Chapter Seventeen

“Derrick!” I scrambled to his side. “Derrie, talk to me.”

My brother lay half on his stomach with his face against the rock. I turned him gently onto his back and gasped. A gash in his forehead seeped blood over his brow and down behind his ear. He reeked of vomit, and his eyes were closed. This time the sob came out, but I swallowed it down. He needed my help.

As fast as I could I unslung my cloth carrying bag and grabbed the wine bottle out of it. I pressed the bag against the cut with one hand, feeling his neck with the other. He had to be all right. He had to. His heartbeat was fast and strong. Good. I watched his chest rise and fall. Also good. The cloth bag wasn’t particularly clean, but it would suffice for now.

I flashed on a memory. We’d been playing in an old tree out back when we were kids. Derrick, always the risk taker, had ventured out on a limb that wasn’t strong enough for his chunky preteen weight. The branch cracked and broke, tossing him to the ground. The limb hadn’t been too high off the ground, and he hadn’t broken any bones. But, boy, had his scalp ever bled where it nicked a shard of splintered branch on his way down.

I lifted the cloth and watch new blood come to the surface, but it wasn’t as much as before. Maybe, with any luck, this was the same kind of superficial scalp wound. When I pressed down on it again, with more pressure this time, he squirmed.

“Hey, that hurts,” he mumbled. His eyes flickered open and he mustered a wan smile. “Hi, Mackie. What’s shakin’?”

Conscious was good, too. Very good. “You fell over and hit your head. Now be a good boy and lie still. It’s only a cut in your forehead.”

“Oh, I’ve been cut before. Bad ones. I’m gonna take a little nap for a minute and let my guardian angel, I mean sister, take care of it.” He closed his eyes again.

It probably wouldn’t hurt for him to rest for a bit. What should I do now, though? That gash was going to need both cleaning and stitches. I sat back on my heels. I could call an ambulance, but that seemed like overkill. I decided on the next best thing.

“Hi, gorgeous.” Tim’s deep baritone greeted me through the phone. “On your way over?”

“I’m afraid not. I have a situation here, and I need your help.” I stood and walked a few paces away, but not so far I couldn’t keep an eye on the drunk patient. I explained about Derrick, Zane’s tale of a bourbon sale, and what had happened after I arrived out here.

“That’s a situation, all right.” He softened his voice. “And you said he’s blotto, too?”

“He’s totally smashed. But he has to go get this wound cleaned, and have somebody stitch it up, too.”

“And he’s a big guy and you need me. Hang on a sec.” The sound of a pot scraping on a burner came through. “Okay, I can put dinner on hold. It’ll be fine. Give me five. I’ll drive over, all right?”

“Please. I walked, and your station wagon has more room than his car, not that I know where his keys are.” My Miss M was out of the running, of course, being a two-seater.

“Gotcha.”

“Tim?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“You’re the best.”

“I plan to extract appropriate payment later tonight.” He disconnected.

Despite this mess, I’d heard the smile in his voice. That was enough. I went back to Derrick’s side. He was a big guy. Mom was about an inch shorter than I was, so he didn’t get height from her side, particularly. But Derrick’s dad had apparently been six-three with a large frame, not that I’d ever met him. Derrick himself had ended up taller than Pa and had a tendency to carry weight. I’d never be able to safely hoist him up and help him walk to the car. Thank goodness for a boyfriend who was both tall and well-muscled.

What I really wanted was to get Derrick sewed up, cleaned up, and sobered up before either my parents or Cokey had any contact with him. Cokey had no experience of a father out of control and I didn’t want her to. It was bad enough her mother had essentially abandoned her. She didn’t deserve a daddy who did that, too.

I gazed out at the water. A red-breasted merganser bobbed by, the shaggy feathers pointing back off its head making them look windblown, except they were like that even on a still day. When the bird dove under looking for dinner, a small clutch of common gallinules swam into view, the red of their beaks extending up their faces like a Halloween mask. A herring gull lit on top of the lighthouse with a shrill cry. Derrick still rested with his eyes closed, but his breathing was regular and he had almost as much color in his cheeks as the gallinules’s bills, so I didn’t worry.

At a crunching of the shells that paved the drive, I glanced behind me. Tim backed up his blue 1970 Volvo wagon as far as he could. He kept the vintage vehicle in pristine condition, even massaging leather cream into the cream-colored seats. He also used the back for bread deliveries to restaurants twice a week.

“We’re back here,” I called after he climbed out and gazed up at the lighthouse.

He hurried toward me, a first aid kit in his hand, and put his arm around my shoulders as we gazed down at my silly, stupid, stinky, soused brother. “Shall we?”

* * *

It was ten o’clock before Tim and I finished dinner. The emergency department at Falmouth Hospital had been amazingly under-subscribed this evening, so Derrick was treated promptly. Still, it was a drive to get to the hospital and back, and we hadn’t left until almost six, what with getting my brother up off the ground, clad in a clean shirt, and into the car, where he promptly fell back asleep. I’d put a clean dressing on the wound, too.

On the way to the hospital, I’d texted my parents that I’d found Derrick and he’d cut his head, and that Tim and I were taking him to get stitches. I added that we would all spend the night at Tim’s, which Tim had offered after my brother fell asleep. I omitted mention of the whiskey. Derrick could tell them that himself if he wanted to.

His inebriation hadn’t gone unnoticed at the hospital. After the tests, tetanus shot, and stitching, the doctor had beckoned Tim and me into Derrick’s bay.

