David Turner sat stunned in his penthouse suite. The cat purred quietly in his lap as he stroked it, closing its eyes in contentment.
The old man stared at the phone. He was torn. Should he go? Should he stay? He wished he could say that it was the first time in his life that his heart was crushed and he didn’t know what to do next. He closed his eyes and prayed silently, “Please God let this be the last.”
He remembered sitting in a hospital room once before thinking that it had all come tumbling down. He remembered staring at the body in the bed and being more paralyzed than the man hooked up to all the wires and tubes. It was the end of it all, and he knew it.
But something else happened. Someone else came along with a lifeline. He feared it. He was so ready for it all to be over, no matter what the consequences. What did happen? What was it that spared him the shame and kept the ball rolling?
“Oh yes…yes.” He said out loud.
The room had very little light. It must have been about this same time of night. David was so much younger then, and so much more worried about the consequences. The accident had been bad enough, but this? How did this happen?
He looked at the once handsome man in the bed, the one now with a face stitched back together like an old quilt. They could fix most of it eventually, but he’d never be the same, look the same. They could afford the best. Things had paid off. They had the money, plenty of money. Now they just didn’t have the handsome leading man.
The man would live, but they both knew his fate. He didn’t say much; too much pain, too much in mourning for what was lost. The doctors could fix him, but who was going to fix them?
He had to tell him. David had no choice. He had to know. The man’s face was gone, and now he had to be told his wife was gone as well.
The patient moaned. It was almost as if he could read his mind. David smiled bitterly. It had always been like that. It’s what had made them the perfect team. If they could just figure out what to do next, maybe they still could be. Without her was it even possible?
David hadn’t heard the other man come in the room. He barely remembered a small light flooding the gray and then going dark again. He felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Dave?”
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust and focus. David hoped the man could see his weak smile in the dark.
“How’s he doing?” He asked.
David just nodded his head.
“Does he know?”
Turner sighed. “About her?” The following silence answered both their questions.
“I almost didn’t find him. You weren’t in your room and I knew good and well he wasn’t using his real name. Then I remembered…Ernie Newcastle.”
“What better way to hide than to use your real name, the one nobody remembers or even knew.”
“Lucille knew all the tricks.”
David whipped his head around and stared him down in the dark. “Shhh!”
“You’re right.” David felt the apologetic pat on his shoulder. “Let’s step back to your room, where we can talk without disturbing him.”
David made sure the bedclothes were snug and pulled tight before they left and walked in silence to the nicer end of the hospital.
“They’re releasing me tomorrow.” David said as they shut his door.
“You should have been released a week ago.”
“Without Lucille here to make sure I stayed…”
The man shook his head. “I don’t understand. Why would she do something like this?”
David sighed and thumped down on the bed. “Jamey and I always used to joke ‘Whose wife is crazier’. I always thought it was mine hands down, turns out it was his.”
“Are you sure that body is Lucille’s?”
“I’d give anything right now if it wasn’t. If it was my wife, I’d know that everything was under control.”
“You have no doubt?”
“There will always be doubt.” David looked up. “I had to do the I.D. There was no way to tell from the body, but the jewelry. The jewelry was hers, almost all of it.”
“All of it?”
“It was like she snapped, covered her self in every ring and necklace she ever owned, set fire to the house and then hung herself as the place burned down around her.” David looked at the floor. “It was her body, but the actions? That definitely wasn’t Lucille.”
The man sat down beside David on the bed. “And your wife?”
“Haven’t seen or heard from her, not since the phone call. Lucille said was handling it. She always took care of the messy stuff.” David stood up and walked to the window, staring out into the dark. “Somewhere out there is my lunatic wife and my baby boy.”
“Maybe once she hears about Lucille she’ll come back.”
Turner almost laughed. “Not a chance. She wasn’t nearly as crazy as we thought. She’s gone, and no one’s going to find her.”
“We’ll find her.” He stood and walked over to where his friend forlornly gazed out the window. “I promise you David, some day, some how. We’ll find her.”
David turned around to face him. “It’s too late, the game’s over. This is the end. Without Lucille, the jig is up.”
His friend nodded and walked to a chair in the corner. He started to sit, but froze. He put his fingers to his lips and stood up. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?” David scoffed. “Lucille knew it was over. She took the chicken’s way out and left Jamey and I holding the bag.”
“Of course she knew, but you know as well as I do that Lucille would never take the easy way out.” He began to pace the room. “She never did anything, anything, unless it was the means to an end.”
“End is right.” David snorted.
“No.” Herman Elysian smiled. “Every end leads to a beginning, my friend. I’ve got an idea…”
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