A Quiet Death

TWENTY-FOUR

I telephoned Lilith right away.

‘Hannah, how good to hear from you.’

I didn’t shilly-shally around. ‘Lilith, is Nick with you?’

‘No, he isn’t. Why do you ask?’

If I mentioned the police it might alarm her, so I said, ‘I just called Kernan and they say he’s been discharged! I found that so hard to believe that I made them check the patient inventory again. How can he have gone home so soon? The last time I saw him he was flat on his back with stainless steel rods screwed into his skull.’

Lilith spoke lightly. ‘He made a lot of progress since the last time you visited, Hannah. When I was there last week, he had a brace on his leg, but was using a walker.’

‘Do you have a cell phone number for him. I’m assuming he got a new one?’

‘Nick gave it to me, Hannah. It’s around here somewhere.’

Great, I thought. They’ll uncover it in the next century when they dig down to the Mesozoic level. ‘Do you know where he went? I’d like to send him a card,’ I said, making it up as I went along.

‘I don’t know his mailing address. He’d just started at Hopkins before the accident and hadn’t found a place to live yet, so he was living in a motel while a realtor helped him find a condo. The lab’s been incredibly understanding. They’re holding the job for him until he gets back on his feet. Wait a minute!’ I heard papers rustling. ‘I knew it was here somewhere. Before the accident, Nick was staying at a Night and Day Suites, near Laurel.

‘Where on earth have they discharged him to, Hannah? I wish he’d told me!’ she rattled on, almost without taking a breath. ‘But then, we haven’t been close for years. I’m trying, I really am, but after all the baggage that we both bring into the relationship, it’s unrealistic to expect changes overnight.’ Lilith paused for air, then asked, ‘Do you want me to go to Kernan and see what I can find out?’

‘No, no, I’ll be happy to do it. I’m a hundred miles closer than you are, Lilith. Try to relax. I’ll let you know when I find out anything.’

‘Thanks, Hannah.’ Her voice faltered. ‘You’re the first real friend I’ve had in… well, just thanks.’

After that unsolicited endorsement, I got a little misty-eyed, too.

Two minutes after saying goodbye to Lilith, I telephoned Kernan Hospital and asked to speak to Nicholas Aupry.

‘I’m sorry, he’s no longer a patient here,’ the operator informed me.

‘Oh my gosh! I’m his aunt, and I was planning to send him this big box of chocolates, his favorites, dark chocolate with caramel. I can’t believe he left the hospital without telling me. Can you tell me his forwarding address?’

I figured the woman wouldn’t be a pushover, and I was right. ‘Sorry, dear. Even if I had it, which I don’t, I couldn’t give it out to you. Patient confidentiality. I’m sure you understand.’

I lowered my voice, spoke softly and slowly, adding a snuffly sniffle in the middle of the sentence for effect. ‘Sure. I understand. I understand completely. I’ve tried him on his cell, too, but he doesn’t pick up. Frankly, I’m worried. Nick isn’t in the best of shape.’

The woman on the other end of the line brightened, her next words sounding positively chipper. ‘You shouldn’t worry about that for a minute. Your nephew is listed as an outpatient now. He’s due here for physical therapy at three thirty this afternoon. Why don’t you come and wait for him here?’

I clucked my tongue. ‘You are kidding me! I go away for a couple of days… Men! They never tell you anything, do they? He probably thinks he can manage all by himself, but you know what that means. Living on Hungry Jack frozen entrées delivered by Pea Pod or something. I am going to make him the biggest lasagne…’ And I hung up.

I left Annapolis in plenty of time to arrive at Kernan in order to waylay Nick when he appeared for therapy. I sat in a waiting-room chair for a while, thumbing through copies of People magazine, then I paced. Thirty minutes, forty, an hour went by. Still no Nick.

