Escapement (8 page)

“So,” I said to Rosemary, “Abby tells me that you talked him out of suicide.”

“I believe life is precious and a gift from God. Every part of our lives. Even the end. I told Abbott that God had a purpose and a plan for every minute, even as he was dying.”

“Yeah. He looks real purposeful over there.”

“I know it doesn’t seem that way. In the last few weeks, though, Abbott has had some epiphanies about his life and God’s will for it.”

“So God just forgave him for everything? Even though he’s made many people miserable? And those are his words, not mine.”

“Yes, God forgave him. Just like he’ll forgive you if you ask him.”

“God and I aren’t on speaking terms, so I guess I’m out of luck.” I turned to Abbott. “So how many people did you trample to get all this wealth?”

“Too many,” Abbott said.

“How did you get so wealthy, anyway?”

Abbott paused for a moment. What was he, a Wall Street heavy or something? Was I staring down an anemic Bernie Madoff?

“I’m a psychologist,” he said softly.

The words sat in the air for a moment.

“I wrote a book about nervous breakdowns that sold three million copies.”

“Awesome.” I tried to smirk but it didn’t really launch off my face like I’d hoped.

Rosemary clasped her hands together. “Maybe Abbott would like to share his views about your visit from Time and this seven hours you’re speaking about.”

“No thanks. I’d really like everyone to just shut up.” My eyes were slicing back and forth from him to her like some paranoid freak.

“But, Mattie,” Rosemary said, her eyes locked on me, “what if you’re not going to die? What if your mind is playing tricks on you and this isn’t real?”

“Shut up!” I yelled. Then I felt bad because Rosemary has one of those faces that you feel guilty for yelling at.

She wasn’t deterred. “Mattie, have you been under a great deal of stress lately?”

“Not at all,” I said smoothly. “I lost my job because I’m fat, and then I lost my wife because I lost my job, and then I lost my will to get up in the morning because I lost my wife. So everything is going perfectly fine.”

“See!” It was like she didn’t speak sarcasm. “That could be it. Abbott, tell him. This could be his mind playing tricks on him, right?”

Abbott shifted uncomfortably. “Rosemary, let the man be. He doesn’t want to be psychoanalyzed.”

I smiled all Cheshire cat–like. This could be fun. I mean, obviously he didn’t want to play. So why not make him?

“Why don’t you enlighten me, Abby?” I said, threading my fingers together. “Am I going nuts?”

Abbott sat there for a long time, breathing shallowly, his eyes staring at the carpet. Then he looked at me but said, “Rosemary, were all the numbers on the pocket watch that Mattie showed you?”

Rosemary’s eyes were a little too round. She slowly nodded.

I looked at the watch, still in my hand. It was plainly missing numbers.

“Mattie, there is a chance that you’re having a delusion here.”

“So now I’m fat
and
delusional?” I laughed one of those laughs that scares young children. “Perfect. Well, the better to kill you with, my dear.”

“Don’t you see?” Rosemary said. “You’ve been under a lot of stress. Sometimes our minds can’t handle it all.”

“Maybe you should talk to my split personality about that,” I snapped.

“Mattie, this may be your mind’s way of dealing with tremendous loss,” Abbott said. “It’s convinced you your time has run out because you don’t want to live anymore but you don’t want to kill yourself either.”

Rosemary nodded eagerly.

“Yes, well, nice try. But I’m still going to murder you.”

“Mattie . . . ,” Rosemary said.

But Abbott raised his hand. “You heard the man, Rosemary. There’s no use trying to change his mind.”

I cast a sharp look toward Abbott. “You don’t have to sound so happy about it.”

Suddenly a tear rolled down his cheek. “This is no way to live,” he said quietly. “I just want to go. I have nothing left on this earth.”

“You have me,” Rosemary said gently. She went and knelt by him, holding his hand. Well, I guess that’s one way to win friends . . . die horribly and gain the sympathies of the hospice nurse.

“How do you do this?” I asked Rosemary. When I worked as a nurse, there was always hope they’d live. This was so different. “How do you get so close to someone when you know they’re going to die? I mean, don’t all your patients die?”

“Yes, they do. But I want them to know how much God loves them. And what there is for them on the other side. It’s the job God has for me. It’s not always easy, but I’ve seen God work in extraordinary ways, and his timing continues to amaze me. What are the chances that Abbott is a psychologist and you’re having a nervous breakdown?”

