Amnesia (10 page)

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Authors: G. H. Ephron

BOOK: Amnesia
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“Peter, could that many pills kill someone?”
“The pills that Sylvia Jackson takes regularly? Probably not. But a double dose could make you very sick. Have they analyzed stomach contents or done a toxic blood screen?”
“Annie's trying to find out. She said she'd stop by the Pearce early tomorrow morning at around eight and give you an update.”
“Well, at least now we know one thing,” I said.
“What's that?”
“If someone's still trying to kill Sylvia Jackson, it ain't Stuart.”
MY ALARM went off at six the next morning. Overnight, the air had developed a pre-winter chill and I awoke, cocooned in a double layer of blanket. It was dark, and I could tell that even after the sun came up, a damp overcast sky would make the day a perpetual twilight.
My mood matched the day. I wanted to sleep and go on sleeping. I must have dozed off because next thing I knew, it was after six-thirty. With a supreme act of will, I flung off the bedclothes and pulled on shorts and a T-shirt, shoved my feet into running shoes, grabbed a sweatshirt, and bolted out the door. I was halfway down the block when I realized I'd forgotten to bring a change of clothes. It was too late to turn back.
The jog to the river and a nasty wind whipping in from the north helped wake me up. The Charles was greasy gray, and choppy little whitecaps dotted its surface. I pushed open the door to the dark, fetid wooden boathouse. It was full of other equally unshaven, reluctant early risers who hadn't yet had their morning cups of coffee. Everyone there was intent on just one thing — getting a boat into the water. Civil greetings and conversation were for after.
I descended a flight of stairs, its ancient treads scooped out and worn smooth. At water level, I was surrounded by sleek white racing shells with an occasional red or blue one. They were perched in racks on either side of me and in slings overhead. A huge gray rectangle loomed ahead where the double doors were flung open to the river.
I pulled out my oars and put them outside on the edge of the dock. Then I went back and lowered my boat from its overhead sling and carried it out. I set it gently in the water, trying not to splash myself. I set the oars into the oarlocks, kicked off my sneakers, and got into the boat. I slid my bare feet into the shoes that were bolted to the cross-stretcher and pressed the Velcro fasteners into place. The boat was already rocking in the choppy water.
I pushed off from the dock, turned the boat, and started to row, the seat sliding with each pull of the oars. The ride was bumpy as little waves lapped up against the shell. The occasional splash of tepid riverwater quickly turned icy against my skin.
I started to get into a rhythm, my muscles warming, the tension in my back and shoulders easing. The boathouse grew smaller. The river widened. I passed the MIT boathouse on the opposite shore, a high-tech cube plunked down in the middle of the river, connected by a concrete gangway to the shore. I rowed on steadily, my senses coming to life. Mist wrapped me in a skin of moist coolness and the stench of the Charles — sea air and sewage — became pleasurable.
I pushed myself harder and was just starting to feel my mind disconnect from my body when a wave hit the boat from the Boston side, shattering my concentration. My entire left side — shirt, shorts, shoes — was soaked. Annoyed, I watched a white motorboat speed away. I tried to steady the shell, leaning away from the wake, raising the gunnel that separated me from the water. Like a roller coaster, the boat climbed and fell, the bow flipping back and forth.
I was cursing and telling myself to let it go, calm down, get back into a rhythm, when another motorboat appeared. This time, I watched as it sped toward me. The driver had on what looked like a dark sweatshirt with the hood pulled low over his face. I wanted to stand up and wave my arms but I knew the boat would capsize. More than that, I wanted to take a revolver out of my pocket and pop the jerk between the eyes. Instead, I steadied the oars across and waited in a cold fury. “Asshole!” I screamed as the motorboat roared past. All I could do was sit there as a second wake hit me. Now I was soaked on both sides.
I loosened my cramped hands and flexed my fingers. This was unheard of. Fucking unbelievable. There were never motorboats out this early, never mind two of them. I yearned to keep going, to get back to that place where I could zone out. But the water in the boat was nearly up to my ankles.
Angrily, I started to turn back. I was perpendicular to the river, rowing across to the other side, when an unpleasant thought occurred to me. Both times, it had been a small, white, nondescript speedboat. Suppose it was the same boat? Then I heard the sound. I hoped it was a plane making its approach to Logan. Or a motorcycle roaring down Memorial Drive. But I knew better. I turned and watched the boat speeding toward me. It skimmed along, slapping the surface, spray spewing behind. This time, the guy wasn't fooling around. He was aiming straight at me.
