Mystery. Part 16

Hattie jumped over the stream and led them up a flight of wooden steps. Another crooked flight, marked Waterloo Lane, led upward toward darkness. Hattie scurried down a murky corridor, and began to move quickly toward the next set of stairs.

"What do they do here?" Tom asked. "How do they live?"

"They sell things to Percy-their own hair, or their own rags. Some get out, like Nancy. These days, most young ones manage to get out, soon as they can. Some of 'em like it here."

They had come to a wide s.p.a.ce where wooden walkways spanned the fronts of the buildings on all sides. Rows of doors stood on the far sides of the walks. A man leaned against the railing of the second walkway, gazing down at them and smoking a pipe.

"You see," Hattie said, "this here is a world, and we're in the center of it now. n.o.body sees this world, but here it is." She looked up at the man leaning on the railing. "Is Nancy home, Bill?"

The man pointed with his pipe at a door farther along the walkway.

Hattie led them up the wooden steps to the second walkway. "How is she, Bill?" she asked when they had come near to him.

The man turned his head and looked at each of them from beneath the brim of his soft cap. His face was very dirty, full of hard lines, and in the grey light of the Courts, his cap, face, and pipe all seemed the same muddy color. He took a long time to speak. "Busy."

"And you, Bill?"

He was staring at Sarah's hair, and again took a long time to respond. "Good. Helped a man move a piano, two days ago."

"We'll go along and see her, then," Hattie said, and Bill turned back to the railing.

The three of them walked down the creaking boards until they had nearly reached the end of the walkway. Tom looked over the railing, and Sarah asked Hattie, "Is Bill a friend of yours?"

"He's Nancy's brother," Hattie said.

Tom would have turned around to make sure he had heard her correctly, but just then a man in a grey suit and a grey turtleneck appeared, moving soundlessly and easily down the steps of the wooden structure over the drainage ditch. Bill took his pipe from his mouth and stepped back from the railing. The man in grey stepped into the Second Court and began walking in a straight line that would bring him directly beneath Tom. Bill gestured for Tom to move back, and Tom hesitated before pus.h.i.+ng back from the railing. The man was bald, and his face was a smooth anonymous mask. Tom did not realize that he was Captain Fulton Bishop until he had begun to move back into the protection of the walkway. Hattie knocked on the last door, and knocked again. Captain Bishop glanced up without breaking stride as Tom moved back, and the boy saw his eyes through the gaps in the railing, as alive and alert as two match flames.

Then the door opened, and Captain Bishop pa.s.sed out of the Second Court and went deeper into Maxwell's Heaven. His footsteps clicked against the stone. Tom heard Nancy Vetiver saying, "Who'd you bring me, Hattie?"

She smiled from Hattie to Sarah, and then included him in the same smile. She did not recognize him, but he would have known her instantly if he had seen her on any street in Mill Walk. Her hair, a darker blond than Sarah's, had been cut to a rough s.h.a.g, and the lines bracketing her mouth seemed deeper, but she was otherwise the same woman who had helped him endure the worst months of his life. He realized that he had loved her absolutely then, and that part of him still did love her.

"An old patient of ours came calling," Hattie said.

Nancy looked from Sarah to Tom and back to Sarah, trying to work out which was the old patient. "Well, you'd better come on in and find something to sit on, and I'll be able to spend some time with you in a minute." She smiled, looking a little baffled but not at all irritated, and stepped back to let them in.

Hattie went in first, then Sarah. Tom moved into the room. Several children, some of them bandaged, sat in chairs pushed against the wall. All of them were gaping at Sarah, who had pulled her hair out of the collar of the cape. "Oh, my G.o.d," Nancy said as he went past her. "It's Tom Pasmore." She laughed out loud-a real ringing laugh that sounded out of place in Elysian Courts-and then put her arms around him and squeezed him. Her head came to the middle of his chest. "How'd you get so big?" big?" Nancy pulled away and crowed to Hattie, "He's a Nancy pulled away and crowed to Hattie, "He's a giant!" giant!"

"That's what I told him," Hattie said, "but it didn't shrink him any."

Now all the children in the chairs gaped at Tom instead of Sarah. His face grew hot and red.

