by Jeff Carson
Chapter 11
Wolf rapped twice before pushing open the heavy hospital room door.
“Oh, it’s you.”
Wolf shut the door behind him. “How are you feeling?”
“Pretty good.” Burton had a tethered remote control in his hand, his eyes on the ceiling-mounted television. “Isn’t shit on TV.”
Wolf walked to the window and looked outside.
“Saw our man Roll was here to take Jesse.”
Wolf nodded. “They want us to stop into Ridgway on the way back home to give official reports.”
Burton shut off the television and set the remote down. “Good.”
There was a knock at the door and a woman entered, dressed in a lab coat. She wore thick glasses over tired-looking eyes, and her disheveled curly hair suggested she may have been called in to work to tend to their man in the bed.
“Hello,” she said with an easy smile. “I take it you’re the Detective Wolf who was just speaking to our nurse down the hall?”
Wolf nodded and shook her well-lotioned hand.
“And you must be Mr. Burton.”
Burton twirled a finger in the air.
“I’m Dr. McCarthy. I was called in by the ER doctor to check on your condition. How are you feeling?”
“Like a thousand dollars. A million God damned dollars.”
Her smile faded, and she raised the tablet tucked under her arm and swiped the screen. “Well, that’s good you feel okay, but the test results tell me you may be just saying that.”
“Oh, really.”
“The initial blood tests show your red blood cell count is extremely low, which could account for the lightheadedness you reported to the ER doctor upon your arrival.”
Burton had the remote control back in his hand and he was engrossed in an infomercial about flipping distressed real estate for profit.
Dr. McCarthy continued reading a paragraph-worth of what was wrong with Burton, and then turned to Wolf. “His BAC was .21.”
Wolf nodded. “He had some whiskey on the way here.”
She looked at the tablet. “Mr. Burton, you should be good to go tomorrow morning, if you—”
“Yeah, screw that. Television’s not good enough for me to stay here.”
Her finger froze on the tablet and she looked up. “It’s my recommendation you stay overnight.”
“I’ll take my pills, doc. Thanks. Now why don’t you take a hike, hon.”
Wolf’s face went hot.
Hers looked like it cooled a few degrees. “Hon?”
“I’ll be okay. I know the drill. Take the meds, some with food, some without. Don’t drink. Got it.”
“The serum myoglobin tests showed you were close to having a heart attack. Your EKG shows abnormal palpitations. Looking at the structure of the arterial walls, you’re lucky you didn’t have a massive cardiac event leading to complete failure.”
Burton kept his eyes on the infomercial.
“You’re lucky to be alive.”
“Doc,” Wolf said gently, “could I please speak to you outside for a moment?”
“I’ll get dressed while you guys are out there.” Burton slid off the side of his bed.
“We’re not going anywhere,” Wolf said. “You stay there and get comfortable. You’re staying the night.”
“I can’t sleep in a hospital.”
“You have something that would help him sleep, don’t you?” Wolf asked.
“With his current blood alcohol level? I don’t think so.”
“Oh, yeah. I’ll take a sleeping pill. You get me one of those, I’ll be set.”
Dr. McCarthy blinked rapidly.
“Doc,” Wolf motioned for the door. “We’ll be back in a second, Hal.”
“That man is not well,” she said when they had stepped outside.
“I know. Believe me, I know. So, what does he need to do?”
“Well, aside from being extremely drunk he’s technically fine now. But he really dodged a bullet today. I would say absolutely no strenuous activity whatsoever, and for the sake of his heart he needs to refrain from drinking whiskey. I saw from his record he’s been seeing Dr. Floyd up at Sluice-Byron County. I’ve talked to him tonight, and we’re scheduled to have a call tomorrow morning. As for Mr. Burton, he needs get home soon, back to Dr. Floyd, for further treatment. And he needs to stay here tonight. If you want to give him the best chance of living, I’d recommend talking him into that.”
