Edge of Midnight Read online

  “That image doesn’t quite work.”

  “I’m not at my best today. I’ve got an errand to run. Anything you need while I’m out?”

  “Yeah, you might bring me some coffee filters. I’m tired of chewing on coffee grounds.”

  “I can do that. Anything else?” Susan swallowed experimentally, hoping to find the scratchiness gone. No such luck. And the pulsing in her right ear echoed like the hollow sounds of an indoor swimming pool. She eyed the listing pile riding her in basket, trying to gauge the time it might take to work her way to the bottom. Many, many hours.

  “If you want something in your coffee besides that white powder stuff, you might get some milk.”

  “Okay.” Like the rest of the country, Hazel was suddenly weight-conscious and using milk for the communal coffee instead of cream, much to the irritation of the rest of the troops. Not that Hazel need be concerned about weight, she was five feet tall and thin as a pencil.

  “Whole milk?” Susan said.

  “Ha.”

  “Right. Fat-free. I’ll be back in an hour or so. Call me if anything comes up?” Hazel had been with this department far longer than Susan and could, no doubt, run it without help.

  Susan grabbed her shoulder bag from the coat tree and fished out her keys. With a wave to Hazel as she passed, she plodded down the hallway and out to the parking lot. The heat wave was hitting its third week, the temperature had topped a hundred before nine A.M., and the always-present wind slapped hot air at her face.

  The gas gauge in the pickup hovered around empty and she made a stop at Pickett’s service station to fill the tank before she forgot again. Besides being tired all the time, lately she was getting forgetful. She never used to forget things.

  The Barrington medical building, a square, red brick building, was new, with none of the charm of the old limestone buildings around it, bank, fabric shop, antique shop, and bookstore. She parked in front of the bookstore. Inside the medical building, the air-conditioning prickled goose bumps on her sweaty skin. Taking the stairs had her breathing heavily by the second-floor landing.

  “Hi, Holly,” she said to the sweet young receptionist as she entered the doctor’s office.

  “Chief Wren.” Holly smiled, a pert smile that showed off her dimples. “Doctor Eckhard will see you in just a minute. Have a seat and I’ll call you.”

  Susan sat, picked up an old New Yorker and flipped through, glancing at cartoons. Not as funny as they used to be. Or was it that she’d lost her sense of humor?

  “Chief Wren?”

  Susan looked up, dropped the magazine, and followed Holly down a corridor and into an examining room where her temperature was taken, her blood pressure checked, and her pulse counted. A minute or two later Dr. China Eckhard came in. Forties, attractive, brown hair held in a clip at the nape of her neck, no-nonsense manner, sharp intelligence.

  “Thanks for seeing me at such short notice, China,” Susan said. “I think I have an ear infection.”

  “I’m supposed to say that.” China stuck an otoscope in Susan’s right ear, peered in, then looked at the left. “You have an ear infection.” She straightened and put the instrument on a tray.

  “You look tired.” She stuck a tongue depressor in Susan’s mouth and had her say ah. “Throat sore? Headache?”

  Headache was an understatement, more like agonizing spikes being pounded in her skull.

  China snatched a prescription pad, scribbled on it, and tore off the top sheet. “Antibiotics. Not the most broad spectrum, but we need to save the big guns for the big problems. Take them all. If you aren’t any better at the end of ten days, give me a call and we’ll try something else.”

  “I can’t hear a thing in this ear,” Susan said.

  “Not surprising. It’s full of fluid.”

  “When will that clear up?”

  “Take the antibiotics and wait. Now, get out of here so I can tend to people who are really sick.”

  Susan got out of there and stopped at the pharmacy to drop off the prescription. “I’ll pick it up around seven,” she told the pharmacist.

  When she came out, she noticed Jen, her fourteen-year-old friend and neighbor, slouching toward the library, backpack sagging on slumped shoulders, arms full of books. Nobody but a reluctant teenager moved that slowly. What was the matter with the child? Jen was a bright energetic girl, always on the lookout for new interests, and this sullen lump of misery wasn’t like her at all.

