The Walking (17 page)

Bonnie smiled stiffly at him, and he smiled back. He realized that he didn't have anything to say to his sister. The questions that popped into his mind, the genetic conversation openers he considered and rejected, were all of the superficial sitcom variety--How's Gil? How are the kids? He wanted to be able to talk to her, to really communicate, but he didn't know how. She, too, seemed to be at a loss, and they sat there awkwardly, strangers who were siblings.

It was Bonnie who spoke first. "So where's Dad... I mean, his body? Downtown The coroner's office."

"Do you think I should see him?"

"Do you want to?"

= "I don't know."

"It's up to you."

Another awkward silence.

"Maybe I will take that drink," she said. "Water?"

"With" 9" ice.

She nodded, and he went into the kitchen, grateful for some time to plan out what he would say. He and his sister had never been that close, but he hadn't realized until now how much they had depended upon their father to keep the conversation alive when they were together. He filled a glass with water and ice and carried it back out.

Bonnie accepted it. "Thanks." She took a sip. "Whatever happened to the nurse? You didn't tell me."

"Audra?" Miles shrugged. "She's still working for the hospice agency, but she doesn't want to speak with me. I've tried, several times. I suppose she's already on some other: case, with a new patient." He sighed, "She can avoid me al she wants, but if the police want to speak to her, she'll have to talk to them."

"Police? Are there police involved?"

"Not yet. But they might be." He shook his head. "Who knows?"

More silence.

He thought for a moment. He'd been honest with her over the phone, but there was one thing he hadn't told her about. and he asked her to wait while he walked into his father bedroom and took out the cardboard carton containing the contents of the safety deposit box.

He set the carton down on the coffee table in front of the glass and started telling her about their father's dream, his recur ring nightmare of the tidal wave and his subsequent trip to the library to pick up occult books. Miles speculated that their dad had known what was coming, that he was some how preparing for it or maybe even trying to stave it off

He then explained about the paraphernalia he had found in the safety deposit box.

Bonnie didn't seem all that surprised by what he had say, and that made him suspicious. 'That doesn't shock you?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Not really."

Miles pointed at the box. "So what is this?"

"What is what?"

"This!" He picked up a phial of gray powder and shook it in front of her face. He dropped the phial back in the box. "What is all this?

Why would Dad keep all of this magic stuff in his safety deposit box?"

"How would I know?"

"I thought he might have mentioned something about it to you."

'to me? If he'd talked about it with anyone, it would have been you.

In case you hadn't noticed, we weren't exactly on the best of terms."

"I mean before all this. When we were little."

She stood. "Look, I don't know anything about any of this. I don't know what this crap is, and I don't care. I don't think it has anything to do with anything." She looked at him, shook her head. "And I don't understand why you're so worked up about it."

"Because our father is in the morgue and he's dead and he's still walking around! Is that clear enough for you?" .

She sat back down.

They looked at each other--glared, really--but there was more fear in their expressions than anger, and the animosity could not be sustained by either of them. Bonnie broke first, and she reached her hand up to him, and he took it, and then they were hugging. "I'm sorry," Bonnie said.

"I'm sorry, too," Miles told her.

They held each other tighter. She started crying, sniffling at first, then wailing, and he rocked her and whispered re assurances as she sobbed into his shoulder like a baby.

In the morning, Bonnie was gone. She'd written a long apologetic letter, a rambling screed covering six double-sided pages, telling him that she could not handle this right now, that she needed some time, that she would be there for the

funeral if one ever took place, but until then she just wanted to be with her family, with Gil and the kids, far away from all this.

He wanted to be angry with her, but he wasn't. She was not to blame for what was happening, and though it would be easier to hate her for her cowardice, he could not find it in himself to condemn her. After everything was said and done, she was still his sister, and there was no reason she should have to wait around for her reanimated dead dad to stop walking around and finally die like he was supposed to.

No one should have to do that.

Miles had been absent since Monday, and rather than sit cooped up in the house for yet another day, he decided to return to work. His hands were sweaty as he rode the elevator up, and he perfunctorily accepted the condolences of the other people in the office, thanked Hal for his offer to be a sympathetic ear. Not until he was safely in his cubicle, in his chair, at his desk, surrounded by the familiar mess of paperwork, though, was he finally able to relax.

He had not realized how stressful staying at home was, and he felt relieved here, almost happy. It was as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders, and though Naomi told him that several days of bereavement leave were still available to him, Miles was glad he'd made the decision to come in. Work would help him forget, hopefully take his mind off his personal problems.

Marina's case was the only one of his that hadn't been parceled out, and it was the only one in which he was really interested. He spent an hour or so trying to track down addresses and phone numbers, attempted to talk to Liam and was promptly hung up on, called Marina and gave her what little information he had.

Then it was lunchtime.

On an impulse, he drove out to Palm Springs, to the home of Hubert E

Lars, the fifth man down on Liam's list, the one with the disconnected phone. As he'd suspected, the house was abandoned, and when he questioned the neighbors, he learned that Hubert had passed away six months back. Natural causes, they said. In his sleep. But Miles wasn't so sure. Every death seemed suspicious to him now, and as he drove back to L.A." past the fields of oversize high-tech windmills that spread across the hot breezy desert of the San Gorgonio Pass, he tried to imagine some reason or rationale that did not involve the supernatural.

But he could not.

He thought of his father. It was as if the walls Of reality were breaking down, as though the world had shifted away from the logical, physics-governed place with which he was familiar.

There were no messages waiting for him when he arrived back at the office. He gave Liam a quick call, and in the few seconds allotted to him before the old man hung up, he blurted out that Hubert E Lars was dead. There was a click and a dial tone, but he knew that Liam had heard him, and he hoped that the information would work on him. The men on his list all seemed to be either dead or dying, and if Liam had any sense at all, he would start cooperating and talk so that he could avoid a similar end.

