Darkness the Color of Snow (15 page)

Suddenly the room is flooded with light. It's all unfamiliar until he sees Kay standing in the doorway. “Gordy? Gordy, are you all right?”

“I didn't know where I was.”

“You're right here. You're all right. Do you need something?”

“I got up to use the bathroom.”

“Behind you and to your right,” Kay says.

He turns and sees the open door. He nods.

“You going to be all right?” she asks.

“Just woke up confused. Confused myself more. I'm fine.”

She takes a step forward and hugs him to her. He puts his arms around her, and they stand for a bit, just holding each other. He hasn't seen her in ages, but here they are now, both partnerless and grieving. He pulls her tighter, then quickly lets her go. She takes a step back.

“The light switch is right here.” She indicates with her index finger. “Leave the light on if you want.”

“I'll turn it off when I'm done.”

“Good night, Gordy.”

“Good night. Sleep well. It's hard, I know. But you get through it, Kay. Believe me.”

T
WO WEEKS BEFORE
Thanksgiving, Sue the dispatcher had come into the office, white-­faced. “Gordy, we just got an emergency call. It's your address. Something's happened to Bonita.”

He didn't stop to think or wonder what had happened. He ran out of the office without his coat, got into the Explorer, and headed for home under lights and siren. He heard the other siren as he neared the fire station. He saw the rescue vehicle pull out onto the road and hit the lights. He fell in behind it as it rocked along the bumpy road, south toward his house.

He pulled up in front, letting the rescue park in the driveway where it would be able to move unimpeded. There were already a ­couple of cars parked on the road, volunteers from the fire department. He ran to the house, right behind the EMTs.

“What happened? What happened?”

“Woman down in the bathroom. Head trauma. Heavy bleeding.”

“My God, my God,” Gordy said. Bonita. Bonita had fallen.

The EMTs, both of them, went to the bathroom door and stopped. There were already two men in the bathroom. “Let us in,” one of the EMTs said. The men rose up and stepped out of the bathroom so the EMTs could get in. Gordy crowded up to the door behind the EMTs. He could see Bonita's flowered housecoat and a lot of blood. Her wheelchair was overturned next to her.

“She's alive,” one of the volunteers said. “Lots of blood, though.”

“Let me in,” Gordy said.

One of the EMTs said, “Stay back,” then looked up and saw who it was. “Give us room to work here.”

Gordy leaned inside the bathroom door, looking over the back of the EMT who was raising Bonita's head from the floor. There was blood everywhere, especially on her face. She looked unresponsive.

Someone tugged at his sleeve. He waved his arm to be left alone.

“Gordy, it's Lois. I found her. She's hit her head.”

He turned. Lois Schlemmer, in jeans, heavy boots, and a snowflake-­patterned sweater under a barn coat, leaned against the wall, trying to keep out of the way of the paramedics. She took Gordy's arm and pulled him next to her. “I came over to check on her, and she didn't answer. I found her on the floor like that. It looks like she had been on the toilet and tried to pull herself up. But she slipped and hit her head on the sink. I don't know how long she was on the floor.”

“I need to talk to her,” Gordy said.

Lois again pulled him by the arm. “She can't talk. I tried to wake her up, but she would go right back out. Let the paramedics do their job. It's the best we can do right now. Just let them work.”

“I should have been here,” Gordy said.

“Oh, no. Don't you start blaming yourself. You have to work. You can't work and stay home both.”

“I should have stayed home.”

“Gordy, stop it. You have a very important job. Don't blame yourself for what you can't control.” She reached down and put her hand on his. He realized that he had been wringing them. “They're working on her now. She'll be OK.”

He nodded dumbly.

“Excuse us. Coming through.” Two more EMTs were pulling a gurney up to the bathroom door. “Make way. Please. Let us through.” They stopped at the bathroom door. “OK. Everyone out of the hallway. We need room here. Please, into the other room.” A ­couple of ­people pushed past him, and he looked through the door and got his first good look at her, lying on her back now, her head swathed in gauze. Her eyes were closed, and she was absolutely white. She looked terrible. Lois pulled him by the arm, but he pulled away and moved toward the bathroom door. “Bonita. Bonita?”

