Praying for Sleep

offered, “what people say about Eve isn’t true. She was a victim. Just like me. A victim of the devil, in her case. Government conspirators, in mine. How can you blame someone who’s been betrayed ? You can’t! It wouldn’t be fair ! Eve was persecuted, and so am I. Aren’t we alike, you and me? Isn’t it just amazing, Lis-bone?” He laughed.
    “Michael,” she said, her voice quivering, “will you do something for me?”
    He looked up, his face as sad as the hound’s.
    “I’m going to ask you to come upstairs with me.”
    “No, no, no . . . We can’t wait. You have to do it. You have to! That’s what I’ve come for.” He was weeping. “It was so terrible and hard. I’ve come so far. . . . Please, it’s time for me to go to sleep.” He nodded at the gun. “I’m so tired.”
    “A favor for me. Just for a little while.”
    “No, no . . . They’re all around us. You don’t understand how dangerous it is. I’m so tired of being awake.”
    “For me?” she begged.
    “I don’t think I can.”
    “You’ll be safe there. I’ll make sure you’re safe.”
    Their eyes met and remained locked for a long moment. Whatever Michael saw in hers, Lis never guessed. “Poor Eve,” he said slowly. Then he nodded. “If I go there, for you”—he looked at the gun—“then you’ll do it and do it quickly?”
    “Yes, if you still want me to.”
    “I’ll go upstairs for you, Lis-bone.”
    “Follow me, Michael. It’s this way.”
    She didn’t want to turn her back on him, yet she felt that some fragile fiber of trust—spun from madness perhaps but real to him—existed between them. She wouldn’t risk breaking it. She led the way, making no quick gestures and saying nothing. Climbing the narrow stairs she directed him to one of the spare bedrooms. Because Owen kept confidential legal files here, a strong Medeco lock secured the door. She opened the door and he walked inside. Lis clicked on the light and told Michael to sit in a rocking chair. It had been Mrs. L’Auberget’s and was in fact the chair she’d died in, leaning forward expectantly and squeezing Lis’s hand three times. He went to the chair and sat. She told him kindly, “I’m going to lock the door, Michael. I’ll be back soon. Why don’t you close your eyes and rest?”
    He didn’t answer but examined the chair with approval and began to rock. Then he lowered his lids as she’d suggested and laid his head against the teal-green afghan that covered the chair back. The rocking ceased. Lis closed the door silently and locked it and walked back to the greenhouse. She stood in the exact center of the room for a long time before the swarm of emotions surrounded her.
    Another line from Shakespeare slipped into her thoughts. “No beast so fierce but knows pity.”
    “Oh, my God!” Lis whispered. “My God . . .”
    She dropped to her knees and began to sob.
     
    Ten minutes later Lis was wiping Trenton Heck’s sweaty forehead. He seemed to be hallucinating and she had no idea if bathing his face helped at all. She squeezed a sponge over his skin and wiped away the effluence in a delicate and superstitious way. She was standing up to get more water when she heard a sound at the door. She walked into the kitchen, wondering why she hadn’t heard the sheriff ’s cars arrive or seen their lights. But it wasn’t the police. Lis cried out and ran to the door to let Owen inside. Gaunt and muddy, he stumbled into the kitchen, his arm bound to his side with his belt.
    “You’re hurt!” she cried.
    They embraced briefly then he turned, gasping, and gazed outside, surveying the yard like a soldier. Pulling his pistol from his pocket he said, “I’m all right. It’s just my shoulder. But, Christ, Lis—the deputy! Outside. He’s dead!”
    “I know. I know. . . . It was horrible! Michael shot him.”
    Leaning against the doorjamb he gazed into the night. “I had to run all the way from North Street. He snuck past me.”
    “He’s upstairs.”
    “We’ve got to get away from the windows. . . . What?”
    “He’s upstairs,” she repeated, stroking her husband’s muddy cheek.
    Owen stared at his wife. “Hrubek?”
    She held up Michael’s filthy gun and handed it to him. Owen shifted his gaze from Lis’s haggard face to the pistol.
    “This is his ? . . . What’s going on?” He laughed shortly, then his smile faded as she told him the story.
    “He wasn’t going to kill you? But why did he come here?”
    As she fell