Death's Echoes

by Penny Mickelbury

  A long, hot shower revived her mind and a big bowl of microwaved spinach lasagna did the same for her body, so she dressed, grabbed her phone charger, almost grabbed her laptop but put it down when she remembered that she wouldn’t need to be writing, and headed for the hospital. She could sleep just as well there as at home, and besides, she wanted to be there when Gianna woke up. And she was. She had bought a newspaper because she knew that Gianna would want to see the story as well as check the latest details. Should’ve brought the laptop after all, she thought, as she watched Gianna scroll the the images and info on the phone’s small screen.

  Gianna was heartbroken that four of the people from the deaf class hadn’t got out in time, but Mimi reminded her that they all could have perished if she hadn’t rushed in to get them out. “If anybody gets blamed for that loss of life, it’s the Metro GALCO staff,” Mimi said. “They all rushed out, and nobody checked to see if the people who couldn’t hear the alarm and the loudspeaker announcement got out. Don’t blame yourself, Gianna.”

  Then Gianna’s unit started to arrive, one at a time at first, then in groups, and Mimi got up to leave. “You don’t have to go,” Eric said.

  “Sure I do,” Mimi said, laughing. “You all can’t talk your cop talk with me here. Besides, one thing I know for sure: She’s in good hands! Lots of them!” She gave him the bag containing Gianna’s weapon and police credentials, which the nursing staff had given her, and he hugged her tightly. “Please clean the gun and polish the holster,” she whispered to him. “You know how she is about her cop stuff.” And he did know—better and for longer than Mimi had. And Mimi knew that.

  Alice followed her out. “I wanted to thank you for the good advice. About speaking honestly to Evie. It really made a difference.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “She is now, but she was really hurt at first, and my silence just made it worse. She deserved better.”

  “She’s a good woman, Evie is.”

  Alice nodded. “She definitely is, and I’m lucky that she’s willing to be my friend.”

  “I hope you’ll both be all right, Alice. You’re both good women.”

  Alice chuckled. “Know a lot about good women, do you?”

  “I hurt one once and swore I’d never do it again. That’s what I know.”

  Alice was silent for a moment, then, “Do you think the people who hate us know we hate them?”

  “Wow!” Mimi said. “I didn’t expect that.”

  “Those dipshits who murdered Cassie, and the ones who bombed Metro GALCO and killed four people: Do they know how much we hate them?”

  “Hmmm, probably not,” Mimi said. “It requires a special kind of self-centered arrogance to do what they do. They think they’re right and everybody else is wrong so, no, they probably don’t think their hatred is reciprocal. Besides, a lot of those who are the most hated often believe in forgiveness and loving their enemies.”

  “Huh,” Alice said. “You’re right. For the most part. But some of us have gotten tired of turning the same two cheeks. I’m from South Carolina, so the massacre in that church in Charleston hit home for me. If they had killed the Boss yesterday, right after killing Cassie, I’d have been done with this job and I’d be out there with getting even on my mind.”

  Mimi pointed to the room where Gianna lay. “It would be good if you never let her hear you talk like that, even though I don’t think you really mean it.”

  “I definitely mean it, but you’re right. I’d never say it to her. It would disappoint her, and what she thinks matters too much to me.” Alice gave her a sad look. “See ya, Patterson.”

  “Alice? She’s out there, and when you stop looking for her, she’ll find you.” And Mimi walked down the hall and out the door and went home. She’d call Gianna later, but the day should belong to those people who loved Lieutenant Maglione as much as she did. She’d take Gianna home tomorrow and have her all to herself, and she’d explain her new status as unemployed journalist.

