House of Mercy (35 page)

His mad scrambling of the eggs with a fork demanded an answer. Frustration rose in Beth at the disappointment of not finding Garner here after coming so far. She righted the chair that had tipped over and sat down on it. She set her drink on the table.

“Why’d you bring me to his house if he’s not here?” Beth said to Mercy. “You have no sense of urgency. It’s starting to bother me.”

The wolf stretched out on his side into the stove light cast across the floor. He closed his eyes, leaning into Herriot’s side. The cattle dog panted.

“He’s going to take a nap,” Beth said to Trey.

“I’d be tired too, if I’d been up all night showing you around town.” He poured out the eggs into a hot pat of butter and the pan sizzled. Beth felt his eyes on her but didn’t look. “Is that what you meant?” Trey asked. “That this wild animal showed you the way?”

Beth sighed. “You must think I’m crazier than Dr. Ransom.”

“You don’t know me well enough yet to know what I think.”

For the next few minutes Trey cooked his eggs and Beth watched the dogs drift off to sleep, wondering if there was anything she could do to find Garner before daylight. Trey scraped his cooked breakfast onto a plate and carried it to the table, sat, then said, “Thanks, God,” before scooping a bite into his mouth. At these words, Mercy lifted his head and met Trey’s eyes, then blinked and returned to his rest.

After Trey swallowed, he said, “St. Francis of Assisi is the patron saint of animals. You heard of him?”

Beth nodded.

“There’s this book called the
Fioretti
—‘little flowers’—it’s a collection of stories about his life and miracles. One of the tales is about a wolf that was killing the poor people of this little Italian village.” He pointed his fork at Mercy as if he were the very beast. “He was more hungry than mean, but he slaughtered so many that the people were scared all the time. Too frightened to go about their daily business. They wouldn’t leave their village without grabbing a knife or a bow or some weapon, but that didn’t stop this guy from eating them up.

“So St. Francis felt sorry for these people and went out to meet the wolf, you know, have a little word with the killer. He didn’t take a weapon with him, and everyone was so sure he was walking straight to his death that they followed him, so they could watch it happen. I guess they thought so long as the wolf was eating him, they’d be safe.”

Mercy’s ear twitched.

“Well, the wolf saw Francis and rushed him with his jaws wide open. And Francis made the sign of the cross and said, ‘Brother wolf, I command you in the name of Christ not to harm me or any other person!’ And the wolf turned into a lamb and lay down at Francis’ feet.”

“He did not.”

“He did!”

“The wolf did not turn into a lamb.”

“I meant his
demeanor
. Don’t wreck the story.”

“He just stopped the attack and rolled over so St. Francis could rub his belly.”

“I don’t know if it went that far, but there’s a bronze monument in the village where it happened that shows the man and wolf hugging. That’s probably not historically accurate, I’d say, but you’re about to miss my point.”

“All right.”

“St. Francis read the animal the riot act for all the killing he’d done, even though he was just hungry, after all. The friar said that wolf deserved to be strung up in the village square for harming God’s creation. But then Francis said that he didn’t want the wolf to die. He’d come to broker a peace deal between the wolf and the villagers. The wolf would stop killing them, and the villagers would start feeding him.”

“Why would they agree to that?”

“Because Francis said their sins were responsible for their suffering, but they had an opportunity to set things straight. He said, ‘The flames of hell are not like the rage of the wolf that can only kill the body.’ He said if they repented God would save them from both the wolf
and
eternal fire.”

“And did they?”

“Yes. They promised to change their ways and to feed the wolf, and the wolf promised—”

“How? How did he promise?”

“Well, the
Fioretti
says that his tame-as-a-lamb body language was clear, but I suppose the real proof was in the fact that he never killed anyone again. Can’t argue with that. He lived in the village for the rest of his life, going and coming into houses as he pleased, and they say not even the dogs barked at him.”

Trey raised his eyebrows and nodded with such solemnity at Herriot lying next to Mercy that Beth laughed at him.

“You think I’m making this up!” Trey acted offended.

“No, I think you’ve taken it all very seriously. And trust me, I have plenty of reasons to believe that story’s true. But I still don’t know what your point is. I’m supposed to repent of something?”

“Is that what you got out of that? I thought I told a different story.”

“What? You told a story about repentance.”

Trey shook his head and swallowed another bite of egg. “I told a story about mercy. Life instead of death for all.”

Goose bumps rippled down Beth’s arms. She almost told him about the Blazing B, about her father, about Levi, the antelope, the saddle, Jacob. Instead she said, “My full name is Bethesda.”

Trey chuckled. “No kidding?”

“You know what that means?”

“It means you and this guy were made for each other. Mercy and the house of mercy—the spirit and the body.”

“Maybe I just gave him an obvious name.”

“Did you?”

Beth slowly shook her head.

“You think this wolf is”—she wasn’t sure how to say it—“a guide from God?”

“Like the Holy Spirit? I have no idea. But God has been known to use lions or donkeys or whatever to accomplish his goals. Why not a wolf ? Hey, did you know that the Bible doesn’t actually say that the lion and lamb will get along together, as the saying goes, but that
wolves
and lambs will?”

“Should I start calling you St. Francis?”

“As much as I love animals, that would be heresy. And it doesn’t seem like you actually need my help with anything.”

“Please help me find Garner.”

“If that wolf led you here, maybe he’ll lead you to the man himself at the right time.”

“But right now, Mercy’s sleeping.”

“Then I guess you’ll have to wait.”

“I’m not very good at waiting,” Beth said.

“Interesting.”

“Wait with me?” Beth asked.

“And your wolf friend?”

“Of course.”

“Happily.”

