by Ang Pompano
“No. Didn’t you hear her say he’s under sedation? And he can hear you, by the way.” Greenleaf said.
The way she put her hand on his, I wondered if maybe there had been something between them at one time.
A young guy with bloodshot eyes came through the curtain and introduced himself as Dr. Nash.
“If all of you could step outside for a minute,” he said and one by one we ducked through the curtain and went back to the waiting room so the doctor could conduct this examination. Johnson was waiting there with a tall woman in a business suit.
“This is my friend Danielle Jenkins. She’s a social worker here.”
Danielle put out her hand. “As soon as your father is better, we’ll have to move him out of here.”
I started to get defensive. “You can’t put him out in the street.”
Johnson held up his hand to stop me.
“That’s true.” She moved a little closer to me and pretended to whisper. “But a hospital is no place for sick people.” She winked at me. “I’ve been on the phone with The Palms. We’re transferring him back there as soon as he’s well enough.”
“Did you talk to Maryann Fena?” I asked.
“I did. And I think that she understands the law a little better now.”
Danielle gave me her card with her number circled before leaving.
“I’ve got to go, too.” Johnson pointed an invisible gun at me. “Fishing... when you’re ready. Don’t forget.”
“A hospital is no place for sick people. Here’s my card,” Max said in a sweet voice. She probably would have gone on mimicking Danielle if Dr. Nash hadn’t come to talk to us. He explained that the bullet didn’t do any major damage and had been removed.
“But he’s getting up there in years and he’s not in the best of health. I’m not going to tell you that it’s not serious,” Dr. Nash said.
He agreed it would be a good idea if I stayed for the night.
49
THERE’S NOTHING CREEPIER than a darkened hospital room with only the bar on the wall shedding an eerie blue light that would make even a relatively healthy patient look beyond sick. In Big Al’s case, the odds that he was about to go on his final caper were pretty good.
Dr. Nash had explained that while the bullet didn’t strike a major organ, my father’s age and health were against him. I sat in a straight-backed chair by the side of the bed listening to his shallow breathing.
I could only watch the bag on the pole drip into the tube that snaked into his arm for so long before my imagination took over.
I started to think that every movement of the sheets marked his last breath. Every sound became a death rattle. Though I’d never heard a death rattle. I wasn’t there when my mother died, and when Psycho was obliterated by the truck, all I could hear was screeching brakes.
The monitors did nothing to ease my mind. The lines on the screen went up and down like the graphing of a crazy day on Wall Street. After an hour or so, I had to divert my mind so I wouldn’t go nuts. I turned off the sound on my phone and played video games until my head drooped forward to rest on my chest. I don’t know how long I was sleeping before the phone fell to my lap and I woke up.
The drip still kept up its steady rhythm and the monitor continued its cycle of highs and lows.
Big Al rubbed his tongue over his cracked lips. I took a sliver of ice and touched it to them as the nurse had showed me to do.
“If you think you’re going to die without answering a few questions, you’re wrong,” I whispered.
He moved.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask where the hell you were for all those years. It doesn’t matter anymore. But you have to tell me what I’m missing about Granville.”
The machine beeped. I guess I hit a nerve. The machine beeped again. Damn. Maybe I went too far. I headed to the door to find a nurse, but one was already headed to the room.
“It beeped,” I said realizing I sounded like a three-year-old.
“He probably moved and a lead came loose. No need to worry.”
“Oh. Okay. Should his heart rate be going up and down like that?”
She smiled. “You’re looking at his respiration pattern. He’s fine.”
“Sorry for freaking out. I don’t understand all of this equipment, you know?”
The nurse gave me a sympathetic look. “Relax. If he was truly near death, he would be intubated and on a ventilator in ICU. You go take a break,” she said. “I’m going to clean him up a little. He’ll be here when you get back.”
I got up and walked into the hall as she pulled the curtain around the bed to do whatever she had to do.
I walked out of the room into the blinding light of the hallway. A nurse took a slice of pizza from a box on the counter. She held up the slice and pointed to the box offering me one. I declined. Another nurse looked up from her computer and asked if I needed any help. It struck me what a thankless job it must be taking care of sick people in the middle of the night as you grabbed a bite between rounds. Special people, nurses are. And if I was to be honest, I’d have to include my nemesis, Maryann from The Palms, in that assessment, too.
I took a walk to get some water in the lounge. As I made my way down the hall, I noted the names by each door; a habit of observation I picked up when I was a cop. Gifford, de Lafontaine, Johnson. I stopped to look closer. Clair Johnson: I wondered if she was a relation to my father’s friend. I continued down the hall. Owens, Dwelt, Stewart, Wisehart, another Johnson; this one was a David. It’s a common enough name, so I wasn’t all that surprised that there were two in one hallway. I probably wouldn’t have even noticed them if I hadn’t seen Major Johnson earlier when he tried to help out my old man.
When I got back to the room, the nurse was gone and the curtain was open. I sat in the chair beside the bed.
