Jane reaches for both his hands. She no longer has underclothes on. Like him, her body is bathed in warm sunlight, warm rain, warm air, warmness of every kind. He feels as though he could never be cold again, not in his bones cold, not in his gut cold, not in his head. Neither cold nor evil could cross the warm waters here. Nothing untoward could get at them in his childhood hideaway.
Still, off in the distant shore, far from the warm lights and laughter and dancers, shadowed by the shadows of the dancers, something lurks. A kind of beastie…a bestial man, yes, low to the earth, near crawling, nearly on all fours, bear-like, it arms limp at its sides as if the thing’s brain could get no message to limbs, while its paws and hairy legs carry its crooked body about with a godawful misshapen head likened only to a gargoyle that Ransom must study to determine the specifics of-bloody hell! He realizes how easily his cop’s mind slips into being Inspector Alastair Ransom. He wants to fight it. He begins a torturous struggle to return to the peace and beauty and warmth, of what Jane offers on this long-ago shore among the willows, upon a carpet of grass.
“Damn you, Alastair Ransom. Stay with us…stay with me,” he hears her say as if from afar, as if he were the beast across the water in the deepest shadow of this place, and she was looking at just how far away he’d gone. How out of reach her warm touch he is. Yet somehow he feels her warmth, her touch, her breath, even her tears dropping on him. It feels real.
At the same time, he feels removed from all the dancers, the warm rain, and sunrays, the light, and the feel of green and blue and white-all gone from this place so deeply hidden within him. A place hidden from him, although he’s carried it about in his head since boyhood. The only new addition is Jane’s and Gabby’s features. Although there’d always been a woman in this place-in fact a loving woman, and a daughter and son, all without definition. Still these people existed somewhere, people who cared about him, and a lost part of Alastair had always resided here in this place-hiding out. Jane now awaits him on a well-lit, sparkling shore; waits for him to come for her out of the darkness.
Is it clear? he asks. Is it Heaven?
Dr. Jane Francis had changed into the clothes of a proper lady, an outfit that her daughter had secreted to her here at the hospital. Should Alastair at any time regain consciousness, she did not want him to see her with mustache, ascot, and men’s clothing. She sat at his bedside, occasionally running her hand through his thinning hair, at times crying, at times certain he must live, at times certain he would die like so many dreams she’d lost in the past, but in all of her thoughts and fears and hopes, she never stopped talking to him as if he heard and could talk back, as if their invisible dialogue-as he may well be talking back to her in his head-might be the only lifeline left to Alastair.
Dr. Christian Fenger placed a hand on Jane’s shoulder. Fenger was one of a handful of people who knew that she was James Phineas Tewes. “One hope Ransom has left.”
Jane weighed Fenger’s cryptic words. “And what is that, Doctor?”
“The man’s renown stubbornness, and he has unfinished business.”
“And should St. Peter challenge him at the gate?” She attempted humor.
“Then it’s a difficult time for St. Peter, who may want to postpone dealing with Ransom.”
“I hadn’t thought of it, but you’re right. He indeed has unfinished business-much of it with me, so St. Peter’ll just have to get in line.”
Together they laughed at the image of Ransom deciding who to argue with-her or St. Peter. Christian then hugged her. “Good to see you-the real you again, Jane. If you will end this Tewes charade, I’ll pull every string to get you on at Rush Medical.”
“I can’t think of that now.”
Dr. Fenger then left her alone with the patient. Gabrielle stepped in with a cup of lukewarm coffee she’d scrounged from someplace in the hospital.
“You should get some sleep, Mother.”
“There’ll be time for sleep later. I don’t want him alone when he comes round.”
“Then I’m staying, too.”
“You should go home…to your own bed.”
“I’ll not be in comfort and leave you alone here.”
Cook County’s cold institutional walls and bare room reflected Jane’s mood as she watched Gabby curl up in a chair on the other side of Ransom’s bed.
“Ok, sweetheart. Whatever you think best.” Jane sensed her daughter simply didn’t want to be alone, and Jane had felt alone until Gabby’s arrival. She now sipped at the coffee, glad for the small offering.
She replaced one hand on Alastair’s forehead. He’d survived the surgery; however, a high fever had set in, and infection, a killer of the ages held Ransom in its awful grasp.
Two days later
Ransom felt a surge of emotion welling up inside when he awoke to a room full of people, his best friends. Jane Francis as herself held his hand, Gabby sat in a chair where she’d fallen asleep. Griffin stood on the other side of the bed, nervously looking at the door as if about to make a break for it. Dr. Christian Fenger smiled down from the foot of his bed.
“Alastair, you’ve come back to us,” Christian said, his normally sad eyes smiling now.
“Thank God! You’d slipped into a coma,” Jane said, squeezing his hand.
Gabby awoke in a start amid the commotion. Tentative about speaking to the man she’d laid low, one eye still shut with sleepiness, she quietly said, “Mother never left your side, and she never gave up.”
“Is-sat righ’, Jane?” Alastair managed to croak, dry-mouthed.
“Nothing anyone else wouldn’t do,” Jane replied.
Gabby spoke for Jane. “She’s talked to you in the last days more than she’s talked to me in a month!”
“Welcome back to Chicago, Rance,” added Griffin.
Ransom could hardly swallow, let alone speak, as his mouth felt stuffed with a combination of cotton and glue. Jane helped him with a glass of water. Finally, he could swallow, and he said, “Thank you all for…for being here. Either I’m in some sort of purgatory or this is Cook County?”
“You’re going to take a few days to heal, Alastair,” said a stern Christian Fenger. “Do you understand? No more of these acrobatics of yours.”
“Yeah,” agreed Gabby, “and certainly not in our parlor!”
“If you want acrobatics, go to the Chinese pavilion at the fair,” agreed Griffin.
“I hear the French acrobats are on strike,” Alastair replied with a smirk, recalling how he had literally dived-after being shot-to flatten Waldo Denton, and how he’d broken Jane’s furniture.
“If there’s a labor strike at the fair, you’d be the man to know it,” teased Griff.
Everyone laughed at this.
“And Waldo Denton?” asked Alastair. “Will he be spending the rest of his miserable life behind bars, or will Kehoe go for a hanging? Perhaps they’ll build a gallows for him at the bleeding fair! Or does Hiram think the poor unfortunate, misguided murdering youth far too sweet for a public hanging?”
Everyone had silenced at the mention of Denton. Griffin Drimmer had filled the others in on the recent decision to release the suspect, due to a lack of evidence against him.
Alastair looked queerly round the room, his eyes questioning. “What’s become of Denton? Suicide? A cell-room drama? Did you have to shoot him? An escape attempt, Griff, what?”
“He’s not, ahhh…Alastair…we failed to ahhh…that is Prosecutor Kehoe, that is to say that Hiram…he would not-”