"And I know you too," Nancy said to Sarah, after giving Tom a final squeeze. "I remember seeing you with Tom, way back then-Sarah."

"How can you remember me?" Sarah said, looking pleased and embarra.s.sed. "I was only there once!"

"Well, I remember most of the things that happen to my good patients." Smiling broadly, Nancy put her hands on her hips and looked them both over. "Why don't you sit down wherever you can find s.p.a.ce, and I'll take care of the rest of these desperate characters, and then we'll have a long talk, and I'll find out why Hattie dragged you into this G.o.dforsaken place."

Sarah twirled the cape off her shoulders and folded it over the back of a chair. The children gaped. She and Tom sat on a padded bench, and Hattie plunked herself down on the edge of the little low bed beside them.

Nancy went from child to child, changing bandages and dispensing vitamins, listening to whispered complaints, stroking heads and holding hands, now and then leading some bedraggled boy or girl to a sink at the back of the room and making them wash. She looked down throats and into ears, and when one sticklike little boy burst into tears, she took him into her lap and comforted him until he stopped.

Two old quilts, washed almost to colorlessness, hung on the walls. An ornate lamp with most of its bulbs and fixtures intact stood on a drum table like the one in his grandfather's living room. An empty gilt frame, clearly salvaged from the dump, hung on the far wall near the sink.

Hattie saw him looking at it, and said, "I brought that for Nancy-looks almost as pretty empty as filled, but I'm looking for another picture of Mr. Rembrandt, like the one I got. You saw it."

"Oh, Hattie, I don't need a picture of Rembrandt," Rembrandt," Nancy said, bandaging a splint onto a boy's finger. "I'd rather have a picture of you any day. Anyhow, I'll be back in my own place before long." Nancy said, bandaging a splint onto a boy's finger. "I'd rather have a picture of you any day. Anyhow, I'll be back in my own place before long."

"Could be," Hattie said. "When you are, I'll come in here, couple times a week, to bandage up these little ruffians. If your brother won't mind."

When the last child had been sent off, Nancy washed her hands, dried them on a dish towel, and sat down on one of the chairs against the wall and at last looked at Tom hard and long. "I am so glad to see you, even here," she said.

"And I'm so glad to see you," he said. "Even here. Nancy, I heard that-"

She held up a hand to stop him. "Before we get serious, does anybody want a beer?"

Hattie shook her head, and Tom and Sarah said they would split one.

"You'll split one, all right," Nancy said. She went to a small refrigerator next to the sink and removed three bottles; took two gla.s.ses from a shelf; popped off the caps, and came back carrying the bottles by their necks in one hand and the gla.s.ses in the other. She gave a gla.s.s and a bottle each to Tom and Sarah, sat down and raised her own bottle. "Cheers." Tom laughed, and raised his own bottle to Nancy and drank from it. Sarah poured some into her gla.s.s and thanked Nancy.

"If you're not going to use that gla.s.s, maybe I will have a little bit, after all," Hattie said. Tom poured some from his bottle into the empty gla.s.s and Sarah did the same, and then they all sat smiling at each other for a moment.

"I wondered about you, you know," Nancy said to Tom.

"I know you did," Hattie said.

"Wondered what?" Sarah asked.

"Well, Tom had this special thing inside him. He saw saw things. He saw how I felt about Boney right away. But I don't mean just that." She pointed her beer bottle at Tom and squinted, trying to get the right words. "I don't really know how to say this, I guess-but when I looked at you in the bed sometimes, I used to think you'd be something like a really good painter when you got older. Because you had this way of looking at things, like you could see parts of them n.o.body else could. Sometimes, it looked like the world could just make you glow. Or tear you apart inside, when you saw the bad." things. He saw how I felt about Boney right away. But I don't mean just that." She pointed her beer bottle at Tom and squinted, trying to get the right words. "I don't really know how to say this, I guess-but when I looked at you in the bed sometimes, I used to think you'd be something like a really good painter when you got older. Because you had this way of looking at things, like you could see parts of them n.o.body else could. Sometimes, it looked like the world could just make you glow. Or tear you apart inside, when you saw the bad."

