"When can I get out of here?" I asked.
"When there is heart muscle damage during a coronary attack, a specific protein is released into the blood," Briggs continued. "If we see that protein, we know a serious event has occurred, one that will require extensive rehabilitation. If we don't see it, and in your case, we didn't, then a full and quick recovery is usually expected." I liked the sound of that. "From the neurological tests I've done, we can tell the feeling is already coming back to your left side. If that tingling keeps up it means the nerves are reviving. You should be ready to leave here in a week. I'm going to have our physical therapist get started with you immediately."
After the doctor left, Alexa, Chooch, and Delfina pushed my wheelchair outside and parked me on the patio. Several other infirm, elderly people were parked out here as well. Most of them had paper-thin, blue-white skin and wispy tufts of spun silver hair. We all sat blinking and squinting like zombies caught in sunlight.
"This is too much for me," Chooch finally blurted. "First Mom, now you." He stood between us. "Why do you two have to be cops? Can't you do something less scary?"
"It's what we do, honey," Alexa said simply.
"It's too dangerous," Chooch persisted.
"So is football," Delfina said, her voice gentle but firm. "Everyone has to do what's right for them, querido." Chooch didn't react, but Alexa and I both nodded.
Later, we had dinner in my room. McDonald's catered the event. When visiting hours ended at ten, Chooch and Delfina said goodbye before driving back to USC. He had football, Del had summer school.
"You sure you're okay, Dad? I won't go if you need me." He held my hand.
"Yeff," I told him.
"Yeff? What kind of answer is yeff?" He was grinning.
"Yes," I said carefully, and smiled for him.
After they left, Alexa and I again sat in silence.
The silence was becoming painful. It was more painful than the gunshot wounds, more annoying than my tingling left side.
"Do you love her?" she finally asked, interrupting this thought.
"Huh?"
"When you were unconscious you kept saying Secada's name."
Chapter 35
"I was never unfaithful," I dodged.
"That wasn't my question."
"I needed something. Somebody."
She sat in silence, looking at me pensively.
"I was always right here," she finally said.
"I know."
"But I've changed. I'm not me anymore. That's your point, isn't it?"
"I don't know." I looked over at her and tried to find the right way to say all this. I was working with a brain full of mashed potatoes and was afraid I was going to screw this up, but the time to discuss it was now. We'd been putting it off for almost a year.
"Go on. Whatever the truth is, you can say it," she prompted.
Speaking slowly, I began. "Before you came into my life I had nothing. I was barely functioning. On the street I was turning into a thug. Then you and Chooch changed everything. The problem is, I can't go back and live my life the way it was before. These last months, I've been trying to understand what's been happening with us, trying to be supportive of you. But slowly all the darkness has been leaking back-all the angry thoughts that made me so negative to begin with. I can't return to that place. But I also can't leave you behind. I'm stuck somewhere in between."
"Do you love her?" Alexa pressed. "It's okay to be honest, Shane. If we're ever going to fix this, I need to find out."
"I love you, Alexa. Do you still love me?" I asked her. "Do you still want and need me? If the answer is yes, then you have nothing to worry about with Secada."
She got up and came across the room, knelt down beside the chair I was in, and put her arms around me.
"I'm sorry," she said. "This is my fault."
"How can it be anybody's fault? It's just something that happened."
"We'll find our way back to that other place," she said softly.
I fell asleep again, but later that night I woke up and found Alexa in the chair under the floor lamp, reading the same brown folder she'd been reading all day. I triggered the lift on the bed, raising it up so I could see better. She smiled at me over the top of the file.
"Want me to get you anything?"
"What's that?" I asked.
"The Hickman file. I had Ellen get a copy from Jeb and e-mail it up here."
I sat very still, wondering what would happen next.
"For whatever it's worth, you and Secada are right," she finally said. "This thing was horribly mishandled. If there was ever a bad due-process case, this is it. I can't understand why Jane closed it."
"Pressure from Morales," I said. "He's probably going to be the next mayor. Sasso's ambitious. She doesn't want any political grief."
She thought about that for a second then continued. "You need to tell me again everything you found out. All about Lieutenant Devine and Morales, and this North Van Nuys Transit Bus Company."
"For what purpose?" I said, still not sure where she was heading.
"I'm gonna have a look at this myself," she said. "Off the record, on my own time." Holding my eyes over the top of the folder.
"It's a red ball," I told her.
"Shane, this is going to sound funny, but after Tony relieved me, took the pressure of command away, something changed inside me. I feel liberated like never before."
"Liberated?" I said, cocking an eyebrow. What the hell was this about?
"More than that even. All the rules I used to be so anal about just seem like nonsense to me now. I can see what you kept saying, how stupid some of that shit is."
"You're kidding," I said, not liking this at all.
"No, it's like I woke up reborn or something. Now it all feels like tiresome bullshit. Soon as we can, we should get you up on your feet and signed outta here. Then we'll go work this together like old times."
"This case is a career wrecker," I cautioned.
"My career is pretty much wrecked already. So let's forget the rule book and stand some people on their heads."
