Hybrid, page 7
Phil listened for George to restart the blower, but it remained quiet. There was no way George could be finished, and no way he would stop before he was finished. Phil ran for another five minutes, and still there was no sound from George. Concern started to grow in Phil’s mind. If George needed help, no one but Phil could deliver it. He still had fifty minutes to run, but it was becoming obvious that it would have to wait. Phil’s mind may have been ruled by The Routine, but his life was ruled by Moral Responsibility.
He climbed off the treadmill and pulled the curtains back. It had snowed more than anyone expected. George’s driveway was cleared almost all the way to the street, but his snowblower sat idle in the middle of a drift, and George was nowhere to be seen. Phil couldn’t see all the way up the driveway from his windows, so he quickly toweled off, put on warm clothes, boots, and a jacket, and opened his front door. The snow had drifted several inches in front of his door. It always did that when the wind blew in from the west, and some of it spilled into his entranceway. He poked his head out the door and saw George sprawled spread-eagled across his cleared driveway. A tall, dark figure stood over him.
“Hey,” Phil yelled. Not very eloquent, but it managed to redirect the man’s attention away from George. Phil started to run towards them, but immediately tripped and fell face first into foot-deep snow. He scrambled up, but the tall man was already striding across George’s lawn, leaving a trail of deep footprints. “What did you do?” Phil screamed after him.
“You are too late again, Phillip,” the man called back.
“Come back here,” Phil demanded, but the tall man continued across the yard, seemingly unhindered by the snow. He reached a Ford Taurus parked and idling at the curb just as Phil reached George. Phil bent over his neighbor as the Taurus pulled into the unplowed street. George was dead, his eyes squeezed closed, his face contorted in a mask of pain and horror. Phil reached to check for a pulse, but the blue, livid face told him he wouldn’t find one. Nothing. He started CPR with no real hope and after five minutes gave up. He sat down next to George, breathing hard from the exertion and the pressure of what would have to come next. Patsy was inside, lost in the bliss of a deteriorating brain. Someone would have to explain to her that George, her husband of sixty-four years, would not be coming back inside to make her breakfast ever again. Unfortunately, she had enough of herself remaining to understand what that meant.
Two hours later, Phil was doing his best to console Patsy Van Der while the police ran tape all around her front yard. Initially, there had been a considerable amount of resistance from the officers who responded to Phil’s call. George Van Der had obviously died of a heart attack, that was plain to all who had responded, and the opening of a murder investigation based on a neighbor’s report of a man standing over the body was a waste of their precious time—at least, until they found out that the neighbor was the coroner. At that point, the not-so-well-disguised grumbling focused on Phil and his eccentricities. Reluctantly, they sealed off the crime scene and began to process it. They worked slowly, waiting for the detective in charge to arrive and convince Rucker that this was a misapplication of their already strained resources. Phil was uninterested in their problems. He sat with Patsy, waiting for her son to arrive so he could finally get to work.
“I don’t think I have enough eggs for all these nice people, Phil. Would you mind running down to the store and getting a dozen more?” Patsy asked. She had retreated into her mind, refusing to believe that George was gone.
“Why don’t we wait for Patrick to get here,” Phil answered, relieved for the moment that she had stopped asking about George. Dementia was easier to deal with than grief.
A large black man opened the front door and stomped snow off his shoes. The officer at the door immediately straightened, accepted the man’s wet overcoat, and directed him to the couch. The sudden flurry of activity caught Patsy’s attention, and she watched as he approached.
“Are you with the police, young man?” she asked in a soft, grandmotherly voice.
“Yes, ma’am, I am. My name is Rodney Patton. I’m here to find out what happened to your husband.”
Phil stiffened, waiting for Patsy to break down again. As far as he was concerned, Patsy was in a good place—cooperative and unaware.
“I appreciate that, Detective,” she said sadly. She was lucid again, and Phil desperately wished that her son Patrick would get there.
“Can I ask you if your husband had any medical conditions, heart disease, blood pressure problems, anything?” He had the well-practiced voice of a veteran cop, and directed all his attention to Patsy, but it was clear that he was also talking to Phil.
“He had a heart attack about twenty years ago, but he’s been fine since. His blood sugar was a little elevated, but he didn’t have to take any medications for it.” She sounded like the Patsy Phil had grown up with.
“I don’t mean to leave you alone, so I’m going to ask this officer to stay with you until your son arrives.” Patton motioned the uniformed policeman to sit next to Patsy. “In the meantime, I need to borrow Dr. Rucker.” He spoke directly to Patsy, not even acknowledging Phil.
“Oh, you mean Phillip,” she exclaimed with a bright smile. Her mind had gone away again.
“Yes, I need Phillip for a moment,” he stressed the name, but the insult was lost on Phil.
“Go with this nice young man, dear, and when you’re finished, don’t forget my eggs.” She gave Phil a smile.
Phil followed the huge man into the kitchen. At six feet two, he was no taller than Phil, but he was very close to twice his weight, somewhere in excess of four hundred pounds. Two uniformed officers immediately found their way out of the kitchen as Patton approached.
