The First Days of Doug


1


Where am I?

Doug McQueen woke with tremendous effort. Bright sunlight shocked his sensitive eyes, made him glare-blind, and he blinked rapidly, in a hurried attempt to bring the room into focus. Something was wrong. His entire body hurt. The pain radiated from a point above his right ear and spread bright rays of misery down his back, to his fingertips, to his toes. Though it was agony, he tried to get up. The conviction that some terrible thing was happening rode the shafts of pain to his extremities and filled him with dread. His muscles resisted any attempts to move as if his body was submerged in mud. Struggling to lift his throbbing head from the pillow, the room about him wrung into a blur of white, and a strong hand eased him back.

"Slow down," a thick, male voice said. "You don't have a single place to be just yet."

Pain flared from ear to ear, and Doug relaxed, letting the pillow absorb the weight of his head. The sense of panic he'd felt upon waking was already fading. He was in a hospital room; he knew that, though he had no idea what manner of occurrence had put him here. He also knew that his brother, Frank, was with him. Doug would know the warm syrup sound of Frank's voice anywhere.

Slowly, Doug's focus returned, his eyes adjusting to the room well enough to see the round, bearded face of his brother, grinning down on him. Frank's big eyes filled with relief and wetted with tears; they closed for a moment, a gesture of both prayer and gratitude.

"It's about fucking time," Frank said, opening his eyes and showing even more of his teeth with a pleased smile. "And before you go asking, 'What happened?' you'd better just relax because this story is a doozy, and you ain't got the strength for it right now."

Even if he had wanted to hear the 'doozy' that had landed him in the hospital room, Doug knew it would have to wait, because his head hurt so miserably, and for the moment, he just wanted to close his eyes and ...

#

Doug resurfaced several more times over the course of the day and throughout the night. He swam up from a strange sea of smoky images, static, and a shrill cry that chased him from dream and followed him into waking. Sometimes when he woke, he saw his brother in the room and other times, strange faces with serious expressions stood around his bed, looking down on him with earnest expectation carved into their features like judges waiting for him to make a confession. When he opened his eyes to find the room dark at three a.m. that initial sense of panic returned, but he was incapable of doing more than simply registering the emotion before his mind submerged, once again drowned in gloom and static.

Greeting him when he woke on that second morning, a burly man with a tough, square face and a heavy-set woman with a bob of coal-black hair all but launched themselves at his bed. A doughy man in a white coat, presumably his doctor, stood with his arms crossed at the end of the bed.

"Mr. McQueen," the woman shouted. "Can you hear me?"

Wincing with pain, the volume of the woman's voice pounding into the aching part of his brain like a hammer, Doug lifted a hand in defense. "I could hear you in Portland," he croaked. The words rolled like a dust storm over his tongue, and his throat clamped shut, gagging him. "Water," he managed to say.

The doctor uncrossed his arms and said, "Now, hold on folks," before stepping alongside Doug's bed to hand him a green plastic cup filled with ice chips. Doug poured a few bits of ice into his mouth, where they melted on the desert tissue of his tongue. He coaxed more ice from the cup, only stopping himself when a fresh pain, like a frozen nail driven between his eyes, told him to slow down.

"Mr. McQueen, I'm Doctor Floyd. You are in St. Augustine Hospital. Do you remember your name?"

"Douglas McQueen."

This seemed to please the soft-faced doctor, who reached out to take Doug's pulse despite the digital cardiograph exhibited on the screen over his shoulder. "Do you know what year it is?"

"You're joking, right?"

The doctor shook his head, and Doug told him. Several more questions about his profession, his mother and father and brother followed. Satisfied, Doctor Floyd released Doug's wrist and nodded his head at the two suits flanking the hospital bed. Then he excused himself from the room.

"Do you think you could answer a few questions?" the woman asked. "I'm Detective Beatty and this is Detective Marshall. We're with the police."

Under their intense observation, Doug's skin prickled with concern. He couldn't imagine what the police would want with him, but then he could not imagine much of anything through the icy plate of pain above his ear. Still, an uneasy current of guilt brushed against him.

Wondering what he had done wrong and searching for answers on the blank faces of the plain-clothes detectives, Doug nodded his head to show them that he understood. Immediately, he wished he'd spoken his acknowledgment rather than demonstrated it because his brain seemed to slide against the side of his skull, bringing the scream in his ears to a higher pitch and sending his stomach to nauseous clenching.

"Do I need a lawyer?"

"No sir," Marshall said. "You were one of the victims."

One of the victims, he thought. The faces of his wife and daughter appeared behind his eyes, surfacing, just as he had, from a grim, smoky sea. At first Lisa and Rebecca's faces were static, just images from photographs catalogued in his broken head. Then an entire history of his family emerged from the murk of his thoughts, and on the tail of this history came the dread that something terrible had happened to them.

"My wife?" he asked.

"Your family is fine," Detective Beatty said. "They should be back soon. We're more interested in your relationship with Trisha Warner."

