Wall-To-Wall Dead (20 page)

Someone like Candy. At the behest of her boyfriend perhaps. If Miss Shaw had known that the two of them were carrying on, and they were afraid that she’d had proof, Mr. Guido might have sent Candy in to look for it.

“I’m going to go talk to Candy.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, either,” Derek answered,
but he followed me out on the landing. And when I headed up the stairs, he followed then, too.

Upstairs, I rang the bell and waited. And waited some more. I was just about to ask Derek whether we should get the screwdriver to remove another lock when the door opened.

“Oh.” Jamie looked from me to Derek and back. “It’s you.”

She looked awful. Deathly pale, her skin almost transparent, with black circles under heavy eyes. Her hair straggled down her back like a sheet of crumpled silk, and she was dressed in a shapeless sack of a sweater and pajama pants, with fuzzy socks on her feet.

“Gosh,” I said, “are you all right?”

She passed a hand over her forehead. It was shaking. The hand, not the forehead. “Don’t feel too good.”

“Something you ate?”

“Drank,” Jamie mumbled. “Wine last night. I think.”

So she was hungover. Great. The sympathy I’d been feeling vanished. I mean, hangovers are awful—I’ve had a few of my own over the years—but they tend to be self-inflicted, and so not worthy of too much consideration.

“Is Candy around?”

“Basement,” Jamie muttered. “Laundry day.”

Derek wrinkled his brows. “She’s just sitting down there while the clothes spin?”

“I used to do that,” I said. “In New York. I’d go to the Laundromat on the next block and sit there with a book until the laundry was done. Watching clothes agitate is very calming. All those suds.”

“If you say so. But this isn’t a Laundromat on the next block; it’s in the basement. It would take her twenty seconds to run back upstairs.”

“She’s not feeling good, either,” Jamie whispered. “But she was out of clean clothes. She had to do wash.”

“We’ll go look for her.” I tugged on Derek’s sleeve.

“Take care of yourself,” he told Jamie—always the doctor. “Drink lots of water. Or sports drinks and chamomile
tea. Avoid coffee. No aspirin or ibuprofen, but acetaminophen is OK. And get some rest.”

Jamie waved a limp hand and closed the door.

“So what do you think?” I asked Derek.

“I think we should go downstairs and look for Candy,” Derek said.

“That’s not what I meant. I know she didn’t look like herself, and I’m sure she didn’t look like the girl you saw on Friday night…”

“I still think it could be her. But the more time that passes, the less sure I am.”

I nodded. That made sense. By now, he’d probably see the resemblance whether it was there or not. “She looked awful.”

“She’ll be OK. No one ever died from a hangover. You might feel like you will, but it just won’t happen. She’ll be back to normal tomorrow. Although I think the Pompeii will probably have to do without her tonight.”

No doubt. Jamie had barely managed to lift her hand to close the door; bumping and grinding with a pole would be far, far beyond her.

We continued down to the basement, which looked just as it had when we arrived earlier. There was no sign of life, except for the sound of the dryers from the utility room.

I twisted the doorknob and pushed the door open. “Candy?”

We both stuck our heads in.

The utility room looked just as it had when I’d looked at it a week ago. Three washers, three dryers, a utility sink, and two uncomfortable metal chairs. Unlike then, when everything had been quiet, now two of the dryers were turning while the third had just finished, and one of the front-loading washers was going through the final spin cycle. A couple of wet shirts were drip-drying on a small rack in the corner, and a paperback novel was sitting on one of the chairs, spine up. The cover showed a scantily clad female swooning in the arms of a brawny, half-naked male.

Beyond that, the room was empty.

“Huh.” I looked around.

“Maybe she went outside for some fresh air,” Derek suggested. “It’s a bit stuffy in here.”

It was. Or maybe not stuffy so much as clammy. Steam from the hot water and heat from the dryers had combined into the sort of humidity that was almost solid. And if Candy was suffering from the same ailment as Jamie, she might have thought some fresh air would feel good.