Wolf nodded. “What about the bag of medication I gave the ER doctor? Is he set with all those pills there?”
She exhaled heavily. “All set there? No. He needs to drastically change his diet, his intake of alcohol needs to drop. He needs to stop drinking completely. He needs to begin to exercise… but not before the first two change and he can get off such high doses of pills. Until then, the man is a ticking time bomb.”
“I can’t guarantee I can keep him in that bed,” Wolf said.
She nodded. “He’s properly dosed with medication at the moment. We’ll give him another round in the morning, and then it’s up to him to keep up with his normal medication regimen. If he decides you two have to get out of here, then have him take those pills first thing in the morning. And get him to Dr. Floyd as soon as possible. And pray that if Dr. Floyd is gone that cardiologist on call is not a woman, or he has no chance.”
“Thanks.”
She turned and walked away, lifting her hand in salute as she passed through a set of double doors.
Wolf pushed his way back into Burton’s room. Hal still stared at the TV.
“So?”
“You have to keep up with your pills and stop drinking so much,” Wolf said. “And eat better.”
“The sleeping pills. You get any?”
“No.”
“Shit.”
Wolf walked to the bed, pressed the power button on the remote control and walked to the window again. The sky outside had stopped spitting. The heavy low clouds over Cortez glowed, reflecting the artificial light. “All right, let’s talk straight here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’ve turned into an out-of-control drunk. You know that, right?”
“Oh, right, I forgot I’m with the great saint of sobriety, David Wolf. Hey, I seem to remember you fell flat on your ass, too. Had to have a bunch of your peons pick you up off the ground and fly you to a hospital. For a panic attack. You see me have any panic attacks when I was with the department? And I had a hell of a lot more responsibility than you ever had.”
Burton’s eyes flicked around the room, then settled on Wolf’s.
Wolf let the muscles around his jaw relax. “I talked to Cheryl.”
“Good for you.”
“She’s headed back to Rocky Points to see you.”
“Where’s the bottle?”
Wolf shook his head.
“You heard me. Where’s the bottle?”
“It’s back in the car.”
“Please get it.”
Wolf looked back out the window, considering his options. He could leave. He could update that ride-sharing app on his phone, call someone to come pick up Burton and take him back to Rocky Points.
“What did she say?” Burton asked.
“She told me she didn’t want to watch you kill yourself. I don’t blame her.” He checked the reflection in the window and saw Burton was wiping his face.
“This is so messed up,” Burton said.
Wolf let the sound of Burton’s sobbing fill the silence.
“What did the doc really say?”
“She told me you had to stop drinking. That your blood oxygen levels were low and living up in the altitude like you do isn’t helping any. That your heart had to work overtime, which was tiring it out. Your shit diet and drinking make your heart a ticking time bomb. That it’s about to fail if you don’t pull your head out of your ass.”
“She said that?”
“Verbatim.”
Burton chuckled. “How abo
ut Roll? They treat my nephew okay?”
Wolf shrugged.
“I saw Roll talking to you. Looked pretty pissed.”
“We’re expected to stop in Ridgway to give our official reports and hand over your phone for inspection.”
“You said that already.”
“After we stop in Ridgway, you’re getting back in the car and we’re driving up to County Hospital, where you’re going to check yourself in with Dr. Floyd. And if you had any sense, after that you’d check yourself into some rehab therapy sessions with Dr. Hawkwood down at the Old Church Building.”
Burton laughed, a big hearty chuckle that turned into a coughing fit. “No way in hell.”
“Whatever. I don’t care what you do.”
Burton dug a finger into his mustache and scratched with the vigor of a man who was being attacked subcutaneously by insects. Sweat beaded on the old man’s forehead. “Wolf. Please.”
“What?”
“I need a freaking drink. I really, really need a drink.”
“Sorry. The doctor thinks you’re a ticking time bomb. Doesn’t that bother you?”
“I’ve been a ticking time bomb for the last decade.”
