Praying for Sleep (8 page)

"Don." Heck offered a limp salute.

"Trent. Glad you were free. Good to see you."

"That storm's on its way," Heck said.

"That Emil of yours could scent through a hurricane, I sought."

That may be, he told Haversham, but he wasn't inclined to get himself lightning-struck. "Now, who's the escapee?"

"That psycho they got at Indian Leap last spring. You remember it?"

"Who don't, round here?"

"Snuck off in somebody's body bag tonight." Haversham explained about the escape.

"Crazy maybe but that shows some smarts."

"He's over near Stinson."

"So he drove a ways, this nutzo?"

"Yup. The coroner's boy, the one who was driving's over there now. So's Charlie Fennel and a couple troopers from J. He's got his bitches with him."

The Troop's dogs weren't true trackers but hunting dogs — Labradors — occasionally drafted for scenting. They had fair noses and being spayed bitches they stayed clear of posts and trees and weren't easily led astray. But they did get distracted. Emil was a track-sure dog; when he was on scent he'd walk right over a rabbit sitting in his path and ignore it, and the only sound you'd hear was the rasp of his anxious breath as he charged along the trail. The girls on the other hand were track-happy and spent much of the time quartering with sloppy enthusiasm and yelping. Still, when you were after a dangerous escapee, it was good practice to go with a pack. He asked Haversham what they could use to scent on.

"Skivvies." The captain handed over a plastic bag. Heck was confident that Haversham knew how to handle scent articles. He'd have made sure that the underwear hadn't been laundered recently and that nobody had touched the cloth with their fingers. The trooper added, "He's running mostly naked, near as we can tell."

Heck thought the captain was joking.

"No sir. He's a big fellow, got lots of padding on him. Adler, that doctor at Marsden, he was telling me these schizos don't feel cold like normal people. It's like they're pretty numb. They don't feel pain either. You can hit 'em and they don't even know they're hit."

"Ooo, that's good to know, Don. Tell me, does he fly too?"

Haversham chuckled then added, "They say he's pretty harmless. He does this a lot. Adler says he's escaped from seven hospitals. They always find him. It's like a game for him. The bag he snuck out in? The fellow's it was, was a suicide."

"Harmless? Didn't they read about Indian Leap?" Heck snickered, and nodded down the road toward Marsden hospital. "Who's crazy in there and who isn't?" Heck was suddenly unable to look at Haversham. "Say, over the phone you mentioned five hundred for my fee. And the reward. Ten thousand. That right, Don? Ten?"

"Yessir. The fee's from my assistance fund just like normal. The reward's from the state. From Adler's budget. He's pretty anxious to get this fellow."

"I don't suppose he put it in writing?"

"Adler? Nope. But he's really anxious to see this boy caught. You collar him, you'll get your money, Trent. And you're the only civvy on the case. My boys can't take a penny."

"We'll get him."

The captain looked off into the night and seemed to be debating. Finally he said, "Trenton? I know I told you he wasn't dangerous but keep that close to you." Haversham indicated the pistol on Heck's hip. "I gotta tell you — was probably an accident, from what Adler says, but Hrubek might've attacked a couple orderlies. Cracked one of 'em's arm like a toothpick. Could've died if nobody'd found him."

"Well, is he dangerous, or ain't he?" Heck asked

"All I'm saying is, keep your eye out. Say, what is that piece?"

"That old P-38 of mine." Heck patted his holster, remembering in detail the day he handed his Glock service automatic over to this very man, Heck's eyes frozen on the black gun as he turned it in, grip first, clip out, slide locked open. The badge and the ID card followed. Heck had bought the uniform himself so they let him keep that though the had to sign a form that said he'd never wear it in public, and his face was red with anger and shame as he set his name to paper.

"They still sell ammunition for that old thing?"

"Nine-millimeter parabellum is all it is."

Haversham stuck his head through the passenger window and stroked the hound's head. The dog sat insensible and bored, staring at the motion of the captain's gray hair. "All right, Emil, go do us and your master proud. You hear? You go catch us a crazy man. Good boy, good boy." Haversham turned to Heck. "Isn't he a good old boy?"

