by Bob Knapp
Becky looked hard at the doctor. “What do you mean, 'Who'll look after him?' What's wrong with him, Doctor?”
“I didn't mean to alarm you. It's only that he'll be in rehab for some time. He's going to need lots of help.”
Becky frowned.
“Is he going to make it, Doctor Jensen?” Fowlkes asked.
“Actually, when he came in, I thought it was already too late. Now I'd say the odds are better than 50 percent he'll recover.”
“That's great, Doctor,” Fowlkes said, but he felt the bile rise in his throat.
“When can we see Mike—Mr. Hanover?” Candy asked. “I'm a friend, Candy Melowicz.” She shook hands with the doctor.
Becky cast a scorching look at Candy and clenched her teeth.
“He'll probably be in the operating room for several more hours,” Dr. Jensen said. “Ordinarily, with someone in this condition, visitors aren't allowed. Since the Sheriff is here, he and Mrs. Hanover can see him for a few minutes after he's in recovery.”
Thanks, Uncle Don. You have a long reach. Hope still lives for an early end to Hanover’s suffering, thought Fowlkes.
“Two people are the max. Sorry, Ms. Melowicz, that will conclude all visitors for twenty-four hours,” Dr. Jensen said.
Becky smiled for the first time.
Candy dropped her head, then looked up at Dr. Jensen. “I understand,” she said. “But if its okay, I'll stay tonight so I can keep informed about his progress.”
“Sure. It'll be awhile before Mr. Hanover can interact,” Dr. Jensen said. “He'll be in an induced coma for at least a week—up to a month, depending upon his progress.”
* * *
“I didn't know we'd have to wear a mask and all this stuff just to see him,” Becky said.
“You shouldn't be allowed in here at all,” the male nurse accompanying them said. “His condition is very fragile.” He led them past what seemed a maze of rooms, most with curtained doorways. They stopped a few rooms short of reaching a closed set of double doors. Through their windows Fowlkes saw a large stainless steel door with a narrow vertical window. He imagined it opened into an operating room.
“He won't even know you're here,” the nurse said. “And stay back from the bed. All of those tubes and gadgets attached to him keep him alive. You got two minutes.” He pulled a mask from around his neck. “It's been a long night and I need a break. I'll be right back.”
Becky stepped past the curtain into the room. Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh!” she said.
Fowlkes shook his head. “It's amazing how God brings his wrath down upon those who defy his commandments. It's a wonder He allowed Michael to live.”
Becky sobbed and put a tissue to her nose. “What do you mean?”
“Like thou shall not kill. And thou shall not bear false witness,” Fowlkes said. He nodded toward Michael. “This is God's judgment.”
“I didn't know you were so religious,” Becky said.
“For two of my childhood years I lived with Aunt Cora. She took me to Sunday School every Sunday.”
Becky stared at the form in the bed. Tubing and wires ran from under the sheet covering Hanover's lower body. Bandages wrapped his abdomen, chest and head. Lines came and went from his forearm, from below his collarbone and from his nostrils. A dressing was taped to his other arm. “I thought I knew Michael. This all happened so fast.”
Fowlkes put his arm across Becky's shoulders and patted her arm. A smile graced his lips. “And cleave to one woman, God said.”
“Sneaking around. Tired from working—hah!” Becky said. “And I, like a dummy, got late suppers for him.”
“You've been patient—faithful. You did your part. Try not to be upset.”
“All those times he was meeting Candy and I never knew,” Becky said.
Fowlkes looked down at the floor and shook his head. “And thou shall not commit adultery.”
Becky stared at Fowlkes, then turned toward the bed, her face on fire. “How could you? How could you?” she said, and rushed to Michael. She grabbed his shoulders and shook them. Fowlkes’ smile took an evil twist.
“You weren't working late, were you, Michael? You just stayed too long that one time and got caught,” Becky hissed. “But nothing stops you.” She shook him again. The oxygen line to his nostrils slipped to one side, but she didn't notice. “You'd better never see her again!” she said.
“She leads him on. He can't help himself—he's too far gone; it's like an addiction,” Fowlkes said. “Don't blame him.”
