at him, and he felt his heart jump in his chest the way it had when he first met her, the way it had every day for thirty-six years.
“I’m going in to work. Call me later?”
She wouldn’t, and he didn’t want to call her, afraid he’d disturb the ragged minutes of sleep she managed to grasp, but just saying it made him feel better.
“You’re running late,” she said, though there’d been no clock in the bedroom for months.
He leaned over and kissed her forehead, catching the smell of her as he did, a mingle of cleansers, mouthwash, alcohol, sweat. Something acrid, sharp beneath. Josie under there somewhere too. He pulled out the trash-can liner, put another in, said good-bye. In the kitchen he tied off the liner and dropped it in the can under the sink.
Standing there looking out, he had drunk the rest of last night’s coffee, warmed up in the microwave, now cold again. He thought about his mother, how he hadn’t realized anything was wrong until he was a teenager, that other moms didn’t go weeks without bathing or refuse to throw away food so that it grew mold in the refrigerator or reuse table napkins. When he was young she always sent him off to school in white clothes. Helped make him tough, he now thought. Third grade, he’d picked up a trash can and slammed it on the head of the class bully for calling him Sailor. After that, he got to like the name. Sailors kept on the move, touched down lightly. Sometimes he still thought of himself as Sailor.
He glanced at the clock. Almost an hour late. He could feel time, every minute ticking past, all the years, crowding against him there at the window, feel the pressure of them in his chest, the weight of them in his bones.
Rankin had been cranked up in bed almost to a sitting position when they entered, looking up with a child’s face at the neurologist blathering on about synapses and neural rerouting. Judging by his eyes, the explanations Rankin needed right now were a lot simpler.
The neurologist finished his monologue and, without saying anything more, face as featureless as Rankin’s own, turned to leave. The nurse, Miss Brunner, excused herself and followed.
He and Graves glanced at one another to see who’d lead. He stepped up close to the bed, said who they were, held out his shield. Rankin’s face made all the appropriate motions, eye contact, down to the shield, back up, but Sayles didn’t know how much was getting through. Rankin didn’t look much different from when the neurologist was talking. He looked like soldiers did back in country, registering everything, none of it finding or falling into place.
“We have some questions, Mr. Rankin.”
“So do I.”
“We’ll tell you what we know.”
“Not for you. The questions, I mean.”
“All right. Then why don’t we start here: How much do you remember?”
Rankin shook his head without looking away.
“You know you were shot?”
“They told me. I was at work. Yesterday?”
“Three days ago. Today’s Friday. You don’t remember?”
He looked away a minute, at the window. Sayles wondered why they always do that.
“I remember there were all these faces above me. It was bright, I couldn’t see well. And I kept hearing thumps. People talking. My stomach and legs felt warm—like when you pee yourself?”
“Before that,” Graves said. “Do you remember anything before that?”
“No, that’s about it. I … Wait. I was drinking coffee, I think. Taking a break.”
“Where was this?” Sayles asked.
“In the break room.”
“Second floor, right? Same as your offices?”
“Right. At the end of the hall.”
“Which would put it by the stairwell.”
Rankin nodded.
“Was anyone else there?” Graves said.
“Maybe … Billy. Billy came in, to empty the trash.”
“No one else?”
They waited as he shook his head, thought, shook his head again. Nurse Brunner looked in. Sayles smiled at her.
“And you didn’t notice, don’t remember,” he said to
Glimpses of Louisa (v2.1)