Dark Lie (9781101607084) (23 page)

Weeping, the girl demanded, “Who
is
she?”

Sam mumbled, “My wife.” He could still see Dorrie's corduroy skirt. And there was a glimpse of her hair. Good. Good. With his heart in his gaze Sam hung on to her. As long as he could see Dorrie, even only glimpses of her, she couldn't really leave him.

The Phillips girl cried, “She's not just your
wife
. Who
is
she?”

As if Candor Birch White were a comic-book heroine, Sam thought, Super Wife, with a secret identity. Sam had always known there was a mystery, a distance, about Dorrie, but he had never wanted to face it.

“Um . . .” Sam did not want to be rude, but he wished the Phillips girl would leave him alone. Couldn't she see Dorrie might die? Couldn't she see he was trying to pray?

“Her name is Dorrie White,” someone answered Juliet, “and she is a hero.” Sam recognized the gentle voice, and peripherally glimpsed a familiar caramel-colored face. Sissy Chappell stood with one arm around Juliet, trying to comfort her.

“She came out of
nowhere
,” the girl cried. “How did she know my name?”

“We aren't sure. But she knew you were in trouble.”

Juliet turned to Sam. “Mister,
how did she know me
?”

Desperately trying to contact the Almighty, Sam didn't answer. Starting in childhood he had been taught the right way to pray: First you thank God for specific blessings in your life, and then you ask God in a general way to be with you and your loved ones, keeping the moral hygiene up to par, and then you ask God to help with any specific problems on your mind, and then you say that, notwithstanding any of the above, Thy Will Be Done, Amen. Sam knew all this, but he couldn't do it. All he seemed to be able to pray was
Stay with me, Dorrie, stay, please God, please let her stay with me, please don't let her die.
Over and over. Just at the time it mattered the most, he couldn't format the prayer properly, couldn't focus, and if he couldn't even pray right, he certainly couldn't give this weeping girl his attention. He couldn't think what she wanted from him. It was hard to understand her words, choked with sobs. Heck, it was hard to understand anything that was happening.

That officious jerk Walker popped up out of someplace and grabbed the girl by the elbow. “Juliet Phillips? Come with me.”

“No!” Juliet pulled away from the man.

As if interpreting for the girl, Sissy Chappell said, “Take it easy, Captain. Wait a couple minutes until we see whether Mrs. White is okay.”

“I don't have a couple minutes, miss. I am an officer of the law, and—”

“And you didn't save me,” Juliet flared at him. “
She
saved me.” Heads turned; even Sam turned to look as she shouted at Walker, “She saved my
life.
A hundred ways, a hundred times. She didn't leave me and I'm not leaving her.”

“I'm not in uniform, but I am an officer of the law also, Captain Walker,” said Sissy quietly, “and this girl—”

Sam stopped paying attention. He wanted Dorrie. What were they doing with her? Through the interstices between white coats, blue uniforms, and gray suits, Sam saw Dorrie seemingly levitate onto the gurney that would take her to the ambulance. He saw the people around her begin to move in unison, like a multilegged insect, toward the door, with their arms waving aloft like feelers, trailing plastic tubes, wires, scary-looking paraphernalia.

Sam heard Walker say loudly, “Miss Officer of the Law Also, I don't give a rat's ass that the kid is from your jurisdiction. She's in mine now.”

“Then you had better call my boss, Chief Angstrom, and arrange—”

“Bull crap! You're just trying to stall me!”

And succeeding, Sam thought. But Walker's tone of voice and the way he was treating Juliet made Sam feel like throwing a punch at him—a thought he could not afford to entertain right now when Dorrie needed all his attention. He followed the medics as they rolled his wife toward the door, but Juliet broke away from both Sissy and Walker to grip his arm, begging, “How did she know I needed her? Why did she save me?”

Having no answers for her, barely able to speak if he did, Sam took her hand as softly as if it were his own child's to remove it from his arm. He had to go with Dorrie. Couldn't let her out of his sight or she might cease to be, leave him, die. He trotted after the gurney rolling out the door.

Behind him the girl called, “Mister, wait!”

Sam felt her cry hit him like a smack from God. He had to do something for her. He couldn't stay with her, had to get on the ambulance with Dorrie, but he grabbed the cell phone from his pocket and turned back just long enough to see Juliet Phillips straining to follow him, Sissy trying to talk to her, Walker's ungentle grip on her arm restraining her. Sam tossed the phone to her. “Here!”