I couldn’t help it. The glare just morphed my face. I could feel it. Rosemary looked like she wished her filters had been in place.

“I’m not having a nervous breakdown,” I said calmly, like before-the-storm calm.

“Of course. I’m sorry, Mattie. I sometimes don’t think before I speak. I get kind of excited when I see God working.”

“God working?” I angrily waved my hand between the three of us. “How, exactly, is God working here? He’s rotting away. I’m going to murder him and then either die or get arrested for murder. And you’re kind of at risk for being collateral damage. Cue the harps.”

“God works in mysterious ways,” Rosemary said. “But that’s neither here nor there. The point I’m trying to make, Mattie, is that God loves you. And if you’ve only got forty minutes left in your life, then that’s what he’ll work with. Forty minutes.”

“You’re cheery. My Beth is cheery. I’m kind of a sad sack of a human, but Beth, she likes to skip. Who likes to skip?” I didn’t know why I was babbling about Beth and skipping. Things were just spilling out.

“How are you going to explain this to Beth, Mattie?” Rosemary asked.

“I’m not. You are.”

She looked sad as she seemed to imagine how that conversation would go. I kind of felt sad about it too. Sure, Beth had been threatening divorce, but I knew she didn’t mean it. That’s why I wouldn’t sign the papers. Then she was going to get a phone call. From a total stranger named Rosemary, who, though a kindred spirit in the happy department, would be delivering some awful news. Not only was I dead, but I’d killed someone in the process. How was she going to fathom that? I can’t even kill the mice in our condo.

I looked at Rosemary. “You need to explain to Beth, when you call, that Abbott was a horrible person. Okay? Make sure she knows that I didn’t kill the archbishop of decency. Mention he made fun of my weight. Tell her that I estimated he was responsible for at least 180 pounds.”

For some reason Rosemary smiled. I don’t know why. But I smiled too. Good grief, this was not going down at all how it had in my head.

“I’m cold . . . ,” Abbott said suddenly.

Rosemary’s attention snapped to Abbott and she stood. He was shivering like we were in the Arctic.

“I need to get him an afghan,” she said to me. “It’s right in that same hall closet.”

“Fine,” I said, following her once my knees creaked to life. I had to keep an eye on her at that closet. I didn’t think she knew the gun was in the shoe box labeled “power cables,” but I had to be sure. She reached right by it and pulled out the afghan, neatly folded like the rich people do it. She took it back to the room and I settled into my chair, pulling out the watch, hoping against hope that all the numbers would be there. Alas, they were not. The second hand bothered me, though. It’s like it was growing louder, like it was the only sound in the room.

I glanced up to make sure Rosemary and Abbott were still where they should be and gasped. I gasped so loud that I choked myself with the air inflow, coughing and wheezing while still managing to hyperventilate.

Rosemary’s eyes grew wide. “Dear God, this is it . . . He’s having a heart attack!” she yelled as if we were in a crowded restaurant and there might be people around to help. “Mattie! Hold on! I’ve got you! I know CPR!”

I halted her with one outstretched hand. “I’m fine,” I wheezed.

“You’re not! You’re pale as a ghost! Let me check your blood pressure.” She didn’t wait for permission. Before I knew it, she was by my side, the cuff in her hand. But unfortunately for us both, it was too small to wrap around my arm. She dropped it to the floor and her fingers pressed against my wrist.

But I was still staring across the room at Abbott—more accurately, at the really large Thomas Kinkade painting that lay across his body in the form of an afghan.

Abbott was staring back at me. “What?”

I couldn’t speak. Was it a sign? Had God just sent me a sign in the form of a brightly lit lamppost with snow on it and evergreens in the background?

“It’s coming down,” Rosemary said, obliviously focused on this as a medical issue. “Whew . . .”

And then, without warning in the fullest sense of the term, I began bawling hysterically. At my weight, you can just call it blubbering. I wailed like no man my size has ever wailed.

“There, there,” Rosemary said, patting me on the back. “It’s okay. It’s okay, honey.”

“What’s the matter?” Abbott asked, and I knew he meant beyond the scenario in which we all had found ourselves.

I sobbed, “I think I just got a sign from God.”

Abbott glanced around him, like he might spot an angel or something.

“It’s the . . . the afghan,” I said, pointing.

Nobody understood. How could they?

But I felt something. I think it was guilt. Or maybe pre-remorse. Wasn’t sure, but suddenly the idea of slicing Abbott open or banging him on the side of the head didn’t seem like a good one.

