“Why?”
“She’ll be safer there. I can make sure of that.”
“I don’t think so,” Wicker said.
“It isn’t up to you,” Beth told him. “It’s up to me.”
Wicker stared at her. “I’ve talked to your doctor, Miss Jackson. He told me you’d asked about leaving the hospital. He recommends at least another day. So do I.” He looked at Carver. “Can we compromise on this? One more day?”
“Ask her,” Carver said.
Wicker did.
“One more day,” Beth agreed, “then I become an outpatient.”
Wicker smiled at her and left the room.
Beth lay back on the bed and didn’t say anything for a few minutes. Carver sat down in the chair next to the bed and poured some water from the pitcher on the table into a plastic cup and held it out for her. She shook her head, refusing to drink. Carver took a few sips, then put down the cup.
“It was a nightmare, Fred.”
“I figured.”
“He used poor Linda, tortured her and mutilated her for no reason other than to demonstrate that he could do it to me if that was his choice. So why didn’t he simply do it to me?”
“If he’d already done it to you, what he might do would be removed as a threat. Whoever’s behind the clinic bombing-and it appears that someone other than Norton planned it-sees three threats: the FBI, the local law, and a snooping private investigator with a serious grudge. McGregor and the Del Moray police will be content with the conclusion that Norton acted alone. So might the FBI, after a cursory investigation. Those are the two biggest threats, and they have to be dealt with-and maybe they can be, because they’re constricted by the law and are at least somewhat predictable. But I’m a wild card, and they want me out of the deck.”
“So beating up Lapella in front of me was simply a precaution, a message to you.”
“An obvious warning,” Carver said. “They want Norton to go to trial, be convicted, and take the fall. Case closed, news media lose interest.”
“Do you think Operation Alive is behind the bombing, and making sure Norton carries the whole blame is his lawyer’s real assignment?”
“It’s looking more and more likely.”
Beth chewed on her lower lip the way she often did when anger smoldered in her. “They’re underestimating me, Fred.”
“How do you mean?”
“There are two wild cards in the deck.”
He picked up the plastic cup and took another sip of ice water, worrying, thinking maybe one was wilder than the other.
18
The hospital was carver’s second stop the next morning. In Beth’s vocabulary, Wicker’s “one more day” of hospitalization had meant one more night.
“See that she doesn’t exert herself,” Dr. Galt told him outside Beth’s room. “Her cuts are superficial and the stitches can be removed soon, and there’s no lingering complication from the D and C. But her right hip’s still badly bruised and will need a cold compress if it begins to swell. I’ll prescribe pain pills, and something to help her sleep if she needs it.” Galt smiled and touched a hand gingerly to the hair plastered sideways across his gleaming scalp, like a man testing wet paint. “She tends to think she’s stronger than she is.”
Carver could have told him a few things, but simply nodded. “Is she . . . psychologically okay?” he asked. “I mean, after losing the baby?”
“I wouldn’t imagine she’s over it yet,” Dr. Galt said. “But she is very strong in that respect. She’s a realist and will accept what’s happened and get on with life.” He touched his slicked-over hair again. “We all have to do that.”
“How’s Linda Lapella?” Carver asked.
Dr. Galt looked blank for a moment, then his eyes brightened. “Ah, the police officer who was attacked yesterday. I’m afraid she’s unconscious, though she’s in stable condition. Blunt-object cerebral trauma, I was told.”
Carver remembered Beth mentioning the WASP kicking Lapella while the dazed policewoman lay on the floor. “Does that mean she was kicked in the head?”
“The injury’s consistent with that.”
“When will she be able to have visitors?”
“I’m not sure. Not today, certainly. You’d have to ask the head nurse on her floor when visitors will be allowed.”
Carver shook hands with Dr. Galt and thanked him.
“The nurses should have Beth ready to leave in about fifteen minutes,” Dr. Galt said. “Be sure to phone me if there are any complications at all.”
Carver said that he would, then decided that while the nurse was preparing Beth to leave the hospital, he’d go to Delores Bravo’s room and tell her Beth was leaving. The woman with her foot and part of her leg missing would be interested, and would doubtless need some cheering up.
He was surprised to find Wicker sitting in the chair beside Delores’s bed. The rumpled little man stood up when Carver entered. He didn’t seem glad to see Carver.
“Is coming here part of your investigation?” Carver asked.
“She’s an eyewitness to the bombing,” Wicker said. He sounded oddly defensive, as if trying to justify his presence in the room. “She can place Norton at the scene.”
“So she told me,” Carver said.
Wicker sat back down.
“Anyway, I just wanted to let Delores know that Beth was leaving the hospital this morning,” Carver added.
Delores smiled at Carver from the hospital bed. Her long dark hair was neatly combed today, and the shadowed circles beneath her eyes were gone. “I appreciate you coming by,” she said.
“Feeling better?” Carver asked.
“Coming along. Our talk yesterday helped.”
“I didn’t know you were a counselor,” Wicker said. Then he remembered and glanced down at Carver’s cane. “Then again, maybe you know something Miss Bravo can use.”
“I hope so.”
“Miss Bravo doesn’t recognize the description of the man who beat up Lapella.”
“I know. I asked her about him yesterday after Beth saw him enter and leave her room. Same day I asked you about him,” Carver added.
Wicker stood again and jammed his hands deep in his pockets, making his belt slip below his stomach paunch and the legs of his pants bag around his shoes. Carver thought he might have insulted Wicker by suggesting that the bureau should have known the WASP was dangerous, but Wicker didn’t seem annoyed.
“I think you’re doing the right thing,” he said, “getting Beth out of here and in different, more familiar surroundings. McGregor can’t be counted on to furnish adequate protection here at the hospital. Maybe he couldn’t even if he tried. Better to have her away from here and on your own turf.”
“How is she?” Delores asked.
“Getting feisty,” Carver said.
Delores smiled. “I can imagine that, just from what Agent Wicker has told me.”
Wicker shifted his weight from one chunky leg to the other, as if the floor were tilting like a ship’s deck and he had to maintain his balance. “I’ll have a talk with McGregor, Carver. Use some bureau influence and make sure he knows it would be politically stupid of him to keep leaning on you and antagonizing Beth.”
“Thanks,” Carver said. “He understands politics.”
“Because he’s a born asshole,” Wicker said, then shot a glance at Delores, as if embarrassed at having used profanity in her presence. Not the FBI way.
Carver thought it was time to share some information with Wicker. He invited him out into the hall. “Did Delores tell you about the shot fired into the clinic the week before the bombing?”
“Just a little while ago. Before you told me,” Wicker added in a level voice.
“I’ve only known about it one day,” Carver pointed out, “and I’ve had a lot to think about.”
“Actually,” Wicker said, “we’ve known about it all along. Dr. Benedict told us the day of the bombing.”
Carver knew the FBI had exercised a warrant and searched Norton’s house as well as his car. “Did Norton possess any firearms?” Silly question in Fort Florida.