She snagged it one-handed. Excellent catch. This girl was no stranger to baseball.

“Call your parents!” he yelled to her, running to follow the gurney up the steep concrete-block stairs and out of this accursed place.

EIGHTEEN

S
everal hours later, after driving Sam White's Silverado back from Appletree, Sissy parked it in his driveway and got out.

Car doors slammed up and down the street, and people with microphones started to run toward her. Goddamn, the news freaks were staking out the Whites' private home now. And they'd been thicker than ticks in sheep dip at the police station back in Appletree. Dorrie White was going to be a big story.

So tired that it was not hard to stay silent and flat-faced, Sissy started walking, straight-arming reporters out of her way without even looking at them. After following her for a couple of blocks they gave up, and she continued, her feet dragging, on her way to the nearest bus stop. Once she got home, she would phone the Fulcrum hospital to check on Dorrie White. A medical helicopter had rushed Dorrie White there, to the Fulcrum Trauma Center, the area's primary emergency medical facility, but the helicopter that had brought Sissy to Appletree hadn't taken her back home, not when she wasn't a priority anymore. It had taken Juliet Phillips to reunite with her parents instead.

So Sissy Chappell had been caught for a while in the bureaucratic chaos that was to be expected after a major crime—she and Sam White. Not allowed on the medevac copter with his wife, Mr. White had been so upset that for once the local police and the feds were of one mind: This man was too distraught to be allowed behind a steering wheel. Sissy had offered to drive the Silverado, and Sam had been persuaded to give her the keys. The FBI had helped Sam duck the news-media crowd, tucked him into their big sedan, and headed for Fulcrum. The Appletree police, or rather Captain Walker, had relieved Bert Roman of duty and detained him on charges of insubordination, withholding evidence, abuse of a corpse, and whatever else they could think of.

That was pretty much the end of Appletree's involvement in the Juliet Phillips/Dorrie White case.

Sometime after Bert's arrest but before arrangements had been made for Sam White, Sissy had sighed deeply, straightened her shoulders, and phoned Fulcrum PD to speak with Bud Angstrom. She had barely started to tell him she was in Appletree and why before he shouted loud enough to traumatize her eardrum, “I said you'd be fired and you're fired!”

It had, of course, been well worth it.

Just the same, all the long drive home from Appletree, Sissy had worried about being without a job. It had been hard enough to find the first one; would any other police department ever hire her without Angstrom's recommendation? Or would she end up as a security guard at a shopping mall? Walking out of the housing development where Sam White lived, Sissy was still worrying, and hoping her car had not been towed out of the Fulcrum PD parking lot; when Angstrom was mad, he could get pretty mean.

Finally she reached a main street, a block down from a bus stop.

It took the right bus seemingly forever to come. But once on it, heading for home but finding no seats available and barely able to hang on as she stood in the aisle, Sissy knew for sure that nothing was going to keep her from sleeping. Worry could wait until morning.

In her apartment at last, after her phone call to Fulcrum Hospital (no word on Dorrie, still in surgery), a quick meal of scrambled eggs, and an even quicker shower, Sissy snuggled into bed and almost instantly slept.

For about an hour and a half.

Then her phone rang.

It was déjà vu.

The phone rang persistently beside Sissy Chappell's bed. Facedown in her pillow, groping for the source of the noise, she brought the phone to one ear and mumbled, “'Lo?”

“Sistine Chappell?”

Sissy recognized the voice as that of Frank Gerardo and sat up in a panic. “Please, please don't tell me that Dorrie White died.”

“No, no, she's about the same. Still on the operating table. Did I wake you up? Again?”

“Well, yes, kind of.”

“Maybe you'd rather we talked another time—”

“No, right now is
fine
.” Worry might not keep Sissy from sleeping, but she knew curiosity could. What did Gerardo want?

He said, “Okay, um, Miss Chappell, Agent Harris has told me you've lost your position at the Fulcrum PD due to our interference, and—”

“How in the world did Agent Harris know?”

Gerardo gave a quiet chuckle. “Through the grapevine. Several persons besides yourself could hear Angstrom shouting on the phone, Miss Chappell.”

