gument.’’
‘‘Actually, I don’t know anything about it. All Mary Ann ever said was that Meredith and Larry had split up and
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57
that Meredith was in pretty bad shape over it. But Meredith made her swear not to tell anyone why they split—not even me. I think she—Meredith, that is—felt guilty about some
thing, but I’m not sure now if Mary Ann actually said that or I just had that impression. Anyway, they got back to
gether again very soon, so I guess whatever it was couldn’t have been that serious. Matter of fact, we all went out to dinner not too long after the fight, and they really seemed crazy about each other.’’
‘‘Maybe that’s why you didn’t say anything to me about it,’’ I offered.
‘‘Nice of you to give me an alibi,’’ Peter said, a sheepish grin on his handsome face. ‘‘Listen, do you mind if we order now? I’d like to go back to the hospital for a little while tonight.’’
We picked up the menus that were sitting in front of us on the table and quickly made our choices. Once we’d passed them on to the waiter, I was unable to contain the urge to make like big sister at least one more time. ‘‘Peter, I hope you won’t mind my saying this,’’ I began, realizing that, chances were, he would. ‘‘But do you think it’s wise spending all your time at the hospital this way? It’s got to be a terrible strain, and there’s really not much you can do there at this point. Going back to work might help take your mind off things.’’
‘‘ Nothing could take my mind off things,’’ Peter retorted sharply. Then he went on more evenly. ‘‘Look,’’ he said slowly, struggling to convey his feelings, ‘‘I have to be there; I just can’t stand being anywhere else. I’m even worried about something happening when I go home to sleep. Or when I take some time to go out and eat—like now. Do you understand what I’m saying?’’
‘‘Of course,’’ I muttered contritely. ‘‘I’ve got a big mouth; so forget what I said, huh? But you do have to eat, you know.’’
‘‘And I intend to,’’ Peter promised lightly.
‘‘There’s something else I wanted to ask you about.’’
‘‘What?’’
‘‘Did you by any chance see Mary Ann sometime on Monday?’’
‘‘No.’’ I guess he read the disappointment on my face.
‘‘Why? Is it important?’’
‘‘It might be. But don’t sweat it. There shouldn’t be any
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problem coming up with someone who saw her that day. Or, if not, someone who saw Meredith.’’
‘‘What’s this all about?’’
‘‘You’re aware that the twins were both shot twice, aren’t you? The first time in the torso?’’
‘‘Sure. I thought I told you that, but I probably didn’t,’’
Peter admitted ruefully.
‘‘As a matter of fact, it was Sergeant Fielding who told me. But anyway, it occurred to me last night that if we could find out what at least one of them was wearing on Monday and if we could get ahold of the clothing, we’d be able to determine from the position of the bullet hole who was wounded where. And then, of course, we’d know the identity of the woman in the hospital.’’
‘‘You’re terrific, Desiree! You really are,’’ Peter said ad
miringly. ‘‘Why didn’t the police think of that?’’
‘‘Whoa. Don’t give me so much credit. We’re not sure they didn’t. They just may not have been able to get their hands on the clothes for some reason. Anyway, when we finish eating, I want to see what I can find out over in the emergency room. Then, if it comes down to it, I can always check at the theater to see if anyone remembers how Mere
dith was dressed that—’’
‘‘Say, it just came to me! I know what Mary Ann was wearing!’’ Peter broke in excitedly. ‘‘I talked to her on the phone Monday morning, and she mentioned she had on this yellow cashmere sweater. I’d given it to her for her birthday, see—that was on the first—and she wanted me to
know she was wearing it.’’
‘‘Good,’’ I said. ‘‘That is, it’s good if she didn’t change her clothes once she got home that night. But listen, Peter. Do me a favor, huh? Try not to count on something coming
of this,’’ I cautioned. ‘‘Sergeant Fielding’s a good friend of mine, and I know him to be a very competent investigator. So in all likelihood the police have already explored this area. I just don’t want to overlook anything, that’s all.’’
‘‘Don’t worry, Desiree, I take your point. Now I have a question for you.’’
‘‘Okay, go on.’’
‘‘Did Fielding by any chance happen to mention what kind of injury she has? The woman in St. Catherine’s, I mean.’’
I wasn’t about to go back on my promise to Tim. Not
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just yet, at any rate. ‘‘No he didn’t,’’ I answered. ‘‘But I’m sure he will if I can come up with the evidence to help us identify her. Any special reason you’re asking?’’
‘‘It’s only that I’d like to know all there is to know about her condition. And everyone’s being so damned secretive about it.’’
He’d barely said the words when the waiter returned with our food, and for a while both Peter and I tried to forget the reason we were having dinner together that eve
ning. Over our entreés (in deference to Peter’s time con
cerns I’d skipped the appetizer), we talked about our lives and our work and even told each other some funny anec
dotes. Dessert, however, was cappucino, cheesecake, and questions.
‘‘Can you give me the names of some of the twins’
friends?’’ I asked. ‘‘Anyone you can think of. And I also need to know how I can get in touch with the brother.’’