  Sunday morning an almost rested Mimi walked in just as a nurse removed a mask from Gianna’s face, pulled her upright, and put a bowl in her lap. Was she nauseated, about to throw up? Then, Gianna was coughing so hard Mimi was afraid she was about to expel a lung instead of some of the dirt and debris she’d inhaled yesterday, and it was painful. Mimi knew that because of how tightly Gianna was squeezing her hand. Her breathing trouble had begun during the night, and when oxygen alone didn’t resolve the problem, a pulmonary specialist was called in to begin the process Mimi now was watching: Gianna was inhaling something that caused her to cough and expel the mucous-y buildup in her lungs. An expectorant it would have been called in the drugstore, though she was pretty certain that whatever Gianna was inhaling couldn’t be bought over the counter. She was just as certain that what Gianna was expelling wasn’t just the common-cold variety of phlegm or mucous.

  The coughing stopped and Gianna fell back onto the pillows, still gripping Mimi’s hand. She was sweating and her breathing was labored. Just as Mimi was about to ask for it, the nurse wet a cloth and wiped Gianna’s face and neck; then the pulmonary tech put a mask on her nose and mouth and turned on a machine. Mimi could hear the hiss that indicated Gianna was inhaling something via the mask. “What’s in that?” Mimi asked, pointing to it.

  “You’ll have to ask the doctor,” the tech responded.

  “I’m asking you,” Mimi retorted, and the nurse intervened before things got ugly.

  “The doctor is on her way right now,” the nurse said, wiping Gianna’s brow, “and she’ll be able to explain what’s happening and why, okay?”

  Mimi nodded but she wasn’t placated. “Why wasn’t I called?”

  “She didn’t want us to call you,” the nurse said, “since it wasn’t a life-threatening situation. Her words, by the way. She said you didn’t need to watch her breathe and cough and spit.”

  But I do need to watch her still be alive, Mimi thought. “Thank you,” she said to the nurse, then, “The doctor’s coming, right?”

  “The doctor’s here,” said a Madeleine Albright look-alike who bustled in, emanating efficiency. She extended a hand, which Mimi shook, then, after a squirt of hand sanitizer from the pump on the wall, she put on her stethoscope and, with the help of the nurse, adjusted Gianna’s gown so that she could listen to her lungs from the front and the back. “Much, much better,” she said, stuffing the stethoscope into the pocket of her white coat and turning her attention to the hissing machine next to the bed. “You know that she inhaled quite a lot of toxic particulate matter yesterday, and in a prone position. That’s the bad news—the only bad news. The good news is that the lieutenant has lovely lungs! She has never smoked and her regular exercise has kept her lungs operating at peak capacity and performance.” The doctor was now reading a tape spit out by the hissing machine while writing in the chart—obviously an expert at multitasking, though she probably didn’t call it that, probably just called it doing her job. If she called it anything. She told Mimi that Gianna was inhaling a mixture designed to help her breathe, make her cough, manage the pain, and sedate her.

  “Why does she need all that, especially the sedative?”

  “Her body was severely traumatized even though she suffered no broken bones, and what we’re doing to clear her lungs is also traumatic. Rest is how the body heals itself. Making sure she sleeps is how we make sure she rests.”

  Mimi nodded, inhaled, exhaled, nodded again. “Thank you,” she said.

  “You’re welcome,” the doctor said.

  “When can she go home?”

  “Tomorrow. Probably,” the doctor said, and left. The nurse and the tech followed.

  Mimi focused on how the doctor had said “probably.” As in maybe . . . maybe not. As in, “we’ll see.” She stood beside the bed holding Gianna’s hand. She did look peaceful now that she no longer was coughing up her lungs and sweating. I can live with “probably” Mimi thought.

  “Hi,” she heard from t
he doorway.

  “You would be Sgt. Tommi,” Mimi said to Thomasina Bell, who came to greet her with a smile and an outstretched hand.

  “It’s a pleasure, Ms. Patterson. You are admired, respected—and loved—by the HCU. I hope us new guys get the chance to get to know you that well.”

  “I don’t see how you’ll be able to escape,” Mimi said and, pointing to a chair, “Have a seat.”

  Tommi sat. “Glad to see she’s resting.” Then, pointing to the hissing machine, “What’s that?” Tommi listened intently as Mimi explained, nodding her head in understanding. The look on her face, however, said that she didn’t much like what she heard. “So, she’s not getting out of here today?”