The volunteer watch changed at four o’clock, and I was elated when the same woman who had been on duty the first time I visited the hospital strolled out from a staff area and took a seat behind the desk. I waited until she got settled, then approached her. ‘Hi. Remember me?’ I flapped my hand in an ‘aw shucks’ way and laughed. ‘Oh, of course you don’t. You see hundreds of people every day. I’m Nicholas Aupry’s aunt. He was supposed to come in for his physical therapy session today.’ I tapped the face on my watch. ‘But he’s over an hour late! Did he call or anything? I’m kinda worried.’

‘Sorry, honey. We don’t have that kind of information.’

In spite of how I felt about Hoffner, over the past several months he had been the closest thing Nick had to a friend and confidant. Grinding my teeth with distaste, I dialed 1-800-GOTALAW, but it rang once and went over to voicemail, making me wonder if the man had any partners at all. Where the heck was Smith? Where was Gallagher? Where was the receptionist, for that matter? The same smarmy syrupy voice that made my skin crawl came on the line. ‘Got a phone? Got a Lawyer! This is James Hoffner and I’m not available to take your call right now. But your call is important to me, so stay on the line and leave your message at the beep. And remember: Got a phone? Got a Lawyer!’

‘This is Hannah Ives,’ I told his machine. ‘You’ve got my number. Call me.’

Following the directions of the volunteer behind the desk, I found a vending machine and bought a Coke, popped the cap and carried it out to my car where I could think. What would I do at this point if I were the delectable Detective Hughes? I’d start where Nick last lived, I told myself; at the Night and Day Suites near Laurel.

Laurel is only about twenty-five miles from northwest Baltimore, but I got snarled in rush-hour traffic on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, arriving at the Night and Day Suites behind a group of seven businessmen who’d just been deposited in the lobby by a Blue Shuttle van from BWI. I stood in line at eighth position as they began checking in one by one with a registration desk staffer.

Three people had received their key cards and headed for the elevators before it occurred to me to find a house phone. I located one near the rack of tourist brochures – The Baltimore Aquarium! The National Zoo! Luray Caverns! – dialed ‘0’ and asked the harried receptionist to put me through to Nicholas Aupry.

‘Can you hold, please?’

After a long silence in which I watched the receptionist hand over a key card to the next person in line, she came back on the line. ‘Sorry, but we have no guests by that name.’

So I got back in a line which had grown by another two hotel guests in my absence. One step forward, Hannah, and two steps back.

When I finally made it to the desk, the receptionist, a mouse of a girl, smiled in a way that transformed her face, as if the sun had come out from behind a cloud. She wore a brass name tag that said ‘Julie. Racine, Wisc.’

‘Checking in?’

I rested both hands on the counter, spread my fingers. ‘No, thanks, Julie. I’m trying to get some information. My nephew was staying here a couple of months ago, Nicholas Aupry, but he was badly injured in that terrible Metro crash.’

Julie’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘Didn’t you just call and ask about him?’

Ooops! I shifted gears. ‘Yes, I did. It was such a long line and I thought… well, I have your full attention now!’

‘I do remember your nephew,’ Julie said with a sad little smile that made it all the way up to her eyes. ‘I’d just started working here then. How’s he doing?’

‘It was touch and go for a while, but he’s finally out of the woods. Nick’s still in the hospital, but we hope he’ll be released to rehab before long. That’s why I’m here, actually. I can’t believe Nick didn’t think about the luggage he left behind here until just yesterday! He’s asked me to come pick it up for him. Do you have it in storage somewhere?’

‘That’s really not my department,’ Julie from Racine told me. ‘Hold on a minute.’ She picked up the phone, spoke a few words to someone who appeared almost immediately from a cubbyhole of a room behind the reception desk. Rick – from San Diego – shook my hand, told me how sorry he was to hear about my nephew’s accident and then got right down to the nitty gritty. ‘Sorry, you made the trip for nothing, but we already sent your nephew’s luggage on.’

I made a production of rolling my eyes. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! I told Nick I’m coming to take care of it! What was he thinking? Did it go to my apartment on Cathedral Street in Baltimore?

Rick’s brow wrinkled in concentration. ‘No, I distinctly remember sending it to a Night and Day Suites up in Baltimore.’

