Guardian of Lies

THIRTY-THREE

By the time Harry and I arrive at the University Medical Center on Hillcrest, Katia had already been admitted. The sheriff’s department has a contract with the university for inpatient care of inmates, and this morning the lobby is crawling with law enforcement. There are city police, sheriff’s deputies, and federal agents, some of them still wearing tactical gear.

The moment I mention Katia’s name at the reception desk, Harry and I are approached by a man in his mid-thirties.

“Excuse me. Who are you?”

He is wearing baggy black tactical pants and is stripped down to his T-shirt up top.

“Who’s asking?” says Harry.

“Agent John Swarz.” He flashes FBI credentials at us.

“Paul Madriani, my partner, Harry Hinds. We’re Ms. Solaz’s lawyers.”

“Do you have any identification?”

Harry and I show him our driver’s licenses and state bar cards. I hand him a business card.

“I don’t think she’s going to be seeing anybody right now.”

“We’d like to know where she is,” says Harry.

“Do you know what her condition is?” I ask.

“She’s not critical, if that’s what you mean. She took a flesh wound in the leg. You can get the details from the doctor. According to the EMT, she suffered some shock, possible concussion, and a chance of some hearing damage from the explosive device.”

“Then you saw her?” I say.

“I carried her off the bus. Give me a second,” he says.

The agent steps away from us, pulls a cell phone from his pocket, and walks farther away as he presses buttons to dial the number. He stands twenty feet away, glancing at Harry and me as he talks on the phone and looks at my business card. Then he looks at me and motions for me to come over.

“Somebody wants to talk to you,” he says, and he hands me his cell phone.

“Hello.”

“Mr. Madriani, this is Jim Rhytag. Agent Swarz informs me that you’d like to be able to see your client.”

“That’s correct.”

“That will be up to the doctor, of course. But I want you to know that she will be well protected from here on out. We’ve made arrangements to have her moved to a private room upstairs in the hospital, outside the jail ward. She will be in the custody of the sheriff’s department but there will be two federal marshals assigned at all times while she’s there, providing backup, more if we think it’s necessary. We have reason to believe that the assault on the bus this morning may have been directed at Ms. Solaz.”

“Why don’t you tell me what this is about?” I say.

“I’ve told you all that I can. Just one more thing, we’ve kept her name off the admissions records at the hospital and my agents covered her with a blanket when they took her off the bus. Law enforcement has agreed not to give her name to the press as a survivor. Whoever tried to kill her may not know she’s alive. We’d like to keep it that way, at least for the time being. We’ve already advised the judge and court personnel. You need to know so you can avoid any questions from the press. It’s for your client’s own safety.”

“I understand. For how long?”

“We’re not sure. We’ll let you know. The rest you’ll have to get from her doctor. Sorry I can’t be more helpful.” The line went dead.

I hand the phone back to the agent. “Thanks.”

Harry and I have cooled our heels, pacing the lobby and sitting on hard wooden benches, for nearly two hours before one of the nurses comes out and tells us that the doctor will see us now. She leads us down a broad corridor and through a pair of wide electrically controlled double doors with the word EMERGENCY blazed across them in red paint.

She tells us to take a seat inside a small room. Before we can sit down, a young intern breezes into the room with a clipboard under his arm.

“Hi. I’m Dr. Johansson. I understand you’re here to see Ms. Solaz.”

We introduce ourselves.

“The good news is, she’s going to be okay. The bad news is, she’s undergone a tremendous amount of trauma. There are no broken bones, no internal injuries, the bullet wound in the leg is in soft tissue, some minor muscle damage. It should heal completely. It may take a few weeks. Her hearing loss, we believe, is temporary.”

“She can’t hear at all?” says Harry.

The doctor shakes his head. “Not at the moment, as far as we can tell. There was some minor bleeding from the nose and ears, the result of a concussion from the explosive pressure wave. Both eardrums were ruptured, but they should heal. That usually takes about two months.”

“Will she be able to communicate in the meantime?” I ask.

“That’s the real question,” says the doctor. “We don’t know. She’s clearly suffered some concussive brain injury, physical trauma in the form of shock waves to the central nervous system. Coupled with that is the psychological component, all the things she saw, the sheer terror of what happened, and the death of her friend-”

“What friend?” I say.

