Timothy Hallinan - Crashed

It was too dim in there, so I turned on the second lamp and looked around. The place couldn’t have been more anonymous if she’d only been there an hour. There was absolutely nothing in the room to indicate who she was or who she had been. No photos, no albums, no clippings-nothing to suggest that the young woman who lived here had been the most famous twelve-year-old in the country. In the absence of a chest of drawers, some waxy cardboard produce cartons had been lined up against one wall. They still stank of cabbage and broccoli, and I realized that was what I had smelled when we came through the front door. A stack of journals almost filled one of the boxes, identical hardcover books of blue-lined paper, bound in a faded sky blue, cheap, and probably purchased in a university student bookstore. There was nothing on the front covers except dates, and there seemed to be a new one every two or three months, so she was writing a lot. Or maybe drawing, or cutting out pages to create abstract origami, or diagramming the neural pathways blazed by illegal chemicals. Another box was filled with all the stuff no one knows where to keep: eyeglasses; old, empty cases for eyeglasses; keys; flashlights and loose batteries; candles; two unmatched shoes; a few paperback books. The title of the book on top was Finding the True You , and that discouraged me so much I didn’t look at the others. The books triggered a train of thought that straightened me up for a moment, and I took a short walk through the rooms to see whether I’d missed it, but I hadn’t; there was no television set in the apartment.

Back in the bedroom, I dug into the third box and managed to find a couple of clean T-shirts and one pair of jeans that didn’t look like it could walk by itself, and I folded the items over my left arm. I was turning to go when I saw something pink wedged between the mattress and the wall.

It was a small box, about three inches square and an inch deep. A bright yellow bow, amateurishly made from cheap gift-wrap ribbon, had been glued to the top, along with some sparkly stuff, the kind of glitter that bad magicians scatter in the air to distract the audience. Someone had written FOR THISTLE WITH LOVE on the top in metallic gold ink. The “i” in Thistle was dotted with a heart.

I opened it and found myself looking at six rectangular tablets, olive-green in color. When I picked one up, I saw a number incised into the flat surface: 542. The tablets had been laid on a fluffy piece of cotton, pristine white. The bow, the heart, the cotton: It all looked so harmless.

I went into the living room and listened. No screams, no water running.

“You both alive in there?”

“More or less,” Doc called. “Don’t open the door. She’s drying her hair.”

“Tell me about green tablets with 542 written on them.”

“Rohypnol,” Doc said. “Roofies. The ever-popular date rape drug. Where’d you find them?”

I told him, and he opened the door a crack and stuck out a hand. I handed the box through, and I heard Thistle say, “ Mine .”

“You’ll get it back, sweetie,” Doc said. “How many did you take?”

“Don’t know.” She sounded sullen, but the words weren’t too badly slurred.

“Look, it’s a present. Got a pretty bow and everything. Who gave it to you?”

“Don’t know,” she said again. “Sommuddy nodded, uh, knocked on my … my door. You know? And when I went to, uh, to look, those were there.”

“Last night?”

“Ummmm … maybe.”

“And you have no idea who would have left them?”

“Uh-uh. Gimme one.”

“Not yet. Do you always take stuff, even when you don’t know where it came from?”

A pause as Thistle processed the question, as if looking for a trap somewhere. Then she said, “Sure.”

“It’s a miracle you’re not dead. Honey, if you’re going to take stuff like this, you’ve got to tell me, and I won’t give you all that other stuff.”

“But I like it,” she said. She sounded ten years old.

“And I like to give it to you.” A certain amount of exasperation was peeking through Doc’s Milburn Stone affability. “But I need to know what else you’re taking.”

“I won’t, any more,” she said. “Can I have it now?”

“Tell you what,” Doc said. “We’ll leave them right here, and you can take some when you get home tonight, okay?”

“No.” I heard a slapping sound that might have been a wet bare foot being stamped.

“Well, that’s what we’re doing. I’ll put them in this drawer before we leave, and tonight you can have a party, all by yourself.”

“I want it now.”

“Junior,” Doc called through the door. “Can you get Thistle some clothes?”

“Get my own clothes,” Thistle said.

“Here,” I said, and I reached through with the arm that had the clothes folded over it.

“Don’t want,” Thistle said.

“Young lady,” Doc said. “You’re going to shut up and put these clothes on, and then we’ll see about some medicine for you. But I’m telling you, until you’re dressed and ready to go, you are going to meet the world as God made you, with no help at all. Not a shot, not a pill, not even a pair of sunglasses. So right now I’m going to leave you here to get dressed, and I’ll take this little box with me, and then we’ll talk about it when you come out. Got it?”

The door opened, and Doc came through it. He was soaking wet. He had the gift box in his hand, clenched hard enough to buckle the sides. “Get used to it,” he said. “This is what it’s going to be like until we’re finished. If we ever finish.”

“What about the pills? How bad could it have been?”

He shook his head. “There’s only one real question, and that’s whether whoever left them knew they could kill her. What I don’t understand is why there are any left. That’s not like her. All I can figure is that she passed out before she could take them all, which was a break for us. If she’d gotten them all down, she’d be on her way to the morgue.”

“What else is she going to need when we leave?” I asked.

“Other than a good friend and a complete blood change, nothing except what’s in my bag,” he said. “Unless you saw a purse in there. Women always want their purse.”

“I’ll look.” As I started to turn, the bathroom door opened and Thistle came out. Her walk was hesitant but acceptable. The pale wet hair had been combed back from her face, exposing the fine, undamaged bone structure. The sore everyone had been talking about was on her lower lip. Her eyes went to Doc. “I’m out,” she said. “I got dressed, see? Give me something.” Then she brought the green eyes toward me and squinted as though I was reflecting too much light.

“Who the hell are you?” she said.

For the first five or six minutes, she might as well have been a pile of leaves. She sat slumped over, her forehead practically touching the dashboard. Every now and then she let out a syllable or two, but nothing I could translate into words.

This was a surprise, because she’d been almost lively, at least relatively speaking, when Doc had driven the two of us into the parking lot of the Hillsider so I could get my car. I’d climbed out of Doc’s car and started to close the door, but a squeal had stopped me, and I’d turned to see Thistle with one leg on the asphalt, holding the door open with an extended hand.

“Jeez,” she’d said, wincing in the sunlight. “ Careful , you know?”

“Where are you going?” Doc had asked her.

“Wanna … wanna ride with him ,” she said. “Tired of you.”

“Aww,” Doc said. “You’re going to break my heart.”