Rescue (3 page)

They couldn’t have sent the woman home yet, Webster reasoned, not with that level of alcohol in her blood, three and a half
times the legal limit. Webster wanted to see her face and hear her voice. He’d done an “after” call only once before, with
a ten-year-old who’d nearly drowned in a marble quarry. Webster had needed to see the boy alive. Needed to feel the reward
of what he’d done. Needed to hear the parents thank him. At the time, three months into the job, he’d had a two-week run of
lousy calls that had caused him to want to quit before he’d barely begun. Two children burned to death in a trailer fire.
A cardiac call they might have been able to do something about had they been
summoned sooner. A three-car collision on the ice on 42, an entire family of French Canadians wiped out: mother at the scene,
father in the Bullet, baby daughter at the hospital.

Webster parked and walked into the ER. The staff knew him, and they didn’t. He cornered a nurse he thought he recognized.

“I brought a woman in last night,” Webster said. “DUI, stomach laceration.”

“They’re giving her fluids. She’s still got a Foley catheter. They’re going to discontinue her IV in half an hour.”

Webster checked his watch. “Half an hour? She could get the d.t.’s.”

“Doesn’t matter what I think. Towle’s orders. Signs of old bruises on her body, by the way.”

“I found something at the site that belongs to the woman,” he said.

“I’ll take it,” the nurse offered.

Ordinarily, Webster would have left it at that. “I’d like to see her if you don’t mind. Just to see how she’s doing.”

The nurse narrowed her eyes. “Visit away,” she said. “Bed number eight.”

Webster pulled the curtain aside. The woman’s face was pale, with bruises ripening beneath her eyes. She had a mouth that
might be French like her name. Her hair was still glossy. He moved closer to the bed. The alcohol was depressing her system.
When they took the fluids away, she’d get a headache and the heaves.

Under the thin coverlet, the bandages made a runway across the woman’s stomach. He noticed the narrow outline of her body,
her nipples under the cloth. Her johnny was open at the neck,
and Webster could see the place where Burrows had rubbed her sternum. Hell of a bruise, but you had to make it work. He remembered
her long legs, the bikini underpants.

Webster said her name.

An eye fluttered.

He touched her arm and raised his voice a little. “Sheila?”

She opened her eyes. He watched as she tried to focus. She said nothing.

“My name is Peter Webster,” he said. “I’m with Hartstone Rescue, and I worked on you last night.” He paused. He hadn’t meant
to say it that way. “You had a close call. You nearly died.”

“No, I didn’t,” she said, already defensive, the eyes sharpening up. In better shape than she looked.

He thought of walking out of the cubicle right then and there. Later, he would often wonder why he hadn’t.

W
ebster let a week pass before he tried to find out Sheila’s whereabouts. He assumed the wallet had been returned to her, but
there might be a record of her address at the police station. Possibly at the hospital, too, though they were tight with information.
That left Webster no choice but to call the station. He prayed it would be McGill at the other end of the line.

Webster wasn’t surprised when he heard Nye’s voice. The Weasel was everywhere: the left eye with its squint and the mouth
in a permanent sneer—not necessarily the result of Nye’s disposition, but because the man’s right eyetooth stuck out a quarter
inch. Webster wondered whether instead of developing a face that showed his character, Nye had grown into his face, viewing
the sneer in the mirror every morning when he shaved.

Nye might not know that Webster had already visited the hospital. He decided to take a chance.

“The rabbit’s foot?” Nye asked.

“Yup.”

“What’s the point?”

“She might need the keys.”

“The car was totaled, her license was suspended for two months. Massachusetts license, by the way.”

“Any local address?” Webster asked, and waited.

“You know I can’t give out that kind of information.”

“Jesus, Nye. I might have saved her life.”

“That means exactly zero over here.”

Fucking Nye was going to make him beg.

“I suppose as a probie, you’re not familiar with proper procedure,” Nye added.

Webster took a chance that guff would win out over pleading. “Cut the crap.”

Nye made Webster wait so long, he was sure the Weasel had hung up. Then he heard the tapping of a pencil point on a desk.

