Murder in the Rue St. Ann (34 page)

I reached for his hand. It was cold. “Paul.” I whispered, and started shaking.

I rode with him to the hospital in the ambulance. The paramedics pumped adrenaline into him, The head injury was bad, and I could see the size of the blow as they cleaned the wound. He remained unconscious the entire way.

“Wake up, honey, I’m here,” I whispered, sitting in my little corner of the ambulance as it screamed through the Mississippi night. “You’re going to be okay, you know.”

They took him into the emergency room, and I answered questions for a kind faced nurse. When we were finished, Venus led me into the waiting room. “He’s going to be okay, Chanse.” She held my hand so tight it hurt. “You’ll see.”

And we waited.

And waited.

Sometime, I don’t know when, Paige arrived, her face white and her lips trembling. Her make up was smeared with tears. She threw her arms around me before I could even get up and sobbed for I don’t know how long. “Have they said anything?” she asked, her voice shaking.

I just shook my head.

The Maxwells came in right behind her. Their faces were just as  white and strained, but Fee gave me a big hug. “Now, Chanse, me love, don’t you worry, everything’s going to be just fine, my Paul’s a fighter, you wait and see.” But her smile and her tone were lies. I could see the fear in her eyes and in Ian’s. It was also there in the way they gripped their rosaries as they paced around the waiting room.

A doctor came into the waiting room and cleared his throat. “Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell?” he asked.

We all rose. “May I speak with you privately?” he asked.

“We’re all family here.” Fee said fiercely, putting an arm around me while Ian put an arm around Paige and Venus.

“I’m sorry, but the head injury is too severe. We can’t do anything for him here.” He said. “I’ve arranged for a helicoptor to take him to Touro in New Orleans. They’ll be able to do a lot more for him there.”

My knees buckled, but somehow Fee managed to keep me standing.

“They’ll take him right into surgery.” He went on.

“So, we’ll be needing to get back to New Orleans, then?” This from Ian.

The doctor nodded. “He’ll be leaving soon.”

“Thank you, doctor.” Fee gave him a hug, which startled him, and then he walked back out.

“Well, who’ll be riding with who then?” Fee asked.

I rode back with Paige but I don’t really remember much of it. She was blaring Norah Jones on her car stereo and chain smoking, lighting a new one from the butt of another. All I can remember is the blurry shapes of things as the car went past. Paige was driving fast. This usually worried me, but I didn’t really care this time. All I could think about was how messy Fowler’s house had been, how much that must have bothered Paul. Paul liked everything just so. I mean, he organized his clothes by type and color. His socks all had to be lined up the same way in the sock drawer. His underwear was folded
this
way and was also sorted by color and maker. The filth, the clutter, must have driven him insane. But then again, it was also probably likely he’d been unconscious the whole time he’d been there, which was what, three, four days? That couldn’t be good. That head injury must have really done a number on him. I wondered why there had been so little blood—head injuries really bleed a lot. Fowler must have conked him in the kitchen, carried him down the stairs and to his car—missing the walk with his first step down and stepping into the flowerbed. Then, he probably just put him in the trunk, went back upstairs, beat off on the bed, stole the print and defaced the other.

And I had sat in that disgusting living room, in the gloom, with the cats and the smells and a fucking psychotic murdering fuck just a few feet away—and Paul, unconscious just down the hall, shackled naked to a bed and covered in his own filth. I started shaking, my stomach lurching. I rolled down the window and gulped in fresh air. We were just reaching the lake bridge.

Paige turned down the stereo. “You doing okay, babe?”

“No, not really.” The cool lake air felt great on my hot face, and the sweat forming at my hair line dried. My stomach settled down a bit.

“You wanna talk about it?”

“No.” I couldn’t. I didn’t want to hear the words I would say out loud. I didn’t want anyone to hear them—at least not yet, I might be ready later, but not quite yet. It was odd. I was feeling so many different emotions all at the same time—I would switch from one to another before it could take over completely. I wanted to laugh with relief. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw up, I wanted to get my mind to slow down.

And I wanted to feel something. Anything. Anything other than this horrible distortion of reality, this nightmarish thing my life had become in just a few hours, wake up from it and let it fade with the light of the next morning.

Nothing I could have done would have altered this.

Bullshit as it was, it was something. I had no control over the sequence of events. I didn’t know Paul made videos and therefore he was afraid to tell me he had a stalker. Had I known, maybe…

But then again, Paul felt like he couldn’t tell me about any of it. Why would he have felt I was capable of hearing it in a rational, calm manner and wouldn’t have been jealous? I proved his fears right, didn’t I? But then I could convince myself that my violent reaction was partly due to finding out after he’d been arrested for killing someone. I was in a vulnerable, emotionally raw state, and did not react the way I would have under ordinary circumstances.

“Well, I need to talk.” Paige said, throwing a cigarette out the window.

I reeled myself in from the discussion in my head and turned my head to look at her. She looked terrible. She’d been driving with her window cracked for her cigarette smoke to go out of, and her hair had been blown to shit. She’d been crying, and now her mascara hung in big clumps at the end of her lashes. I’d never really noticed she wore a bit of foundation before, but now I saw where the tears had run through it. Her face was paler than I’d ever seen her, and there were dark circles of worry under her eyes.

“So, I’m sorry, if you don’t need to talk—that’s fine, and if you don’t want to listen to me, just tune me out.” She went on without even looking over at me. Her eyes were focused on the road in front of her and weaving around cars. “I mean, he’s going to be fine, right, I mean, surgeons are miracle workers these days but he’ll make it, he isn’t going to die, right. I mean..”

