Duma Key(140)

As she pulled up in front of the hospital, in a spot marked 5 MINUTES PICK-UP AND DROP-OFF, Mary said: "Prepare to be amazed. I was. An old copy-editor friend of mine chased that down for me she's older than Libby, but still sharp."

I bent back the clasps and slid out two Xeroxed sheets of an ancient newspaper story. "That," Mary said, "is from the Port Charlotte Weekly Echo. June of 1925. It's got to be the story my friend Aggie saw, and the reason I could never find it is because I never looked as far south as Port Charlotte. Also, the Weekly Echo gave up the ghost in 1931."

The streetlight beneath which she'd parked wasn't good enough for the fine print, but I could read the headline and see the picture. I looked for a long time.

"It means something to you, doesn't it?" she asked.

"Yes. I just don't know what."

"If you figure it out, will you tell me?"

"All right," I said. "You might even believe it. But Mary... this is one story you'll never print. Thanks for the ride. And thanks for coming to my show."

"Both my pleasure. Remember to give Libby my love."

"I will."

But I never did. I had seen Elizabeth Eastlake for the last time.

ix

The ICU nurse on duty told me that Elizabeth was in surgery. When I asked for what, she told me she wasn't sure. I looked around the waiting room.

"If you're looking for Mr. Wireman, I believe he went to the cafeteria for coffee," the nurse said. "That's on the fourth floor."

"Thanks." I started away, then turned back. "Is Dr. Hadlock part of the surgical team?"

"I don't think so," she said, "but he's observing."

I thanked her again and went in search of Wireman. I found him in a far corner of the caff, sitting in front of a paper cup about the size of a World War II mortar shell. Except for a scattering of nurses and orderlies and one tense-looking family group in another corner of the room, we had the place to ourselves. Most of the chairs were upended on the tables, and a tired-looking lady in red rayon was working out with a mop. An iPod hung in a sling between her br**sts.

"Hola, mi vato," Wireman said, and gave me a wan smile. His hair, neatly combed back when he made his entrance with Elizabeth and Jack, had fallen down around his ears, and there were dark circles around his eyes. "Why don't you grab yourself a cup of coffee? It tastes like factory-made shit, but it do prop up a person's eyelids."

"No, thanks. Just let me borrow a sip of yours." I had three aspirin in my pants pocket. I fished them out and swallowed them with some of Wireman's coffee.

He wrinkled his nose. "In with all your germy change. That's nasty."

"I have a strong immune system. How is she?"

"Not good." He looked at me bleakly.

"Did she come around at all in the ambulance? Say anything else?"

"She did."

"What?"

From the pocket of his linen shirt, Wireman took an invitation to my show, with THE VIEW FROM DUMA printed on one side. On the other he'd scrawled three notes. They jagged up and down from the motion of the ambulance, I assumed but I could read them:

"The table is leaking."

"You will want to but you mustn't."

"Drown her back to sleep."

They were all spooky, but that last one made the flesh on my arms prickle.

"Nothing else?" I asked, handing the invitation back.

"She said my name a couple of times. She knew me. And she said yours, Edgar."

"Have a look at this," I said, and slid the manila envelope across the table.

He asked where I'd gotten it and I told him. He said it all seemed a little convenient, and I shrugged. I was remembering something Elizabeth had said to me The water runs faster now. Soon come the rapids. Well, the rapids were here. I had a feeling this was only the start of the white water.

My hip was starting to feel a little better, its late-night sobbing down to mere sniffles. According to popular wisdom, a dog is a man's best friend, but I would vote for aspirin. I pulled my chair around the table and sat next to Wireman, where I could read the headline: DUMA KEY TOT BLOSSOMS FOLLOWING SPILL IS SHE A CHILD PRODIGY? Beneath was a photograph. In it was a man I knew well in a bathing suit I knew well: John Eastlake in his slimmer, trimmer incarnation. He was smiling, and holding up a smiling little girl. It was Elizabeth, looking the same age as in the family portrait of Daddy and His Girls, only now she was holding out a drawing to the camera in both hands and wearing a gauze bandage wrapped around her head. There was another, much older girl in the picture big sister Adriana, and yes, she could have been a carrot-top but to begin with, Wireman and I paid little attention to her. Or to John Eastlake. Or even to the toddler with the bandage around her head.

"Holy wow," Wireman said.

The picture was of a horse looking over a fence rail. It wore an unlikely (and un-equine) smile. In the foreground, back-to, was a little girl with lots of golden ringlets, holding out a carrot the size of a shotgun for the smiling horse to eat. To either side, bracketing the picture almost like theater curtains, were palm trees. Above were puffy white clouds and a great big sun, shooting off happy-rays of light.

It was a child's picture, but the talent that had created it was beyond doubt. The horse had a joie de vivre that made the smile the punchline of a cheerful joke. You could put a dozen art students in a room, tell them to execute a happy horse, and I was willing to bet not one of them would be able to match the success of that picture. Even the oversized carrot felt not like a mistake but part of the giggle, an intensifier, an artistic steroid.