Desperate Measures (28 page)

Shaking worse, Pittman felt along his legs, his torso, his . "Everything seems to be all right. " Surprising himself, he yawned and realized that he'd been doing so for quite a while. "What's wrong with me? I'm worried that you might have been shot and yet I can't stop yawning."

"Shock. The adrenaline's wearing off. Your body's telling you it needs a long rest."

"But I don't feel sleepy."

"Right." Jill turned on the car's heater. Pittman yawned again.

"Just to humor me," Jill said, "why don't you crawl in the backseat, stretch out as best you can, and close your eyes for a while?"

"The backseat. That reminds me." With difficulty, Pittman squirmed into the darkness of the backseat and zipped open his gym bag. "What are you doing?" Jill asked.

"Reloading. Hand me your pistol. I've got other magazines from the gunmen who were at your apartment. I'd better reload yours, too - " Jill muttered something. "I didn't hear you."

"Guns. I swore I'd never touch one of the damned things. Now here I . . . " The Duster's slant-six engine roared as Jill drove faster.

The silence woke him. Piittman blinked, disoriented, realized that he was slumped in the car's backseat, and squinted ahead toward Jill behind the steering wheel. The sky was gray with false dawn. The car was stopped.

"Where are we?" Groggy, he sat up and winced from stiffness.

"A motel in Greenfield, Massachusetts. That's about ten miles south of Vermont and a hundred and fifty miles from the school. That ought to be far enough to keep them from finding us." Jill hesitated. "For now."

"You must be exhausted."

"I shouldn't be. Normally I'd be getting off my shift at the hospital in an hour. I'd work out, eat a light dinner, watch something I taped on the VCR, and go to sleep around noon. "But this isn't 'normally.'

"No kidding. You'd better stay in the car while I see if the desk clerk will accept cash to rent a room. With that dried blood on you, you're not exactly presentable. I'll tell the clerk we were visiting relatives in Waterford, Connecticut. We thought we could drive all night and get home, but finally we're exhausted."

Jill got out of the car, went into the motel's office, and returned with a key.

The room was on the bottom level, in back of the motel, a location Jill had requested, telling the clerk they didn't want to be disturbed by morning traffic.

No one was around when she unlocked the door and Pittman followed her in. They set the gym bag and small suitcase on the floor, assessing the unit. It was plain but clean, its air stale but not offensive.

"I asked for a nonsmoker's room." Jill locked the door. "The clerk assured me the television works. There's no one in the rooms on either side of us, so we won't be disturbed that way, either. "

"Twin beds," Pittman said. "Lucky. "

"Yeah." Sex was the last thing on Pittman's mind. Nonetheless, he felt self-conscious.

"You'd better get in the bathroom and take your clothes off. We have to find out how badly you were injured." Jill reached into Pittman's gym bag and pulled out a first-aid kit that they'd bought, along with the flashlight and Pittman's wool coat, the day before.

"I bet you were a drill sergeant on the ward."

"Don't tell me you're going to get modest on me." Jul looked amused. "I didn't say I was going into the bathroom with you. Close the door, undress, rinse the blood off, and after you get a towel around you, I'll check you out. For sure, I'll have to change the bandage on your hand." "I bet you loved poking big needles into your patients." Pittman went into the bathroom and, feeling a strain on his right side, removed his clothes.

"And you'd better not use the shower. " Jill's voice came muffled from the opposite side of the door. "You might get Weak and lose your balance. Sit in the tub."

He examined himself. "I can tell you right now, there aren't any holes in me. But I've got a nasty bruise along my right ribs. "

"Soak in the tub. I'll be back in a minute." "Where are you going?"

"There's an all-night convenience store across the street. I'm going to see what they've got to eat."

Orange juice, doughnuts, and skim milk, Pittman discovered when he finished his second bath (the first had been pink from the dried blood he'd rinsed off). He came out of the steaming bathroom, feeling awkward, knowing he looked embarrassed, holding a towel around his hips.