I closed the utility room door behind me, muffling the sounds of washer and dryers and sealing in that awful humidity, and headed toward the front of the building, where the grass was, with Derek on my heels.

“What exactly is it you want to talk to her about?” he wanted to know as I pushed open the door to the outside and we passed into the cool temperature of autumn.

I opened my mouth to answer, but closed it again when a roar sounded from over to my left. We both whipped around, in time to see Robin and little Benjamin come hurtling across the grass with Bruce in hot pursuit. He was the one who was roaring. Benjamin’s little legs pumped as fast as he could manage, and his mother was right next to him, pulling him along. They were both laughing. At least until Bruce made a mighty leap, and tackled both of them and they ended up in a heap on the ground. Benjamin rolled, shrieking with delight. Robin, on the other hand, curled up like a hedgehog, cowering on the ground. When Bruce prepared to fling himself at her, she squirmed backward, her voice too high-pitched for me to understand. The grin slid right off his face. After a moment, he reached out and hauled her into his arms, and folded her in a bear hug. When Benjamin trailed back to ask why Daddy had stopped playing, Bruce stroked the boy’s head, but without loosening his hold on Robin. His voice was low, just barely high enough for us to hear.

“I’ll be right there, Benjamin. Mommy needs a minute.”

“I don’t see Candy,” I said softly.

Derek shook his head. “Nobody out here but the Mellons.
And I don’t think this is the time to ask them if they’ve seen her.”

Definitely not. Bruce had let go of Robin, who was squatting to give Benjamin a hug. There were tears on her cheeks. Bruce, meanwhile, was looking around, his face fierce. Before he could turn in our direction, I ducked back into the building, and pulled Derek with me.

“What was that all about?” I said when we were on our way back toward the utility room.

He shot me a look. “How would I know?”

“She looked afraid, didn’t she?”

He nodded. “I think she’s probably got some abuse in her background.”

“Surely not by Bruce?”

Derek shook his head. “Wayne was living a floor down from them for a while. If there was something going on, he’d have noticed. Police officers are trained to look for signs of domestic abuse, same as doctors. Besides, she didn’t look afraid of Bruce.”

She hadn’t. She had turned to him for comfort, and he’d immediately stopped doing what was making her uncomfortable. Whatever her problem was, it didn’t seem to be with him.

And it was none of our business. I pushed open the door to the utility room again, and stuck my head in, just in case Candy had appeared in the couple of minutes we’d been gone. “Still empty.”

“Maybe she’s across the hall,” Derek said, and headed for the door to the community room and storage units. He pushed it open and let me go in first, and then he followed me.

The storage space was just as deserted as the laundry room across the way. There was no sign of Candy.

“Should we check the community room?”

“We’re here. We may as well.” He moved past the doors to the storage units and pulled open the heavy door to the community room. And froze in the doorway, as if he’d walked into an invisible wall. “Shit.”

“What?” I moved to join him, looking past his shoulder. “God.”

Candy was on the floor, curled in a fetal position, and she didn’t react at all when we came through the door.

“She’s still alive,” Derek said.

Unlike me, who was still standing there petrified, staring, my heart beating so hard I thought it might knock a hole right through my chest, Derek had shaken off the shock and inertia and had fallen to his knees next to Candy. When I didn’t answer, he raised his voice. “Avery!”

The word cut through the rushing in my ears, and I blinked. “What?”

“She’s still alive. There’s a pulse.”

“There is? God. I mean, good. I mean…what do you want me to do?”

My voice was jittery and uneven. Derek’s was level and perfectly calm. “We have to keep her alive until the paramedics get here. I need you to call them.”

“Sure. Um…My phone’s upstairs.”

“Use mine.” He dug into his pocket and pulled it out.

“What do I tell them?” I took the phone from his hand and watched the display, searching for a connection. There wasn’t one, down here in the bowels of the building.

