Wake (15 page)

Janie wheedles them. “I’m up-to-date on my tetanus shot. Look, I’ve got a math exam in—

soon, and my college future rides on it. I’m telling you, I’m refusing treatment. Now let me off of here.”

Slowly, the paramedics back off so she can get down. She swings her heavy, unfeeling legs over the side of the stretcher just as Captain Komisky breezes through the security check.

“What the hell is going on down here?” she asks brightly. “Why, hello, Ms. Hannagan. Are you coming or going?”

Janie looks around on the stretcher and grabs a hunk of gauze, trying to find the source of the blood. “I’m working my way off this thing any second now,” Janie mutters. She takes a deep breath.

Hops off the edge.

Sticks the landing like ol’ what’s her name in the Olympics. Captain is watching her, an amused look on her face. She offers Janie her arm. “Come, dear,” she says. “Looks like you’ve been busy tonight.” She waves the paramedics away with a sweeping gesture, and they go like lightning.

Janie smiles gratefully and holds the gauze to her eye. Her sweatshirt is stained with blood. She feels like she’s wearing cement shoes, and her head feels like a balloon.

“I called on my way in, got the scoop,” she explains when the paramedics are gone. “I wonder if we need to have a chat in my office?”

“I—sure. Um, what time is it?” Janie forgot to put her watch on when she left the house, and she’s lost without it.

“Six fifteen, or thereabouts,” Captain says. “I imagine Mr. Strumheller has had enough by now, don’t you?”

Janie is having trouble concentrating. She knows she needs to eat. She gives a shaky laugh.

“I suppose that’s up to you, sir,” she murmurs.

And then she remembers.

Carrie and Stu.

“Captain,” she says nervously. “I came down here a few hours ago trying to spring my friend and her boyfriend. I’ve got the bail money, but I’m not eighteen until next month. Any chance you can—”

“Of course.”

Janie sighs, relieved. “Thank you.”

“Before we go in,” Captain says, “let’s remember that you don’t know me. Right?”

“Yes, sir,” she says.

“Good girl. Go get your friends.”

6:30 a.m.

Carrie rushes out of the holding cell like it’s filling up with poison gas. Stu follows. Carrie sees Janie covered with blood and nearly passes out, but both Stu and Janie ignore her dramatics.

“You guys are gonna have to walk. I’m sorry,” Janie says firmly. “I have to fill out some dumb paperwork for an incident report or something.” She points to her eye and makes like it’s the last thing she wants to do. She shakes her head, pretending to be pissed. “Stupid cops.”

Stu squeezes Janie’s shoulder. “Thank you, Janie.” He gives her a grateful look. “You’re a good friend. To both of us.”

Janie smiles, and Carrie looks abashed. “Thanks, Janers,” she says.

“I’m glad you called me, Carrie,” Janie says. Now, go away. 6:34 a.m.

Janie heads to the restroom, bloodying gauze pressed against her rapidly swelling eyebrow. She checks the mirror. The cut is beautiful in its own right. It lies just below her brow line, from the arch to where the brow tapers, and is straight and clean. One day, she might wish she’d gotten stitches. But as scars go, it’s in a perfectly sexy spot. She turns her sweatshirt inside out to hide the ridiculous amount of blood that oozed from the inch-long gash, and washes her face and hands. She takes a handful of brown paper towels, wets them, and puts the pressure back on it. Then she slurps water from the faucet. 6:47 a.m.

Janie leaves the restroom, and Cabel is there, pulling her into the cloakroom area. He looks tired. And relieved to see her.

“Let me see,” he says.

She pulls the paper towels away and shows him her war wound.

“It’s very impressive,” he says, and then grows serious, his deep brown eyes betraying his concern. “When I saw you about to go down, I—” He stops and sighs. “I watched you. Most of that two hours, whenever I could pull it off without looking suspicious. It made me crazy that I couldn’t get to you.”

Janie, who is now shivering and getting very light-headed, just leans against him. He strokes her back, rests his chin on her head. “You sure you’re up for a chat with the boss?” he asks.

Janie nods against his chest.

“I’ll get you something to eat just as soon as we get out of here, okay?”

She smiles. “Thanks, Cabe.”

“Meet me at the back entrance, okay? You remember which door? We need to split up.”