“I’ve told him he should not have any additional alcohol tonight. Can you help keep track of that?”

“Of course,” I replied. “He, um, has been sober for about six years, so I’m sure this is a temporary slip-up.”

“I can hear you, you know.” Derrick waved his hand from the bed.

The doctor nodded. “You were on private property and not behind the wheel of a motor vehicle when you fell, correct?”

“Correct.”

“That’s right,” I confirmed. “I was there.”

“Can one of you keep a good eye on him tonight for signs of concussion?” The doctor handed Derrick a discharge sheet. “They’re on this sheet.”

“We will,” Tim said. “You’re going to stay with us tonight, dude,” he said to Derrick.

“Good,” the doctor said. “I’d like a note of that location, please.” He took down the address and made sure he had my cell phone recorded, too. He frowned at my brother. “An alert came up when we recorded your injury in the accident database. The state police asked us to let them know if you came in for any reason. They’re apparently interested in talking to you.”

“I know all about it,” Derrick said in a low voice.

“I know, too.” I said. “We’ll be in touch with them.”

“Fine. You are free to leave, Mr. Searle. Be well.” The doctor shook hands with Derrick and with each of us.

I echoed the doc’s lovely farewell back to him. “Be well.”

Derrick was listless on the ride back to Westham, staring out the window, answering our few questions in monosyllables. When we arrived at Tim’s modest house on the hill behind downtown, Tim showed Derrick the guest room and the bathroom, told him to make himself comfortable, and then join us for dinner. Instead, when we were ready to sit down to eat at the table in the kitchen, which doubled as a dining room, I could hear Derrick’s snoring.

“We’ll save him a plate,” Tim said as he lit two tapers in glass candlesticks.

“The wine!” I exclaimed. I’d completely forgotten to pick up the bottle out on the promontory.

“Good thing I have a couple of cases in my wine cellar.”

“Wait. You don’t have a wine cellar,” I pointed out. He owned the two-bedroom cottage, which he kept clean and in good repair. And I knew he didn’t have a custom-designed temperature-controlled wine cellar.

“It’s a cellar, and it has wine in it.” He shrugged with a wicked grin and reappeared three minutes later with both a cool Oregon Pinot Gris and an Australian Shiraz. He poured white for both of us and we tucked into our dinner. He’d already mostly cooked the shallow dish of cheesy, creamy potatoes and assembled the salad before my call earlier, so by the time he’d seared the scallops, the potatoes were ready, too.

I pushed my chair back a little when my plate was empty. All we’d had at the hospital were bottles of water and a bag of chips each, and I’d been famished. A lone piece of arugula decorated the rim of my square white plate, and a tiny sprig of dill was the only evidence of the scrumptious scallops, which he’d quick-seared in olive oil, butter, and garlic, with a wine de-glaze at the end.

“That was perfect, Tim. Thank you. And especially thank you for helping me with Derrick. I couldn’t have gotten him to the hospital without you.” I drained the last drop from my glass of wine, but capped it with my hand when Tim lifted the bottle to pour more. “That’s enough for me for tonight.”

“You could have called an ambulance. He would have had good care. But anyway, your needs are my needs. Got it?” He squeezed my hand.

“Got it.”

“Do you think he’s going to be able to get sober again?” Tim asked softly after glancing at the door to the hall.

“I sure hope so. I think he’d stopped going to AA meetings lately. He’ll need to start that up again.” I ran a finger around the rim of the glass. “Who knew the hospitals had an accident database?”

“It makes sense, I guess. And that way if the authorities are looking for someone, they have a way to check with the hospitals.”

I shuddered. “If the police had had a warrant for Derrick’s arrest, they probably would’ve come right to Falmouth and taken him away. A small blessing, I suppose, that they only want to talk to him.”

“Good point.”

I stood and cleared the plates while Tim put away the rest of the food. I’d finished rinsing the dishes when my phone emitted its incoming-text double beeps. I groaned when I read the message.

“What is it?” Tim asked.

I looked into his baby blues. “Detective Haskins says he’s on the porch. And he wants to talk to Derrick.” So much for snuggling with my sweetheart.

“Now?”

“Now.”

Tim frowned and tapped his index finger on the table. “How did he know you and Derrick both were here?”

I thought for a second. “Because we gave the doc your address. So what do I do?”

“What do you want to do? And what do you think you should do?” He stroked my hand.

I let out a sigh worthy of a nine-point-nine in the Olympics. “I want to go to bed with you five minutes ago. But I should go talk to him.” I stood. “So I guess I will.” I pushed back my chair and headed toward the hall.

“Ask him in if you need to,” Tim called after me.

I nodded, pulling open the front door a moment later. “Good evening Detective,” I said in the glow of the front porch light. “I’m afraid my brother is sleeping. He injured his head tonight.”

“Yes, I know. And you know we need to speak with him on some matters of great importance. I can talk to him here or I can bring him to the station. But given how elusive he’s been, I’m not leaving until one of those two things happens.” He cleared his throat and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry to disturb you and Mr. Brunelle at such a late hour.”

Tim’s presence was warm behind me even though he hadn’t spoken. “Why don’t you come in, then?” I twisted my head up and back. “All right, Tim?” I asked, even though he’d already given me the answer.

“Of course,” Tim said. “Right this way, sir.”

I added, “I’ll see if I can get Derrick up.”