“So I want this story done, Sara. And I want you to arrange a press conference for me for tomorrow.”
“If that’s what you really want,” she said slowly, “then we’ll do it. But let’s not talk about it right now, Michael. Right now, I just want you to hold me.”
JENNIFER Riker pushed open the glass door leading to Los Angeles’ main post office. The air-conditioning pounced upon her. Poor Bruce, she thought. He had been a wonderful person in so many ways. A lousy husband, yes, but some men are just not built for marriage. Why had he done it? What could have been so horrible that Bruce had chosen to end his own life?
The tragedy had been hard on them all, especially young Tommy. Not surprisingly, Bruce’s son had blamed his mother for his father’s suicide.
“You killed him!” Tommy had yelled at Susan. “It’s your fault Dad died!”
And though Susan tried to argue with him, something inside her leveled the same accusation; something could not help but wonder what part she had played in Bruce’s demise. Jennifer watched the guilt etch lines onto her sister’s lovely face. Susan could not sleep at night. She barely ate. The situation reached the point where Jennifer began to raise the possibility of seeking professional counseling to help them deal with their grief.
But in the end Susan decided against it. She thought that what she and Tommy really needed was to get away from the world for a while and see if time and solitude could help them regain their ties and come to grips with Bruce’s death. They had left two days ago for a quiet retreat outside of Sacramento where there were no telephones and no outside distractions.
Jennifer walked up to the information counter. “Could you please tell me where box 1738 is?”
“Around the corner and to the left.”
“Thank you.”
A few minutes later Jennifer located the correct number, inserted the key, and opened the box. It was filled to capacity with junk mail and soot. She waved away the particles of dust and began to transfer the mail from the box into her tote bag. Ed McMahon’s picture was on one envelope, telling Bruce that he might have already won $100,000. Alas, the postmark showed that the letter was mailed last year. Too bad. Bruce might have been rich and never knew it.
There were also several envelopes that looked like bank statements, postmarked seven years ago, and even a couple of medical periodicals, also from seven years ago. Nothing very interesting. Nothing very current, for that matter.
Her fingers continued to sift through the box’s contents until they stopped suddenly at a large manila envelope. Jennifer paused when she spotted the familiar handwriting across the front. She tried to recall whose penmanship it was, but for a brief moment the name eluded her. She closed her eyes, picturing the neatly formed letters in her head and trying to remember where she had seen them before. The answer came to her. Of course. It was Bruce’s handwriting. The careful shaping of the letters was unmistakable.
Jennifer turned the envelope around and tried to read the postmark. When she was finally able to see the date clearly, her legs nearly gave way. August 30th of this year. She tried to swallow but her mouth felt too dry. August 30th. Bruce had died on August 30th. He must have mailed this letter a few hours before his death. And even stranger, he had addressed the package to himself.
Why had Bruce mailed himself a package right before he committed suicide?
Jennifer quickly dropped the package into the tote bag as though she were afraid to hold it any longer. Then she finished unloading the post office box and headed toward the exit.
She’d open the package later.
11
HARVEY felt the onset of another in what had become a series of powerful headaches. It was sometime around two a.m., and the hallways of Sidney Pavilion were silent, sleeping, recuperating. Harvey moved slowly down a darkened, empty corridor with dim fluorescent lights that buzzed like distant chain saws. He opened the doors, each one sounding off its own unique creak, and looked in on his sleeping patients. He checked their IVs, their charts, their medications.
He walked into the last room on the floor, Kiel Davis and Ricky Martino’s room. Both men were sleeping soundly. The forty or so clinic patients were broken down into two groups: inpatients who stayed in Sidney Pavilion and outpatients who came in on an almost daily basis for treatment. Usually, the members of these two groups rotated every three or four weeks so that no more than twenty-five patients were ever in the clinic on any given night. Right now there were almost thirty patients sleeping over. Most had private rooms, but because of limited space, a few had been doubled up.
The overnight schedule rarely worked exactly as planned because each patient had different needs. Take Davis and Martino, for example. Kiel Davis, a homosexual from Indiana who had relocated to New York ten years ago, had spent almost two-thirds of the last eighteen months in the clinic, while over the same period of time, Martino, an intravenous drug user from the Bronx, had slept over less than six months total.
Harvey scanned their charts, listening to the gentle, deep breathing of their slumber. He closed the door behind him, headed toward the staircase, and jogged up one flight of stairs to the third floor—his way of getting exercise. He heard himself wheezing from the effort.
Out of shape, he thought. I should stop using the elevator altogether and always take the stairs.
But Harvey knew that the hitching in his chest was due to something beyond poor physical conditioning. The muscles in his forehead seemed to swell now, bunching up against the sensitive nerve endings. A fluttery sensation flitted across his stomach.
He was scared.
Harvey stopped in front of the door that led to room 317, the only room on the floor that held a patient. He pushed open the door and leaned his head through the frame. The patient was at long last asleep, which had been no easy task in this case. Drugs had been necessary. Strong ones. Harvey had finally convinced Michael to take a couple of potent sleeping pills. They worked. Actually, they were potent enough to work on a charging rhino.
Long shadows came in through the windows and reached across the room like giant fingers readying to close. Sara sat in a wooden chair at the side of Michael’s bed, her hand clutching his. Even in the poor lighting Harvey could see anguish tightening the skin around Sara’s cheekbones. Her lips quivered as though from cold; her eyes were moist. She had not yet acknowledged his presence, though she surely must have heard him open the door. Instead, Sara continued to look down at her sleeping husband. Harvey wondered if she was lost in her own thoughts or if she had simply chosen to ignore him.