The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter (19 page)

There was a moment's hesitation, not because they didn't know, but because this group of citizens did not consider the law to be on their side most of the time. Not that they had anything against Spencer Arrowood personally; it's just that his badge usually spelled trouble for people in these parts. Sheriff's Department uniforms meant somebody getting hauled off to jail during a family argument or a too loud, too drunk party. The sight of a man in that brown uniform standing outside your house meant that the finance company had sent people to repossess your belongings and the man with the gun was there to see that they got away with it. Whenever they showed up in your neighborhood, it meant bad news, and tonight was no different, except that the bad news had arrived first, in the form of a fire.

Finally somebody called out, "Robsarts' place. He's overseas, though. It was just Tammy and her young'un."

Spencer nodded, trying to remember if he knew them. He didn't think so—another good sign. They weren't trouble-makers. "Did they make it out okay?"

A heavyset woman in jeans and a duffel coat stepped out of the crowd. "The little boy did. 281

He's asleep at my place with my kid. Tammy got him out quick as she could. She wasn't so lucky, though. Fire got her pretty bad."

Spencer thanked her. "Could you show me where you live? I'll take the boy to the hospital if she asks to see him."

"Number twenty-seven. Double-wide, third on the right. Name's Etheridge." The woman looked suddenly embarrassed and shuffled off in the direction she'd pointed. "Reckon I'll head on back," she called out. People began to follow her, drifting away from the fire, and murmuring among themselves.

Spencer went over to talk to Faro Weaver. He had a report to fill out, and a trip to the hospital ahead of him. He knew it wasn't arson, though. The mood of the crowd told him that. It was just the usual run of bad luck that dogged the poor: Try to keep warm and your ramshackle house ignites around you. In neighborhoods like this it was too commonplace to be called a tragedy.

She could feel the heat from the examining-table light, and instinctively she tried to squirm away. "Stay still," said a man in green, shadowed by the brightness. "Can you hear me, ma'am? Are you in any pain?"

Tammy Robsart blinked up at him, trying to concentrate on his question. There was pain like a dull roar, but she couldn't figure out what exactly hurt. Something had been pressed across the lower part of her face. She took a gulp of pure oxygen, and nodded her head slightly, still 282

trying to take in her surroundings. Beside the man in green, there was a bottle on a rack with a tube leading down toward her. She tried to sit up.

She felt gentle hands pushing her back down. She licked her cracked lips, and tried to speak. "The fire . . ." Her voice came out in a whisper. The interval between the opening of the door and the sirens—the ambulance was only a blur in her mind. Her throat felt like leather.

The man leaned closer now, and she could see that he was wearing a mask. Above it, white hair curled around his wrinkled forehead, and his blue eyes seemed as bright as the light.

"Can you say your name for me?"

"Tammy," she whispered. "Tammy . . . Robsart."

"That's fine. Mrs. Robsart, are you able to understand me? We need to talk."

Her lips moved again, soundlessly, but her eyes were open and clear. She was conscious enough to be frightened. The man looked away, heaved an audible sigh, and then leaned down again. His voice was gentler now. "You're in the hospital, Tammy. I'm Dr. O'Neill. I need to tell you about your condition."

Suddenly, she felt searing cold all the way to her bones, racking her body with a great shiver. She shut her eyes tight. "It's so cold."

"There's nothing to keep you warm. I'm sorry." He turned to a nurse. "Get me a blood sample and check for smoke inhalation. Try the right femoral artery."

"Morgan?" said Tammy, ignoring the roar from her body.

"That's her little boy," said a woman's voice from outside the light. "She's asking about him."

Dr. O'Neill nodded. "He's fine. You got him out the window, didn't you? Well, he did what you told him. Ran to the neighbors for help. They called the fire department and the rescue squad who brought you here. He's quite a little hero. And you were pretty brave, too." His eyes glistened in the bright light. "And you have to keep on being brave for a little bit while we talk about what you want to do."

Tammy Robsart tried to raise her head to survey her body, but straps held her to the examining table. Her lungs felt tight, and her throat was dry. The rest of her sensations seemed to come in red waves that subsided into haze. "Do I need an operation?" she said. Her words came out in a rasping whisper that she barely recognized as her voice.

"You're very badly burned, Tammy. We have a medical term called the Rule of Nines, to determine the extent of burn damage a patient has sustained, and I'm afraid you scored very high on it."