  “Jen?”

  Startled by the interruption of her thoughts, Jen dropped her books.

  Susan bent to help them pick up books. “Are you all right?”

  Jen started to shake her head, but switched to a nod.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

  “It doesn’t start for another week.” Her tone said any doofus knows that.

  With August coming toward an end, she hadn’t been around much, and Susan assumed she was busy winding up studies for her summer classes, and hanging with friends. Physically small and mentally occupied with myriad interests, Jen had been slow advancing to typical adolescent behavior, but maybe she’d simply turned into a teenager. The thick braids that used to hang down her back had been hacked off and now her brown hair was chin-length, with streaks of fuscia.

  “Wish we could have lunch, but I have a desk piled high with stuff. You okay?”

  Jen nodded.

  “You sure? Somebody bothering you?”

  She shook her head, thin arms clutching the books closer to her chest. “I need to go.”

  “Can I give you a ride somewhere?”

  Jen shook her head. “Mom’s picking me up. She went to see about Grandpa. He got away again.”

  Jen’s grandfather had Alzheimer’s and periodically slipped away from the caregivers. “Well, my pickup’s over there. Okay, if I walk that far with you?”

  Jen blinked and raised her shoulders in a shrug. “I guess.”

  When Jen trudged up the library steps, Susan turned to the pickup and climbed in. She almost forgot coffee filters and milk and had to backtrack to pick them up.

  “Anything happen while I was gone?” She handed the grocery bag to Hazel.

  “Injury accident on Post Street.”

  “Serious?”

  “Bad. Kids racing. Tim Baker pulled out of a parking lot to make a left turn. T-boned by one of the speeding kids. Tim’s car sent skidding into oncoming traffic. Two cars rammed into it. One exploded and set off the others. All three are toast.”

  “Jesus. How many hurt?”

  “By some miracle, only Tim seriously hurt,” Hazel said. “Poor kid. Rushed to the hospital in critical condition.”

  Susan rubbed the spot above her nose where pain was jabbing like a woodpecker. “Anything else?”

  “A woman called saying she’s been trying to reach her sister and the sister never answers her phone. She’s left messages, but the sister hasn’t returned any.”

  “Woman’s name?”

  “She wouldn’t give a name.” Hazel looked at her pad. “Sister’s name is Kelby Oliver.”

  “She wouldn’t give her name?” A woman calling to ask about her sister wouldn’t give her name? How weird was that? With her head so muzzy, Susan couldn’t track the thought any further. Family feud, maybe?

  “I assume this Oliver woman is an adult, mentally competent, and can go and do what she wants, including not return the sister’s calls, or go away on vacation, if she so chooses?”

  “That would be my take on it,” Hazel said. “And with this sister, I wouldn’t return calls either. Talk about pushy.”

  “That it?”

  “The day’s still young.”

  “Right.” Trying to swallow coffee with her raw throat turned out to be a bad idea. Susan set it aside and attacked the files on her desk. Shortly after six, just as she was piling a stack of work to take home, her phone buzzed.

  “Yes, Hazel?”

  “Osey called in and wanted to know if you
could stick somebody else with Ida. She nearly got him killed.”

  “The first day?”

  2

  When Cary started having trouble seeing, she wondered if Mitch’s hitting her or smacking her head against the wall caused it. Blackness nibbled at the edges of her vision until she saw through a narrow tunnel. Reading, her favorite thing in all the world, the thing that got her through the day, the thing she would absolutely die without, got more and more difficult. Book close to her face, she was forced to move it around to make out the words. When the tunnel started closing in, she decided to leave him, even though he’d told her he’d kill her if she ever tried.

  The first time he hit her was about scrambled eggs. And not exactly a hit, just a slap really, inspired by Cary’s inability to realize how grueling his job was—and how hard could it be to have breakfast made when he got off after working all night? He apologized with red roses and kisses, swore he loved her and promised it would never happen again. And it didn’t.

  For a whole month. The second slap occurred because she had the audacity to read the crisply folded newspaper before he got a chance to look at it.

