The Piper (10 page)

‘Don't choke on it, McTavish, what's on your mind?'

‘Just that it was a stroke of good luck, for Chris's wife and kids, having a definitive verdict like this. Your brother's insurance policy was less than two years old, which means it doesn't pay out for suicide.'

‘You think my brother killed himself?'

‘It crossed my mind. Yours too, right? Isn't that why you wanted the report?'

‘Maybe.'

‘Look, I talked to the ME about it this morning. Unofficially, by the way. He genuinely
doesn't
think it was a suicide.'

‘How does he explain the SUNDS thing? I've never heard of it before. My best friend in LA is a PA and she's never seen a case.'

‘The ME says he looked into your brother's medical history. Talked to a doctor who treated Chris before he died. Initially, he was looking for heart disease, but when he opened your brother up – sorry – he said his heart was in beautiful shape right up until his death, the arteries oversized and clear, like you'd expect from someone who had been a nonsmoker and an athlete most of his life. He also said the medical records show your brother lost seventy-six pounds between that last medical visit and his death.'

Olivia nodded. ‘I know.'

‘So the ME was thinking maybe thyroid or stomach cancer. But there was nothing. Your brother was in good health, other than the strain on his system from the sudden loss of weight. Mainly his gall bladder was about to pop. There was also a huge build-up of cortisol and other stuff – the specifics are there in the paperwork. ME was thinking it looked like prolonged stress and sleep deprivation, which would dovetail with the sudden weight loss. But here's the weird part. According to the records, your brother was diagnosed with night terrors and sleep paralysis before he died.'

‘Sleep paralysis? That's a diagnosis?'

‘It can be. According to the ME, sleep paralysis can be hereditary. Did anybody else in your family have a history of this sort of thing?'

‘Not that I know of. And I don't get how something like that could kill a healthy guy like Chris. I don't even get what it is.'

‘The way the ME described it, the victim—'

‘Would you mind not calling my brother
the victim
?'

‘Sorry. The patient feels awake, but he can't move or talk. The ME gave me a lot of technical blah about
nonreciprocal flaccid paralysis
, but all it means is that the brain prevents a person from acting out their dreams, something or other to do with motor-neurons, which is basically a defense mechanism that keeps you from jumping out a window if you dream you can fly. It comes down to this – the patient feels awake, but he can't move or speak. But it's real. What happens is the person wakes up before the brain sends the signal to activate muscle contraction, which means you can't move your body, thus the paralysis. Evidently, it's very common to have hallucinations in this state. The hallucinations can be pretty . . . horrific.'

‘Horrific?'

‘Demons. Ghosts. Satan on your chest.'

‘Right. Nightmares, in other words. But that doesn't kill you. My brother is dead.'

‘What happens with SUNDS is that things go one step further. The victim has no body movement – extreme muscle atonia is what they call it – and it can get so severe the cardiac muscles and the diaphragm paralyze. And if that was happening to your brother while he was awake, it would explain the histamines they found in the toxicology blood work.'

‘Histamines? What does that mean?'

McTavish touched her shoulder. ‘When someone dies in extreme pain or fear, the body produces histamines. Think of it as a stress measure of what a person goes through before death.'

‘Lay it out for me, McTavish. No pulling punches here. I want to know exactly what it was like for my brother when he died.'

McTavish rubbed his forehead. ‘The bottom line is this. Your brother was in a state of extreme fear and agitation right before he died. And while he was lying there paralyzed and afraid, he was experiencing myocardial infarction and severe breathing difficulties. There's no way to tell which killed him first. He either strangled, slowly, or his heart gave out.'

The school bell rang, and Olivia was vaguely aware of the fleeting pause of quiet before the scramble of footsteps.

‘Livie? Livie, honey, come on, take deep, slow breaths.'

McTavish was opening the door on her side of the car. Unstrapping her seat belt. Coaxing her to one side and making her put her head between her knees. Olivia heard the mingle of childish voices and the occasional call of an adult until she heard the right flavor of
mom
. She sat up straight.

