“Tom, it’s me, Merry Kramer from the
News
. I’m Edie’s coworker. You remember me, don’t you?”
No one answered, but I thought I heard a slight noise coming from that stygian interior.
It could be a mouse, I told myself. Or worse yet, a rat. Or a snake. There were copperheads in the park. I shuddered at the thought of tangling with one of them.
But none of those critters would make that smear of blood on the windowsill or the smears on the whitewash.
I raced around the cottage to the front door. There the padlock mocked me, but I grabbed the latch and tried anyway. The door didn’t even rattle under my assault, let alone open. I ran around back again.
“Tom! Can you hear me? Tom!”
I was feeling unhappy about the lack of response from inside when, very distinctly, I heard a weak moan. Then a hand appeared, gripping the windowsill. Dried blood stained the fingernails and light denim shirt cuff.
“Tom!”
As quickly as it had appeared, the hand disappeared, followed by a groan. Then nothing.
Heart pounding, I reached in my bag and pulled out my cell phone. I jabbed 911 but nothing happened. Then I saw the flashing notice: low battery. I felt like screaming in frustration when I realized that with the confusion over Bill Bond this morning, I’d forgotten to recharge.
Muttering all kinds of invectives at myself, I searched madly for some way to raise myself to window height. Tom, if that was Tom, needed help and immediately.
I started for the road. I’d drive my car back, park it under the window and stand on the trunk. That’d give me plenty of height. I’d only taken a few steps when I dodged a poplar and realized with keen disappointment that the trees were too close to allow for the passage of the car.
The shutter! I swung around hopefully. It wasn’t a shutter like I usually thought of them, two pieces that met over a window. This shutter was one large piece of wood painted green, boards nailed across it in a Z pattern to make it sturdy. It lay on the ground, flat as the proverbial pancake. It would raise me all of two or three inches.
But, I thought, becoming twitchy with excitement, I could turn it on its edge and rest it against the house. I grabbed it and pulled, all set to drag the thing to the cottage and prop it against the wall. Surprise sped through me as my hands slipped. I staggered backwards and fell right on my rump, overset by the unexpected weight.
“It’s okay, Tom,” I called like he knew or cared about what was happening. “I’m coming. It’ll just be a minute.”
I pulled myself to my feet and eyed the shutter with a new respect. I took a deep breath and tried again. No matter how hard I gripped, my hands slid.
I stepped back and studied the shutter again. I reached my arms as wide as I could, stepped close, bent way over and gripped the far edges. I could just grasp them. I lifted.
Again all I could manage was a couple of inches, and my back was not happy about either the weight or the awkward angle. I took a baby step backwards and dragged. The shutter followed. I would have cheered if I weren’t panting from the exertion. Step. Drag. Step. Drag. The blood rushed to my head from leaning over so far, and my hands ached. My back kept complaining with unkind little jabs like electrical shocks, and my calves threatened
spasms. I gritted my teeth and reminded myself of the absurd folk truth no pain, no gain.
After forever, my backside finally bumped into the cottage. I stood, each vertebrae creaking.
“I’m here, Tom. I’m here.”
Not that it did Tom much good. The shutter was still flat on the ground, only now it was flat next to the cottage instead of halfway across the yard. How was I to get it against the cottage? Inch by inch, I thought sadly. There was no other way.
So I moved it inch by inch. Lift it a bit on one side and prop it against the house, run around to the other side, lift it a bit, prop, run back to the first side. Lift. Prop. Lift. Prop. All the while, between the oofs and the out-of-breath puffs, I kept up a commentary for the sake of the wounded man inside.
“Hang on, Tom. I’m moving the shutter into place. Edie’s been mad with worry. You should have called her, you know. But she never lost faith in you. Even Randy has confidence in you. Can you believe it? Oh, Tom, I’m almost there!”
Finally the shutter rested against the side of the house at an angle that wasn’t too steep for me to run up, yet should be high enough to let me at least see into the cottage. That is, if the shutter didn’t slip and collapse onto the ground as soon as I tried to mount it.
I ran to the creek and looked for a couple of rocks that were both good sized and carryable, not an easy combination. After trying several that were simply too heavy, I managed to carry three back to the shutter and space them against the edge digging into the ground. I tried to make them wedge tightly, like putting something in front of a car’s tires to prevent the car from rolling.
