Dead Ringer: Chapter Twenty-two
Ermergerd! It has been a minute. Thanks for hanging in there with me. Here we go with the next chapter!
From the end of Chapter Twenty-One: (Go here to read the full chapter.)
I gave Will Keating the address for McGill’s. “Meet me there in an hour,” I said.
Catching glimpses of my body in the mirror as I changed into jeans and a tank top, I paused to look myself in the eye. “Stop it,” I said.
“Mind your own beeswax,” the reflection snapped back.
The sun was still high when I backed out of my driveway, although shadows were beginning to lengthen. I’d left some outside lights on. I planned to be home well after dark.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
At the dim doorway of McGill’s a slender, brown-haired boy, who looked about seventeen, stood checking IDs. He barely glanced at the driver’s license I fished out of my wallet and waved me in with a bored look.
Fleetwood Mac’s “Rhiannon” blared from the jukebox. Some bars, like McGill’s, are places of perpetual twilight, with dark paneling and few windows, places that promise to keep your secrets. Will was already at a small round wooden table over against the far wall, perched sideways in a chair with a wooden cane across his lap, different from the metal one I’d seen earlier. He looked different out of his hospital scrubs, in khakis and a faded blue t-shirt. On the wall above him was a faded black and white photograph of some baseball team from some other time.
He slid an open bottle of Rolling Rock toward me. “The guy said this is what you’d want,” he said, nodding toward Big Eddie who offered a distracted half-wave from behind the bar.
“Thanks,” I said, noting the absence of glass or bottle in front of him. “You’re not having anything?”
“I’m one of those people, I drink, I end up like this,” he said and lifted his cane with both hands.
“Ah,” I said.
“Yeah. One of the many nights I crawled inside a bottle of bourbon, tossed in some Ludes, and then got on my Harley, believing I was Mr. Invincible. Turns out, physics doesn’t give a shit what you believe. Turns out, a body meeting a semi and some asphalt is really quite breakable.”
“Good Lord, Will,” I said. “I’m really sorry.”
“Why the fuck are you sorry? You didn’t do anything.” He seemed suddenly irritated, drummed the table with his fingers and stared past me toward the open door.
“We could’ve met somewhere else,” I said, feeling defensive. “You could’ve said.”
“It’s fine,” he said.
“It doesn’t seem fine.” I narrowed my eyes and took a long drink of beer, letting the ice-cold liquid slide down my throat while I waited him out.
“Seriously. I’d rather talk about anything else in the universe right now than have an impromptu pity party with you over my self-inflicted wounds. Okay?” For a brief moment, his face twisted into a grimacing mix of fury and grief. Then he recovered himself, giving a wry half-smile, and it was like watching a mask reappear.
I leaned back in my chair and paid some more attention to my beer. “Sure,” I said. “Okay.”
After a moment, he spoke. “I’m in recovery. It’s not easy.”
“I get that.” I was beginning to understand what it was in him that seemed magnetic to me, that way those of us from dysfunctional families are drawn like moths to flame to those that throw out sparks that remind us somehow of people we’ve known and loved. The attraction of what is kept hidden, the juicy “fix” the inevitable drama gives us, and always the certainty that we can help save them. I felt a shift, as if a door quietly closed down some far hallway.
“So what did you want to know about Rachel Roper?” Will asked.
“Yeah, thanks for being willing to meet and talk with me about it,” I said.
He shrugged. “That’s what Weston’s paying us for, right?”
I nodded. “So is there something more you can tell me about her death? You said fentanyl overdose most likely administered through her IV. Did the autopsy reveal anything else?”
Will sat back and let out a long exhale. “No. But you should talk to the CNA who found her.”
“Why? What will she tell me?”
“You should talk to her,” he said and pressed his lips together.
I said nothing, letting the silence build between us, hoping I wasn’t imagining that he wanted to say more. His eyes met mine, flicked away, came back.
“Christ. Wouldja stop looking at me like that?” he snapped.
“I seem to recall Weston directed you to share everything with me.”
“You really need to talk to her. Cathy something.”
I drained my beer, all the while drilling holes in Will with my eyes.
“When she found Rachel dead, she noticed someone had combed her hair.”
An electric jolt shot through me, and I sat forward. “What?”
Big Eddie appeared and grabbed my empty bottle, replacing it with a full one. “Thought you might want another,” he grumbled. He gave the barest nod toward Will and looked at me with a Who the hell is this guy? question in his eyes. “Thanks, Eddie,” I said, and answered him with an I’ll tell you later glance. He shuffled off in the direction of the bar.
“See, I’m not explaining it right,” Will said, his voice brittle. He scooted his chair close, leaning his cane against the table. The large handle was a carved lizard head with turquoise stones eyes that stared at me.
“Somebody combed her hair, and it wasn’t any of the nursing staff,” he said. “And apparently her hands were folded onto her chest.”
“Oh, my God,” I said.
He nodded.
“How did you find out?”
“Smoke break with one of the guys who transported the body,” he said. “Apparently, there was already buzz about who to pin Rachel’s death on. There was an orderly they let go recently. They’re looking at him, like maybe he did it for revenge.”
“Right,” I said and recounted to him Rachel’s middle of the night phone call to me that had been interrupted by a man shouting at her. I told him, too, about Weston saying the next day it was an orderly who’d overreacted when he’d noticed that Rachel had pulled out her IV. Telling it again, his explanation sounded as hollow and lame as when Weston had related it in person.
Will continued. “The thing WindDancer is terrified of is one of those ‘Death Angel’ killers, you know the ones who say they’re just putting people out of their suffering.”
“Good Lord,” I said. “Any deaths that happened there will have to be investigated now, right?”