‘The one near Kernan Hospital?’

He pointed a finger like a gun. ‘That’s the one.’

I pressed my hands together in silent applause. ‘That’s great. So it’ll already be there when he checks in. Thanks so much.’ I turned to leave, then spun around. ‘But just wait until I get my hands on that boy! I made a trip all the way down here from Baltimore for nothing! I’ll kill him.’ Clapped my hand over my mouth. ‘Whoops! My bad.’

I left Laurel, driving north on Route 29, then made my way east along I70 until it intersected with I695, the Baltimore beltway.

I found the Night and Day Suites, distinctive yellow awning and all, on Whitehead Court, where it had an unobstructed view of the elevated cloverleaf formed by the intersection of several interstate highways, a complicated, multilevel structure that resembled the movie set for Star Wars Attack of the Clones. Someone had cared enough to plant bright red flowers in planters on either side of the entrance to the motel, in an attempt to brighten up the view in an otherwise depressing neighborhood.

I took the steps one at a time – counting six – and wondered where the handicapped entrance was. In his present condition, Nick could certainly never handle the stairs.

For that reason, I had assumed Nick would be living in one of the handicapped rooms I’d seen advertised when I checked out the Night and Day Suites on the Internet. From the parking lot in Laurel, I’d tried to call ahead to let Nick know I was coming, but when I dialed the number suggested by my iPhone, I was patched through to the hotel’s 800 number. ‘No, I don’t want reservations,’ I insisted. ‘I want to talk to somebody actually at the Night and Day Suites in Baltimore.’ Apparently this request was too difficult for the operator to handle, so after three disconnects I hung up.

Inside the hotel, manning the desk, was the same receptionist, I swear, who had helped me out in Laurel. Or her twin sister, maybe. Lonnie was from Geneva, New York, had a smile as big as Christmas, and, when I walked in, was charming a couple who were checking in with a dog. I wondered if Julie from Racine and Lonnie from Geneva had attended the same school of hotel management, earning ‘A’s in Hospitality 101. I waved breezily as I passed by and marched straight to the house phone, where I dialed ‘0’ and asked for Nicholas Aupry.

The phone rang. And rang, and rang, and rang. I was about to hang up when Nick answered, sounding out of breath and out of sorts.

‘What?’

‘Nick, this is Hannah Ives.’

‘God! Just a minute while I catch my breath.’ Even over the sound of the television playing at one hundred decibels in his room, I could hear him panting. Finally he said, ‘I’m back.’ Followed quickly by, ‘How did you find me?’

‘It sounds like you didn’t want to be found, Nick.’

‘It’s not that, really. It’s just that I don’t like people making a fuss over me.’

I thought that was a lot of malarkey, but… well, you catch more flies with honey, or so they say. ‘OK, I promise not to make a fuss. I just wanted a report on how you’re doing. Your mother does, too.’

Nick snorted. ‘Mother! That figures.’

‘Lilith didn’t know that you had been discharged from the hospital.’

‘I didn’t tell her.’

The last thing I needed was to be sucked into another family’s internecine squabbles. I’d blundered through enough family crises of my own, thank you very much. When Emily eloped with a college dropout named Dante, for example, the man who was now the successful owner of Spa Paradiso and the father of my three unbelievably beautiful and talented grandchildren.

‘I stopped by Kernan to visit you,’ I said, shading the truth just a tad, ‘and they sounded concerned that you’d missed rehab today.’

‘Yeah, well, that was unavoidable, I’m afraid.’

His voice sounded distant, distracted. Whatever Nick was watching on television must have been far more interesting than I.

‘Look, I’m talking to you from a phone in the lobby. How about meeting me down here for a cup of coffee or something?’

‘Sorry, I can’t.’

‘Can I bring something up to you, then?’

On Nick’s end of the line, an ad for Little Blue Pills blared. While Nick considered my offer, I listened to a sultry-voiced female boldly hinting at what those little blue miracles could do for ‘a certain portion of a man’s anatomy.’