“Dr. Rucker, I’ve been meaning to introduce myself since I arrived in Colorado Springs three months ago but, as you know, things have been somewhat busy.”
The words were cordial enough, but Phil sensed his underlying frustration.
“I appreciate that, Detective, and your attempt at being friendly, but you’re wasting your time. I will not be persuaded to drop this,” Phil said without emphasis.
Patton stared at him, inhaling giant gulps of air. For a moment, Phil thought that Patton was trying to pressure him by sucking up all the air in the room. He almost smiled at that absurdity.
“You told the officers that you saw a tall, dark man standing over the deceased, and that he simply strolled away after you yelled at him.” All attempts at being friendly were gone. “Further, you saw this same man yesterday assault a woman and then disappear down an empty street.”
“That’s correct,” Phil said simply.
“Doctor, please try and look at this from my perspective. Mr. Van Der was eighty-six. He had a history of heart disease, and he was clearing ten inches of snow with a snowblower that was designed for no more than six. As I see it, your neighbor suffered another heart attack, and this man just happened to be driving by as Mr. Van Der collapsed. I don’t see a crime here.” His voice had a subtle, manipulative undercurrent.
Phil would not be moved. “That is one possibility, Detective, but it happens to be the most expedient possibility. Experience has taught me that the most expedient possibility is rarely the correct one.”
“Experience has taught me that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one,” Patton fired back with a touch of anger.
“But not always. Otherwise, we wouldn’t need detectives,” Phil said just as quickly.
“I can’t authorize this. I will not pull people off of legitimate investigations to prove that Mr. Van Der died of natural causes.” His voice was now adamant.
Phil hesitated. They both knew that he had the legal authority to compel Patton to do whatever he wanted. Patton’s defiance was curious, and Phil was intrigued by it. Only Phil was never intrigued by the motivations of others. The realization played across his mind, but didn’t change it.
A part of him registered the arrival of Patrick Van Der. “You will continue to investigate this as a crime until you are told otherwise, Detective,” Phil said, without emotion. He had no desire to continue this discussion, or to share the grief of the Van Ders’ only child. He retrieved his coat from the back of a kitchen chair and left through the back door.
Phil trudged through the snow to his own back door. Several of the police stopped what they were doing and stared, hoping he would fall.
Chapter 7
Regency Care Center was half acute-care hospital and half rehabilitation center. Emily Larson didn’t feel she needed either, and Amanda found her aunt outside walking in the cool morning air, a heavy coat covering a hospital gown. Amanda quickly parked her car and hurried over to her aunt.
“What are you doing out here?” Amanda asked, coming up behind her.
“What are you doing here?” Emily answered back, emphasizing her last word.
“You know you’re not supposed to be out here, and why aren’t you using the cane?”
“The only way they’ll let me out of here is if I can walk, so I’m walking.”
Amanda smiled for the first time in days. Her aunt was a true force of nature. On the surface, she was a carbon copy of her brother: rude, loud, and opinionated. But whereas he justified his behavior with some fanciful notion of inherent superiority, Emily had earned the right to be loud and opinionated. She had been a sociology professor for more than four decades, and at the center of every academic circle that she had ever found herself within. Even her critics—and she had quite a few—listened respectfully when she spoke. In the hyper-liberal world of academia, she championed the unpopular view that individuals had become too reliant upon society for their welfare, and now here she was, in sub-freezing temperatures, living her philosophy. “Aunt Em, it’s cold out here; let’s at least go inside.”
“Might as well; no one has taken the time to properly clear the ice off of these damn sidewalks, and in front of a hospital no less,” Emily said, wheeling around and heading back to the door, a four-post cane tucked firmly under her arm. The pair silently walked back to Emily’s hospital room. Along the way, she didn’t spare any of the nurses or aides a good long glare.
“All they do at night is laugh and talk on their cell phones . . .” Emily stopped mid-sentence and studied her niece’s face. “Why are you here, Amanda?” Her voice and demeanor were suddenly serious.
“I’m going back to Colorado Springs.”
“Why?” Emily asked sharply.
“Greg called me a little over a week ago.” Amanda hesitated. Emily knew about her infection and some of the subsequent events, but she didn’t know everything. Amanda had hidden the most important consequence of her infection because she couldn’t predict her Aunt’s reactions. “I’m fairly certain that a version of the virus that I contracted in Honduras has found its way to Colorado Springs.” The one thing Amanda did know about Emily was that she was an excellent intellectual sounding board; she would examine Amanda’s reasoning and logic and dispassionately pass judgment.
“The flu that everyone is talking about—don’t we have a health department to deal with that?” Emily continued to study Amanda. “Are you planning on turning yourself in? Are you going to sacrifice your freedom to help them? Or is it that you are responsible?”
Amanda smiled. Her aunt didn’t believe in subtleties; she believed in pouncing. “I’m not responsible, and I’m not really sure what I’m going to do.”
“Then why are you going?” Emily’s expression sharpened while she waited for an answer, but only silence filled the room. “Amanda, we’ve never discussed this because you’ve never wanted to, but the time for secrets is over. Something happened to you in Honduras. When you came back, you were a different person. I can only imagine what you went through down there, but it doesn’t explain everything. It doesn’t explain what you’ve become.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Amanda began to fidget with the straps of her purse.