Then my phone vibrated to life. I’d completely forgotten it was there in the front pocket of my shirt. I hardly received phone calls these days. Most of my friends, who were also my coworkers, had stopped calling. And Beth was the only one I cared to see on the caller ID.

It was a number I didn’t recognize. It wasn’t even an Oklahoma area code. It piqued my interest. Maybe this was another sign. Rosemary and Abbott watched me carefully as I stared at it, wondering if I should . . . or shouldn’t . . . or should . . .

I answered, clearing my throat and trying not to sound like a serial killer or a blubbering idiot. “This is Matthew.”

“Matthew Bigham?” the male voice asked, pronouncing my name correctly.

“Yes? Who is this?”

“My name is Detective Warren Caffield. I am with the McKinney, Texas, police department.”

I froze. Beth had been staying in McKinney with cousins while we were separated. My heart burned with fear. “Yes? What’s the matter?”

“Do you reside in Oklahoma, sir?”

“Yes.”

“Do you live on Northwest Fiftieth Street?”

“Yes, I do. Please, what is wrong?”

There was a long sigh—a very long sigh . . . a regretful sigh—on the other end of the phone. My whole being seemed to slide right out my feet. I grabbed the armrest of the chair. Was Beth dead? Was that why they were calling?

Then Detective Caffield said, “Mr. Bigham, are you sitting down?”

“Yes,” I squeaked.

“I have some troubling news for you, sir. I’m sorry to have to tell you that your wife . . .”

“Yes?”

“. . . tried to hire a hit man to kill you.”

I gasped again, but this time it sounded like half of a hiccup. “Wha . . . ?”

“Yes, she hired a man to kill you, but an informant told us of the plan. To say it plainly, sir, you should’ve been dead about six hours ago. We didn’t intercept the plan until after his first attempt.”

I felt tears rolling down my face, but it was like I was out of my own body. “Are . . . are you saying my wife wanted me dead?”

“She has already confessed. She was hoping to get insurance money and run off with another man, a Jeff Porman.”

“Jeff . . . Porman . . .” Had never heard of him. I looked at Rosemary and Abbott. Both were covering their mouths, which made me realize this was really happening.

“We’re going to have her extradited to Oklahoma City in a few days. And the man who was going to kill you is in custody. You’re totally safe.”

Totally safe . . .
The words seemed so cruel.

“Sir, when do you plan to return to Oklahoma City?” the detective asked.

“I . . . I, uh, I’m in an open-ended . . . in Wichita . . . I don’t . . .”

“It’s okay. Listen, I’ll give you a few days and call you back. We’ll probably need to interview you at some point. I’m sorry to have to deliver such bad news by phone. We had some uniforms try to track you down in Oklahoma City to no avail.”

“Good-bye,” I whispered. I slid the phone back in my pocket.

Rosemary was crying. Why was she crying? Abbott looked more sickly than usual.

“Mattie,” Rosemary said, reaching out her hand to me.

I held up a finger. “I need a moment.”

She nodded. I went to the hallway, opened the closet door, and grabbed the shoe box. The lid popped off and inside was a small pistol. I checked and it was fully loaded. I returned to the living room and pointed the gun straight at Abbott. Rosemary screamed.

“Now,” I growled, “I really don’t have anything to lose.”

I whipped around and pointed the gun at Rosemary as she stood, about to say something. She slowly sat back down, her face growing pale. I was glad there were six bullets because my hand was shaking so badly that even standing four feet from Abbott, I probably would miss at least twice.

“Mattie . . . please. Stop and think. Tell me what happened. What was that call about?”

Tears rolled down my face even though I wasn’t crying. It was kind of weird. “Well, it’s horribly ironic,” I said, gesturing with the gun. “Horribly, horribly ironic.” It was sinking in how unbelievably ironic it was. I blabbered on. “I mean, had Constant not come and told me I was going to die, I would’ve just been murdered in my condo. But instead I left and got an extra seven hours to do . . . to do whatever I wanted, so I chose murder. And now I’m here,
and Beth hired a hit man to kill me
, so that’s kind of wrecking me all up inside . . .” I was still waving the gun, and Abbott and Rosemary were flinching like they were having mini seizures. “And so I was going to die in the exact same way that you are going to die,” I said, cutting my gaze to Abbott. “But I was saved and you’re not going to be and I’m just suffocating with all this irony . . .”