The intensive-care ward of Monroe General Hospital was in the newest wing of the building. It was at the end of a short corridor, lined with chairs for those who were waiting to see a relative beyond the swinging doors. A nurses’ desk blocked access to any who had no business inside, which meant anyone not in the patient’s immediate family.
Tyrell rushed down the corridor, clutching his hat. Just as he reached the bank of seats he saw Lou’s daughter, Kim, coming out of the doors followed by her son, Jeff, who was wearing high-tops and a baggy flannel shirt. Kim was normally the soul of good cheer. At this moment, her face was haggard and her blue eyes looked gray and faded.
Her face brightened at the sight of Tyrell, and he scooped her up in a hug. She patted his back as he squeezed her. Then he turned and shook Jeff’s hand and the two exchanged a sympathetic, if laconic greeting.
‘How is he doing?’ Tyrell asked, turning back to Kim. ‘I got here as fast as I could.’
Kim dabbed at her eyes with a wadded Kleenex. ‘They didn’t think he was going to make it, at first.’
‘What happened?’
‘A heart attack. He was having breakfast at the Endicott Hotel and he just keeled over.’
Tyrell squeezed her hand. ‘He’s tough,’ he said. ‘He’ll pull through.’
‘I hope so,’ Kim said in a teary voice.
‘Can I go in and see him?’ Tyrell asked.
‘You go on in,’ Kim said, squeezing his hand back. ‘It would do him good to see you. But you can only stay a minute.’
‘No more, I promise,’ said Tyrell.
He walked over to the swinging door and began to push it.
‘Excuse me,’ cried an imperious voice from the nurses’ desk. Tyrell turned and looked at the imposing, white-haired woman with steel-rimmed glasses who was manning it. ‘Who were you wanting to see?’
Tyrell glanced over at Kim. ‘Chief … Lou Potter,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry,’ said the nurse, not sounding the least bit sorry. ‘Family only.’
Kim sniffed at her handkerchief and walked up to the desk. ‘This is my brother,’ she said with a perfectly straight face. Jeff, seated near the door, with his long legs extended, put a hand over his face and laughed into it.
Tyrell stifled the smile that threatened to spread over his broad features. The nurse glared at Kim. ‘This is not a joke, ma’am. This rule is for the good of the patients.’
Kim stood her ground without flinching. ‘I’m not joking,’ she said. ‘This is my brother, Tyrell. He wants to see Dad.’
The nurse shook her head, unsmiling, but finally flicked a hand toward the door without looking at Tyrell. ‘Bed three. Two minutes,’ she said.
Tyrell opened the door and walked slowly through the small, noisy, brightly lit ward. The patients were in glass-enclosed cubicles, attached to every kind of machine and monitor imaginable. Most of them had faces whiter than the sheets they lay on.
Every step made Tyrell feel more queasy. He had to do a double-take to reassure himself that the man on bed three was really the chief.
A young nurse was holding her fingers against the old man’s wrist, and looking at the monitors with a serious expression. Lou had his head back, and a clear, accordion-pleated tube was taped into his mouth. There were narrow tubes in his nose, and an IV in each arm. The smell in the ward was at once medicinal and necrotic. Tyrell found it difficult not to gag. At first, he thought Lou’s eyes were closed, but then he saw a slit, moist and bright, below his eyelids. Tyrell walked over to the bars at the side of Lou’s bed, reached over and took the man’s icy-white fingers into his own brown hand. The nurse looked away from the monitors and smiled briefly at him. ‘Make it quick,’ she said.
‘I will.’ He looked down at the chief’s familiar face, now slackened by pain and medication. ‘Hey. Lou. You got to get out of here,’ he whispered.
The only response was the gurgling noises of the respirator.
‘I’m not supposed to stay. I just wanted you to know I was here, and I’m pulling for you, my man.’ It was hard to know what to say to a person in Lou’s condition. Hard to know if they understood you, or even heard you. Hard, because they couldn’t reply, no matter what you said.
Lou opened his eyes to half-mast, and Tyrell saw a look of urgency in the haze of his gaze. There was a tiny motion of the cold, white fingers against Tyrell’s palm.
‘No, no,’ said Tyrell. ‘Don’t. Take it easy. Don’t worry. Everything will be all right. You just get well. We’ll get by, until you’re better. Just make it quick, OK? I’d better get out of here. I wasn’t supposed to be in here but Kim told the nurse I was her brother. For some reason, I don’t think the nurse bought it.’
There was the faintest hint of a glint in Lou’s eyes, as if he got the joke.
Tyrell reached up and smoothed back the thinning gray hair on the chief’s head. Then he placed Lou’s hand back on the scratchy sheet and smiled at him, before he left the cubicle, holding his breath against the smell of the ward.
As he pushed the door open, he saw the trim, uniformed figure of Heath Van Brunt, standing in the corridor talking to Kim. He walked over to them. ‘Captain,’ he said solemnly.
‘How’s he doing?’ Van Brunt asked.
Mindful of Kim’s anxious presence, Tyrell expressed an optimism he didn’t exactly feel. ‘He’s a tough guy. He’ll come through this.’
Van Brunt nodded thoughtfully. ‘Well, I just wanted to come over and express the good wishes of the department to you,’ he said to Kim. ‘I’ll be acting chief until your dad is ready to come back and take over the helm. Anything you need, you let me know.’
‘Thank you, Captain.’
She turned and smiled at Tyrell. ‘Thank you for coming, Tyrell,’ said Kim.
