Absolute Zero (30 page)

So. This Amy was gaga with authorship; she had “discovered” Hank. And she and Broker were cooking up a theory about a nurse in Ely.

When the idea hit Jolene, it was better than the movies. First, she needed time. She needed to get Hank and these two isolated from cops and lawyers until she figured out how to put Hank out of commission. Keep him breathing but not blinking. And for that she needed Earl, broken arm and all. And since Broker and his natural pale blonde were getting off on playing detective so much—why not rev them up?

“This nurse,” Jolene said. “Are you sure she’s up there working?”

“Pretty sure,” Amy said.

Jolene pointed to the phone on the desk. “Find out.”

Amy looked to Broker, who shrugged—
sure
—so she went to the phone and punched in a number. “Judy? Yeah, Amy. How’s it going. Nah, I’m down in the Cities, doing some shopping. Is Nancy working tomorrow? She is. Just curious how she’s holding up. Yeah, there’s a lot of that going around. I’ll probably see you guys, Monday. Yeah. Bye.” Amy put down the phone.

They all took a few beats to absorb Amy’s phone conversation. Then Jolene gauged their eyes and said, “So, let’s take a drive and test your theory.”

“What do you mean?” Broker asked.

“I mean, I’ll put off calling Milt and give you one chance to prove it. Twenty-four hours. We take Hank on a car trip.” She walked to the phone on the bed stand and placed her hand on the receiver. “Take it or leave it.”

“Up north, in his condition?” Amy asked.

“To Ely,” Jolene nodded.

“I don’t think so, unless he’s in an ambulance,” Amy said.

“You know what an ambulance
costs?
” Jolene set her jaw.

Amy looked to Broker who said, “Jolene, it’s pretty risky.”

Jolene picked up the phone. “They said I couldn’t bring him home from the hospital. But I did. So how’s it more risky than her—” she pointed the phone at Amy—“coming over here and inviting all kinds of legal hell? Look, Hank’s beat, he’ll sleep for eight hours. It’s cold but the roads are dry. The only thing is, Earl took the Ford. His van’s here but I don’t have the keys. And my Accord isn’t big enough. How reliable is the Jeep.”

“The Jeep’s okay,” Broker said.

Jolene returned the phone to the cradle. “So? We have a cell phone, we have a nurse. What do you say?”

“Four hours, maybe we could do it,” Amy said.

“He’d just be asleep?” Broker said.

Jolene nodded. “We’ll be on main roads. Hell, with you guys along, he’ll be in better company than alone here with me. So c’mon, let’s load him in your car, drive up to Ely to your lodge. Rest up, and first thing in the morning, let’s confront this nurse. If you’re right, Amy’s off the hook, you get to be a hero, and I’ve got a stronger case.”

Jolene’s straight-ahead energy was infectious. Broker looked at Amy who held up the paper with the alphabet blocks. “It would really be something,” she said.

“C’mon,” Jolene encouraged, “a little adventure, for Christ’s sake.”

Broker studied Hank, asleep in a blue gown. “He can’t travel like that.”

“No problem,” Jolene said. “I’ll put him in a fleece sweat suit. We’ll build up the back of the Jeep with blankets and pillows so he can recline, like in his bed. One of us will have to ride in back with him and move him from side to side.”

“We’ll trade off,” Amy said and her eyes swung hopefully to Broker.

“See,” Jolene said. “We can pull it off.”

Broker thought about it. He thought about how guys like J.T. were always telling him all he could do was entrap people; how he never
solved
anything. “Okay, let’s do it; show me where the blankets are.”

“We’ll bring the blankets, and pack a diaper bag, with some Ensure for his tube; you go out through the garage, open the door, and back the Jeep in.” Jolene bristled with efficiency.

Broker went to move the Jeep. Amy helped Jolene pack a travel bag from the bed table. Hank was fast asleep.

“So, how’s an upright lady like you wind up with a rough-trade guy like Broker?” Jolene asked casually when they were alone.

“Oh, he’s not really like that, that’s just an act,” Amy said.

“Convinced me,” Jolene said dryly. “So, you suspected this other nurse or what? Is that why you came down?”

“No, no. That was Broker, he was suspicious about the timing of your accountant’s death so close after Hank’s accident. But he checked it out with the Washington County sheriff’s department . . .”

