Jane Was Here (31 page)

He duels with the fuse box, in vain. Then he realizes he hasn’t paid the electric bill in a while. He picks up the phone handset to call the utilities company.

No dial tone: the phone base is dead.

His cell phone battery is out of juice. He could charge it in his truck, but he’d have to remove all the tree branches covering the vehicle. He’s too tired; the sleep he has resisted for so long threatens to capsize him. He reaches for a bottle of whiskey.

Moonrise finds him passed out on the couch, shirt unbuttoned to his belt, sweaty chest rising and falling, the neck of the Dewar’s nestled in his open hand, when something wakes him.

A sound. Not the usual wall creaks, or Pete barging through the doggie door after a night of hunting. It’s the sound of something alien, inside the house.

By the time Hoyt breaks through layers of drunken sleep to consciousness, the house is quiet again. His scotch-addled brain decides the sound was in a dream, though he can’t recall dreaming anything.

His mouth is open and dry; he wets his lips with a nervous swipe of the tongue. His bladder is about to pop. Padding into the bathroom in the dark, he lifts the toilet lid. The rocketing stream of urine meets the water in the bowl, waking his senses.

Then he hears the noise again. Coming from somewhere in the house.

The scrape of a chair, the faint rattle of silverware.

Someone’s in the kitchen.

The trespasser is back.

Hoyt tucks his dick back in his jeans, then steals to the bedroom; training an ear toward the kitchen, he reaches into the closet for his .22.

He knows the intruder couldn’t have come through the front door; he tripwired it: a blast of pepper spray would blind anyone entering. No, the guy used the kitchen door, where another kind of trap awaits.

Hoyt grins. The cupcake on the table is a bit stale by now, but the bright pink frosting still beckons to a hungry soul, and the blue sprinkles on top—pellets from a box of D-Con mouse poison—should give the guy one bitch of a stomach ache.

Hoyt releases the safety on the rifle and begins his silent trek through the shadows of the living room. The sounds of his guest heedlessly moving around the kitchen reach his ear curiously amplified, hyper real.

His rage building, he nears the kitchen doorway. There’s a vague glow within: the light of the half-moon shining through the window.

Hoyt peers carefully around the doorframe to see the indistinct shadow of his guest, bent over the sink.

He expected someone taller.

He raises his rifle and points it at the intruder. Before he can growl, “Don’t move,” the figure suddenly wheels around and dives toward him.

Without thinking, Hoyt squeezes the trigger.

In the echo of the gun’s blast, he realizes the intruder wasn’t attacking him, but rather collapsing to the floor.

The form at his feet moans softly. Hoyt grabs a flashlight off the shelf beside the door and shines it on his prey.

A thin young woman is jackknifed on the linoleum tiles, vomiting. Blood spurts from the bullet entry in her upper arm, drenching the fabric of her shirt and pooling into the vomit. Raising a face whiter than the half-moon, she gazes at him with the same meek acceptance as the animals in his traps.

She’s not much more than a child.

Appalled, Hoyt flicks back the safety and hurls the gun aside, sinking to his knees beside her. “Oh shit—oh fuck— I’m sorry—”

Her eyes roll back. In an instant, she is unconscious, her head lolling on the floor.

She must be in shock. Grabbing a roll of paper towels, he rips off handfuls, wadding them into the bullet wound. After twisting a dishtowel around her upper arm as a tourniquet, he jumps to his feet.

“Stay there,” he says, unnecessarily. “I’ll be right back.”

As he dashes to the kitchen door, he nearly stumbles over the girl’s battery lantern lying on the floor. He kicks it aside. He sprints down the driveway in the moonlight, his legs pumping robotically, the grainy circle from his flashlight jiggling on the dust ahead.

He tears apart the tangle of branches heaped over his truck for camouflage, parks the pickup with headlights aimed at the kitchen door, and rushes in to gather the girl in his arms. Kicking the screen door open, he carries her to the truck, her body pressed ardently to his chest. Her blond hair drifts over his arm; her legs sway limply.

She is light and delicate, a puzzle of bird bones.

Just a kid. An innocent kid, a runaway, harmless, hungry.

Propping her in the passenger seat, he fastens the seat belt over her. She sags to one side. Blood seeps through the paper towels wrapped around her arm.

You fucking idiot, Hoyt, you fucking failure. Worthless son of a bitch.

He drives one-handed, steadying the girl as the truck bounces over the ruts on Upper Old Spruce Road. By the time he hits the hardtop on Rabbit Glen, he’s babbling, “Are you okay, honey? That’s a good girl. Everything’s going to be all right.”

Then, later: “Please, please, don’t die.”

The Quikabukket Hospital is twenty-five minutes away; if he defies speed limits, he might make it in half the time.

Speeding through red lights, he steals quick glances at her. In the passing light of street lamps, her profile looks carved from a seashell, like an old-fashioned cameo.

“We’re almost there. Hang in there.”
If I’ve killed her, dear God, never forgive me.

He spots the blue sign with the big ‘H’ for Hospital and a left arrow. He can’t chance running the red light, with the Quikabukket police station on the corner. He rolls to a stop.

Turning to the girl, he lays his hand gingerly on her head and smoothes her hair back from her temple with his thumb. Remorse floods his heart, suffusing his tissues, his bones.

Her lips part. A bubble forms. She vomits on her lap, and Hoyt notices the white foam at the corner of her mouth.

Oh God. She ate the fucking cupcake.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-F
OUR

“I
t was an accident. Somehow the gun went off.” He repeats this to the emergency room receptionist, then the aide, then the intern on duty. They mostly ignore him. Locked in their professional ballet, they rush the unconscious girl into a curtained cubicle, barking orders, paging personnel who dash in, wheeling machines. They undo the purple anorak tied around her waist and cut her bloody shirt away. Hoyt watches, transfixed, as her fragile white torso comes into view.