  “The doctor says tomorrow. Probably.”

  Tommi sighed, then held up a thick folder. “I brought some light reading for her to take home.”

  “I can give it to her tomorrow. Probably,” Mimi said.

  Tommi shook her head. “It’ll be outdated by then.” She pulled out her phone. “I better call Eric.” Then she pulled out a card and gave it to Mimi. “I’d appreciate it if you’d add my number to your call list, Ms. Patterson, and put me in the ranks of those who’d go to hell and back for her,” she said pointing to Gianna. “Take care of her.”

  “I will,” Mimi said, and holding up Tommi’s card, “on both counts.”

  Mimi followed Tommi out, her own phone at hand. She really should be the one to call the Chief. She knew he’d hold it against her for a while, calling him an asshole, but to hear of a change in Gianna’s condition from somebody else—he’d really hold that against her. Probably forever.

  Maybe this wasn’t a bad way to spend Sunday. The doctor had said Gianna’s body had received a severe trauma and the body needed rest to recover. Reading the reports Sgt. Tommi had brought would not be restful and knowing Gianna, no way she’d go home, get in bed, stay there. Not to rest anyway. Sitting here watching her sleep—watching her rest and recover—was rather restful itself. She could watch the news reports of the futile attempts of the Capitol Hill bullies to try to get the best of the Chief: He was winning that one. Zemekis had written really good stories on the events at Metro GALCO. He’d even focused on the fact that it was the head of the Hate Crimes Unit, Lt. Giovanna Maglione, who’d saved the lives of the deaf students in the second-floor classroom after she discovered that the Metro GALCO staff had left them in the building, rushing in to lead them out. Because she was hospitalized recovering from injuries suffered in a bomb blast, the Chief was happy to speak for the lieutenant, and about her. She and Joe would meet in the hospital cafeteria for a late lunch and she’d update him on Gianna’s condition. The national and international media were blaming the administration for allowing the trafficking of women and children for sex, and the administration was responding by calling those reports fake news. And it still hadn’t been possible to identify all the girls taken from the warehouse or to determine where they came from or how they got there.

  Mimi turned off the television, closed her laptop, put the newspapers on the floor, and settled in for a nap, the last thoughts on her mind before drifting off being that on Wednesday afternoon she and Gianna would leave town for a four-day mini-vacation at a luxury cabin in the Catoctin Mountains four hours north of D.C., and that she never would have believed it possible that she could miss George Bush.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Packing was the easiest part of preparing to go to Freddie’s mountain cabin: It was a casual clothes to no clothes kind of trip. The “cabin” was, in reality, a chalet carved into the side of a mountain in Garrett County in western Maryland, overlooking Deep Creek Lake, and, unlike the image usually conjured up at the thought of a cabin in the woods, the place exuded the luxury of, well, a chalet. Because Freddie was a retired football linebacker, everything in the place was sized to fit him, which meant that Mimi and Gianna could lie side by side on the sofa and watch TV and movies on a screen that took up one wall; the fireplace took up the adjacent wall. This part of the state was pleasantly warm in the summer, frighteningly frigid in the winter, and deliciously cool in the fall and spring. Mimi was finished packing in the time it took to think about packing. Because Freddie and Cedric always maintained an overabundant supply of food and drink, including Mimi and Gianna’s favorite popcorn and raisin bran, there was no need to take food, and the satellite hookup guaranteed that every film and television offering known to personkind, foreign and domestic, was available at the touch of a button. She was due to pick up Gianna within the hour and they’d be off! Though there was no chance of snow or freezing rain on the roads this time of the year, they always preferred arriving before dark.

  “I just finished packing,” Mimi said, answering her phone. “I’m ready to go when you are.” Then she heard the garage door rumble up, and she hurried into the kitchen to open the door that led to the garage and there was Gianna. “Did I misunderstand? I thought I was picking you up.”

  “No misunderstanding,” Gianna said, kissing her as she entered the kitchen. “At least not on your part.”