And Trenton Heck — who'd midwived bitches and nursed pups with eyedroppers and sucked snake venom out of the shoulders of retrievers and sped to vets at ninety mph to save dogs that could be saved and shot them remorselessly with a merciful bullet when they could not, who didn't speak to dogs except to command them — Trenton Heck just nodded at the captain with a cautious smile. "Better be going. 'Fore that track gets cold."

"How the hell did it happen?" Owen barked. "He's a madman. He can't escape! Did they leave the son-of-a-bitch door open?"

"Some mix-up of some kind. They were kind of, you know, sketchy on details." Stanley Weber, duly elected! sheriff of the Incorporated Village of Ridgeton, turned out to have been the intruder who'd wakened Lis from her brief sleep. He'd passed by without even noticing her, direct by Portia down to the culvert where Owen was working.

His news was far more disturbing than his unexpected arrival.

"My God, Stan," Lis said, "it's a hospital for the criminally insane. Don't they have bars?"

She was remembering: Eyes set deep in the moonish jolly mad face. Teeth yellow. His howling voice. "
Sic semper tyrannis
... Lis-bone... Hello, Lis-bone!"

"There's no excuse for it." Owen paced angrily. He was a large man, strong in many ways, and he had a temper that scared even Lis. The sheriff crossed his arms defensively and leaned into the anger. "When did it happen?" Owen continued. "Do they know where he's going?"

"Within the last couple hours. I was on the radio." He pointed to his squad car as if trying to lead Owen's fury off track. "I was speaking to Don Haversham. With the state police?" He added significantly, "He's a good man. He's a captain."

"Oh, a captain. My."

Lis found herself staring at the sheriff's feet; in his heavy, dark boots he appeared less a civil servant than a man of combat on a combat mission. A breath of air stirred, reaching damply into her blouse. She watched a dozen leaves fall straight from the branches of a towering maple as if seeking cover before the storm arrived. Lis shivered and realized the kitchen door was ajar. She closed it.

Footsteps sounded suddenly and Lis glanced at the doorway to the living room.

Portia paused then entered the kitchen, still dressed in her thin, sexy outfit, her abundant breasts provocatively defined by the white silken cloth of her blouse. The sheriff nodded at the young woman, who smiled indifferently. The lawman's eyes dipped twice to her chest. Portia's Discman was stuffed into the pocket of the skirt and a single earplug was stuck in one ear. A tinny chunka-chunka sound came from the dangling plug.

"Hrubek's escaped," Lis told her.

"Oh, no." The second earplug was extracted and she flung the wire around her neck the way a doctor wears a stethoscope. The raspy sound of rock music was louder now, shooting from both tiny plugs.

"Say, could you shut that off?" Lis asked, and Portia absently complied.

Lis, Owen and Portia stood on glazed terra-cotta tile as cold as the concrete stoop outside, all in a line, arms crossed. Their formation struck Lis as silly and she broke ranks to fill a kettle. "Coffee or tea, Stanley?"

"No, thankya. He's just wandering around lost, they say. He got away in Stinson, nearly ten miles east of the hospital."

And fifty miles east of where they now stood, Lis thought. Like having a full gas tank or two twenty-dollar bills in your pocket this was a comfort — maybe insubstantial, maybe useless, but a comfort nonetheless.

"So," Portia said, "he's heading away from here."

"Seems to be."

Lis was remembering: The madman bursting to life, hand and foot shackles jingling, his eyes molesting the trial spectators. And she was the person he undressed most eagerly. "Lis-bone, Lisbone..."

Lis had cried then — in June — hearing his hyena-pitched laugh fill the courtroom and she wanted to cry now. She clamped her teeth together and turned to the stove to make a cup of herbal tea.

Owen was still firing angry questions at the sheriff. How many men are out looking for him? Do they have dogs? Did he take any weapons? The sheriff endured this cross-examination gamely then responded, "The fact is they're not doing a whole lot about it. It went out as an information bulletin only. Not an escape-assistance request. I myself'd guess they've pretty much cured him. Shocked him, probably, like they do. With those electrode things. He's out wandering around and they'll pick him up —"

Owen waved his hand and started to speak but Lis interrupted. "If nobody's worried about it, Stan, what are you doing here?"

"Well, I come by to ask if you still got that letter. Thought it might give 'em a clue where he's got himself to."

"Letter?" Owen asked.

