Island Blues (17 page)

Chapter Thirty-one

The car's approach seemed surreal to Sabrina. She kept expecting it to slow down as she waved her arms and jumped up and down, but instead the driver stepped on the gas. It was in that horrifying instant she realized the driver fully intended to run her down.

Sabrina turned and began running back the way she had come, but she knew at once that this was futile. The car was speeding along at almost forty miles an hour by now, and there was no time to reach the safety of the woods at the end of the bridge. She looked back over her shoulder and then did the only thing she could.

She threw herself over the side of the bridge.

Her back slammed into the rail, and for a moment she didn't think she was going to make it over. She twisted her body around and shoved herself off the rail, just as the car sideswiped it. The fall seemed interminable, and she clenched every muscle in her body in preparation for the impact, knowing it was far better to relax but unable to convince her body to cooperate. She hoped it was high tide, and that the water was deeper than the mere couple of feet it stood at low tide. She hoped she did not land on anything with teeth. She hoped—

She landed with a resounding splash, sinking into five feet of water and sticky mud. The wind was knocked out of her and her lungs strove for air as she floundered in the ooze. She waved her arms and legs, trying for the surface, but even when she thrust her face above the water, she still could not breathe. Her lungs refused to work.

She sank again, and her struggles were a little weaker as she forced herself back to the surface. This time she managed to get her feet under her and could stand with her head out of the water. Her lungs unlocked enough to permit a thread of air to enter and she concentrated on this success, her chest heaving as she tried to draw in more breath.

Then, suddenly, she could breathe again, and she took in a great lungful of the fetid, river-soaked air. At that moment it smelled better than just-baked chocolate-chip cookies.

Where was the car? She looked up at the bridge, but it was dark except for the one paltry street light. The driver of the car could have stopped just off the bridge and be coming down the bank to see if he had gotten her. The only thing working to her advantage was that the moon had yet to rise, and the night was very dark. She might not be able to see her attacker, but he couldn't see her either.

A flashlight flicked on, and began playing over the slow-moving water.

Then again, maybe there was nothing working to her advantage.

The beam swept toward her and Sabrina ducked her head underwater and began swimming toward the bridge. The water should be muddy enough to shield her progress. She hoped. Her back prickled as she considered the possibility of a gun training on her.

But no shot came, and with a few discreet trips to the surface for air, she reached the relative safety of the rickety bridge pilings. Once there, however, she realized how skinny they were.

Still, she felt safer and risked standing up to see if she could see anything. The flashlight glow had disappeared, but that didn't mean someone wasn't still out there. Waiting.

Beginning to feel the various aches and bruises that permeated her body, and to wonder what type of animals might be lurking under the surface of the water, Sabrina settled in and prepared to do some waiting of her own.

***

Lima insisted on calling Doc Hailey. Sabrina was glad that he was old-fashioned enough not to automatically think of an ambulance. She didn't feel up to the noise and flashing lights right now.

Calvin ran up and down her arm, pecking at the numerous specks of partly dried dirt. He considered it his solemn duty to remove dirt and bugs from her skin, as he would if she were another bird, and in quieter moments this often included things like freckles and moles. In this case, however, he had plenty of dirt with which to work.

“You think a dad-gummed tourist ran you clean off the bridge? Is that what you really think?” Lima was agitated, pacing the small confines of his kitchen.

“I told you, Lima, there's no reason to think it was a tourist. I don't know who it was.” She was beginning to wish she had not come to Lima's, but he would have worried if she had not come by to pick up Calvin.

Well, perhaps not, she thought, remembering that she found Lima fast asleep in his recliner, Calvin snuggled under his chin.

In a fog of weariness after she felt safe enough to crawl from beneath the bridge, she had not been thinking clearly. She managed to twist her ankle climbing up the embankment, and Lima's house seemed the nearest safe haven.

It was too late now to change her mind, and she closed her eyes and wished for a cup of hot tea and some Tylenol.