“Yeah? And how many times have you been put in the hospital for it?”
“You’re the one who brought me here.”
They stared at each other.
“I’m not staying here tonight.”
“If I give you a drink, you’re staying here.”
Burton’s eyes widened. “Okay. Deal.”
Wolf set down his duffle bag, unzipped it and produced the burbling bottle of Jack Daniels.
“Holy cow, you had it all along.”
Wolf pointed at the covered plastic mug of water and ice next to his bed. “Drink all of that water, right now.”
Burton wasted no time sucking down the liquid until the straw slurped. The pain and underlying anxiety that had pinched the man’s eyes was gone, and they now sparkled like a child’s in an amusement park.
Wolf tipped some of the amber liquid into the ice and screwed the top back on. Then he tucked the bottle away in the duffle bag and zipped it shut.
Burton slowly put aside the straw and lid aside and reached for the cup, brought it to his lips and took a greedy sip. “Ah. That’s the stuff.”
Wolf immediately regretted his decision. But if they left, the old man would have hounded him until he could drink. Better here than anywhere else, he rationalized.
Burton’s eyes glazed over in thought. “Wolfie, my nephew is caught in the crossfire of something up there in Ridgway. I have a feeling.”
Wolf shrugged again. “They have competent individuals on the job. From what I read in the newspaper this morning, CBI’s helping.”
“I’d like to still know what they’re looking at. Make sure they’re going at it the right way. You know, peace of mind.”
“No offense, Sheriff, but I’d just as well leave it to them. I have plenty of my own issues to get back to at home.”
Burton’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of issues?”
Wolf sat down in a chair by the window, feeling the weight of his thoughts press him into the leather. “County Council meeting Tuesday morning.”
“Ha! Screw those jackals. Just tell them ‘yes, sir’ and ‘yes, ma’am,’ and walk out. That’s how you deal with them.”
Wolf said nothing.
“You think it’s serious?”
“I’m not sure, but the writing is on the wall.”
“What’s this writing saying?”
“It’s wondering if I’m good for the job anymore.”
“Why?”
“I assume it has to do with peons picking my ass up off the mountain last summer.”
“Then why wait almost a year to oust you?” Burton asked. “If they wanted you gone, you’d be gone by now. Right?”
Wolf shrugged. He’d considered the question, too. The only answer he could come up with was things took time. Especially when the mayor was Wolf’s close friend. Maybe Margaret’s protection had finally been perforated.
They sat in silence.
“You’re the best cop Colorado’s ever seen. And the routine remains the same. You give them a ‘yes, sir, yes ma’am’ and if they don’t want you anymore, then screw them.”
Burton flipped a hand, like he always had when he was done speaking on a topic. He held the plastic cup up to the light, looking slightly disappointed by the level of the contents within.
“Good tasting stuff. Thanks, Wolfie. I could always count on you.”
Wolf knew he could have said the same thing to the old man.
Burton and Wolf’s father, Daniel, had been longtime partners, and when Daniel Wolf had become sheriff, Burton had been his right-hand man. When Wolf’s father had been killed in the line of duty, Burton had been appointed sheriff. Wolf was just a freshman at Colorado State University, still a teenager, and had gone dark after his father’s death. He’d quit the football team. Without his father in the stands, what was the point? He went out for revenge half a world away, enlisting in the Army, and instead had found more pain and destruction.
And when Wolf had come back from Afghanistan, broken and suffering flashbacks, with a wife hooked on drugs and a son in diapers, Burton had hired him into the department.
Burton had been there with open arms, always loyal to Wolf, no matter how bad he screwed up.
“Tell me about Jesse,” Wolf said. “No more deflecting.”
Burton’s eyes glazed. “Yeah. Jesse.” The cup came back to his lips, then back to the table. “Jesse’s my little brother’s kid.”
“Mike’s kid?”
“Yeah.”
“He died of a heart condition?” Wolf took a stab in the dark. He’d never known how the man had passed. He’d never known anything about him.
