Whiskers of the Lion (22 page)

Robertson watched her disappear through the door. To Branden, he said, “I can't believe she didn't know.”

“Apparently she didn't,” Branden said.

Robertson shook his head and reached out for his glass of ice water. He managed without help to get a chip of ice with the plastic spoon and slip it into his mouth. As he set the glass on the tray over his bed, the sheriff said, “Armbruster has to make it, Mike. He just has to. If he doesn't, I don't think Lance can handle it.”

Then the sheriff said, “It was my father, Mike. All these years. In all those dreams.”

“
Who
was your father?”

“I should have known, Mike,” the sheriff said. His voice trailed into a whisper as sleep pressed in upon him. “But I never recognized him. Until tonight. In that stairwell, with Earnest Troyer coming at me in the dark.”

Leaning in over the bed rail, Branden asked the sheriff, “Recognized who?”

“The lion tamer, Mike,” Robertson said as his eyes closed. “In my childhood nightmares. My father is the lion tamer. Taunting me to step close to the bars.”

Friday, August 19

10:55
P.M.

FANNIE'S CELL phone rang just as she and Reuben were crossing the Denison–Ashtabula Road on State Route 87 in northeast Ohio. In the hours since Fannie had emerged from the hotel outside Middlefield, they had been pacing slowly east in their buggy. The buggy was loaded heavily with provisions stacked in the rear cargo bay. Fannie had sat all day beside Reuben on the sprung seat of the buggy.

Reuben had managed the reins and the horse since leaving Middlefield. He had been careful to keep the rig well to the right side of the pavement. There had been light traffic on the roads, but it had been dark for several hours, and Reuben had anxiously been watching for a suitable place to turn off for the night. The journey had been made harder by a vaporous drizzle that had overtaken them from the west as soon as they had crossed into Trumbull County.

As her phone began to ring, Fannie checked the display and said to Reuben, “It's Jodie, again.”

Reuben gave the reins a slap, but he offered no comment.

Fannie answered Jodie's call. “Hi, Jodie, we're still out on the road.”

“I'm worried, Fannie,” Jodie said. “I'm anxious. I don't have much time, now.”

“We'll meet you, Jodie. Early tomorrow morning. You'll have enough time to get back to Akron with your money.”

On the buggy seat next to Fannie, Reuben said, “Whatever you think is best, Fannie. Tell her we have to stop for the night, but we'll see her tomorrow morning.”

The rain came harder, and Reuben steered the horse into the little roadside town of Gustavus Center. He found a white-sided town hall on the right, and he pulled into its broad circular drive. To Fannie, he whispered, “We'll park here for the night. It's too dangerous to stay out on the road in this much rain.”

Fannie held her phone in her lap while she considered her decision. The rain increased its thudding spatter on the canvas roof of the buggy. A lone car passed by them on the road. With a resigned sigh, Fannie said, “We have to meet her, Reuben.”

Taking up her phone again, Fannie switched it from mute and said, “We're near the Pennsylvania border, Jodie. Reuben wants to stop now, because the rain is getting worse.”

“I can be there by morning,” Jodie said. “Maybe by eight.”

Fannie whispered to Reuben, “Do you still think we should do this?”

Grimly, Reuben nodded a yes.

“OK, Jodie,” Fannie said into her phone. “We'll meet you at eight tomorrow morning. On the Vernon Center Bridge. It's on Route 88, crossing the Pymatuning River into Pennsylvania.”

Saturday, August 20

2:25
A.M.

IT WAS pain that dragged Sheriff Robertson out of sleep early Saturday morning. It was pain in his jaw, pain in his cheek, and pain along the entire length of his wound. There was pain when he swallowed, and there was pain at the core, the kind of deep pain that arises from wounded bone. With his eyes closed against the challenge of enduring it, he fumbled for the call button that would summon a nurse.

His wife, Missy, had been waiting beside his bed. She grasped his hand and helped him push the button. When her husband opened his eyes, she leaned in close and kissed his forehead. She held his hand and laced her fingers into his. With her other hand, she brushed her fingertips across the bristly top of his hair.