Quickly, I reversed the oars and backed the boat down, trying to avoid a direct hit. The drone turned edgy and sharp. I backed furiously, barely registering the panic and fear that had washed away my rage. It sounded as if a jet engine were bearing down on me. Push. Push. Push. And then the impact. The speedboat nipped a corner of the shell and flipped it.
My glasses flew off as I went over. The water was a warm soup compared to the chilly air. In the dark turbulence, I tried not to inhale. I thrashed around, losing all sense of direction, until my lungs felt as if they would burst. Then, from somewhere,
a calmness grew out from the center of my chest. I relaxed, the dark behind my eyelids lifting like waves of heat lightning. I felt only weightlessness as I hung, suspended. I could just let go, inhale, and it would all be over. Then, as in a slow-motion ballet, my body curled fetal and righted itself, and my head emerged into the air pocket under the overturned shell. I gasped for air and reached out for the sides of the boat. I hung there, catching my breath, feeling the slimy water icing my head and shoulders. I listened to the wake lapping, lapping against the outside of the shell and my ragged breathing echoing inside.
I tried not to think about how deliberate it seemed. How the hooded figure seemed to draw a bead on me and then mow me down. I could see Ralston Bridges at the helm, laughing. But I knew it was a made-up memory, manufactured for this moment when all forms of danger and personal malice brought his face to mind.
I heard a distant buzzing. I froze. It was definitely growing louder. There wasn't time to check out what was coming or where it was coming from. In a blind panic, I took a gulp of air and dove down, swimming underwater as fast as I could in what I hoped was the direction of the Cambridge shore. By the time I surfaced, the drone of the motorboat was receding. A wave of relief washed over me. I took a few more strokes, reached a footing at the base of the Mass Ave Bridge, and climbed out, my arms and legs scraping against the rough stone. I huddled, clinging to the bridge abutment, shivering. Blood oozed from where my feet had been ripped loose from the shell. The acrid smell and the cooing that seemed to come from the bridge itself gave me a clue as to the origin of the white that coated the girders. Pigeon shit. I listened, straining to sort out the competing sounds. All I heard was the benign rumble of cars, the thump of an occasional bus crossing the bridge, and the rhythmic drone of what was probably a traffic helicopter checking out the morning rush on Storrow Drive.
I expected to see my boat bobbing in the ripples. But even without my glasses I could see it had vanished. A shard of white came floating over to me on the remains of the wake. I reached out and grabbed it. Barely five inches long, it was all I had left of my boat. I turned it over, my hands trembling. The boat had been a gift from Kate. “You bastard!” I screamed, my words carried away by the wind. “You shitty sonofabitch. What kind of dumb-ass would pull a stunt like —” And then I woke up to the certainty that this wasn't some idiot, some stunt. It had been quite deliberate, probably personal. The anger froze into fear. I steadied myself. I zipped the boat fragment into my shorts pocket and scanned up the river and down. Then I threw myself into the water and stroked as fast as I could to the river's edge. Winded, I clung to a steel ladder set into the stone wall. I hung there breathing heavily, my body feeling like dead weight, becoming colder by the second and nauseated by my own stench. I was so tired I couldn't twist around to see if anyone or anything was bearing down on me. Raw fear propelled me up the ladder, the metal rungs cutting into the bottoms of my bare feet. I grasped the top of the ancient cast-iron fence, the last obstacle between the river and the shore. I was hauling myself over when the top broke away and I came crashing down with it onto the grass. I struggled to my feet in a blind rage, wrenched the broken fencing free, and flung it as hard as I could toward the river. It hit the water with a satisfying splash.
I walked back, muttering to myself and ignoring the early morning dog walkers, joggers, and bicyclists who shared the pathway alongside the river. By the time I got to the boathouse, I had deluded myself into believing that I was completely rational and convinced myself that something serious was going on. I called the cops.
“Sorry, sir,” a voice on the police emergency line whined, “did you say you had an accident with your boat along Memorial Drive? Is this a boat trailer?”
“No, I was rowing. Someone tried to run me over.”