Lis, however, knew exactly which letter he was referring to. It'd been her first thought this evening when the sheriff had said the word "Marsden."

"I know where it is," she said, and went to get it.

6

Mrs. Lis-bone Atcheson:

I am in this room I can't breathe I can't hear. I am held here unfAIRly and thEY, yes thEy are stopping me from what I MUST DO. This is very Important, they are holding me and have told lies About Me to wa-ShingtOn and the enTIRE worlD. they think that I am dANGERous etc but this is their excUSE and EVEry-body beliEVEs it. That is beliEVEs "them", they are very Strong & we Must fear them, they arE eV-Erywhere.

It is a CONSPIRACY. CON + S + PIRACY.

and I know YOU are in it!!!!

Revenge is mine it is not the LORDS because the LORD knows what I have Done and will not let ME rest. He shoots me in the hEAd every nighTH! I accept myfATE and YOU who are bEAuTiful mUSt too. Come to me for eternal rest forever.

EVErywhere. forEVEr. rEVEnge.

EVE the woman

COME to ME.

i your lover

Michael Hrubek's penmanship featured green, black and blue ink.

And for her name, and his "signature," red.

The sheriff sucked air between shiny white teeth in a loud, irritating way. "Does any of this make sense to you?" He addressed the question to Owen.

Lis answered, "It's just babble."

Owen glanced at her then added, "We talked about it when it came but we thought it was a kid's prank."

Lis taught sophomore English at Ridgeton High School.

"I'm a tough grader." She laughed wanly. "I've been on my share of sixteen-year-olds' shit lists."

"'i your lover.'" The sheriff hitched at his gun belt. He stared at the letter for a moment. "Return address?"

Lis flipped through the manilla folder where she'd filed it — in the Letters, Miscellaneous slot. Just past, she now noted, Last Will and Testament — Owen and Lis. She found the envelope. There was no return address. The postmark was Gloucester.

"That's nowhere near Marsden," she pointed out.

"Let me make a call." The sheriff glanced at Owen, who nodded at the phone.

As she leaned against the counter, sipping the rose-hip tea, Lis remembered a hot Saturday in September, replanting a bush of hybrid tea roses, lemon yellow. Sweat was running along her nose with a tickle. Owen had been working all day and had just returned. About 6:00 p.m., the sun low and wan. He stood in the doorway, his large shoulders slumped, a piece of paper in his hand. Lis glanced up at him and the plant sank through her fingers, a thorn piercing her skin. Because of the sallow, grave expression on her husband's face she hadn't at first noticed the pain. Lis looked down a second later and saw a sphere of blood on her finger. She set the plant on the ground. Owen handed her this very letter and she took it from him slowly, leaving a bloody fingerprint on the envelope — like an old-time wax seal.

Portia now read it. She shrugged, and announced to Lis, "I've got some stuff with me. Stop by the room, you want. It might relax you."

Lis blinked and forced herself to appear blasé. Only her sister, she reflected from an emotional distance, would offer a joint with one-fifth of the town's constabulary standing nearby (his squad car's bumper proclaiming, Ridgeton Says NO to Drugs). This was vintage Portia — playful, cunning, perverse. Oh, Portia — the hip, pale, French-braided younger sister with her Discman and her stream of thin-faced boyfriends. She'd been forced to endure an evening in the country, and she was blowing Lis one of the cold kisses her older sister remembered so well.

Lis did not reply. The young woman shrugged and, with a glance at Owen, wandered out of the kitchen.

The sheriff, who hadn't heard Portia's proposition and probably wouldn't have understood it if he had, hung up the receiver. When he spoke, it was to Owen. "Well... The long and the short of it is that she doesn't have anything to worry about."

She? Lis repeated to herself. Was this me? Her face burned and she sensed even old-world Owen shift uncomfortably at the sheriff's patronizing attitude.

"They said it didn't mean nothing. Hrubek's a schizo — they don't do well by people face to face. Too nervous to talk or something. So they write these long letters that're just nonsense mostly and when they do make a threat they're like too scared to act on it."

"The postmark?" Lis asked firmly. "Gloucester."

"Oh, about that. I asked. He may still've sent it. He got sent to this hospital there for some tests the first week in September. It's pretty low-security. He might've slipped away and mailed a letter. But, what I was telling you before, he's headed east, away from here."