Jolene stiffened up. “He did?”

“Actually, J.T. did. He’s the guy we’re staying with. He’s a retired homicide detective. They were all rookies together in St. Paul; J.T., Broker, and John Eisenhower, the Washington County sheriff. And Wash-Co said there was no foul play involved with Stovall. Just that he had some pretty weird hang-ups and they got out of control. Broker is having trouble accepting that. He hates being wrong.”

“Rookies?” Jolene wondered. “You mean, like cops?”

“Well, Broker was never a proper cop. He worked lots of undercover for the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.”

Jolene smiled, big and easy. Slowly, she reached out and raised a wave of Amy’s hair on her palm. “This is really thick. Have you ever thought of wearing it up?”

“Usually I just put it in a ponytail,” Amy said.

“Sure, I can see that.” Jolene smiled again. “Look, will you excuse me for a minute. I need a quick cigarette to take the edge off and collect myself.” As she turned to leave the room, she switched off the baby monitor on the bed table because, as Earl had pointed out, baby monitors pick up and broadcast cell phone conversations.

Allen had been kneed
in the stomach once, coming down from a rebound in high school ball. He’d sprawled on the gym floor for five minutes, gasping, convinced he’d never catch his breath again.

Right now Allen was having trouble catching his emotional breath. Seeing Broker and the nurse, he briefly lost his bearings and contracted a sudden fatigue. His thoughts turned a tired yellow, the color of nicotine stains on the fingers of a smoker.

The color of Hank’s fingers.

He’d looked out the window of an examining room and watched Broker and the nurse as they left the hospital and got into a dilapidated red Jeep. It was about Hank, of course. Why else would they be together, here?

On automatic pilot, he had changed into his street clothes, gotten in his car, and driven home. He flirted with denial and resolved to shake it off. So he pulled on his wind suit and shoes and went outside and tried to run. He got no farther than the row of box elders that lined the common area of his town house. He stood in place and watched the trees lose their leaves— showers of rounded, yellow, fat triangles, whipping back and forth across his shoes. The trees were going dormant, parts of them dying.

Coming apart.

It was all coming apart.

Should he call Milt? And what? Gossip? Milt didn’t know anything.

He went back inside, and instead of showering and shaving he paced back and forth in his living room. He rubbed the stubble on his chin and encountered his reflection in a hall mirror. What had been a liberating gesture this morning now made him look seedy. He saw the movie box on the coffee table and remembered the clown’s sad, watchful eyes.

He had to know. He had to go to Hank’s and ask Jolene if Broker had brought a nurse around.

Back in his car, he drove through revolving doors of icy wind and leaves. It was dark when he arrived at Hank’s. Halfway down the driveway his low beams picked up a dirty glare of orange on red and he put on the brakes. He slowed and crept forward. It was the rusty Jeep he’d seen Broker and Amy get into.

His fatigue vanished as sudden excitement flushed his veins.

Fight or flight had always been a concept. Now it was a primitive tug-of-war clawing inside his chest.

Allen parked, got out, and saw that the front door was ajar. Crouching, eyes and ears pitched to high alert, he slipped into the house and made his way through the familiar rooms to the kitchen, where a disembodied voice stopped him cold.

“What?” said Broker’s voice. Like a challenge.

Allen froze, swiveling, looking for—and then his eyes fixed on the baby monitor sitting on the kitchen counter.

“Alphabet board,” said a second voice that Allen recognized as Amy’s.

“Okay,” Amy continued, “I point to a group until he blinks twice, then I tap each letter in the selected group until he blinks again. We write that letter down. Then we start over until we get a word. I’ll tell him to shut his eyes for three seconds to indicate a new word.”

“You mean he can talk to us?” Jolene’s voice.

“Yes.” Amy.

Then the sound of paper rustling. Amy again. “Do you understand?”

Allen put his hand out on the counter to steady himself.

This was not happening.

But it was, because Amy said, “Here we go.”

After a moment.

“K,” Amy said.

“I,” Amy said.

“L,” Amy said. “Four blinks, what do you think?” she asked.

“He means twice.” And that was Jolene.

“Could be,” Broker said.

“L,” Amy said.

“E,” Amy said.

Even through the cheap monitor Allen could hear them breathing.

“R,” Amy said.

