THIRTY-TWO

We were in a different waiting room in the same hospital: Inspector John Alderdyce, U.S. Marshal Mary Ann Thaler, and me. Lieutenant Hornet was out browsing a snack machine. The nurse was going to come get us when she finished changing Barry’s sheets.

“I appreciate the invitation, Inspector,” Thaler said. “The only federal charges involved are the FBI’s department, not mine.”

“Call me John. We’re equals now. You may have the edge. I knew you were interested, and I know about that other thing. It’s also the reason I’m doing this.” He took the hefty manila envelope he’d been resting his hands on in his lap and tossed it at me. I almost fell out of my chair catching it. I opened the flap and looked at the file he’d used to pressure me.

A blush looked good on Thaler. Anything would. A while back we’d conspired to save Alderdyce’s job. He wasn’t supposed to know about it, but a big city is a small town really.

“I’ll regret that,” he said to me. “You damn near got three people killed on top of the two we already had in a drawer.”

“I had to flush her out, John. I didn’t mean to cut it that close, but once an amateur tastes blood twice it gets easier the third time.”

“Don’t call me John.”

“What’s in the envelope?” Thaler asked.

“Walker’s balls, I thought. He might as well have ’em back for all the good they did me. I’m starting a new file.”

We’d moved to Barry’s floor after Lucille Lettermore went into recovery from surgery. My bullet had nicked the spleen but she was expected to be well enough to attend her first arraignment in a wheelchair. By the time all the charges were read she could be in training for the Olympics.

Her marksmanship hadn’t fallen off after Severin. The bullet shattered the floor where she’d been aiming when I shot her. Her pistol fell when she did and I kicked it out of the loft and went to see about Marcine Logan. Lucille had tied her to the vanity chair in her dressing room with the sash from a bathrobe, the first thing she could grab when she saw me drive up. Marcine was dressed for a day at home, barefoot in jeans and an old fitted shirt worn tail out. She had a mouth on her when I got the twist of towel off her face, the lawyer hadn’t lied about that.

I’d spent an ugly couple of hours with the police in Iroquois Heights, but Alderdyce had pried me loose there. The lieutenant in charge of the investigation was only one promotion away from getting booted out with the current administration and had asked about opportunities in Detroit.

My cell rang. It was Lee Tan the Younger. “I haven’t a thing in my refrigerator. How about buying me dinner?”

I told her to hang on. “Am I in custody?”

Alderdyce said, “Check the file.”

I got it out and opened it to the back. All three copies of the Iroquois Heights arrest report were there.

“Now you owe me.”

“Pick you up at eight,” I told Lee.

“Why don’t I drive? You sound beat.”

“Not on your life.” I rang off. “How’s Bobby Lee?”

Alderdyce rolled his big shoulders. “Still shot, but that’s the least of his worries. It’s back to the public defender for him. You made a lucky guess on those Columbine wannabes; Lucy was a paid consultant. That establishes opportunity to obtain the forty-five. Strike pattern on the shell at the marina matched up. You should be ashamed of yourself. The hospital’s running out of beds.”

“I hear Joey Ballistic’s in Beaumont.”

“In the basement,” he said. “He had a second heart attack when they were wheeling him into the OR. Tell Stackpole when you see him. It’s better than flowers.”

I hoped Dr. Nagler didn’t fudge on the certificate of death. I’d sort of liked him.

I asked Alderdyce where Barry stood.

“Prosecutor’s talking plea deal with Bobby Lee’s P.D. if he’ll testify she put the forty-five in his hand. That establishes chain of possession and clears Stackpole. We may never tie her to Frances Donella; but you can only serve one life sentence.”

“She’ll never see trial. All those high-test cases fried her brains in the end.”

“That’s when her troubles begin. Tax hounds don’t care how looney you are as long as you pay up. Speaking of them,” he said, “your statement’s mushy on that point.”

“I’d tell you, but I’d be starting a new tab.”

Thaler crossed her legs in her chair. She had on a tan tailored suit with a slit in the skirt that broke just above the knee. “Stupid business. Two dead, three in the hospital, and a career in pieces over a hoodlum who should never have been let out of jail in the first place, and then he ups and dies.”

“Tell me about it,” I said. “I have to stand in line behind Washington just to sue for expenses.”

Alderdyce watched me. “The left-handed dollar, that all you think about?”

“Keeps my mind off my sore jaw.”

The nurse came in, a short stocky veteran of drive-bys and arson victims with kind eyes in a face blasted from granite. “One at a time, please. Mr. Stackpole has to have rest if he’s going to give up his bed to someone who needs it.” She looked from one face to another. “Who’s first?”

I tucked the envelope under my arm and got up to visit my friend.