“So she ran through the opening in the wall and shot Lindsey. Why?”
I thought about that and told her she knew Lindsey was my wife. And Lindsey was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Hmm.” She closed the pad again. Her voice shifted cadence and what came next almost sounded like an afterthought.
“Lindsey lost her sister in a shooting.”
“Robin.” I stared at the wall texture.
“And the woman who murdered Robin is doing life now because you happened to be driving down Maryland Avenue a few days later and identified her…”
I knew and she strongly suspected that was only part of the truth.
Vare didn’t know that I had been about to execute the woman who killed Robin when my cell phone rang, the screen had said “Lindsey,” and the few better angels I had left by that time stopped me.
Some days I still regretted letting her live. On those days, days like today, I was on the knife’s edge, justice had not been done and I sure as hell was not noble.
Robin. And now Lindsey…
Vare leaned in and whispered, “The women in your life have bad luck, huh?”
It took every bit of self-control to not leap over and strangle her.
I said, “I want my wife to have protection, twenty-four hours…”
“I already told you.” She rose and started to leave. But after two steps she turned and came back, stabbing her index finger in my chest, right about where the bullet entered Lindsey. “Stay the hell out of my investigation, Mapstone. If I find you using that badge to play vengeful husband, I swear to God, I’ll ram my fist so far up your ass, I’ll make you pay for breathing.”
She stomped away. She weighed a hundred pounds wet but she was a good stomper.
My anger breached the levees and I yelled after her, “Then find who did this, Kate…” But she was already in the hall and gone.
I touched the point of pain she had left on my sternum and thought of Lindsey.
I looked up and Vare was standing over me.
She cleared her throat and spoke slowly. “I’m sorry, Mapstone.”
I started to say, “Don’t worry about it,” but she talked over the first syllable.
“It was uncalled for. Look, I’ve got a new boss. He talks a good corporate game but I don’t think he’s ever gotten his handcuffs dirty. City Council wants to cut our pay and take away our pensions. It’s shitty all over. All I’m asking is, don’t make my job harder.”
When she had wound down, I nodded. “Fair enough.”
She patted my shoulder, an astounding gesture of rapport for her, and cocked her head.
“What kind of leather did your DPS officer wear?”
I closed my eyes and tried to remember. It had been dark. The gun had held most of my attention.
“Webbed,” I said finally. “She wore a webbed equipment belt.”
“Then she was fake,” Vare said. “DPS wears plain Safariland leather.”
Five minutes later, Melton appeared at the doorway. Four gold stars gleamed from the collars of his crisp black uniform. I was up and headed toward him. He must have seen the blood in my eyes so he stepped forward and hugged me.
The son of a bitch hugged me.
I didn’t hug back.
“We’re going to get this shooter, David. Don’t you worry about that.”
He studied me. “You’re covered with blood. Can I have someone bring you a change of clothes?”
I stepped back, wishing the blood hadn’t dried, wishing it could have stained his immaculate uniform. I thought of Jackie Kennedy after the assassination, when she had worn that bloodstained suit all the way from Dallas to Washington. “Let them see what they’ve done,” she said.
I said, “Why do you care about a woman you called a traitor?”
“David, you’re overwrought. Do you have kids?”
“We don’t have children.”
He looked at me like an alien being, then tried to smile sympathetically.
“Take a few days. Then look into the case. You’re going to need the distraction.”
My hand made a fist and I forced myself to relax, open up each finger.
“She’s in good hands.” He clapped me on the shoulders. His eyes swept the room and settled on the Hispanic family at the other end.
“My God, they cost so much. Our health care, our schools. I bet they’re illegals and we could arrest them right now.”
Yes, and some resort would lose its housekeeper who worked a second job as a fry cook at another business. I kept my response simple. “Leave them alone.” And almost gagging, I added, “Sheriff.”
He smiled. “Call me Chris.”
Halfway out the door, he added, “And call me by Tuesday. Let’s talk about this case.”
Chapter Fourteen
The next day didn’t pass in a blur. It went by in agonizing minutes, every sixty seconds scalding me. My body felt as if every nerve was jangling on the surface of my skin.
The Saturday night mayhem began to fill up the waiting room after eleven. Finally, a doctor came for me, took me into the fluorescent-lit hallway, and told me the only thing that really stuck. Lindsey was alive.
The rest I remembered in pieces. I should have been taking notes.
She had suffered massive blood loss and they had put her into an induced coma to protect her brain. I remembered the words “hypothermic treatment.”
How long would she be this way? As much as two weeks.
She had been lucky, the bullet passing through her without fragmenting, missing her aorta by half an inch. She was also a healthy woman, which would help. But it was too soon to know about “impairment” of her brain and heart. The next twenty-four hours would tell us much.
At four a.m., I was allowed into the ICU to see Lindsey. A pair of uniformed Phoenix Police officers stood outside and one checked my identification. Then I was led into a nursing station that was the center of activity with desks and monitors. All visitors had to pass through this area. That was good.
From there, it took a keypad code to enter Lindsey’s room, one of several pods separated by large windows from the nursing station. The unit was also monitored by video cameras. The setup looked between a cross of a spaceship and a high-end prison.
My wife was on her back, a ventilator tube in her mouth, three IV lines attached to her arms and one running inside her gown, and no pillow under her head. The pillows were supporting her arms and legs. Gauze pads were taped over her eyes.
Heart and respiratory monitors were attached and beeped softly. A blood-pressure cuff was around her right arm and periodically it automatically inflated and deflated. A second nurse came in to check the plastic IV bags hanging on stainless steel rods above her bed.
I talked to her, certain she could hear me, told her I loved her, but they didn’t want me to get too close. Her hand was cold. It didn’t return my grip.
The room held no hospital smell. No smell at all. That was good, right?
When I saw the dried blood in her hair, I became “agitated,” as the nurse put it. Could they wash her hair? No. At least they could use a wet cloth to wipe away the blood. Lindsey was the opposite of vain in almost every way, but she was proud of her hair.
After ten minutes, another medico with a cart came in and I was guided back out. The nurse gave me Lindsey’s wedding rings, the simple narrow platinum band and the engagement ring with a princess-cut diamond. “A timeless modern style,” Lindsey called it.
When I stepped out of the ICU, Sharon was waiting with her daughters, two beautiful, high-functioning Latina lawyers from the Bay Area. Melton and his crew wouldn’t dare ask them for their papers. The anti-immigrant sentiment was as much about class as anything else.
They all hugged me and for a few seconds I thought I would shatter and cry in their arms. But it didn’t come. My emotions pinballed inside. Outside, I felt numb, underwater…