  But it wasn’t until he switched to working days, and started having a few drinks after his shift, that she discovered there were worse things than getting slapped. On a filthy day, stormy and wild, downed power lines, flooded streets, and broken tree branches, she was out talking with their neighbor, Dave Cates, when Mitch got home. Dave was asking if she was all right, if she needed anything, and she waved at Mitch as he drove into the garage, told Dave everything was okay, and trotted home.

  With the power out, it was pitch black inside the house. She rummaged for candles in a kitchen drawer and lit one. “Mitch?”

  She found him sitting in his chair in the living room, still wearing his wet coat. “Mitch, honey? You okay?”

  She stuck the candle in the holder on the mantle, knelt to untie one of his wet shoes and pull it off. He raised his other foot, put it on her bent head and sent her sprawling backward. She gasped for a breath, not understanding what happened. He kicked her in the side. Disbelief mixed with pain.

  Grabbing her hair, he banged her head against the coffee table. “What’s going on with you and Dave?”

  “What?”

  “Think I’m so stupid I don’t know what you’re up to?”

  “Dave? I don’t—”

  He kicked her in the stomach, muttering she was a slut, and stomped off for the bedroom. Clenching her teeth against the pain, she dug her fingers into the gray carpet and stared at the underside of the coffee table, the first item of furniture they’d bought when they got the house. She’d laughed and asked him if he didn’t think they needed a bed first. Remembering that carefree day made her feel sick. She rolled onto hands and knees and, in shaky fashion, got to her feet.

  The slapping and hitting, the kicking, the slamming her head against the wall, were awful, really bad, but even more awful, more terrible, was the begging afterward. The pleading, the tenderness and the kisses, the saying he was sorry, it would never happen again, he loved her. But the worst, most awful, most terrible thing was that she believed him.

  Tuesday evening she went to bed early, hoping to fend off a migraine. He sat up drinking and watching television. When he stumbled to bed, she pretended to be asleep.

  “Hey, baby.” He shook her and kissed her hard. “You’ve been reading too much. That’s why you get these headaches all the time.”

  She lay like a dumb cow, waiting for whatever came next.

  “You need to stop it.”

  Her heart jumped a beat and her breath caught.

  “And stop going to that exercise place. That friend of yours? That Arlette bitch?”

  Breathe. Pull air in, push air out. Don’t say anything to set him off.

  “You shouldn’t see her any more. She puts ideas in your head.” Hand on her throat, he squeezed. She couldn’t breathe, started to panic. Just when a rushing sound began to fill her mind, he eased his grip.

  “Okay?” He stroked her throat, barely touching with his fingertips.

  She swallowed, swallowed again.

  “Okay?” he repeated and squeezed gently.

  The next day she ran into Arlette at Sylvia’s. Mitch, furious when Cary’s mother had given her a membership as a birthday present, told her she couldn’t go. She’d pleaded and wheedled and emphasized it was only for women, no men allowed, pointed out he’d said she was getting fat and this would help her lose a few pounds.

  “What’s with you?” Arlette said. “Why are you hobbling around like an invalid?”

  Cary tightened up her face in a rueful smile. “Just a little sore. I fell down the back steps running in to answer the phone. Two big bags of groceries. Everything all over the place.”

  A hot pit of shame formed in her stomach. Lying was foreign to her. She wasn’t good at it and she hated the way the lie made her feel. Sticky and slimy, like some nightmare creature wading through thick ooze.

  Her whole life was a lie, and she piled lies on top of lies every time she deliberately tripped or bumped into a chair to prove how clumsy she was and give herself a reason for the bruises. How are you? How’s Mitch? How’s everything going? Good. Good. Good. Lies lies lies. And the fake smiles that went along with them.

  Arlette shot her a sharp look. They were longtime friends and Cary worried about those looks. She was quick, Arlette, an attorney with the firm where Cary had been bookkeeper until Mitch convinced her to quit. Smart dresser, straight, sleek dark hair and brown eyes, Arlette was a take-charge kind of person. Unlike Cary.

