I heard footsteps in the darkness and gave a start.
“Ms. Kelly.”
I sighed in relief. “You scared the hell out of me, Dr. Sheridan.”
“Oh.” He paused. “I’m sorry.”
It must have nearly killed him to say it.
He came a little closer. “Ms. Kelly, you’re married to a homicide detective, right?”
“Yes. Frank Harriman. He’s with the Las Piernas P.D.”
“Then I suppose you understand . . . I suppose you’ve heard him tell stories or make jokes about things . . .”
“Dr. Sheridan, I’ve not only heard him make this sort of joke, I’ve joked with him. If you think I’ll misjudge what’s happening around that campfire, you misjudge me. But, come to think of it, that seems to be a specialty of yours.”
There was a long silence.
“They’re just releasing tension,” I said. “I know that. Under the circumstances, it’s probably one of the healthiest things they could do.”
“Yes,” he said quietly.
“I know you think that I’m one of a species other than your own — one of an unfeeling life form that crawled out of the sea a little later than the one that became forensic anthropologists — but miraculously, maybe sometime during the Paleozoic Age, reporters developed a sense of humor, too. Someday I’ll have to sneak you into a newsroom, Ben Sheridan, so that you can hear our own brand of sick humor. We’re getting pretty good at it; you should hear how quickly the jokes start whenever a particularly shocking story comes over the wire. And it works almost as well as it’s working over by that campfire.”
“Well, yes, I just—”
“You just thought I might write that these guys didn’t show proper respect for Julia Sayre. Just thought I wouldn’t understand that this really has nothing to do with her — that I lie in wait for anyone in this group to make a mistake or betray a little human weakness so that I can trumpet it to the world. That I don’t understand the horror and the strain of . . .” I suddenly felt that horror, that strain, and stopped talking.
He didn’t speak or move.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lecture you,” I said. “And I owe you my thanks.”
“For what?” he asked, and I could hear the surprise.
“At the grave, when I — I kind of lost it there for a little while. I hadn’t expected to see — what I saw.”
“Your reaction was understandable, Ms. Kelly. And you don’t owe me thanks — I owe you another apology. It was cruel of me to ask you to help.”
“I’m not unwilling to help,” I said. “I just wasn’t ready for . . .”
“No one ever is,” he said. “No one.”
He started to walk off, then said, “David will want to keep Bingle with him tonight. Will you be all right?”
“Yes.”
He looked up at the sky. “Better put the rainfly on your tent.”
13
WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 17
Las Piernas
When Frank arrived at Phil Newly’s hospital room, he found the lawyer looking disconcerted.
“Bad news about the foot, Mr. Newly?” he asked as he walked in.
Newly was frowning, but when he recognized Frank, he smiled broadly at him. Not exactly the reception Frank had expected. Outside of testifying against a couple of his clients, Frank had never spoken to Newly. There had been nothing personal, Frank knew, in Newly’s attempts to discredit his testimony on those occasions. Newly was better than most on cross-examination, but his efforts against Frank’s testimony had been unsuccessful. Each man had just been doing his job. He hoped Newly thought of it that way, too.
“Detective Harriman!” Newly said. “You cost me the Beringer case, and one other, as I recall.” He didn’t seem especially bothered by it. “You’re also Irene Kelly’s husband, right?”
“Yes, I am. That’s why I’m here. I’m hoping you can tell me how she’s doing.”
There was the slightest hesitation before Newly said, “Fine. She’s fine — at least, she was when I left the group. Listen, Frank — may I call you Frank?”
He was surprised, but said, “Sure.”
“Great. And please call me Phil.” He smiled again, this time in a way that Frank was sure was calculated to be disarming. “Now that we’re on such friendly terms,” Newly went on, “may I ask a favor of you?”
“Nothing that will cause me to be busted down to traffic division?” Frank asked warily.
“No, nothing like that. I just need a ride home.”
“You’re going home already?”
“Yes, they only kept me overnight for observation. If I weren’t a lawyer, they probably would have sent me home yesterday. Always afraid we’ll sue, I suppose. Anyway, I’ll have to wear this cast for a while, but there’s no reason for me to take up a hospital bed.”
He figured giving Newly a ride home would allow him the time he needed to talk to him, so he said, “Okay.”
“Great! And — if you don’t mind — my clothes — in the backpack there? Would you mind handing that to me?”
He supposed that Newly was probably perfectly capable of getting it himself, but he humored him.
The lawyer began emptying the pack out on the bed, which was soon covered with a camp stove, a cooking set, a flashlight, a poncho, a water bottle, matches, a roll of toilet paper, and all sorts of other gear, including an impressive array of clothing. It must have killed him to march around in the mountains with all of that on his back, Frank thought, making an effort to control his amusement.
Newly smiled up from the middle of the mess he had made. He held a pair of jeans in his hands. “Would you mind taking these to the nurses’ station and asking them to cut off the bottom half of this pant leg? The left one. Otherwise, I’ll never get these on over the cast. I’ll start getting dressed while you do that.”
Suppressing a desire to tell him what he could do with his pant leg, remembering that he needed the lawyer’s help, Frank said, “All right.”
“So your friend thinks I’m a tailor,” the nurse said, but took the jeans from Frank. She was a young, slender redhead — a woman with an air of self-possession that he thought must serve her well in this job.
“Don’t feel so sorry for yourself,” he answered, which made her look up at him. “He thinks I’m his chauffeur and valet — but he knows he’s not my friend.”
She held her head to one side, studying him, and smiled. “No, I don’t suppose you are his friend. What puts you in charge of his pants — dare I ask?”
“Just trying to get him out of here. I’m giving him a ride home.”
“Thank you! We can’t wait for that pain in the ass to leave.”
“I can understand that,” he said, smiling back at her.
She glanced at his left hand, saw the ring, and went back to cutting the pants.
He did his best to repack the backpack while Newly finished dressing. He had just fit the cookset in when he came across something that, at first glance, he thought was a cellular phone — but he quickly realized it couldn’t be.
“Is this a GPS receiver?” he asked.
Newly looked up from his efforts to put a sock on his right foot — although not broken or in a cast, it was badly blistered. Seeing it, Frank didn’t feel so bad about fetching the backpack.
“Yes,” Newly answered, holding out a hand. “Here — I’ll show you how it works.”
He spent a few minutes proudly demonstrating the unit, then asked Frank to help him put one of his hiking boots — the only shoes he had with him — on his tender right foot.
The nurse Frank had met earlier brought a wheelchair in and offered to escort them down to the hospital lobby.
“Everybody knows that you don’t let patients leave without wheeling them out of here,” Newly said.
“Undoubtedly thanks to people in your profession,” she said.