Death Watch

by Elizabeth Forrest

  “No.” McKenzie shook her head, feeling her cheeks still flushed from embarrassment. Everyone on the floor must know of the suspicion. “I’m not like that.”

  “Practice being invisible, huh? Well, pardon me, but it don’t look like it works.” Nita stood up. She looked at her watch. “I gotta get back on shift.” She walked over to the microwave, leaned down, and bared her smile at her reflection, checking her teeth. She found a lipstick mark and began to rub it off with her finger.

  Shannon appeared at the lounge doorway. A wisp of hair had escaped her cap and hung down the side of her face. She said cheerily, “All ready to go back?”

  McKenzie hesitated. The nurse added, “I’ve put you across the hall. Janitorial’s going to have to come in and paint the room—I can’t get all the bloodstains off the walls and your Officer Moreno told me not to touch it. So Security advised me to switch you. I doubt if you’ll mind that one bit, right?” Without waiting for an answer, she took charge of the wheelchair and McKenzie.

  Joyce Tompkins was waiting for her in the new room. The woman tilted her head, high cheekbones arching as they looked at one another.

  “What happened? I popped back in to check on you, and they sent me here. Who trashed the room?”

  McKenzie sagged. Shannon told the advocate, her words like her uniform, crisp, clean, efficient. McKenzie crawled into the hospital bed, the nurse holding her by the elbow for support. Joyce’s face showed little emotion as she looked from one face to another.

  “And yet no one believes her.”

  Shannon’s mouth moved into a thin, pink line. “We had occasion—”

  “I don’t want to hear it.” Joyce surged to her feet. “I’ve seen a parade of battered women. I know what I’m lookin’ at. And so do you. Now, the question is, what are we going to do about it?”

  “She’s being moved to psychiatric tomorrow morning.”

  Joyce bent over and pulled the clipboard off the foot railing of the bed. She scanned it quickly.

  McKenzie lay still for a moment, as another siege of dizziness and double vision hit her. It passed quickly, and she swallowed down two breaths as if she could keep it locked away. “I’m not crazy,” she managed.

  Joyce patted her knee. “No. I know you’re not and after a few tests tomorrow,” she shot an angry dark-eyed look at Shannon, “they’ll know it, too. But, in the meantime, you’ll be safer there. Everything is monitored. No one gets in or out easily.”

  McKenzie felt herself relax a little under Joyce’s touch. There was something both formidable and maternal about the African American woman.

  “All right?”

  She nodded.

  Joyce looked to Shannon. “What’s for now?”

  “A light sedative. A quiet evening.”

  “Good. Sounds like just what the doctor ordered.” Joyce returned the chart to the nurse. “And I’ll see you tomorrow. Late morning. Okay?”

  McKenzie nodded again.

  Shannon patted the pockets of her tunic, found them empty, and said, “I’ll be back with your meds.” The two left together.

  McKenzie rolled in her bed. There was a small but pretty floral arrangement on the side table. Her name was on the card. Carter, trying to apologize? It scarcely mattered now.

  She reached for the envelope. Something bulky lay inside. She shook it out onto her palm. Something soft and silken, yet hard and crusty, fell out. She recognized it after a moment.

  McKenzie closed her fingers about it. Her chest heaved. She began to sob, violently, without sound, tears cascading. She retreated into the bed, pulling the sheets up around her, cocooning, and did not even notice when the nurse returned and injected her.

  Hotchkiss pushed himself away from his desk, leaned over to grasp the remote, and clicked his set off. All in all, the interview had gone well enough, despite the tendency of the media to condense everything down to sound bites. He’d taped all the major channels and feeds. A quick skim had proved they’d all pretty much handled the story the same way. He hadn’t been the hero, but neither had he come off villainous. He was saving the taxpayer, not depriving schoolchildren of the facilities so desperately needed to develop their growing minds.

  The sudden tragedy of Ibie Walker’s condition had almost displaced him on the news altogether. Ironic and fitting, that Stephen had been biding his time, waiting for the old man to falter, because he intended to replace Walker. Everything works out. Hotchkiss had great faith in the balance of the universe.

  He swiveled his chair around, facing his computer. Out of habit, he checked to make sure that he was alone. His secretary had blocked all incoming calls, he was at his home office, the part-time housekeeper was not scheduled for the day.

  He’d worked hard the past few months, indeed, the year and more since the San Fernando quake, and the days of solitude and rest had been few. But the upcoming election year should see him reap the rewards, following in the sweep of the gubernatorial election. He was in a good position to vault into place for the off-year elections, and his backers knew it. He had the drive, the confidence, the training to do it. Even his youth and bachelorhood could not be held against him—not in California. No. He should go as far as he wanted. Then he could come forward in the next gubernatorial election and try for a statewide position. Ten years or so, maybe even the governorship.

