John Lutz - Lightning

Carver folded both letters and slid them into his shirt pocket. Then he dragged the desk phone over to him and pecked out the number of A. A. Aal Memorial Hospital and Beth’s room extension.

Her voice sounded throaty and weary when she answered the phone by her bed. Maybe she’d been asleep, or she was groggy from her medication.

“You feeling better today?” he asked.

“Fred?”

“Yes.”

“Just a moment.” There was a pause. Then, “I had to switch the receiver to my left ear. I keep forgetting I still can’t hear well out of my right.”

“The doctor didn’t tell me you suffered a hearing loss.”

“Told me,” Beth said. “Whispered it in my left ear.”

Carver almost smiled. It was good to hear her usual acerbic tongue. “Has the hearing in your right improved any?”

“Yeah. They tell me it should return to eighty or ninety percent normal eventually.”

“We can settle for that,” Carver said. “If you’d walked into the clinic a few seconds sooner you might have been killed.”

“Timing and luck, maybe they’re the same thing.” There were faint sounds in the background, as if someone had entered the room, and Beth said something he couldn’t understand, muffled, as if she had her hand over the mouthpiece. “The nurse was here looking in on me,” she explained a few seconds later. “And McGregor was here about an hour ago, Fred. He was looking for you.”

Carver glanced again at his answering machine; the digital counter registered no messages. McGregor hadn’t called. “Did he say why?”

“No. He was only here a few minutes. He urged me to leave you and sleep with men of my own race, then he left.”

“Did he upset you?”

“No. I wouldn’t let him. I know how he is, how he tries to draw out people’s rage or humiliation so he can feel superior.”

“If he comes back, don’t tell him I called. I’ll avoid him.”

“That would be my advice, Fred. To anyone.”

“Can you get through the afternoon without me? I’ve got to talk to some people.”

“Concerning the bombing?”

“Yes.”

“About Adam Norton?”

“More or less.”

“You don’t think he’s the bomber?”

“I want to make sure. And if he did the actual deed, I want to know who if anyone put him up to it.”

“What about tonight?”

He smiled. “You’re full of questions.”

“That’s my job, just like it’s yours.”

“I’ll be there tonight to see you.”

“Good. But don’t worry so much about me, Fred. I’m on the mend.”

“I know you are.”

“It’s just that . . .”

“What?”

“The baby.” There was a catch in her voice.

Something bent and broke inside him with an abruptness that surprised him. Was he that vulnerable?

“I’ll drive over there now,” he said. “I should have come earlier today.”

“Don’t you dare.” She sounded angry with herself. Determined.

He listened to his own breathing for a moment. “You sure you’ll be okay alone?”

“I’m not alone, Fred. Including staff, there are about a thousand people in this building. Half of them come and go in this room, checking on me, giving me medication.”

“So you don’t need me.”

“I didn’t say that. Bring my Toshiba when you come tonight.”

“Why would you want a notebook computer?”

“I’m going to write a piece on the clinic bombing for Burrow. I talked on the phone with Jeff Smith about it this morning.”

“You shouldn’t be thinking about work.”

“I’m thinking about my work and yours, Fred. I’ll need you to keep me up to speed on the investigation.”

He almost cautioned her again, but in truth he was glad to find her well enough to be interested in her work. He knew how work could displace pain.

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll brief you when I get there this evening.”

“The nurse just walked in again, Fred, this time with something that looks like a turkey baster. I’ve got to hang up.”

“Beth-”

“Don’t forget the computer.”

The line went dead.

Carver, whose cooking skills and experience were limited, sat thinking that it had been years since he’d seen a turkey baster.

Xaviar Demorose’s address turned out to be the Golden Time retirement home in West Del Moray, not far from Women’s Light. Carver had to drive past the clinic on his way there. The low brick clinic looked normal except for the boarded-up front doors and windows, and the wreaths and bouquets of colorful flowers laid out on the step that led to the entrance. Across the street, two dour looking men were walking back and forth with signs. One sign appeared to show a blown-up photograph of a fetus with a red X slashed through it. The other said simply HIS TERRIBLE SWIFT SWORD beneath a crude drawing of an explosion. Carver pushed down his anger and drove on.

Beneath whatever they used to scent the air, the lobby of the retirement home still smelled like medicine, stale sweat, and desperation. Three very old women sat side by side in wheelchairs, staring at a television set showing a soap opera. On the other side of the lobby, where sunlight fell through a high window to the tile floor, an old man with long white hair sat in a rocking chair, a knotted sheet wrapped around his midsection holding him in place. His head was bowed and he was staring vacantly at his lap. A thread of saliva caught in the sunlight stretched from his slack lips down to his chest.

From behind a reception desk, a young woman with brown hair and bangs smiled at Carver inquisitively. Her right hand was poised with a pencil, but there was nothing she might have been writing on beneath or anywhere near the hand. She had a round face that swelled when she smiled and made her look overweight even though her body was quite thin. She seemed incredibly young in contrast to the residents in the lobby. The brass plaque on the desk said her name was Claire. Lucky Claire, Carver thought, with all that life ahead of you.

“I’d like to talk to one of your residents,” he said, returning Claire’s smile. “ A man named Xaviar Demorose.”

“Oh. I’m sorry,” she said in a despondent tone that made both smiles disappear. “Are you a relative?”

“No. I’m acquainted with the family.”

“Mr. Demorose passed over this morning.”

“Passed over?”

“Died.”

That was better, Carver thought. Dying wasn’t like flying over the roof. Or maybe it was.

Claire was absently pressing the sharp pencil point into her left palm, as if she’d somehow been responsible for Demorose’s death and was punishing herself. “He suffered a heart attack two days ago, and he pass-he died early this morning.”

“He had a heart attack the day of the Women’s Light Clinic bombing?”

“I’m afraid that’s so. The news excited him to the point where his heart couldn’t take it.” She realized what she was doing and put down the pencil. “He’d had three bypass operations, you know.”

“No,” Carver said, “I didn’t. Can you tell me, was Mr. Demorose in the habit of writing letters?”

“Oh, sure. He wrote to everyone in the news. And when he wasn’t writing to them, he was sending letters to newspaper editors and politicians, just about anyone he could think of. People in here get awful lonely sometimes. Their families forget them after awhile, and they need outside contact. Mr. Demorose, he had an opinion about almost everything, and he needed to share his opinions.”

“Were they, uh . . . rational opinions?”

“Sometimes,” Claire said, not willing to speak ill of the passed over.

“How old was Mr. Demorose?”

“His ninetieth birthday would have been next Tuesday.” She seemed especially moved by the fact that Mr. Demorose had come so near and then missed making yet another round number. “It’s all so sad, isn’t it?”