“Someone tried to run over your rowboat on Memorial Drive?”
By now I was steaming. “I was rowing on the Charles. You know, in the water. Someone tried to kill me.”
“Someone … tried … to … kill … you,” she repeated, I hoped she was writing it down. “And your name, sir?”
I wanted to scream, “Stop reading from that stupid script!” but instead I spelled my name.
She painstakingly repeated each letter. “And where are you now? And are you in any danger right now, sir? And sir, do you need medical attention?”
“No, I don't need medical attention.”
“An officer will be with you shortly.” Pause. “Sir, are you sure you don't need a doctor?”
“Not unless I have a stroke from talking to you!” I screamed. I slammed down the phone.
Next, I called the Pearce.
First thing Gloria says is, “Did you know you had an eight o'clock?”
Fireworks started going off again in my head. “Yes, I know I had an eight o'clock appointment. And guess what? I'm not there. Instead, I'm here at the boathouse trying to figure out who's trying to kill me.”
“Whoa, calm down. Someone's trying to kill you?”
I recognized the tone. It's the one she uses with patients who think they're Jesus Christ.
“Gloria, it's not paranoia when you're surrounded by assassins,” I said, exhausted.
“Peter, are you all right?”
I gave a weak laugh. “Right as rain.”
“Hang on a sec, someone wants to talk to you.”
Annie's voice came on, deadly serious. “Who's trying to kill you?”
The words rushed out. “Some asshole in a motorboat ran into
me. First he buzzes me from one side, then from the other. Then he runs me over. Then he comes back and smashes the boat to smithereens for good measure.”
“Any witnesses?”
“I don't think so. I called the cops and they're sending someone over.”
“Peter —” Annie started. I sneezed. “The nurse here says you're okay. Are you?”
I sneezed again.
“You don't sound okay. You sound miserable.”
“I'm soaked to the bone, freezing cold. I smell like something that took a swim in a cesspool. And my foot looks like a chew toy. I desperately need a hot shower but I have to wait for the police to get here.”
“Would coffee help?”
I felt a rush of gratitude. A cup of coffee at that very moment would have been a healing balm. The phantom aroma of French roast tickled the back of my nose. “It certainly would.”
“It's on the way.”
“You're an angel. Make it an extra large. Light, no sugar. And Annie, there's an old pair of sweats in my office. Would you mind bringing those over, too, with the pair of glasses that should be in my top desk drawer? Ask Gloria to let you in.”
“You lost your glasses?”
I sneezed.
“Just sit tight. I'm on my way.”
I DRAGGED a moldy blanket from a corner of the boathouse. With my teeth chattering, I shook it out and wrapped it around me. On my way out to the dock, the blanket caught on the doorjamb. I ripped a hole in it yanking it loose. Cursing, I stomped outside and got my sneakers.
By the time I got back up to street level, two cars had pulled up. One was a police cruiser, its lights flashing. The other was a dark sedan. A redhead in a rumpled suit jumped out of the sedan and sauntered over to the window of the cop car and chatted with the officer at the wheel. After a minute, the cruiser doused its lights and pulled away. I waited at the door to greet Detective Sergeant Joseph MacRae. He looked me up and down, took a whiff, and recoiled. I was not amused.
I took him down to the dock, and while I'm pointing out where I'd been run down and he's writing notes in his little book, he comments, “Yesterday, Sylvia Jackson OD's with you at her side. Today, some person wearing a hood over his face runs down your boat.” He shook his head. “You accident-prone?”
The fury that I'd had more or less under control snapped at
the smart-ass bait. “Fuck you, too. I get run over and practically killed and you're playing the comic. And in answer to your question, no, I'm not accident-prone and I don't go in for recreational swimming in the Charles. What about you? You much of a boater?”
He stiffened and slapped his book down on a bench. “What's your point?” he said, poking an index finger into my chest.
I batted it away. “My point is that maybe I'm not the only one involved in two accidents in two days.”
He stuck out his chin and drew himself up, the effort to stay calm turning him pink. “Why don't you just start over and tell me what happened.”
“Why the hell should I trust you?”
“Because it's my job,” he said, clenching his fists. “How about you let me do it?”
“Let you do your job?” I laughed and took a step toward him, closing the gap between us to inches. “Now where have I heard that before? How about you let me do my job?”
