Naomi awakened, plenty groggy, feeling like she was floating. Her scalp tingled, her head wrapped in gauze. Her left shoulder was packed and bandaged, protecting a bullet wound with a front entrance and a back exit, a nurse told her, but this hadn’t fully registered. Her ankle, immobilized by a tight cloth bandage, sat atop the bed sheet, visible but fuzzy to her. She must have said something about medication because someone volunteered an answer. “Some really good stuff, ma’am.”
This was Mr. Wingert speaking, the blogger, seated in the right corner of the hospital room. No, he was standing; he was the super-short one. Naomi was now remembering, it was coming back, all the horror was coming back. She held back her tears.
“Edward…”
An authoritative voice bettered Naomi’s fog: “This is Nurse Dawson, Madam Justice. You’re on a narcotic drip.”
To Mr. Wingert the nurse said, “She’s awake. The vigil’s now officially over. You need to wait outside.”
“No,” Naomi said, her words wet and sloppy. “He stays. For a moment, please.” She turned to Owen and asked, “Where is he?”
The little guy’s eyes fluttered then misted up. Beseech was the word her fuzzy mind gave her, his eyes beseeched her, blinked at her beseechingly. His hands moved near his waist, his fingers in search of his absent cowboy hat. She remembered the one.
“Ma’am,” he said, “he’s gone. I’m sorry.”
She gagged, just now noticed there were two other men in the room, in suits, plus another man in a suit posted outside the door. One of the suited men in the room stepped forward.
“Madam Justice. Director Egan of the U.S. Marshals Service. We lost Deputy Trenton tonight, in the line of duty. Him and two others, ma’am. Deputy Abelson was also a casualty, but he’ll recover.”
Tears built but stayed at bay. She spoke again, but it felt like she was chewing her saliva. “That doesn’t…answer…my question. Where is he?”
The director glanced at the nurse. The nurse answered for him. “He’s here, ma’am. Downstairs.”
“I want to see him.”
The nurse said, “Ma’am, no, that’s not going to happen.”
Naomi strengthened her resolve, “Nurse, yes it is going to happen. Now. Director Egan, do something.”
Director Egan had interceded, duly acknowledging the protest of Naomi’s doctor. The patient elevator opened at the basement level. A marshal exited first then waved the entourage out, Naomi’s hospital bed slightly raised and pushed by an orderly, her doctor striding alongside her, Nurse Dawson keeping up while wheeling her IV poles. Director Egan and another marshal followed them.
At the end of the wide corridor a pair of windowless doors greeted them, MORGUE stenciled in black across each one. On the other side of the doors, a tile floor, stainless steel walls and sinks, scales, microscopes, hoses, high-intensity overhead lamps, and instruments hanging like wands and brushes at a self-service car wash. The group surprised a female morgue attendant about to slide a body back into the wall.
Three bodies on gurneys, all tagged, lay flat in various stages of preparation for temporary storage, all covered in sheets, cadaver style. It smelled of blood and bodily fluids and antiseptic, the floor a mess underfoot. The attendant made quick business of the body she’d been working with and grabbed a spray hose to wet down the floor, the water and body effluence finding a drain.
“Careful, it’s slippery,” she said. The agents were in shoe leather and Naomi was on wheels, but everyone else had rubber-soled shoes. The orderly pushing Naomi stopped, waiting for orders from someone. No one moved. The doctor called the attendant over. “Mister Edward Trenton. Which one?”
Before the attendant answered, Naomi spoke. “I see him.”
Long body, massive chest, one leg partially exposed, the knee black as if it had been dipped in licorice, some exposed bone, the skin below it copper-red, and the giveaway: five discolored toes on his right foot, all milky white, a yellow toe tag on the big one. The orderly guided Naomi alongside.
“Edward,” she managed after composing herself, her hand moving from her distraught face to the sheet that covered him. “You were so very, very brave, Edward.”
Her emotional pain obliterated the meds. Naomi felt the agony, a gouge driven deep into her chest, her heart sinking, a loss so reminiscent of her earlier one, so…déjà vu. The entourage gave her room. She rested her hand on the sheet again, squeezed his arm, and whispered prayers in Cherokee for the safe journey of one Edward White Paw Trenton to his rightful place in the spirit world.
The trailing marshal spoke a response into a wrist piece. “Roger that. Director Egan, sir, a V.I.P. just arrived at the hospital to see Justice Coolsummer.”
“We’re giving Madam Justice a few minutes, Marshal.”
“Sir…” He leaned over, whispered into Director Egan’s ear.
The director turned toward Naomi. “Justice Coolsummer, we need to get back upstairs ASAP.”