Teddy was running, holding out an oversized flap of paper that was clearly artwork still damp to the touch. She had that smile that reminded Olivia so much of Emily – if she remembered one thing about her big sister, it was that way Emily had of tilting her chin, squinting her eyes and letting the smile spread all the way across her face.

‘There she is. I noticed it at your brother's funeral, you know? How much she looks like Emily,' McTavish said.

‘Yeah.'

‘Hey.' He turned to look at her. ‘You steady, sweetheart? I'm sorry, I should have handled that better. I've been a homicide cop too long. You going to make it there?'

‘Need a minute.'

‘Wave at her,' McTavish said. ‘That's good. You sit tight, and I'll go round her up.'

Olivia watched them, saw Teddy stop and squint up at McTavish, the sun in her eyes. McTavish pointed at Olivia and she waved again. Something McTavish said made Teddy laugh, then Teddy ran to the car.

‘Hey. Kidlet. How was school?'

Teddy was climbing into the back seat. ‘You were right, Mommy, it is friendly here.' She looked over the headrest at McTavish. ‘Did you know my teacher is a
man
?'

McTavish was climbing back into the car. ‘Is he old and ugly and mean?'

‘Mr Oswald?' Teddy ducked her head and looked sideways at a boy kicking a soccer ball as he headed toward the circle of buses. ‘He's younger than you.'

‘
Teddy
,' Olivia said.

McTavish shrugged. ‘He must be a baby, then. I'm surprised they let him teach school.'

‘He's really good, he teaches us a lot and he makes it fun. And you'll never guess what. The whole third grade is going to do a play. But Annette says Aunt Charlotte won't let her be in it.'

‘Your cousin can't be in the play? How come?' McTavish started the car. ‘What play are you going to do?'

‘
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
. I get to be a rat. The rats are the narrators so it's an important part. I've already learned some of my lines.

‘Hamelin Town's in Brunswick.

By famous Hanover city;

The river Weiser, deep and wide,

Washes its wall on the southern side;

A pleasanter spot you never spied;

But, when begins my ditty,

Almost five hundred years ago,

To see the townsfolk suffer so

From vermin, was a pity.'

O
livia tried to call Charlotte before she went to bed. She felt bad about their fight, but no one picked up the phone. She left a message, asking Charlotte to call her about hiring a plumber. A mundane request, and a perfect way to break the ice.

Olivia curled up against the pillows, thinking of Chris saying he
paid the piper
. Imagining him lying in his bed in the dark house, afraid and unable to move, strangling in his sleep, the words
hereditary condition
echoing in her mind. She drifted in and out of sleep, until the sound of a barking dog brought her fully awake.

She sat up in bed, listening.

And there it was again. The deep throated huff of a big dog, somewhere close by the house. It sounded like Winston. What was he doing outside?

Olivia sat up, wide awake now, and switched on the lamp by the side of the bed. The bedroom, dormer windows and dark woodwork, was still unfamiliar, but it was her bed, and her lamp. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, and slid as soon as her feet hit the floor. She went down on one knee and grabbed the mattress to break her fall.

The floor was wet. She looked up at the ceiling, thinking there might be a leak. The ceiling was dry. Olivia turned on the overhead light, saw that the water trailed across the room toward the hallway, as if someone had left wet footprints, as if someone had come in from a bath.

She thought about Teddy getting up in the middle of the night, taking a bubble bath, then wandering around the house. Preposterous, but what else could it be? Maybe whatever caused the bathroom ceiling to come down was causing the water on the floor. She would call Charlotte again in the morning about a plumber. Or go on Angie's List and look.

The dog barked again, sounding hoarse and frantic, and Olivia headed out into the hallway, turning on lights as she went. She had left that hall lamp on, hadn't she? Maybe the bulb had burned out.

But Winston was inside, not out, pacing and restless outside of Teddy's room, lifting his head and whining. Teddy's door was closed.

Olivia felt the thump of her heart. ‘What's going on, Winston? What are you doing out here?'

