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“I’m sorry. Federal law prevents me from confirming or denying she’s here,” said the nasal voice of a receptionist.
“That’s not true. It’s legal to tell me if she isn’t there. Perhaps she checked in and asked not to be listed on the directory,” he said, relying on his memory of helping April study for a nursing test on health providers’ obligations under federal privacy laws. When he arrived at the hospital, he found it impossible to get a yes-or-no answer. In traffic on the way home, he stopped at a light and thought he saw Amy in a blue minivan behind him. He blew the horn and waved, but the driver ignored him. He exhaled and decided not to pursue her. He felt satisfied just knowing she was alive.
His mind returned to Helen, wondering if she would leave him. He went home and checked the answering machine – still no word from her. He couldn’t understand why she would keep him in the dark. Was she off her medications and suddenly paranoid? He knew the hospital staff would never disclose a patient’s psychiatric information. He finished a new bottle of whiskey and sat in the dark, watching shadows dance on the wall.
The next morning, he stood hung over in the hospital’s sun-lit lobby beneath the beady-eyed stare of a security guard, demanding to speak with someone in charge. When the hospital employees turned him away again, he walked past the lobby’s coffee-shop line and resisted the urge to run down the hall to try to find her room. She contacted him two days later: “I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner, but I didn’t know how else to protect you.”
Resisting the urge to cuss her out, Ed walked out on their apartment’s balcony and looked down at shades of blue in the congested traffic. “Were you in Suburban Hospital?”
“Yes,” she said after a pause.
He bit into a granola bar. “Are you okay? What happened to you?”
“I went to buy some shoes at the mall,” she said with a scratchy voice. “A large woman cornered me in the bathroom and beat me with a metal paperweight. She told me she had a message from Jonathan: Move back in with him if I want you to live.”
“Are you taking your meds?”
“I promised you I would.”
Car horns blared, and Ed leaned forward, feeling a wave of nausea. “Let me talk to Jonathan if you don’t want me to call the cops.”
“No. Forget me; leave town.”
Ed returned to the living room and sat on the sofa. Her story made no sense to him. He looked at a large crow, depicted on one of Helen’s framed posters, and the place seemed to spin. “Why wouldn’t you let the hospital workers tell me?”
“It was a miscommunication. I’m sorry.”
“Remember the instructions you handed me on the cruise ship about Jonathan’s alarm code and hidden pistol? Is that what you really want?”
“No. I can’t ask you to hurt anyone for me.”
Ed watched a flock of pigeons land to take another crap on his balcony. “I only want to get the truth from him. I’m not going to run from him or anything else anymore.”
“Let me handle this myself. Don’t risk your life for me.”
Ed looked at the photo on the mantle above the fireplace. The two of them seemed like passionate newlyweds with the blue waters of the Caribbean at their backs. “Meet me at a rendezvous: The Omni Hotel in Richmond.”
“No. I can handle him myself.” Her voice sounded more despondent.
“Will you be waiting there or not?” If she hesitated to answer, he planned to forget her. He imagined himself with a wrench in hand, unbolting their balcony railing from the concrete so he could have an uninterrupted sprint over the edge. Everything was crumbling to pieces anyway. He couldn’t shake the terror of losing her. Was it all bullshit?
“Yes. I’ll wait you for you. I’m booking the room, now,” she said to his relief. “I love you. Please be careful.”
He hung up and left for a new bottle of whiskey at the liquor store.
Chapter 10: Lenient
That night, as the sky darkened, Ed rode a Metro train to Olde Town in Alexandria, Virginia and hiked with a gym bag to the address Helen provided. Once he found the brick townhouse near the Potomac River, he climbed the wooden fence of the congressman’s patio and donned a black ski mask. As he expected, the lights were off with no one home.
Ed saw headlights move through the spaces in the wooden fence. He held his breath and fell to his knees – a false alarm, someone dropping off a neighbor’s kid.
He searched beneath the barbeque pit and found a tiny magnetic box. It contained the house key mentioned by Helen. He looked at his watch and knew he had burned too much time. Before anyone else drove by, he needed to get into the house and find the weapon in the congressman’s closet.
Ed left the patio and crept to the front door. After turning the lock, he deactivated the alarm and returned the key to its hiding place. His hand trembled as he reset the alarm and ran upstairs to find a loaded Colt .38 revolver.
The congressman’s closet had the odor of cedar and leather dress shoes. Ed crouched in a ball, clinching the revolver with his gloved hand and listening to the thump of the blood pulsing through his veins as he anticipated his first encounter with Congressman Jonathan Miller.
As Ed sat in the dark, he struggled not to second guess himself. He wondered what his mom and dad would say if Helen turned him in to the cops. He worried she had set him up as her fall guy, but he couldn’t settle on her motive. Was she after life-insurance money?