Tammy tried to smile. "First test I ever done good on."

"It's like golf, I'm afraid. A high score is not good. You have scorched lungs, and heat damage, as well as severe burns on your legs, back, and lower torso, and on one arm. The flare-up 284

must have hit just as you were jumping out of that trailer of yours, when the cold air got in."

"Yeah. It just whooshed, and it was like the fire stayed with me. I couldn't get away from it." She waited for him to go on, but he was silent. Finally, she asked it. "Am I hurt bad?"

"Yes. I'm afraid you are. I'm sorry. The extent of your burns exceeds the . . . the usual margin for survival."

"Dr. O'Neill!" It was the woman's voice, from outside the light. "You shouldn't—"

"Hartnell! Save it for church. We're fresh out of miracles. She's got a right to know."

"I feel okay/' said Tammy. Dying ought to hurt a lot, and if you could stand the pain, and hold on through it, you didn't have to die. She was no stranger to pain. She was tough. Didn't she have Morgan by natural childbirth and not make a sound? She had chewed on ice during the contractions, and hung on to Dale's hand till it bruised.

"Lack of pain is not good, either, Tammy," Dr. O'Neill sounded far-off and weary. "It means the nerves have been destroyed, along with the rest of the tissue. The third-degree burns aren't hurting you, Tammy. It's the less serious ones that you're still able to feel. I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but I had to be honest with you, so that you could make a decision. Here are your options: We can spend the next eight hours trying all sorts of burn treatments, which will make you uncomfortable, and which will not help you, but we could try. . . . Of course, it would leave that husband of yours 285

with a lot of debts. Or—" He swallowed hard. "We could put you in a private room, see that you don't feel too much pain, and let you spend that eight hours any way you choose. You can see your son, make provisions for him and for— Well, I guess the fire took care of most of your possessions. But you can have a telephone, and talk to whoever you want. Someone will stay with you in case you need anything, but no one will disturb you. You can spend the next hours any way you wish."

"And then what?" whispered Tammy. The cold was spiraling around her bones like a piece of silver wire.

"It's just about certain that either way ... in about eight hours, you will drift off to sleep, and you won't wake up."

"Dr. O'Neill!" It was the woman's voice again, harsher this time. "You can't expect a patient to make a decision like that. Shouldn't we airlift her to the burn center in Knoxville? They've made great progress lately in burn cases, and—"

He shook his head. "I called Knoxville. The air-rescue chopper can't come. One was put in the shop for routine maintenance, and the other one got engine trouble and had to be grounded for repairs. Without them, we couldn't get her to the burn center in time. We're two hours from Knoxville by road, and we couldn't do much for her in transit. We could only give her a lot of pain and waste her remaining time in a useless ambulance run." He turned his back to her, and his voice was low. "Besides, what kind 286

of life would it be? Her hands and feet are almost gone. And she's a Robsart. They don't have the money for the upkeep of a hopeless invalid. I'm not going to sentence that little girl to living hell. I say let her go."

"You can't tell her there's no hope, Dr. O'Neill! Even if it's true. We have to make every effort—"

"We have. Short of the Knoxville burn center, we've done it, and it won't save her. She needs to know that."

"I'm twenty," she said. "I'm real strong."

"I know." He leaned close to her, and his voice was gentle. "I wish that would help, but your body can only do so much."

"I'm gonna die?"

"Yes. You need to tell us how you want to spend the time you have left."

"I want to see my boy. And the county sheriff. Spencer Arrowood. Will he come?"

"I'll call him myself," O'Neill promised. "Anybody else? Do you have family?"

"Just Dale. My husband. He's in the Gulf. Can we call over there and try to find him?"

"Yes. Give us his unit, and we'll put somebody to work on it while we're getting you settled in your room."

"Wait!" Tammy Robsart tried to reach for his hand. "Gotta ask you. Do I look horrible?"

O'Neill hesitated. "Your hair was burned some, but your face is all right, minus eyebrows and eyelashes. Is that what you were concerned about?"

She blinked up at him, crying but tearless. 287

"My little boy. I didn't want Morgan to remember me looking like a monster. I'm ready now. It won't hurt, will it?"

"Not as bad as it once would have. We've put a catheter in at the base of your spine, so that we can control the amount of painkiller you need. There's another needle in you replacing your fluids, or trying to. If it gets too bad, and you want to go to sleep, you just tell Hartnell here, and she'll see to it."

