Sleepless Nights (26 page)

“No, no, it’s not that. I’m not coming tonight, Paul, because I know
everything.
I saw you this afternoon. And I’m not saying what you’re doing is evil, maybe some people could put up with it, if I was more sophisticated about these things perhaps I could too, but I’m not, and I can’t,” I gabbled, wishing even at this late stage that I could manage coherence in front of him. If only I could sound like the kind of women I was sure he normally went out with, women who were brought up to speak in full sentences in the midst of the apocalypse! “I can’t, and that’s final, I can’t, and I’m sorry but I don’t want to see you again,” I finished miserably, tripping over the words,
feeling like a six-year-old, hating myself and hating him all at the same time.

“I see,” he said slowly. “Or rather, I don’t. Perhaps you’d like to take me through it again—? I seem to be extraordinarily dense.”

Righteous indignation and sick disgust were mixed in with a physical longing for him that, like a wave, threatened to engulf everything else. Somehow, though, I stuck to my guns. “Let’s just say I saw you around lunchtime,” I said meaningfully. “On the street. I went to this patisserie and—and I saw you, Paul. I saw what you were
doing,
and who you were
with.”

“I see.” I could hear the guilt in his voice. “I see. Look, Jeanie, I’m not saying it’s the best thing I’ve ever done, but there are—extenuating circumstances,” he went on carefully. “If you’ll have dinner with me this evening, I think I can explain them to you.”

“Do you deny that you’re—screwing her?”

“Screwing her? Well, I wouldn’t put it quite like that, although…”

“How would you put it?”

“I’m—I’m—okay, I am sort of screwing her. It’s true. That’s the starkest possible account of what I’m doing, I suppose. But—”

“You people!” I exploded furiously, hearing the ridiculousness of this claim. “My God! You’re ‘sort of’ screwing her? Either you are, or you aren’t! There’s no room for ‘sort of’ here. What, are you going to start questioning the meaning of ‘is’ now?”

“You mean Clinton? A lot of people misunderstood that argument, actually…”

“Well, I’m one of them!” I said furiously, panting for breath. “Don’t patronize me, Paul. Words mean something. They just
do.
Let me tell you something, and we’ll see if you misunderstand it:
you disgust me.
I think your behavior is repulsive. You should be ashamed of yourself. I want nothing more to do with you.”

“Indeed, Jeanie, there’s no room for misunderstanding there,” he
replied. The phone, pressed against my ear, seemed to turn cold.

“I’m sorry I ever met you,” I went on, because I couldn’t help myself. “I wish I’d never seen you. I wish you’d never even touched me.”

“Really? Then let me assure you, the feeling is entirely mutual,” he returned angrily. “You
are
an opinionated little minx, aren’t you? I see now that I should never have interrupted your happy little relationship with the delightful Dave,” he added, his voice dripping scorn. “Tom told me all about him. Clearly, he was perfect for you, rank sneakers and all. Now that you’ve come to appreciate his sterling qualities, you can achieve a full reconciliation. I assume that is what this is really about. I wish you both joy, Jeanie,” he continued abruptly. “I’m sure you’ll be very happy together.” There was a click, and suddenly I realized I was holding a silent phone in my hand.

Every night after that brought wakefulness and tears. In the morning I’d sit for half an hour on the edge of the bed with a mirror in my hand, waiting for my face to look normal, but try as I might, the tears
would
come, my cheeks
would
turn mottled and spotted and red. I mopped my eyes again and again, I thought about raindrops and kittens and copper kettles and all the rest of it, but I still looked like someone from a Shakespearian tragedy in the final act. “Jeanie? Jeanie, where are you?” my sister would call fretfully, and eventually I’d have to go downstairs and plead allergies. I’d siphon down a cup of coffee and discover myself dreaming of brandy or vodka, or at the very least a bottomless box of red wine.

46

Q

Q
, are you ready? Come on! We’re late,” Tom yelled upstairs to me at nine o’clock one morning, about a week after our trip to the courthouse. When I arrived in the kitchen a little breathless, Samuel tucked under my arm, Tom was busy stuffing Kent’s old files into his briefcase. “I’m up to F,” he announced proudly. He brandished a memory stick. “Everything from
there
is on
here
—well, the basics that is, and the major facts, I figure we can get a secretary to input the smaller details later.”