The sheriff's eyes closed and then reopened. “Missy,” he said, looking at the ceiling to ride the pain. He wanted to pull her close to him, but he lacked the strength. His eyes closed again, and he dozed.

When the nurse arrived, Missy requested more pain medication for her husband. The nurse took up the sheriff's chart and inspected his medications log. “Another hour,” she said. “We need to wait another hour.”

When the sheriff next opened his eyes, it was only ten minutes later, and Missy was still holding his hand. He turned his head slowly to her and asked, “Nurse?”

“She was just here, Bruce. She'll be back as soon as she can.”

Robertson drew a labored breath. “Rough,” he said. “I hate hospitals.”

“I do, too,” Missy said. “But thank God for them.”

“No doubt,” the sheriff answered. “Anything about Stan?”

“He's in recovery, Bruce, but they're not very hopeful.”

“Blood?”

“They have enough, Bruce. They're waiting to see if he can stabilize.”

“Wake him up,” Robertson growled. “Tell him to fight.”

“You need to let his doctors manage this, Bruce.”

Robertson appeared to sink into his pillow as if something there was pulling him into a nightmare. He seemed to retreat from a threatening vision. He rolled his head to the left and to the right, and he sounded like he was quoting Scripture when he recited, “Steadfast devotion to duty.”

“That sounds like your father talking, Bruce,” Missy said. “That's something he would have said.”

“Heard it all my life,” the sheriff answered. His eyes were open now. He was awake again with the pain. “I heard it every day, Missy. ‘A man's honor derives from his relentless and steadfast devotion to duty. It derives from his steadfast devotion to justice.'”

“Father or not, that's all you, Bruce,” Missy whispered in his ear. “That's you, Bruce, through and through.”

“Well, I got it from my father. Right along with my worst nightmare.”

“The lion cage,” Missy said.

Slowly, the sheriff's chin tipped with a painful nod. He winced against the pain.

“It's just a dream, Bruce. A stupid childhood dream.”

Robertson opened his eyes and turned them to his wife. “Have I been wrong all my life, Missy? To insist on wearing duty like armor? Because I'll tell you, it requires the kind of self-assurance that I don't think I have anymore.”

“Devotion to duty is not just your armor, Bruce. It's your core.”

“Yeah? Well, maybe that's gotta change.”

Missy pulled the sheriff's hand farther into hers. She leaned in close to his ear. “You could do a few things differently,” she said. “But if you start doubting yourself, you'll lose it all. Your entire department leans on you. They do it because they trust you.”

“I don't see why anyone would trust me, Missy.”

“I'm not willing to listen to this, Sheriff. Even Fannie Helmuth trusts you. And she met you, what, maybe once? She met you once, and based on one letter you wrote to her, she trusts you enough to walk away from FBI protection.”

“I didn't tell her anything, Missy.”

“That's nonsense. I know what you wrote to her.”

“What?”

“You wrote at least five versions of that letter, Bruce. I found them in the wastebasket. I know what you wrote to Fannie. And I'll tell you something else. I also read Fannie's letter to you.”

Struggling inside the strictures of his medications, Robertson stared at the ceiling and considered what Missy had said. The letter. Fannie's letter. He hadn't read it. He had lost it. There had been so much to do, to set up for Earnest Troyer. Fannie's letter.

Robertson looked at Missy. He squeezed her hand. “I never read the letter,” he said.

“I have it, Bruce. It was in your coat pocket when they brought you to the hospital.”

“You have it?”

“Yes.”

“What does it say?”

Missy laid her husband's hand gently on the sheet beside him, and she stepped away from his bed. Robertson misinterpreted the moment, and he closed his eyes, expecting no reply. But momentarily, Missy retrieved his hand, and the sheriff heard the rustle of paper. He held his eyes closed and waited. Missy began to read.

Friday, August 19

Hotel near Middlefield

Dear Sheriff Robertson,

Thank you for your letter. I know what I have to do. I know that wherever I go, I will be safe among my people.

I miss Howie so very much, but my fiancé is a fine and wonderful man. I will have a good life with him. But Howie wanted his car. He had it all through college. I told him to forget it, but I guess he just couldn't do that.

Thank you for helping me see my way free of this. I have courage because you trusted me with the truth.