I was still wrestling with the fact that I didn’t know what I wanted that line on the monitor to do. Everybody has to die sometime, but I needed time to figure out how I was going to react if that line went flat and the beeping sound went on until a nurse came along and turned it off. I still had questions for my father.
“You did finger Gerber as the kidnapper, right?”
No response.
“Did you get the wrong guy?”
I may as well have been talking to the pillow for all the response I got from Big Al.
“I noticed a couple of patients named Johnson here.” I whispered. “It got me thinking. The major has been a good friend to you. He’s old school; loyal to people he goes way back with. Do you and your buddy know something I should know?”
He began to stir, and I remembered how agitated he had become the day I first saw him at The Palms when I told him I had met Johnson. Was he trying to tell me something?
The machine beeped again. This time I knew that it was from the movement, but I wanted it to mean that the old man was trying to pass some information on to me.
The monitor beeped again. I jumped up from the chair. “You hold that thought.”
A nurse poked her head into the room.
“Keep him alive. At least until I get back.”
It was early morning. If I hurried, I’d get home in time to go fishing with Johnson.
*****
It was only 6:30 in the morning when I pulled into the Blue Palmetto driveway. When I got out of the roadster, a stream of morning sun found its way through the canopy of the live oak tree. It reflected off of the hood, creating little ripples of light on the porch ceiling. Once again, I appreciated what a cool car my father had chosen.
I found Greenleaf on the couch and Max on a recliner in the main office. They were both sleeping, but woke up when I walked in. They looked at me as if it were a home invasion.
It was the first time I had ever seen a hair out of place on Greenleaf’s head. They both looked rumpled.
>
“Oh no!” Greenleaf cried out.
I know that seeing me walk in without calling ahead led her to think the worse.
I shook my head no. “Not yet,” I said. “But it’s not looking good right now.”
“Then why are you here?” Max rubbed at her eyes.
“I’m going fishing with Johnson.”
“Fishing!” Greenleaf shot off the couch. I thought she was going to deck me.
Of course, Max had to jump in with her opinion. “Just when I think you’ve changed, you go right back to your old selfish ways.”
A vote of confidence would have been nice, but I probably deserved their low opinion of me based on my past resentment of helping out with the agency. Although, this time they were leaping to unfair conclusions.
“Johnson said the stripers are huge on the Ogeechee. I have to see if he’s telling the truth.”
Greenleaf’s face was red. “Well, you do what you want. I’m going back to the hospital. That man doesn’t deserve to be left alone at a time like this.”
I never thought I would agree with her but I did. I wasn’t going to tell her though.
“And I’m going with her,” Max said. “I hope you enjoy your fishing trip.”
“I know you don’t mean that,” I said. “But yes, do go. If he says anything, let me know.”
They both left in a huff as I bolted to the storage closet to get my father’s heavy tackle.
50
AFTER I FOUND BIG AL’S FISHING ROD and tackle box in the supply closet, I called Johnson and told him I couldn’t take hanging out in the hospital anymore and that I’d like to take him up on that fishing trip.
“Nothing like a little fishing to calm your nerves and help you forget your problems,” Johnson said.
I had the phone on speaker, and while he gave me directions to a boat launch on the Ogeechee River, I took a stainless-steel diving knife from Big Al’s tackle box and buckled its sheath a little above my left ankle. As he droned on about how much fun it was going to be, I practiced whipping the blade out of its holder and jabbing at some pretend monster of the deep. After I got off of the phone, I threw on a pair of long fishing pants that hung in the closet, and then headed out. I was ready for anything.
My father’s 300 SL didn’t have a GPS and that was fine with me. I used the maps app on my phone to follow US 17 to State Road 144. Forty miles and almost an hour later I crossed the causeway to Savage Island. I soon found the boat ramp on the Ogeechee River not far from Civil War Era Fort McAllister.
The place was deserted except for Johnson, who was leaning against his ancient white pickup truck in a lot surrounded by giant oaks covered in Spanish moss. He looked at his watch when I arrived. I wondered how he got out there before me. Did he already have the boat on the trailer and hitched up in anticipation of my call? As soon as I parked, he jumped into the truck and started the motor. I guess he was afraid the striper wouldn’t wait for us.
“Guide me back,” he said.
I stood off to the side and waved him along as he backed the trailer down the ramp until the twenty-footer hit the water. Johnson left the driver’s door opened when he jumped out of the cab.
“Are you sure there are stripers way out here?” I gestured toward the narrow river that slunk through the salt marsh.
“You just wait, my friend. Those bad boys love it here. They face the current and let the river bring their food to them and they get bigger and bigger.”
I threw my gear into the boat and undid the safety straps as Johnson installed the drain plug.
He released the trailer winch. “We’ll probably see a school or two once we get upriver.”
He threw me a tow rope and I wound it around a cleat near the bow of the boat. “I hear it’s awesome when they clear the water.”
Johnson raised his eyebrows. “So, you know about stripers?”
“Not a thing. A guy at the gas station mentioned it.” The knife sheath was jabbing into my leg and I rubbed above my ankle with my right foot.
