“Along with all that data you collected,” said Gloria.
“Not exactly. Before we left there, I copied all the docs to your personal computer. As a precaution.”
She started. “You mean, back at my place? The one that Maddox hacked? You did, too?”
“It wasn’t that hard. Frankly, Gloria, you really need to get some better spyware on that thing.”
Gloria’s lips tightened. “Guess you’re still not clear on that ‘intimacy and trust’ thing, eh, Lyle?”
“Let’s say it’s a work in progress.”
I saw her make the effort to calm down. To consider the pros and cons of the situation. I also saw that it wasn’t easy.
But finally the professional in her prevailed.
“Okay. It’s good that you backed everything up.” She fished her keys out of her pocket. “I’ll just swing by my apartment and pick up my laptop. Then meet you guys at the motel.”
“You think that’s smart?” I said. “Maddox could have eyes on your place, you know.”
“Fuck him. I don’t care who he is, he can’t be watching everything and everyone at once. I’m sure I can get in and out of my place without his knowing.”
She frowned at my skeptical look. “And we need a computer, Danny. Access to those files Barnes assembled, police reports. Whatever. Plus a way for Maddox to contact us. I said it before: if he stops talking to us, we’re really in the dark.”
“Then I’m going with you.”
“No, you’re not. You’re going to start checking the hospitals for news about Angie. I know how worried you are.”
“You mean, like I am for you?”
Her look was steady. “That’s sweet, Danny. But I can take care of myself. In fact, I insist on it. If you don’t agree, we have a real problem.”
Our eyes locked. And I knew she wasn’t going to budge.
Meanwhile, Lyle Barnes looked from one of us to the other. He was either amused or exasperated. I couldn’t tell which.
Finally, he said, “I think she’s talking about respect, Doc.”
Without turning, Gloria pointed a finger at him. “You stay out of this! I’m still trying to get over being pissed at you.”
I kept my gaze fixed on hers. And saw that Lyle was right. “Okay, Gloria,” I said at last. “Message received.”
She managed a slight, crooked smile.
“Now if you two don’t mind, I’d like to leave this sausage party and get on the road. Lyle, text me the address of the motel in GreenTree and let’s meet there in the morning.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
With that, she nodded at the two of us, then trotted off in the direction of where her hatchback was parked.
“I like her,” Barnes said simply, before opening his car door and getting behind the wheel.
“Me, too.”
I watched him pull away from the curb. Walking toward my own car, I glanced up the street at the scene of the fire. It looked as though most of it had been contained, though plumes of smoke rose up against the opaque sky. By now, a second TV news truck had arrived, even as some of the responders were beginning to pack up their gear.
Back inside my Mustang, I took a moment to glance at the rear seat. Thankfully, unlike my laptop and travel bag, I’d left Barbara’s unfinished manuscript in the car. Otherwise, it would probably have been destroyed in the fire.
Instinctively, I reached over the seat back and placed the bound manuscript next to me on the passenger side. It wasn’t something I wanted to risk losing.
l l l l l
With a stroke, time is of the essence. The EMTs who attended to Angie obviously knew that as well, so I used my throwaway cell to get the number of a hospital in or near McKees Rocks. The closest one to the river port was Mercy General, so I called there, identified myself as both a police consultant and the patient’s relative, and persuaded the duty nurse to confirm that Angie had been admitted.
It was nearing three a.m., and the rain had still held off, so I was able to drive to the low-slung, white-brick hospital complex fairly quickly. The open-air lot wasn’t even half-full, and I had no trouble finding a parking spot near the entrance. My guess was that after being rushed to the ER, Angie had been taken up to the ICU. So I went into the main entrance.
My police consultant’s ID seemed to have more weight with the receptionist than my blood connection to the victim, so I was directed to the elevators and told Intensive Care was on the third floor.