“But you think someone tried to run you down on purpose?” Lima sniffed, because somewhere along the line he seemed to have decided that the whole thing was an attack of her overactive imagination. He was still worried, yes, but more about her mental stability than her physical health. At another time, this would have worried Sabrina a lot. Right now, she could care less, as long as he stopped telling her that Elvis was telling him to eat another jelly doughnut, and was she hearing any voices in
her
head?

“You look like the ground floor tenant in a two story outhouse, you know.”

“Thank you, Lima.”

“Why would someone try to run you down?”

Sabrina closed her eyes. “Maybe they mistook me for someone else, someone who deserved to be run down. Maybe they were drunk. But maybe it was because I've been asking a lot of questions lately. Maybe I've gotten close to something that someone doesn't want me to.”

“You mean in that man's murder?”

“That, or the break-ins. I don't know which.” Sabrina pushed Calvin aside so she could touch her ankle with her fingers. She was beginning to think it was broken, probably shattered. Her back ached—a possible ruptured disc?—and her left arm felt numb. That was bad, though a diagnosis didn't immediately present itself. Maybe she was having a heart attack?

A brisk knock on the door heralded the arrival of Doc Hailey, who limped into the house with a shake of his head.

“Lima, you know they pick up trash at the curb these days. No need to stash it in your yard.”

“I was wondering what those people were doing, putting those cans out by the road. I'll have to think a spell on that.” Lima got up to shake the doctor's hand, and said in what he clearly thought was a whisper, “She's not looking too good, Doc. I don't mean her hair and clothes, either, that's the way she normally looks, at least by the end of the day. She's not sounding right. You know, loopy. You gotta do something.”

“I'll take good care of her,” the doctor said in his wonderful, creamy, hot chocolate and brandy voice. Over Lima's shoulder he dropped Sabrina a wink. She smiled, despite her aches and pains.

“I hear you've had some excitement tonight.” Doc Hailey sat down on the couch beside her and put his old-fashioned black doctor's bag on the coffee table. “And who is this?” To Calvin, who was chattering at him to stay back if he knew what was good for him.

“This is Calvin. He's feeling protective.” She scooped Calvin off her lap and put him on her shoulder, where he continued to talk in between forays at the mud in Sabrina's ear. “I jumped off a bridge tonight, so I'm not feeling top-notch.”

In her peripheral vision, she saw Lima tugging at his ear and nodding meaningfully at the doctor, who ignored him.

“And why did you jump off the bridge?” The doctor leaned forward, interested in hearing her answer. The doctor's entire body language conveyed his eagerness to understand, to comprehend what she was saying. She didn't at all feel that she was crazy to jump off a bridge, Lima's exaggerated gestures notwithstanding.

“Someone tried to run me over, and I had to jump off the bridge to avoid being hit. Then I had to stay in the water a while, because whoever it was came looking for me with a flashlight.”

“How terrible for you. Have you called the police?” Without her even being aware of it, the doctor had begun his examination, running his fingers over the bruise beginning to bloom on her upper arm, the shallow cut on her leg, and bending close to examine her swollen ankle.

“Lima called Sergeant Jimmy, but he was on a call. After Jimmy made sure it wasn't an emergency, he said he'd be here as soon as he could.”

“Does this hurt? This? And here?” The doctor continued his examination, and Sabrina found that his touch seemed to draw away the pain. Despite her earlier conviction that her injuries were quite serious, under the gentle brush of his fingers none of them seemed that bad. She even nodded in agreement when he pronounced her ankle twisted, not broken, and her back bruised, not ruptured.

“You need to try to stay off your ankle for a few days to give it time to heal. Since you're not going to do that, I'm going to bring some crutches by in the morning. Now, I think the best thing for you is to go home and sleep in your own bed. I would suggest staying here, but since Lima has an aversion to cleaning products, you'd probably be better off in your own home. I'll drive you.”

As he helped Sabrina to the door, Lima was busy gesturing and winking at the doctor, so much so that he looked like an owl on crack. Finally, he resorted to saying in a loud voice, “Doc, I'd like for you to take a look at this bunion on my butt, if you could come in the other room for a minute.”

