14

Her face scared him. It wasn't just that she'd been crying, which changed the density and texture of her skin and gave her the contours of a battered wife; it was more the fluttering of the irises of her eyes, unable to alight.

What Pellam saw in Meg Torrens's face was panic.

He just stood there, beside her, not knowing what to say or whether he should touch her in a brotherly way. Thinking he should be taking charge but with no idea of what needed to be done.

Meg sat with her legs spread outward, boot tips pointed at an oblique angle, her body forward, elbows resting on her thighs, her hands washing each other absently in invisible water. Occasionally she'd glance up and Pellam would smile in a way that screenwriters would describe as sympathetically concerned.

They'd waited for twenty minutes.

Keith arrived and as soon as he did, Pellam felt himself relax; he realized he'd been standing hunched forward, jaw tight. He watched the couple embrace. Keith nodded to him.

"What the hell happened?" husband asked wife.

Meg brushed aside her hair, which had come undone from the ponytail and was strewn across her face.

"We found him," she said and started sobbing again.

Pellam said, "Sam passed out and we couldn't revive him. The doctor's been in there since we got here. He hasn't said anything."

"Oh, Keith, he was so pale. It was terrible…"

With an anger they knew was not directed toward them Keith asked, "What happened? Did he fall? Is it a seizure?"

Meg wiped her face. "We just found him. Keith, it was so horrible. He was just lying there. It was like he didn't have any muscles. I tried to wake him up. He wouldn't wake up." She looked at Pellam with her trapped animal eyes, staring at him but undoubtedly seeing the horrific image of her son's pale skin against the autumn leaves. "He wouldn't wake up."

Keith looked like he wanted to hurt someone. It didn't seem to matter to him whether this'd been caused by another human being or an animal or some haywire connections in the boy's bloodstream. He wanted revenge.

Meg pressed her cheek against her husband's chest and didn't say anything. Slowly she calmed.

The doctor who resembled a vet, the one who'd tended Pellam, appeared and walked slowly down the corridor.

The man had such an expressive face that no words were necessary. There was no doubt about the boy's condition. Pellam remembered the way the man looked at him when he'd entered the room to tell him about Marty's death.

This was no tragedy.

The doctor's round jowly face zeroed in on Meg's eyes and he said, "He'll be okay."

Meg began crying again, quieter, but more desperately. "Can I see him?"

"Sure, Meg. In just a second."

Keith's anger vanished at once as if he were afraid prolonged hate might reverse the results. "What happened to him? Was it a seizure?"

"Keith, I need to ask this. Does Sam have any history of drug use?"

"Drug use?" The laugh was explosive.

Meg let go of her husband and turned to face the doctor. "He's ten years old, how could he-?"

"Drug use?" Keith repeated as if he hadn't heard correctly.

"What did-" she began.

The doctor said, "He overdosed on drugs."

With a blustery edge in her voice Meg said, "No! Not Sam."

"Oh, give me a fucking break," Keith growled. "Are you nuts?"

The doctor continued. "It's true, Keith. It looks like it was an opiate of some kind. Probably heroin."

Keith exploded. "Are you saying he was shooting up? That's the craziest, fucking thing-" Meg touched her husband's arm. He calmed. "I'm sorry. But you made a mistake."

"I'm as disturbed about this as you are…" The doctor lifted a small plastic envelope out of his pocket. Inside were tiny fragments of crystals. "These were in his mouth. It's extremely soluble. Which means he ingested much more than this." All three stared at the bag.

"It's a dextrose base-sugar-but it's mixed with something else. I don't know what exactly. A synthetic heroin of some kind. Stronger than Percodan. I've never seen anything like it."

"Somebody put heroin in candy and gave it to my son?" Keith whispered. He looked at Meg and said, almost accusingly, "Who was he with? Did you see anybody, weren't you watching him?"

Pellam bristled, felt defensive for Meg. "We were both with the boy. He'd run off every once in a while but we-"

"For God's sake, Keith, we were at the Apple Festival. I wasn't letting him wander around in the South Bronx-" He blinked. "I'm sorry, I just-" She took his hand.

The doctor said, "I've called Tom. I had to. Whatever this is it's a controlled substance and I've got to report it."

"Fucking right you're going to report it," Keith growled. "But I don't want a story in the Leader. I don't want it to sound like he was doing drugs."

"I won't say anything to the paper. But this's serious, Keith. I don't know-Tom may want to bring somebody from Albany in."

In a faint voice, Meg said, "Please let me see my son."

"Come on," the doctor said. He glanced at Pellam, then down at the leg where the bruise resided. "How you doing, sir?" he asked pleasantly but without particular interest.

"Fine."

The doctor put his arm around Meg and led her down the corridor. Keith said, "Excuse me," to Pellam and followed.

Pellam sat down in an aluminum-and-orange-naugahyde chair and looked at a month-old People magazine without reading a single word, or seeing a single picture.

An hour later, Sam walked unsteadily out of the room. Meg had her arm around him and Keith was trying to sound cheerful while he recited phrases like, "You're doing great, skipper" and "You're a tougher man than I." Sam would blink and look at his father as if he were speaking a foreign language.

"Hi, Mr Pellam," Sam said. His face brightened a little but there was hardly any color in it.

"How you feeling, son?"

"I got sick."

"You'll be fine in the morning."

"I don't feel too good."

"Well, get better soon. We've got to practice our football, remember?"

"Yeah."

Meg, Sam and Pellam stood together, silently, while Keith paid the bill with a check and took a prescription and instruction sheet from the doctor.

The door opened and the sheriff walked into the clinic.

"Meg, I just heard."

"Tom," she said, nodding toward him.

The sheriff looked stonily at Pellam for a long moment, then glanced down at Sam. "How you doing, young man?"

"Pretty okay, sir."

"Attaboy."

The doctor joined them, along with Keith. Meg told the sheriff about finding her son in the woods and the doctor explained about the drugs.

"What is it, you know?"

"I'm sending the sample to a lab in Poughkeepsie. I'll get you a copy of it. I think it's a heroin derivative."

The sheriff winced. "Yeah, guess I'll have to go to the NYBI."

"Second time we've had an overdose," the doctor pointed out. "That boy last year."

Tom nodded. "He was in high school. They're getting younger."

The sheriff looked down at Sam then said to Keith. "You mind if I talk to him just for a minute?"

Meg asked her son, "You mind, honey?"

"Uh-uh."

"Maybe just you, me and the boy?" Tom asked her.

Pellam and Keith took their cues and stepped outside.

The sheriff crouched next to a jaundiced potted bamboo palm, vainly reaching for a tiny, greasy window in the front door, the only source of natural light in the waiting room.

Meg was struggling to stay calm, struggling to concentrate. All she wanted to do was throw her arms around the boy.

The sheriff looked into the boy's eyes. "What happened, Sam? You remember?"

"I found this envelope. And there was some candy inside. I ate it."

"You ate it?"