Hedging (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery)

Hirsch. “Uncle Lew,” he said. “You were married to my nephew, Richard.”
    She looked at him with horror. “Married? Richard?”
    “Richard was killed in an automobile accident six months ago.”
    His gaze was so intent, she looked away, her eyes tearing. He took her hand and brought it to his lips. Revolted, she pulled her hand away from him.
    “Mary Lou.” Dr. Hirsch rose. “Perhaps we should let Mary Lou rest for now, Mr. Gold.”
    “I understand. I’d like to arrange for Mary Lou to come home.”
    “I don’t think that would be a good idea just yet.”
    “I don’t mean to her home. She can stay with me until she’s well again.”
    “I don’t want to leave here.”
    “We’ll see, my dear,” Gold said, smiling. He picked up the phone next to the bed. “If I may, I’d like to let our lawyer know where you are.”
    No!
    “It hasn’t been connected, Mr. Gold,” Dr. Hirsch said blandly. “There’s one in the visitors’ lounge.” She steered him toward the door.
    “I’ll see you tomorrow, my dear.” To Dr. Hirsch, he whispered, loud enough for Mary Lou to hear. “She’s been despondent since Richard’s death. What really happened to her?”
    “Whatever it was, she can’t remember. But it will come back.”
    “Wait,” Mary Lou said. “I have a dog.”
    Lewis Gold hesitated in the doorway, turned back to her. “No, Mary Lou. You’re allergic to dogs.”
    Tears crept down her cheeks. He was wrong.
    Dr. Hirsch paused. “Stay still, Mary Lou. I’ll be right back.”
    She nodded. Confused, she got up and went to the window. The snow continued to fall, the texture of fine sugar.
    She had no memory of what had happened to her, but knew one thing for sure. She was not Mary Lou Salinger.

9
    “W HAT’S TROUBLING you, Mary Lou?”
    White light surrounded her, cushioned her as her eyes filled with it. She flattened hands and face against the window. The woman began her sad song.
    “Mary Lou?” A hand lodged gently on her shoulder.
    With languid inertia, she pulled herself away from the hypnotic radiance.
    “Too much excitement,” Dr. Hirsch said, steering her to the bed. “Are you still hearing the woman singing?”
    “Yes.”
    “She sounds a little like the Lorelei.”
    “The Lorelei?”
    “Yes, you know, the legendary seductress on the cliff who drew sailors to shipwreck with her sweet song.” She patted Mary Lou’s shoulder. “Rest now.”
    Obedient, tucked in, almost immobile, she closed her eyes. Yes, she would rest. Her breath became slow and deep. She opened her mind to her thoughts. And as they swirled, she gave each thought value, even those that frightened her. When she finished her meditation, for this is what it was, and she recognized that she was comfortable with the process, she understood what she had to do.
    The dinner trays were delivered at five o’clock. Mushroom barley soup and stewed cod with rice and vegetables. She saved the saltines and wrapped the roll in napkins. She would need them later. While she ate the bland food, she turned the pages of the book on dogs. Her whole existence was uncertain, but she knew she owned a dog.
    After dinner, she closed the book on the photo and description of the Labrador retriever and strolled down the hallway to the nurse’s station.
    A nurse called Lucy sat yawning at a desk in a small glass-fronted room off the station doing paper work. The one at the station was on the telephone. She looked up. “Do you need anything, Mary Lou?”
    “No. Just getting some exercise.” They both looked tired; their shift changed at ten o’clock. She’d watched and clocked them, not yet certain how it would work. The great escape.
    When they came around with the sleeping pill, she took it without protest, slipping it to the side of her mouth, and then into a tissue as soon as the door closed.
    All she had to do now was wait until the lights in the corridor were dimmed and the footfalls of both patients and staff ceased and the uneasy institutional night settled in.
    There was a script for this. She’d seen it in movies. You take the extra pillows and blankets from the closet and shape a body, drawing the covers around it. In the dark it looks like a sleeper.
    She didn’t know what time it was when she opened the door a crack. Time here was not real anyway. The corridor both ways was empty. No one was at the nurses’ station. No one. She knew Lucy usually hit the bathroom before she went off her shift.
    A dark blue down