I put a foot on the shutter and waited to see what happened. Nothing moved. I slowly put my full weight on
that foot. Still nothing moved. I started to walk up the incline and felt the shutter slip. My stomach flipped and I screamed, “Please, God!”
The sliding shutter hit a bump in the stones beneath the whitewash and stopped its downward movement. I stood still, arms outstretched like that would hold the shutter steady. When there appeared to be no further slippage, I took another step and another. Soon I was at the window, and it was waist high.
“Yes, Lord!”
I grabbed the windowsill and peered into the room. Everything was so dark after the light of the wonderful spring day that I could see nothing. I threw a leg over the sill and waited an agonizing couple of minutes until I could distinguish shadows. It was a good thing I waited that long because Tom was huddled at the bottom of the window. If I had climbed in immediately, I would have fallen or stepped on him. As it was, I had to push myself off to the side to avoid him.
As soon as I was inside, I fell to my knees beside him. He hadn’t reacted in any way when I had jumped down, and that fact frightened me not a little. I reached out and touched him. No response, not even a moan.
He couldn’t be dead! Not in the last ten minutes!
Please, God!
I felt carefully until I found his face. Immediately my hand stilled as I caught my breath in dismay. He was burning with fever. But that was a good sign, wasn’t it? He wouldn’t still be hot if he were dead.
I slid my hand to his neck and felt for his pulse. Beneath the hot flesh I felt the shallow but steady beating of his heart.
Tom moved his head and groaned softly. “Edie.”
“No, Merry.”
“Edie, don’t leave me.”
“Just for a couple of minutes to get help.”
“Edie!” He became agitated and began clutching at me.
“Don’t leave!” He could barely speak, but the anguish in his voice broke my heart.
“It’s Merry and I won’t.” Though how I’d get help and keep that promise I didn’t know.
“I love you,” he whispered. “I love you.”
I gave up on the Merry business and said simply, “I know.”
He quieted, and I wondered again how I was going to get help.
In the distance I heard a car and wished I had a means of communicating with it. I’d just have to wait until Tom fell asleep again and then go for help. Hopefully that amount of time wouldn’t do him any more harm than the time he’d been here already.
Loud bumps sounded from immediately outside and the light from the window overhead was blocked.
“No,” I cried, visions of the shutter being replaced dancing like a nightmare through my head. “We’re in here.”
I lay Tom’s head gently on the floor and stood. I sagged with relief when I saw not a shutter but a large man in a tan uniform at the window.
“Who’s we and why are you here?” The voice was full of authority and no sympathy. “These windows are boarded shut to keep people out.”
“We need an ambulance,” I said. “There’s a seriously injured man in here.”
A flashlight shone in my face. I closed my eyes against the assault and stood still, letting the man look at me. In a short time the beam moved away and focused on Tom.
“Are you Merrileigh Kramer?” The man’s voice was abrupt but no longer unkind.
“Yes. How did you know?”
“Your purse is out here.”
I remembered dropping it when I started working on the shutter. “Get an ambulance, will you?” I asked. “He’s been
hurt somehow, but I can’t see how in the dark. He’s burning with fever. And call the police. Ask for William Poole. Tell him it’s about Tom Whatley.”
He hesitated, then grunted and disappeared. While I was sorry to lose his presence, I welcomed the sunlight that flowed again into Tom’s little cell.
It wasn’t too long before the front door of the cottage was opened, admitting more light, and shortly thereafter the police arrived in the comforting person of William Poole, then the ambulance for Tom.
“Have you called Edie?” I asked William as the EMTs worked on Tom. We stood outside in the fragrant fresh air.
“I’m just about to.”
“When you’re finished, can I talk to her for a minute? I need to know what she wants to do about Tina and the kids.”
“What kids?”
“The ones she and Randy took in for the night.”
“Randy’s home?” He looked none too pleased.
“He went home with the kids. He had to. He slept with them. Oh, William, you’d have been so proud of him last night!”
He didn’t look convinced. “I don’t think I want to know about this now.” He reached for his phone. Edie was crying with relief and joy when he finally passed it to me “for one minute only.”