“Chief,” one of the EMTs said. “Please. She's ready for transport. We have to get her out of here.” Lois pulled his arm again, and they stepped into the living room.

He heard the count and the grunt, then the clicks as the gurney was lifted and unfolded. They were sounds he had heard hundreds of times, and from the living room he could see in his mind's eye exactly what was going on. He had never felt quite so helpless.

Then the EMTs were maneuvering the gurney out of the hallway and through the door to the living room. Once in the clear, they moved faster. As they came past him, Bonita's eyelids fluttered, then closed again.

Lois grabbed his arm and pulled her to him. “I flushed the toilet,” she said. “And pulled up her underpants. She didn't have time. I know you're not supposed to touch things in emergencies, but the poor dear. She would be so embarrassed. I'm sorry if that was wrong.”

“No,” Gordy said. “You did right. It's not a crime scene. It's an accident. Thank you, Lois. You're a good neighbor and friend.”

“Gordy,” Stan Maynard said. “We're taking her to Warrentown. They'll be able to stabilize her there. They'll decide if she needs to go somewhere else. You want to follow us?”

“How is she?”

“Hard to tell right now. We got the bleeding stopped, and she goes in and out of consciousness, but she's not responsive. She lost some blood, but it's a head wound, and they're bleeders. They'll be able to tell more in Warrentown. I don't think it's all that bad, but you never know. A little worried about the lack of response. You want to ride with her?”

He turned and followed the gurney back out, waited as they loaded her, then stepped into the back of the bus next to her. An EMT he knew only as Sherry was setting up an IV of Ringer's. She smiled at Gordy and motioned for him to sit on the box at the back door. “Try not to fret, Chief.”

“We're in an ambulance.”

“We're taking care of her,” Sherry said.

Bonita's eyes came open as the ambulance lurched forward and the driver switched on the siren. She looked around her, saw Gordy. Her eyes widened a bit, then closed as she went back to sleep.

It was a forty-­minute ride to Warrentown. In the back of the bus, with no windows except two small ones, he couldn't judge their progress. He looked out the windows a ­couple of times, but he could see only the bare tops of trees.

When it seemed they were long past time to get to Warrentown, he felt the bus slow, turn, and finally come to a gliding stop. Sherry moved to Bonita's head and motioned him to get against the wall. The doors came open, someone reached in and unlocked the gurney and pulled. Sherry got on the front end, pushed, and the gurney went out the doors, the wheels came down, and she went through the glass doors and into the emergency room.

The emergency room was worse. He was relegated to the hallway as doctors, nurses, orderlies came and went. Each time the door opened he searched for her in the line of curtained cubicles, but he could never see her.

He called the station to talk to Pete, but Ronny Forbert answered the phone. “Pete's out. I'll have him call you back. How is she?”

“Don't know,” Gordy said. “I think she's all right, but I don't know. We won't know for a while.”

“I hope she's OK, Gordy. We're all worried. I'll have Pete call you.”

“No, that's all right. He doesn't need to. I just wanted to check in. I'll need a ride back to the house later on.”

“We'll get you. Everything's cool here. Nothing really going on.”

“Great. I'll talk to you later.”

“Cool. Good luck, Chief. Call when you're ready.”

H
OURS LATER, ONE
of the doctors came out to see him. He was calm, matter-­of-­fact, and bloody.

“Did you get her stitched up?” Gordy asked.

“Yeah. Minor cut. We stitched her and stopped the bleeding. That was all pretty minor. But that's not all. In fact, it's not even a significant part of what's going on, more effect than cause.” The doctor paused, shook his head, and started again. “She's had a stroke. A big one. Right now, it's full paralysis. Whether it's going to stay that way or not, it's too early to tell. She was a long time without help. I understand a neighbor found her. You have any idea how long she was down?”

Gordy shook his head. “I left the house at seven. She was fine. Lois, our neighbor, found her just before noon. I don't know how long she had been lying there.”

“That's a crucial element in stroke, how soon the patient gets treatment. This is frankly not a good scenario. We've treated her with thrombolytic, but the effectiveness of that correlates to the time between the cascade and administering the drug. This may have been a long while or it may well be within the framework of the drug's effectiveness. It'll be a ­couple of weeks before we know much. Recovery is always slow.” He reached out and touched Gordy's shoulder. “We're going to do everything we can.”