When I arrived in Angie’s room, I was met by two people standing vigilantly by her bed. One was a doctor whose name tag read “Robert Hilvers, M.D.” The other was Sergeant Harry Polk.
The latter was the first to speak.
“Jesus Christ, Rinaldi. I mighta known you’d show up. How the hell did you find out about this?”
I didn’t reply. Other than giving each man an acknowledging nod, my gaze went directly to Angie, bundled under a swath of sheets in the hospital bed. An IV drip fed into one of her doughy forearms, while a series of leads fed into a rack of monitors at her side. Their steady, ominous beeping was like the echo of a sluggish, beating heart.
The doctor—young, slender, wearing wire rims and a smug expression—turned toward me. His voice laced with asperity.
“You’re related to the patient, Mister—?”
“Doctor. Daniel Rinaldi. Yes. Related by blood and a long history. How is she?”
He fingered the stethoscope coiled around his neck. “Given the trauma she’s undergone, I’d say as well as can be hoped.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m afraid it’s too soon to tell, Doctor. It was a fairly significant event…the stroke, I mean. No doubt caused by the shock of what happened to her. We’re keeping her stable, but as to its long-term physiological or cognitive effects…” Hilvers took a mournful pause. “This is one of those cases for which the only treatment is tincture of time.”
Polk stirred, eyes narrowing. I could tell he didn’t much care for Robert Hilvers, M.D. But whatever he’d thought about saying, he apparently decided not to say it.
The doctor glanced at the opened doorway. “I’ll be back to check on Ms. Villanova in a few minutes. Till then, I’ll send in one of our floor nurses.”
“Thanks, Doctor.” I surprised him by reaching out to shake his hand, figuring it was smart to stay on this pompous jerk’s good side. At least for now.
I’d guessed right. He returned my handshake with a broad, appreciative smile. Then, having been accorded the proper respect and deference, he strode from the room.
As I took a position across the bed from where Polk stood, he leveled his heavy gaze on me.
“Real piece o’ work, that guy. Couple times, I wanted to shove that stethoscope down his throat.” Harry rubbed his beard stubble. “So what do you know about all this?”
“I was going to ask you the same question.”
“There ain’t much. Somebody grabbed her right outside the precinct, gettin’ into her car after work. We only know ’cause some uniform happened to see it go down from across the lot. But the fuckin’ balls, takin’ her right outside our own house.”
“But what happened to her?”
As before, I had to maintain a disingenuous ignorance of events I’d actually witnessed. It wasn’t the first time in my career with them that I’d had to lie to the police, but I was never comfortable doing it.
Polk paused, looking down at Angie’s chalk-white face, her closed eyelids. The slackened mouth, lips slightly cracked.
“Looks like the perp knocked her out—probably with some kinda drug, the doc says, though we won’t know till the blood tests come back. Then he ties her to one of the pillars down at the McKees Rocks port. Tryin’ to drown her, looks like. But that sure ain’t the easiest way to do it. Or the fastest, the sadistic son of a bit
ch. Funny thing. We still don’t know how the hell she got free o’ the ropes and outta the water.”
I shrugged. “Angie’s a fighter, Harry. You know that as well as I do. But I think you’re right about the perp…Sounds like he wanted to terrify her. Make her suffer.”
“Yeah, that’s what Chief Logan says, too. Biegler woke him outta bed a couple hours ago to tell him about it. And to the Chief’s credit, he wants every available cop brought into this. From senior detectives down to traffic control. He really wants to nail the bastard who did this to her.”
“I’m not surprised. Angie and Logan go way back.” I gently touched her shoulder. “So do we. From the old neighborhood.”
“Yeah, I know.” For the first time, he offered me a look of commiseration. “I figger this is pretty tough on you, Doc.”
“Not as tough as on her. Or her husband, for that matter. Where is Sonny, by the way?”
“Ya just missed him. He’s been here since Angie was brought in. Right before you showed up, Doc sent him down to the lounge to grab a couple hours’ sleep.”