Doc Hailey sighed. Sabrina nodded that she was fine, and he followed Lima into the other room. Sabrina could hear bits and pieces of the conversation, mostly Lima's half, which consisted of statements like, “What if she decides she's Wonder Woman and decides to levitate out her window?”

Whatever Doc Hailey said seemed to appease Lima, at least to the point where he came out and wished Sabrina a good night without sounding as if he was speaking to a person standing on a ledge.

“Lima, I mean it, I want to see you soon,” Doc Hailey said as he helped Sabrina down Lima's front stairs, littered with newspapers, and oddly, a toaster. Lima grimaced and shut the door without answering.

“Do you believe me, Doc Hailey?” Sabrina said as soon as Lima was out of earshot. “Or do you think I imagined it all?”

Chapter Thirty-two

“Crackpot!” The woman's voice broke, and she coughed a little to clear her throat. “I'm sorry, but he is. All of them are. You can't understand how much they have damaged our image. Hummers International Incorporated is so public, so visible, that everybody thinks it's what the Hum is all about. But it's not, not at all. ‘Voice of the universe' my foot!”

“Veronica, I really appreciate any information you can give me about Hummers International.” Holding the phone to her ear with her shoulder, Sabrina unwound the ace bandage around her ankle and thrilled at the darkish blue pouffy lump her ankle had become overnight. Even Doc Hailey would whistle in appreciation when he came by with the crutches this morning.

“I have plenty to say about those two. Joseph Siderius defected, you know. He was a pioneer in the Hearer field, raising the alarm long before most of us knew what was afflicting us. It was because of him that I realized what was happening to me. I respected him, and his opinion, and then he went and started talking about this ‘voice of the universe' junk.” She snorted. “What a crock. While what we Hearers suffer may not be acoustic in nature—we believe it's a low-frequency, pulsed electrical signal—we
do
know it has an earthly source. We may not know exactly what's causing it, but the idea that it's some spiritual, alien voice is plain ridiculous. It belittles the pain and suffering thousands of us have been enduring for years.”

“I understand that some of you disagree on where the Hum is coming from.” She'd found Veronica Hillerman's phone number on the Internet, on one of the rare websites about the Hum which was not sponsored by Hummers International. Veronica was part of the Taos movement back in the early 1990's that petitioned U.S. Representative Bill Richardson to look into the Hum.

“That's our problem, I'm afraid.” Veronica sounded a brisk, no-nonsense fifty-something, who had no patience for things not done in an efficient, time-effective manner. “If we could all get together and agree on even a few things, we could be a much more unified voice. People would
have
to listen to us. I'm afraid our heyday was back in the nineties, though. Ever since, we've been arguing and fragmenting. I was so delighted when Joseph Siderius started Hummers International. I was even a member for a while. A lot of us were. But over the years, Joseph first seemed to lose interest, and then he started issuing those ridiculous press releases. It was ludicrous.”

“Do you know anything about Michael Siderius?”

“We never even knew Joseph had a son until he took over Hummers International a couple of years ago. And then he and that spokesman of his, Gilbert Kane, were all over the news. They seemed to want to make as big a splash as possible. They attracted a lot of members, but they lost a lot of old ones, people like me who didn't want anything to do with that mumbo jumbo. All that crap about communing with the universe and trying to understand what it's saying.” Her snort was emphatic. “My goal is simple. I want to figure out what is causing this hum in my head, and I want it to stop. I had a good friend commit suicide to get away from it. She gave up hope that it would ever stop.”

“How terrible!” Whatever they professed publicly, the Hummers had one thing in common: their desire to rid themselves of the Hum. Hummers International Incorporated might tout the Hum as a special gift, one that its recipients should revel in, but from what Sabrina had seen, the Hummers wanted nothing more than to silence the invasive noise.

“That's why—and I know this is not nice to say, but I can't help the way I feel—I wasn't sorry to hear Gilbert Kane was dead. He helped put our movement back ten years, and I'd be happy if Michael and Joseph followed him!”

And desperation, Sabrina thought. That was another trait the Hummers all shared. She wondered if she should ask where Veronica Hillerman was Monday night when Gilbert was murdered. Instead, she asked, “What do you know about Gilbert Kane?”