I have always believed that the faith of a single person is more consequential than all the powers on earth. In this, I believe I will be proven right.

Sincerely and truly yours,

Fannie Helmuth

Saturday, August 20

4:10
A.M.

IN THE darkest hours before sunrise, when the nurse came into Armbruster's hospital room, Pat Lance was still sitting at his bedside, holding Armbruster's phone. The nurse hung a new dose of platelets on the IV stand and connected the tubing to the new bag. He adjusted the delivery rate, tossed the empty bag into the medical waste container, and came to the foot of the bed to take up the medical chart. As he recorded Armbruster's newest IV data, he said to Lance, “You've been here almost all night, Detective.”

“I know,” came a weary reply.

“Should you maybe get something from the cafeteria?” the nurse asked.

Lance shook her head. “He's going to wake up.”

The nurse hesitated at the door. “It's still a couple of hours before daylight, but it's warm outside. Maybe you could get some fresh air. Fresh air might do you a lot of good.”

Lance clicked on another photo in Armbruster's phone and shook her head.

“Are you going to call someone?” the nurse asked as he came back to stand beside Lance.

Again, Lance shook her head, but did not speak. She held Armbruster's phone so that the nurse could see the photo of her in Irma Mast's parlor, and when she turned her face up to the nurse, there were tears in her eyes.

Saturday, August 20

6:20
A.M.

AT ELLIE Troyer-Niell's bedside, Caroline Branden held her vigil of prayer. The late-night Cesarean deliveries had been complicated. The babies had been so very small. The doctors spent a long time closing Ellie's incision. They had spent far too long, Caroline realized. But she tried to say encouraging things to Ricky. She tried to give him hope, both for his children and for his wife. She hid from him the fear for Ellie that had engulfed her. The fear she suffered for the babies.

Memories of her own miscarriages haunted Caroline through the night, and although she had lost her babies many years ago, she was powerless at Ellie's bedside to dispel the pain and sadness of those losses. She was powerless to hold out more than the frailest of hopes for Ellie and Ricky.

Ricky was standing in the neonatal unit down the hall, unable to decide whether Ellie needed him more, or whether their babies did. Caroline had promised him that if Ellie woke up, she would summon Ricky immediately. So far, Ellie had slept, and Caroline had sat alone with her. Because of her own heartache of loss, Caroline could not find a way to understand Ellie's sleeping as an encouraging sign. Ellie's breathing was shallow and labored. It would be weeks or months before she could hold her children. If they survived, Caroline thought, losing heart. If Ellie survived.

Caroline rose and stepped with her burdens to the window. A chaos of despondency and despair tumbled through her thoughts. The Akron skyline was emerging from shadow as the sun came up, but the elaborate play of architecture and form, and the chorus of morning traffic on the streets below, meant nothing to her. It was a city, Caroline thought bitterly. Just a stupid city. No one down there knows a thing about Ellie Troyer-Niell. Even if they knew, these were not the people who would care.

Behind her, Michael entered the room silently. As he crossed to stand beside her, he whispered, “She's going to be OK, Caroline.”

Caroline turned to her husband with negativity and denial laced fiercely into her tears. “You don't know that, Michael!” she shouted, and then quickly she covered her mouth. Whispering, she accused her husband with her grief. “There's nothing we can do to make this right, Michael.”

The professor reached out to embrace his wife, but she stiffened as he drew her close. He caressed her hair and kissed her forehead. “We lost children, Caroline. That doesn't mean Ellie and Ricky will. You're talking this way because of the pain of your memories.”

“What if I am, Michael? I know what she faces. I know what is possible, here, better than anyone. I can't handle it, if her babies die like ours did. I can't handle it if Ellie dies.”

“You're letting the pain talk, Caroline. You don't have any good reason to fear for Ellie. You don't have any good reason to fear for these babies.”

Standing stiffly in her husband's arms and thinking only that her fear would never abate, Caroline said sternly, “I want you to call Cal, Michael. I want you to call Cal Troyer to pray.”

The professor caressed Caroline's hair and pulled her tightly into his embrace. “He's already here, Caroline. I brought him with me. He's down the hall right now, with Ricky and the children.”