Perez glanced over at the corpse, then back at Ricci.
“Yes,” he said. “Maybe outside.”
Ricci nodded again.
“One question,” he said. “Do you know if Palardy owned a computer? Ever notice a machine on his desk when you were doing repairs, or anything like that?”
Perez shrugged.
“Can’t remember. I come inside here maybe two, three times before today, that’s it,” he said. “Why you ask?”
Ricci grunted and shook his head.
“Just curious,” he said.
Ashley Gordian was alone with her husband. Such a basic thing. So fundamental. A woman and the man she loved, the man with whom she’d shared a thousand intimacies, together. But she’d had to battle a small army of doctors, plow through their unanimous objections, to make it happen. She understood their reasons, of course. Their fiduciary responsibilities, their obligation to prevent the transference of his infection, their genuine concern for her welfare. And she’d agreed to abide by their restrictions when they finally relented and allowed her into the room into which Roger had been moved, a room in isolation from the rest of the hospital… what she’d overheard one of them refer to as a “warm zone.” She had put on protective attire. Let herself be wrapped from head to toe. A cap, mask, and gloves. A smock over her outer clothes. Booties over her shoes. There could be no part of her that was left exposed. No direct contact with him for the fifteen minutes they’d reluctantly given her. Her flesh could not touch his flesh.
Married three decades, and their flesh could not touch.
She looked down at his unconscious form, a large, fit man rendered so fragile in so incredibly short a time, tubes running into his nose from a mechanical ventilator, the pressurized air flowing into his lungs to keep them open, to force oxygen into them, prevent them from drowning in this body’s own fluids as he lay there, unable to breathe for himself.
She looked down at him now, looked down at him and wanted more than anything to remove the gloves from her hands, tear them off and soothe his brow, and knew she couldn‘t, couldn’t peel away the layers of plastic and rubber and synthetic fabric separating them.
But their hearts…
She inhaled through her mask and stepped closer to the bed.
Their hearts, she thought, would not be unjoined.
“Gord,” she said. “It’s me… Ashley…”
She heard the tremor in her voice and paused to control it. Come on, you can do better. Be strong. For him.
“I know I look like a wrapped piece of fish, but trust me, I dressed up for you,” she said. “I’m wearing that blouse you always compliment, the blue silk one, underneath this miserable smock.”
His eyes remained closed. He did not move. The ventilator pumped breath into him.
“Hannah’s flying in from Connecticut today. I think she’s tired of Julia being the daughter who gets all your attention. Brian, he’s going to stay home from work to take care of the kids while she’s here. You should have trusted me all those years ago when I said he’d make good husband material….”
She brushed her gloved fingertips lightly over his cheek, a sterile contact that was the closest she could come to feeling him.
The ventilator pumped.
“The doctors, they’re really hustling to make you well, and trying to be nice to me in their doctorly way,” she said. “This morning I was introduced to a specialist… Eric Oh. He’s looking into your case, running tests, and thinks he might have an idea what’s wrong with you. He was asking me whether you might have come into contact with rodents lately, of all things. And you know, there I am, worried sick about you, listening to his questions, wanting to do anything I can to help, and all of a sudden I get this crazy urge to lay into him for insinuating we don’t keep a clean house.”
Another pause.
“Well, I managed to calm myself without saying anything I’d live to regret, and decided it’s possible some field mice could have nested in our basement… or even been in Julia’s yard when you were working on the dog corral. So now they’re sending teams out to look around both our properties for droppings, I think they said.” She shrugged. “Mouse shit, honey, in my kitchen. Can you believe it? Maybe I should have cracked that doctor one, huh?”
He did not move.
Not a flicker under his eyelids.
She listened to the ventilator pump.
“Oh, some good news,” she said. Strong, strong. “Everybody’s starting to talk Super Bowl for the Packers. I’ve been hearing it all week on the news. They’re playing at home Sunday, I think it’s that team from Florida you always gripe about. The weather’s been so cold in Wisconsin, they already have snow on the ground, and I know you say that gives your boys the advantage over the competition, that they can take a little nip in the air….”
She felt a sob well suddenly into her throat and clenched her teeth against it. Pushing it back down inside her. Banishing it.
“Anyway, back at the ranch, Megan and Pete and the crew are doing some sleuthing of their own. Trying to see if they can find somebody who might have passed you the bug. You know how they are, wanting to make everything right. I swear, they’d go to war with the universe for you. And I know Pete would turn red in the face if he ever heard me say this… Vince, too… oh God, especially Vince… but I think they love you almost as much as I do. Really love you, Gord.”
She became aware of movement behind her, turned to look over her shoulder.
A nurse. Signaling her from just inside the door.
Ashley nodded, held up a finger.
The nurse returned the nod and withdrew.
Ashley leaned forward over the bed.
“I’m getting the hook,” she said in a quiet voice. “They only give me a few minutes at a time. The doctors, that is. You know how they are. So before I forget to give you the best news… aside from the football predictions, naturally… before I forget, I want to announce that I’ve decided to lift the ban on flavored coffee. It’s over. Finished. As of today. When you get out of here, it’s hazelnut, French vanilla, mocha java… whatever you want. So you hang in there, okay? You hang in.”
Ashley wiped her eyes with the back of her arm, breathed, heard the ventilator breathe for her husband.
Then she became aware of the nurse at the door again.
In silence, she touched a rubber glove to her heart, gently touched it to his heart, and straightened.
They can’t be unjoined, she thought.
And slowly pulled herself away from him and turned to leave the room.
NINETEEN
Phil Hernandez, the chief countersnoop, was snagged to lead Nimec and Ricci into Palardy’s office minutes after Ricci returned from Sunnydale. Ashley Gordian had called with word of her husband’s rapid downturn and isolation, and the two Sword ops couldn’t afford to lose any time.
“You know anybody who fraternized with Palardy?” Nimec asked Hernandez. “Buddies from work, outside contacts, girlfriends…?”
Hernandez shook his head. He was a tautly built man in his late forties with graying hair, skin the color of sun-baked ocher, and intelligent brown eyes.
“Don kept to himself,” he said. “Didn’t even mention he used to be married till I noticed that snapshot over there and asked him about it.” He tipped his head toward a small picture frame on Palardy’s desk. The photo showed a plump woman with a nice face and lively smile crouched on a beach blanket with two small children. A boy and girl who might have been twins and were certainly very close in age. “Don told me he was divorced a few years ago. Wife took custody of the kids. I think she lives somewhere back East.” Another shake of his head, this time accompanied by a sigh. “Jesus, I suppose I’d better see if I can get her address from personnel, somebody’s got to notify his family.”