“He and Michael showed up on the Hummers International scene about the same time. My thought is that Gilbert encouraged Michael to take over Hummers International when Joseph started getting senile. I think Gilbert was the brains behind the whole thing. Michael's not a go-getter. The most significant thing he's ever done was to try to make the Olympic gymnastics team, but he choked during the trials. Ever since he's floated from one lackluster job to another, never amounting to much.

“Gilbert was another story, though. Fifteen years ago, he was in charge of publicity for an investment firm and he hired Michael out of college. They both resigned over some sort of scandal involving hiring a PI firm to spy on a rival firm's executives. Gilbert went on to be the spokesperson for a big medical research and development firm. He was fired from there as well, accused of stealing company secrets. That's when Gilbert and Michael hooked back up again at Hummers International.

“I know all this because we did some research on them when we saw what was happening with the group. Gilbert was always brilliant, but unstable, as far as I can tell. He went to Harvard on scholarship, but he took off a semester his sophomore year, reportedly because he was depressed, and then he had to drop out his senior year after he was accused of blackmailing another student to write papers for him. It was like he did it for fun, because he was smart enough to write those papers himself. He did it because he could.”

Sabrina mulled this over for a moment. “Can you think of anyone who would actually kill Gilbert?”

Veronica laughed, an ironical huff of breath. “I know twenty people offhand who wouldn't swerve if he stepped out in the road in front of their car.” Sabrina winced as Veronica continued, oblivious. “He and Hummers International have drastically decreased the chance that the rest of us will ever be taken seriously again, and that means we'll be stuck with this Hum for life. At times, the thought is almost unbearable.” Her voice was bleak. “As far as whether any of them would travel to some isolated island I've never heard of to do it…no. It would take a rare hatred to do that.”

“Can you tell me anything else about the Hummers? Anything I can use to help the poor people who seem to be caught up in this Hummers International web?”

“I do feel sorry for them, you know, even though I hate that their misguided actions are hurting our cause. But I know what that desperation feels like, and before you figure out ways to cope, you'll do almost anything to try to stop the Hum. I wish I could help.”

“Do you know anything about their retreats? What do they do in their sessions, do you know?”

“No one I know has ever been invited to one of those special retreats. They hold them three or four times a year, but it's by invitation only. I've never wanted to attend, but I know people who still think maybe Joseph Siderius can teach them to control the Hum. They've petitioned Hummers International to attend a retreat, but they're turned down every time. I don't have any idea how they pick who's going to attend.”

“Are the retreats inordinately expensive?” Time and time again, Sabrina had asked this question. “Follow the money” was the old adage. If Hummers International was a scam, where was the money? It had not escaped her notice that three of the five Hummers, Walter, Dennis, and Sophie, were most likely wealthy, but what about Lance and Patti? They seemed comfortable, but certainly not rich.

Veronica confirmed what Sabrina already suspected. “The price isn't cheap, but it's reasonable, I suppose.”

Sabrina tried another tack. “Have you ever heard any rumors, then, about what goes on at the retreats?”

“No, the people who attend the retreats are very quiet afterward. They never talk about what goes on. I'm sorry I can't do more. The biggest help you can be to those poor people is to convince them to get away from Hummers International. There's something else worth thinking about, as well. Those of us who suffer the effects of the Hum might very well be the miner's canary for the rest of you. We may be the only ones to ‘hear' the Hum, but it undoubtedly affects all of us.”

***

After she hung up the phone, Sabrina sat and contemplated what she had learned. When she was done with that, she contemplated her aching body and impressive bruises. She wondered if Sergeant Jimmy had any luck finding the car or truck that tried to run her down. Of course, Sabrina wasn't even sure whether it
was
a car or truck, much less the color, the license number, or the gender of the person driving it. Last night, Jimmy shook his head and told her to go back to sleep and keep her doors locked. The only good thing was he didn't express an opinion one way or another about her sanity, or lack thereof.

