The Devil in Silver

Pepper lost time. As he continued reading, he lost even more. The late evening passed and, except for getting up to use the bathroom twice, he forgot himself. He wasn’t transported from New Hyde to the beaches of Amity, he didn’t feel the New England sun on his skin or the salty breeze on his tongue, but he was reminded of the life beyond this bare bed, and distracted from all the hard questions he’d face once he put the book down. The reading became a muscle relaxant, a sedative, a salve, and there was nothing wrong with that.

Which is why Pepper wasn’t stressed when Coffee got press-ganged into the room. Terry practically tossed Coffee through the open doorway. Coffee stumbled into the room, and Pepper, at ease from the enjoyable reading, looked up casually. Coffee’s blue binder flapped into the room next. Then Terry slammed the door shut. A second after that, the door was locked.

Even this didn’t cause Pepper much alarm. He grinned at Coffee conspiratorially and said, “We’re the bad boys of this unit!”

Coffee remained serious. He pointed at the door and said, “Listen.”

Terry’s sneakers squeaked as he padded down Northwest 2. Pepper heard the clank of another door being locked. And another. Again, and again. Every room in the men’s hall. The whole unit going on lockdown.

Pepper sat up. “Did everybody but you refuse their meds?”

Pepper’s shoulders tightened as he imagined the glory of such a thing. It had taken a few hours, but they had followed his example!

Coffee rolled his eyes. “You’re not Jesus Christ. You do know that, right?”

Pepper frowned and set the book down, got up from the bed and crept to the door. Since there was no window to look through, he pressed his ear to the metal. “So what is it, then?”

Coffee came to Pepper’s side. “The EMTs are here.”

“Someone’s hurt?” Pepper asked.

“Someone’s dead,” Coffee said.

16

PEPPER AND COFFEE checked the door when they woke at dawn. Still locked. They had to lie down again, try to force themselves to sleep. Coffee managed, but Pepper couldn’t. He showered and returned to bed where he read a little more of Jaws. Now the book was about a marriage, and adultery. Of course, the shark still lived out in the waters off Amity, but the police chief, Martin Brody, had another predator to watch out for. This one walked onshore. The oceanographer Brody brought in to investigate the great white must’ve had his own thin canals of mucus and nerve endings, because he could sense that Mrs. Brody, the chief’s wife, was drifting alone in the sea of her marriage. And that dude smelled blood!

The lock sounded and Pepper and Coffee got up. Pepper peeked outside. Josephine continued down Northwest 2, unlocking all the other doors. Pepper and Coffee walked out of their room, moved down the hall, and found a line at the nurses’ station, like any other morning.

The women had been let out first. There were still five waiting to get their meds. Pepper and Coffee joined the queue without thinking. They were like conscientious objectors who’d mistakenly wandered onto the front line. Sneaking off again, unnoticed, hardly seemed possible in a room that size. Pepper stepped one foot out of the line, and a staff member at the nurses’ station cut her eyes at him. He stepped back in. He didn’t see how he’d have the nerve to refuse his meds this morning if he couldn’t even muster the courage to walk away.

Loochie stood two places ahead. She’d looked back at him as he’d put one foot out and pulled it back again. Her eyes were red, the pouches under them so dark they looked black. The pom-poms on her blue knit cap drooped down to her ears. The kid looked wrecked. Not beat up, worn out. She let the woman between them go ahead so she and Pepper could talk.

Pepper said, “I heard someone got hurt.”

Loochie said, “Sam.”

Pepper looked down Northwest 1, toward the conference room where they’d had Book Group the afternoon before. Almost as if he were watching Sam now, walking out of that room the day before, distraught because of Sammy’s disappearance.

Loochie pointed toward the nurses’ station, the staff members. “They said she killed herself.”

“They told you that?” Coffee asked.

Loochie shook her head. “I heard them say it. My room was right next to hers.”

“But did anybody see her do it?” Pepper asked.

Loochie shrugged. “With Sammy gone, Sam had the room alone.”

Coffee and Pepper and Loochie took a step forward on the line together.

Loochie said, “The Chinese lady saw Sam’s body before they took her out. Right before they put us on lockdown.”

“What Chinese lady?”

Loochie sniffed at Pepper, ignoring his question. She looked at her hands and pooched out her lips. Forget about crying, the kid looked like she was going to melt.

Loochie said, “Sam took Sammy’s bedsheet and drowned herself with it.”

“Hung herself,” Pepper corrected. “That what you mean?”

Loochie clenched her hands. “If I meant ‘hang’ I would have said ‘hang.’ The Chinese lady said Sam got the sheet down her throat. She swallowed it.”