Broken Realms (Broken Realms, #1)

CHAPTER 6-3

Fifteen minutes later, they pulled into the Blue Spruce Apartments, a winding set of three-story buildings with matte earth-tone siding and alternating exterior stairwells. Bohannon roamed through the maze of parking lots until he located Building E. Assuming apartment 2A would be on the left side of the building, they parked along a nearby curb marked Visitor in stenciled yellow letters and walked up the flight of stairs in front of the apartment they sought.

Suter knocked on the door. They could sense movement inside, a shift of light in the peephole, then a click of a dead bolt and the turn of a knob. A large haggard man of thirty going on fifty stood over them in the doorway, leaning on the frame.

“Are you the investigator that called?” he said.

“Yes. Are you Mark Bartkowski?” Suter asked.

“Yeah. Look, I don’t think she’s gonna be able to talk to you today. She’s a little wound up, and I can’t get her to settle down.”

“You mean your wife, Deborah?”

“Yeah, that’s who you wanted to talk to, right? She was the one on the plane.”

“It would help a great deal if we could talk to her.”

“Look,” he said, stepping out on the landing, closing the door behind him. “Since she got back Monday, after the crash, she’s been a little off. I think the whole experience freaked her out. She’s been eating nonstop, and I mean nonstop. We’ve made three trips to the grocery store this week, filled up the trunk of the car with stuff each time. Also she doesn’t sleep or slow down. She’s always moving, walking, jumping, pounding, breaking things, crawling all over the place. She hasn’t slept since the crash. She’s as strong as an ox too. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Maybe she’s suffering from post-traumatic stress,” Suter said.

“I’ve tried to get her to go to a doctor, but she says nothing’s wrong. When I tried to get her to sit down for a minute, she threw me into the kitchen. Physically lifted me into the air. I weigh like three-twenty, and she tossed me more than twenty feet. You can see the dent in the fridge where I landed,” he said, pulling his T-shirt neckline sideways to reveal a dark bruise on his shoulder and chest.

“Why don’t you let us come in for just a minute? Maybe we can figure out a way to get you some help. Maybe family services or a local clinic could send someone over to take a look?”

“Just a minute.” Looking doubtful and put out, he went back into the apartment, shutting the door behind him.

Suter turned to Bohannon. “Is there some kind of social or mental health services we can get out here? That guy looks like he’s been put through hell.”

“The county or city probably has something, but they aren’t likely to make house calls. It’s more likely the Gresham P.D. would come out here on a domestic abuse call and then take her to be evaluated,” Bohannon said.

“Come in,” said someone from behind the door.

Bohannon looked at Suter, shrugged and pushed open the door. They stepped into a small living room. A well-worn couch and two recliners stood askew from walls adorned with crooked pictures knocked off-kilter by something that left deep gouges in the drywall. Claw marks. Shards of a glass coffee table were heaped into a corner. Books and CDs stacked on their sides teetered precariously on a bookshelf that appeared to have been haphazardly picked up. The television threatened to slide off its damaged stand. Tuffs of shredded carpet littered the floor.

Debbie Bartkowski, a two-hundred-fifty-pound blonde in a flower-print housedress, stood smiling in the hallway off to the side of the room. She raised a two-liter bottle of cola in a toast and took a swig. Her eyes went wide, and she belched, a drawn-out affair that lasted fifteen seconds.

Her husband cringed. “Deb, come sit with us for a minute.” He motioned for Suter and Bohannon to take the recliners.

“You guys are the investigators from the airport?” she said, moving to the couch.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m Special Agent Ethan Suter of the FBI, and this is Detective Daniel Bohannon from the Portland Police Department. We’re working with the Flight 559 investigation team. Can we ask you some questions? We’ll try not to take too long.”

“Just one minute. Mark, can you get me those cookies on the counter in the kitchen. I’m starving,” Debbie said, waving to the back of the apartment.

“There aren’t any cookies. You ate those about an hour ago,” he said.

“Well, get me some other cookies,” she said. Her face reddened, and her eyes bulged.

“Honey, there are no more cookies. We’ll get some in a little while after you talk to these gentlemen.” He leaned away from her, almost cringing.

“I’m damn well not going to sit here and starve to death,” she screamed, her complexion deepening, veins protruding on her neck and forehead, her breath coming in rasping pants. She jumped to her feet, held her head down like a bull ready to charge. “I’ll go get them myself.”

She bolted for the front door. Mark Bartkowski ran out of the apartment after her. Bohannon and Suter looked at each other, not sure what to do.

“We’re not going to get anything here,” Suter said. “Let’s go see if we can help and then move onto the next passenger. She’s obviously not in a state to provide any reliable information.”

“Agreed,” Bohannon said.

From the landing outside, they saw Mark Bartkowski in the parking lot trying to coax his wife back inside. As the investigators descended the stairs, Debbie Bartkowski wailed, demanding the car keys.

“I’m not letting you drive like this. You’ll kill yourself or someone else,” he said, reaching for her arm.

“No!” she yelled, dodging him.

She sprinted toward the apartment building, cutting across the lawn, heading directly to the side of the building instead of taking the sidewalk toward the stairs leading to her home. Considering her size, Bohannon was amazed at her agility. He cringed and prepared to look away as the woman sped toward the wall, picking up enough speed that she blurred. He began to jog toward the inevitable crash, then stopped.

Debbie Bartkowski reached the wall and went up it. Without pausing, the portly woman, using both hands and feet, crab-walked up the side of the building, leaving a trail of scratches and gouges while kicking up a cloud of dust in her wake. Upon reaching the second-story windows, her toes pried loose a plank of siding. She kicked it aside, sending it flipping in the air toward the parking lot. Seconds later, she stopped above the third-story windows, below the eaves.

“Lord, have mercy,” Bohannon said under his breath.

On the ground, her husband looked up wide-eyed, his mouth hanging open.

Debbie grabbed the edge of the roof with both hands and pushed off the side of the building with her feet, flipping her body onto the top of the apartment building. Her flowery housedress flapped in the wind as she straightened, holding her hands to her side like a gymnast completing a successful dismount.

Her husband cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Honey, please come down from there. We’ll go get something to eat.”

She turned and sprinted along the roofline.

“We need to call the Gresham P.D. and get some help out here,” Bohannon said. He glanced at Suter. He had his gun drawn, tracking the woman on the roof.

“Are you insane?” Bohannon hissed. He reached over and pulled down Suter’s arm. “You can’t shoot an unarmed woman, no matter how crazy she is.”

“She’s going to hurt someone. Someone that strong and unstable should not be running around loose,” he said. His neck twitched several times, jerking his head to the side. A bead of sweat ran along a vein that had popped out on his forehead.

“Put that away,” Bohannon said.

“She’s going to jump!” Mark pointed as his wife launched herself into the air.

Her trajectory took her toward a road that paralleled the building. Her husband turned away, covered his eyes. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.”

She held her arms up high, glided seemingly in slow motion, in a controlled and smooth arc.

“God almighty,” Bohannon said.

Debbie’s dress rippled and flapped in the turbulence. The hem caught on a bent knee preventing it from flying over her waist. Her hair waved in the wind, forming a contrail behind her head. In achingly slow motion, her momentum waned, and gravity reasserted itself. She lowered her arms like a plane extending its flaps and pointed the toes of her right foot outward as she alighted on the roof of a parked service van.

It collapsed with a resounding crash, rocking onto its passenger-side tires, threatening to roll over the curb, but settled back down on the street with a second crash. The flattened vehicle swayed on its springs.

The men ran toward the van to help. Debbie, unfazed, vaulted out of the metal crater she had created and sprinted from the apartment complex.