Time of Death

24

The flight to Denver was grounded on the runway for an hour and the air conditioning had died. Ren was trying to read her way out of the panic of being in a small stranger-filled space, breathing in stranger germs. Her eyes started to close. The heat was overwhelming. She flashed back eleven years to Domenica Val Pando’s compound in New Mexico — waking up in the mornings, the darkness of the room. The sense of a searing sun behind the shutters.

Don’t go there.

Ren picked up her book and started to read again. She could feel a rising tension in her chest. It was the claustrophobia of the airplane, the oppression of being surrounded by people you didn’t know.

I am trapped.

Ren was back to the compound again, remembering the tension of the noise — the raised voices of the men, the trucks pulling in and out, the screeching of the birds. And then there was Domenica Val Pando’s voice, the type of screaming that would make you rigid.

The first time Ren had awakened, rigid, it was six a.m. and down the corridor she could hear the stamp of Domenica’s foot.

‘¿Qué chingados es esto? No. No. Malo. Malo. Malo. ¿Qué tu madre nitu abuela te enseñaron nada? Deshaz eso. Vuelve a empezar. Mírame a los ojos, pendeja. Si quieres hacerla en este país cada cosa la tienes que hacer perfectamente. Yo no estaría aquí si no fuera por eso.’

What the hell is this? No, no, no. Wrong. Wrong Wrong. Did your mother, did your grandmother teach you anything? It looks like this! This! Take that off. Start over! This is how it should be! Do not insult me! Do not insult me! If you want to succeed in this country, you do every job to the best of your ability. Look at me! I wouldn’t have got where I am today if it wasn’t for that!

Ren had gotten up and tip-toed toward the room. Domenica was making a bed, working the sheets into perfect hospital corners. A trembling sixteen-year-old maid stood watching her.

Domenica was teaching her how to make Una cama bien echecita! Una cama bien echecita!

The same type of ‘well-made bed’ with the constricting sheets that Ren had pulled loose every night before she got in.

Army corners/hospital corners — why would anyone want to recreate those conditions?

Ren was about to go back to her book, but she had set off on a course of pressing down on emotional bruises. Her next one was Ricky Parry. Even his name was trapped in time: Ricky. Ren remembered how hard he tried to be cool. When he was fourteen, he had started wearing tight black jeans, a black leather biker jacket and some sort of metal chain hanging from his belt. He had blond spiked hair, but a chubby, red-cheeked face and two middle teeth that were slightly longer than the rest. A chipmunk in chains.

Ren had liked Ricky Parry. After Beau’s suicide, they had come together as friends with a connection they never spoke about — they were the kids who wondered if there was anything they could have done to prevent what happened to the brothers they adored. So they swapped all that wondering time for talking and laughing and watching the same movies and reading the same books. The pretty little dark-haired girl and the sullen blond death-metal dope-head, taking the bus to Albany to shoot pool.

Before Ren realized it, she was replaying the scene in Beau’s bedroom, but instead of her mom yelling ‘He’s dead, he’s dead’, she was yelling, ‘Oh thank God, he’s alive, he’s alive.’

And they would all rush off in an ambulance and down the hallway at the hospital holding on to the side of the gurney, surrounded by doctors who were doing all the right things. And Beau would be lying in the bed, young and handsome and happy to be alive. And the whole family would collapse with relief and cry and laugh and Beau would promise never to worry anyone like that again. And he would be waiting for her at the airport to tell her that everything was going to be all right.

Glenn Buddy was in the office talking to Cliff when Ren got back.

Please don’t want to talk to me.

‘Hey,’ said Glenn. ‘Were you out of town?’

‘I was in Texas,’ said Ren. ‘And just off a flight that spent an hour on the runway with no air conditioning.’

‘Ooh,’ said Cliff. ‘Did they not know you were on board?’

‘How’s everything going with the investigation, Glenn?’

‘The taint team was about to go through the files, trying to match A, B and C to their real files, but I got a call to lay off Patient B.’

‘Oh,’ said Ren. ‘Why is that?’

‘Beats me,’ said Glenn. ‘But I have the word of a high-ranking honorable man, so I’m happy with that.’

‘Who?’ said Ren.

‘I can’t reveal that part. But…I went to Judge Hammond with that request. He says sure, no problem. I’m the investigator, he trusts me and it’s one less file for him to go through.’

Ren nodded.

‘But here’s the weird part,’ said Glenn. ‘Hammond comes back to me a few hours later and says, actually, the taint team does need to look at Patient B.’

What? ‘What?’ said Ren.

‘Hammond said that it was important to know the nature of the psychotic episodes at least. And that if the person was law enforcement, it could give them access to firearms, they could manipulate their position of trust, they could snap under the pressure of the job…blah, blah. He said as long as the taint team was looking through the files, pulling Patient B would not amount to too much extra work. Which I guess makes sense.’

No it does not. No. No. No. ‘All right,’ said Ren. ‘Well, there could well be something in there.’

‘Maybe, maybe not, who knows?’ Glenn shrugged. ‘I’m just glad I’m not the one who has to trawl through the crazy talk.’

Ren’s mind started to race. The thought of anyone other than Helen looking through her file was nauseating. But why were ‘psychotic episodes’ so prominent in Patient B’s notes? They weren’t Ren’s most prominent symptom. Now, if paranoia had been mentioned, that would make more sense.

It must be to create drama in the book I’m unconvinced Helen was writing. Everyone loves a psycho. And if it’s linked to someone on the right side of the law, it sounds more glamorous to the less clued-in.

Ren took some deep breaths. It’s OK. It will all work out. The worst-case scenario was that several attorneys she did not know would read her file. They wouldn’t find anything to make her look suspicious. She had problems, but she wasn’t unhinged. Yet. Her ‘psychotic episodes’ weren’t violent. She didn’t suffer from aural delusions.

Sometimes, I just believe things that aren’t real. Like all of the above.

Gary told Ren she could come in to his office, but he sounded tired. Weary.

‘I’m sorry, Gary, I know I’m bothering you a lot, but you have got to call Glenn Buddy again. For some reason, Hammond didn’t buy eliminating me from the taint team’s hit list. They absolutely cannot get access to my file.’

‘Calm down, calm down,’ said Gary. ‘What did Hammond say?’

Ren filled him in.

‘OK, I’ll call Glenn again. I’ll get him to go back to Hammond. How long’s the taint team going to be working on this?’

‘Max another twenty-four hours.’

‘I’m on it,’ said Gary. ‘But, Ren — what’s the worst that can happen? Even if they do read your file, they won’t find anything incriminating. I understand the violation. But…from what you’ve said, you have nothing to worry about. If Hammond is sitting with your file in front of him in the morning, I don’t think the world is going to end.’

I do.