Ed Gorman - Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

On the way to the cafeteria, I passed the Volunteers office. I saw Peggy Leigh, the volunteer coordinator I’d met the other day. I waved to her. She waved me into the office. She was behind her desk, talking on the phone.

I roamed the small room. One wall was covered with photos of various volunteers, including the candy-stripers. Deirdre certainly looked fetching in her crisp nurse-like blue-and-white uniform.

Next to this was a board that listed the monthly schedule for the candy-stripers. I looked at Deirdre’s name. She sure put in a lot of hours here. But as I started to note the particular hours, something didn’t seem right. I was still studying them when Peggy Leigh said, “How would you like to be a celebrity for a night, Sam?”

“I gave up tap dancing years ago.” I turned away from the scheduling board.

She smiled and I knew she was on a mission to get to me volunteer for something.

“Tuesday nights, we have guest speakers come to the cafeteria and give a little spiel to the patients who’re interested. You being an investigator and all, I’m sure they’d be fascinated.”

“You know, Peggy, now that you mention it, I am a pretty fascinating guy.”

“C’mon, Sam, I’m serious. You could probably tell a lot of stories about your work.”

“Names changed to protect the innocent, of course.”

“However you want to do it.”

“Could I do it next month?”

“That’d be fine. Second Tuesday all right?”

“Barring anything unforeseen.”

“My daily horoscope said this was going to be my lucky day.”

“I’ll probably have to make stuff up, Peggy.”

“Sure, Sam, sure.”

Her phone rang.

I nodded goodbye and went and got two coffees and brought them back to where the Leifers sat in the waiting room.

We drank in silence. Helen seemed to have shriveled inside her massive storm coat. Beth was starting to show the effects, too. Tears in her eyes. Hands trembling every once in a while. I tried to think of something to say. There wasn’t anything. I’d never gone through this kind of waiting before. But someday I’d have to, just as some day somebody would be waiting on me. Wife or child. Maybe my kid sister Ruthie if we ever lived in the same town again. There’s something holy about this kind of grief, the grief of waiting. Everything is cleansed but for the love you feel. The terrible wonderful holy burden of the kind of love that binds you forever to a particular person.

We sat through a shift change, some down-the-hall radio reports on the missile crisis that didn’t seem to be abating, and numerous offers of food from nurses.

The doctor came out at about seven o’clock. He’d undergone a personality transplant. He was almost tender now. He spoke mostly to Helen, as was appropriate I suppose. “Things are looking a lot better now. He suffered a heart attack but it wasn’t as critical as we first thought it was. I’d say his chances for recovery are very good and without any kind of permanent damage. We’ll have to raise some hell with him, Helen, about those donuts he likes so much.”

She smiled through relieved tears. “The donut shop is right next door to his business. It won’t be easy.”

He took her hand and then Beth’s. “You can see him in a little while. What I’d suggest now is that you two go down to the cafeteria and have some supper. I’ll talk to you in the morning again.”

He nodded to me and walked away, long, quick strides.

They both hugged me. I hugged them back.

“Say a prayer for him, Sam, please.”

“I will, Helen. I promise.”

Beth kissed me on the cheek. What nice soft lips.

I grabbed a couple of burgers and a Pepsi and ate in my office. In ten minutes, I got two calls. The first was from the Judge.

“There’s something funny going on, McCain.”

“And that would be what?”

“That would be Ross Murdoch getting out of jail on bail and then disappearing.”

“You mean jumping bail?”

“I’m not sure what I mean other than the fact that Irene Murdoch called me and is very frightened. She said she’d never seen Ross the way he was this afternoon when he got home from jail. She said he acted as if he was in some sort of stupor. Deirdre said she thinks he’s suffering from terrible depression about everything.”

“And I’m to do what?”

“Start looking for him.”

“He’s free to do what he wants, Judge, as long as he doesn’t leave town.”

“McCain, listen. I told Irene I’d get back to her. I want to tell her that you’re looking around town for him and I want that to be true.”

“I thought Irene was going up to that hospital for a while.”

“She was. It’s sort of a retreat for her. She just goes up there when things get too much for her. But she refused to leave until she heard that bail had been arranged. She wanted to be there when Ross got home. That’s when she got scared.”

“Well, I’ll look around. But don’t hold out much hope. If he wanted to disappear for a few hours, I’m sure he can find someplace where I’ll never find him.” Then I remembered something Scotty McBain had said. “Doesn’t he have a summer house?”

“Oh, a little one. Nothing fancy. They bought it when they first got married. I don’t think any of them has spent much time there since Deirdre was a little girl.”

I asked her for directions and she told me.

“Call me in a couple of hours and let me know if you found anything,” she said.

I went to the john and freshened up. I needed more coffee and I was nearly out of cigarettes. I kept a sweater folded neatly in the bottom drawer of my desk. A black crew neck that clashed with very little. I was sick of the necktie and suitcoat. I slipped on the sweater and was headed for the door when the phone rang again.

Janice Wilson was on the line, “I talked to the other waitress. She remembers Karen Hastings coming in that night. She was with another woman. She can’t remember anything about her. She said that one of the busboys actually served the meal and wrote up the check, they were so busy. She said that all she did was initial it so Karen could get the discount. That isn’t very helpful, I’m afraid.”

“Another woman. Well, at least we know it wasn’t with one of the four men.”

“Sorry, Sam. I’ve got to run. I’d like to see you again sometime, if you’re ever interested.”

“Very interested. Thanks for the call.”

Other woman, other woman, other woman. You know how the echo machine plays the same phrase over and over again in a movie character’s mind? Mine was sort of doing that on the drive to Ross Murdoch’s summer home.

The problem was that the woman could easily have been just an acquaintance who had nothing to do with Karen’s eventual murder at all. I’d half-suspected her dinner guest was her brother. I’d thought maybe they were making last minute preparations for their final blackmail payment. The big one.

The wind was hard enough to make my ragtop sway side to side on the deserted blacktop road that led to the woods commonly called Peer’s Peak after the man who’d had a huge apple orchard out here for decades. The land behind his was thorny forest that dropped down to the river.

In the headlights, the black night looked bleak, the cold ebon river was touched by cold golden moonlight, and on the other side of the road steep timber rose to form one wall of a canyon. The river people lived out here year-round in shanties and shacks and tiny trailers. Every couple years, they got flooded out but they always came back. It was a hardscrabble life, their TV antennas and silver propane tanks and junker cars being their most valuable inanimate assets. It was one of those nights so dark you nearly suspected that dawn would never come again, that the dark forces at play in the cosmos had finally banished daylight forever. At the moment it was even impossible to remember what sunlight looked like.