“Yeah, okay, good thinking,” she murmurs. Cabel walks nonchalantly to a staircase and goes down. Janie heads out the front entrance and walks half a block through the blizzard to get around to the back of the shops and buildings. When she gets to the unmarked door, she’s in a cold sweat. She knocks lightly. It opens, and she follows Cabel down the stairs. The place is buzzing, and Cabel takes a few slaps on the back and swipes upside the head for his overnight work. “We’re still not there yet,” he says modestly. He knocks on the captain’s door, and she hollers, “Come.” Cabel and Janie slip inside.

“You two have exams today, no? Do we have time for this right now?”

“Ten thirty, Captain. We’ve got plenty of time.”

Captain looks at Janie closely. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” she says. “You’re gonna have a heck of a shiner by the time the day’s over. Did you black out?”

“I…uh…” Janie shrugs. “I really have no idea.”

“Yes, I think she did.” Cabel cuts in. “I’m going to need to watch her all day. And probably all night, too,” he adds. Very, very seriously.

The captain throws a rubber eraser at him and sends him out for coffee. “And get this poor girl some rations, while you’re at it, before she breaks in half.” She opens her desk drawer and fishes around in it. Pulls out a first-aid kit and tosses a bag of airline peanuts on the desk as well. “Slide in over here, will you?” she says. Janie scoots her chair around the side of the desk.

“Jesus,” Captain mutters again, and spreads a liberal amount of antibiotic cream over the cut. She rips open a package of Steri-Strips and neatly and quickly closes the cut. “That’s better,” she says. “If your mother and/or father have any questions about what happened to you, have them give me a call. I’d appreciate a heads-up if you think they’re likely to sue.”

She slides the bag of peanuts across the desk to Janie. “Eat.”

“Yes, sir,” she says gratefully, ripping open the package. “You won’t hear from anyone.”

Cabel returns with three coffees, a small cup of milk, and a bag full of muffins and doughnuts. He casually sets the milk and bran muffin in front of Janie and pours three creams and three sugars into her coffee.

She drinks the milk, her hand shaking, and feels the ice-cold goodness of it going all the way down. “Excellent,” she says, and takes a deep breath.

“So,” begins Captain. “You have a report for me, Cabel?”

“Yes, sir. We arrived at the party at nineteen-ten hours, marijuana already in progress, and by twenty-three-thirty, the coke was on the glass. Five minors and several adults snorted lines. Mr. Wilder took me aside, and we discussed our partnership, he being rather pleased at the turnout. He was semicoherent but stoned, and he told me he had a stash he was ready to quote ‘put on the market’—his words. Apparently that was enough for Baker and Cobb, though I’m pissed we don’t have the actual location of the stash. They arrived within three minutes and broke the place up, taking only those who were too stupid to go peacefully. And, of course, Mr. Wilder and his two children. Mrs. Wilder wasn’t present. And I really don’t think she’s mixed up in it.” He glances sideways at Janie and shrugs an apology.

“Carrie was really toasted and put up a huge fight. Sorry about that.”

Janie smiles. “Maybe the experience will knock some sense into her,” she says.

“By two a.m., we were all in what I like to call my little home away from home,” Cabel continues. “Janie here came in to try to bail Carrie and her boyfriend out, and as luck would have it, Mr. Wilder was fucked up enough to fall asleep in the din. Janie settled in for the ride.” He sits back, finished with his report.

Captain nods. “Good work, Cabe, as always.” She turns to Janie. “Janie. A disclosure. You weren’t hired by us, and we didn’t ask you to help in this investigation. You have no obligation to share what happened before you creamed your face on our lovely piece of shit coffee cart, which I’m tossing in the Dumpster right after this meeting. But if you wish to, and you feel you have anything pertinent to add, I’d welcome it.” She scribbles something on a notepad and puts it in her pocket, and then she continues. “Sounds like Cabe’s a little perturbed that we don’t have the location of the cake, and I personally would like to have that piece of information so we can go for the maximum sentence. Any chance you picked up something along those lines?” She chuckles quietly at her own pun. “Take your time, dear.”

Janie, thinking more clearly now, runs through Mr. Wilder’s nightmare in her head. She closes her eyes at one point and shakes her head, puzzled. Then looks up.

“This might sound silly, but do the Wilders own a yacht?”

“Yes,” Cabel says slowly. “It’s in storage someplace for the winter. Why?”

She is quiet for a long time. She doesn’t quite trust her intuition enough to say it, even though she knows she has nothing to lose.

“Orange life jackets?” she says hesitantly.

Captain leans forward, intrigued, and her voice is less harsh than usual. “Don’t be afraid to be wrong, Janie. A lead’s a lead. Most of them turn out wrong, but no crime gets solved without ’em.”