“Oh.” Duh. Sissy added hastily, “It's nice of Agent Harris to take an interest.”

“Agent Harris has a great deal of respect for you and your work.”

“That's good to hear,” said Sissy, trying hard to muster some enthusiasm. “Is it possible—I mean, do you think either you or Agent Harris could talk Angstrom into taking me back?”

“I doubt it. But I'd much rather talk you into coming to work as a consultant for me.”

Sissy had never woken up so fast, or responded so enthusiastically, in her life. “That would be great! Consulting about handwriting?”

“Sometimes, I'm sure, but right now I have a specific job of a different nature in mind for you. Go back to sleep and I'll get in touch with you tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay. Yes. Um, thank you. Good-bye.”

After that, it was pleasantly difficult for Sissy to get back to sleep.

* * *

The next morning, Monday, Sissy dressed in her favorite chambray shirt, khaki slacks, and Converse high-tops. Heading downtown on foot to the Fulcrum PD to give her shield and sidearm back to Bud Angstrom, she found herself noticing birdsong and a blue sky and the occasional wildflowers that had forced their way through the pavement. Her car, in the parking lot right where it belonged, seemed to twinkle a headlight at her. Breezing into the building where she had worked for less than a year, Sissy found herself smiling at sour faces and shrugging off the sympathies of friendly ones. After cleaning out her desk, she tapped on Chief Angstrom's office door, determined to be so pleasant she would give him heartburn. She would have done this in any case, but Agent Gerardo's phone call made it much easier.

Angstrom roared, “Enter!”

Sissy did so, singing out, “Good morning!” as she placed her pistol, shield, and departmental hat on his desk. Her uniform she had paid for, and she would keep it, for all the good it might ever do her.

Angstrom scowled at the items on his desk. His formidable eyebrows, Sissy noted, adhered firmly to his forehead today. She wondered why he did not invest in a matching toupee for his bald head.

He growled, “What's all this?”

“I'm fired,” Sissy reminded him, making a great effort not to smile.

“Oh. That. How's about if I dock you two days' pay instead.” He plunked her pistol and badge into her hat, making a receptacle out of it, and lifted it in her general direction, his attention on some papers on his desk. “Get back to work.”

How sweet life could be sometimes, albeit at long and unpredictable intervals.

Sissy did not lift a hand to accept her job back. “No, thanks,” she said. “I have another offer. The FBI is hiring me as a consultant.”

A kind of lightning flash reflected off Angstrom's shiny pate as his head jerked up, and a kind of thunder sounded as the hat and its cargo fell from his slackened grip into his metal waste can. “You
what
?” he yelped. “
What
effing FBI?”

“Agent Gerardo—”

Angstrom's next bellow brought him to his feet, knuckles on his desk to stick his face into Sissy's. “Gerardo! So you're quitting on me! If you go with pretty boy, don't you ever try crawling back here!”

“Very best wishes to you too, sir,” Sissy said, turning to hide her grin as she headed out the door.

Once outside and in her car, Sissy phoned the number she had already programmed into her cell.

Two ringtones, then, “Gerardo.”

“Chappell reporting for duty, sir.”

“Good Lord, don't ‘sir' me, Chappell. Can you meet me at the hospital third-floor lounge? Intensive care?”

“Yes, si— Um, what am I supposed to call you?”

“Franklin Delano Gerardo. Or whatever.”

“Um, okay. On my way.”

News cameras scanned the hospital entrance, but as nobody knew Sissy was anybody, she entered without interference.

A few minutes later, her new boss was briefing her over coffee: Mrs. White was in grave condition, heavily sedated and barely conscious. She had nearly died from loss of blood before reaching the hospital. During the fairly long and serious operation to repair her injuries, both the slashed arm and the slit wrist requiring reattachment of nerves and blood vessels, she had required multiple transfusions. No sooner was she out of surgery than complications had started setting in; Dorrie's wounds showed signs of infection, and her lupus was ravaging her body.

Sissy's assignment was simple but important: be available to question Dorrie White if and when she became lucid. Neither Chappell nor Gerardo dwelt long on the grim possibility that she might not survive, although as professionals they had to accept it. Both hoped for a happier outcome.