‘I’ll be back,’ Tyrell promised. ‘You take it easy. Jeff, my man, look after your mama here.’
Jeff nodded and smiled. ‘I will.’
‘Sergeant,’ said Van Brunt, summoning him. He began to walk down the hall and Tyrell fell into step beside him. Tyrell put his hat back on as they reached the hospital exit. Once outside, under the portico, Van Brunt said, ‘I’ve been going over the information we’ve accumulated. I think it’s time we brought the husband in in the Hubbell case and put the screws to him a little bit.’
‘If you think so, sir,’ said Tyrell.
‘You don’t agree?’
Tyrell knew full well that his opinion carried no weight with the captain. Still, he had to try. ‘I’m beginning to think we may have been too hasty in overlooking Mr Riley.’
‘Sergeant, I have the chief’s notes here and they clearly state that Mr Riley had an alibi for that time, and should not be considered a suspect.’
Tyrell wished he could see those notes. But he knew better than to ask. ‘Sergeant?’ Van Brunt said impatiently.
Tyrell sighed. ‘Well, we haven’t got anybody else. We know it wasn’t the Ranger Electric van at the house that day. I have confirmation on that …’
Van Brunt drew himself up to his full height, which still made him several inches shorter than Tyrell. ‘As I say, let’s bring Ron Hubbell in and work him over a little bit. Figuratively speaking, of course.’
The two men parted and Tyrell loped toward his car, avoiding the rain. He got in, turned on the engine, and then felt his cell phone buzzing in his jacket pocket. He pulled it out and replied.
‘Sergeant Watkins?’
‘Speaking.’
‘This is Dena Russell.’ For a moment he was irritated. Irritated that Riley was at it again and would not get the message. Irritated because sometimes he found himself thinking about her, and he didn’t want to think about her. He wanted her to get out of his head.
‘Yeah,’ he snapped.
At her end, Dena could hear the impatience in his voice. And, she understood it. He had done what he could to help her. He probably thought this was more trouble with Brian. She felt kind of pleased that she had something to offer, instead of something to ask this time.
Skip Lanman slipped down in the molded-plastic seat at the airport gate and shook his head in disgust. Laura, who had just visited the ladies’ room, came walking back toward him and looked at him quizzically. He nodded toward the desk, manned by two pretty young women wearing navy blue jackets with red kerchiefs at the neck, where a knot of anxious passengers were insisting that they had to leave, despite the fact that another hour’s delay had just been posted.
‘Another delay?’ Laura fretted. ‘You’ll be so tired by the time you get home.’
‘It’s all right,’ Skip said. ‘This way I can keep you company a little longer. Is your flight still on time?’
‘So far,’ Laura nodded. She sighed and looked around at the options for distraction, which were few, surrounding the departure gates. There were monitors overhead which ran CNN incessantly, and a few unappealing snack bars. ‘I think I’ll go buy a magazine,’ she said. It’ll give me something to do. I can browse through everything – wrestling to home improvement. Do you want anything?’
Skip frowned. ‘Get me a pack of gum,’ he said. ‘Keep my ears from popping on the plane.’
‘Will do,’ she said. She took off across the blue-carpeted waiting area to go in search of a newsstand. He watched her go, thinking how good she looked in her oversized trench coat, her long curls soft and shining against the turned-up collar. He knew she would stop at every kiosk from here to the security checkpoint, roaming restlessly in and out of the little shops, looking at her watch every few minutes, hating the wait.
They were very different that way. Years of illness as a child had taught him to be stoic in the face of a long wait. Enduring the tests and the needles had taught him that there was no use in wishing it would be over. He had learned to accept his fate. Laura was different. She would never accept her fate. Different responses to different situations, he thought. You handle it as best you can.
He turned his attention to his fellow passengers, who were also waiting. Two rows up, a red-faced man who was, unaccountably, wearing a pair of Bermuda shorts, was snoozing. At the end of Skip’s row, a grandmother was trying to keep a cranky toddler entertained, and clearly wearying of the task. Across the aisle, a man in a black raincoat had his arm around his pregnant wife.
The sight of the couple turned Skip’s thoughts back to Ron. Ron had suffered so much in the years they had been friends. It was one of the things that solidified their friendship. They were two people who understood about suffering. Most of Skip’s suffering had been physical. For Ron, it was losses that were emotional. The end of his marriage to Anita had been tough – and humiliating. But this. This was the worst of blows – the murder of Jennifer.
Skip wondered what Ron would make of the news about the anonymous letters. Skip had agreed with Laura that it was important to tell the police about the letters, once she remembered them, but they hadn’t had a chance to mention them to Ron. They had to leave before they had a chance to tell him. Skip wondered if Jennifer had ever told Ron about the letters. He wondered if she’d kept them. And then, he thought of something else. Ron was cleaning out the house. No matter how much anyone told him to leave it, to come back and do it another time, Ron was determined to get on with it. It was a kind of self-flagellation, Skip figured, forcing himself to go through her things, to face, with every item he had to discard, the loss of her all over again.
The problem was, if those letters were among her things, they might get tossed out with piles of old receipts or bills.
Perhaps the sheriff had contacted Ron by now. But what if he hadn’t? What if, at this very minute, Ron was tossing away evidence that might be crucial? Skip looked up, but there was no sign of Laura. In his mind’s eye, he could see her, puttering through those kiosks, searching, always searching, under the guise of browsing through the airport. She could be gone for quite a while.
One of the women behind the desk amended the flight information board to read ‘two-hour delay’. All right, thought Skip. That does it. He reached into his pocket for his phone.