“What about Tina and the kids?” I asked, cutting through her thanks. “Are they all right? Should I come over so you can go to the hospital?”
“Tina’s mom picked them up about fifteen minutes ago. Merry, how is he?”
“I don’t know, Edie. He’s unconscious.”
“He’s truly alive? You’re not just telling me that, and then I’ll get to the hospital and they’ll tell me the truth?”
“Edie! You’ve been reading too many novels.”
William held out his hand.
“I’ve got to go. William wants me off the phone. And he’s fine. Well, not fine maybe, but certainly not dead.”
And with those happy words, William took the phone. I waited until Tom left for the hospital, never regaining consciousness, then turned to walk to my car.
“Where’s she going?” the ranger asked William. “Don’t you need to question her?”
“Don’t worry about her,” William Poole said. “We know where to find her.”
I frowned at him. “You make me sound like I’m one of your regular troublemakers.”
He grinned, the furrows on his brow undergoing a seismic shift.
SIXTEEN
I
walked into the newsroom feeling as weary as I’d ever felt. The poor night’s sleep and the fatigue following the adrenaline high of finding Tom combined to make me crave nothing more than sleep.
I was shocked awake by the great rainbow bouquet of balloons soaring above my chair and the huge vase of velvety red roses sitting in the middle of my desk.
“What’s all this?”
Jolene leaped from her chair. “Oh, Merry! Congratulations!” She threw herself into my arms.
“Thanks,” I said somewhat breathlessly. “But what for?” In answer, she giggled.
I watched a grinning Mac stride toward me. Grinning. Mac. Those words rarely went together these days. “You’re happy,” I told him. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. You’re just a pessimist.”
I rolled my eyes. Talk about the pot talking to the kettle!
He grabbed me in a bear hug and shouted in my ear, “You did it, girl!”
When he released me and I could hear again, I put my hands on my hips and demanded, “Okay, what is going on here?”
He held out a Web site printout.
I grabbed the paper and read. I read it again. I looked up in shock. “Me?”
Mac grabbed me again, dancing me around my desk. Any residual fatigue vanished as it hit home. I’d won a Keystone Press Award! Me, Merrileigh Kramer! I’d won for the articles I did last winter on His House, Dawn, and the pregnant girls who lived there.
I began to giggle just like Jolene and doubted I’d ever be able to stop.
“We’re saved!” Mac hugged me again. “You saved us!”
Jolene flicked one of the balloons. “Mr. Montgomery can’t very well fire a reporter who has just won such a prestigious journalism award, or the editor who came up with the assignment, now can he?”
“Are these from him?” I indicated the balloons and flowers.
Mac shook his head. “He doesn’t know yet. At least I don’t think he does.”
“We thought we’d tell him tonight at Curt’s show,” Jolene said. “Nice and publicly.”
I wasn’t sure about that idea. “But it’s Curt’s show. We can’t distract from him.”
“Yeah, we can.” Jo waved that consideration away just like she did everything she didn’t want to think about or agree with. “He’s so nice he won’t care.”
She was undoubtedly right, but still…
Mac grabbed my arm. “You can tell Monty what a wonderful editor I am—”
“Monty?” Jo and I said together. He ignored us.
“—and I can tell him what a sterling reporter you are, a veritable paragon of prose, a princess of perspicacity, a woman of wondrous wisdom.”
“And he can’t possibly fire any of us!” Jo finished triumphantly.
I shook my head at the two of them. They were both clever to a fault, unbelievably frustrating more times than not and incredibly dear to my heart. What if I’d chosen to stay safe in Pittsburgh instead of risking a life in Amhearst? I’d have missed these two wonderful, nutty people, to say nothing of Curt.
“Curt!” I said. “I have to call Curt!”
I grabbed my phone and called his home number, his cell phone and finally Intimations. No answer anywhere, but today it didn’t bother me. I’d won a Keystone!
“The balloons are from me,” Mac said, unable to keep the news of his thoughtfulness quiet any longer.
“Balloons,” sniffed Jolene. “Flowers are the proper gift, you idiot.”
“Flowers wither.”
“Balloons deflate.”