Kindness Goes Unpunished

by Craig Johnson

  3

  The Trauma Center at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania was on the other side of town and the Schuylkill River, but it took Officer Anthony Moretti only twelve minutes to get there. It took me half that to get to the Surgical ICU on the fifth floor, and numerous lifetimes to think about the nature of trauma and how it takes more lives than cancer and heart disease combined. He wouldn’t give me details, only that my daughter had been involved in some sort of accident, that she was being treated at HUP, and that, as a professional courtesy, he would drive me there.

  Lena Moretti had accompanied us, stating flatly that she could just as easily get a cab from Penn as from Bread Street. She had stayed with Tony while I found myself looking into the very tired eyes of a trauma physician who explained that Cady had sustained a depressed skull fracture and that she was currently unresponsive. A CAT scan had confirmed the damage, and there was a neurosurgeon battling a subdural hematoma.

  There really wasn’t anything I could do but sit there with a Styrofoam cup of coffee and wait. There wasn’t a lot of room in the ICU, so I dragged one of the gray upholstered chairs into the hallway, where I had a clear view of the red doors of the emergency elevator. I watched it the next ten minutes. It was creeping up on midnight and, with the lights on all the time and the sounds of the machines, it was like a casino—only the stakes were higher.

  Nobody speaks to you in these situations—it’s like you’re a pitcher throwing a no-hitter—they don’t look at you, and you don’t want them to. I thought about all the people I should call, but it was only Henry who could do anything. I pulled out my wallet; the business card from Fred Ray’s Durant Sinclair Service had Henry’s cell phone number scrawled across the back. I didn’t call him on his mobile very often and could never remember the number. I went to the nurse’s desk and asked if I could use the phone. I dialed and watched the elevator as the phone rang and a prissy little voice informed me that the person I was attempting to call was unavailable but that I could leave a message after the tone, which I did.

  “Henry, it’s Walt. Cady’s been hurt, and I’m in the ICU at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.” I gave him the number of the phone I was speaking into, along with the extension. As I hung up, Lena Moretti and another young police officer who was carrying a plastic basket and Cady’s briefcase turned the corner at the end of the hall. I stood there and waited for them; they stopped a full step away, like you would approach a large wounded animal.

  Lena’s hand trailed out to me; she was the brave one. “How is she?”

  I took two fingers of the hand and looked at the eyes that were so much like Vic’s. I felt my knees buckle a little. The next thing I knew, the cup of coffee from my other hand was on the polished surface of the speckled tile floor, and I was sitting in my chair trying to catch my breath. Lena and the young man kneeled beside me; he had placed the basket beside my chair, and I saw a small purse, a holstered electronic device I didn’t recognize, a cell phone, a wristwatch, and her grandmother’s engagement ring.

  “Take it easy there, big fella.” He had one hand on my shoulder and the other at my back and was holding me there.

  I took a deep breath. Lena’s hands were cool on my face. “Walter?”

  I continued to breathe and leaned back in the chair. “I’m okay.”

  She looked at me, not sure. “Do you want me to get a doctor?” She glanced around for comic effect. “I mean, there seem to be plenty around.”

  I tried to laugh, but I think all I accomplished was a funny face. “I’m okay, really.” I thought I was but, when I looked at the young officer to thank him, he looked like Lena, too; everybody had started looking alike. I dipped my head back down and blinked to clear my vision; I looked back up at the guy, but he still looked like Lena, although not exactly like Tony. I felt slightly better when I glanced at his name tag. “Michael Moretti?”

  He smiled. “How ya doin’?”

  Michael was a handsome kid; somehow the features I had grown used to on females worked on him as well. The eyes were a true dark brown, and his chin was a little stronger, with a cleft that neither Lena nor Vic had. He was a little shorter than six feet, but his shoulders and arms were very large. I nodded to him. “I’m okay.”

  He continued to smile. “Yeah, that’s what you keep sayin’.”