"I want to see my son first. Just give me that much time. I can hold on until then."

you must wear your rue with a difference.

— Hamlet

Spencer Arrowood stood in the hallway of the hospital, wondering whether it was the disinfectant smell, the shade of green on the walls, or the nature of his business that made him feel like puking. A stubble of blond beard on his chin indicated the haste with which he'd been summoned. He had forgotten his badge. He had outlasted his fatigue, though. A cup of black coffee, provided by a passing nurse, had jolted him into full alert. He'd be up for the rest of the night, no matter what, but he wished he could be someplace other than here. Naomi Judd had worked as a nurse for years before she got her break in country music. He wondered how she had stood it. How did any of them?

He looked down at the wooden waiting bench where a small form in tiny jeans and a blue sweater was curled up, butt in the air, eyes closed. Spencer took oft his sheepskin jacket, and spread it over the sleeping boy, Morgan Robsart, until only the blond curls were visible.

Dr. Peter O'Neill emerged from intensive care, looking as if he'd been up for days. His white coat was rumpled, and the lines on his face were etched deeper than before. County Hospital was understaffed, of course. He worked many more hours than other physicians his age, but somebody had to tend to these people. He didn't see anybody else volunteering. The region had a lot of poor people without medical insurance; not exactly an inducement to young physicians, who preferred both the glamour and the income of big-city jobs. Not to mention the state-of-the-art equipment. It was tough to lose a patient that somebody else could have saved. O'Neill had that feeling on a regular basis. Like tonight.

He thrust his hands into his pockets and surveyed the two visitors with weary concern. "Is that the boy?" he said, nodding toward the sleeping toddler on the bench. "Maybe I ought to take a look at him."

"Morgan Robsart," said the sheriff. "I picked him up at the trailer park. He's fine, though. Mrs. Etheridge looked him over and said there's not even a red spot. The mother must have got him out of there first thing, before she worried about herself. How is she?"

Peter O'Neill sat down on the other end of the bench, pushing gently at the child's legs to give himself room. "She's not going to make it. We're doing everything we can, mind you. Replacing fluids, counteracting the pain—except that she wants to be awake to see her son, so we can't give her as much morphine as I'd be otherwise inclined to. She's a fighter, though."

"Will that help?"

"No. She's burned over eighty percent of her body. There's not enough of her left to put up a fight. Even if we could have gotten her to a burn center, they'd have lost her. She'll last a few hours, though. The Red Cross is trying to locate her husband. She's been asking for her son." O'Neill's thoughts seemed to wander as he looked down at the child, all but hidden under the sheriff's coat. "Does he know what's happening?"

Spencer looked away. "He's only three. I thought she might want to tell him in her own way."

"Well, you'd better wake him up, Sheriff. I don't know how long she can keep going on reduced morphine. I'll get a gown for you. Should mask you, too, but what the hell does it matter?"

Spencer put his coat back on, and lifted the sleeping child. "Morgan," he murmured. "Wake up, son. I know it's late, but you have to wake up now. It's real important."

The little face burrowed into his shoulder, and blond curls brushed his chin. Morgan Robsart smelled of cocoa and peppermint, traces of an earlier consolation that he was not aware of needing. Over the child's head, he asked the doctor, "Before he wakes up any more, how bad does she look? Is he going to be able to take this?"

"All you will see is her face," said O'Neill. "I'll come in with you. Don't let the boy out of your grasp. He can't hug her or anything. The burned areas of her torso are beginning to harden now into eschar, and—
"Okay. Let's go." Spencer repressed a shudder of revulsion. Burning had to be the worst way to go. The only thing he prayed for concerning death was that he not die by fire. He shook the child gently. "Morgan, we're going to see your mama now." He wondered what you could say to a dying woman. Naomi Judd would know.

Tammy Robsart was sitting propped up in bed, an oxygen mask pressed against her face. Her skin looked sunburned, and the top of her head was swathed in bandages, but she was still recognizable: He realized that she had been the woman he'd spoken to at the Christmas train. How old was she? Twenty-one? He hugged the boy tighter, remembering his intention of buying the child a toy at Kmart. He hadn't gotten around to it. He would, though, tomorrow.

When she saw him at the foot of the bed, holding Morgan, the green gown surrounding both of them, she sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. Dr. O'Neill pulled a chair up close to her and asked how she felt. "Take this mask off," she said in a voice just above a whisper.