“Aneurysm. Died in his sleep. But he was pretty much dead to the world a decade before that. Ever since Jesse’s birth, to be exact.”
Wolf put up his feet on the window sill. His feet felt like two blood-filled balloons, and when he leaned into the seat his lower back ached from the day’s exertions.
“Let’s see…where do I begin with this shit show?” Burton sipped again. “I guess I gotta start with my story. I was an only child until I was seventeen years old, when my mother informed me she was pregnant. It was a shock to everyone in the family, but mostly to me.” Burton’s gaze was far away.
“I was off to Colorado Springs that next year, where I was going to study criminal justice at Colorado College. And here were my parents, having another kid. Starting over from scratch.
“They were supposed to be crying over me leaving the nest, but instead they were all preoccupied with a new baby.”
Burton looked embarrassed and sought the cup to hide his face. The remainder of the liquid disappeared, filtered through the ice cubes.
The first slurp snapped him back to the present. His eyes darkened, went to the duffle bag on the floor.
Wolf unzipped it, pulled out the bottle, and poured him another couple of fingers. “That’s it. Make it last.”
Burton left the drink and slipped back into his story. “Anyway. I went to college, and a few months into my first semester I got the news my little brother had been born. I went back and visited.”
Burton waved a hand in the air.
“I stayed out on the front range, got a job with Denver PD. Became detective. Saw my kid brother Mike every once in a while, you know, every year for Christmas and stuff.”
The drink went back to his lips.
“You know about my parents dying, right?”
“No.” Wolf knew they were deceased, but he’d never heard how, nor had he pressed the issue.
“They died in a car crash.” Burton put a fist into his open palm. “Head on collision with a truck up on I-80 in Wyoming.”
Wolf didn’t know what to say as he watched Burton wade through tangled thoughts.
“I was down in Denver.” Burton
lifted an eyebrow. “You know how dangerous it was to work the Denver beat back in the sixties?”
Wolf nodded.
“Pretty dangerous. The criminals had all the new weapons of choice, and the cops had billy clubs and whistles. No way I was signing up for that. But I’d heard from a guy named Charlie Davidson about a small up-and-coming ski resort town called Rocky Points, and a hard-ass sheriff named Daniel Wolf. The rest is history.”
Burton raised his cup and took a sip.
Wolf had heard that part of his life story plenty of times. He waited for Burton to pick up the thread about his kid brother, about his nephew, but the story had evaporated.
“And Mike?” Wolf asked. “Jesse?”
Burton’s eyes clouded. “Right. We buried my parents. Mike was twenty, or twenty-one at the time. When he came to the funeral, he introduced me to his wife, some high school sweetheart kind of thing. She was pregnant with Mike’s kid. We said next to nothing to each other at the funeral. It was weird. Neither of us could find the words. And we parted ways again.”
Burton drank.
“The next time I saw Mike was when he was walking around with Jesse in his arms. He was alone with the kid. His wife died in childbirth.”
Wolf stared out at the window.
“Mike didn’t take his wife’s loss too well. By that point, me and Cheryl had already decided we weren’t having kids. We were up in Rocky Points, living our lives, when here comes my brother with his little baby in a stroller, this time without his wife, all depressed looking.”
Imagine that, Wolf thought.
“Me and him went out drinking once on that visit, and he broke down crying, telling me how he was scared for the future. That he didn’t know what was going to happen and he didn’t know if he could handle it.
“I told him he could handle it. And to not give up. But he’d already given up, and I knew it right then and there. I wasn’t going to take his kid. I wasn’t going to help him out of what he’d got himself into. I had my own burdens, what with the job and Cheryl, and….”
Burton shut his eyes.
“Anyway, he left and went about his life, and I went about mine. About ten years later, I got word that Mike had drunk himself to death. Aneurysm, they were calling it, but from what I could figure out, he’d been drinking heavily every day since his wife died.”