Johnson noticed. “You’ll be sweating like a whore in a church with those long pants on.”
“It’s better than mosquito bites. I can do without the Zika virus.” I took a can of bug repellent out of my knapsack and sprayed my clothes. Then I offered him the can.
“I’ll take my chances.” He pretended to cough and wave away the spray fumes. He gave the bow of the boat a shove to get it off the trailer and I guided the boat into the water with the tow rope.
While he parked the truck and trailer under the trees in the parking area, I waited, standing in the shallow water and holding the lines so the boat didn’t float away.
“Hop in,” he said when he got back.
He started the boat and we pulled away from the boat ramp.
“Ever seen an alligator up close and personal?”
My eyes followed his gaze to the other side of the river. A dark form almost indistinguishable from the water floated motionless just below the surface. Its nose and eyes above the water, it seemed to be watching us.
“You mean I was in the water with the mother of all alligators and you didn’t tell me? Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Johnson snickered. “Why?”
“This place must be crawling with them. What if they attack the boat?”
“I doubt it. A bigun like that got to be a bull. He don’t want anyone else in his territory.”
“Yeah, well, we’re in his territory.”
“That old boy is more interested in a turtle or a fish than you. If you fall in, just you don’t go drawing attention to yourself by flailing away in the water. He might think your arm or leg is a fish.”
“I plan to stay in the boat, thanks.”
“Good, because once he gets you in a death roll and pulls you under, you’re a goner. The old folks used to say that if a gator brings you under, you need to stick your hand down his throat. There’s a flap back in there that keeps it from drowning, you gotta pull on it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Can’t say I ever tried it myself.” He laughed as he put the boat in gear and slowly headed away from the gator.
It was the first time I’d ever seen Johnson relaxed and happy. I could tell that boating was his element.
We were just a little upstream when he cut the engine and anchored. He pulled a mullet head from a bucket and tossed it to me. “You know how to bait a hook?”
“Sure.” I caught the bait which immediately slipped out of my hand. I picked it up and stuck a hook up through its lower jaw.
Johnson smirked until I pulled the hook straight up out of the top of the Mullet’s mouth and then pushed it through the soft spot on the top of the head.
“Well, I’ll be damned. Where did you learn that fancy baiting?”
“I fish for blues back home. Baiting a hook is pretty much the same.”
I rubbed my ankle.
“I know you’re here for a little R and R but I was wondering about Al,” he said.
So was I. For all I knew he was a goner already. If so, I’d have some regrets to deal with concerning my decision to go fishing. “It doesn’t look good.”
“Damn it all. That’s not right.” Johnson hung his head in respect. “At least we cleared his good name.”
I shrugged. “I guess we did.” I couldn’t resist putting a bit of emphasis on the word “we.”
Johnson, picking up on my sarcasm, stood brandishing a paddle.
“Son, you must think I’m dumber than a truckload of bricks. Stand up.”
“I was kidding. Okay?”
“The hell you were.” He bared his teeth. I had the feeling that I was getting to see the real Johnson.
“What bug got up your ass?” I reached under my cuff to feel for the knife. Johnson knocked my hand away w
ith the paddle.
“I said stand up. And don’t touch that leg again. I’m guessing you got a gun under there.”
“It’s a fishing knife. No big deal.” I hiked up my pants cuff. “Why all of the suspicion?”
Johnson wasn’t as dumb as I thought. I kept an eye on the paddle in his hand. He knew I had the knife, so that element of surprise was out. I’d have to keep my options open for another way of overpowering him if I needed to.
“If your daddy is so bad off, you wouldn’t be out here fishing unless you were up to something.”
“Okay, so you got me. Let’s put it all out there. Marnee had confessed to killing her sister but you were a little too quick to shut her up with that bullet. That’s because you were on the boat with my father and Keller that morning, and you killed Keller. Maybe you hit him in the head with a paddle?”
“Now why in frozen hell would I want to kill that boy?”
“Because he was digging too deep into the Granville kidnapping. You thought he’d find out that you were working with Granville to pull off the kidnapping hoax. Did you plant the evidence that led my father to Gerber?”
“You should write books, boy.”
“Well, dude if I wrote a book, do you know what I’d write about? A cop who tried to frame a man for kidnapping. The ladies in Waycross said that Gerber and young Christmas were seen in a white pickup truck by a gas station attendant. The attendant thought there was someone else in the truck. It wasn’t Gerber’s wife, it was you. You’ve got that old white pickup right there in the parking lot. Plus, I saw it in an old photo in your office, so I know you had it back then. And you know what? I’m willing to bet that you own an old Catalina, too.”
“You’re a little too nosey like your daddy.” Johnson’s face was getting red and he started this crazy tic of lifting his shoulders up and down.
“What I can’t figure is why you needed Hicks out of the way.”
“Hicks was a useless piece of money hungry shit. He started this whole mess. He took up with Marnee thinking he was cheating with his wife’s friend. He never knew that Jill and Marnee were step-sisters. Or that Marnee murdered Jill.”