I turned my head back to the window and watched as we reached the south shore. I could hear her voice going on, but I couldn’t understand what she was saying without looking at her. I didn’t want to look at her. It was fine, really. She loved Paul too and the way she had to deal with all of this was to talk—about nothing at all really— or to convince herself the worst wouldn’t happen. Maybe she was talking herself into it. I wished I could.

I wished it was Monday morning. I could see it all so clearly in my head. Sunday night we’d rented a couple of tearjerker women’s movies—Paul and I were both suckers for a good old heroine-suffers-bravely-to-die-at-the-end movie—and had gone to bed after Susan Sarandon finally accepted Julia Roberts as her replacement in “Stepmom.” We argued awhile about whether or not the movie fit the genre; Paul’s theory was that since Susan’s character didn’t die until after the credits rolled, it didn’t, mine was it was still about fatal illness. We finally compromised by moving it into Fatal Disease of the Week movie. When we’d gone to bed, Paul was in the mood and I hadn’t been. I was tired. I’d been doing my quarterly report for Castle Oil, one of my bigger security clients, and had been staring at my computer screen for three days. So, instead, Paul went back into the living room to watch a sex video and pleasure himself. I was asleep before he made it to bed that night. The next morning, though, I woke up with him right up to my back, with one of his legs and arms thrown over mine. I could feel his breath on my neck. I woke up before the alarm, but rather then getting up I just laid there, thinking how nice it felt—

It might have been the last time.

Everything came over me at once. Paul could die; Paul could die; he might be dying now. I might not ever get to talk to him again, I might not get to tell him anything, My God, the last night we spent together I didn’t want to have sex.  Oh my God please let me have that chance back, please give me another moment to hold him, to kiss him, to tell him how much I love him—

My lungs felt like they were going to explode so I stuck my head back out the window and opened my mouth. Centifugal force pushed air down into my windpipe until I finally coughed it back out and began to breath, deeply and slowly, making that horrible gulping sound every time I inhaled.

“Are you okay?” Paige’s hands were shaking on the steering wheel.

“Now, now I am.” I took a couple of deep breaths and put my hands on the dashboard to keep them from shaking. “I’m melting down, Paige. I’m trying to hold it together, but I don’t know if I can.”

“When your mind starts going fast, it’s time to slow down and take deep breaths to fight off.” She tossed her pack at me. “Can you light this for me? I can’t drive, hold it together and light a cigarette at the same time anymore.” She laughed. “I guess I’m getting older. I used to be able to do this quite easily.”

There was pain in her voice, pain from a distant place she’d locked away in her head.

She wiped a tear away with a trembling hand, and then took the cigarette from me. After a long inhale, she blew the smoke out the window through the side of her mouth. “Yeah. I always thought I’d gotten used to it. But I haven’t.”

“Paige…”

She slowed as we descended the off-ramp at St. Charles. “You better?”

“Yeah. For now.” I felt calm. But I could sense the hysteria, trying to get enough momentum to force its way out again, Paul was going to be fine. He was young and strong and God knows, he was healthy. All that eating right and exercise had to have been for something, right?

We parked in the hospital garage and walked over to the main hospital. We held hands. Paige’s was hot and dry, and I kept squeezing it. I could tell she was still trembling a little. The nurse at the front desk sent us up to a waiting room on one of the upper floors. The antiseptic smell, the harsh lighting, the people talking in whispers, the colored directional lines painted on the floor. Fee and Ian were already there, drinking coffee that looked like it could peel paint out of Styrofoam cups.

“They haven’t told us anything but he’s in surgery now.” Fee said after hugging us both. We all sat down on the uncomfortable furniture. Her face was resolute. “But I know he’ll be fine. He’s strong, that one is.”

Her accent was comforting somehow.

“We’ve called the other kids.” Ian said. “They’ll be here in the morning. They wanted us to give you their prayers.”

“How—how nice.” I didn’t know what else to say. I probably should have just said nothing.

Fee gave me a faint smile. “You’re part of the family, Chanse.”

This time I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. I just somehow got to my feet and walked out of the room and down into the bathroom. I stood in front of the sink, and sobbed. I went down into the dark place of pain and sorrow I always avoided and gave vent to everything. What if Paul dies? What if I never get the chance to tell him how much I love him? What will I do? How will I face life without him? Why was this happening to him? Why not to me?

And then, it was gone as quickly as it had come. Deep breaths, slow and easy. I threw cold water in my face, and rubbed it dry a paper towel that felt like sandpaper. I took one final, deep breath, and walked back into the waiting room.

I don’t know how long we sat there. Time was of no relevance. Paige kept getting up and buying sodas and chips out of the vending machine. She’d taken her shoes off and curled up in a chair, paging through three year old issues of
Good Housekeeping
. Fee had a book of crossword puzzles in her purse; and she and Ian sat together and figured out the answers. I watched the television but not comprehending any of the programs, and not hearing the sound, or laughing at the jokes. Nothing was felt or thought about except the passing of time. I was afraid to ask anyone what time it was; because I was afraid I would start asking every five minutes and get on everyone’s nerves.

I’d just gotten back from getting rid of about a gallon of Dr. Pepper when the doctor came in and asked for Fee and Ian. I walked over and put my arm around Paige.

“He survived the surgery.” The doctor was saying. “But the head injury was pretty severe. It drove bone fragments from his skull into his brain, and we had to remove those fragments.”

“But you were able to?” Ian asked. He was clutching Fee’s hand.

“Yes, we were able to get all of them out.” He took a deep breath. “But the bad news is there’s no brain activity.”

I sat down on the arm of a chair, hard.

“There wasn’t any when he was brought in.” He went on. “But those fragments—they had to come out. He would have died had we left them in.”

“But his brain is dead, isn’t that what you’re telling us?” Fee’s chin went up.

“I’m afraid so, yes.”

“Is he breathing on his own?” Paige’s voice broke.