“Just as well. I’m not one of Sonny’s favorite people.”
“Yeah.” Polk failed to suppress a smile. “Seems like ya have that effect on a lotta folks. By the way, ya never answered my question. How come ya knew Angie was here?”
“I happened to be here in the hospital, helping to admit a patient of mine in crisis.”
“At three in the mornin’?”
“Psychotic episodes don’t keep banker’s hours, Harry. Anyway, while I was conferring with the staff shrink on call, I heard one of the nurses talking about a patient named Villanova being brought up to ICU.”
It sounded plausible, so Polk bought it. At least it looked that way.
Then, for a long moment, he and I merely stood on either side of the bed, watching Angie’s slow, measured breathing.
“Any leads on the perp?” I asked Polk at last. “Or ideas about motive?”
“Well, whatever the prick’s reasons, this was goddam personal. Nobody does somethin’ this fucked up unless it is. Like you said, he wanted her to suffer.”
“Hopefully, Angie can give you more to go on when she wakes up…recovers enough to talk…”
“If she can talk.” Polk’s face darkened. “Doc said earlier there was a good chance she might not be able to. Ever.”
Though the possibility of this had crossed my mind already, it was still a shock to hear it put into words, to contemplate the possible permanent effects of the stroke. For all the years I’d known her, Angie had been like a force of nature. Funny and combative, yet with a boundless love for her family and friends. Now to have that energy, that vitality, stilled forever…
Just then, one of the unit nurses came in. She was a tall, strong-looking black woman whose face registered both competence and compassion. A veteran caregiver who, I suspected, had zero tolerance for any nonsense from patients, visitors, or doctors.
“Gentlemen.” Giving us a cursory glance, she said her name was Rosalind, then began checking the monitors and the IV tube. I stepped away from the bed to give her room to work.
Abruptly, she looked up from her duties to stare at Polk.
“Are you the police?”
“Detective Sergeant Polk, ma’am.”
“Then tell me something, Detective Sergeant.” With heavy emphasis on those last two words. “I heard what happened to this poor woman. Tied up in the river and left to drown. So tell me: who could do such a thing?”
“That’s what we’re gonna find out. Way I see it, there are three kinds o’ people in this world: good, bad, and worse. The man who did this—”
She interrupted him. “There’s no mystery here. The man who did this has the devil in him. That’s all you need to know.”
Before he could respond, Rosalind went back to attending to her patient. I looked over at Polk, who stood uneasily, as if he didn’t know what to do with his hands.
“I better go,” I said. “I’m just in everyone’s way. Harry?”
“I gotta stay. Biegler and Chief Logan are due here any minute. They wanna see how she’s bein’ treated.”
“They also probably want to figure out how to spin this for the press. As the Department’s Community Liaison Officer, Angie is pretty well known throughout the city. Speaking of which, have her kids been notified?”
“Sonny already called ’em. They’re on their way in, too.” A heavy sigh. “Gonna be damned crowded in here pretty soon.”
Rosalind had just finished with Angie when I turned to leave. Suddenly, she tapped me on the shoulder.
“Hey, mister. What’s that welt doing on your neck? If that’s from a needle stick, somebody did a lousy job of it.”
Instinctively, I felt the back of my neck where Maddox had plunged in the hypo loaded with the paralytic. To my surprise, the raised puncture site was still quite pronounced.
“I think it’s some kind of insect bite,” I said lamely.
She grunted, unconvinced. “Whatever. Want my advice, have that thing looked at.”
With that, she hustled out of the room. Right afterwards, promising to check in with Polk later, in case there were any new developments, I, too, made my exit. Then I found Rosalind at the nurses’ station and asked for her card.
“If you don’t mind,” I said, “I’d rather get progress reports on Ms. Villanova from you than from Dr. Hilvers.”