  He’d been born into the best of times, Hotchkiss decided, as he ran a stroking hand across the keyboard. Secrets could unmake the man or woman, secrets tried in the media without benefit of court or justice, secrets which would not be understood or condoned. Everybody had dirty laundry, he thought. Who grew up prepared to be examined microscopically? The recent rash of nominees on both state and federal levels who could not stand up to the scrutiny of the media-fed public was not surprising, although lamentable. But who knew, then, twenty, thirty years ago, what might later come back to haunt them?

  It made Stephen uncomfortable to think that the next generation of appointees and office holders might be holier than thou prisses whose sole career was not based on achievements, but on the avoidance of secrets, of offending anyone and everyone. What a sorry lot of wusses those candidates would be.

  But for now, he could afford to ride the tide of righteousness. He had managed himself well. He had done all right.

  He could reward himself.

  He booted up the computer and took a disk out of a plain paper bag. Its three-inch surface was beautiful in a clinically technological way, shining with opalescent color. Its beauty had little to do with its use. It was unmarked, unlabeled, totally unremarkable in any way.

  And unidentifiable.

  Hotchkiss held it between his index and thumb fingers, looking at the striking colors that shimmered off the silvery surface. He did not play games. If he had another fault in his personality, it was the lack of gamesmanship. He was a poor loser, and an even worse winner. He had managed to groom himself for the game of politics, but that was different. It was real life. Real power. For that, he could learn to smile convincingly, to give and take and be humble.

  It wasn’t worth the effort for a mere board game or a deck of cards.

  But this was different. He slipped the disk into the CD drive of his computer and booted it up. The color monitor came to life, displaying its brand name and then, as the drive whirled, the logo faded away as the memory gathered the new material. Sitting on top of the monitor rested a full-visored helmet. Like modified motorcycle gear, the front shield was smoked ebony. The fiberglass helmet itself had been custom painted a deep, electric blue, with black striping. It looked ordinary, until one saw the network of cables cascading from the nape of the equipment. Next to it, gloves lay nested, one atop the other, thick and bulky, studded with connectors and more cables, their image sexually powerful and stirring.

  The helmet and gloves were his passport from reality into virtual reality, an antiseptic environment where nearly anything could happen—and carry no consequences.

  Before settli
ng the helmet over his head, Hotchkiss checked out the room again. The fine, custom-built oak paneling and library shelving. His hand-routed desk. There was a Chagall on the wall, not an original, but a very low number lithograph. Baccarat crystal gleamed on the wet bar. The Persian carpet upon the floor, vibrant in its red and blue weave. These were the trappings of his office, but they did not feed the soul.

  It was reward time.

  He deserved it.

  The helmet slipped down. Its wiry cables snaked about Hotchkiss’s shoulders and down his arms as he pulled on the massive gloves. He flexed them, feeling the potential power in them, dormant, waiting for him to complete the connection. With crisp, precise movements, he clipped the cable ends together and let the computer power flood them.

  His visor exploded with color. Hotchkiss sat back in his swivel chair as sound issued from the helmet’s interior, soaking in the experience flooding his senses. He closed his eyes a moment as the virtual reality graphics came on, a beach, golden with sunshine, and young bodies, naked, unblemished by puberty or experience. He stood, braced, within it. He existed here, and only here, for the moment.

  It filled his senses. He could hear it, touch it, see it, even taste it, by God. It came roaring in on him like the sea in flood tide, sweeping over him. He threw his head back, a laugh fountaining from his throat.

  The rhythmic surge of ocean water upon sand sang in his ears. Sunlight broke into diamonds on the crystal blue water. Towels striped the beach. Surfboards and body boards lay dormant, their colors like the rainbow. He had every sense but smell inundated as the title, SURFER BOYS, played across his line of sight. It played across him like a banner trailed by a plane. He put a hand up and pushed it away.

  Gone was his constricting business suit uniform. Jams and a tropical shirt open at his chest replaced it. He stood barefoot on the beach. He swore he could feel the very warm grains cushioning him. Crossing the sand, he could feel the salt breeze in his face, see the boys waiting for him. Only boys, and only him.

  Bare skin met the glowing sunlight. Clothing optional, the young ran past, into the splashing waves. They laughed and shouted to one another, carrying surfboards and boogie boards, or simply racing one another into the water.

  Flesh, everywhere he looked. In all hues from the untouched to the bronzed. Buttocks rounded and firm. Shoulders lean, not yet bulked by the hormonal rampage of puberty. Bodies still coltish, some still rounded with baby fat, romped upon the sands.

  His gloved hands curved to caress and possess.

  There would be no one to tell.

  Hotchkiss took a deep breath and let himself stride forward into the scenario. He let it wash over him, bathe him in its sunlight, drawn by the silhouette of a boy laying facedown on his beach towel. The hair, like winter wheat, upon his head, the skin just beginning to acquire a sun-drenched hue, fine hairs upon his legs like wisps of spun gold.

  So young, so pure, the skin unmarked by the coarsening of hair and stubble, no pustules of acne scarring, no shaving scars, no marks of adolescence, the youth so clean and innocent. He could not resist the touch.

