“Tell him to stop by when he’s done.”
Murton began a rundown on Holman’s previous visits to my room when I had been unconscious, and I interrupted him again. “I appreciate it. I’ll be awake this time.” I hung up the phone. Perrone took it and set it on the nightstand.
“You’re looking better,” he said.
“That’s because I’m not taking any more of those damn pills,” I said. “The ones that make little white rabbits run up and down the walls. The ones that turn my brain to old Jell-o.”
Perrone smiled faintly. “We’re keeping the medication down to a minimum. You need to take what we prescribe.”
“I do?”
“If you want to avoid complications, you do. Yes.”
“Doc,” I said wearily, “I got so damn many complications I don’t know which one to ignore first. All I want from you is as much help at getting out of this bed as possible.”
“I have no argument with that. But my advice is to let your department worry about the work load. There’s nothing you can do about it here, anyway. I’m sure you have competent officers.”
“It’s not that simple, Doc.”
“I think it is. If I became ill, I would expect another physician to look after my patients. I don’t know the details of this particular case, and to tell the truth, I don’t think I want to. I read the newspapers”-he indicated the one folded on the bed. “And as you know, the morgue and pathology lab are in this very building. So I have an idea of what’s happening. I don’t see that there’s much you can do about it all from this bed. My job is to get you out of bed as quickly as possible. Your job right now is to help me do that.”
“What’s your proposed schedule?” I asked, still unwilling to give in completely.
“We want to run some tests. We need to know what your vital capacities are.” He paused. “If there is an arterial insufficiency that warrants it, surgery might be indicated.”
“What kind of surgery are you talking about? Bypass?” I asked, and Perrone nodded. I looked at Gonzales and said, “My impression is that you’ve already made up your minds about that.”
Perrone laughed. “We’re quite sure, yes. But we want confirmation.”
“And what’s the recovery time for surgery like that? Ten days? Two weeks?”
“In that neighborhood.”
I frowned and looked out the window. “The timing of this shit is not spectacular,” I said.
“It never is.”
“And if I put it off?”
Perrone held up his hands. “I flunked Crystal Ball one-oh-one.”
“I don’t have the time to lie around here, Doc.”
Perrone shoved his hands into his pockets. “Sheriff-let me put it to you this way. One of the most accurate ways to find out what went wrong in a body is to do a postmortem.” He hesitated and let that sink in. “I really don’t want to do an autopsy on you. I really don’t. So you’re going to have to trust me a little. And trust my schedule.”
Estelle Reyes appeared silently in the doorway. “Come on in,” I said. “The docs are trying to figure out where and when to stick the knife.”
Estelle stepped into the room, nodded at the two physicians and leaned her large briefcase against a chair back. She could have been a real estate saleswoman.
Perrone put a hand on Estelle’s shoulder. “Maybe you can convince your boss that there are other police officers in the world. Your case won’t fall apart if he takes it easy for a while and lets us do our work.”
She looked at me with those big, quiet eyes. “If things have to wait, they have to wait,” she said softly. She turned to Perrone and the doctor dropped his hand. When she spoke next, her voice sounded as if it came from an emotionless dictaphone. “It’s just that with Undersheriff Gastner being a material witness and all, there are some formalities that we’ll be observing here. I’ll do what I can to make the interruptions of your routine as minimal as possible.”
“We appreciate that,” Perrone said, obviously a little puzzled. He folded his stethoscope and added, “It would help if you kept your visits as short as possible.”
The doctors left the room, and I took a deep breath. “Estelle, I think they’re trying to make an example out of me, or some such crap. I want out of here.” I swung my legs over the side of the bed and took a deep breath. I felt pretty good. “I’ve read where patients did fine until they went into the hospital…then they croaked. Hand me that robe.” Estelle fetched the terry-cloth robe, and I put it on.
“What do you plan to do?” she asked.
“You’re driving me home,” I said. She frowned, and I lifted a hand. “Don’t you start.”
“If you’re sure that’s what you want,” Estelle said.
“That’s what I want. And what did you find out? You got anything?”
“I’ve got lots of goodies,” she said, and smiled thinly.
“Then we’ll spread things out on my kitchen table, and take our time over a decent cup of coffee.” I rubbed my hands. “God, that’s going to taste good. You wouldn’t believe the crap they serve here.” I walked to the closet-maybe a little more shakily than I would have liked-and found most of my clothes.
“Where’s my gun belt?”
“Sheriff Holman took it. He didn’t want it in the hospital.”
“Good God. All that’s going on, and he worries about things like that. You guard the door. I’m going to get dressed.”
Estelle discreetly watched the traffic outside while I fumbled with my clothes. My brain was fuzzy, and I felt as if I’d had a bad case of the flu, rubber joints and all. But I could move, and the cool, dark corners of my own home seemed more therapeutic than this white-walled cell. When I glanced at myself in the mirror, I damned near scared myself back into bed. Dark under the eyes, baggy wattles under my chin-hell, 122 years old at the least. “Did you hear anything from the lab in Santa Fe?”
“Sure did.”
My pulse picked up at that. “Anything interesting?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then let’s get out of here.” I stood up and took a deep breath. “Where did you park?”
Estelle pointed out through the window. “Way over there.”
“Then hightail it out there, and swing by the front door. Let’s not give them time to call the cops.”
As it turned out, I didn’t get the satisfaction of confronting anybody. The gal at the information desk gave me a quizzical look, but that was it. I was out. And the air smelled good. And the suspense of waiting to find out what Estelle Reyes had dug up was the best medicine in the world.
I climbed into the Ford, and we shot out of the parking lot like two volunteer firemen.
Chapter 22
We were still a mile from Escondido Lane when I saw the helicopter in the distance, its blades flashing in the sun. I could tell it was a Jet Ranger, and it was headed up the mesa toward Consolidated.
“State cops?” I asked, pointing.
Estelle shook her head. “Television. And we’re going to have to be careful on that score. A couple of news units have moved in. Even one of the big papers from Albuquerque. A wire-service guy tried to pump Holman today at the office.” She smiled wryly. “It’s the first time I ever saw him squirm and try to dodge publicity. And Channel Three flew in late yesterday.”
“Just what we need. The sheriff hasn’t said anything about bringing in other agencies on this?”
“No, sir. In fact, late yesterday, he stopped me as I was leaving the office and told me that all he wanted from me was progress…not to worry about what other people thought. He told me to leave the public relations to him.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Good for him. And he’s going to have his hands full. I gathered from the newspaper that not too many people are accepting the suicide angle.”
“The natural tendency is to link it all together,” she said. “There’s a lot of talk on the street, and none of it is suicide, as far as the Salinger death is concerned.”
“And so what are the city news hounds playing? The ‘small town reels under big-city problems’ angle? The ‘once pastoral village goes to shit’ story?”