She shook him once more. “Oh, Michael, what am I going to do with you?” Tears welled up in her eyes and she suddenly hugged him. A line in the vein at his collarbone caught in her blouse. Alarms went off as she tried to free herself. Fowlkes quickly pulled Becky away, yanking the snagged line completely out. He heard the pounding of running feet and turned her toward the exit. “We need some help, fast,” he bellowed.
A scrub-clad man and woman, pulling their masks up over their noses, burst into the room and bumped into Becky. Fowlkes dodged as if to get out of their way, but deliberately stepped in the direction in which they moved. Seconds just might count, he thought.
The male nurse who had taken them to Michael arrived, breathing hard and exuding the smell of cigarette smoke. “What happened?” he yelled.
“He suddenly started thrashing around, knocking off everything,” Fowlkes said, and took Becky by the arm. They hurried out, throwing their protective garments on a cart parked in the hall.
“We're losing him,” someone cried, and then they were out of earshot.
“Am I in trouble?” Becky asked. “It was an accident. They'd better not mess with me.”
Fowlkes shook his head while doing his best to keep from laughing aloud. “No, no,” he said, and put his arm about Becky's waist. “The Lord always finds a way.” With his other hand Fowlkes took her by the arm and led her out into the night. “God save his soul,” he said, still smiling, glad for the cover of darkness.
38
Party Time
Hanover lay staring at the hospital's white ceiling, the hurt in his gut sharp and hard.
The surgeons had removed Hanover's spleen, a lobe of his right lung, and nine bullets. One, after passing through the temporal lobe of his brain, had lodged in the parietal section, causing him difficulties with visual-motor coordination and speech. Without Candy's visits and help, he would never have made it. She had encouraged him and picked up where the therapists had left off. With more grueling work than he cared to remember, he'd reduced most of those problems by 90 percent.
But the pain today was not from the bullets Fowlkes had sent slamming into his body a year ago. That pain had waned.
Hanover's agony boiled and festered from Fowlkes’ dagger thrust of more than two years ago. It was the discovery that Fowlkes had arranged for his parents' 200 foot drop off Cow Hollow Run Ridge Road. Hanover's only proof was a picture of the construction cone beneath his parents' wrecked car. Sheriff Fowlkes, after his election, had ruled it was an accident, naturally.
Fowlkes turned the knife in Hanover's gut when he ran down Uncle Andy. He plunged it in again when he pushed Crabapple from his porch. Hanover was sure it had been Fowlkes.
Lastly, Fowlkes blatantly courted Hanover's wife, stoking the dagger white hot and sawing with its jagged edges, while Hanover lay helplessly on the cold hospital sheets of the Peterson Rehabilitation Center in Wheeling, West Virginia.
But this night would become the balm for his torment. It was the night Hanover had been dreaming about, the night Fowlkes’ casino opened, a night for justice. First, he had to escape from Peterson.
His guard, Quinn, a retired Wheeling cop, was a no-nonsense guy, but Hanover knew he had a soft heart.
Hanover rolled into a sitting position and sat on the edge of the bed, his feet on the floor. “Hey, Quinn, it's Christmas Eve. Let's celebrate.”
Quinn always sat rigidly in the wooden chair crowded into Hanover's room. His navy p
olyester Appleton Security uniform was stiff and clean. When it got warm, he would remove his police hat and lay it carefully on the bottom of Hanover's bed, revealing thin salt-and-pepper hair cut into a sharp crew cut.
Hanover stood, then fell back to sit on his bed. Lately, he had deliberately made his rehabilitation progress look bad.
“How about a drink?” Hanover said.
“I don't drink. I'm on duty, remember?”
“I mean, with a coffee from the canteen. Help me down there.”
“You got to stay in your room.”
“Come on, Quinn. It's Christmas Eve. We don't need anybody's okay for that. I'm going.” Hanover struggled to his feet, teetered, and stuck out his hand to catch himself on the chair. “You have to come, Quinn. You have money—I don't.”
