“Then why did he ask her maiden name? Heller had already established that. He wasn’t there to check for brain damage. He wanted to hear it from me. Son of a bitch! I had a weird feeling about him the moment he showed up. He probably wanted to know if I remembered him from that night.”
“Why would he want to kill her?”
“I don’t know. I know nothing about him and practically nothing about her, except that they knew each other. And he wanted to know if I remembered her. You put it together.”
“That’s absolutely insane.”
“Then tell me why he was pussyfooting around, why he didn’t say he had been friends with her.” And he held up the photo.
“I don’t know why. But he’s dead, and I don’t want to hear his name slandered, okay?” Her eyes blazed at him through her tears. She looked down at the photograph. “Besides, it’s been thirty years, for God’s sake. There’s no way to know what happened that night.”
“Yes, there is.”
For a moment she stared blankly at him.
“It could take me back to that night.”
“Christ! We’ve already been through this. I’m not stealing any Memorine. Period.”
He expected that, of course. And she was probably right. The stuff can’t be fine-tuned. It’s unpredictable in its effects. It may not even work. But as he sat there under her angry glare, it crossed his mind that deep down where the sun didn’t shine maybe René didn’t want him to remember what he saw that night—and who was under that rain slicker.
“This is the last I’m going to say about it, but I think you’re stuck on a foolish and sick idea just to satisfy some neurotic obsession.”
Jack said nothing, just nodded as the syllables seeped in one by one. “Maybe so.” Then he looked out at the sea, and into the reflective light of the sun, feeling possibilities dance before his eyes.
“By the way,” he said as they got up to leave. “What kind of a car did Nick Mavros drive?”
“Why?”
“Just wondering.”
“Some kind of SUV … I think a Ford.”
“What color?”
“Black.”
80
JACK HAD NOT BEEN BACK TO Greendale for nearly two months. So when he showed up that Wednesday morning, he was welcomed like a famous alumnus returning to campus. Aides and administrative staff flocked around him and in tears Marcy Falco threw her arms around him. Jack had been one of her “witchcraft” successes.
“I just wanted to stop in to say hello and thank you for all you did for me.” He had brought a large bouquet of flowers for the ward and a five-pound box of chocolate for Marcy. He said that he wanted to see how some of the residents were doing. He had heard that a few were progressing well in the trials.
Marcy took him upstairs to the ward, where it was morning rounds, and patients were getting their meds.
“How’s Joe McNamara?”
“Up to his own tricks,” Marcy said. “He won’t take his meds. Connie’s coming along now.” She led him into Joe’s room, where Joe was sitting up in his bed. He had apparently slipped and injured his hip.
“Hey, old-timer, remember me?”
Joe looked at him, his face straining in confusion to place Jack.
“Joe, you remember Jack,” Marcy said.
Still Joe scowled as he rummaged in his brain for recognition.
“In any event, Connie will be by in a moment,” Marcy said. “I’ll leave you two to catch up.”
When she left, Jack whispered into Joe’s ear. “Father O’Connor.”
Joe’s mouth dropped opened as recognition swept across his brain. “Oh, Father, Father, forgive me.”
“How’ve you been, my son?” Jack asked.
Joe was beaming. “Pretty good, Father, pretty good, but I hurt my hip, you know.” And he pulled up the blanket to show a huge black-and-blue bruise along his flank. “It looks worse than it feels, though.”
Jack could hear a wad of phlegm in Joe’s throat. “Well, that’s a blessing.”
Just then Connie came in with a small tray with juice and a cup of meds. “Look who’s here,” she chortled, as she placed the tray on the table. Joe said nothing but studied the contents of the pill cups.
Jack pulled Connie aside. “I hear Joe’s not being very cooperative.”
She lowered her voice as Joe stared at the orange juice. “He likes the blue pills, but the white one he spits out.”
“How come?”
“He claims they make him dull.” And she made a what-are-you-going-to-do face.
“What’s the blue?”
“His Alzheimer’s drug.”
“And the white?”
“Zyprexa.”
“Of course.” Then Jack lowered his voice. “Maybe if just the two of us are alone, I can get him to cooperate.”
Connie thought that over. “Whatever.” Then she moved to the bed. And in a loud, clear voice she reserved for the elderly patients, she said, “Joe, you’re gonna do Jack a favor and take your meds like a good guy, okay?”
Joe looked at her but didn’t answer. Then he picked up the cup with the square blue pill and gulped it down with orange juice. Connie watched from the doorway. Nurses were supposed to witness patients’ taking their meds so they could mark the charts.
“Joe, it’s me, Father O’Connor.”
Joe looked up and his eyes saucered.
Jack held up the cup of Zyprexa. “You’re going to make me proud, okay? You’re going to be a good lad and take your pills for me.” Jack did all he could not to lapse into a Barry Fitzgerald brogue. He laid his hand on Joe’s shoulder, glaring at him with a sanctimonious smile. “Come on now, lad.” And Jack raised the cup with the single pill to Joe’s lips.
Joe opened up, Jack poured it in, then raised the orange juice to his lips. And Joe swallowed.
At the doorway, Connie grinned and flashed a thumbs-up. When she left, Jack sat at the corner of the bed. His eye fell on the suction bottle with the hose connecting to the wall.
“I don’t like her. She makes me take that crud. They just put me to sleep. I like the blue ones better. They’re kinda fun.”
“How’s that?”
Joe’s thin dry lips cracked into a wry grin. “They bring me back to some good times.” And he gave Jack a naughty wink.
Jack checked his watch. Marcy would be back in moments. “Joe, did I tell you the story about the new nun at her first confession?”
“Uh-uh,” Joe said, looking up at him with an eager face.
“Well, there was this new nun, and she tells the priest that she has a terrible secret. The priest then tells her that her secret is safe in the sanctity of the confessional. So, she says, ‘Forgive me, Father, but I never wear panties under my habit.’ The priest chuckles and says, ‘That’s not so serious, Sister Katherine. Say five Hail Marys, five Our Fathers, and do five cartwheels on your way to the altar.’”
Jack waited a moment until he was sure Joe got the joke. Not getting a reaction, Jack began to explain, when it all clicked in Joe’s brain, and he started to laugh. Jack took Joe’s hand and laughed along with Joe, which made him laugh even more, until Joe started coughing. In a moment, Joe got locked into a coughing jag and Jack shot out of the room. Connie was just rolling by with her cart. “I think Joe needs to be suctioned,” he said. And hearing Joe trying to catch his breath, Connie rushed inside the room.
The moment was Jack’s, and his awareness was crackling. He had less than two seconds as everybody else in the room was distracted—Marcy at the other side of the dayroom with another resident, the aides with their backs to him. And the cart sat right there, drawer open, folders of patients’ meds all in a row—Joe McNamara’s gaping at him. And inside of it the card of blue pills in shrink-wrap windows.