Sabrina struggled to her feet and hopped into the kitchen to warm up her hot tea. Calvin was waiting for her by the microwave. He had a premonitory instinct about when she was about to use the machine, delighting in repeating the sounds the buttons made when pushed.

And speaking of extrasensory perception, Sabrina was not at all surprised to hear Sally's voice the next time the phone rang.

“Honey, what in all that's holy is going on down there?” bellowed her best friend from Cincinnati. Sally wasn't even pretending not to know that something had happened. Where did she get her information? By this time of the morning, the entire island knew about Sabrina's near-miss the night before. Anyone could have called Sally, but who was the squealer? Sally would never admit how she came by her information.

“Good morning, Sally. How are you doing this morning?”

“A lot better than you, from what I hear! What happened?” Sally was opinionated, nosy, frequently insensitive, civic-minded to a fault, and Sabrina's very best friend in the whole world.

Sabrina swirled her cup on the table, and Calvin darted after the tag from the tea bag as it fluttered over the side. He was keeping a close eye on her this morning. “Somebody tried to run me over last night. I'm banged up pretty good, but nothing is broken.”

“Don't sound so disappointed.”

“Of course I'm not!” Though a sneaking part of her thought if her ankle was going to hurt this much, it might as well give her the satisfaction of being able to say it was broken.

“I'm not going to feed into your hypochondriacal fantasies by asking you to detail your injuries to me. I trust you will survive.” The only way Sally would be this blasé about her friend's health was because she knew that Sabrina was basically intact. She had other fish to fry. “Who tried to run you down?”

“I have no idea. The police are out looking for the person, but as far as I know they haven't found him or her yet.” And the chances they would find the perpetrator on a description of the slight yellowness of the headlights were pretty slim.

“Yes, but who would want to run you down, Sabrina? When you lived in Cincinnati, nobody even knew you were alive, much less wanted to kill you.”

Sabrina thought about that for a moment. Was it worth having people know she was alive, if that knowledge made them want to kill her? It reminded her of the old puzzle about the tree in the forest. Would the tree rather have stayed alive and upright, rather than prove its existence by falling so someone could hear it?

Sally was finishing up with “…sure you don't want to come back to Cincinnati? At least you could walk the streets in safety. Well, unless you decided to wear a ‘I hate Parrotheads' tee-shirt just before Jimmy Buffett is scheduled to perform at Riverbend Music Center, but then you'd just be an idiot. Honey, the only thing you had to live for before was that horrible, drunken mother of yours, and when she died you were lost. Then you found the lump in your breast. I'm not sure quitting your job here and moving to that godforsaken island was the best medicine for you.”

“I'm doing fine, Sally. I think this is a good sign. It means I'm doing my job. I must be getting close to something, or why else would someone be trying to shut me up?” Sabrina looked down at her ankle, seeing it in a new light. Now it seemed to shine with the virtuous glow of an injury received in the line of duty.

“Sabrina, really, how are you doing?” Sally's tone dropped to a solicitous, you-can-tell-me-anything tone. “Are you still having to visualize your armor every day?”

“No, I haven't had to do that for a day or two. I've been too busy to think about it.” Actually, having to jump off a bridge and swim for her life made her feel pretty strong. She wondered if she could remember how she felt as she soared off that bridge the next time she was feeling vulnerable. Wasn't saving yourself from a determined killer the act of a brave person? She wished now she had done a swan dive, or maybe a cannonball.

“And you have no idea who it could have been?”

“I've been thinking about that…” And she had, all last night as she tossed and turned, starting at every creak and groan in her apartment. Who would want to kill her? And why now? The fact that she was scaring someone was good, but not if she had no idea how.

“I don't understand how you could have made someone so mad that they tried to run you down. What in the world are you doing on that godforsaken island? Do I need to come and knock some heads together?”

“I'd love to see you, Sally, you're welcome anytime. Calvin misses you.”

“You're changing the subject,” Sally grumbled. “Have you gone out on a date yet? Honey, you know you're not going out on any dates because you don't have any confidence in yourself. How are you ever going to—”

“It was good talking to you, Sally, but I've got to go. Bye!”