Hanover struggled down the hall, limping and holding himself up with his hand along the wall. Even though Quinn packed a Smith & Wesson revolver along with a short nightstick, a set of handcuffs and his phone, in this situation Hanover worried little about what Quinn might do.
Quinn frowned but followed Hanover. He glanced behind him.
“You invited me to the party, but want me to pay?” Quinn glowered.
Hanover took his money; stepped up close to the machine so that Quinn could not see the selections he made, and fed the bills into the slot.
“Make mine black—strong,” Quinn said.
“C-3,” Hanover said, but pushed the D-2 buttons. He smiled.
By opting for some painful nights, Hanover had managed to hoard three sleeping pills. Now, with his back to the guard, he slipped the tablets into a decaffeinated coffee and handed the cup to him. Hanover then gave Quinn his own cappuccino and hobbled back to the room, allowing the guard to balance the coffees.
Hanover sat in Quinn's chair. “Take a seat on my bed. It's soft. Relax a little.”
“Naw, the chair's better. Supports my back.” He stood in front of Hanover until Hanover stood up. “Besides, suppose I got caught on your bed, laying down on the job.”
So much for Quinn replacing me in the bed, Hanover thought. I'll never lift him.
Hanover sat on the bed. “How long you been a guard?”
“Two years.”
“What'd you do before that?”
“Policeman.” The conversation dragged. When are those pills going to kick in?
Hanover leaned back on the bed and braced himself upright on locked arms and watched Quinn. It would have been easy to just give up, let himself go. Each time he was tempted, the image of Fowlkes standing on the Devil's Palm between Waxter and him, laughing and pulling the triggers on the guns, reared before him, renewing his determination to fight. Also, he was infuriated by his recollection of the times Fowlkes had sent León to the hospital to kill him. The first time occurred while Hanover was in an induced semiconscious state. That memory was like a dream:
León, in a black suit and a red-and-yellow striped tie and looking every bit like the insurance company doctor, had burst into Hanover's room and patted Hanover affectionately. He bent over and pulled something from beneath his pants' leg. “This won't hurt a bit,” León said. With his back looming large, he faced the infusion bag.
The door swung open. “What are you doing? Stay away from that!” the nurse screamed as she scrambled into the room. Her shout nearly brought Hanover to full consciousness. A hot pain rose in his abdomen and chest.
With sleight-of-hand León slipped the hypodermic syringe under his sleeve. Hanover lost consciousness while León argued with the nurse.
The second time León came he wore jeans and a blue work shirt bearing a white “Housekeeping” placard on the shirt pocket. It was early morning. Ahead of him he pushed a large yellow bucket on wheels that held a mop and sudsy water. He entered Hanover's room and closed the door behind him.
There was no subtlety this time. No pleasantries. León took one of the pillows from behind Hanover's head and pressed it hard onto his face. Hanover's muffled screams did not make it through the door. Fortunately, Mother Nature had been beckoning and Hanover had the call button in his hand. Too late, León noticed the button and yanked it from Hanover's grasp.
Upon hearing the door open behind him, León began fluffing the pillow and putting it under Hanover's head. The nurse's aid accepted León's explanation and attributed Hanover's garbled speech and wild gestures to his condition and an opiate induced confusion.
León mopped his way out of the room and disappeared. The aide's shift ended. She left without making an entry into the computer record. When Hanover brought the incident up later, the staff told him he had misinterpreted events, or was dreaming.
Hanover heard León's voice out in the hall on subsequent occasions and assumed León was looking for a chance to kill him. It was not long thereafter, with Hanover becoming more mobile, that the State of West Virginia contracted Appleton Security to guard their hospital prisoner. Hanover had run from the law before.
With the assignment of the guard, Quinn, Hanover had hoped that the threat from Fowlkes was over. But León had arrived as himself, Deputy Orlando León, and lured Quinn out of the room. Hanover sneaked out and, playing cat-and-mouse, locked himself in the little public restroom down the hall off-and-on during that entire afternoon while León looked for him.
Hanover thought himself fortunate—so far. Like Waxter had told him, Skeeter, the young intruder that Fowlkes had shot in his house, met his death in the hospital at León's hand.