The name meant nothing to him.

"You were seeing Ms. Warner, weren't you?" Beatty asked while pushing a stray ribbon of black hair back over her ear.

"I'm married," Doug whispered. He might have been confused, might well have been severely altered by his injuries, but he knew that he loved Lisa, and the detectives - this man with his square jaw and his hefty female partner - were making a ridiculous claim that he found damn insulting. He put a little more force into his voice when he added, "Happily married."

The two detectives exchanged glances over the bed, making a show of their doubt. Beatty, at least one size too big for her navy blue suit, pulled a small photograph from the pocket of her jacket and held it in front of Doug's face.

A beautiful young woman, with long red hair and delicate features, smiled at him from the snapshot. She sat on a park bench with a weave of sunlight and tree branches at her back. She gazed intently at the camera lens while the slightest of smiles tugged at the corners of her mouth. But he did not recognize the woman, and Doug said as much to the detectives hovering over him.

"Do you remember anything about the last night you spent with Ms. Warner?" This from the hulking Marshall.

"I don't know Ms. Warner, so how could I remember any night we had spent together? Would you just tell me what happened - tell me what you think I did?"

Beatty sat on the edge of the bed. Her manner melted from a hard and aggressive authority to a softer, more sympathetic demeanor. "Ms. Warner was murdered on September 16th. An assailant entered her apartment at just after ten p.m. and bludgeoned her with a metal pipe."

"And what does this have to do with me?" he asked, though Doug was already beginning to suspect. The knowledge was there, wanting to be recognized but it hid behind cloudy thoughts and a rainbow of pain.

"We found you on the floor of that apartment, Mr. McQueen. The scene indicated that you had been there for... for a while before the assailant arrived. We found a wineglass with your fingerprints on it, and other evidence that you were more than a causal acquaintance of Ms. Warner's. Additionally, you were beaten with the same pipe that killed her."

The information seeped into his wounded brain slowly, but none of Doug's available memories would support the detectives' story. He could not remember having met the young woman from the snapshot, let alone having spent any time with her. Unable to answer, he found himself grateful for the appearance of his brother.

Frank waded into the room, like an agitated mama bear on hind legs, ready to protect her cubs. "Give him some room," Frank said. "He ain't going anywhere for a few days."

"We're in the middle of ... " the woman countered.

"Tell it to Columbo, Ms. Marple, because I don't give a good god damn," Frank said. Detective Beatty puffed herself up for a response and let it die on her tongue. Frank shot a playful grin at Doug and then looked across the bed at Detective Marshall, saying, "He may be an asshole, but he isn't a criminal, so just back the hell off, and let him breathe a little."

The two detectives exchanged frustrated glances and stepped away from the bed. "We'll be back later, Mr. McQueen," Detective Beatty said.

"Tomorrow works better for us," said Frank, taking his place on the bed, his weight making a deep pit in the mattress.

With his brother's shadow cast across the sheet, Doug felt at ease. Frank possessed the uncommon ability to confront anyone, and usually come out on top, because the man presented himself with a confidence and good nature that most people couldn't resist. Granted, the two police detectives likely had a different summation of the bear in the gray business suit, but the majority of people found comfort in Frank McQueen's presence. His disposition showing he had their best interests at heart.

"Thanks," Doug said.

"Not a problem. You have some recovering to do before they start picking at that mess of a brain."

"Yeah, my head hurts pretty bad."

Frank laughed. "Now you know how a baseball feels. They said you took a few good whacks with that pipe."

"Is Lisa here?"

The question erased the smile from Frank's lips and cut deep lines in his forehead. "She was here earlier."

"When is she coming back?"

"She's not," Frank said, placing a big hand on Doug's shoulder. "I don't know if I blame her or not. You're in a bad way, right now, but shit Doug, you didn't give her a lot of choice."

"I don't understand."

"It'll come back to you," Frank said. "The doc doesn't think you have amnesia, but he said that the evening of your assault might have been erased by the concussion. He said it happens sometimes. He also said you'd have some trouble remembering other stuff for a while."

Stung and confused, Doug closed his eyes and tried to imagine what he could have done to drive his wife away. Even if the detectives had shared their ridiculous theory about him having an affair, Lisa certainly couldn't believe such nonsense. So why wasn't she at his bedside?

Pain shot above his right ear, and Doug groaned.

"My feelings exactly," Frank said in answer to the pained sound. "But once they fix you up, you can come stay with me. The place ain't much, as you're so fond of pointing out, but the doc doesn't want you to be alone."

"I'm not alone," Doug said. "I have Lisa and Rebecca."

Frank patted Doug's shoulder and shook his head. "Right now, little brother, all you've got is me."

TO BE CONTINUED

#

Lee Thomas's novel DAMAGE, originally published as a Limited Edition by Sarob Press, will be serialized in its entirety--and with the addition of 6,000 words--on Fear Zone. Please visit the author at www.LeeThomasAuthor.com.