Manhattan
“So you drew the short straw?” Nicole said to the officer accompanying her to her mother’s room on Eleven West. She guessed him at 6’4” and 250 pounds, but the Kevlar vest under his uniform shirt made him look even bigger. The nameplate over his right shirt pocket read “D. Decker.” Something tells me you’re a rookie.”
“Fourteen months on the job, ma’am. But I don’t know what you mean by short straw.”
“Make me feel old, why don’t you?” she said. “Just means you got the job no one wanted.”
“I’m to know where you are at all times, and also to protect you. I’ll be right outside your door the rest of the night.”
“I feel safe already,” she said. Who’d want to tangle with this young man? “Any gunplay in your first fourteen months?”
“No, ma’am. That’s not as common as on TV.”
“Fisticuffs?”
“Don’t know that word either.”
“Fights. Fought anyone?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. We’re s’posed to carry ourselves in such as way as to discourage that before it starts.”
“Easier for you than most, I’m sure.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Listen, Decker, did you hear Officer Martinez mention adding something to a search warrant?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Can you do that, get a warrant to search a crime scene for whatever you want?”
“If I remember what they taught us at the academy, the Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches. So even though this looks like an attempted murder case, we’d have to have a warrant based on probable cause. It’s not like any search would be fair game. The warrant application has to be specific, so the crime scene guys don’t violate privacy rights.”
“So why would Officer Martinez want to add my dad’s box to the warrant?”
“Sorry, I don’t know enough to say.”
Nicole hadn’t allowed herself to consider her mother’s apparent attack attempted murder, but she couldn’t deny it. She could only imagine how her mother’s mention of her father’s secret box would sound to Detective Wojciechowski under the circumstances. He’d have to assume he’d stumbled upon a motive.
Nicole approached the registration desk at Eleven West. “I’m—”
“We’ve been waiting for you, Dr. Berman,” a young woman said. “All settled in?”
“Just about.”
“We offer room service any time of the day or night.”
“Even for visitors?”
“Yes.” She consulted her video monitor. “The order form is in the room, and for you it’s complimentary.” The young woman looked past Nicole. “And will you be here overnight, Officer?”
“Yes, ma’am. And when Mrs. Berman arrives, another officer will join me.”
She handed him two meal forms. “On the NYPD account?”
He nodded, and she brought him two folding chairs from a back room.
“Done this before, Decker?” Nicole said as they headed down the hall.
“More than once,” he said. “Happy to serve.”
“What’re you blushing about?” she said.
“Been out with that girl is all.”
“You don’t say …”
He set his chair next to her door and tipped his cap. “Night, ma’am.”
Nicole unpacked, filled out her breakfast order for six and a half hours later, and opened the door to hang it on the knob. Decker’s form was already there. “Were you ordering for the both of us?” she said.
“No, ma—”
“A joke, son.”
Nicole always prayed at bedtime, but she hadn’t knelt in ages. Now it seemed the thing to do. She changed, knelt by the bed, and prayed for her father’s safety, her mother’s recovery, and her own peace of mind. She also prayed for Officer Julia Martinez, who had come across over zealous, confrontational.
“I don’t know that she’s intentionally persecuting me, Lord,” Nicole said. “But You know. Answer me in the day of distress. May the God of Jacob fortify me. Send me help and support from Your mighty hand. Grant my heart’s desire, and I will rejoice in Your deliverance from heaven.
“Some rely upon chariots and horses, but I invoke the name of the Lord my God—Yeshua Hamashiac, Adonai, my strong tower. Amen.”
Curious as she was, Nicole found herself unable to pray about whatever her mother had been referring to—some secret box and its mysterious photo. She was convinced it had to be a drug-induced hallucination. Such talk was so strange for her mother, usually so precise and careful. She seldom speculated and rarely overreacted.
And her father a man of secrets? Nicole couldn’t imagine it. While, yes, she’d had to do her own Internet search to discover when and how he was wounded in Vietnam, it made sense he wouldn’t want to discuss that. What wounded vet wants to revisit the day he thought he would die? Those who had seen the worst of war, injured or not, were known for leaving it in the past. He was no exception. In fact, the few times she had tried to draw him out on the subject, he actually paled and shook his head.
But stories from her father’s life before and after Nam showed him as plain-spoken and straightforward as anyone she’d ever known. He seemed to have himself figured out and had come to grips with the man who had grown from that angry, rebellious teen.
His hiding anything from her mother didn’t jibe with the man she knew. Anesthesia had to have caused her mother to concoct this story out of some subconscious fear that her husband couldn’t possibly be all that he seemed because down deep she didn’t feel worthy of such a man.
But she was! Her steady faith and love for him was largely responsible for the man he had become.
Nicole knew she had to stop worrying about what her mother said or what it revealed. The woman would not likely remember it in the morning, and they would both laugh about it someday.
The fatigue that had assaulted Nicole when she’d run home for dinner never really left her. It had been only camouflaged by worry and tension over what Kayla Jefferson had revealed upon her return to the hospital. Learning your mother had tripped, fallen, and broken a hip was one thing. Finding out there had likely been foul play, being suspected if not accused of it, being separated from her dad at such a crucial time, and then having her mother talk nonsense that would be reported to the police—well, that was something else.
Nicole was still on her knees, her head resting on the bed. Her trim, athletic body warm and feeling heavy and sleepy, she had no interest in moving a muscle. But her feet and legs would fall asleep if she didn’t move, and so she forced herself to crawl onto the bed. Pulling back the covers and sliding between the sheets was beyond her capacity.