The Man Who Wasn't All There by David Handler (book recommendations website TXT) 📕

‘Are you still with us?’ Dr Eng asked.

‘Right here with you.’

‘I want to keep you until the morning. Get you on solid food. You’ve had quite a blow.’

‘Of course. Whatever you say.’

‘You’ll be sensitive to light. Suffer from headaches and dizziness. The symptoms should subside, but you must take it easy for a few days.’

‘He will,’ Merilee said.

‘Also your balance is going to be impaired. Be careful when you get up out of a chair, go up and down stairs, that sort of thing. And, for God’s sake, stay off of ladders. Based on what you’ve just told me, you do not want to get another concussion or you’re likely to suffer more severe side effects.’

‘Such as …?’

‘Disorientation.’

‘That’s something I’m already accustomed to.’

‘You haven’t lost your sense of humor. That’s good. But if you lost your short-term memory that wouldn’t be so good, would it?’

‘No, I suppose it wouldn’t.’

I looked up and saw Jim Conley standing out in the brightly lit corridor in his Smokey hat, looking tall, lean and weathered.

Dr Eng followed my gaze. ‘Feel well enough to see the trooper?’

‘Sure, but can you give us a minute first?’

‘Certainly.’ She smiled at Merilee. ‘I’m a huge fan of your work.’

‘Why, thank you. And thank you for taking such good care of the tall guy.’

She left us, pausing in the hallway to speak to the resident trooper, who made himself scarce as requested.

‘Merilee …?’

‘Yes, darling?’

‘Aren’t you supposed to be in Budapest?’

‘Oh, that. I gave Mr MacGowan a number there where I could be reached in an emergency. And there was an emergency, as in he heard a gunshot coming from the direction of the farm.’ So I’d been lucky. He had been home. ‘He jumped in his truck, drove over and found a kitchen that smelled of gun smoke, an empty ice-cream container and an overturned chair. The Jag was there, but you and Lulu weren’t. Plus he’d heard a car go speeding by his place moments after the gunshot. He put two and two together and called Resident Trooper Conley, who filled him in on what had just happened at the beach club. Mr MacGowan was convinced that Austin had kidnapped you and intended to hold you hostage or whatever lunatic scheme he had ricocheting around in his crazy head.’

‘That was the second time he’d come by. He was desperate to talk to you. Convinced you were the only person who could help him.’

‘Me?’ She looked at me surprise. ‘Why me?’

‘Because of that movie you made about the soldiers with PTSD. You were incredibly compassionate and understanding in it, and he couldn’t tell the difference between a movie and real life.’

‘So you don’t think I’m compassionate and understanding in real life?’

I stared at her blankly, unable to summon a comeback.

‘Oh, dear, you’re still not completely with us yet, are you? OK, I promise I won’t bust your chops for a full twenty-four hours, though it’ll be quite a challenge.’

‘Did you know Austin?’

‘I knew of him. Everyone in Lyme knows about the Talmadge brothers. As soon I got Mr MacGowan’s call I told our director I had a family emergency and had to catch the first flight home. It wasn’t until I got here that I learned that Austin had been found in the waterfall gorge on Mount Creepy with his throat cut, that you were near his body, unconscious, and that Lulu was guarding you, bloody paws and all.’

‘Back up a sec. You walked off of the production of The Sun Also Rises because you were afraid I was in danger?’

‘You’re my man,’ she stated simply.

‘How is the shoot going?’

‘It’s fine,’ she said in that abrupt way of hers that meant it wasn’t but that she didn’t want to talk about it. ‘Have you and Lulu been having a good time at the farm? Until all of this happened, I mean.’

‘I’d only been there a day, actually. Thought I could use a break after six good, hard weeks of grinding. I sent a hundred new pages to the Fox before I left town. Put the tomato patch to bed. Bled the pipes in the guest cottage. I was just starting in on the storm windows when he showed up.’

‘So I saw. Thank you, darling.’

‘A guy has to earn his keep.’

She gave me her up-from-under look, the one that does strange, wonderful things to the lower half of my body. ‘There are other ways, you know.’

‘Are you getting frisky with me? Because I’m concussed. She told me to take it easy.’

‘Celibacy didn’t enter into it, as it were. And the resident trooper is cooling his heels out in the hall. Shall I leave?’

‘I never want you to leave.’

‘You’re such a flatterer.’

‘Hey, I’m not the one who just flew thousands of miles to be here.’

‘I told you, you’re my man. And Lulu’s my brave girl.’ Which got a whimper and a tail thump out of her. Merilee fed her another anchovy before she went to find Resident Trooper Conley.

She was gone long enough for a nurse to come in, take my pulse, check my blood pressure and give me a tetanus shot. When Merilee returned she had Jim Conley in tow. She sat back down in her chair and invited him to pull a chair over. He preferred to stand, removing his Smokey hat in a lady’s presence.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked me, twirling his hat in his fingers.

‘I’ve had better days.’

‘I imagine you have. There’s a half-dozen TV news crews downstairs. This will be getting big play. It’s not every day that one of the richest, strangest men in America gets himself murdered. I’m guessing your head’s still fuzzy, so I won’t overwhelm you with a million questions. But I do have a particular one that I’m obliged to ask, and please don’t be offended. You didn’t cut Austin’s throat, did you?’

‘No I didn’t.’

‘Carry a folding knife?’

‘No, I don’t. You’re welcome to search my jeans if you want to.’

‘Not necessary. I was wondering if you