“I think I have earned the right to know,” Emily said firmly.
***
Four years after her father died, Amanda’s mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. She didn’t put up much of a fight—it wasn’t her style—and, mercifully, the end came quickly. Amanda was thirteen; her brother William was turning eighteen, on his way to college, and didn’t require a guardian. Amanda was shipped off to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she would become the burden of her only surviving relative.
Amanda met her Aunt Emily for the first time at her mother’s grave site. Her world had been turned inside out. Her mother was gone; her brother was gone; the three-bedroom apartment that she had called home for three years was gone. Even her bed was gone, sold to some stranger for fifty-five dollars. All that she had in the world fit into two small suitcases, and, with the exception of her older brother, no one in the world cared. She was nothing more than a “disposition issue,” as one social worker had phrased it. Aunt Emily’s disposition issue, to be exact.
“They wanted to put you into foster care, and I’ll admit I thought long and hard about it,” Emily said as the pair left the grave site. “After all, what’s the difference if you live with a family you’ve never met or an aunt you don’t know? If there had been a reasonable chance of you being adopted, I would have left you here. At least you’d still be close to your brother and friends, but no one adopts thirteen-year-old girls, at least not for the right reasons. So, I guess we’re stuck with each other.” Emily made no attempt at hiding her emotions from her new charge. “I’m not your mother, God rest her soul, and I’m nothing like your father. He may have been my brother, but the man never worked a hard day in his life, and it showed in what he made of himself. I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead, but you are half him, and if you think you’ll skate by on good looks alone, you’re in for a rude awakening. Only with an education can you hope to escape your family’s legacy of unrealized potential. They don’t give scholarships for being pretty.”
Her aunt’s ground rules clearly established, Amanda was ushered into the car by large, rough hands. Before the door closed, she waved to her brother; tears streamed down their cheeks.
“Do you think that was the most appropriate way of introducing yourself?” Amanda challenged her aunt as the car pulled away.
“I make no apologies for how I communicate,” returned Emily.
“It’s unworthy for an educated person to speak with complete disregard for another’s emotional state. It’s an abdication of personal responsibility,” Amanda fired back, her grief now being focused into anger.
“Impressive. Do you actually know what you said, or are you simply mouthing someone else’s words?”
“I’ve been able to read since I was three, and had independent thoughts before that.”
“I must remember that,” Emily said, breaking out into a smile of respect.
“So tell me about yourself; what should I know about you?”
“I’m an orphan,” Amanda answered, managing to be both sullen and defiant at the same time.
***
“You do have a right to know. I’m just not sure you want to know,” an older Amanda said to her aunt.
“I do want to know. I’m not a very emotional person . . .” Emily’s eyes began to tear.
Amanda smiled again. “You told me that the first day we met.”
“There’s some salt on that table, if you’d care to rub it into the wound.” Emily dabbed at her eyes and smiled back at Amanda. “God, I was such an ass that day. If I had bothered to spend five minutes talking to you, I would have realized that you were not the self-absorbed, lazy thirteen-year-old girl I had expected.”
“You’re different now. Time has mellowed you.” Amanda gave her aunt a weak smile. It had been nearly eighteen years, but the memory of that day in the cemetery was still fresh. “I’m still an orphan, only a different kind,” Amanda finally said. “The infection did change me, and probably not for the better.”
“Greg told me what you’ve done. Seven people?” Emily’s voice betrayed her conflicting emotions.
“It was more than that.” She waited, almost hoping for a trace of guilt or shame, but those emotions had been burned from her mind long ago. “I can do things that others can’t. I can feel your horror and revulsion, but also your love and understanding. I can put names on the things that you’re feeling even when you can’t.”
Emily stared back at her niece with a bewildered expression.
“No, it’s not a mental illness. And no, it’s not related to the terrible things that have happened to me.”
“So you can read thoughts as well?”
“Yes, and a good deal more.” Amanda paused for a second to allow Emily to compose herself. “I think it started even before I got back from Honduras. I was . . . different. Changed. My thoughts, actions, everything seemed to be affected.” Amanda began to nervously rub her fingers. “I shot four soldiers that were trying to kill some of us. They were all sick and out of their heads with fever and paranoia. I had to do it; they gave me no choice.”
“That’s understandable, Amanda,” Emily patted Amanda’s hand. “If somebody was trying to kill me or my own I would have shot them.”
“You always did remind me of Rambo.” Amanda smiled briefly. “Would you have done it without remorse, or any trace of regret?” Amanda paused and read the answer on her aunt’s face. “That was the beginning. The start of my new life. A life born in blood and violence, without regret or consequence.” Again, Amanda gave Emily a chance to collect her thoughts. “Things got worse when I got home. That’s when the voices and . . . the other things started to appear. I became pretty unstable. The violence, the power, the blood. They’re a powerful and intoxicating elixir.” Amanda closed her eyes and felt Mittens, her predator, the embodiment of all her dark desires, prowl through her mind. “I still struggle with it now.”