“That's it? Wait and see?”

“Wait and see,” the doctor said. “Wish I had something better to tell you, but it's what we have.”

He stayed with her until evening when Ronny Forbert drove to Warrentown to pick Gordy up. Gordy leaned over and kissed her cheek. “You're going to be all right. You'll be home for Thanksgiving. Just wait and see.”

Three days later, she died without ever regaining consciousness.

 

CHAPTER 5

(DAY THREE)

R
OUGH NIGHT
?” P
ETE
asks when Gordy finally makes it in.

“The worst. I spent the night on Kay Beacham's sofa.”

“How's she doing?”

“About like you'd expect. She's going to have to deal with the details for a ­couple of days. That should help, actually. It will keep her mind occupied. No time for random thoughts. Those come later.”

“Well, yeah. I have some news for you, though.”

“What do you have?”

“Tox screen on Laferiere is .21.”

Gordy whistles softly. “Blasted.”

“Even more. Positive for THC.”

“That will be some good news for Ronny.”

“Substantiates his story. You want me to call him and let him know?”

“I'll do it. He probably thinks I'm ignoring him.”

“Worrywart,” Pete says.

“Yeah. Take a bit of the load off him.”

“There's more. We got a call last night. Abandoned white sedan in the woods off 417. Front-­end damage.”

“You got someone on that?”

“Not yet. Thought I'd wait for you on that. Call came from Pam Garrity.”

A slight shock goes through Gordy. Pam Garrity. The Goat Lady.

“I didn't even want to try to call this one. It's your decision.” Years earlier Gordy and Pam Garrity had become “involved.” It had lasted several months, and the news of it moved slowly through Lydell, as such information always moves through a small town. Gordy and Bonita had barely survived it, but they had, and Gordy and Pam had no more dealings with each other beyond a nod and hello if they ran into each other at the market, though he never saw her or heard her name without the same shock he had just felt.

“Where's Steve?”

“He's checking on another barn break-­in. Farm equipment missing. The usual. He'll check out Glendenning, but he won't find anything.”

“Did it happen before or after Laferiere got killed?”

“Noticed it this morning. Hard to tell if it went missing last night or a ­couple of days ago. Martin would know. Should I pay him a call, just to aggravate him?”

“Let's keep on the Laferiere case. We won't find the stolen equipment.” Ronny Forbert had implicated Matt Laferiere, as well as himself, in the disappearance of farm equipment, but they had never been able to track it down. It was pretty common knowledge that Martin Glendenning was paying Laferiere and his crew of misfits to steal the equipment, but they had never been able to find it, despite several searches of Martin's property, which only increased the tension between Gordy and Martin. Ronny had told Gordy about helping Matt Laferiere steal a small disk harrow from a farm some ten miles out of town.

“T
HOUGHT YOU WEREN'T
coming, man.” Matt opened the door, let the other two in then climbed in himself, closing the door after him. There were four of them. Matt, Paul, Bobby, and Ronny.

“It took my old man a while to get into the Heaven Hill.”

“You weren't a little scared?”

“No,” he lied. “He just stayed up longer than he usually does.”

“Then we go. Just head west on 417.” It was crowded with all four packed on one seat. Bobby Cabella had a twelve-­pack. “Don't drink that in the truck,” Ronny said.

“You're shitting me. What are you? My mother?”

“He can't know we have the truck. He finds out, and I never get it again.”

“Don't worry your pretty little head. We'll clean it up when we're done. Just go down 417. About ten miles.”

“You got directions?”

“No. I'm psychic. Hell yes, I got directions. Let's go.”

“Ain't going to catch the midnight rider,” Bobby began to sing.

“Does he have to sing that?”

“Yes. He does. Have a beer, then shut up and drive where I tell you.”

They went out 417, then cut down Birch Pole Road and headed north. In about a mile Matt said, “Slow down. Cut your lights.” They came onto a small house just off the road, only a porch light burning. “Real slow, now.” It was a dirt road, and the ladder racks on the truck rattled at every bounce. They crept past the house. It stayed dark.