“Sir!” An officious nurse notices Hoyt. “You can’t stay here unless you’re a family member.”

“I’m her uncle,” Hoyt blurts. “She also needs her stomach pumped. I think she ate some mouse poison.”

The intern glances up, one eyebrow lifting.

“Just a few pellets of D-Con,” Hoyt adds. “She didn’t mean to. She thought they were—it was an accident.”

The intern and the nurse checking the girl’s blood pressure exchange a look. “Another accident?”

When the stomach pump arrives, the nurse steers Hoyt firmly from the cubicle. “Go outside to reception.” Her tone forbids protest. “You’ve got to check in.”

Hoyt retreats.

A weary-looking receptionist poises black-enameled fingernails over the computer keyboard. “Patient’s name?”

Hoyt squirms in the molded plastic chair beside her desk, casting about for a name to give.
Jane Doe
.

The woman looks up from the screen, annoyed. “Patient’s name, please.”

“Jane,” he stammers.

“Last name?”

“Jane Eddy. E-D-D-Y. She’s—my niece.”

“Date of birth?”

“I don’t know. I don’t have that on me.”

“Do you know her social?”

“Not offhand.”

“Does she have insurance?”

“I don’t know. Her parents are away. In Africa. Can’t be reached.”

“Who is the responsible party?”

His tormented brain hears:
who is the guilty party?
“I am,” he confesses. “Don’t worry about insurance, I’ll pay everything in cash.”

A uniformed police officer approaches alongside a grim-faced nurse, who lifts her hand to point at Hoyt.

“WHAT IS THE NATURE
of your relationship to the victim?”

Sitting in a private corner of the emergency waiting room with the police lieutenant, Hoyt tries not to get rattled. “I don’t know what you mean by ‘relationship.’ She’s my brother’s kid. I already said that.” It’s too late to back away from the lies he has told.

“Have you contacted them?”

“They can’t be reached. They’re in Africa, on safari.”

Hoyt knows how he appears to the cop: unkempt hair, twitchy eyes, filthy work shirt and jeans, unlaced boots, dirt under his nails, pickled breath.

“What year was she born?” The officer’s tone is neutral, his expression neither friendly nor accusing. He jots notes on his pad.

“I’m not sure.” The nurse must have called the Quikabukket police station, interpreting the “accidental” shooting and poisoning as possible signs of child abuse. The lieutenant must be angling to find out if the girl is a minor. “She’s around 22 is my guess. She just graduated from university— St. Andrews in Scotland. She was going to bum around Europe this summer, but I guess she decided to come home early without telling anyone. She’s impulsive that way.”

His imagination gallops ahead of his mouth as he embellishes the life of young Miss Jane Doe Eddy.

Born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, Jane was a troubled adolescent. Abused drugs and alcohol; a couple of times she tried to kill herself, once using rat poison. His brother sent her to live with Hoyt, who succeeded in straightening her out. (This is the least credible segment of his story; stinking of liquor, Hoyt hardly looks the part of a savior.)

Uncle and niece became very close through the worst of times, and now he is so proud of her: a college graduate, clean and sober, sweetest girl you ever want to meet.

“I didn’t even know Jane was back in the country. I guess she decided to surprise me. Or maybe she tried to reach me but my phone was busy. The dog knocks it off the hook sometimes.”

She must have hitched a ride from Boston, gotten in late, seen all the lights off, and, not wanting to wake her beloved Uncle Hoyt, she slipped in the unlocked kitchen door to look for something to eat. Hoyt heard noises, couldn’t turn on the lights with the electricity out. He’s been robbed once before, so he always keeps a loaded gun handy. He saw a movement in the kitchen, fired into the darkness…

“I would never hurt Jane.” Hoyt remembers the slight weight of the girl in his arms, the half-moon’s shimmer on her face. “I mean, I love her.”

He glances at the lieutenant’s pad. The guy has the lid flipped up so Hoyt can’t read his notes.

“The admitting nurse told me there was no ID on her person. I assume her identification is back at your house?”

“I have no idea. I don’t know what she brought with her. There was no time to look, I had to get her to the hospital as fast as I could.”

“Mr. Eddy, do you have a license for your gun?”

“Yes, officer. It’s at home.”

“Do you own more than one gun?”

“Yes, sir. All licensed.”

“I can check that. Would you object to my accompanying you to your home? I’d like to see your niece’s ID.”

Hoyt laughs harshly, his deference evaporating. “You can do anything you want. If you get a warrant.”

“I’m surprised you don’t want to cooperate.”

“You’re intruding on my grief.”

“I apologize.” The lieutenant rises, closing his pad. “I will have to ask you to come with me into the parking lot to take a breathalyzer test.”

“Happy to oblige.” Hoyt stands. “I consumed half a quart of scotch nine hours ago, I was fully sober by the time the accident occurred six hours later, and I doubt I would blow over .02 now.”

“Mister Hoyt Eddy,” comes a voice over the loudspeaker, “please report to emergency reception immediately.”

Excusing himself, Hoyt leaves the frustrated cop and heads to reception, where an aide waits to escort him into the ICU.

The trauma unit doctor stands in the corridor outside Jane’s room.

“What’s happening?” Hoyt is shivering with dread. “Is she going to make it?”

“The bullet went through the lateral deltoid, just missing the bone. She’s fortunate no nerves or artery was involved, though she’s lost a lot of blood. We’re hydrating her to keep her pressure up, and she’s on an antibiotic feed in case of infection.”