‘What would you like?’ I quickly added, trying to tempt him. ‘There’s an Indian restaurant down here. Menu looks good. Oh, damn, they don’t open until five thirty.’

‘I’d kill for a glass of wine,’ Nick said at last.

‘Gotcha. Red or white?’

‘White. I’m in 121, just past the elevators.’

Even though the restaurant wasn’t open, I put on my most wheedling smile and persuaded a waiter to stop rolling silverware up in linen napkins long enough to sell me two glasses of wine. Carrying the wine, a glass in each hand, I made my way carefully down the hall and knocked on the door of 121 with the toe of my shoe.

It took Nick a while to open up, and when he did, I saw why. A brace supported his left leg and he leaned heavily on a brass-handled cane. He wore jeans and a Grateful Dead T-shirt. A pair of square, frameless eyeglasses I’d never seen before sat crookedly on his nose.

‘Gosh, were you napping? Did I wake you up?’ I had to smile. Nick had a case of classic bedhead. I resisted the urge to lick my palm, reach out and smooth down the boy’s unruly cowlick.

Assisted by his cane, Nick hobbled over to a chair near a little round table and sat down heavily. I waited by the door, still holding the wine, sipping mine. Once he was settled, I handed him a glass and joined him at the table.

Although the room was more spacious than a normal motel room, presumably to allow for the passage of a wheelchair, it still seemed cramped. It was also one of the most patriotic motel rooms I’d ever seen, right out of a 1776 fantasy: pseudo-colonial white oak furniture, a red, white and blue striped quilted bedspread and matching blue, star-spangled curtains. I felt like saluting.

On the wall, over the king-sized bed, was a print of the United States Capitol building in winter, with skaters gliding over the ice on a pond that didn’t exist.

I could see now that the television was tuned to Lynx News. One of their big name neo-cons, even more conservative than John Chandler, if that was possible, was on a tear about illegal immigrants, yelling at some hapless woman on the other side of the split screen, ‘What don’t you understand about the word “illegal?”’

‘Bet she’s glad to be in LA and not actually sitting next to the jerk in Washington,’ I commented.

Nick dredged up a smile. He picked up the remote and switched off the commentator in mid-harangue.

‘You’re recovering amazingly well,’ I said when my eardrums had recovered. ‘Quite frankly, I’m surprised. But the young heal fast, they say.’

‘They do good work at Kernan. And I haven’t always been a cooperative patient.’

‘Who would be with metal rods screwed into their head?’ I sipped my wine. ‘So, how come you missed your physical therapy appointment today? You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.’

‘Goddam Hoffner. I can’t drive yet, as you probably noticed. Son of a bitch ran off and left me stranded.’

‘Why didn’t you have the hotel call you a cab or something?’

Nick waved the idea away. ‘By then, I was already late, so I said screw it. I called the hospital and let them know, so it’s no biggie.’

‘When’s Hoffner coming back?’ I asked.

Nick snorted. ‘Probably never. I think I fired him.’

Well, I thought, as I gazed into the pale gold depths of my wine glass, that was the best news I’d heard in a month of Sundays.

‘Was Hoffner the person driving you back and forth to therapy?’ I asked. ‘If he was, I’d guess firing him would be a problem.’

‘Trust me. It’s not a problem. I’ll be making other arrangements in the morning.’

‘Anything I can do to help?’

‘No, thanks, Hannah. The rest of me may be a mess, but my dialing finger isn’t broken. Yet.’

Nick studied me over the rim of his wine glass which was beaded with condensation. I watched his face carefully as I shared with him the next bit of news. ‘The DC police are looking for you.’

Nick sputtered, choked as he aspirated his wine. He pounded his chest with the flat of his hand, coughing, trying to clear his lungs. ‘What did you say?’

‘It has something to do with the investigation into the murder of Meredith Logan.’

Nick set his wine glass down on the table casually, too casually. ‘Who?’

‘Meredith Logan. The PA at Lynx News who went missing.’

Nick’s eyes narrowed. ‘What could I possibly know about that?