“Keep it slow. There's a turn up here,” Matt said.

“Can I turn on the lights?”

“No. It's got to be dark from here on until we get back to the main road. Just keep it slow. Look for the gap in the fence.”

They went through the gap in the fence and they were on a tractor road, heading between two fields. “OK. It's up here about another two hundred yards. OK. Stop here. Don't shut it off, just take it out of gear and keep it running. Bobby, get out and get the license plates.”

“You're taking the license plates off?”

“Unless you want someone with a flashlight to be able to tell the police exactly who was here, yeah. It's a precaution. Just a precaution.”

They all got out of the truck. Bobby Cabella went to the front end with a screwdriver. Matt Laferiere said, “Come on. It's right over there.”

“Where? It's dark.”

“Dark is good. That's why we do this at night when there's not a lot of moon.”

“Don't you have a flashlight?”

“A flashlight will be seen for a long way on a night like this. We'll find it. Your eyes will adjust. You'll see it.”

They moved across the field, three of them abreast ten yards apart. No one said anything. They walked slowly. Ronny could see little, and he walked slowly, afraid he would trip over whatever it was they were looking for. They had walked fifty yards when Matt came up to him and pointed to the left. He could make out the outline of Matt, but not his features.

He saw it just to his left, about five yards away. He grabbed Laferiere's arm and pointed.

“Yeah. That's it.”

“What is it?”

“A disk harrow.” They were speaking just above a whisper. “Go get the truck. Leave the lights off.”

He maneuvered the truck off the tractor path and into the field, which was furrowed, the ground still soft. He kept it moving slowly, afraid it was going to get stuck in the soft dirt. As he got to where he thought the harrow was, he slowed further until he saw Matt waving at him, giving him signals to get the truck into position. Matt held up both arms for him to stop.

Ronny got out of the truck and went to where Matt, Bobby, and Paul stood around the harrow. “This field is all plowed up, all loose dirt.”

“It's just been harrowed, man.” Matt motioned to the piece of equipment on the ground. Matt moved to the truck and lowered the tailgate, then gathered them together. “Everyone take a corner. Take a good grip. Lift it straight up, then we walk it to the truck and lift it in. Not slide it. Lift it. Once the front of it is on the truck the guys in the front climb into the truck and lift it, the ones in the back lift and push. It should go right in.”

Ronny got on the back end of the harrow with Paul Stablein. There was a frame of angle iron that was cold against his hands.

“OK. One, two, three. Lift.”

Ronny felt the frame of the harrow move under his hands, but he could lift it only a little, not enough to free it from the ground. It slipped from his hands and back down again.

“Hang on to it, damn it.”

“How heavy is this thing?”

“Heavy. Now come on. Lift.”

This time it came free of the earth and moved up. He got it up to waist-­high and was then pulled forward as Matt and Bobby pulled it toward the gate. He stumbled slightly but held on. He could feel that his corner was lower than the rest, but he moved slowly ahead. Already his arms were burning with the exertion.

“OK. Paul, Ronny. You guys hang on for a second. When I say ‘lift,' lift it high. It's got to clear this tailgate. Move slow. Don't knock us down. Lift.”

He tried pulling his arms up, but it did little good. He bent his knees and moved his elbows out so he could get his shoulders under it. The harrow moved forward a little.

“Hold it. Hold it. You guys just hold it for a second. We've got to move over to the side. Don't let go. Just another ­couple of feet.” His arms were wavering now and his shoulders had joined in the burn.

“Lift.”

He moved it up another ­couple of inches and pushed forward. He lost footing in the loose soil and fell forward, the harrow coming down with a bang in the bed of the truck, his corner catching him hard on the shoulder, but the harrow stayed up, resting in the truck bed.

“Fuck. Forbert. You just about crushed my foot. Now lift.”

He got his body under it one more time and lifted and pushed it another foot into the truck.

“Good. Good. We're good. Gentlemen, the prize is ours.”

He looked back to where the house was, waiting for the lights to come on. The noise the harrow made coming down into the truck was horrific, but the house stayed dark. He and Bobby Cabella and Matt got into the truck. “OK,” Matt said. “Back this thing out. Go slow. Paul will guide you. Keep your foot off the brake. We don't want any brake lights.”