Her eyes were different now. Not just the lashless intensity of her stare but the expression in them as well. The woman at the railroad tracks had been shy, a little wary of authority figures, and finding it hard to cope with all the demands on a grown-up with a child. This solemn woman who stared right into his eyes had no more time for the niceties of age or social position. She was dead; she outranked them all.

"I'd better talk to you first, Sheriff," she said quietly. "Don't break in on me, though. I'm running out of time."

He nodded, cowed somehow by her calmness. There was no emotion in her voice. She had time only for facts now.

"All right. I got no family except Dale, and he's—Well, he's overseas now, and even if he wasn't, he wouldn't be much good. Not for Morgan. He didn't want a child like I did." She looked up at her son, and her face crumpled. "I can't hold him, can I? No. Okay. Sheriff, my boy is beautiful, and he's as smart as they come. I want him kept safe. Better than safe."

Spencer started to speak, about social services and distant relatives, but a stern look from her silenced him.

"I don't want him living in any trailer from now on. And I don't want him to ever be cold or have to eat brown sugar on bread for breakfast 'cause that's all there is. I want you to give him to somebody smart that can help him do good in school and will send him to college. And buy him toys." Her voice softened. "He just loves them Ninja Turtles."

Spencer shifted the child to his other arm. Morgan was groggily awake now, looking at his mother, but afraid of the strangers, the unfamiliar surroundings. Tammy Robsart glanced at her child, but her gaze was fixed on Spencer Arrowood, willing him to carry out her wishes.

"Well," he hesitated. "You know, your husband is the child's legal guardian, and—"

"You tell Dale what I said. You tell him!" She looked at the telephone on the nightstand. "If they can find him, I'll tell him myself. I want Morgan to be all right. He's losing me. He ought to get something. All the family pictures got burned up, I reckon. Can you get him one of me? High school yearbook—two years back. ..."

"You might pull through—" Spencer began.

"No." She took another breath of oxygen. Dr. O'Neill leaned over and adjusted the catheter. The look he gave the sheriff said, Don't waste her time.

Spencer brought the child closer to the bed, and knelt down so that Tammy could be close to her son. He was wide awake now, but frightened by the adults' solemn faces. When he was close enough to Tammy to whisper, he said, "I had cocoa."

"That's good, son." She almost smiled. "I have to talk to you now about something big. Okay?"

Morgan nodded, but his eyes kept straying to the strange objects around the room.

"I have to go away soon," said Tammy.

"In a spaceship?"

"No, hon. Like the angels in your Christmas book."

"Can I go, too?" He held his arms up like the angels with the wings of eagles hovering over the valley.

"You have to stay here. But I want you to remember me, and to remember that I love you. I don't want to leave you, Morgan, but I have to."

"Uh-huh." He was fascinated by the tubes and bottles, barely listening to her.

"The sheriff will be your friend, and I'll be watching you from—from heaven, I guess."

"Okay." He tried to reach for the oxygen mask, but Spencer leaned away so that it eluded his grasp.

"Can I have your best kiss?" Tammy Robsart whispered.

"Yep." He dangled beside her in the sheriff's arms, and kissed his mother's cheek. "Can I eat now?"

"Yes. You go eat. Anything you want. . . ." Tammy's voice trailed away. "Good-bye, Morgan."

Dr. O'Neill motioned for them to leave the room. "I increased the morphine," he murmured. "She's suffered enough."

On the bedside table the telephone rang.

Spencer carried Morgan out into the hall, and down to the nurses' station. "Can you get this young man some ice cream?" he asked one who didn't seem to be working. "I have some calls to make."

A pretty dark-haired nurse smiled and held out her arms. She looked a little like Naomi. "Why, sure. Come with me, big fella. The cafeteria has three different flavors. Would you like that?"

Spencer smiled and waved until they disappeared around the corner of the hallway. Then he went into a stall in the men's room and cried.

Morgan Robsart was not yet back from his expedition to the hospital cafeteria. It was a slow night at County, evidently. Spencer Arrowood sat at the desk in Peter O'Neill's office, staring thoughtfully at the black telephone. Who do you call in the middle of the night in such an emergency? He had thought of taking the boy home with him, but in the life of a county sheriff, nothing is certain, least of all off-duty time. At any hour he might be summoned to a crime scene (probably wouldn't, but the possibility was always there), and he knew that he could neither take the child along nor leave him unattended. Besides, Morgan might be frightened, and Spencer was mortally afraid of his own inexperience with children. What could he say or do to comfort this motherless child who liked Ninja Turtles and Ghostbusters. Who you gonna call?