‘‘Well, Eric’s staying at the Grand Hyatt on East Fortysecond Street. Fielding asked me about their friends, too, by the way—just last night, in fact. And I managed to come up with four. Meredith may have had other friends I’m not aware of, but I think those are the people they were closest to.’’
He ticked off the four names, and I jotted three of them down in my notebook. I didn’t bother with the fourth; it was Chuck Springer.
‘‘I don’t have any of the phone numbers,’’ Peter apolo
gized, ‘‘but they all live in Manhattan, and I’m sure they’re in the book. Anyway, I hope so.’’
‘‘Don’t worry. I’ll get the numbers.’’
When we left the restaurant about five minutes later, the
wind seemed to be biting even harder than before, and I couldn’t wait to get indoors again. But on the way back to St. Catherine’s, we passed one of those little fruit and vege
table stands—you know, the kind that carry a million and one other things, too—and Peter suddenly stopped. ‘‘Wait here,’’ he ordered. ‘‘I’ll be right back.’’
I stood there obediently, shivering like crazy, while he ran inside. He returned in a couple of minutes with two little bouquets of roses: one pink and the other yellow. ‘‘I meant to get to a florist this morning and pick up some flowers to take to the hospital,’’ he said. ‘‘But you know me; I forgot all about it. They didn’t have much of a selec
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tion left in this place, but anyway, here.’’ He held out the pink flowers. ‘‘These are for you,’’ he told me. ‘‘Happy Valentine’s Day.’’
I don’t suppose I even have to mention that, right then, it was all I could do to keep from bawling like a baby. St. Catherine’s emergency occupies its own building. When I walked in, the entrance room was practically empty. There was a guard over to my left, but fortunately he had his hands full at the moment. A very large middleaged woman was standing practically nose-to-nose with him, yelling unpleasant things (I’m sure) in S
panish, a sob
bing little girl in tow.
I marched straight ahead and through the double doors marked NO ADMITTANCE, PATIENTS ONLY. I stopped for a second to slip off my coat and drape it over my arm to conceal the roses in my hand. (There’s something just a little unprofessional, I think, about conducting an investiga
tion while you’re standing there clutching a bunch of flow
ers to your bosom.) Then I hurried to the end of the short corridor, where I came to another set of doors that I also had no business going through. So I pushed them open—
and found myself in the heart of the bustling emergency room.
Just on the other side of the doors were two patients on stretchers, one of them moaning pitifully. Over to my right were the small, curtained-off sections where doctors and nurses provided whatever immediate relief was possible for an almost infinite variety of illnesses and injuries. Behind one of the curtains, a woman was screaming intermittently, and in the spaces between her screams I could hear some
one else crying softly. Five or six hospital personnel were rushing around, scurrying in and out of the curtained areas, one of them shouting instructions. They were all too fraz
zled to give a damn—or even notice—that I was there. I spotted a large nurse’s desk off to my left. Three women were seated at the desk, two of them talking on the phone. I approached the third member of the trio, a buxom blond Hispanic-looking woman who was poring in
tently over a ledger. ‘‘Excuse me,’’ I said. My license was already in the palm of my hand in its little leather case, and when the woman looked up, I opened the case and passed it quickly in front of her. Then I started to stuff it
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61
back in my handbag. ‘‘I just have a few questions; it won’t take—’’
‘‘Hold it a minute there, kiddo. Let me see that thing again.’’
I gave her the license.
‘‘Private eye,’’ she sniffed. ‘‘You’re not supposed to be in here, you know. I’m afraid I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.’’
‘‘Listen, this is very important,’’ I said. ‘‘And it won’t take long.’’
‘‘It’s against hospital policy. You have to get permission to come back here.’’
‘‘Can’t you even spare me a minute or two?’’ I coaxed. She didn’t respond one way or the other, but I noticed that some strange things were happening with her eyes. I turned around to see what was going on. It only took a split second for it to register that the woman was attempting to signal this guard across the room, a skinny, mean-looking creep who was standing there scowling, arms folded across his chest. He got her message almost immediately. Drop
ping his arms to his sides, he began striding purposefully toward us.
I talked fast. ‘‘It has to do with the Foster twins,’’ I told her, ‘‘those poor girls who were shot in the face Monday night.’’
‘‘Problem, Carmen?’’ asked a thin, raspy voice behind me.
Looking around, I saw the guard glaring down at me with an expression that most people reserve for multilegged little crawling creatures.
I quickly turned back to Carmen. ‘‘I’m trying to get some information on those twins; it’s really vital.’’
She hesitated. ‘‘Well . . .’’ And then, while I held my breath: ‘‘It’s okay, Mike.’’
‘‘You sure?’’
‘‘Yeah.’’
As soon as the guard made his reluctant departure, I said, ‘‘I’d like to speak to the nurse who took care of the twins that night.’’
‘‘What do you want to talk to me about?’’
‘‘You’re her?’’
‘‘Yeah. One of the ‘hers,’ anyway. But I’m too busy for any chitchat right now. Look, you go have a seat around
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the corner out of the way,’’ she ordered, indicating with a toss of her head the general direction of the area to which she was exiling me. ‘‘I’ll get to you as soon as I can.’’
