Buried Dreams (37 page)

Still shouting.

But she was looking over me. She was looking across the field.

No eyeglasses. Not much vision.

She kept running right at me, and when she got close enough, I came up, the sword held tight and firm in both hands, and caught her in the belly.

There was no yell. No scream. Just a muffled groan as her headlong run continued, the sword tom from my grasp, and she faltered, turned, weaved back and forth, and then fell to the ground, hands clasped to her front. And a quick thought came to me: this was the second time I had struck this woman with a cutting instrument, and I certainly wished I had done a more thorough job the first time. I was also pretty sure the sword was out of her by then, but I had a more important thing to think about. I started crawling over to the grass, and then she said something to me, a fierce whisper I couldn't make out. There. Just barely visible in the glare from the streetlight.

The pistol, nestled in the grass.

And about a foot away from her hand. "You," she said. "Damn you."

Her hand flailed about, just barely missing the pistol, and I slid forward over the grass, grimacing at the pain in my leg. There. Right there. In the cool and damp grass, the pistol was in my hands, and as I started picking it up, a voice called out, "You there, drop it!"

A light came on, and then another, and I dropped the pistol and sat up. Some harsh breathing behind me from Professor Hendricks. Two men approached, the lights from a parked vehicle illuminating them both, and they got closer and a familiar voice said, "Mr. Cole?"

I held up a hand against the bright lights. "Frank Duffy? Is that you?"

"Urn, no, it's Tom, but yeah, it's me and my cousin."

They came forward, almost at a crouch, holding their own pistols out in a two-handed combat stance, and Tom said, "You okay?"

"Considering, yeah, I'm fine."

"That woman dead?"

"I don't know. Guys, what in the hell are you doing here?"

Tom said, "Frank, go check on the broad." He knelt down and said, "We talked to Felix this morning. He was trying to get himself out of jail, up in Maine, he said we should take a more active role in your protection. Said we should follow you, make sure you didn't get in any trouble."

"Any trouble... Shit, Tom, no offense, but that crazy woman over there shot me in the leg a while ago, and was trying to do the same to my head. Where in the hell have you been?"

Tom said sheepishly, "Sorry. We got lost following you out of Exonia, after you went to her house. It was Frank's fault, he was driving. And man, we didn't hear anything coming from the house. How were we supposed to know what happened?"

Frank called out, "She's still breathing, but man, she's bleeding something awful. Did you get her with that sword, Mr. Cole?"

"Yeah, I did."

"Jesus," Frank said. "And besides, it was your fault we got lost, you were distracting me."

I rubbed at my face with both hands. "Got lost... Okay, you guys should get lost again. And quick. Get the hell out of here and call the cops. Use a phone booth or something, say you heard gunshots at the Tyler town museum. Okay?"

Frank came back to join his cousin. "Sure, Mr. Cole, sorry we screwed up. Look, can I ask you a question?"

"A quick one."

Frank turned to his cousin and then looked at me. "You're not going to tell Felix what we did, are you?"

"Guys, get moving. All right? Get the hell out of here, and make that call."

They did just that, returning to their van, and then pulling away.

It was quiet again. I heard Hendricks moaning and breathing behind me, and I thought about what she had said earlier, about sneering about my time as a Boy Scout. I guess a true and honorable Boy Scout would go over there and provide first aid, but I hadn't been a Boy Scout in quite a long, long time. So I sat there and listened to her sounds, thought about Jon and what had happened, and I lowered my head and tears came to my eyes, and they wouldn't stop, until I heard the far-off and quite welcome wail of the sirens.

About a half hour later, I was back in Exonia again, at their fine hospital, on a padded examining table in their emergency room. The brisk and efficient firefighter-EMTs from the Tyler Fire Department had transported me here a while ago, and it was a great comfort to be safe and secure in the rear of the ambulance as we made our way west. In this part of the emergency room, curtains had been drawn around, to offer some privacy, and an ER doctor and nurse worked on my leg, murmuring to each other. A painkiller of sorts had been injected into my leg and it felt like a wooden log from the knee down, and I could sense things being cleaned, moved about, and stitched.

Joining the medical team working on my leg but ignoring what they were doing was Diane Woods, who had a metal clipboard in her hands, taking notes, keeping her face impassive.

I said, "Look. I had no idea the crazy professor was involved in Jon Ericson's murder. All right? I thought it was Brian Mulligan, the previous head of the museum. I just went to the professor's place to ask for her help in verifying the Viking artifacts that Jon discovered. That's all. And if the artifacts were the real deal, then I was going to go to you and give it all up. Honest."

"Unh-hunh," Diane said, in a tone she usually reserves for drunken suspects who claim that the voices in their heads made them rob the convenience store. "Really?"

"Really."

"All right, then tell me again what happened."

And I did that, while the work went on my leg, as there was the sound of objects being moved around on a tray, the gentle snip of thread being cut. There were now tugging sensations at the bottom of my leg, and I still had no interest in seeing what was going on.

Diane said, "Okay. So you saw her limping. And that caught your attention because of another little adventure you didn't tell me about, when you and Felix broke into that antique store. I think there's a detective in Porter who might want to talk to you when I'm finished."

"He can take a number then. Yeah, that's what happened. I saw the professor limping and looked at her book, and decided I wanted to get the hell out of there. She had other plans, and that's when she took out her Ruger .22."

Diane stopped writing and looked at me, her face no longer impassive, her eyes filling up with tears. "Enough questions for now. How are you doing?"

"I'm doing okay. I'm alive."

She reached over and brushed some hair off my forehead.