"You can't do it that way," I said, not sure how to deal with this new reckless streak. "I don't think you should be doing this."
"Why not? You were."
"But I'm not the head of the Detective Bureau."
"Neither am I anymore."
"You can't be out there breaking your own police guidelines." Even as I said this, I knew that these words coming out of my mouth sounded ridiculous.
"Isn't that a little off the point? Let's focus on this bad due-process problem without all the departmental B. S."
Ohy brother, I thought, wondering what the hell was going on here.
Chapter 36
My next few days went like this: physical therapy at seven a. M., then an hour parked outside in my wheelchair with half a dozen Casa patients, all of us with our faces turned skyward, taking in the sun like lizards on a flat rock. Twelve noon, more therapy, followed by lunch, a nap, therapy again, then dinner. Each day I would take some time off from these rigors to park myself outside Secada's room, sitting in awkward silence next to her father and mother, who had arrived from Texas and set up camp in the critical care ward.
Hector Llevar was a stocky, raw-boned man who spoke broken, heavily accented English. Secada's mother, Maria, was thin, almost bony. She was usually wrapped in a dull-colored shawl, praying in Spanish. She wouldn't engage my eyes. They were proud, rough-hewn people who wore their Aztec heritage like red-gold armor. They blamed me for their daughter's plight. Her parents were allowed to take turns inside Secada's ICU room. I was denied similar access.
Secada was now off the ventilator and her eyes were alert. Whenever she saw me, she smiled. I kept asking the doctors when I would be allowed in her room. "Soon," was all they would tell me. I figured Hector and Maria had blocked me.
The street clothes I'd been wearing were ruined, so Alexa made a quick trip home to pack a suitcase for me. It felt
good to be out of the ass-baring turquoise-and-white hospital gown.
By the end of my first week at The Casa, I ditched the wheelchair. In the afternoons Alexa and I took careful walks on the deserted beach north of Santa Barbara. My gait was uneven, slowed by the ministroke. I was trying to retrain my gawky left side and pulled myself through the sand at what I hoped was a swift pace. However, I quickly became winded while Alexa walked easily beside me. Afterward, we would sit on the beach and watch the sun go down. Sometimes we talked about what we wanted, and what we'd lost. Sometimes we worked on the case. Slowly, a new connection began to form between us.
But it wasn't easy. This last week, she often spoke about how trapped she felt working inside of what she called "useless department guidelines." A wilder, reckless Alexa had emerged from a cocoon of disorganized confusion and now sat next to me, drying new wings, trying out dangerous theories, and getting ready to attempt all kinds of nonsense. This new person had no alarms or warning buzzers. I couldn't believe some of her harebrained suggestions. I guess anything was better than the angry woman I'd been living with before. Maybe any change was positive, but I couldn't help but be concerned.
"Alexa, the system is based on the presumption of innocence," I said one afternoon while we sat in still-cooling sand, watching the ocean thunder a few yards away. I couldn't believe I was saying this. But I knew that one of us had to be the voice of reason. The more she talked, the more I desperately wanted my original Alexa back.
She still suffered occasional fits of unreasonable anger and we still had not touched each other, or kissed. The subject of sex was carefully kept off the table. On my end, when I talked too fast, my words came out jumbled. I had holes in my memory and I was guilt-ridden over my near infidelity and mistakes that had put Tru's and Scout's lives in mortal danger. But we had the Hickman case to focus on, so we worked it when it became too painful to deal with everything else. Alexa informed me that after being suspended, she had gone back to see her neurosurgeon, Luther Lexington, again and he had perscribed new medications that had eliminated her convulsions.
I started taking early evening jogs against the mild warnings of Dr. Briggs. My runs were ugly, loose gaited, and floppy. I was only good for about a quarter-mile before I had to stop, bent over at the waist, my chest heaving as I tried to catch my breath. I stubbornly reasoned it was progress.
One night, a week later, Alexa and I were having dinner at a nice Italian restaurant in town. She looked at me across a flickering candle and said. "You're doing really well. You've finally got your color back."
"Thank you."
"I think it's time for us to get out of this town and go kick some ass," she said.
I have to admit that by then I was in a mild state of panic over what impulsive or even reckless moves she might have in mind.
"I've made up a list of things we need to look at." She reached into her purse, retrieved the ever-present Hickman case file, and glanced down at it.
"In order of importance, first we only have Tru's word that he bought that last six-pack of Bud Light."
"Alexa, when he told me that it was just information. It didn't seem at all important to him… in my opinion he wasn't lying."
"In that case then we need to find out why this ex-U. S. Customs agent, this Promo Safe guy, Ron Torgason, didn't blow the whistle when Tito Morales cashed the Bud Light rare instead of Tru Hickman. That's a big hole in our case structure. I'm trying to back channel some info on Torgason and ran a courtesy check through Homeland Security." The law enforcement practice of getting nonsensitive career information on cops from sister agencies had been set up so team leaders would be able to gather background facts on officers loaned out to them from other departments during joint ops. I slowly let out the breath I'd been holding. It was a good first move.
"Church and Wyatt probably bought Torgason off with part of the Bud Light winnings," I said.
