Big Bad, page 11
Jack cleared his throat. “When she got an idea in her head, she really stuck with it.”
“Uh-huh,” Emma said, partially distracted, slowly walking around the room. She found a newspaper sitting on a desk and picked it up. It was a local rag called The Rockcliffe Item. Something on the front page had been cut out of it. A headline read A BLAST FROM THE PAST. According to the date in the top right corner, the edition was about seven weeks old.
“She told me, you know?” Jack said with a dull edge in his voice.
“Told you what?” She dropped the paper and shifted her attention to what appeared to be a work in progress still sitting on an easel.
“About what happened to you when you were kids. After your mom died. She told me about your father and everything that happened.”
Everything? she thought, doubting very much that he knew it all. Because, well, a person so rarely tells it all. They hold back, leaving out those things upon which they fear they will be judged. Or things they simply want to keep for themselves.
“And you still didn’t know not to cremate her?” Emma said dismissively.
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Never mind, Jack.” She gestured to the paintings. “There’s a lot of work here. Was she always so prolific?”
“She had a show coming up at Abbot Hall next week. She’d been working on these for the last couple months.”
“A show?”
“An art show.”
“Bit odd she’d make long-term plans if she was planning to kill herself.”
“I never thought of that,” Jack said, then paused. “It’s you, isn’t it?”
“What?” Emma turned away from a half-finished painting on the easel in the corner.
Jack unfolded his arms, took a step into the studio, and pointed at one of the larger paintings. “The girls she drew—it’s you and Molly, right? It’s got to do with what happened, doesn’t it?”
Emma shrugged, turning away from Jack. “How should I know? It’s art. It could mean anything.”
“All right, okay. Whatever you say,” he said, sounding slightly amused—but amused in the way a person is when really what they are is annoyed. A moment passed. Then he added, “She missed you, you know.”
“Shut up, Jack,” Emma said in a low voice. He was trying to antagonize her, and she wasn’t going to let it work. The more curious thing—to her, anyway—was why he suddenly seemed so annoyed. And she thought she had the answer: Jack knew she understood the paintings in a way he had probably always wanted to, just like she’d understood what Gelber Platz truly meant to Molly, when all Jack had access to was the basic translation from German to English. He didn’t know its heart. He didn’t know how to decode its deeper meaning—he couldn’t google that—but he had likely always wanted to, likely felt stupid or left out for not knowing it. Molly was his wife, and he was supposed to—deserved to—know everything about her. And now that she was dead, he practically had a right to those answers. He was owed them, held the deed to them. It wasn’t fair that this woman, who was so far outside the intimate inner life he and Molly had created together and shared, was in his house and could stand there with her decoder key and have such easy access to the door that opened into the mind of the woman who had eluded him from the day they’d met. More simply: Jack was jealous.
“What?” he said. “I just thought she would want you to know that.”
“You don’t need to tell me that.”
“Well, I know you two drifted apart a little, so—”
Emma wheeled around and swung at Jack with every ounce of strength she could muster. She saw the look of surprise on his face right before he started to duck. She had aimed for his nose—hoping to break it for a second time—but instead her fist landed squarely in the middle of his forehead with a fleshy smack! and his head snapped back. An electric shock immediately numbed her hand and ran halfway up her forearm.
Jack backpedaled, raising his hands in defense. “What’s the matter with you? I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Like hell you didn’t!” Emma screamed. “We didn’t drift apart, asshole! You drove us apart!”
“How’s this my fault?”
“You made her choose. Even if you don’t think you did, trust me, you did.”
“What’re you talking about?”
Emma shook out her hand, making and releasing a fist over and over again. “Goddammit! I think I broke my hand.” She looked up at Jack, who had a shocked look on his face and a fist-sized welt growing dead center in the middle of his forehead.
“You done?” he asked, approaching her, hands held out in front of him in an I-don’t-mean-you-any-harm position.
“Are you?” Emma said.
“Let’s go back upstairs. I’ll get you some ice for your hand.” He rubbed his forehead.
“No,” Emma said. Holding her hand, she brushed past him and headed back toward the stairs.
“Where’re you going?”
“I’m leaving, Jack. Going to my hotel. I’m done here.”
“You don’t have to do that,” he said. “Stay. We’re still family.”
“I’m all set,” Emma said, and mounted the stairs.
Jack muttered, “Shit.” Then he called after her, “The funeral’s tomorrow. You know that, right?”
“It’s not a funeral, Jack,” she said, then had a sudden urge to make him feel small. “You need a body for a funeral. It’s a memorial service.”
“Well, whatever,” he yelled back. “It’s at St. Mary’s Church. I can give you a ride, if you need.”
“No thanks. See you tomorrow, Jack,” Emma said ungenerously.
By the time she reached the top step, her hand was throbbing with its own dull heartbeat.
5
Emma started up the sidewalk, heading toward the side street where Guppy had said he would be waiting for her. But a thought slowed her, then stopped her completely. Something Jack had said echoed in her head: Ben had gone over to the park across the street to play. A couple older kids had given him a hard time at the park, gave him his first black eye.