  I looked at Lena, at the parchment lines at her eyes. “You called in the cavalry?”

  She nodded. “It’s in his district, the Wild West. Tony’s the sixth.”

  Lena got some paper towels from the nurse’s station and cleaned up the coffee as I signed the personal property list. Michael had heard through unofficial channels that Cady was stabilized and would be moved from surgery to the ICU soon. I looked at the favored son and listened as his almost new gun belt creaked in the silence of the hallway. “Mr. Longmire, do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

  “Walt, just call me Walt.”

  “You sure you’re up to this?”

  “Yep.”

  He nodded. “Your daughter is an associate at Schomberg, Calder, Dallin, and Rhind?”

  “Yep, she was working late.”

  He wrote on his notepad and looked back at me. “Working late?”

  “Yep. I spoke with her earlier, and she was supposed to have dinner with your mother and me, but she had some work to do.”

  His lip stiffened, just a little. “The firm is located on the 1500 block of Market?”

  “Yes.” I waited.

  “Then do you have any idea why she would have been assaulted at the Franklin Institute?”

  “Assaulted?”

  “Look, I could tell you that it was an innocent accident…” He paused and then inclined his head a little. “But the attending officer said he spoke with the security guard, and he said there was an altercation between the young lady and another individual: male, Caucasian, approximately mid-thirties.”

  “Where?”

  “Franklin Institute, across from Logan Circle, near the art museum.” He continued to look at me. “The security guard said he heard voices, and then the next thing he knows the guy is beating on the door and asking for help. By the time he got the door unlocked and got out there, your daughter was lying on the steps and the man was gone. When you spoke with her, did she say anything about another engagement this evening?”

  “No, she just said she’d be late.”

  “Does the description of the individual sound familiar?”

  “Well…she’s dating a young man.”

  “And that man’s name?”

  I paused a second before I said it. “Devon Conliffe.”

  He wrote it down. “Do you have an address?”

  “No, but he’s another lawyer…I’m sure Cady has it.”

  He looked at the basket. “Would you mind if I looked at her PDA?”

  I’m sure he was aware I was staring at him. “If I knew what it was, probably not.”

  He reached down and plucked the unknown device from the basket and pulled it from the leather holster. “Is he an attorney with the same firm?”

  “No, a different one, but I don’t know the name.”

  It looked like a calculator, but evidently it had other abilities. He scribbled Devon Conliffe’s address and phone number on his note pad, put the device back, stood, and looked down at me. “Look, it’s probably nothing, but I’m gonna follow up on this and, if there’s anything, I’ll let you know.” There was an easy quality that overrode how brand-new his uniform looked; I was betting he had been in for less than a year.

  He kissed his mother and turned to summon the elevator, but the door was opening, and an entourage of attendants, nurses, and physicians wheeled out machinery and a gurney on which Cady lay. I stood, and we all moved against the wall to allow them to pass. It was good that I had the wall to stand against, because I was feeling a little shaky again. They had shaved the side of her head, where there was a U-shaped incision, and a breathing tube ran into her
throat. Her eyes were closed, and she didn’t move. I trailed along behind the group and watched as they installed her in the corner room; the ironic sadness of that was not lost on me.

  They parked her carefully like you would a new and expensive car. I watched as the electrocardiogram was attached to the wall monitor, and it began the familiar line and spike.

  The same physician who had spoken to me before separated himself and came to the doorway. His ID said Rissman. He looked at the floor, looked at the wall, and finally settled on my left shoulder as a focus. He talked about seizures sweeping across Cady’s brain like electrical storms, flashing from the horizon and disappearing. He explained that Cady’s Glasgow coma score was a seven and that she was only responding to painful stimuli in an involuntary manner. I guess I understood the rest, but the word that hung in my head was coma. How she responded within the next twenty-four hours would determine whether she would join the 53 percent that die or remain in a vegetative state, or the 34 percent that will have a moderate disability and/or good recovery. I wasn’t sure about the other 13 percent, but I knew about head trauma, and I knew about coma; what I didn’t know about was the next twenty-four hours.

