“Lucky. Very lucky. We’ve repaired the damage as well as we can for the time being. The biggest danger now is that infection will set in. We’ll have to leave the incision open for several days to assure that doesn’t happen, but I think he’s going to be all right.”
“Really?” Molly asked.
“Really.”
Molly smiled weakly and shook her head while tears sprang to her eyes. “I think,” she said slowly, “that now I will cry.” And she did.
Molly stumbled back to the couch, leaving the doctor, who seemed to have something more to say, standing there in the middle of the room, waiting and looking uncomfortable.
Finally he said, “Excuse me, Mrs. Lindstrom, but do you happen to know someone named Beauford, Borland, something like that?”
“Beaumont?” I asked.
“That’s it,” the doctor announced, snapping his fingers. “Beaumont. I’m terrible with names.”
“I’m Detective Beaumont,” I said.
“I have a message for you. I couldn’t believe it. This guy is going to die if we don’t get started doing surgery, but he won’t let the anesthesiologist or anybody else touch him until we promise to take a message. I told him, ”I’m a doctor, not Western Union,“ but I don’t think he thought it was very funny.”
I didn’t either. “You have a message for me?”
“Sort of. I hope I have this name right. Sanders, Sanderlin? It’s close, but I didn’t have any way to write it down.”
“That’s all? Just a name?”
“No, there was something else too. The name, whatever it is, and the word garage. Does that make sense to you?”
“Not really.”
“Did he maybe leave his car at a garage someplace with someone by the name of Sanders? From the way he insisted on my taking the message, I thought for sure you’d know exactly what he was talking about. He acted like it was a matter of life and death.”
And then, just like in the comics, the lightbulb came on in my head. It was a matter of life and death. Big Al Lindstrom had recognized his assailant and was trying to get word to me as soon as possible. He hadn’t wanted to wait however many hours it would take for him to make it through surgery and out of the recovery room.
Meanwhile, with his message more or less successfully delivered, the doctor had returned to Molly. Gently, he took her by the arm. “If you’d like to come with me, Mrs. Lindstrom, you can see him for just a few minutes.”
They left and I stood there in that mean little waiting room trying to decode Big Al’s message. I couldn’t think of anybody named Sanders in any garage. Like me, Big Al often uses the bus so he doesn’t have to hassle with downtown parking. So it wasn’t a parking garage. And he usually serviced his own cars, so it probably wasn’t a mechanic either. It had to be the department’s garage, the motor pool, but who there was named Sanders?
My first instinct was to go roaring down the hill, crash into the garage, kick ass, and take names later, but that wouldn’t work in this case. And it didn’t make sense, besides. How could a grease monkey from Motor Pool be the mastermind behind a plot that had the entire street gang population of Seattle up in arms? No, I needed to consult with a cooler head on this one, most likely Captain Anthony Freeman himself.
But I was torn. Whatever I did, I couldn’t very well take off and leave Molly Lindstrom stranded there at the hospital. She was only gone for a few minutes. When she returned to the waiting room, she was alone but beaming.
“He’s going to be fine. I’ll call the kids now.”
“Do you want me to take you home?”
“No. I’ll stay here. They said they’ll be moving him out of recovery and into intensive care in a little while. It’s a different waiting room, but they said there are couches where I can sleep if I need to.”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure,” she replied. “He might wake up and need me. Don’t tell him I told you so, but Allen’s really a big baby when he’s sick.”
“My lips are sealed,” I told her.
Big Al’s dirty little secret was safe with me.
CHAPTER 21
By the time I left the hospital, there was no sense in going back by the Walterses’ home. Whatever was happening with the on-site investigation would have been well under way and assigned to someone else. Instead, I headed down the hill to the department with one overriding question still reverberating in my brain. Sanders. Who the hell was Sanders? Try as I might, I couldn’t think of anybody.
Even though it was three o’clock in the morning, press vehicles were a visible presence around the Public Safety Building. What Chief Rankin had called “open season on cops” continued to be the biggest story in town that week. I couldn’t blame the media for chasing after it, but I sure as hell didn’t want to end up being trapped into talking to any of them.
“What’s going on?” I asked the officer stationed in the lobby.
“Press conference,” he answered.
“At this hour of the morning?”
He shook his head. “Why not? All those people are up anyway-Chief Rankin, Detective Kramer, and all those crazy reporters. They could just as well keep each other company and stay out of everyone else’s hair.”
I nodded sympathetically. My sentiments exactly. Luckily, I made it into the elevator without running into anyone. But then, when it came time to push the button, I took a wild notion to go upstairs and see if Captain Freeman was still around. I skipped 5 and punched 11 instead.
When the elevator door opened, I saw that the receptionist’s desk was empty, but the door into Freeman’s office was propped open with a chair. A reading light glowed from inside.
“Who is it?” he called as I stepped into the lobby.
“Detective Beaumont,” I answered.
“Come on in.”
I stepped to the inner door. Captain Freeman didn’t bother to get up. With his tie loosened and shirt sleeves rolled up, he sat at his desk, laboring over that same, much-used yellow pad I had seen earlier. In a world that has gone overboard for computers, I have to respect a guy who hasn’t jumped on the latest technological bandwagon.
As I walked in, he put down his pen and rubbed his eyes. “Good to see you, Beau. How’s Detective Lindstrom?”
“The doc says he thinks he’s going to make it. He came through the surgery all right.”
“Great.”
“By the way,” I said, easing myself into one of the several chairs that still littered the office. “I didn’t log in. Do you want me to?”
Freeman smiled wearily. “Hell with it. I didn’t either. That’s a good piece of work on the Day-Timer and the floppy, Beau. I’m following up right now, as a matter of fact.”
“You found them?”
“No, but I’m working on a list of possibles-all the people I’ve been able to verify who were actually there in Ben Weston’s house the night of the murders. Unfortunately, it’s a very long list.”
As far as I’m concerned, making lists and checking them twice is a line that has nothing to do with “Here Comes Santa Claus.” They’re words to live by in the crime-solving business.
I nodded. “Good. I would have done that myself eventually, but I’ve been too busy. While you’re at it, I’ve got another name for you. The doctor who performed Big Al’s surgery gave it to me while Al was in the recovery room. He said that crazy Norwegian bastard wouldn’t let them start doing surgery on him until one of the doctors agreed to bring me the message.”
Captain Freeman sat up and picked up his pen, holding it poised over the paper. “Who?”
“That’s the thing, I’m not sure. The doctor couldn’t quite remember the name. He said it was something like Sanders or Sanderlin. Those were his two choices, and I don’t recognize either one. And I don’t know how accurate the doctor is. He thought my name was Beaufort. Whatever the name is, the guy supposedly has something to do with a garage, maybe even Motor Pool.”
Freeman frowned. “Sanders? Sanderlin? Neither one of those rings a bell.” Nevertheless, he wrote both names down on his list, tying them together with a two-line parenthesis.