She looked to her left at the big open field that was Pavilion Park. Then she glanced down at her Asics. Sneakers weren’t exactly the best choice for trudging through deep snow, but she needed to see something for herself.
After waiting for an approaching garbage truck to pass, she crossed the street and headed into the park. The field, which now that she was in it she could see was actually a baseball diamond, was covered in a foot and a half of dense, crusty snow that made the going slow and tough. By the time she’d made the trek all the way to the tree line at the back of the park, her legs were on fire, and her hand’s dull heartbeat had become a full-on hammering one that sent flashes of silvery pain up her arm.
She squatted and pushed her bad hand into the snow, looking in the direction from which she’d just come. Her sister’s house was clearly visible. It couldn’t have been more than a couple hundred feet away. She ate a handful of snow to quench the burning thirst in the back of her throat, then stood, wiping her hand gently on her pants. Her curiosity had been satisfied well enough, and her feet were starting to lose feeling, so she headed back.
6
Guppy had his earbuds in again when Emma returned. He looked up from his crossword and removed them when she opened the back door of his cab and got in. “Back already? That was quick. Say, any chance you know a nine-letter word for ‘whirlybird’? Starts with an E and ends with an R.”
She reached awkwardly across her body with her left hand to shut the door. “Can we go?”
“O’course we can. You still got thirty-five minutes on the hour.” He looked at her in the rearview. “Where to?”
“I’m staying at the Lamplighter Inn,” she said.
“The Lamplighter?” Guppy repeated. “Nice place. Great pie.” He dropped the paper on the seat beside him and buckled his seat belt.
Emma looked down at her hand, turning it over, inspecting the damage, as Guppy put the car in drive and pulled away from the curb. She’d broken something, all right. Her two middle knuckles were already black and blue and swollen. She grabbed her purse off the seat, rummaged through it, and pulled out an aspirin bottle with a faded label. She opened the top with her thumb, shook out one of the little blue pills, and popped it in her mouth. It landed bitterly on her tongue, but she liked the taste. With a little flick of her head to help it down, she swallowed the oxycodone pill dry.
“Eggbeater,” she said, and brushed the hair off of her forehead.
“What’s that, now?”
“Eggbeater: a nine-letter word for ‘whirlybird.’”
“Eggbeater?” Guppy said doubtfully.
“Uh-huh.”
“How’s that?”
“A whirlybird’s a helicopter. Sometimes a helicopter is called an eggbeater,” she said plainly, paying attention to her hand as she spoke. She tried to wiggle her fingers, but they were tightening up and felt like they were made of rubber. “You mind if I open the window back here?”
“Too hot? I can turn the heat down, if you like.”
“No, keep it on,” Emma said. “I just want to hang my hand out.”
“Oh. Knock yourself out then,” Guppy said. He paused a moment, grinning and shaking his head, still considering the crossword clue. “Eggbeater, huh? I never woulda got that.”
Emma rolled down the window and plunged her hand into the cold stream of air, immediately quieting the throbbing ache in her hand. She saw Guppy look at her a few times, but he never forced conversation. He was the kind of guy who could read a room. So they drove that way to the hotel: she with her hand hanging out the window, eyes searching an ocean that seemed to stretch on to eternity as the cab meandered along a shoreline of cliffs and winter-dead grass, and Guppy with his occasional glances in the rearview mirror, a wordless offer to shoot the breeze at any time if she so pleased. She just had to say the word. But she never did.
The Lamplighter Inn sat atop a gently sloping hill, looking out over the water. It was a long three-story rectangle, painted white and capped with a gable roof that had been fitted with green metal panels instead of asphalt shingles. Green storm shutters framed every window of the building. A covered porch ran the length of the Lamplighter’s ocean-facing side, and even in the dead of winter, a line of country-style rocking chairs stood at the ready, should a person feel so inclined to take a seat and enjoy a view of the steely Atlantic.
Guppy pulled up out front and stopped at the designated drop-off spot, under a green canvas awning. “This is it,” he said, turning and looking over his shoulder. He glanced at her hand as she carefully pulled it back inside the cab. “Need any help with your bags?”
“I’ll manage,” she said. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“Oh sure. You leave the other guy breathing, at least?” Guppy asked with a cautious touch of humor.
“He’ll live. Are we square?”
“All set.” Guppy gestured to his watch. “Came in at just under an hour. You need anything else, you have my number now. Don’t hesitate to call.” He turned back around, pulled a little notebook from his breast pocket, and started jotting something down.
“Thanks for the ride,” Emma said.
“You bet,” he said, not looking up. “Get some ice on that hand.”
She slid out of the cab with a faint smile and went into the Lamplighter.