Janie nods. “I’ll spare you the endless dream unless you want to hear it all. But the major part that sticks out to me, and kept repeating, is this:

“We’re on a yacht, and it’s sunny and beautiful on the ocean. What looks like a gorgeous tropical island is in the distance, and Mr. Wilder is heading for it. Mrs. Wilder is sunning herself on the deck of the yacht—at the front end, you know? And then suddenly, the weather turns cloudy and windy, and a storm hits, slamming into the boat, I mean hard, like a hurricane, with the wind…”

She pauses, closes her eyes, and she’s in it. In a trance. “And Mr. Wilder is getting frantic, because every time he gets close to the shore of this island, one of those backward waves pushes us out farther. Like in that one movie, where Tom Hanks is that castaway dude on that island with his pet volleyball?”

Cabe chuckles. “I think it’s called Cast Away, Hannagan.”

“Yeah. Whatever. Meanwhile, Mrs. Wilder is still sitting on the deck, reading a book, oblivious to the storm. Weird, I know. He calls to her to get inside the cabin and get the life jackets out, but she can’t hear him. And then the yacht starts spinning and slams into the reef, and we’re all flying out into the water. The yacht is in smithereens, and all the stuff that was inside the cabin is floating around, being carried by waves.

“Mrs. Wilder is flailing and drowning in the water, and Mr. Wilder swims around picking things up out of the water. He sees his wife struggling, and he grabs life jackets—there are at least fifteen of them floating here and there, and he’s got maybe eight or nine of them strung on his arms. He starts to swim toward her….”

Janie closes her eyes and swallows. Her voice is shaking. “And I think, he’s going to save her….”

Cabel bites his lip.

Captain offers her a break.

She waves her hand, trying not to lose concentration, and continues.

“He starts to swim toward her with life jackets. But instead of saving her, he says…um…

he says, ‘You can rot in hell, you old bitch.’ And then he swims past her, toward the shore, with all those life jackets.” She takes a breath. “Like they are the most important thing in his life. And…”

She pauses.

Continues in an odd voice. “And the jackets, they aren’t floating anymore—they’re dragging in the water. Sinking. Pulling him down. Under. And he won’t let go.”

Janie opens her eyes and looks solemnly at Captain. “I think the packages you’re looking for might just be sewn inside the life jackets, sir.”

Captain is already dialing the phone trying to get a search warrant for the yacht. Cabel’s mouth hangs open.

Janie’s head throbs. “Do you have any Excedrin?” she whispers. 10:30 a.m.

Janie and Cabel sit down for their math exam.

10:55 a.m.

Janie, parched, salty tears running silently down her cheeks, closes her blank blue book, stands up, turns it in, and walks out of the classroom, every eye in the room staring at her as she goes. Cabel scribbles a few more answers, waits a few minutes, and turns his in too. Initially, he looks in the parking lot for her and, seeing her car being slowly covered in the snowstorm, breathes a sigh of relief she’s not out driving in this mess. He goes back inside the school and searches the rooms.

He finds her, finally, passed out on her table in the empty library. Picks her up.

Takes her to the emergency room.

On the way, he calls Captain. Tells her what’s going on. Suggests maybe now’s not a good time for Janie to get stuck in the dreams of random hospital visitors.

When they arrive at the ER, they’re ushered to a private room. Cabel grins. “I love this job,” he murmurs.

Janie is dehydrated. That’s all.

They give her an IV, and then Cabel takes her to his house. She sleeps a long time. He sleeps too, on the couch.

She blames it on the salty sea.

GLORY AND HOPE

December 16, 2005, 4:30 p.m.

Cabel and Janie sit in Captain’s office.

Captain comes in.

Closes the door.

Sits down behind her desk and takes a sip of coffee. Crosses her legs. Leans back in her chair and looks at the two teenagers.

“We got it,” she says. She smiles, and then laughs like she won the lottery. And shoves an envelope toward Janie.

Inside:

a contract

a scholarship offer

a paycheck

“Read it over. Let me know if you’re interested,” Captain says. And pauses.

“Good work, Janie.”

December 25, 2005, 11:19 p.m.

Janie swipes the last bit of frosting from the cake at Heather Home, walks the rounds, says silent good-byes to the sleeping residents, and gives the director a grateful hug. She takes a red helium balloon from the cake table, turns, and walks out the door for the last time, slowly now, through the parking lot to Ethel.