31

I
t would be best to kill Beth before the benzodiazepine wore off. It would be painless that way. Humane. It was good and right to be humane. Garner, if he were not so sick in this moment, would agree with her.

Cat stood in her clinic next to Garner’s bed. He was still unconscious and delirious, but stable.

It had been a long time since Cat had been afraid that someone might die. In fact, she couldn’t remember ever being anxious about the possibility. But tonight, death was boiling water and this entire building was an infusion, steeping in it: Garner here, Beth upstairs, Nova across the hall.

The doctor rested her hand on the safety rail that prevented Garner from falling out of his hospital bed. It felt grimy under her palm. The floor stank of age and mountain grit, though she knew it was clean. In that moment Cat Ransom wondered why she had ever come to Burnt Rock. What precise lineup of mistakes and poor judgments could have started with love for a child like Amelia, for a man like Amelia’s father—

Cat held her breath. She couldn’t remember the man’s name. Where had it gone from her memory? How was such a thing possible? She scrambled for it—Neil, Nelson, Nieman,
Newell
. There it was, Newell. Newell Reinhart.

What an awful name. That might explain why she had forgotten it. Or perhaps she had never loved the girl’s father at all. Yes, this was true: she hated that man Newell, because he had taken Amelia away from her, because
he
was the one who’d reported her to the police—

There would be no police this time, she hoped. She hadn’t thought this through. What would she use to usher death into her home?

The death camas that she had collected was still drying in her office. She could use that, though it would be difficult to administer. It might provide Cat with a necessary alibi if Beth’s death was discovered and investigated.
She came to me already sick. Maybe she ate them on the trail, thinking they were onions
.

Cat’s breath was coming more quickly now. She felt her blood pressure rising, and for a second, as she let go of Garner’s bed rail and turned toward the dim hall, she lost sight of where she needed to go. Outside? Upstairs? The entire world was dim and she was alone in it.

She soon found herself standing in front of the medicine cabinet in her office, unable to recall exactly how she had arrived there. Garner, in the adjacent room, was mumbling nonsense. Her hand shook as she passed it over the vials and blister packs and various bottles that she’d acquired from mail-order pharmacies. She tried to focus on the vials, liquids, easily injectable. But the labels were a floating blur. All she needed was a simple overdose—1000ccs of something that should have only been 100, or 100ccs when 10 would do—and Garner would never ever know that his estranged granddaughter had been demoted from ten feet above him to six feet below.

Some level of Cat’s consciousness was working, and she didn’t care how. Her muscles obeyed her intellect, and her fingers snatched up a handful of vials that she had read yet couldn’t read. Digitalis, a heart medication powerful enough to turn the heart inside out and squeeze all the air out of the lungs. She fumbled in a drawer for a syringe and came out with one that might or might not be the right size. She didn’t check, didn’t have time, didn’t have enough confidence that she might actually get out of this office and reach the top of her stairs and inject humane death into Beth Borzoi’s body.

But she did get out, did climb the stairs, did fit her key into the knob and turn it without dropping the vials, though her entire body wobbled as if afflicted by low blood sugar.

Somehow her action had locked the doorknob. She repeated with the key and unlocked the hardware this time. Cat stubbed her toe on the threshold and nearly fell into the very dark space that was her home. The weak hall light cast her shadow into the open doorway but reached no farther. She was startled to hear quick and heavy breathing. The benzodiazepine should have suppressed Beth’s lungs considerably.

Then she realized that the hyperventilation was her own.

And then she thought that the benzodiazepine and the digitalis might work against each other, and it bothered her that she couldn’t remember the potential side effects of this drug interaction. She should know such things. They should come to her when summoned like the name of every person she had ever loved. Had she brought enough vials with her for the digitalis to overpower the sedative?

Cat flicked the light switch on the wall next to her. She turned the vials in her palms. There were only three, not four.

Two epinephrine. One insulin. No digitalis.

The doctor stared at these for a long time before her peripheral vision made note of the empty sofa. A gray chenille blanket poured like a waterfall off the cushions and onto the floor.

Cat spun, looking for Beth, expecting to see her emerging from the bathroom with a tissue or from the kitchen with a glass of water. How could she have awakened so soon? And where could she have gone without the horse? Anywhere in town!

Or merely down the stairs and across the building to Nova.

Of course, Beth would have gone looking for her, not running away from her.

The foolishness of her plans to erase Beth from Burnt Rock was clear now. Beth might have told a dozen people of her plans to seek out her grandfather. All of them might have come looking for her, at the very least her mother. And Nova, who probably wouldn’t die of her misguided grief, would tell anyone who asked that she had seen the girl, and that Cat had seen her too.

There had to be another way.

With killing now out of the question, Cat sank into a pool of relief and found the calm center of it. Her lungs deepened into a healthy rhythm, and the trembling in her core slipped away. She crossed the room and laid the medications and the syringe—definitely the wrong size, she could see that now—on the dining room table. She picked up the blanket from the floor and folded it across the arm of the sofa. Then she left the apartment and pulled the door behind her and went to Nova’s home.

Her restored sense of well-being faltered when she saw that Nova’s door was closed.

And locked.

Cat rapped gently. “Beth? Are you in there? I was downstairs in my office doing paperwork—I should have left a note.”

When no answer came after several seconds, Cat put more force into her knock. “Beth?”

Perhaps she’d fallen asleep again here, the effects of the drug not being completely worn off. Cat pounded.

“Beth! Wake up!”

“
You
wake up!” Nova’s voice was clear and bold, magnified rather than muffled by the wood between her and the doctor, as if she were shouting into a megaphone. “She knows about Garner, you fraud.”