7
Emma took a seat in the wingback chair near the window that looked out over the cliffs, put her feet up on the ottoman, and set the ice bucket—which she’d filled with a mixture of ice and water—between her legs. The three miniature vodka bottles she had taken from her hotel room’s minibar stood beside her on the occasional table. In this northeastern part of the United States, these little doses of booze were known as “nips.” She took a handful of the ice and dropped it in the water glass she’d found beside the coffeemaker on the desk. Then one at a time, she gripped the bottles in her teeth, unscrewed the caps, and emptied them into the glass. When she was finished, she set her gaze out the window, submerged her hand in the bucket, and watched a very light snow fall from a lowering sky.
It was a peaceful moment, and the oxy’s uncanny ability to fabricate joy out of the most mundane made it easy to slip into and appreciate in an almost hypnotic way. She alternated long sips of vodka with even longer stretches of unblinking stares out into the flat ocean, each passing moment adding weight to her already-heavy eyelids, dragging her down and down and down. The chair became deeper, warmer. Her hand had gone numb. She had gone numb. She closed her eyes. The world faded around her. It was hardly one o’clock in the afternoon, but she slept.
CHAPTER SIX
MAKING FRIENDS
1
Emma awoke two hours later, still sitting upright in the chair in her hotel room. The window beside her framed a gray scene of light snowfall outside. Her head was bent sideways against one of the chair’s wings. She straightened her neck carefully and ran her tongue around a dry, sour mouth, slowly shifting her position and dropping a foot off the ottoman. When she did, something wet and cool spread between her legs, dribbling down into her groin. Her first thought—still fractured and confused from ascending sleep—was that she had peed in her pants. But upon glancing down, she saw the ice bucket, and all the blanks and fuzzy bits filled themselves in. The bucket was mostly where it had been when she’d drifted off to sleep, and her hand was still submerged in the now-room-temperature water. She took it out and inspected it: swollen, but not as bad as it could be. She tried to form a fist but couldn’t. The pain had changed shape, too, sharpening from the initial throbbing ache to a fiery burn.
She picked up the bucket, set it on the table beside her, then checked her phone for the time. It was five minutes to four, and she’d missed a call from Malcolm. She would call him back later. He was just going to ask if she made it to Rockcliffe all right and if she was doing okay. The only reason he would do so was because he always got a little clingy, a little more involved, after they slept together. She’d set clear boundaries long ago about what their arrangement was and was not, and for the most part, Malcolm didn’t push for more. And when he did, it wasn’t in an intentional way, just a few things here and there that eventually expressed the point he didn’t know he was trying to make.
She stood up, went into the bathroom, ran the shower nearly as hot as it would go, and stripped off her clothes. While the water came up to temperature and began to fill the room with steam, she regarded herself in the mirror, running the tips of her fingers over the pocked flesh on her neck and at the top of her chest. Her fingers searched and studied, as if trying to read the spray of little scar dimples there like braille and decode some secret meaning. She broke away from her reflection, got into the shower, sat down, and let the water scald her: triangles of pain that fell like stars and washed over her skin.
When she was done and dressed a half hour later, Emma found the business card Guppy had given her and called him. He answered on the third ring, and she asked if he could take her to run a few errands. Guppy told her he could be there in twenty minutes. She went downstairs to wait in the lobby.
2
“Twice in one day? I’m honored,” Guppy said as Emma opened the door and slid into the back seat. “You in?” He glanced at her sideways over his shoulder instead of waiting for her to answer.
“I have to make a few stops,” Emma said, getting situated.
“Alrighty. Then a few stops it shall be. Where to first?”
“I saw a pharmacy earlier,” Emma said.
Guppy nodded. “Zelig’s.”
“Let’s go there,” Emma said, falling back and looking out the window.
“You got it,” Guppy said.
They drove.
After they arrived in front of the pharmacy ten minutes or so later, Emma was in and out. She’d already made a list in her head of the things she would need: a toothbrush, razors, floss, a bar of Dove soap—because hotel soap always dried out her skin—a stick of deodorant, and tampons. But to her list she’d added an ACE bandage. She knew it wasn’t the prescribed treatment for a broken hand, if it was in fact broken, but it would at least provide a small degree of protection and perhaps keep the swelling down some if she compressed it.
“Where to next?” Guppy asked. “Or do you need a minute?”
Emma was wrapping her hand in the back seat, taking care not to make it too tight or too loose. “The police station,” she said, somewhat distracted.
“Alrighty. Rockcliffe police station, here we come.” Guppy pulled away from Zelig’s Drugstore, slow and even on the gas.
“Are they good around here?” Emma asked. “Competent, I mean.”
“The police?” Guppy said, then hesitated into a long pause as if contemplating his response carefully. “Yeah, sure. I guess they’re as good as they need to be for our sleepy little island.”
Emma didn’t pry. Not at first. They drove a beat without speaking. Her question had brought something up. She just didn’t know what.
She secured the elastic wrap with one of the little metal clips that came with the bandage, then looked up. “Don’t think too highly of them, I take it?”
“Well…” Guppy trailed off, rubbing the back of his neck again and laughing softly. “I didn’t say that.”
“Am I asking the wrong guy?” Emma said. “You have a friend on the force… a relative or something?”
Guppy sniffed and shook his head dismissively. “No. No friends there.”