  He said that she was in excellent physical health otherwise and that youth was on her side, that she had had normal pupil reflex upon arrival, and that the entire team was hopeful. I had heard this speech before, because I had made it; I knew what it was worth.

  Dr. Rissman said he would be back in an hour to check on things and then introduced me to the primary nurse, a solid woman in her forties; she said nothing but squeezed my hand before moving away. I sat in the chair beside the bed, and Lena Moretti was the only one left in the doorway of the glass-partitioned area. She came to the bedside and stood beside me, placing a hand on my shoulder and, thankfully, offering no advice. She stood like that long enough for me to start feeling guilty. “You should go home.”

  Her voice was very quiet. “You’re sure?” I didn’t say anything; evidently that was okay, because she patted my shoulder and assured me that she’d be back in the morning with breakfast. And she was gone.

  I listened as the machines breathed for my daughter, monitored her heart, and fed her intravenously, but I kept looking at the incision where they had removed a portion of the skull to allow her swollen brain enough room to survive. A small piece of Cady was now in a freezer on the fourth floor and, when I thought about it, the weakness threatened to overwhelm me again; so I looked at her face. It was lovely, and every time I looked at it, I had a hard time convincing myself that I had had any hand in it. I always loved the finished quality of her features; she was like her mother in that respect. Mine were more blocked, as if nature had started with a pretty good idea but had gotten bored with the effort. Cady was different. She was beautiful.

  I thought about the two photographs that were on my desk at the office in Wyoming. One was a preteen shot. She was tossing her hair back, exposing the large hoop earrings that she had favored until her sixteenth birthday, when she exchanged them for the tiny ones I gave her. She was smiling. If pressed, I’d have to say that I don’t remember her smiling during this period—she mostly frowned in disapproval of my very existence—but she must have, because there was photographic evidence.

  The other photo was from the summer of bum, as it later became known. Between law school at the University of Washington and the subsequent bar exams and her current stint at Schomberg, Calder, Dallin, and Rhind, she had spent a perfectly glorious summer along the Bighorn Mountains sleeping, sunbathing, and shopping. The photograph was taken near the end of August, and she was seated on the deck at Henry’s house, her oversized feet in flip-flops. A battered pair of jeans and a stunningly studded Double D leather jacket that had cost me a half-week’s pay completed the outfit. She was smiling again—Tuesday’s child, full of grace.

  My eyes started tearing. I looked toward the doorway and tried to clear the heat from my face and the wild thoughts that swooped through my mind like barn swallows under a dark bridge.

  The plastic basket along with Cady’s briefcase had been carefully placed on another chair. I went over, pulled her cell phone from the bin, and returned to my seat. I looked at her some more, then flipped open the phone, which was a much fancier version than Henry’s. I scrolled down, and it didn’t take long to find BEAR/CELL. I pushed the green button, and the prissy voice told me that the person I was calling was unavailable; I left yet another message, this time with the caveat that I was calling from Cady’s cell phone. I hit the red button and looked at the other functions on the tiny screen, one of which read RECEIVED CALLS.

  I stared at the phone a while longer and then pushed the button: DEVON 10:03 PM. I scrolled down, and it read DEVON 10:01 PM.

  DEVON 09:47 PM.

  DEVON 09:32 PM.

  DEVON 09:10 PM.

  DEVON 08:48 PM.

  I ran through all the calls: Twenty-six, and all from Devon. All unanswered.

  I remembered to breathe and felt the wingtip feathers of vendetta scouring the insides of my lungs. I swallowed, watched my hands shake for a moment, and then hit the function button that indicated that, in all those calls, there was only one message, and it was from the last call.

  There was the little voice that said don’t do it, but every other voice was screaming at me to listen. It was what I would do for anybody else; it was my sworn duty. I took a guess and punched in BEAR as the security code.