* * *
The nurse came in, stuck a temperature probe in Hanover's mouth, slapped the blood pressure cuff on his arm and pumped it up, grabbed his wrist and looked at her watch. She didn't even tell him to lie down. She punched on the computer keyboard in the room, then left. He and Quinn listened while the squeak from her rubber soles faded down the hall.
“How many years?”
“Thirty-five.” Quinn's eyes began to blink. Finally.
“You married?”
Quinn's head bobbed.
“Three times. Almost f-” Quinn's chin rested on his tie. His chest rose and fell slowly. Hanover stood to go to the guard.
The squeak of rubber soles on polished tiles grew louder.
“Almost four!” Hanover fairly shouted, and laughed heartily.
Quinn jerked erect. Hanover sat back down on the bed.
The nurse stuck her head in the doorway. “At least somebody's having fun on the holiday,” she said. “You must be feeling pretty well, Mr. Hanover.”
“Man talk,” Hanover said.
Quinn squirmed. He looked a little dazed. “Just chewing the cud.”
They waited. She finally left. Hanover closed the door.
“You were telling me about your wives,” Hanover said.
“Yeah,” Quinn mumbled. His head bobbed twice and stayed down. His mouth fell open. He snorted and closed his mouth. Hanover shook Quinn's shoulder gently. His eyes remained shut.
Hanover extinguished all lights except for the nightlight in the bathroom. He then took pillows and made the bed look as if someone was asleep in it.
When Quinn's breathing became heavy, Hanover slipped him out of his jacket and put it on. It was loose, but it would have to do. He put on Quinn's hat next so he wouldn't forget it. He needed the pants too, but had counted on Quinn lying in the bed. Hanover crouched in front of Quinn, grasped an arm and rolled him out of the chair. He cushioned Quinn's fall to the floor with his hands and a shoulder, but was nearly flattened by Quinn's weight. Quinn groaned, but remained asleep.
Suddenly, footsteps chirped in the hall and his door was cracked open, sending a shaft of light into the room. The nurse's head followed. Hanover had been concentrating so much on Quinn that he hadn't heard the steps coming up the hall.
With Quinn at his feet, Hanover turned his back to the door and leaned sideways to hide the hospital gown beneath the uniform jacket. He tugged at the blanket on the bed as if adjusting it.
“Taking my job, Mr. Quinn?” she said.
&nbs
p; Hanover put a finger to his lips. “Shhh!”
After a moment, the nurse's head disappeared and the door was pulled shut. Hanover sighed.
Hanover's muscles trembled and perspiration dripped from his face as he hauled Quinn to the side of the bed opposite from the door. He slumped on the floor next to Quinn for a moment to catch his breath and allow his muscles to relax.
Quinn didn't stir. The hairs on the back of Hanover's neck rose and the cold prickly sensation of trickling ice water crept down his spine. Suppose I overdid the pills. Boy, this murder rap would stick.
He struggled to get Quinn's pants off of him. He put them on. What they lacked in length, they made up for at the waist. He cinched the belt tight. He relieved Quinn of his holster with the Smith & Wesson, plus the nightstick, cuffs and phone. He then adjusted the figure on the bed and headed for the door.
Hanover checked the hallway. Thanks to the holiday, there was only a skeleton staff. The nurse was at her desk. She glanced his way then ignored him.
He walked as erectly as he could. After months of lying in bed and then hauling Quinn around, no wonder his body shook and he could hardly walk. His physical therapy hadn't quite done its job.
Once outside under the portico, Hanover jammed his hand into the uniform pants pocket and retrieved a set of keys. With trembling hands he held them to the light, then fished through them until he found what looked like a car key. A blast of damp icy wind found its way inside of his jacket and snapped the canvas of the overhang to remind him to hurry. The nurse might check on him at any moment.
Out on the parking lot he spied a white Jeep Commander with a yellow warning light on top. Once in range, he saw the Appleton Security shield on the door. Two car rows away, a woman with a scarf around her head and clutching her coat beneath her chin leaned into the wind and scurried by. She carried a brightly wrapped box under one arm. She gave Hanover no heed. Her thoughts were probably on the patient she was going to visit.