4.
Once the magic “t” word was passed on to the police, it wasn’t long before two officers in uniform homed in on me like I was the door to their future careers. By then, Wolfgang was in surgery.
I followed the cops to a visitors’ room, but it didn’t take long for me to repeat my collection of “I don’t knows”. However, it was long enough for Nurse Matty to stick her head in with an update. “Sorry to bother you, Officers,” she said, “but the surgeon upstairs believes that the two abdominal wounds were done with different knives.”
The uniforms looked at each other. I said, “How do you tell something like that?”
“Think about an ordinary knife,” she said. “One side sharp, one side blunt.”
“Okay.”
“And think about it being pressed through skin. Once the point goes in, one side of the wound is cut by the sharp edge but the other is just rubbed by the blunt one. Maybe torn open a little, but not cut. The result is that the two ends of the wound look completely different under magnification.”
“Sounds reasonable,” I said.
“Apparently one of the blades that cut him had two sharp edges, whereas the other had only one. That’s what he says. He also says that he can’t be completely certain without doing an autopsy.”
I leaned forward.
“But he doesn’t think it’ll come to that,” she said. “Oh. And they found another cut. On his back. Not as deep. He didn’t say if he thinks it was done by one of the original two knives.” She left.
“She says there were three wounds, not two?” the smaller of the two cops asked.
I nodded. Poor ol’ Wolfgang.
The smaller cop crossed something out in his notebook and wrote a correction.
The larger cop just said, “What’s he expect?” He was a big guy who looked the age and size of a high-school lineman.
“What do you mean?” his colleague asked.
“He said it was terrorists,” the lineman said. “If he’s going to mess with terrorists...” He looked from his colleague to me, for support.
I said, “If someone is attacked by terrorists, they’re responsible?” I shook my head. “You’re saying the nine-eleven people were messing with terrorists?”
“I just said...” the lineman began. But he stopped.
His colleague smiled and shook his head slowly.
I said nothing more. And at least they had treated me as a witness rather than a suspect, probably because Nurse Matty had stressed that I stayed around after Wolfgang came in.
But with the patient in surgery and the uniforms unable to think of more questions for me not to know the answers to, I began to consider leaving. It was then that a southside detective, Imberlain, showed up. So I got to do it all again.
By which time Matty had a further update. The surgeons had found a fourth cut. They were now putting Wolfgang’s spleen and liver back together. I decided to leave, at least for the time being.
I’d followed the ambulance in my car, so I had wheels. But instead of using them to go back home, I went to Wolfgang’s house.
Wolfgang had showed up at my office about eleven-thirty. Now it was nearly four, and still raining. I didn’t know when he’d been attacked by the “terrorists” but he’d been away from home for many hours.
When I got there, though, it didn’t seem like the house was empty. Through the rain I could see some lights on inside. But not behind curtained windows. I could see them through the wide-open door.
I parked and went to the porch. It was then that I discovered the door wasn’t wide open after all. It had been pulled off its hinges.
5.
I had no idea what Wolfgang had been doing in the two months since I’d last seen him. Then, he was hale and hearty — not a single stab wound. He had talked optimistically about the future, wanting to create a project to help the people he described as society’s “invisibles.”
And when I’d last visited his house, the interior was immaculate. Wolfgang — though then he was LeBron — had converted the conventional interior into a large space. He’d done all the work himself, having trained as a carpenter. As well, he’d painted pictures and designs on the walls. There wasn’t much furniture when I’d been there, just what a half-alien gentleman would use when living on his own.
But now, coming through the open doorway, I saw pieces of furniture everywhere. Most seemed once to have come from beds, and there were also mattresses ripped open.
This was clearly a matter for the police, though none were on the scene.
Which left me with a decision to make. I ought to call Imberlain, who’d given me his card. But my impulse was to call my daughter. She was a cop just off her probationary year. Sam didn’t work Southeast but Wolfgang’s house wasn’t far from the southwest sector where she did work. And she, at least, was used to me. She wouldn’t ask me endless questions about why I’d gone to Wolfgang’s house instead of going home.
“Why did you call me, Daddy?”
“You’re a cop. This is a police matter.”
“Call nine-one-one.”
“It isn’t an emergency. The house isn’t on fire. The front door’s been ripped off its hinges. The owner’s in hospital with four stab wounds. There are a few lights on, but I don’t know if anyone’s inside. I didn’t want to go in without somebody knowing where I am and what I’m doing.”
“So naturally you called me.”
“My daughter, the cop. Naturally.” I said, “I’m not asking you to drop whatever you’re doing and rush out here, but would you stay on the phone while I go in?”
“You shouldn’t go in. It’s a crime scene. You should call the police.”
“I did call the police. And what if someone’s in there, and injured?”
“Call three-two-seven-three-eight-one-one. That’s the number for non-emergencies.”
“I’m going in.” I was already inside the front door, but dwelling on details would be pedantic.
“Call the number, Daddy.”
“Just hang on while I look around.”
“Daddy!”
Slowly I walked into the middle of the open room. The room was chaos. A large television set had been tipped off its mounting. DVDs were scattered over a whole corner. In the kitchen area, large pans were on the floor. More and larger pans than I would have thought a man living alone would have. Mind you, there were pieces from a lot of beds — I counted what looked like half a dozen without trying. How many people were sleeping here? Had Wolfgang set up an open-plan B&B?
“Daddy?”
“I’m here, honey. Just hang on.”
“I’m hanging up.”
“Please don’t do that.”
Given the beds, I was interested in what I didn’t see. Which was evidence of people — their bags, their clothes... Such things might be underneath the wreckage, but I saw nothing on top.
I made my way to the back door. That was still on its hinges but it swung loose in the bits of breeze that passed through the house.
I didn’t get it.
“Daddy, I’m hanging up.”
I was about to say okay and that she should get back to whatever or whomever she was doing when I heard a whimper.
“Hang on. I hear something. Or someone.”
“Who?”
“I’m looking.”
I followed the sound. I found its source in the bathroom. It was a child. “It’s a little boy.”
The kid looked up sharply. He had tear-stained eyes. “I’m a girl,” he said.
“I mean a little girl.”
“How old?” Sam asked.
“About... seven.”