Because Teddy always slept with her door open, comforted by the stream of light coming in from the lamp they always left on in the hall. And Winston slept on the bed beside her, taking his half out of the middle. Teddy complained that he hogged the pillow, but Winston had been sleeping beside her since the night they brought him home from the pound.

The door creaked as Olivia pushed it open. It was dark inside the bedroom, the last unpacked boxes stacked in front of the window so that even the moonlight didn't relieve the pitch blackness inside.

Teddy was quiet, and very still and at first Olivia thought she was asleep. Until she saw her daughter's eyes, wide open, shining like a possum's eyes did in the dark.

‘Teddy? Teddy, are you okay?'

Olivia hit the overhead light, and felt tears come to her eyes when she saw her daughter move. She wasn't sure what she had thought. Teddy had been so still in her bed.

‘Mommy. You came.' Whispering. But wide awake. Teddy's face was pale, her little freckles standing out against the blanched whiteness of her skin.

Winston bounded into the room and jumped up on the bed. Teddy sat up and hugged him and she trembled, though it wasn't cold.

‘Teddy, are you sick?' Olivia put a hand to her daughter's forehead. Warmish. Maybe yes maybe no on a fever, possibly something on the way. Which made perfect sense, new school, new germ pool. ‘What's going on, Teddy? Why was Winston out in the hall?'

Teddy's lower lip trembled. ‘I don't know.'

‘What do you mean, you don't know?'

Winston groaned and put his head on Teddy's knee.

‘Teddy, don't lie to me, tell me what's going on.'

‘I can't.'

‘What do you mean, you can't?'

‘He won't like it if I tell.'

‘He? Who is he? Teddy. Who is
he
?'

‘
Duncan Lee
.'

‘Who the hell is Duncan Lee?'

‘The one that texted me. At Aunt Charlotte's house, you remember, that day in Janet's room. He talks to me now since you took the phone away. He likes to sit on my bed. But he doesn't like Winston. He says that Winston can't come in my room anymore.'

‘
Teddy
.'

The tears came suddenly, a downpour, and Teddy sobbed hard as Olivia wrapped her in her arms.

‘He said something bad would happen if I let Winston come in anymore. He said I had to lie in bed and be still and very quiet and I wasn't allowed to wake you up, or tell you. He said if I didn't do what he said that he would hang Winston from the attic fan with a red leather belt.
Oh, Mommy, I was so afraid.
How did you know? How did you know to come?'

O
livia told herself that she was humoring Teddy when she agreed to take Winston to work the next morning. Her daughter had seemed happy when Olivia picked her up from school, checking carefully that Winston was safe in the car. She had news of Mr Ogden, who had brought in an aquarium and introduced them to a gecko named Eduardo. It would appear that geckos ate crickets and worms, loved honey, communicated with chirps and had special toe pads to help them walk across ceiling tiles. Mr Ogden was very hands on when it came to science.

‘Because,' Teddy said, ‘Mr Ogden says that science is how you understand the world.'

Olivia looked up from her computer screen at her daughter, who was curled up reading. Teddy's color was good, there was no fever and she seemed her usual self except that she had refused her after school snack. Even McNuggets from McDonald's didn't tempt her.

Olivia's office was shaping up. It was good to have her own desk, photos of Teddy on the wall, and the special client chair that Teddy helped pick out in the far left corner of the room.

Teddy had seemed so afraid, in the night, but back to her usual self today. Was it possible that once her cousin Janet planted the ghost stories in Teddy's mind, she was using them to get attention from her dad?

Olivia knew the attention seeking was fallout from the divorce, but she missed the old Teddy, the quiet child who entertained herself. When she was little she had spent hours quietly coloring, using two crayons only, pink and yellow. Olivia herself had gone through a pink and yellow phase at the same age – she wondered if that kind of thing could be genetic.

She did not like not trusting Teddy, did not like wondering if Teddy was sliding away into lies and drama. Olivia reminded herself that Teddy was only eight years old. That this was the third time she had changed schools. It was the adults who were having the drama. Teddy needed structure, patience, and a firm but loving hand. She needed stability in her life.