She gave me a wry smile. “I don’t blame ya, mister.”
l l l l l
I wasn’t halfway down the ICU’s main corridor when it struck me. The answer to a question that had been nagging me since earlier tonight at the river port.
Yet, though I was in a hospital, the perfect place to deal with it, I knew I couldn’t. Not here, not with doctors I didn’t know. Who’d ask questions. Who’d feel duty-bound to report it to the cops.
No, the only two people I could trust were Lyle Barnes and Gloria Reese.
I just had to hope that one of them knew how to handle a scalpel.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Gloria held the small scalpel up to the light of the bedside lamp.
“Where the hell did you get this, Danny?”
“Mercy General. On my way out, I snuck into one of the service closets and got it out of a discard bin.”
“Great. So it’s not exactly sterile.”
“No, but it’s not exactly brain surgery we’re talking about, either.”
Sitting next to her on the motel bed, I pulled my sweater off over my head. Even that minor effort brought a spasm of pain to my bruised ribs.
Lyle Barnes stood a few feet away, rubbing the underside of his arm sling. “If I didn’t have this damned thing, Doc, I’d be happy to do it.”
I managed a grin. “That’s what I was afraid of, Lyle. Truth is, I trust Gloria’s reluctance and general disapproval. It means she’ll be slow and careful.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I think.”
We were in Gloria’s room at the motel on the outskirts of GreenTree, right next to the one I’d be sharing with Barnes.
I’d come straight from the hospital, and though the sun hadn’t yet risen, an accident on the parkway had traffic backed up for miles. When I finally pulled into the motel’s lot, I was surprised to find that it wasn’t as bad as Gloria had feared. With its garishly colored sign proclaiming free cable TV and complimentary Continental breakfast, it was like most other chain motels built in the mid-1960s.
I’d seen more than my share of places like it when I was a teenager, traveling to amateur boxing matches around the tri-state area with my dad. In that way, it was like coming home.
But, seeing Gloria’s car parked next to Lyle’s, my primary feeling was one of relief. As she’d promised, she’d obviously managed to retrieve her laptop from her apartment and make it here to the mo
tel. Once inside her room, and seeing it on a little desk in the corner, I received further assurance that Maddox hadn’t seen her or followed her.
“Give me some credit, will ya, Danny? I know when I’m being tailed. And when I’m not.”
Still, the laptop itself represented potential danger, so she’d not only closed the lid but buried it under a couple of the room’s pillows. And a bedsheet.
“Harder for him to hear us,” she’d explained. “If he’s even listening. I mean, Christ, even he has to rest sometimes. Eat. Go to the bathroom. Right?”
“Right.” Wishing I’d sounded more convincing.
Now, while Lyle ran steaming hot water over the scalpel in the bathroom sink, I lay on my stomach on some towels that Gloria had spread on the bed.
With a deep exhalation, she bent over me and gingerly touched the welt on the back of my neck. I could smell the last traces of her subtle perfume. I found it oddly calming.
“Now that I’m looking for it, I can feel it,” she said. “The chip Maddox embedded under the skin.”
“Yeah. I realize now it must’ve been when he’d given me the second injection. Right after showing me the video that night, when I was still tied to the chair. After the drug took effect, he implanted the tracking chip.”
“No wonder it still hurt like hell. But how did you figure it out?”
“I didn’t. Not till that nurse mentioned it. That’s when I put it together with something Maddox had said at the port. He said he knew how much I liked looking at a river.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He was referring to the other night, right after Harvey’s death. Remember? I was too rattled by it to come right back, so I stood at the Mon’s riverbank. Just thinking. Trying to come to terms with what happened to Harvey. Until I got chased out of there by some river cop.”
I raised my head to turn toward her, but she gently guided it back down on my crossed forearms on the bed.
“I wondered about that,” I went on. “How could Maddox know I’d walked down to the river? Even if he’d somehow managed to track me by my laptop, that didn’t apply in this case. It wasn’t in my car. It was back at my house.”
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