The Cat Dancers

57

Cam awoke in his motel room with a violent chill and had to collect his wits for a moment to remember where he was. He’d reported back to Bobby Lee from the Carrigan County Sheriff’s Office, and, as promised, he’d let the two rangers listen in to his report of what had happened to Kenny up on the mountain. The sheriff took it all in and told Cam to return to Triboro the following day. They’d found him a motel room, where he’d proceeded to crash after telling Mary Ellen he’d meet her at the local pub that evening.

Now his head hurt, his knees were really sore, and he was pretty sure he was running a temperature. He tried to get a look at his watch but he was having trouble getting the little dial light to come on. He decided to take a hot bath to see if he could shake off the chills. Afterward, he staggered back to bed and got under all the covers. Then the room became unbearably hot, so he got up and turned on the air conditioner full blast. He lay there wishing he had some aspirin, then began talking to himself about how he might manage to find a store. Then he heard voices outside. There was a knock on the door, followed by another. Finally, the door was opened from the outside, revealing a worried-looking motel desk clerk and Mary Ellen Goode.

“Knock, knock,” she called as she came into the room. Cam smiled weakly, and tried to say something, but he only managed to chatter his teeth at her. She shivered in the icy room and turned off the air conditioner. She thanked the clerk and closed the door behind him. “Look at you,” she said, shaking her head. “You stood me up, you know.”

“Wha-what time is it?” he asked between feverish chills.

“Eleven-thirty,” she said. She found his room key card and said she’d be right back. Twenty minutes later, she fed him some Tylenol and made him drink a bottle of water with it.

“Thanks for checking on me,” he said. “I’ve never crashed like this before.”

“It’s called ‘post-incident letdown,’” she told him.“We see it all the time after a rescue. People survive by running on adrenaline; then the body exacts its price.” She hesitated. “I’m sorry about your deputy.”

Cam nodded, even though it hurt his throbbing head. “He was a good guy and a good cop,” he said. “I still can’t quite believe it.”

“That he was one of them?”

Cam said yes. The Tylenol was beginning to work. There were sounds from the room next door: a muffled male voice, followed by girlish giggling.

“Kenny told me that it was all real. That they helped James Marlor fry those two guys. They were proud of what they’d been doing.”

“And the judge?”

“No,” he said. “He said they didn’t do that. Then, at the very end, he said something that didn’t make any sense at all. Something about looking in the mirror. I think it was just final delirium.”

“And you feel like shit because you had to leave him there.”

He nodded. “Yeah. I know there was nothing I could have done, but you just don’t leave your wounded out there.”

“Was he still alive when you climbed out?”

“Well, no, but still…”

The noises from next door became more amorous and less frivolous.

“They’re doing better than we are,” Cam said with a weak grin.

Her smile brightened the room. “You guys, you never quit, do you? There’s the bottle of Tylenol, and you need to drink another water. Want to try for breakfast?”

He thought about breakfast and his stomach generated a wave of nausea, which she apparently detected. She moved the wastebasket nearer the bed. “Sorry I brought that up, so to speak,” she said. “Why don’t you call me when you’re operational. I’ll go back with you after the inquest, if you really think I can help.”

He nodded, not trusting his stomach just now. He closed his eyes. There was something else he needed to tell her, but he couldn’t think of what it was. Then the lights went out and he heard the door close. Things reached a climax of sorts in the adjacent room. Some guys have all the luck, he thought.