Of course, maybe he thought it was inevitable. Liam Was definitely frightened and did not want to die, but perhaps he believed that his fate was sealed and what was coming could not be undone.

Just like Bob had?

The parallels were a little too close for comfort, and Miles pushed the thought aside for now. He wanted to work on this case, but he did not want to think about his dad. He shifted his focus from the general to the concrete, once again busying himself with tracking down addresses and phone numbers.

On the way home, he'd planned to stop by the coroner's office, but he could not bring himself to do it. He circled the block three times, telling himself that if a parking spot opened up, that would be a sign and he'd take it. But when a space did open up on his third pass, he didn't pull in and instead drove quickly off, heading straight home.

He heated up a frozen macaroni and cheese pie, and sat down in front of the television to eat. The house seemed empty and cold, and for some reason he thought of Claire. He didn't know why, but he had been thinking about her quite often lately, and it occurred to him that he should let her know that his father had died.

No, he told himself. He might be able to rationalize it and claim that he merely wanted to inform her, but somewhere down in the mix was the fact that he would like to speak to her again, would like to hear her voice, and he refused to exploit the tragedy of his father's death for his own personal gain.

He would not tell Claire. But the idea would not go He watched the news, then a syndicated tabloid show, then a sitcom, and more than once, during the programs and during the commercials, he found himself thinking of how she'd react to the news, how sad and upset she would be, how she would want to know.

He looked over at the clock. Eight-thirty. Claire had always had a prohibition against answering any phone call after nine or clock at night, figuring that if someone called that late it was probably bad news, and she'd rather sleep through the night not knowing and find out in the morning.

Should he call? Would she even care? He wasn't sure. She had always liked his father, but the breakup had been bitter, a lot of harsh words had been exchanged, and there'd been no communication between himself and his ex-wife for nearly five years.

" He wasn't even sure he had her current phone number.

But he felt obligated to at least make the effort to contact her.

Death was so much bigger than everything else; it superseded all other problems between them.

And a death like this... He searched through his old personal phone book until he found her number. If this wasn't good, he could use the agency's resources to track her down--though he wasn't sure he was willing to do that.

He dialed the number. The phone rang once. Twice. Three times. It was picked up in the middle of the fourth ring. "Hello?"

Claire.

Her voice sounded different than he remembered, softer, lower, less strident, but he recognized it immediately, and for one weird moment it felt as though no time had passed, as though they were still together and he was merely calling to check in with her.

"Hello," he said, keeping his voice even. "It's Miles." There was silence on her end, and he was tempted to hang up, but he pressed forward, talking quickly, not wanting her to cut him off. "My dad had a stroke about a month ago, and he's been bedridden ever since, partially paralyzed. And... and now he's dead. He died. I just thought you might want to know."

His hand was trembling almost as much as his voice, and he gripped the receiver tighter, trying to steady his grip, but that only seemed to make the shaking worse. He realized when he felt a building tightness in his chest that he was holding his breath, waiting for her response, and he exhaled, the sound amplified loudly in the earpiece of the phone.

"Oh, Miles," she said, and the genuine sadness he heard in her voice, the concern that was imparted through those two simple words, made him ache with a loss that cut clear to the bone. He understood for the first time how much he

had truly missed her, and he closed his eyes, trying to hold back the tide of emotion that threatened to wash over him. "Are you okay? she asked. He took a deep breath. "I'm fine."

"I really liked your dad. He was a great guy. I will miss him."

Miles tried to swallow the lump in his throat. "Yeah."

There was a brief silence, and Miles thought he heard a sniffle on the other end of the line.

"Was it... ?" This time the sniffle was definite, and it was accompanied by a catch in her breath. "Did Bob suffer much?"

"I don't think so," he said. "But... I don't know."

He wanted to come clean, wanted to tell her everything, but they were no longer married, she was no longer a part of his life, and this wasn't her problem.

That was probably the one good thing about them not being together anymore: the fact that she didn't need to know what had really happened to his father.

"When's the funeral?" she asked. "

"We, he cleared his throat--"we haven't scheduled any time yet There was pause that turned extended silence.

"Are you. would you like..." He heard the nervousness in her voice, heard her suck in her breath in order to imbue herself with resolve, just the way he remembered her doing. "Is it all right if I come over?"

His response was a beat too slow.

"I understand if you prefer not! she said quickly. "I just thought--" i

"Yeah," he said. that would be great."

"You want me to come over?"

"I'd like to see you again."

Neither of them knew what to say after that, and for a

few seconds Miles thought he had screwed it up. Then she said, "I'll come by in an hour or so. I assume you still live in the same place?"

"Same place." "

"All right. I'll see you then."

They said their good-byes and hung up quickly, neither of them wanting to jinx the plan. As soon as he hung up the phone, he started furiously cleaning the living room and kitchen, trying to get the house in some semblance of order before Claire arrived. He barely had time to put on new clothes and comb his hair before the doorbell rang.

He went to answer it, his heart fluttering, his palms sweaty, his hands trembling.

She looked even prettier than he recalled, as though his memory had rounded her off to a lower level of beauty, not wanting him to suffer any more than he did already. But now she was here, in glorious 3-D technicolor, and she was as attractive to him as she had been the first time he'd met her. Whatever spark had originally ignited their feelings for each other was still there, at least on his side, and he stared at her stupidly, unable to think of anything to say other than,

There was a moment of indecision, then she was throwing her arms around him, hugging him, crying, saying, "I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I'm sorry... He hugged her back, feeling his own tears well up. He had not cried since his dad died, but Claire's presence somehow gave him permission to feel grief, and he sobbed now as he had not sobbed since childhood.