His arms were shaking. He turned and looked out the rear window where he could just make out Paul Stablein waving him back. He put the truck in reverse and started out. He could feel the wheels sinking into the ground.

“Give it gas,” Matt said. “But not too much.”

They moved back, slowly, unevenly, the weight of the truck pushing deeper into the furrowed ground. Finally, they made it back to the tractor path, then back another ­couple hundred yards to the road.

“Now. Slowly, lights off until we get well past the house.”

It was one of the hardest things he had ever done, moving the truck slowly down the road. The bumps in the road caused the harrow to rattle and bang in the bed. He just wanted to get the hell out of there, and he fought the impulse to floor it and be gone.

They came up toward the intersection of the main road, and Matt told Bobby to get out and put the plates back on.

“Fuck.”

“What?”

“I left the plates on the bumper.”

“You fucking moron. Get out there and see if they're still there.”

Bobby jumped out and went to the front of the truck. He held up a plate. “One. I got one.”

“Shit,” Ronny said. “What will we do?”

“We need to get out of here. We can come back tomorrow and find the other plate.”

“No. We got to get back onto 417. If a cop sees us, we're pulled over for sure, and then they find the harrow in the back. We're really, totally, and completely screwed.”

“You're going to have to drive us back.”

“I don't want to drive past that house again.”

“We could walk back. It's not that far.”

“I need to get this truck home before the old man wakes up and finds it gone.”

“We got three choices. Walk back, drive back, or try to make it home with one plate.”

“What kinds of choices are those?”

“Ours.”

“I say we walk back.”

Ronny said, “No. That will take forever.”

“Then we drive back, or we go on without a plate.”

“No. We can't do that, either. We'll get caught for sure, or my old man will see it first thing in the morning. We have to get those plates.”

“Then we drive.”

Ronny looked back at the still-­dark house. He could feel the odds starting to stack against him. “All right.”

“Wait,” Stablein said. “If one of the plates was still on the truck, where did the other one fall off? If we're driving, we'll never see it without lights. We have to walk.”

“Oh, fuck.”

“No. He's right. We walk.”

They started back up the road, walking four abreast. “No talking,” Matt said. “No smoking. No light.”

They moved past the house for the third time, the crunching of gravel on the road sounding as loud as a car's engine. They all kept their eyes on the road but kept sneaking glances at the house, waiting for a light to come on in one of the windows. Just in front of the turnoff to the tractor road, Bobby Cabella said, “Got it. Stepped on it.” He held it up for them all to see.

They turned and started back toward the truck. Ronny felt the tension grow as they got closer to the house. When they got up even with it, Paul Stablein bolted. “Fuck,” someone said. A window in the far corner of the house lit up. “Go.”

They ran back to the truck and piled in.

“Let's get the fuck out of here.”

“The plates aren't on.”

“Fuck it. Go. We got to go now.”

Ronny put the lights on just before they hit 417, sliding from Birch Pole Road onto the main road, cutting off a car that blared its horn at them.

“Just keep going. Don't slow down.” They were heading west on 417, no plates, speeding, with a pissed-­off driver behind them who could call the police. They kept going until they saw a sign for a side road. Ronny slowed, took the side road, and drove down it a quarter mile until he pulled over to the side of the road. Bobby Cabella jumped out and started screwing the plates back on.

Ronny saw the car lights behind them before the others did. There was nowhere to go, nothing to do. The car pulled up even with them, and the driver rolled down his window. “You all right? Need help?”

Ronny shook his head and waved his hand, signaling that they had everything under control, though he was barely keeping his bowels under control.

“We're good, man,” Matt yelled, holding up a beer can. “Everything's good.”

The driver leaned over, closer to the door. “Then get out of here.”

“We just have a little repair here. As soon as we get this fixed, we'll be on our way,” Ronny said.

­“People live on this street, and we have to pick up your goddamned beer cans and bottles, and God knows what else every damned weekend. You get out of here. I'm coming back in a few minutes, and if you're still here, I'm calling the police. You got that?”