  “You have one message.” I had none, but I was listening.

  For the next two minutes, I listened to Devon Conliffe. He was in a spitting rage and referred to Cady as everything but a child of God; the language he used to describe her actions and person would have paled Vic. He threatened to do things to her that I hadn’t heard in a four-year stint with the Marines and close to a quarter century of law enforcement. Toward the end, he had become breathless but no less vitriolic, closing with one last salvo that promised a savage retribution if she did not appear within the next minute. The line went dead.

  I closed the tiny cell phone; soundings from a very dark place began working their way to the surface. I knew the timber and the danger of these thoughts. My face cooled where a healthy heat had been, and a stillness crept over my hands.

  I placed the cell phone in the front pocket of my jacket and hung it on the back of my chair. I pushed my hat back a little, crossed my arms, and looked directly at Cady; the smooth, steady movement of my actions raised a sliver of panic in the rational man who was abandoning me.

  I wondered what in the hell she had been doing on the other side of town. Why would she be at the Franklin Institute instead of with me at her house in Old City? Had what happened been an accident and, if she and Devon had had an argument and he had pushed her, why hadn’t he called someone? Why wasn’t he here?

  I pulled the phone from my pocket and listened to the message again.

  I now knew some answers. The next questions would most likely be asked by the fifth largest police force in the country. I had no jurisdiction in Philadelphia. I listened as the sliver attempted to gain a little leverage and force some light into the emotional dusk, but darkness can be stubborn.

  I sat there in the glare of the ICU and the murmuring of the machines and watched my child as all the shadowy things loosened themselves and began their steady ascent to open air where they could do the most damage. I suppose an hour had gone by when Dr. Rissman came back and checked her vitals.

  He closed her eye and again looked past my shoulder. I felt like punching him for not looking at me directly but, instead, shook my head and cleared my throat. “No movement.”

  “It’s still early.”

  “I know.”

  He gave a perfunctory nod and went out to the nurse’s station, and I was alone again.

  It was approaching dawn, and the trauma physician had checked in five more times with the same results. The faint glow of the sun crept against the adjoining buildings, and it felt like I was in the turret of a
n unending castle. My eyes must have grown tired because, when I blinked, somebody else was in the room. I tried to focus, but the strain of the night made it feel like I was dragging 600-grit sandpaper over my eyeballs. I closed them and opened them again, but the image of the man kneeling by the bed remained blurred.

  A small panic sparked, and I shifted in my chair, but he put out a hand and stilled me. It was only when the image shifted and I heard the intricate melody of the Cheyenne song that I knew it was Henry.

  Epigrammatic whispers escaped from him as from a man possessed, and maybe it was the voices of ancestors winging their way onto the tongues of the living. I watched the broadness of his back drawing in the air of the room and swallowing the damage that had been done to Cady. There was a momentary stillness, and the song began again with a wailing tremble and ended with a final gasp.

  After a moment, he turned to look at me, and I could see that he had been crying and that he must have been singing for some time. He wore a faded denim shirt that I had seen many times, and the collar was darkened with the tears that still streamed down his face. He didn’t stand but pivoted on one foot and sat on the floor by the bed. He didn’t wipe the tears away and gave me a tight-lipped smile as he folded his hands in his lap. “What has happened?”

  I explained the medical situation as best I could.

  His eyes stayed very steady. “How did this happen?”

  I told him what Michael had told me.

  His eyes still did not move. “Who has done this?”

  I pulled the phone from my jacket pocket and tossed it to him. “There are twenty-six received calls on her phone, but only one message.” I stood as he pushed buttons. “The security code is BEAR.” I walked around to the other side of the bed to stand over Cady and looked for some sign that would give me hope that she would be in the 34 percent that made it back. I waited and watched, feeling the heat return to my face, the quiver to my hands.

  He closed the phone with a distinct snap and sat there. His movements were deliberate as he stood and turned and studied me from across the bed. His voice was strained. “Do not do this.”