She nodded her agreement. "We also need more intel on this transit company. Mike Church takes over this little nonprofit, one-bus line from his father, Juan Iglesia, and in less than a year goes out and buys four brand new city buses at a cost of one hundred thousand per. Then he equips them with satellite tracking and hidden infrared cameras-all stuff recommended by Homeland Security for maximum threat assessments. Since this bus company is only chartered to deliver handicapped people and senior citizens to their doctor's appointments or part-time jobs, why do they need all the state-of-the-art security? And why on earth does this little bus line need a transit police department?" All good questions. My panic started to subside.
"Mike Church doesn't come off as much of a social activist, so there's got to be a profit motive hiding somewhere."
She nodded, her eyes still down on her list. "One weird thing. Scout's SUV disappeared," she finally said.
"Disappeared?" I couldn't believe it just disappeared. It was the crime scene in an attempted double murder of two police officers.
"Yeah. For some reason, the Kings County cops who were handling the investigation didn't tag it as part of the crime scene. They just left it in the tow company lot up by Woodville. The insurance company judged it a total. Somebody on that lot must have sold it for cash to pay Scout's six hundred dollar towing and reclamation bill. Only now that the heat's on, nobody's admitting to anything."
"You're kidding. Didn't anybody from the Kings County Sheriff's Department even go through it and try to find those ought-six slugs? They might be good for a ballistics match if we ever recover a rifle."
"Nada," she said. "It shouldn't have been left in that tow lot in the first place. It should have been in police impound."
We traded disparaging looks over the ineptitude of small town P. D.'s. "We have to find that car," I said.
"Yeah, but it was a cash transaction and with nobody talking and no paper trail, that's gonna be a long shot. Probably already being stripped for parts, so let's saddle up and get started." She picked up her purse.
"You weren't planning on starting tonight, were you?"
"No. But I've been sitting here thinking that you're looking very hot over there. Maybe we should go check out that little place we passed down the road. The Seaside Motel."
"Damn. Let me get the check," I said, fumbling for my wallet.
After I paid the bill, we made it to the motel in four minutes. I had my coat off before the room was unlocked. Alexa went directly into the bathroom and closed the door while I scurried around, snapping the faded curtains closed, dimming the lights, and finding a good music station on the clock radio, acting like a teenager about to get laid for the first time.
When Alexa didn't come out of the bathroom I walked to the door and knocked. "Everything okay?"
"No." I heard a sob.
I opened the door and found her seated on the edge of the tub, fully dressed, head in her hands, crying.
"Change of heart?"
"I just…"
"Come here," I said, holding my arms out for her.
We walked to the bed, sat down. I held her, then rubbed her tight shoulders.
"What's wrong with me?" She asked, her voice a little more than a whisper.
"You got shot in the head. It was bound to make a difference."
Alexa buried her face in my chest, and while I continued to rub her back, I slowly began to feel her relax and respond. Then she kissed me. It was our first real kiss in months.
"Oh, Shane, I do love you so much," she whispered.
During the next half-hour we followed through on her offer, but it wasn't much of an experience. In fact, it was remote and stiff. I didn't seem to know what to do with my hands. The clumsy left side of my body made the whole thing feel awkward. We coupled with difficulty. Alexa was not ready, but seemed strangely resigned. Resignation is my least favorite sexual response, so I stopped. Although I was inside her, neither one of us were enjoying it.
"Please, finish," she said, her voice on the edge of tears.
"Alexa, you have to want me as
much as I want you."
"But what if I can't? What if that part of me is gone?"
"Then we'll just find a way to deal with it."
"Another girlfriend?"
"She was never a girlfriend," I said softly. "She was my partner, and now she's in ICU."
We lay on the bed, naked and cold. I cuddled her closer, and slowly she came to life, drawing me deeper inside her. My bad left hand fumbled like it belonged to someone else. I was trying to hold her close, but my energy was spent and my spirit low. Slowly, she started caressing me until I began finding pleasure. I hoped I was giving some back. I finally released inside her and we lay still for a moment engulfed in a sense of sexual failure. Alexa got up and went into the bathroom without speaking.
When she returned, she slipped under the covers, turned, and smiled at me. "Was it as good for you as it was for me?" she said, trying to make light of what had been a pretty dismal performance.
I looked over and saw the mischievous, reckless smile that, in the last week, I had come to fear. "I check to the high hand," I said cautiously.
"We always used to be great lovers, but we had a lot of practice. We're just out of practice, so we'll just have to get after that."
"Sounds good," I said.
"We'll keep trying and we'll get it all back, honey. I promise."
"Deal," I said softly.
We spent the night in the motel. It felt good to be out of the hospital, but as I fell asleep I reflected back on what had just happened. I started to feel disappointment, even shame that my sexual prowess failed to give my wife pleasure. I knew she had only made love to me out of a sense of marital obligation. But then I remembered the sexy gleam in her eye when she first suggested it across the table at our candlelight dinner and knew I was looking at it the wrong way. Whatever had just happened, it had at least been done for the right reasons. I closed my eyes and promised myself from now on, I had to keep my male ego out of the equation.
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