"I told him that," Hattie said.

Tom had the strangest desire to cry.

"It was like you had some kind of destiny," Nancy said. "And the reason I'm saying all this is, I can still see it."

"Sure you can," Hattie said. "It's clear as day. Sarah can see it."

"Leave me out of this," Sarah said. "He's conceited enough already. And anyhow, it isn't what I can see, or what you can see, or even Tom can see, it's-" She gave Tom an embarra.s.sed look, and threw up her hands.

"It's what he does," Hattie said. "That's right. Well, he must of done something, because Boney rode all the way out to see me today and gave me a c.o.c.k and bull story about Tom Pasmore getting ready to sue him and the hospital, and how if the boy or his lawyers showed up, I was to turn 'em all away. And a minute later, here comes this tall fellow, and I thought he was a young lawyer, until I took a good look at him."

"Boney did what?" Nancy asked, and Hattie had to repeat the whole story.

"I asked why you were suspended," Tom said. "And he got fl.u.s.tered. The place was full of police."

"Fl.u.s.tered," Nancy said. "This was today? At the hospital?" Nancy said. "This was today? At the hospital?"

Tom nodded.

"Oh, dear," Nancy said. "Oh, d.a.m.n. Oh, s.h.i.+t." She jumped up and went to the back of the room and opened a cupboard and banged it shut.

"That's right," Hattie said. "That boy died."

"Oh, h.e.l.l," Nancy said.

Sarah reached for Tom's hand, and held it tightly. "Does this have anything to do with that letter? Because Tom told me-"

He pressed her hand, and she fell silent.

Nancy turned around, angrier than Tom had ever seen her.

"Why were you suspended?" Tom asked.

"I wasn't going to let him die alone. He needed someone to talk to. You remember how I used to come in and spend time with you?"

"They ordered you to stay away from him?"

"Mike Mendenhall was getting weaker and weaker-in a coma most of the time-I wasn't going to let him be all alone those times when he was awake. And it wasn't an order-n.o.body ordered us to stay out of that room. After the first time Boney learned I was giving time to him, he reminded me that he asked the nursing staff to do no more than change his linens and attend to strictly medical functions. And I said, if that's an order, I'd like to see it posted on the board, and he said he was sure I understood that he could not do that."

"Did Mendenhall talk to you, when he was conscious?"

"Of course he talked to me."

"Would you tell me what he said?"

Nancy looked troubled and shook her head. Tom turned to Hattie. "Two kinds of law, two kinds of medicine. Isn't that what you said at your house, Hattie?"

"You know I did," Hattie said. She had her hawk look again. "I didn't say, quote quote me, though." me, though."

Tom said, "I'll tell you why I'm asking about this." And he told her about his realization that Ha.s.selgard had killed his sister, about his letter to the police captain, and everything that followed. Nancy Vetiver leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and listened. "That letter is the real reason you're here instead of your apartment."

"I said you must of done something, and I guess you did," Hattie said. "Tell him, Nancy. You can't get him in any deeper than he already got himself."

"Are you sure you want to hear this, Sarah?" Nancy asked.

"I'm leaving the island in two days, anyway."

"Well, after everything Tom said, maybe it's not such a big deal, after all." She took a deep swallow of her beer. "Mike Mendenhall was a bitter man. He went to Weasel Hollow to arrest a man named Edwardes for murder, and he knew it was dangerous-a lot of things had been going on at Armory Place that upset him."

"What kind of things?" Tom asked.

"He said there was this one honest detective, Natchez, David Natchez, who had the backing of all the honest officers, and the rest of them would do anything they were told. Before they learned he was honest, some of the older cops used to say anything in front of him, you know, they'd brag about Mill Walk always being the same. As long as they arrested ordinary criminals and kept down street crime, they could do anything they liked, because they were protected. Honestly, Tom, this is terrible, but it's hardly news to people from Maxwell's Heaven and the old slave quarter. We know what they are."

"Why don't we, then?" Tom asked.

"Everything looks just dandy from Eastern Sh.o.r.e Road. When people over there get too near something that sounds too rough for them, they turn their heads away. It's too scary, and they wait for it to go away. From where they sit, everything works."