  Mimi looked closely at her. She was still a little wan following her four-hour, buried alive ordeal less than four days ago, but the look on her face bespoke something else. “Gianna? What is it?”

  “I can’t go today. Can we leave early in the morning?”

  “What has happened, Gianna? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. The problem is that the Chief scheduled a meeting with—”

  Mimi exploded. “That selfish, self-centered son of a bitch! I’m really sick of him and how he takes you for granted!”

  “He doesn’t take me for granted—”

  “The hell he doesn’t! He knows you scheduled this time off. He approved it!”

  “He probably forgot—”

  “And by all means cover for him.”

  “I’m not covering . . . why can’t we leave in the morning?”

  “Because we planned to leave today and because we lose a day of our extravagant holiday.” Mimi was really pissed off—at the Chief, not at Gianna—and she was trying to rein it in, but she knew that she was failing because she could see that Gianna was getting pissed off, too.

  “I’m sorry, Mimi. I don’t know what else I can say or do.”

  “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

  “So, we’ll leave in the morning?”

  “Unless your boss calls another meeting.”

  “Why don’t you just go ahead?” Now Gianna was really pissed off. “Since it’s so important that you go today, go! I hope you and your shitty attitude have a great time!” Mimi started to retort but thought keeping her mouth shut would be a better idea, so she just stood there watching Gianna, waiting for whatever was coming next, hoping whatever it was would allow her to say something that would dial down the heat of the moment, but Gianna was on a roll. “I know you’re the newsroom star and can probably take vacation whenever you want, but I’m not so lucky. I have to suck it up and salute whenever the boss says so! And I have to go back to work!”

  Mimi deflated like a pin-pricked balloon. What was so important about this evening was her plan to talk to Gianna about her plans—the ones she was being forced to make as a result of needing a new job. An argument in the middle of the kitchen when Gianna had to hurry back to work wasn’t the time or the place for heart-to-heart revelations. “Then I suppose you’re the one who should go.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Gianna said, and left.

  A suddenly furious Mimi ran into the bedroom, grabbed the overnight bag and her purse, and headed for the kitchen, only to find Gianna standing there. Her expression changed from contrite to pissed off again. “I decided to follow your advice and take my shitty attitude and leave. Join us tomorrow if you can,” she said, and she brushed past Gianna and into the garage. She threw the bag into the back seat, climbed behind the wheel, and burned rubber backing out of the garage.

  “Shit! Shit! Shit!” Mimi pounded the steering wheel a
s she yelled, then realized that pain sliced up her arm with every pound: It was the hand that had punched Ian Wilson’s jaw. That his weasely ass was still causing her pain added to her fury, an interesting realization since she wasn’t totally certain who the object of her fury was. It wasn’t Gianna. She had never been furious with Gianna. In fact, this was their very first serious argument. Maybe, she thought, that’s why she was furious: She’d stormed out of the house and now was driving without a destination. It was the Chief—that’s who she was furious with! Sure, he had a tough, thankless job, but the people he relied on to help him manage that job had lives away from that tough, thankless job. There was no guarantee that Gianna would be free to travel tomorrow, either. So . . . to the cabin. That’s where she’d go.

  Will she really go without me? Gianna wondered, despite the fact that she’d all but dared her to go. She drove slowly back to Police HQ, in no hurry to return to the task facing her, yet needing to hurry back so she could complete it as the Chief had ordered. So that she could attend the late afternoon meeting he’d scheduled—the mandatory meeting. Had he really forgotten that she had the afternoon and the next three days off? Or, as Mimi said, did he really not care? Did he really take her for granted? Mimi so often was right about so much. Was she right about this?

  She pulled into the underground garage and parked on the bumper of the car that was parked in her reserved space. She was glad to see that it wasn’t the same car that had blocked her before; that one—an inspector—had learned that it wasn’t possible to outrank a reserved parking space. She was at the building entrance when a surly suit-and-tie in the doorway said, “Can you move your car so I can get out?”