Page 12 of Holmes, Margaret and Poe

“Okay, okay,” Davis said, pushing the cat off his chest. “I’m awake.”

He tried to sit up. His stomach lurched and soured. His head felt like it had indeed exploded.

The pain turned throbbing and searing. Captain Davis floppedback, panting, disgusted to find his pillowcase clammy and sweat-soaked. His eyes felt like they’d been parboiled.What the hell did I do to myself this time? I hope I didn’t get behind the wheel.

Meow,Johnny Unitas protested.Meow. Meow.

The cat’s aggressive voice felt like a saw going in one ear and out the other. Davis pushed off the blankets and sat upright.

He immediately regretted that. The turbulence in his gut turned violent.

Davis lurched to his feet, threw his hand out against the wall to steady himself, then took hurried and wobbly steps across the large master bedroom into a well-appointed bathroom. There he went to his knees and defiled the porcelain throne. The retching went on so long and the aftertaste was so vile he thought that he must have been poisoned.

What the hell did I eat last night?Captain Davis wondered as the dry heaves faded.

Meow. Meow. Meow!

He shut the bathroom door to keep the cat out and managed to get up off his knees and over to the counter, which he held on to with trembling hands. Davis forced himself to raise his head and look in the mirror.

The captain was forty-eight, but that morning he looked like he was pushing sixty. Though his body had retained some semblance of his old athletic form, his hair was thinning and going gray. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy, his skin sallow and waxen.

What did you do to yourself, dude?

Davis tried to recall the previous night and simply couldn’t. He remembered going up the steps and entering Bowman’s, his favorite sports bar, around noon, but nothing beyond that. A total blackout.

The captain filled the sink with cold water and plunged his face into it. That woke him for good. He knocked back four Motrin and two Tylenol and chased them down with two glasses of water, then donned a Baltimore Ravens bathrobe and opened the bathroom door.

Johnny Unitas was pacing in circles.

“What’s the matter? I left food for you yesterday. I know I did.”

The cat trotted out of the large master bedroom into the hallway. Davis was about to follow him when he happened to look over at his clock radio, which informed him that the time was 9:45 a.m. and the day of the week was Tuesday.

“Tuesday?” he muttered. He ignored the cat’s whines and looked around for his phone. Not seeing it, he picked up a pair of jeans from the floor and rifled through the pockets — empty.

Then he spotted a tan workman’s coverall and a Ravens hoodie crumpled on a chair in a corner. Davis liked to tinker with cars and had coveralls like that, but his were blue. And he had several Baltimore Ravens sweatshirts and hoodies, but that wasn’t one of them.

And yet when Davis reached into the pocket of the tan cover-all, he found his phone, the battery dead. And his wallet and car keys were in the hoodie’s pouch.

Meow!

The captain grabbed his charger from beside the bed, went into the hallway, and padded its long length toward Johnny Unitas, coiled at the top of the stairs and ready to bound down. Davis passed three closed doors, acutely and devastatingly aware of how empty his large house was. If he let loose a yell, he was sure it would echo. But the thought of raising his voice made him shudder. He held tight to the banister and went downthe stairs to a beautiful foyer with blue-gray slate tiles that always reminded him of Jenna’s eyes.

The gauzy image of her had barely begun to form in his sodden brain when the cat meowed and loped away. Davis shook off the memories and followed the cat through a formal dining room into a gourmet kitchen that was neatly arranged — no dishes in the sink, no pots on the red Aga stove. When he looked into the short hallway to the laundry and utility room, he saw Johnny Unitas sitting next to two empty bowls. No food. No water.

“I’m so sorry, Johnny,” he said, feeling guilty; he snatched up the bowls and hurried back into the kitchen with them. “You know that Daddy is Johnny’s best friend. Yes, he is.”

The cat wound through his legs, purring, as Davis poured fresh water and set it down. Johnny lapped it up while the captain got him dry food and a can of tuna.

As the cat gorged himself, Davis started the espresso machine. He made himself a triple shot, carried it to the kitchen table, and sat down. On the wall across from him were three picture frames. Two were empty; the third held a photo of a much younger Captain Davis wearing a flight suit and standing beside a U.S. Air Force F-14 Tomcat.

Waiting for the coffee to cool, he avoided looking at the empty frames and instead stared at his younger, brasher, more confident self, wondering where that man had gone.

“It’s Tuesday, Captain Davis,” he whispered hoarsely. “Where in God’s name have you been the past two days?”

CHAPTER 13

MY CELL PHONE BUZZEDand hummed, dragging me from a deep, dark, delicious sleep remarkably free of the nightmare scenes at Reagan National. I cracked my eyes open and looked at the clock radio.

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