  The boy on the beach towel stirred. He could feel the warmth of the skin under his palm, the ripple of muscles as the child turned over and smiled, white teeth showing, his wheat-colored hair dipping down into his eyes. Stephen could get lost in those eyes, echoing pools of the blue water behind him. They warmed as they beheld him. A smile of welcome.

  Then the boy said, “We know who you are, Hotchkiss.”

  The words catapulted him backward, slamming him back into the reality of the embrace of his office chair.

  He sat back in shock. Set off by his trembling, cables rippled around him like electric eels.

  Chapter 13

  “The nurse says you’ll corroborate McKenzie’s whereabouts.”

  Carter looked at the growing crowd of reporters, gathering for the official press release on Ibrahim Walker’s condition. He’d already made the early edition with the news break on Ibie when he’d called into the city desk. Now, with the update imminent, he no more wanted to be escorted off hospital property for improper conduct than he wanted an extra hole in the head, but neither did he want to lie outright. Moreno had shown up moments before, hot and rumpled as though the staff car he drove had no air-conditioning. Face growing more and more dotted with perspiration, the policeman had filled Carter in on the destruction downstairs. Without seeing the scene for himself, he couldn’t imagine McKenzie having done it, or taken the initiative to do it. He looked at Moreno.

  “I can’t tell you that I was with her every single second and that she couldn’t have done it herself. I stayed up here when I saw Ibie brought in. She could have been alone, fifteen, twenty minutes, an hour. I lost track of time.”

  “Then what can you tell me?”

  “The room was clean when we left it. I didn’t bring her back, so I don’t know what it looked like later. She mourned her father. I can tell you that she’s worried about her husband finding her. From what you tell me, it looks like he did.” Carter pulled at his collar a little. “I don’t think it makes much sense that she would come home all the way from Seattle just to duke it out with her father. And I don’t think I need to point out to you that this town is beginning to have a big problem with the way ordinary people are treated, compared with celebrities.”

  Moreno had been jotting in his notebook. He met Carter’s stare. “The neighbors remember a very combative relationship. Stranger things have happened. If we can lift a print from the room, prove someone else’s involvement, we can turn the investigation around. As far as her status, be glad she’s not somebody. If she were, this place would be filled with the news media from stem to stern ... and she would already be judged and sentenced.”

  “What about taking her word for it? I wasn’t aware spousal abuse was getting rare.”

  Moreno’s eyes glittered. His mouth worked as though he was choking back what he wanted to say and he ended with, “Wouldn’t that make a headline?” Carter sighed and he put his pen away in his shirt pocket. He nodded toward the makeshift podium, awaiting a doctor and a press rep. “What’s the word about Ibie?”

  “He may or may not have surprised an intruder, but it’s his old age that took him down. Recovery, if he makes it, will be slow.”

  Moreno made a tch ing noise through his teeth. “Hate to see him retire. There’s a lot of work left to do.”

  Carter grinned. “Retire? He’ll be ordering his aides and secretaries in here tomorrow. The joint will be filled with fax machines and cell phones.”

  “Cell phones,” the policeman repeated. Then he laughed. “Yeah, I guess so.” He started to turn away as the crowd around them grew, making their conversation even more difficult to keep private, then turned back. “Too bad about your friend Nelson. Any idea why he was in town?”

  Carter paused. “Officially or unofficially?”

  “Either way.”

  “We never had a chance to talk. I might have an idea if I could find out what the suits are saying. Any leads?”

  Moreno’s color deepened slightly. “Nothing I could do about it if I wanted to,” he returned. “The Feds are crawling all over that one.”

  “Wouldn’t hurt to nudge them in the right direction, though. No, I don’t know what he was doing here. We were supposed to have lunch when he called ... but he didn’t get a chance to.” He saw the corridor beyond the room fill with personnel. Time to cut this conversation short, and he thought he knew just the stopper. “Now, you want to trade some real information, let’s talk about Mr. Blue.”

  Moreno shook his head. “Now you’ve reached my limit,” he said, smiling, and began to move off.

  Carter watched him go for a few feet, then turned his attention back to the doctors who were filing in. He found his fingers twitching as if he already sat at the keyboard. A portly neurosurgeon at the front of the room tapped a microphone and cleared his throat. Instantly, the room became deathly quiet.

 
; There was a light at the end of the black tunnel. Hotchkiss groaned, seeing it, and shifted again in his chair. His life had been passing before him, he knew it, he could taste its bitterness in his mouth. He coughed. His neck creaked stiffly and the helmet, which had been sloughing off, fell farther off his forehead. The pinpoint of light became a blazing sun. Hotchkiss stared and blinked at it, until he realized he was looking at the room’s ceiling light, not at God.

  He sat bolt upright in the chair and snatched the helmet from his skull. One of the cables ripped loose and fell to the desktop with a clank of its metallic head. Hotchkiss brushed it aside with a trembling hand as he might a snake. He threw the helmet as far from him as he could.

  Leaning heavily on his elbows across the desk, as if he were pulling himself free from a drowning sea, he gasped and trembled. What was happening to him?