He was up on the balls of his feet. The top of his head barely reached the tip of my nose. “Your job?” he sneered. “Is that what they teach you at Harvard? How to intimidate defenseless women who …”
“So what are you saying? Huh? Has Sylvia Jackson complained that I intimidate her?”
“Sylvia Jackson is extremely vulnerable.”
“And I suppose that's why you're hanging around all the time, to give her the protection she needs?”
He sputtered, reaching for a comeback. Then he narrowed his eyes and squinted up at me. “What I can't figure out is why you're involved in this case anyway, after what happened to you the last time —”
He didn't get a chance to finish. A red flash of anger grew out of my chest and I rammed my fist into his face. He staggered and slowly toppled over backwards into the water. Time seemed to stop as I stood there, stunned. It's out of character for me to
get angry, never mind hit someone. My analytical side took over for an instant and I noted it felt damned good.
I didn't get to savor the moment. A minute later he came up thrashing, screaming profanities at the top of his lungs. He hauled himself up and came lunging back at me. His right to the jaw missed but the knee he brought up hard into my stomach didn't. I doubled over and he whacked his arm across my shoulder blades. I grunted and found myself spread-eagle on the dock. He yanked my arms back and handcuffed them together behind me.
“There, this is much better,” he said as he ground his heel into my butt.
“You bastard,” I wheezed, trying to catch my breath.
“Let's see, assaulting an officer, resisting arrest —”
I heard a yell, footsteps coming hard down the stairs and across the dock.
“Mac, what the hell are you doing?” It was Annie. “Peter, you all right?” Then, “What on earth — you're
both
soaked!”
“You know this bozo?” MacRae asked her.
“Yeah, I know him. He's a friend of mine.”
“You've got strange taste in friends. Now I remember. You're working for the public defender. That explains it. Never did know what was good for you.”
“And you did?” There was a long pause during which I assume Annie and MacRae engaged in a glaring contest while I tried to keep my face out of the duck shit that coated the dock. Annie finally broke the silence. “How's your mother these days? Last time I saw her was at the wake.”
MacRae eased some of the pressure on my ass. “She's holding up. She's a strong woman. Misses my dad.” The anger was gone from his voice.
“Yeah, I miss my dad, too,” Annie said. “But then, we lost him long before his wake.”
“Annie —” MacRae started.
He'd loosened up on me enough so that I scrambled free.
But I couldn't get far on my knees with my hands cuffed behind me.
“Time-out!” Annie cried and stepped between us. MacRae had his legs apart, knees flexed like he was ready to spring. “Just a darned minute here. What happened anyway?”
“He assaulted me,” MacRae said, his voice petulant.
“And what are you doing here anyway?” Annie asked. “Since when have you taken up sculling?”
“Yeah, how come you sent that other cop away?” I threw in.
MacRae eased his stance. “I happened to hear the call so I came to investigate.”
“Lucky me,” I muttered, struggling to my feet, wondering if luck had anything to do with it.
“So how the hell did you two end up like this?” Annie pressed. “Come on, Mac, what's with the handcuffs? Put yourself in Peter's position. He's out on the river and someone tries to run him down. You'd be pretty ticked off, too.”
MacRae mumbled something.
“Come on, Mac. Just pretend Peter's one of your buddies.”
“Annie, that's not fair,” MacRae protested.
“You cops always did have one set of rules for your friends, another for the rest of humanity.” I had the distinct impression Annie was calling in some ancient chit.
Grudgingly, MacRae reached over and undid the cuffs, but not before yanking my arms back for good measure.
I sat on a wooden bench and rubbed my wrists. I coughed up some brackish water and grimaced. My ribs already ached and my back felt as if I'd been hit with a two-by-four. It was some consolation to see MacRae rubbing his jaw.
Annie passed me an extra large cup of Dunkin' Donuts coffee. I peeled back the lid and inhaled. I took a sip. It had been a long time since coffee tasted this good. “I'd have brought you a cup, too, if I'd known you were going to be here,” she told MacRae.
He reached for a foot and was hopping around, struggling to
remove a shoe. I slid over to make room on the bench. He sat down and took off one shoe and then the other, draining each one onto the dock. Then he tilted his head one way, then the other, and banged on the opposite side to get the water out of his ears. He lifted an arm to his nose and sniffed. “And they say one day we're going to swim in this muck?”