It was past midnight. Someone in the trailer park? "I don't want him living in any trailer from now on," Tammy Robsart had said. He saw her dead eyes looking at him, willing him the care of her son, and he knew that he would have to do better than that. Cradling the receiver between his ear and shoulder, Spencer punched in his mother's number, and listened to the succession of unanswered rings. Where the hell was she? What was today, anyhow? Then he vaguely remembered something about a trip to Asheville with a couple of her bridge-playing friends. She had told him about the trip—a road-company theatre production or an antique exposition, something like that; Spen-298

cer had barely heard her, absorbed as he was in the current of his own life.

He put down the receiver, double-checked a number, and tried again. After three rings, he heard Martha's sleepy voice mumble hello.

"It's me," he said. "I'm at the hospital."

"Oh, God," said Martha, jolting to wakefulness. "What is it? You're not hurt, are you?"

"No. There was a fire at the trailer park, and I'm here with a little boy who lost his mother tonight. I need somebody to stay with him. I know there has to be a magistrate's hearing to decide what to do about him, but we've got forty-eight hours to attend to that. Meanwhile, he needs a friend."

Silence. Then he heard Martha sigh. "Oh, Spencer. Don't pick on me. I don't know a thing about kids, and I've got enough on my hands as it is. Joe's here. He's—he's had one of his nightmares."

"Well, I hate to ask you in the middle of the night, but . . ." Spencer waited, hoping that Martha would relent to break the silence, but nearly a full minute passed without a word between them. Finally, he said, "I'm sorry. I'll keep trying." He hung up before Martha could make any well-meaning suggestions. He drew the line at calling strangers in the middle of the night. He sat for a moment listening to the dial tone, and then dialed a new number.

After two rings she picked it up, a little breathless. "Yes? Will, is that you?" She didn't sound like someone just awakened.

"This is Spencer Arrowood," he said. "It 299

seems like I'm always calling you in the dead of night to ask a favor."

Laura Bruce sighed. "I can't go out to a crime scene tonight, Sheriff," she said. Her voice shook a little, with what emotion he could not tell.

"No, that's not it. I have a little boy here that needs a place to go. He's three years old." He explained about the mobile-home fire, and about Tammy Robsart's instructions for the care of her son. Laura Bruce listened without comment. "I tried a couple of other people first," he said. "I'd take him myself, but I wouldn't know what to do with the little feller, and besides, I'll be on duty tomorrow. It's just until there's a formal hearing." He let the silence stretch out again. Finally she said, "Do you know where I live?" "Yes. Can I bring him over now?" "All right. I'll make up the bed in the spare room." She paused for a moment. "I'm glad you called me. It will be nice to have company." "I'll be there in twenty minutes." "Wait! Does he have any clothes? No, of course he doesn't. Never mind, Sheriff. I can see to that tomorrow. He can sleep in one of Will's old Tshirts tonight."

Spencer thanked her and set the receiver back in its cradle. Tomorrow he would have to see the magistrate about a hearing for the orphaned boy. He would also make time to go by Kmart and pick up some clothes for Morgan, who had just lost everything in the world. He 300

hoped the store was well stocked with Ninja Turtles and Ghostbusters.

When she hung up the phone, Laura Bruce closed her eyes and tried to think of a prayer. Was this divine compensation, she wondered, or God's idea of a joke? Lose a child, gain a child. She had not yet finished her mourning and here was Spencer Arrowood trying to yank her back into the world. She looked down at the curve of her belly, hard and still beneath the velvet robe "Why couldn't I have my child?" she asked of no one in particular. She had told no one of the loss of her baby. When someone called to say they hadn't seen her about, she said that she was feeling under the weather. What she felt was that she was only part alive. She hugged her grief to herself, unwilling to share it with these mountain strangers, or even with Will, who had his eternal summer and his glorious little war. But they couldn't leave her in peace, even in her sorrow. Spencer Arrowood had found another orphan to foist on her, and she must be strong in deference to the needs of others. When was it her turn to be comforted? Why didn't God find somebody else to do His errands?