Frank was late.
7
THE PLACE WAS PACKED and humming with the tension of people who only have forty-five minutes left for lunch. I was just getting fidgety again when Sam walked back, and told me I had a phone call.
We hurried our way through the tables into the hot and steamy kitchen, where Roselynn waved to me from a counter where she was cutting fresh vegetables. Sam handed the receiver to me.
“Frank?”
“Irene? They found Kenny. Somebody’s worked him over pretty good. I’m at St. Anne’s Hospital. Can you meet me here? If not, I’ll meet you later at Lydia’s.”
I told Frank I would meet him in the ER waiting room and hung up. When I turned around, Sam was holding a white grocery-store bag with two Styrofoam containers in it.
“You’ve got to have lunch. Lucky for me, you always order the same thing every time.”
I couldn’t turn him down, and when he adamantly refused payment, I promised to bring Frank in to meet him someday soon.
St. Anne’s is in downtown Las Piernas, not far from the old Wrigley Building, the gargoyle roost that houses the Express. It’s run by the Sisters of Mercy. Like the Wrigley Building, one part of St. Anne’s was built in the late 1920s, but some Las Piernas millionaire that no one had ever heard of before died and left a large part of his fortune to the place, so they had added new wings. They were not only very up-to-date in facilities and equipment, but they were known as one of the best trauma centers in the area. That and the nun factor gave it a good reputation. It also made its emergency room one of the busiest for miles around.
Despite traffic and my tendency to check the rearview mirror a lot, I got to St. Anne’s fairly quickly. Frank was standing outside the ER entrance, waiting for me.
“Hi,” he said, when I got nearer. “They’re working on him, not much we can learn right now. Your sister’s in there, too. She found him. My partner, Pete Baird, was two steps behind her and was able to radio for help or I don’t think Kenny would have made it. Still not sure he will. Whoever it was really beat the living hell out of him.”
“How’s Barbara?” I asked, anxious to find her.
“Your sister has seen something that would be pretty disturbing to anybody. It’s even worse when somebody you care about gets messed up like this. The doctor gave her a sedative; she was…well, she was really upset. Had a little difficulty getting her to leave the ER so they could work on Kenny.” He paused and asked, “What’s in the bag?”
“Lunch,” I said, feeling more than a little bit foolish. “I didn’t want to leave it in the car. It’s a gift of the restaurant owner, who was a great fan of O’Connor’s. He insisted.”
“Sorry about keeping you waiting there. You know how it is. Why don’t you try to coax your sister into coming outside? I’d like to ask her some questions, and I think it would be easier if we were away from all the other people in the waiting room.”
I handed him the bag and went into the waiting room. There wasn’t the crowd that would be there on a Friday or Saturday night, but every chair was taken. Barbara was leaning against a wall near a doorway, twisting a Kleenex to shreds. She looked up at me and I could see she had been crying hard. Fresh tears started as I approached. I put my arms around her. She leaned on my shoulder and I felt her heaving with quiet sobs. I heard myself softly comforting her with the same singsong-“shh, shh, shh”-sound our mother used to make as she held us when we cried as children. I reached into my purse and brought out a fresh packet of Kleenex. She nodded her thanks and straightened up and blew her nose.
“Let’s go outside for a minute, Barbara. There’s someone who needs to talk to you out there.”
“I…can’t…leave…him,” she said, sharp breaths between each word.
I put my arm around her and walked her over to an elderly nun who was at the admitting counter.
“Excuse me, Sister?”
“Yes?” She had gentle, knowing eyes that took in the situation in a glance.
“This is Mrs. Kenneth O’Connor, whose husband was just admitted a little while ago. I’m her sister and I’d like to take her out to the courtyard for a while. Would it be possible to have someone let her know when her husband comes out of the emergency room?”
“Of course,” she said, smiling gently at Barbara. “I promise to come out there myself just as soon as there’s word on his condition. I’m Sister Theresa. Just ask for me if you need anything.”
The Sisters of Mercy had lived up to their name.
Barbara allowed me to lead her out into the courtyard, but as we got to the double glass doors, she stopped me.
“You shouldn’t have lied to that nun.”
“I didn’t lie to that nun.”
“Yes, you did. You told her I was Mrs. Kenneth O’Connor.”
“In the eyes of the Church, you still are.”
It made me feel good that she’d hassle me over anything; it was a sign she was capable of being distracted, however momentarily, from the problems at hand. And here I was, leading her out to talk with a cop who would make her rehash it all. I could feel her tense up when she saw Frank. She stared down at the ground the rest of the way over to the concrete table and bench where he sat waiting for us. As we approached, he stood up and said, “Mrs. O’Connor, we haven’t really been introduced. I’m Frank Harriman.”
Barbara nodded her head without making any eye contact.
“I know. You’re Irene’s detective.”
I made a sign to Frank not to pursue it for a moment.
“Why don’t we sit down for a while?” he said. “Are you hungry? Your sister has brought some lunch.”
She looked up and glared at me. “You went out and bought lunch before coming here?”
“No, Barbara,” I said, wondering when the sedative was going to kick in. “I was at a restaurant when Detective Harriman-Frank-was kind enough to call and let me know you needed me.” Not the exact truth, but she didn’t seem to question it-or how Frank would know I was at a particular restaurant. In any case, this story of Frank’s searching for her sister for her at least got her to look up at his face.
“That was very kind of you,” she said to Frank.
“No problem.”
No one was going to make a move toward the food. Frank was the only possible candidate for an appetite at that moment, and he wasn’t diving in.
The courtyard was private and serene. It was bordered by carefully tended beds of bright-colored flowers and tall trees. A hedge with an opening into a walkway to the front entrance shielded the yard from the parking lot. We sat there listening to birds and smelling the now chilled satay and pad Thai.
Barbara seemed to be growing calmer. Frank asked me if he had ever told me the story of the time he was called out to rescue a lady who was stuck in a dog door. I said no.
“It was out in Bakersfield, oh, about midnight one night. The owner of the house was this lady’s former boyfriend. He had tried to break up with her for two weeks. She refused to let go, as they say, and on four other occasions within these two weeks she had shown up drunk on his doorstep. He’d open the door and she’d try to shove her way in, calling him every name in the book, then crying on his shoulder and telling him she couldn’t live without him. At first he felt so guilty about hurting her that he put up with it. But this particular night he just got tired of it, so he didn’t open the door. She went around back.”
“And tried to get in through the dog door?”
“Right. And, well, let’s just say she was a little more fully developed than the dog. The guy only had a beagle. Anyway, she was stuck between her hips and bra-line.”
He looked over to see if this was offensive to Barbara, but to my amazement she was sitting there with a little grin on her face.
“How’d you get her out?” I asked.
“Well, by the time I got there, she’d sobered up quite a bit, and felt more than a little embarrassed. I asked the guy if he had any mineral oil or petroleum jelly and a sheet. He brought in a bottle of baby oil and a sheet. I told her I’d need her to take off her blouse, and we’d put the sheet over her for the sake of modesty. She said she was past worrying about modesty, her back and knees were killing her and would we please hurry up and get her the hell out of the dog door.