I waited him out, slowly sipping.

‘I don’t even know her,’ he added, twirling his wine glass, making wet circles on the table.

‘She was John Chandler’s production assistant.’

‘So?’ He was indifferent, or wanted me to think so.

‘Honestly, Nick, if I know you’re lying through your teeth, don’t you think the DC police will know it, too?’

While Nick gawped at me, I pressed on. ‘You told me you were doing research at the Library of Congress on the day of the crash. But guess what? You were caught on the security cameras in the lobby of Lynx News. The detectives showed me your picture.’

Nick screwed up his face, as if I’d just asked him to solve a particularly difficult equation. ‘I was only at Lynx News once, on the Friday before… well, before I met you.’

‘Why did you go there, Nick?’

Nick chortled. ‘Don’t play dumb with me, Hannah. You know very well why I paid a visit to Lynx News. I wanted to see John Chandler.’

‘Your father.’

And the truth came out, in one breathless burst. ‘Yes, my hotshot father who’s too famous to see anybody unless they make an appointment first! That woman, Meredith whatever, she came down to meet to me, but said I couldn’t talk to Chandler. She told me he was taping a show, but I didn’t believe her. Then she asked how she could help. I didn’t know how best to get the great man’s attention, so I gave her a photocopy of one of Zan’s letters to Mother.’

Nick had been leaning forward in his chair as he delivered his speech, but when it was done, he collapsed, melting into the upholstery.

‘What did Meredith say when you gave her the letter?’

‘She asked who Lilith was, so I told her. She kept me standing in the lobby while she stared at the letter, people coming and going, swerving around us, and I’m feeling like a fricking salesman or something. After a bit, she told me she’d see to it that Mr Chandler got the letter, took my contact information, said Mr Chandler would be in touch, blah blah blah. Of course, he never called. Big surprise.’

Nick blinked rapidly, and I thought he might be fighting back tears. ‘I swear to you, Hannah! That’s the first and only time I saw that woman. Until you told me just now, I didn’t even know she was dead!’

Actually, I could believe that. By the time Nick was out of the woods, the story had left the headlines.

‘Murdered? Jesus. That’s terrible!’ he said.

I finished my wine and set the glass down. ‘What will you tell the police when they show up?’

‘Just what I told you.’

‘And what if they say maybe you telephoned Meredith, asked her to come out and meet you on that day?’

Nick made a fist and pounded it lightly on the table. ‘No, no, no, no! That simply didn’t happen! I was totally at the Library of Congress. Somebody will remember seeing me there.’

He opened his mouth, took a breath and I thought he was winding up to tell me something else, but he slammed his lips shut instead.

‘At least we agree on one thing, you and I, Skip.’ I raised my empty glass. ‘John Chandler is your father, isn’t he?’

Nick simply nodded, not looking directly at me, but at the ridges and swirls on the textured wall, still absent-mindedly twirling his wine glass.

‘What a pair!’ I said, referring to Zan and Lilith. ‘He’s denying and your mother’s not telling, but facts is facts is facts.’

‘Amen!’ Nick said, hoisting his glass. He raised it to his lips and emptied the remaining wine in one gulp, then slammed the glass down on the table. If there’d been a fireplace in the room, no doubt he would have dashed the glass against the hearth and shouted Prost!

But Nick was in no mood for celebrating. ‘Do you know what it’s like to be rejected? No father, an absentee mother, and a fossil of an uncle who squeezed every nickel until the buffalo pooped? Spending every Christmas with the families of friends because my mother was living…’ He whipped his glasses off and massaged his eyes. ‘Well, I’m not going there.’

I could only imagine. I came from a close-knit military family that moved, together, all over the world. Even when our father was deployed, we stayed in touch with cassette-tape recordings sent back and forth through the mail. It hadn’t seemed important when we lost the tapes in one of our many moves, but I would give anything to hear my late mother say ‘I love you’ again.