  She felt relief when Arlette glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to run. Got a client. Meet me at the Donut Shop at three-thirty.”

  “Oh gosh, I really can’t. I have too much to do.”

  “One cup of coffee. Be there. Or I’ll come and get you.” Arlette strode off toward her car.

  “I’m going to the library,” Cary said.

  “I’ll pick you up. Look up books on battered women.”

  Cary looked around, horrified that someone might have heard, but no one was paying the slightest bit of attention.

  Early on, Mitch tried to stop her from going to the library, but for the only time in their miserable marriage she’d stood up to him, told him she would go and he couldn’t stop her. As soon as she got inside the building with all the books, she felt ease seep into her soul and smooth out the wrinkles. Glancing over the new fiction, she pulled out any that looked interesting, two biographies, a book on dogs and the phenomenal things they could be trained to do, then sat down at one of the tables to soak in an hour of peace.

  Trying to read with her small circle of vision soon had her feeling the streaky beginnings of a migraine. Was his beating her causing the trouble? Detached retina? Did optic nerves get swollen, like everything else when they were smacked around?

  Tears washed up and, before she could stop them, trickled down her face. She plunged through her bag until she found a tissue and mopped her face. Reading was something she’d always done excessively. If staying with Mitch would take that away, then she was ready to run. She wouldn’t let him take away the books.

  Carrying an armload, she stumbled fast down the stairs, staggered and fell. Books tumbled, her bag went flying, and the contents scattered.

  “Cary? You okay?” Arlette crouched beside her, put a hand on her shoulder, and bent down to look directly into her face.

  “Told you I was clumsy.” Hands over her face, Cary started crying again, hard enough that people stared at her.

  “Come on. My car’s right here.” Arm around her shoulder, Arlette nudged Cary toward the car and tossed the books in the rear.

  Cary slid in, a puddle of embarrassment with tears running down her face. Arlette ripped tissues from a box on the console between the seats and offered her a handful. Cary pressed one against her eyes, then blew her nose.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” She crushed the soggy tis
sue in her fist.

  “It’s not hard to figure out, babe. Your husband beats the crap out of you. That’s enough to make anybody cry.” Arlette drove to the Donut Shop, parked in front, and herded Cary inside to a small, round table in the rear.

  “Sit,” Arlette said. “I’ll get coffee.”

  She came back minutes later with two tall lattes, handed one to Cary, and sat down across from her. “You have to report him, Cary. If you don’t he’s going to seriously injure you.”

  “It gets harder and harder. He’s taking that away, too. You’re right, Arlette, he’ll just keep beating me. I’m leaving him.”

  “Good. I’m glad. What gets harder and harder? The thought of leaving?”

  Cary nodded, her head bobbing up and down like a tulip in a strong wind. “Worse.” The word came out on a hiccup.

  “What’s worse?”

  “Not being able to read.” Even more horrible than her believing his lies about how he loved her and it would never happen again. “If I can’t read I have nothing.” Cary told Arlette about her sight and about wondering if Mitch had injured some nerves when he’d hit her in the face. “He hardly ever does, because bruises on my face would show, but sometimes he just gets so mad.”

  “Oh, Cary.” Arlette took her hand. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

  “I just kept hoping it would get better.”

  “You have to get help. Call one of those numbers I gave you and get into a shelter.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can. I’ll go with you if you like.”

  Cary looked at her. “Arlette … he’s a cop. You think a cop can’t get the address of shelters?”

  “If you don’t leave him, he’ll end up killing you.”

  “He’ll kill me if I leave.”

  Arlette took in a long breath, which meant she wanted to scream or shake Cary for being so stubborn, but Cary knew Mitch. He’d find some way to get the information he needed.

  “I know I have to leave him,” she whispered. Just saying the words out loud made her heart flutter like crazy. As though he were all-powerful and could hear any hint of defection.

  Arlette took a sip of coffee, probably to cover her surprise that Cary was finally wising up. “You have to do it soon.”