“Female,” Derek recited, “early twenties, full systemic shutdown.”

I looked up from the phone. “You don’t know what’s wrong with her?” How could that be? He was a doctor, wasn’t he?

“I know she’ll die,” Derek said tightly, “if we don’t get help.”

Right. “There’s no connection. I’ll have to go outside, to make sure I can get a signal.”

“Hurry,” Derek said.

I scrambled through the door and out.

Two minutes later I was back, feeling a little calmer and a bit more like I could breathe again. “They’re on their way. How is she?”

“Still breathing,” Derek said. “Barely.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Do you know CPR?” He had flipped Candy over on her back and was on his knees beside her, pushing on her chest.

“Um…” Theoretically, yes. In practice, not so much. I’d gone through the training at some point, trying to breathe life back into a rubber doll, but I’d never had occasion to use what I’d learned on anything living. And it was years ago, so I was afraid I’d probably forgotten everything but the basics.

“Never mind,” Derek said. “I can keep going for a few minutes on my own. When will the paramedics be here?”

“They said about five minutes.”

I hadn’t taken my eyes off Candy. She was breathing, but so shallowly I could barely see her chest rise and fall. And she was deathly pale, even paler than Jamie.

“What’s wrong with her?”

“Not sure. But it isn’t a hangover. Alcohol poisoning maybe.” He kept the heart massage going. When he straightened, he added, his voice still calm but tighter now, “You’re not doing anyone any good standing there. Run upstairs and see if Gregg’s home. I could use another pair of hands. A pair that knows what they’re doing. It’s been a while since I did this.”

I nodded and took off. Two minutes later I was back. “No answer.”

“Damn,” Derek said. He had turned paler, too, in the time I’d been gone, probably from the exertion and the worry. “Any sign of the ambulance?”

“I’ll go look.” But I didn’t. I couldn’t look away from Candy. She was so still, and so pale that she looked dead already, and coupled with Derek’s obvious worry, it froze my feet in place. I felt light-headed, and as I reached out a hand to brace myself against the wall, a couple of splinters embedded themselves in my palm. While I usually don’t enjoy splinters, I welcomed these, since the pain gave me something to focus on rather than the dizziness that was making my head spin.

Derek looked up at me over his shoulder. “Go outside, Avery.”

“What?” I managed.

He raised his voice, put some sharpness into it. “Go outside. Now! Make sure the paramedics don’t waste time getting in here. And get some fresh air before you pass out. I can’t deal with more than one body at a time, and right now, she’s the priority.”

I nodded and stumbled out, catching myself on the walls along the way. The banging of the dryers rolled in my ears until I was outside.

The fresh air did help a little, and so did the sight of the ambulance shrieking up the Augusta Road, lights flashing and sirens screaming. It took the turn into the parking lot on two wheels, tires protesting loudly. I waved both arms above my head.

The next couple of minutes were frantic, disjointed. The paramedics grabbed their gurney and hustled inside while I held the door. They loaded Candy up with Derek still pushing on her chest, and wheeled her back out to the ambulance, where they started hooking her up to various IVs and monitors. Meanwhile, the sound of the siren and the appearance of the ambulance had summoned all the residents currently in the building, who had clattered down
the stairs to gather in the downstairs hallway, gabbling and rubbernecking and trying to get a bead on what was going on. Poor Jamie was almost as pale as Candy, weaving back and forth, being supported by Amelia Easton and William Maurits, while Bruce still had an arm around Robin, who kept Benjamin’s hand in a tight grip. In the middle of it all, another siren sliced the air, louder and louder until it cut off with an electronic wail as a police car came to a stop in the lot. Wayne popped out and raked the assembly with a comprehensive look.

“What the hell happened here?”

“Avery can tell you,” Derek said from inside the ambulance. “I’m riding in with her.”

One of the paramedics glanced at him. “Sir, you can’t—”