I followed the head toss to a short, walk-through aisle lined on either side with a row of uncomfortable-looking black and chrome chairs. Taking a seat in the middle of the row, I placed the roses on the chair to my right, care
fully adjusting my coat on the back of the chair so it would cover the flowers without crushing them. I’d been sitting there for only two or three seconds when this heavy hospi
tal cart came zigzagging down the narrow aisle, headed straight for my feet. I pulled my legs back just in time to avoid having all my toes squashed. The attendant maneu
vering the cart thoughtfully alerted me to the danger.
‘‘Coming through! Watch those feet!’’ he yelled. But not until he’d already flown past.
You take your life in your hands coming to a place like this, I decided.
I glanced idly over at the only other person around, a man or a woman seated diagonally across the aisle from me. I have no idea of the gender because this person was wearing pants and lace-up shoes, and all the time I was sitting there his/her head was buried in his/her hands. The only thing I could see was the top of a dark brown head of hair.
Just to give myself something to do, I decided to prepare a shopping list for Sunday night’s dinner with Ellen and her maybe future husband. I’d already made out a list in my office that morning; in fact, it was in my handbag at that very moment. Still, I usually manage to forget something, so it wouldn’t hurt to write out another one and double-check myself. Besides, it beat staring across the way at his/her dandruff.
I was almost through with my little chore when someone
sat down heavily alongside me. I looked up, surprised to see Carmen.
‘‘I didn’t expect you to be able to get to me this soon,’’
I told her.
‘‘Well, there’s nothing crucial waiting for me at the mo
ment. But I don’t have much time; I am busy. So let’s get down to it.’’
I got down to it. ‘‘What happened to the clothes the
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63
Foster twins were wearing when they were brought in here?’’
There was a moment’s hesitation before the nurse re
sponded. ‘‘We did try to follow procedure,’’ she informed me, sounding defensive. ‘‘But it was like a zoo in this place that night—I’m talking even worse than usual—and—’’
‘‘Procedure?’’ I cut in.
She eyed me suspiciously. ‘‘You do know what the proce
dure is in a case of violence like this, don’t you?’’
‘‘Of course; the word procedure threw me for a second, that’s all,’’ I retorted indignantly, not having the slightest idea what she was talking about and not having any inten
tion of betraying my ignorance, either. After all, was it my fault none of the straying spouse types I usually investigate ever got blasted for their sins? ‘‘So just what happened this time?’’ I asked, hoping things would become clearer to me as we went along.
‘‘Well . . .’’ Carmen replied carefully, ‘‘I told you how hectic it was here Monday night. There was a bus acci
dent—a really bad one—at eighty-thirty or so, and we all had our hands full; we were running around like cock
roaches. And when things are that frantic, you gotta realize it’s possible to make a mistake.’’ She took a deep breath, exhaling slowly before going on. ‘‘Anyhow, there were these two young cops hanging around over by the desk waiting for the clothes—’’
‘‘The police have the clothes, then?’’ So much for the smarts Peter had so kindly credited me with. Checking the victim’s effects was standard police policy, for God’s sake!
‘‘No. That’s what I’m trying to tell you,’’ Carmen groused, looking none too happy. ‘‘In all the excitement, we wound up giving them someone else’s property. By the time the cops realized it and came
back a couple of hours later, it was too late. We’d already tossed the twins’ stuff—
or what was left of it, anyway. We had to cut their clothes away so’s we’d be able to work on them,’’ she explained,
‘‘and everything was in shreds, so . . .’’ Her voice trailed off, and she shrugged her shoulders.
Fielding was right. I mean, talk about Murphy’s law!
‘‘You didn’t by chance notice what either of the girls had on?’’
‘‘You gotta be outta your bird! They were a real mess, the two of them, all covered with blood. Besides, who had
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time to look? We had to get them out of those clothes fast.’’
‘‘There’s a good chance one of them was wearing a yel
low cashmere sweater,’’ I said in a forlorn attempt to prod her memory.
‘‘Look, kiddo, I keep telling you it was mayhem here; I wasn’t paying any attention to fashion. The only thing I was interested in—the only thing we were all interested in—was getting to as many people as we could in as short a time as possible.’’ She eyed me curiously then. ‘‘What’s with this yellow cashmere, anyhow?’’
‘‘Well, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but one of the twins died on the operating table and the other one’s still in a coma.’’
‘‘Yeah, I know. I was just asking one of the floor nurses today how she is,’’ Carmen responded, her tone softening.
‘‘I understand they were very pretty, too, although there was no way you could tell. Not after what that son of a bitch—whoever he is—did to those faces.’’
‘‘That’s why it’s so important to find out what they were wearing. Because of what was done to them, no one knows
which twin survived and which one died. One of those girls was my client’s fianceé. And you can’t even imagine what he’s going through.’’
‘‘Poor man. That’s rough, really rough,’’ she murmured, shaking her head sympathetically.
‘‘But we’re almost certain the one twin—Mary Ann—
had on a yellow cashmere sweater.’’
Carmen caught on fast. ‘‘I see. You want to know where
the woman in the yellow sweater was wounded, is that it?’’
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