The Rebuilding Year (4 page)

“No rush.” It was relaxing, in that dim kitchen with the moonlight streaming in. No noise, no music, just someone to talk to and the heavenly smell and taste of that coffee.

John was staring at his phone. “Good, because the damned thing is dead. Let me put it in the charger for a bit.” He pulled over what Ryan had thought was an abstract sculpture, and set the phone into it, plugging in a jack. Ryan leaned forward to take a closer look. The piece was made of wood, in long swooping curves that looked abstract. Until you put the phone in it, and then the shape resolved into a pair of hands, cradling the phone as if it were precious.

Ryan ran a finger over the luster of the wood. “Wow, that’s cool too. Same artist that did the lamp, right?”

When John didn’t answer, he looked up to see the man was…blushing?

“You made this?”

“It’s just a hobby. I pick up the stray bits of wood I find and fiddle with them in my spare time. It’s just for fun.”

“Well, I’ve seen worse in fancy galleries with major price tags. If you’re ever short of cash, let me know. My sister-in-law would love this.” Grace had a thing for melding form and function. When it was done right.

“It’s just a hobby,” John said firmly, almost angrily.

“Okay.” Ryan took his hands off the piece and sat back.

“Let me have your phone. I’ve got a number for the taxi company somewhere. I’ll call you that cab and they can charge it to me. It’s the least I can do.”

Somehow the easy comfort had disappeared. Ryan pulled out his cell and passed it over.
 

Chapter Three

The air was warm and pleasant on campus in the middle of the day. Ryan had a sandwich, a soda and a lovely biochemistry chart of the Krebs Cycle to study. He headed across the grass, looking for a shady spot to enjoy them. Down the hill, there was a stand of old pines. He vaguely remembered seeing a bench set under them. Sitting on something raised was always a little easier than getting himself back up off the ground.

As he approached the trees he heard women’s voices raised anxiously. Two girls stood under the tallest pine, looking up. One blonde, one brunette, young enough to definitely be undergraduates, and both looking anxious.

“Come on now. This is silly,” the blonde was saying as he reached her.

“What’s up?” He looked up, following her gaze. About fifteen feet up in the tree, another girl with long brown hair was climbing slowly.

“Come on, Alice,” the brunette at the foot of the tree called. “That’s high enough.”

Ryan looked at the tree. Like many old pines, it had a veritable ladder of side branches running up its trunk. The girl had another twenty or thirty feet before the branches got too thin to be safe. Although she wasn’t wearing good shoes for climbing. “What’s she up to?” he asked the blonde.

“We don’t know. She’s been odd all morning, not really there. Then after poetry class she got spacey, talked about the squirrels of the air. Nancy and I figured we’d better keep an eye on her. She just marched down here and started climbing.”

“Her name’s Alice?”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, Alice,” he called up. “What are your plans? How high are you going to go?”

“Squirrels climb,” the girl’s voice floated down. “The trees are their highways, to reach the realms of sky.” She pulled herself up another rung.

Not a good answer.
“Alice. Your friends are worried about you. We’d like you to stop there for a bit.”

“But the sky is above me.” He could see what they meant by spacey. The girl’s voice seemed to float on a breath with no emotion behind it. “Up, up and up. To real lightness of being.” Another branch up.

“What should we do?” the brunette asked.

“Does she do drugs?”

“I wouldn’t have said so,” the blonde said slowly. “But lately she’s been…different. And that shit about squirrels, that’s not Alice. I had to convince her to take the poetry class because she said it was too abstract for her.”

“Okay.” The girl was thirty feet up now, and the branches were smaller. Still safe enough, but she showed no sign of stopping. “I think you should call 9-1-1. Tell them you think she may be high on some kind of medication, and she’s getting to a risky level in the tree.” He glanced around. A couple of people were headed their way, but not close enough. He dropped his cane and kicked off his shoes. Knew he should have worn better sneakers today.

“What are you going to do?” the brunette asked, as the blonde pulled out her cell phone.

“I’m going up after her. Maybe I can talk to her, convince her to come down. Or even grab her if she falls.”

“Do you think you’re able…?” Her eyes dropped to the cane.

Ryan hated that, freaking
hated
it. “Sure. Climbing is all about arm strength.” He reached up and hauled himself skyward.

The old pine was like a ladder, an easy climb. Except for the needles in his hair, and the rough, sappy texture, it was easier than a ladder. He reached, chinned, braced his right foot on a rung, and repeated. Fast and smooth. If it weren’t for that fool girl, it would almost be fun. It was a long time since he’d done something like this.

“Alice,” he called. She was ten feet above him now, four sets of branches. He didn’t want to make her slip. “Alice. I’m just going to come up there and join you, okay? I bet the view is great from there. I’m just going to climb up slowly on the other side okay?”

“The squirrels are jealous of the birds,” Alice said. “Flight is beyond them. But they can come close.” She stood up on a branch where there was a gap in the tree. Holding with one hand above her head, she reached out with the other and leaned into space.

“Easy there.” Ryan used his best talk-jumpers-off-a-ledge voice. “You don’t want to slip. Why don’t you hold on with both hands, honey.” He slid farther around the trunk, and chinned the next rung. Two more levels.

She looked down at him and smiled. It was a scary smile, serene and empty. “But that’s why they keep trying. Because next time, they
will
fly.” And she leaned forward into the space, and let go.

He lunged for her, grabbing at air. He wasn’t even close. Then he had to make an emergency twist, body arching, to get a hand on solid wood. He was one hand away from following her to the ground. Luckily, since his injury he had put a lot of time into upper-body strength. He hauled upward, got the other hand on, and pulled himself safely against the trunk.