Tom remembered Dennis Handley, and knew she was telling him the truth.

"It's always been that way," Nancy said. "If somebody gets caught, they make a big public fuss about it, and then everybody's rea.s.sured. Everything's hunky-dory all over again, and it's business as usual."

"But Ha.s.selgard was bigger trouble than they were used to," Tom said. "They had to do something drastic, and do it fast. Did Mendenhall talk about what happened on the day he got shot?"

"A little," Nancy said. "He didn't even know who Edwardes was supposed to have murdered. He knew he would be safe, because his partner would be with him. Roman Klink had been on the force for fifteen years. I got the feeling he thought Klink was too lazy to be really crooked, and too much one of the guys to be absolutely straight."

"How did they know where Edwardes was?"

"They had an address. Mike went up to the door first. He yelled 'Police!' and then pushed in the door. He He didn't think anybody was there-he thought Edwardes had probably taken the boat to Antigua. I guess he went in-" didn't think anybody was there-he thought Edwardes had probably taken the boat to Antigua. I guess he went in-"

"Alone?" Tom asked.

"Ahead of Klink, anyhow. He didn't see anybody in the living room, so he went toward the kitchen. Edwardes jumped out of the kitchen and shot him in the stomach, and he went down. Klink came in shooting. Mike saw Klink dodging toward the bedroom, and that's when all h.e.l.l broke loose. The whole police force came screaming up to the house. Captain Bishop started shouting through a bullhorn. Someone in the house fired a shot, and then the police shot h.e.l.l out of the house. Mike was. .h.i.t four more times. He was so angry angry-he knew they wanted to kill him. They wanted to kill all three of them. Klink was expendable too."

Nancy looked down at her lap. She drank more beer, but Tom didn't think she tasted it.

"He managed to tell you a lot," he said.

She looked up without changing position in any way, and seemed as forlorn as one of her small patients. "I'm smoothing it all out a lot. He wasn't talking to me, half the time. Sometimes he thought I was Roman Klink. Twice he thought I was Captain Bishop. He was out a lot of the time, and he had two long operations. Captain Bishop went into his room once, but he was in a coma most of that day."

"What about Klink?"

"Basically, all we had to do was take out a bullet and sew him up. Last week, Bill saw him tending bar at Mulroney's. Said he was talking like a hero. The man who got Marita Ha.s.selgard's killer. He was drinking a lot, Bill said."

"Said a lot, for Bill," Hattie put in.

"Took him most of the night to get that much out. My brother doesn't talk much," Nancy said to Tom, smiling at him. "He has a good heart, Bill. He lets me see the kids here in the afternoons, even though it must turn his whole life upside down."

"On the balcony, Bill and I saw Captain Bishop walking through the court," Tom said. Hattie and Nancy glanced at each other. "If it weren't for Bill, I think Bishop would have seen me-he motioned me back from the railing."

"Are you sure he didn't see you?"

"I don't think so," Tom said. "I didn't recognize him at first, because he wasn't wearing his uniform."

Hattie snorted, and Nancy still looked uneasy. "Well, he just slides through. He might as well be invisible." She laughed, but not happily. "You look at him, your eye just slips off his face. He's not a person you want to have anything to do with."

"He might have been visiting," Hattie said.

"Visiting?" Tom asked.

"That devil was born in the Third Court," Hattie said.

"His sister Carmen lives back in there," Nancy said, as if she were talking about a deep jungle. "On Eastern Sh.o.r.e Road-the Third Court. Peers through her curtains, day in and day out."

"Looks so meek and mild until you look at her eyes-"

"And then you see she'd be happy to slit a child's throat for the sake of the pennies out of its pockets."

Nancy stretched her arms sideways and yawned with her whole face, somehow managing not to look ugly as she did so. Then she put her hands at the base of her spine, and arched her back. She looked like a cat, with her small supple body and short s.h.a.ggy hair. Tom realized that he had been looking at her face nearly the whole time they had been in her room-he had not even noticed what she was wearing. Now he noticed: a lightweight white turtleneck and tight wheat-colored jeans and white tennis shoes like Sarah's, but scuffed and dirty.