In any event, Sissy would keep vigil at the hospital for days, perhaps even weeks, until she had all the necessary information for an official deposition to close the case.

“I've been in touch with the home office,” Gerardo explained, “and they agree that my men and I could better spend our time elsewhere. They've faxed paperwork for you to fill out, and once you're sworn in by a judge, Harris and I have to head back east. We agreed we would rather turn the case over to you than to anyone else we've met locally, and we take responsibility for providing you with a future in the FBI. After this case is wrapped up, we'll find you work somewhere else, or perhaps you'll want to apply for a more formal position? Might you consider applying to the FBI school at Quantico? Maybe even eventually becoming a profiler?”

Sissy told him that yes, indeed, she very much might consider it.

* * *

Sam White dealt one minute at a time with the unthinkable: None of Dorrie's doctors could honestly reassure him that she would not die. In a day or two they would know more, they said. A day or two! Sam did not know how he would make it through the night. From a hospital pay phone, he called his parents in Colorado; utterly shocked by the unshed tears they heard in their son's clotted voice, they promised to be on the next airplane to Fulcrum.

Next, Sam knew, he should call Dorrie's parents, but he could not bring himself to do it. Instead, he phoned Pastor Lewinski, hoping he might do it for him.

“Wait,” said Lewinski's young voice as Sam attempted to explain what had happened to Dorrie. “Whoa. One crisis at a time. She's hurt? You're at Fulcrum Hospital? Stay put; I'm coming over.”

Only thanks to Pastor Lewinski and, later, Mom and Pop White, did Sam sleep or eat at all for the next few days. The first night, Lewinski managed to make Sam sit down in the lounge rather than hover outside his wife's intensive care cubicle. He listened to Sam compulsively talking about events that he, Sam, apparently had experienced but even so was having difficulty believing. He brought food from the hospital cafeteria and coaxed Sam to eat some of it as he told a story very much disjointed by distress. He got Sam to stretch out on the sofa by promising that he, Lewinski, would not leave intensive care for a moment without alerting Sam.

Mom and Pop White, the cavalry that arrived at dawn, exerted more authority. Pop took Sam home and made him shower and change clothes while Mom sat in Dorrie's cubicle and Lewinski stepped out for breakfast. Then, feeling guiltily that he really couldn't put it off any longer, he went to make a pastoral call on the Birches.

Knocking on their front door, thinking that it could have and should have been painted almost any color except the same drab brown as the house's shingles, Lewinski mentally prepared himself—belay that. There was no way to prepare for dealing with these particular parishioners.

He was just lifting his hand to knock again when the door was opened by Mr. Birch, who said utterly without expression, “Reverend Lewinski. You're up early today.” He stood aside to let the pastor into a narrow passageway, then opened another dark brown door to a dim room that appeared to be a formal parlor, normally unused.

Lewinski stood feeling awkward, as if he should have a hat to remove and hold in his hands. “Would it be possible for me to see Mrs. Birch also? I'm afraid I have bad news.”

“She's dead, then?” asked Mr. Birch without any apparent emotion.

“No! No, can you be thinking that Dorrie—your daughter—” As happened all too frequently when he spoke with the Birches, Lewinski found himself babbling. With an effort he stopped to try again. “What have you heard?” He found it incredible that they remained here, at home, if they knew their daughter lay near death in the hospital.

Mr. Birch's mouth tightened into a straight and lipless line, like a mail slot. He seemed about to answer when Mrs. Birch came in, wearing an apron and followed by the aroma of bacon. She greeted him with no more smile than her husband, yet with hospitality. “Pastor Lewinski. Would you like to join us for a bite to eat? I have some fresh-baked coffee cake.”

“No, thank you.” He successfully controlled his voice, and his thoughts about the appropriateness of coffee cake under the circumstances. “You've heard about your daughter?”

Mrs. Birch's voice became as starchy and colorless as her collar. “We have been scandalized to hear Candor's name on the news, not only radio but television. We have been given to understand that she has disobeyed us, and she has sinned, and she is being punished.”

“But—but what Dorrie did was heroic, not a sin!”

“We ordered her never to go back there,” said Mr. Birch.

“We would rather not talk about it,” said Mrs. Birch.

The two of them stood shoulder to shoulder, facing their spiritual leader, in the middle of the dark parlor. No one had invited Lewinski to sit down.