"You're alive, but you're also in shock. The next few weeks will be rugged ones, Lewis. My interview with you is going to be followed by an interview with a New Hampshire State Police detective, a detective from the Maine State Police, and somebody from the attorney general's office. And speaking of attorneys, you might want to think about getting that Massachusetts attorney lined up. Professor Hendricks isn't very happy with you."

"A sentiment I share with her," I said. "Where is she?"

"On the other side of the ER, handcuffed, and I think she's going up to surgery in a few minutes. She's claiming a lot of wild stuff, that you had kidnapped her, brought her to the museum against her will, that she shot you in self-defense, and that you viciously stabbed her without any reason whatsoever."

"You've got to be kidding me."

"Nope." She slapped shut the metal cover to the clipboard and then bent down to kiss my forehead. "Don't worry, friend, it won't stick. She shot you with a twenty-two and we recovered a nine-millimeter pistol from the lawn outside the town museum. Two separate firearms, both belonging to her. And I have a very good feeling that when we run ballistics on the nine-millimeter, we're going to find out it matches the one used on your buddy."

"Thanks."

She shook her head. “Want me to hang out for a while?"

"If you'd like."

"I would like that," she said, now holding my hand. "Oh, one more thing."

"What's that?"

She suddenly squeezed my hand so hard it hurt and leaned into me, so I guess the doctor and the nurse on the other end of the bed couldn't hear so well.

"Don't you ever pull a series of stunts like that ever again," Diane whispered. "You understand? Besides whatever nonsense came my way during this little fiasco, I don't like seeing you get hurt. Okay? So leave it to the professionals. Do I make myself clear?"

I tried to squeeze back with my hand, but Diane was too strong.

So instead I said, "Yes, perfectly clear, detective."

Then she smiled. "Wrong."

"What do you mean... oh." I smiled up at my dear friend. "I get it. Yes, perfectly clear, detective sergeant."

She let my hand loose. "There. That's better."

After a while of poking and prodding, the ER doctor --- who had an Italian name of about twenty syllables, which I instantly forgot ---- said, "Your leg will be fine, Mr. Cole. It'll be weak for a while and we'll give you some exercise suggestions before you're discharged. We're going to keep you overnight, just to make sure the wound drains properly. You were very lucky. The bullet went through-and-through, and the damage to the muscle and the tissue was minimal."

Then Diane gave me another kiss on the forehead and left. I was then wheeled out of the ER, and I was thankful that I didn't have to go past the curtained area where Professor Hendricks was being worked on, and was loudly proclaiming her innocence to all concerned.

Later, in my room, I got two visitors. The first was Paula Quinn, who came in, bearing flowers and a balloon, and big kiss to my lips. Tears were in her eyes as well, and she pulled up a chair and said, "You... damn it, Lewis, what in hell were you doing?"

I smiled at her, my leg stretched out before me, it still feeling like a wooden log. "You really want to know?"

"Yes, I do," she said. "And don't worry, my notebook is in my purse. When and if Rollie wants to know what happened from your point of view, I'll tell him you're in a coma or something."

"Every day?"

Paula said, "Every day, until Rollie forgets all about it. Look, tell me, will you?"

So I told her, from start to finish, keeping it simple and to the point, not going into much detail. She wiggled her nose at me a couple of times and said, "A college professor... holy Christ, Lewis, a college professor."

"Sure," I said. "And if you poke around a few more rooms in this joint, you might just find her. Get the story from her point of view."

Paula folded her arms and put her feet up on the edge of the bed. "Why?"

"Why?" I scratched at the back of my hand, where an IV tube was running in. "You know... right now, I'm not sure. I guess I started out trying to find out why Jon was killed, and who did it. And toward the end... well, it just spun out of control. Strange, right?"

She shook her head. "No, not knowing you. You have some wonderful traits, Lewis, loyalty being one of them. I'm just surprised it took this long for you to get shot."

"Thanks," I said. "I think."

She reached over and rubbed me on my shoulder. "How long will you be here?"

"Just the night."

She said, "That's good. You belong home."

"That I do."

So we talked for a while, about politics in Tyler, about how the story she wrote about the destruction of the Donald Burnett house had ticked off most of the selectmen, and how she didn't care one way or the other. We laughed a few times and then she got up and kissed me on the cheek.

"Time for me to head out," she said.

"Sure you don't want to stay for whatever they serve for dinner here?"

Paula shook her head, a bit too quick. "No, I'm sorry, I'm going to --- “

"Have dinner with the town counsel. Correct?"

"That's right."

"I guess the two of you are doing okay," I said. "Even with your dream house being turned into scrap lumber."

"It happened," she said. "And... you know, after it happened, I remembered something your friend Jon said, months ago."

"Jon? About what?"

She stood up, put her purse over her shoulder. "He was giving a talk at the Rotary Club. Nothing about Vikings this time, just a straight talk about the early history of Tyler. And at the end, I don't know, he seemed to be in an odd mood, he said something about not letting history have a death grip on your throat. Or your soul. He said history should be honored and should be respected, but when you let the past rule your life, then you end up with places like the Balkans, or Northern Ireland, or the Middle East. Where ancient feuds and deeds still rule the ground. I thought about that some, the day the house came down. I had to make a choice, whether to let that old house ruin what might be between me and Mark."

She fiddled a bit with the flowers on the windowsill. "There're possibilities there, Lewis. Possibilities I want to explore. And we're working through things and I don't want to let the past control me. Okay?"

"That's fine. You go on, now. Before he wonders where you are." She smiled and left the room, gave me a wave, which I returned, IV-attached hand and all.