Will nodded. “One-hundred percent. So the muckety-mucks are moving fast to blame someone and make it all go away. I guess the guy has already been hauled in for questioning.”
“What’s his name?”
“No idea. That’s your job anyway, right? Stop trying to get me to do your dirty work.”
“Well, can you tell me the name of your smoke break buddy?”
“Nope.”
“A description?”
He shrugged. “Twenties. Average height, average weight, brown hair.”
“So, basically, average.”
He shrugged again.
“Okay, well thanks for the info.” I gulped down half of my second Rolling Rock and pulled some bills from my wallet, leaving enough money on the table to cover a cheap beer and generous tip.
“Do you wanna get out of here?” I asked. “There’s a short trail to a lake not too far. We can go sit and talk.”
I could tell I’d startled him with my suggestion. “Uh, okay. Sure. Why not.”
The way Big Eddie watched us go made me wonder what kind of interaction had taken place before I arrived. I was pretty sure I’d have some explaining to do the next time I darkened the doorstep of McGill’s. When you work for Eddie, you’re family, which means his big red nose often shows up in your business with no apology. Even though my time as his barmaid was brief, he let me know I was in. It was a nice feeling, to tell you the truth.
I slowed my pace for Will, and we crossed the street and walked down the block to a small gate that led to a smooth dirt path bordered on either side by ferns and ground cover of all manner, wild and cultivated. Will pulled a pack of Kools from his pocket and tapped a cigarette out, rolling it between his fingers before he lit it with a yellow plastic lighter. His first exhale hit me, and it smelled like warm toast in the morning.
“Give me one,” I said. He raised his eyebrows but handed me the pack along with his lighter. I lit up and took a deep drag on my first cigarette in twenty years, failing to suppress a cough that drew a loud guffaw from him.
“You should probably put that out now,” he said, laughing.
“You’re probably right.” I took another long drag, coughed again, and stubbed the thing out in the dirt, rolling the hot coal out and stepping on it. I put the remains of the cigarette in a back pocket. I felt the slightest bit dizzy and was keenly aware of the beer sloshing around in my stomach.
We walked the rest of the way in silence, pointing out to each other the occasional cluster of the ever-persistent poison ivy trying to see whose day it could ruin. Tall, dark loblolly pines rose up, the trunks overrun with strands of emerald-green Carolina creeper. Somewhere a wood thrush called. We made our way to the lake without speaking, the thumping sound of Will’s cane like an uneven pulse on the ground.
The water was glassy and still, reflecting the waning daylight in undulating blue lines, except for a mirrored white jet trail that floated on the surface like wavy string.
“Over here,” I said, and gestured to the right where a wide wooden bench overlooked the lake.
We sat for a while without speaking, listening to the muffled sounds of cars and the quiet lapping of water against the grassy edge.
Finally, I said, “So tell me more about Will Keating.”
He removed his skullcap and ran his fingers through looping gray curls, and I noted a significant bald spot on top of his head before he snugged the cap back on. He set his hands in his lap in a way that looked nonchalant, but I could see him holding onto his fingers to keep them from shaking.
“Grew up in Trenton, New Jersey. Grew up fast. Interesting home life,” he said.
“How did you get into medicine? And why pathology? How’d you get to North Carolina?”
“Well, I got on I-95, and then after a while…” he said, but I socked him in the arm.
“Stop it,” I said. “Tell me.”
“You first,” he said.
“Nope. You first.”
He sighed. “Okay. Grew up in Trenton, New Jersey. My dad, who was an abusive asshole and regularly beat the shit out of all of us, killed my mom when I was thirteen.” He delivered this information as if he was telling me his car needed new spark plugs and he’d take it to the shop on Friday. I kept my mouth shut and listened.
After a moment, Will went on. “His lawyer convinced the court I wasn’t a credible witness. In fairness, I was huffing a shit-ton of stuff then, and rarely on Planet Earth.”
“And then?”
“The DA brought in this pathologist,” he said. “Nerdy type, bow tie and everything. And that guy blew my jerk of a father out of the water and sent him to prison, where, by the way, I fervently hope he is rotting as we speak.”
“Does that feel like justice?”
“Fucking justice,” Will responded. “Sorta. My mom was still dead. And I was sent to live with my dad’s brother, so you can do the math on that family system.”
“And from Trenton to North Carolina?”
“Turns out I had serious skills when it came to the sciences. Chemistry, of course, I mean, how poetic for a druggie. Crazy about bio. Ate physics for lunch. I ended up getting a full ride to undergrad and then med school at Chapel Hill. And the whole time I was remembering how that scrawny little doctor put my dad away.”
I was briefly aware of a tiny detonation going off in some far corner of my brain. “Oh, really? UNC? When was that?”
“Let’s see, I came down here…oh, I guess it’s been twenty-five years ago now.”
“So you must know some of the docs around here?”
“Sure,” he said. “Some of them, yeah.”
“And when was your accident?”
Will cocked his head then and gave me a long sidewise look. “Why do I get the feeling I’m suddenly being interrogated?” He clenched and unclenched his hands and patted them on his legs. “What’s going on, Blainey?”
“Nothing!” I said way too quickly. “Really, nothing, I’m sorry, it’s a bad habit. Chaplains learn how to listen and then fish for details, and P.I.s, well I guess they just listen differently to everything. Afraid I might be falling into that trap, too.”
He squinted his eyes and shook his head, and I could tell he didn’t believe a word I’d just said. “Okay, well this has been swell, let’s never do it again,” he said and grabbed his cane, using it to stand.
I stood, too. “Will,” I said, but he waved me away.
“Fuck you,” he snarled, and took off toward the pathway. As he disappeared into the trees, the furious thumping of his cane echoed back at me like a continual rebuke.