He didn’t want to look down. But he had to.

Alice had made it to the grass, taking a couple of branches with her. He remembered the crunches as they broke, as she hit. He didn’t remember the girl making a sound. A group of people were gathered around her crumpled body. One girl was trying mouth-to-mouth, but Ryan had no illusions. You don’t survive a fall like that.

One person’s face was turned up at him, rather than staring at the dead girl. The groundskeeper, John, was looking up fixedly his way. Ryan sighed, and began the descent. Easier than the climb up, he could just do this hand over hand. As he hit the ground, a newly familiar grasp on his elbow steadied him. “Here.” His cane was placed in his hand.

“Thanks.” He gripped it and then winced, and inspected his palm. Abrasions and pine sap. “I don’t suppose you have another one of those wipes?”

“Not on me.”

Neither one of them was looking over at the small group on the grass. In the distance, a siren swelled, growing quickly louder.

“I wasn’t fast enough,” Ryan said to his feet, rubbing his sappy hands on his jeans. Bad mistake. They were his favorite jeans. But he couldn’t seem to stop. He worked his shoes back on, balancing carefully with the cane.

The hand on his elbow squeezed lightly and then withdrew. “I saw the end of it. She didn’t hesitate. Just let go and boom. She didn’t give you time.”

Ryan looked up. Those hazel eyes were just as compassionate as the last time. John looked worriedly at him. “Did you hurt yourself? I almost had a heart attack thinking you were going to go down with her.”

“No, I’m fine. A few scrapes.”

“Good.”

The emergency vehicles were bumping toward them over the grass, police and fire rescue. Too damned late. Although John was right. She hadn’t hesitated.

The paramedics came running over and knelt beside the girl for a moment. The older one shook her head. “Skull, neck, chest. Not a chance. How far did she fall?”

“About forty feet,” Ryan said.

The campus police were joined by a city police car. Ryan sighed and waited. So much for a lunch hour of studying.
So much for some stupid mixed-up kid’s life.
At his back, John waited too, a solid presence, as the paramedics and police did their thing. After about five minutes, a cop came over to Ryan.

“Excuse me, sir. I’m told you were the guy who went up the tree after her?”

“Yes.”

“And you are?”

“Ryan Ward. I’m a med student.”

The cop flipped to a new page in his notebook and made a note. “Officer Danielson. I’d like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.” He glanced at Ryan’s cane, and back up. “We could sit on the bench over there, if you like.”

Fuck.
But his back was sore. He’d wrenched something in that wild grab. “Okay.” He led the way over and sat down. John didn’t follow them, but he leaned against the tree, listening. After a glance his way, the officer turned to Ryan.

“Can you tell me your address and phone, and then run through what happened?”

Ryan went through the story.

“What made you go up after her?”

“The way she was talking. She clearly wasn’t thinking normally. You’re going to want to do a complete drug screen on her.”

The officer nodded. “Could you tell what she had taken?”

“No clue. She was calm but weird, almost happy.”

“She was like that the other night too,” John said from where he stood.

“The other night, sir?”

“Yeah. The first day of term. I was working late on the grounds, and I came across that same girl wandering in the alder grove. She was talking nonsense, like disconnected poetry. I figured she was high. I took her back to her dorm and got one of the other girls to get her back to her room. At least I assume that’s what she did. I didn’t actually go inside.”

“You’re sure it was this girl?”

“Yes. I got a look at her just now before she…fell. And that night, she said her name was Alice.”

“And you didn’t report this to anyone at the time? Her dorm monitor or health services?”

“No, I didn’t.” John’s voice got deeper. “She seemed happy, her pulse was normal, she just seemed high. It’s not my job to police these kids, as long as they seem safe.”

“But she wasn’t safe, was she?”

“Not this time.” John didn’t look down. “She was then.”

“Who are you anyway?” the cop asked. “What
is
your job?”

“John Barrett. Groundskeeper.”

Barrett.
Ryan figured he might actually remember that now. Although after an hour of drunken rambling, he was probably entitled to think of the man as John.

“I’ll want to talk to you afterward.” The cop turned back to Ryan. “Even if the girl was high, what made you think it was a good idea to climb after her?”

“I didn’t like the way she was talking about flying,” Ryan said carefully.

“And you didn’t worry that you might scare her into falling?”

“Sure I did.” He kept his voice even. “But she had that out-of-control feel, like she wasn’t coherent enough to even realize the danger. I hoped I could grab her first.”

“That’s a difficult call to make.”

“I was a firefighter for eight years. I’ve seen jumpers. And fallers. I made the call. But she was fast. I didn’t get close enough.”

“He’s telling the truth.” John sounded angry. “She went straight up, leaned out, and let go. He came closer than the rest of us to saving her.”

“Firefighter where?”

“San Diego.”

“And now you’re a med student?”

“And now I am.” The cop’s eyes dropped to his cane again, and then rose. Ryan met them, trying to seem indifferent.
Don’t ask.

The cop gave him a more friendly look. “More excitement in the big city than we get here, I guess. You didn’t know the victim before today?”

“Never saw her.”

“Okay.” He folded the notebook shut, and held out his hand. “I guess someone should say thank you for trying. If we have more questions, we’ll be in touch.”

Ryan held up his sticky palm. “You don’t really want to shake my hand right now.”

The cop nodded. “Right.” He turned to John. “And now you, sir, if you don’t mind.”

Ryan closed his eyes and leaned back on the bench. He listened with half an ear as John described seeing the girl in early September. The cop was fishing for some kind of drug connection. John wasn’t giving him much. He’d seen the girl around the last two years, had a few bits of information about where she worked.

“So, how come you know so much about a random student? You said you’re the groundskeeper.”