“I’m Doctor Teller. You’ve had a clean break of your left forearm, what appears to be a mild concussion, and around your middle there’s bruising of a sort I haven’t seen before.”
The man by the window cleared his throat. “I have, ma’am. Mr. Glenwood was most likely worked over by somebody wearing knuckle-dusters.”
Marcus’ stomach convulsed slightly at the pain and the memory. The doctor set the cup back on his side table and continued. “We’ve done a scan and there appears to be no skull fracture. Does it hurt to move your head?”
“Yes.”
She pulled a penlight from her pocket. “Follow the light, please.” She watched his eyes track. “Any blurred vision? Dancing colors?”
“No.”
“Good. Tell the nurse if that changes.” She motioned to the uniform. “The deputy here wants to ask you some questions. Feel up to it?”
“Yes. What time is it?”
“Nine o’clock Saturday morning.” To the deputy, “Keep it short.”
But after the doctor had departed, it was Alma who moved around to seat herself by the bed. She reached down and came up with a thermos. Before she had unscrewed the top, Marcus was already salivating from the aroma.
“I’ve boiled this for six hours before I put it through the sieve.” Marcus watched her fill the cup with a golden liquid thick as syrup. “Can’t imagine we lost too many vitamins.”
Marcus sucked so hard the chicken soup squirted hot and sharp to the back of his throat. He kept it up, sighing noisily for air, until the cup was drained. Alma poured a second cup and held it for him, smiling tired and sad all the while.
He shook his head to the offer of a third cup. “Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me for anything. Not ever.” She screwed the top back on. “I’ll leave this right here for whenever you want more.”
The deputy shifted his weight, causing the leather of his gunbelt to squeak noisily. Marcus turned his gaze back toward the window.
“Amos Culpepper. We met at the Halls’.”
“I remember.”
“You see who did this?”
“One of them. The others wore masks.”
“Tell me about it.”
Marcus did so, pausing often to allow the pain in his head to subside. The arm ached no matter what he did, but each word had to be squeezed through his pounding skull. By the time he was finished he was sweating hard.
“So you think two of the men were the same as those over at New Horizons.”
“Yes.” He shut his eyes, and saw again the mud-spattered boots. “Can’t be sure.”
“Think I’ll mosey on over, see what I can stir up.” Amos started for the door. “When you’re moving around I’d like you to look at some pictures.”
“All right.”
He opened the door, then paused another time. “You aim on dropping this case?”
“No.”
The deputy nodded once, up and down, very slow. “Good.” His eyes tracked over to Alma. “Ma’am.” Then he was gone.
Alma waited until the door sighed closed to turn back and start in. “Marcus …”
But he could hold to the room no longer. He closed his eyes and went spinning away.
Marcus awoke to a fuller sense of alertness. With the wisdom of the ailing, he knew it would not last. Even so, he was grateful for this assurance that his faculties were not damaged. What was more, the thunder in his head had lessened somewhat. He was able to turn without agony and see Austin Hall seated there beside him, dark eyes glittering in the light from the window.
“Like some more soup?”
“Please.” Marcus moved one limb at a time, saving the weighty cast on his left arm for last. “But first help me to the bathroom.”
He had to lean heavily on the older man, who took his weight without complaint. When Marcus returned he rested a moment on the edge of the bed, though it hurt his head to do so. He wanted to revel in his mobility a moment longer.
Austin took it as a sign, and handed him the steaming mug without a straw. “How’s the head?”
“Better.” The soup was divine, almost a distillation of good health. “You don’t have to sit here.”
“I wanted to.” Austin finished that subject off cleanly by holding out a plastic pill cup. “The nurse said you were to take these when you woke up.”
Marcus did so, not minding the prospect of more drugged fogginess now that he knew it would pass. Then, because they were both thinking of her, he said, “Tell me something about Gloria.”
Austin seemed to have expected the question. Or perhaps it was just that his thoughts remained centered upon this subject. All his thoughts, all his energy. “She hates math.” The late-afternoon light was golden and warm and glinted off the man’s tie. Sitting weekend duty in a sickroom and the man’s top button was still closed, the tie still tight. “She has a great mind for strategy and none whatsoever for numbers. Three rows needing addition sends her screaming from the room.”
Marcus sipped at his mug. “Strategy.”
“She’s brilliant at chess. Learned the game before she started school.” The smile was a swift shadow. “Beat me the first time on her ninth birthday. I was astonished, I can tell you.”
Marcus felt that it all meant something. Or it should. But the mental struggle was too much. “She looked so happy in that photograph.”
“Gloria is all or nothing. And all the time. One hundred percent happy, one hundred percent angry, or sad, or excited, whatever. She dives into her emotions like she does all of life. She is a good student when it suits her, and terrible when her mind is elsewhere.”
“How was she just before she left for China?”
“Like the walking dead. Utterly and completely miserable. She had been absolutely despondent for months. Morose and weepy and quarrelsome. Kirsten was the only one who kept her on an even keel. The two of them had been close for years, but they grew closer than sisters. Ever since she and that Loh boy broke up, Gloria had been teetering on the verge of a breakdown.”
Marcus set down his cup. “Who?”
“Gary Loh. Brilliant kid. Medical student. Strong in the church.”
“You approved of him.”
“He changed Gloria’s life around. Before, well, Gloria went through a wild stage her first year at Georgetown.”
A lethargic fog began to take hold of Marcus’ limbs. “So I heard.”
“Who from?”
“Oathell.” He swung his legs up and onto the bed, eased his head onto the welcoming pillow.
“Yeah, she broke that boy’s heart. But Gary was good for her and Oathell couldn’t keep up, and that’s the truth from her own daddy. She and Gary made a fine-looking couple. Real fine.”
The warm languor seeped into his bones and traveled up his body. “But they split up. Why?”
“Gloria wouldn’t say a thing. One moment she and Gary were planning to get married. The next, nothing. We didn’t hear anything for over a month. Then she came home for Thanksgiving and spent the entire time locked in her room sobbing. Like to have broken Alma’s heart, especially when she wouldn’t tell us what was wrong.”
His mind could not hold a train of thought. It flittered about, landing where it would. “How did she get so interested in New Horizons?”
Austin seemed to find nothing odd in the sudden shift. “I doubt there’s a single family in our church without some tales about that company. All of them bad.”
Marcus murmured, “You?”
“Ask Alma sometime about her nephew, the one who worked for the unions.”
Marcus wanted to ask more, but the talk left him. His final awareness was of a strong dark face watching as he slid into sleep and away.
He awoke late in the night. It was only in the midst of this silence that he recognized the noises that had occupied the rooms and hallway outside his door. Marcus reached for the phone and dialed a number from memory. When Charlie Hayes answered, Marcus asked, “What time is it?”
“I know you must be sick. Calling me in the middle of the night, waking me up so you can find out the time.” There came a rustling sound, then, “It’s just gone one. There. You satisfied?”