Nye gave Webster the address. “Don’t do anything stupid, probie.”

Webster knew where the house was. Just inside the northern town line stood a pale blue Cape with a front porch not fifteen
feet from the edge of 42, the porch encased in jalousie windows. Webster pulled into what might have been a driveway in an
unkempt yard. Before he opened the door of the old cruiser, he thought about what he’d say: he was just following up, wanted
to know how she was. She would see right through that, might even call him on it. He remembered her defensiveness in the hospital.
But Webster’s curiosity outweighed his judgment, had been outweighing it all week. When he knocked on the door, it was Sheila
who answered.

“Who are you?” she asked at once, both hands on the door, ready to slam it fast.

She had on a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, a pair of jeans. Her hair was longer than he’d thought, curling
at the ends, as glossy as he’d remembered. He found it hard to take his eyes off her mouth. Did she really not remember his
visit to the hospital?

“I’m Peter Webster. I was at the scene when you had your accident.”

“Are you a cop?”

“No, I was one of the EMTs.”

“OK,” she said.

“I just wanted to follow up, see how you were doing.”

She wasn’t buying it. In her stocking feet, Webster put her at five nine, five ten.

“How do I know you’re who you say you are? And, more important, why the fuck should you care how I am?”

Not as tough as she wanted him to believe. Something wary in her eyes. Webster took out his ID. She studied it and stepped
to one side. “Come in,” she said. “I’m freezing.”

Coke cans, empty cigarette packs, a mess of Devil Dogs wrappers, and a Stouffer’s box on the counter. A tin pail overflowing
with trash and tissues. The rectangular table had a soiled green and white oilcloth tacked to the edges. A spoonful of purple
jelly lay on the cloth inside a dozen coffee rings and toast crumbs and a smear of what might be butter. Clots of illegal
wiring on the kitchen counter.

“This isn’t exactly all mine. The mess, I mean. The Devil Dogs are theirs,” she said, pointing to the ceiling.

“How long have you been here?” Webster asked, looking around.

“Couple of days.”

He unzipped his jacket in the overheated room. “Renting?”

“Not right now. I will be when I get a job.”

“How’d you end up here?”

“A nurse.”

Webster nodded.

“So you’ve seen me,” she said. “I’m fine. You can go now.”

Webster didn’t move.

“The old folks live upstairs,” she said. “They hardly ever come down except to make a meal.
He
never comes down at all.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “He’s sick with something. I can hear him coughing at night.
I think I’m supposed to do their dishes, but no one’s ever said. The old woman is the nurse’s aunt. Why the fuck am I telling
you all this?”

He didn’t answer, but the question didn’t stop her.

“The nurse came once and took the old lady out to do some shopping. The old lady’s a mouse, hardly speaks at all. I think
she’s afraid of me, though I can’t imagine why.” She smiled as if she knew precisely why. “I have the ‘front room’ here,”
she added, putting her fingers in quotes, “and I can use the kitchen and the bathroom. I sit in the living room and watch
TV. I steal their booze.”

She raised her chin slightly, daring Webster to reprimand her.

“You drink too much,” he said. “You were drinking too much the night you rolled your car.”

“And that’s your business how?”

“You might have injured someone else, and that
is
my business.”

“What’s next?” she asked. “The physical exam?”

She walked out of the kitchen and into the jalousie porch. Because it was frigid outside and overheated inside, the windows
had steamed up, leaving a small ellipsis in the center of each pane.

“They keep the heat up to God-knows-what, and I can’t touch it.”

No curtains at the windows. A bed pushed against the shingles of what had once been the outside of the house. The bed was
neatly made. A few clothes hung from a portable rod on wheels.
A suitcase had been tucked behind the portable closet. In the corner were a round wooden table and two chairs.

Sheila sat on the bed.

Webster pulled out a chair. “I wanted to see if you have any remaining injuries or difficulties from the accident.”

“Are you a social worker?” she asked.

“No.”

“OK. I don’t have a driver’s license anymore. I’m in this lousy shit hole. The nurse gave me a hundred bucks. I have to find
a job. Other than that, I’m fine.”