Then came some words that Allen couldn’t hear because of static. His cheek was practically on the counter, his ear pressed to the white plastic speaker.

“Keep going,” Broker said. “He hasn’t shut his eyes.”

“Right,” Amy said.

Allen’s hair prickled like needles in his scalp. Hank was
communicating
.

“S,” Amy whispered.

Allen held his breath.

“New word.”

Amy’s voice rasped in the monitor and Allen jumped at the sound.

“N,” Amy said.

“O,” Amy said.

“T.”

. . .

“A,” Amy said.

“M”

“Y,” barely audible.

“What?” Jolene blurted. “WHAT?”

Static.

“Shhh, new word,” Broker said.

“F,” Amy said.

“A,” Amy said.

“U,” Amy said.

“L,” Amy said.

“T,” Amy said.

Each letter drove a stake into Allen’s chest.

More static. Garbled sounds.

“New word,” Broker said.

Hyperventilating now, Allen listened to the next word, fully expecting to hear his name. Instead he heard: “Nurse,” which didn’t make sense. Nor did the conversation that followed. But then it did make a kind of sense. They seemed to have reached an impasse. Hank was spent, asleep.

This was more information than Allen could process.

His chest churned from the tug-of-war, from the stomp of fear that shouted
run away
. But something else, too, a bright spur of anger.

Fight them and survive.

Think. They’re not that smart.

Run.

He did run, but just to move his car up to the road, where he tucked it out of sight on the shoulder. Heart pounding, he dashed into the pines, then came to a halt. He was making too much noise. He looked around, amazed at how ordinary things—trees and leaves and pine needles—had acquired hard, glowing edges; danger did that, etched this new world in sharp relief.

So be stealthy.

Quietly he stalked around the garage. It was suicidal, but he was compelled to face the thing that was coming to destroy him. All he had to do was get up on the deck, peek in the window.

The reflection of clouds in the patio door jiggled. The door opened. Allen ducked beneath the edge of the deck as he heard footsteps walk out onto the deck. A second later he smelled igniting tobacco and saw a nervous cloud of smoke jet above him. He snooped up and saw Jolene smoking a cigarette. Her face was etched, almost metal with resolve. She held a cell phone to her ear. She was pacing, agitated.

And then he heard the phone ring and the urgency in her. “Earl,” she asked firmly. “Can you drive?”

Allen carefully listened to
the entire phone conversation. By the time Jolene finished he knew his life had changed and that his entire education and training had prepared him for this particular crisis. To know how to read the signs and act decisively.

He mounted the stairs and watched Jolene leave the studio. Broker and Amy were in the house. He didn’t know where. But, for the moment, Hank was unattended. It was time to take another chance.

He found himself in a totally new place that was also very familiar. Sometimes surgeons were called upon to make fast decisions about who lived and who died.

Triage.

Hank fluttered awake as Jolene walked past his bed and disappeared into her bedroom. He smelled an after-scent of tobacco and that made his throat ache. Then he felt a gust of cold air on his face. His lurching eyes caught motion in the windows. Leaves. Branches heaving. He tried to focus his eyes. Wasn’t going to happen, he was too tired.

Then, wait, a person; slipping in through the door.

Broker?

No, not Broker.

Hank recognized the blue wind shell the man was wearing.

Christ, it was Allen.

Silent and grim, Allen moved swiftly to the bed, pulled a pillow from under Hank’s head. No parting thoughts, hardly even eye contact. All business, Allen lowered the pillow, blocked out light and plugged Hank’s mouth and nose with clean cotton.

Death smelled like Tide.

. . .

Then the pillow pressure released and Allen stuffed it back under Hank’s head, bounded to the patio door, and was gone. Hank panted, regaining his breath.

Footsteps.

Chased Allen away.

Amy and Broker.

Amy smiled, seeing Hank’s eyes flutter once and then close tight. “Okay, Hank, we’re going for a ride; we’ve got a real comfortable bed made up for you.”

Allen! Look out for Allen! He knows!

* * *

“He’s beat, look at his eyes,” Broker said.

“You just take a nap, Hank; you’re going to be fine,” Amy said.

As Hank sank deeper into a stupor of fatigue they eased him up, bent him in the proper places, and lowered him into the wheelchair he’d come home from the hospital in.

Allen was here! He tried to kill me!

Listen!

But he was too damn tired to even open his eyes.