“Very impressive,” I said, laughing, and he grinned in response.

“What do you think the Crimpson partners would think of me now?” he said. “Uh—No, actually, don’t answer that.”

Tom seemed rejuvenated. He’d moved into high gear over the course of the week, working to familiarize himself with Kent’s business, its history, and its full range of clients. He obviously loved the challenge, although I wasn’t sure Kent did; he had a faintly haunted look in his eye (“Do you have to keep making such a mess? That file—no, leave it where it is, young man, it doesn’t need to—oh my God, what’re you
doing?”).
When we arrived at his office to join him and drive on to Emmie’s, he eyed the memory stick with grave suspicion. “That itty bitty thing? Looks like a stick o’gum. You’ll lose it, and the entire practice will fall apart. Still, it won’t be my problem, I guess.”

On the way to Emmie’s house, the three of us crammed in the front seat of his battered two-tone truck, Kent explained what he’d just found out. Producing a crumpled document from his breast pocket, he passed it sideways to me. “That first child, Angela, didn’t die of crib death at all. Mick was quite right.”

A horrible fear that had been collecting on the edge of my consciousness since our conversation with Mick now clutched at my throat. “You’re not saying that—that—she—”

Kent threw me a curious look. “
If
you’ll let me finish—! She died of something called ‘Reye’s syndrome.’ You ever heard of that?”

I shook my head, deeply, intensely relieved. But Tom cut in: “
I
have.” I turned my head to look at him.

“Really?”

“Dad’s a surgeon; I’ve been around medical research all my life. And I thought about becoming a pre-med for a while. I did a placement with one of Dad’s friends, Ian Whittaker, at Johns Hopkins; he was finishing up a report on the causes of infant mortality. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome means the baby’s death can’t be explained after all causes have been ruled out through autopsy, death scene investigation, and review of the medical history. Reye’s, on the other hand, is a neurological illness.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know what the symptoms of this syndrome
are,
would you?” Kent asked hopefully.

Tom shook his head. “No. But I can find out.” He unclipped his cell phone, and dialed. “Ian? It’s Tom here, Peter’s kid,” we heard him say, and then, “Can you give me a quick summary on the presentation of Reye’s? I have a professional reason for asking…”

The conversation was as brief as men’s conversations usually are, a simple fact-finding affair sandwiched between slivers of politeness. After a moment or two, Tom snapped his phone shut. “According to Ian the classic symptoms of Reye’s are vomiting, fever, severe drowsiness, and, in its most dangerous form, seizures. Pretty serious, in other words.”

“Christ!
The kind of thing no mother should have ignored,” Kent groaned; and then, as Tom agreed: “She
did
say she was awful tired around then, remember, Q? Maybe she just wasn’t thinking straight.”

“Ian says any child suffering from Reye’s would—or at least
should
—have been in a hospital for treatment and monitoring in the days, maybe even weeks, before she died,” Tom continued. “He says he’s never even heard of a kid with Reye’s dying at home. Bottom line is: Angela should have been in medical care, and Emmie should have seen she was dangerously ill.”

“Which is presumably what Ryan’s lawyer found out,” said Kent. “He’s going to say she’s a careless mom who let her first kid die. As the icing on the cake of all the
other
claims, it’s likely to fly with a judge—particularly if McColley hints (which I would, if I was bringing the case) that she was on drugs or drink when the kid was sick.”

The truck banged along a pitted dirt path in the middle of some open fields, past a disused stone quarry, and into the driveway of a modern prefab Cape set at the bottom of a low hill. Ducks and geese and a few rangy cats scuttered about the yard; a car sat rusting under a tarp. The windows were dark, the blinds closed; the house had a strange, shut-up feel that was faintly threatening.

“The state medical examiner must have required a full statement of the scene of death,” Tom remarked quietly, as Kent switched off the car. “Emmie’s baby died at home; a detective must have been called, and he would have taken evidence from Emmie and her family about what happened in the week before the child died. If we can get our hands on the medical examiner’s form, Kent, it might help us establish what state Emmie was in at the time of Angela’s death.”

“True.” Kent nodded. “We’ll get onto that. For now, though, let’s get the story straight from the—er—horse’s mouth.”

