walk over the bridge,
"
Jane said thoughtfully.
"
Someone would
'
ve had to
push
Cissy into the rail to make it come apart.
"

"
A pissed-off husband, maybe,
"
Billy suggested.

"
Maybe.
"
But Jane wasn
'
t convinced. She
'
d never seen
this mysterious Dave; he was even more of a phantom than Judith.
"
Come on,
"
she said,
"
before we get caught.
"

****

In the next week Bing got the satisfaction he was demanding
—
more or less. The
New York
police hauled Dave Hanlin in for questioning, and Dave gave them an unshakable alibi: he
'
d been at a party, making a fool of himself in front of at least two dozen people. The autopsy turned up no evidence of rough play, only the single, hideously unlucky bruise to the head. The crime-scene tape was taken down from around the footbridge, and life on
Nantucket
began returning to normal.