"I'm surprised," Jill said. "Given everything you've been doing-sleeping on park benches, pretending to be a policeman-you didn't strike me as the bashful type."

Pittman saw a blanket on a metal shelf outside the bathroom and pulled it down.

"Before you cover yourself, I need to look at that bruise on your ribs." Jill drew a finger along it.

"Ouch. "

"Ouch? Grown-ups don't. Sayouch. Little kids sayouch. Does this rib hurt?, "For Christ sake, yes."

"Now that's what big kids say. Inhale. Exhale. Does the pain get worse? No?" She thought about it. "An X ray would tell for sure, but I doubt any ribs are broken. Not that it matters.

'Why?"

"The treatment for broken ribs is the same as for bruised ones-nothing. You don't put on a cast for broken ribs. days, you don't even get taped. What you get is a warning not to exert yourself and not to bump your ribs against anything.

"Swell."

"The miracles of modern medicine. The cut on your hand, those scratches and scrapes, those I can do something about. " After putting on antibiotic cream and rebandaging Pittman's left hand, Jill began applying disinfectant to portions of his face. "Are you hungry?"

"Yes, but I wish you'd brought some coffee along with the doughnuts, orange juice, and milk."

"After the adrenaline rush you just went through? Haven't you had enough chemical stimulation for a while?"

"I get the feeling you don't do much without thinking of the chemical effect on your body," Pittman said. "Better living through proper diet."

"In that case, I'm surprised you bought doughnuts."

"It's the only thing remotely acceptable the store had. Beef jerky was out of the question."

III hate skim milk."

"Give it a chance. You'll learn to like it. Then even two percent tastes awfully rich."

"If we stay together, I suppose I'm going to have to learn to like it." Jill looked strangely at him. "What's the matter?" Pittman asked. "Nothing. "Tell me. What is it?"

"You were talking about if we stay together. Under better circumstances, I'd like that," Jill said. Pittman felt himself blush.

"It's my turn for that bath." Looking as self-conscious as Pittman had earlier, Jill picked up her suitcase and went inside. "Turn on CNN," she suggested before closing the door. "See if there's anything about us."

Pittman didn't move for a moment, thinking about what she had said ... about staying together. Six days ago, he'd been eager to die.

Jill finished a glass of orange juice and pointed toward the news report on CNN. "Nothing about what happened at the school. "

"I'm not surprised."

"You think they didn't link it to us?"

"No, I'm sure they did," Pittman said. "Then ... ?"

"I'm also sure that some very powerful people squashed the story. They don't want any attention whatsoever directed toward that school. "

"Yes," Jill said. "I see what you mean. All those Establishment parents, they don't want anything to sully the reputation of the prep school their sons graduate from. For that matter, the alumni don't want Grollier to be associated with break-ins and shooting, either. Far too vulgar."

"Maybe more than that," Pittman said. "Maybe what we're trying to learn is serious enough to destroy the school.

Jill turned quickly toward him, her gaze intense. "Yes, that would explain a lot."

"Duncan Kline. One of the men who taught the grand counselors. And Derrick Meecham, the student who dropped his class with them."

"Or got sick and had to leave school," Jill said.

"But never came back to Grollier the following year, the year he would have graduated. I wonder, how do we find out about Duncan Kline and Derrick Meecham? I'm sure as hell not going back to Grollier. "

After a moment, Jill said, "I have an idea. A minute ago, we were talking about Grollier's alumni."

"Yes?"

"Grollier's students are all targeted for Ivy League colleges. In particular, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. If we assume that Derrick Meecham finally graduated from a prep school similar to Grollier, then it's also logical to assume that he went to one of the Ivy League colleges," Jill said. "The registrar's office for each school can tell us if Meecham went to any of them. But that won't help us. What we really want to know is where Meecham is now."

"The university organizations that keep track of the names and addresses of graduates are the alumni foundations," Pittman said.