At that moment, Nick looked so lost and vulnerable that my own motherly instinct kicked in, big time. I pictured Lilith’s house as I had last seen it. Thanksgiving dinner hadn’t been prepared in that kitchen for a very long time, perhaps not since the early pilgrims.

‘Do me a favor, will you, Nick?’

‘What’s that?’

‘Let me take you to dinner downstairs. It’s an Indian restaurant. I’ve looked at the menu, and I think there’s a chicken vindaloo with my name on it.’ Holding my wine glass, I popped up from my chair and whisked his empty glass off the table. ‘Let me rinse these out.’

In the bathroom, I ran hot water into the glasses, swirled it around, then dumped it out, shaking off the excess drops over the sink. As I reached for a towel on the rack behind the toilet, I noticed scraps of paper on the floor. Neatnick that I am, I bent down for a closer look.

Each piece was a ragged one-half inch square. I scooped up a handful and examined them closely. ‘Waiting for’ was written on one scrap; ‘I dream’ on another; ‘Venice we’ on a third. I recognized the handwriting. It was Zan’s.

The scraps were from a photocopy, not an original letter, I noticed with relief. When I checked the trash can, I found thousands more bits which, had they been put together, would chronicle Zan’s love for a beautiful young woman named Lilith. Leaving our wine glasses sitting on the edge of the sink, I picked up the trash bin and took it out to Nick. ‘What’s this?’ I asked, practically waving the bin under his nose.

Nick smiled ruefully. ‘That’s what Hoffner and I had our little disagreement about.’

‘Photocopies of your mother’s letters?’

‘Yeah. Before the crash, he had the originals, but I felt uncomfortable about that, so he made copies. For security, he said. He gave me back the originals. That’s why I was carrying them that day.’

‘I’m puzzled. Why did Hoffner want the photocopies? They’re not his letters.’

‘Well, I hired him to find my father, so I guess he figured he needed copies of the letters in order to do his job.’

I shook the basket. It rustled like a cheerleader’s pompom on homecoming night. ‘Why did you tear the photocopies up? I’m assuming this is your work.’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t need them. I know who my father is, and that’s all I wanted to know. Whether he’ll ever get around to acknowledging me or not doesn’t change that fact.’

‘You said there was a disagreement between you and Hoffner.’

‘Hoffner was pissed. He had some hare-brained idea that Chandler… Well, never mind.’

‘Please, Nick. Go ahead. I’m interested.’

Nick seemed to be gathering himself together. With the business end of his cane, he repositioned his footstool. Then, using both hands, he lifted his braced leg and rested it on top of the stool. That done, he leaned back, looking considerably more relaxed than when I first entered the room.

‘This is how it went down,’ he began. ‘Hoffner showed up to take me to physical therapy. He noticed that I’d taken the photocopies out of his briefcase and torn them to bits. He totally flipped out. Swore like a trucker – fuck this, screw that – then walked out, slamming the door behind him.

‘Want to know the truth?’ he continued.

Of course I did.

‘Hoffner ordered me to chill out. Said there was more money in bleeding Chandler than there was in the measly amount we might get out of the Metro settlement. He was planning to blackmail my father. Hoffner wouldn’t call it that, of course. He was always running on about manning up, taking responsibility for one’s youthful mistakes. That’s a good one! And this is my favorite: making it up to me financially, all those years of struggle without a father. Yada yada yada.’ Nick laughed out loud. ‘Hoffner’s a big-time bullshitter, once he gets going. Anyway, I told Hoffner that I didn’t need to be compensated for being deprived of a father in my formative years. I wrote Hoffner a check for what I owed him, and told him to fuck off, so he did.’

‘Where is Hoffner now?’ I asked, growing increasingly uneasy.

‘Do I look like somebody who gives a shit?’

Nick rose to his feet with difficulty, supporting himself on the cane, his hand clutching the brass knob, knuckles white, his arm trembling. ‘Come on, Hannah. Now that I’m up, didn’t you mention something about chicken tikka?’

‘Vindaloo.’

‘Whatever. Grab those wine glasses and let’s roll!’