She reached over to a leather jacket at the end of the bed and removed a pack of cigarettes. “I’m here because the old lady
needed someone in case of emergency.” She took a drag on her cigarette. “Where do you live?” she asked.

“In Hartstone,” he said, not mentioning his parents.

She gestured with her lit cigarette to her jacket. “The cops gave me the wallet back, but guess what? No license and no money.”

“How much was in it?”

“Hundred and twenty.”

Fucking Weasel.

“Did you ask for it back?”

She gazed at the frosty glass. “They said it was never there. Was I surprised? No.”

“Do you mind if I ask you what you were doing in Vermont the night of your accident? The police said you had a Massachusetts
license.”

“Is this in your manual? Question number thirty-eight?”

“No.”

“I live in Chelsea. Lived. Near Boston. I had a boyfriend who drank so much he started pissing the bed. I threw him out, told
him to get lost. He came back. Stuck to me like a booger you can’t get off your finger.” She glanced quickly in Webster’s
direction to see how he was taking the booger. “Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore. I packed a bag, got in the car, and drove.
Didn’t stop till I rolled the car.”

“You could have called the police, got the guy arrested,” Webster said.

“He was the police,” she said with no emotion.

“Restraining order?”

“Really.”

Webster noticed a half-empty bottle of Bacardi under the bed. The glass beside it still had liquor in it.

“Sometimes I walk to the hardware store down the road and buy bagels and coffee and cigarettes.”

The hardware store. His dad’s.

She didn’t have rounded shoulders like most tall women he knew. She wore her hair tucked behind her ears. Her jeans were tight
and slim and didn’t come from L. L. Bean. He thought that when the bruises were gone her face would be pretty.

“I’m going to drive you to the Giant Mart just over the state line,” he said, “so you can get some food. And then I’ll drive
you back.”

“I think that’s illegal. I’m not supposed to leave the state.”

“You’ll be fine with me.”

“No,” she said.

“You have to buy food,” he argued. “And you need a paper so you can get a job. What did you do in Chelsea?”

“I waited tables.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-four.”

“Is that the truth?”

She nodded.

“I like your accent,” he said.

“You mean the
Ahss-n-all?
” she asked, exaggerating the Boston pronunciation of her name.

He stood up. “You’ll starve if you don’t come with me.”

“I’ll get by,” she said.

“Put your jacket on.”

In the car, Sheila stared out the side window, as if they were a married couple, not speaking. She reached into her pocket
and took out the cigarette pack. She glanced at him and put the pack away.

“You can smoke,” he said.

“Wouldn’t want to stink up your precious car. Where’d you get this anyway? It’s a cop car, right?”

“Was. Got demobbed.”

“What’s that?”

“Stripped. After four years, the police buy new cruisers, and then they strip the old ones of any markings or gear and sell
them. I needed a car that was fast. For my job. Hell of an engine.”

“Rev it up,” she said. “Go fast.”

He held his speed.

She reached up, twisted her hair into a knot, and then let it fall over one shoulder. He drove another mile to the supermarket
across the border.

“We’re in New York now?” she asked.

Webster nodded.

“Liked it better in Vermont.”

“Why?”

“Felt safer.”

No one could attribute safety to an invisible line, but Webster had always thought there was a difference between Vermont
and New York. In New York, the roads immediately deteriorated; the houses had less charm and looked to be in poorer condition;
and villages gave way to street grids with stores on them. There was age in some of the New York border towns, but it was
an unappealing redbrick age. When he crossed the state line, Webster always felt he was one step closer to a life he didn’t
want to live.

Still, the town had a supermarket, two gas stations, and a pharmacy. He turned into the lot of the Giant Mart and parked.

“So what’s the deal?” she asked. “You pick out the food and pay for it? You give me an allowance?”

“Let’s just go in. I have stuff to get.”

They headed for the door, but she wouldn’t walk next to him, as if she didn’t want any part of the awkward enterprise.

Webster grabbed a cart. “Find what you want and put it in. We’ll sort it out later.”

He bought more food than he actually needed so as to have the larger share when they reached the register. His parents would
be surprised. He hardly ever grocery-shopped.