"Exactly. The groups that are always asking graduates for big bucks to support their alma mater. My father graduated from Yale. He's one of the biggest donators to its athletic program. The alumni foundation is on the phone to him all the time, sucking up to him, offering special tickets, inviting him to exclusive athletic banquets, wanting more money. Believe me, for his daughter, they'll do whatever I want. And if Derrick Meecham didn't go to Yale, I'll ask them to contact the alumni foundations at the other Ivy League colleges.

"Fine, Ray, fine," Jill said to the telephone. Her blue eyes gleamed with intensity. "Yes, my father's feeling well, too. Oh, that. Sure, we have disagreements from time to time. We always patch them up. We're getting along fine." Concentrating, she drew a hand through her long, straight blond hair. "As a matter of fact, I think I might drive up and see him this weekend."

From one of the twin beds, Pittman watched her. She was wrapped in a blanket, sitting on the desk that supported the phone. A digital clock next to her showed 11:38 A. M. He and Jill had gotten four hours sleep, which wasn't nearly enough, his sore body and raw eyes told him, but there wasn't time to rest longer. The call had to be made. They had to keep moving.

"The reason I'm calling, Ray, is I'd appreciate it if you did me a favor," Jill said to the telephone. "It's easy, and it won't cost you money." She laughed. "Great. I knew you'd feel that way. I'll be sure to tell my father that yi)u helped me out. What I'd like you to do is check your computer files for an alumnus named Derrick Meecham. What class? I'm not sure. Some time in the thirties. Yes, that does go a way back. Is it a problem? One of my elderly patients is terminal. He wants to tie up some loose ends, and evidently there's something he wants to tell this Derrick Meecham. I guess they haven't seen each other in fifty years. Don't ask me why it's important to him, but I feel sorry for the old guy and I'd like to do him a -favor. Yeah, I'm a softy. On the ward, they're always kidding me about- What? You must have a hell of a computer system. Just a minute while I write down that address. The phone number. Wonderful. I've got it. Thanks, Ray. I really appreciate this. I'll be sure to tell my father. You bet, and you take care of yourself, too."

Jill set down the phone and looked at Pittman. "Boston."

Pittman studied a map he'd found in the bedside table. "That's only a hundred miles away. It looks like if we take Route Two, we can be there in a couple of hours."

"Matt?"

"What's wrong?"

"Suppose Meechmn can't help us." Pittman didn't answer.

"Suppose he can't," Jill repeated. "Don't think like that, " Pittman said. "We need to believe that he will help us. Otherwise, we won't be able to keep going. Jill studied him. "Your determination surprises me."

"Why?"

"A man who's planning to kill himself normally doesn't worry about the future, about staying alive."

"Survival? That's not what this is about."

"Oh? You sure as hell could have fooled me. What is it about?"

"A week ago, I was sitting in my bathtub with a gun in my mouth."

Jill wasn't prepared for the change of subject. The stark revelation shocked her.

"I had settled all of my affairs. Every debt I owed had been repaid, every favor returned. Everything was in order. I wasn't beholden to anyone. I intended to leave this world with every loose end tied. Then my phone rang and a friend I thought I was even with asked me to do him a favor. He had done so much for my son that I couldn't possibly refuse him. Now I have another debt."

"To whom?" Jill asked. "You.

"What are you talking about?"

"It's my fault that you're involved in this. If I hadn't gone to your apartment ... I have to make sure you're safe." Holding the blanket tightly around her, Jill walked over to him. She touched his shoulder. "Thank you." Pittman shrugged, self-conscious.

"And if you're successful?" Jill asked. Pittman didn't know what to answer. "Then what?" Jill asked. "Do you still plan to kill yourself?" Pittman looked away.

She sat up, stretched, and yawned. "These are your old stomping grounds, "Do you think you can find the address?"

"Sure. No problem."

"You don't need to look at a map?"

They took longer than they had anticipated. Route 2 was under construction. It ended well before Boston, and they were forced to take an indirect route, using 495 south, then go east into the city, arriving only in late afternoon. Pittman's bandaged left hand felt less awkward. He did the driving this time, letting Jill nap in the backseat until he stopped at a rest stop.