He retrieved his pad, flipped it open, and started to write. “Okay,” the word came out through gritted teeth, “so you went out rowing like you do every morning —”
“Yeah, like I do every morning, but you know that.” I wondered what else Mac knew about my daily routine.
“And then what happened?” MacRae waited. He was trying to keep his teeth from chattering. I almost felt sorry for the guy.
I sighed and picked up the story where I'd left off earlier. He stopped writing when I got to the part where the motorboat came around one last time to smash my racing shell to smithereens.
“Did you notice anything in particular about the boat?”
“White. Small. About a twelve-footer.”
“And the driver. Man or woman?”
I shrugged. “Beats me.”
“And nobody saw this happen?”
“Hell, I don't know. It was still getting light. Between the traffic on Memorial Drive and the other rowers out on the river, somebody should have. But who, I don't know. Anyone report anything to the police?”
“Nada. So let me get this straight. You're telling me that someone in a motorboat takes a couple of practice runs and then mows you down and no one sees it. Then your boat gets blown away and there's nothing left of that either.”
“Yeah, that's what I'm telling you. Do you have a problem with …” Just then I remembered. I unripped the pocket and pulled out my little keepsake.
“And this?”
“My boat.”
“Get outta here,” MacRae muttered, taking the shard of white and turning it over and looking up at me with what felt like newfound admiration.
“Listen, Doc, I'm going to write this up.” MacRae flipped the notebook closed, started to shove it into a wet pocket, and thought better of it. “Can you come by headquarters later this afternoon? Make a formal statement. In the meanwhile, we'll see if we can find any witnesses.”
He picked up his shoes and padded up the stairs. Annie and I watched as he made little toeprints on each step and disappeared into the boathouse.
Now I was starting to shiver. The blanket had ended up on the deck. I went over, picked it up, and wrapped it around my body.
“Peter,” Annie asked, her voice serious, “do you think there's a connection?”
“Between what happened yesterday and this?”
“Well?”
“You know what Freud says about coincidences — there ain't no such animal.”
“Who'd have known they could find you out on the river?”
I pulled the blanket closer around myself. “Just about anyone who knows me.”
“Anyone connected with the Jackson case?”
I thought for a moment. “Shit. I mentioned it to Sylvia Jackson … and then she told Lovely. That's probably how MacRae knew.”
“Lovely?”
“Great name for a nurse, don't you think? Particularly appropriate for this one. She's been less than helpful, to put it mildly.”
“She probably realizes you're there to discredit her patient, even if Sylvia Jackson doesn't get it.”
MacRae was right about one thing. Sylvia Jackson was very vulnerable. And she was doing a lousy job of picking whom to
trust. But then, she didn't have a lot of options. “How's she doing?”
“Syl? She's recovering. But you won't be able to get back in there to finish testing for another week at least. She's telling everyone you're a hero. Saved her life.”
“Yeah, right, big hero. And if I hadn't been there, she probably wouldn't have needed to have her life saved.”
“What makes you think your being there had anything to do with what happened to her? I'd say it was just the opposite. If you hadn't been there, she might have died. She seems to have become quite attached to you. Could be, someone resents that attachment.”
“And that's why they ran me down? Seems like a stretch. Was it a drug overdose?”
“Looks like it. They analyzed the food she had for breakfast. No poison. And they've ruled out the possibility that she got someone else's meds by mistake. So that leaves accidental —” “— or deliberate overdose,” I finished the thought. “It wouldn't be hard to engineer. All you'd have to do is leave pills lying around in her room. Eventually she'd notice and assume she'd forgotten to take them.”
“So what do you make of her explanation that a nurse left the pills for her?”
“I'd take it with a grain of salt. She has a tendency to make up what she can't remember.”
After Annie left, I walked back into the boathouse. I stared up at the sling where my boat should have been hanging. Why was this happening to me? My insides tightened with sadness. But then, just as quickly, the self-pity turned into rage and I yelled at the top of my lungs while the pigeons nesting in the eaves flew back and forth in confusion. When my voice gave out, I just sat there.
Later, while I was showering with my clothes on, lathering away the slime, I realized MacRae took with him all that was left of my boat. I wished I'd at least asked for a receipt.

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