We fell out of the truck, legs bent nearly double. Kent watched us (“Are y’all right? Know you city types are used to limousines”), then leaned past us into the truck’s passenger side and removed some
thing from the glove compartment. The something was long, hard, bigger than a man’s hand, and wrapped in brown paper. “Lawyer can never be too careful hereabouts,” he murmured, gesturing to the packet as he slipped it into his jeans’ back pocket. “Never know when you might need this.” Tom and I exchanged glances.

Kent led the way to the green front door, and pushed the buzzer.

A dog immediately barked fiercely inside, a dog that sounded as if lawyers were his favorite treat and he hadn’t had any for a few long, hungry days. We heard the sound of someone approaching, then a dog’s scampering feet coming closer, closer. Kent reached behind him, extracted the brown-paper parcel, and began to unwrap it, his face watchful. Tom moved me sharply behind him as the door opened—the dog’s face and slavering jaws were suddenly visible behind the screen, sharp teeth pulling away from huge black gums. The dog charged out—

“Here you go, buddy,” Kent said, producing from the long paper package…a dog biscuit. A long, bone-shaped, entirely inoffensive, pink dog biscuit. The dog, a curious mix of many breeds, nosed Kent’s hand, accepted the biscuit thankfully, and slumped down on the doorstep with it, head resting comfortably on Kent’s left shoe. Kent grinned back at us. “What the hell are you doing over
there?”
he called, gesturing to us to follow him, “don’t tell me you’re scared of this old boy!” He stepped over the animal’s recumbent body and into the house.

An old man was hovering in the shadowy depths of the hallway, dressed in blue jeans, grubby white sneakers, and a stained blue check shirt. As we stepped inside, he grunted, then let the door slam behind us and preceded us down the hall into a sitting room that—on brief inspection—bore more resemblance to a garage than a place of family gathering. Pieces of car and generator were strewn around the chairs and tables; oil cans reposed on blackened pieces of newspaper, and a large toolbox was spilling wrenches onto the carpet in front of the television.

“Emmie! EMMIE! Mr. Tyler’s arrived—get your ass in here!” the
old man yelled, picking up a piece of what looked like an exhaust pipe from the coffee table. With a brief nod, he vanished through the hall and into the yard.

Emmie greeted us with limited enthusiasm. “What can I do for you?” she asked wearily, appearing in the dark hallway with a tea towel looped round her neck. “You’ll have to make it quick, I’ve got to get a stew done for the church supper tonight and then I’ve got to get Paulie ready for a visit to his friend’s house.”

We followed her into the kitchen. A neatly swept butcher’s block stood in the middle of the room; the wood counters were scrubbed clean. There was a vase of wildflowers, not particularly fresh, but still pretty, by the sink, and a few framed photographs of Paulie on the wall. Emmie produced a slab of beef from the fridge and a meat tenderizer, then a bag of carrots, a sack of potatoes, and six onions from a cupboard. “You can help me with the vegetables,” she said flatly, dumping the lot on the counter.

I set about the potatoes while Kent and Tom harassed some onions and carrots and Emmie pounded the beef into submission. “So what is it”
(bang, bang)
“you want to”
(bang, bang)
“talk about?” she asked.

Kent watched the meat tenderizer cautiously. “Well, see here, Emmie, something’s sort of come up,” he began carefully.

“What do you mean?”
Bang. Bang.

“Well, you see, my dear”
(bang, bang)
“it’s—it’s a bit of a tricky subject actually—it’s about—well”
(bang, bang, bang, bang)
—“maybe you should put down the—”
(bang, bang, bang)
—Kent threw me a piteous look.

“Emmie, it’s about Baby Angela, actually,” I cut in. “About her death,” I went on, into the crashing silence that followed.

“Angela didn’t die of crib death.” I said slowly, very slowly, watching to see the effect of my words. “According to the certificate, she died of Reye’s syndrome.”

Emmie’s face was white. “What do
you
know about it?” she said, her voice low. “What are you talking about?”

“Mr. Tyler has a copy of the death certificate. He—er—thought he should take a look. And see—” I gave her the document—“cause of death: ‘Reye’s syndrome.’ Now, did you ever hear of that?”

Emmie collapsed into a chair at the table, baby daughter’s death certificate clutched tight in her hand.