“She apparently had someone on the bus she was very close to, another woman who, according to the police, may have died in her arms. We don’t know. From what I understand, the other woman may have saved her life. Again, we’re not sure of all the details. Regardless, you can imagine the stress your client was under, physical and emotional. The problem is, it’s hard to separate the two, to determine how much of the damage is physical, resulting from the blast, and how much is psychological.

“The concussive effect of the blast alone on the nervous system can last anywhere from hours or days to weeks. It depends on the individual.”

“But she will recover?” I say.

“I think so. The damage usually isn’t permanent unless the source of the trauma becomes repetitive, shell shock from long-term combat, for example. In this case, the odds are she’ll recover.”

“But you can’t tell us how long that’s going to take?” says Harry.

“Not with any certainty or precision, no. She’s going to need a lot of rest and quiet. She won’t be going back to the jail anytime soon. I’d say she’s either going to be here or in a very quiet semiskilled nursing facility for a minimum of ten days to two weeks, perhaps longer.”

“So what you’re telling us,” I say, “is that Ms. Solaz is not going to be able to give us much help in preparing her defense on criminal charges during that period.”

“At the moment she’s unable to speak to anyone.”

“Because she can’t hear?” says Harry.

“No. She’s in a stupor, probably as a result of the shock. We’ll be doing an MRI and some other tests. There’s limited motor response. She doesn’t seem to react normally to stimuli. To the extent that anything depends on her participation or cooperation, she may not be able to comply. As I say, it’s probably only temporary, but at the moment it’s absolute. I can give you a letter if you need it.”

“If you don’t mind,” says Harry, “that would be helpful.”

The doctor makes a note on his clipboard. “Right now she’s not communicating with anyone. We haven’t been able to get a word out of her. The officers who brought her in said they were unable to communicate with her as well.”

“Can we see her?” I ask.

“Does she have any family in the area?”

“No,” says Harry. “We’re it. Her nearest family is in Costa Rica. They don’t have U.S. visas or the financial ability to travel up here.”

“That’s too bad. Sometimes family helps in a situation like this, reaching the patient, I mean. She is sedated, just mildly at the moment. We’re going to be moving her upstairs shortly. If you want to see her, you’ll have to keep it very quiet and brief. Try to stay fairly still, avoid a lot of movement. Two minutes, that’s all. And keep in mind that she’s not going to be able to hear you. She may recognize you.

“If you’ll come this way.” He leads us out of the room, down the hall past a number of curtained-off cubicles with hospital beds, some of them empty, others with patients.

There are three uniformed deputies milling around keeping an eye on the women in blue jail jumpsuits until they can get them upstairs into the jail ward.

“How many of the injured from the bus were delivered here?” says Harry.

“Eight.”

“How many did they route to other hospitals?” I ask.

“None. There were only eight survivors, seventeen dead, not counting the driver, the guard, or the gunmen. Absolute insanity,” says the doctor.

“Yes, it is,” I say.

A few feet farther on he puts his hand out like a traffic cop. “If you’ll wait here just a moment.” He steps away to confer with a man wearing gray slacks, a dress shirt and tie, and a worn blue blazer with wrinkle marks where it covers the padded holster on his belt.

The man is positioned outside one of the cubicles with the curtains drawn. As the doctor is talking to him, he looks our way and checks us out. He looks like he’s crowding fifty, a crew cut with a little moonshine on top, some middle-aged heft around the middle but with shoulders broad enough that you wouldn’t want to wrestle him. He is slowly chewing gum as he looks at us.

“Now who do you suppose he is?” says Harry. “Black Rockports resoled with inch-thick rubber soles and Cat’s Paw heels. And I thought they stopped making the Cat’s Paws years ago.”

“No, they just sold the company to the U.S. Marshals Service,” I tell him.

“You think he’s trying to go undercover?” says Harry.

“No, I’m thinking Rhytag may have already done that number.”

“Hmm?” says Harry.

“See if we can get a list of the names of the seventeen inmates killed on the bus, check it against courthouse records, criminal cases pending, or county sentences handed down. My guess is we’re either going to find one name from the bus that doesn’t have a matching courthouse file, or the coroner is suddenly going to come up one cadaver short in the head count.”

“Katia’s friend from the bus,” says Harry.

“Uh-huh.”

The doctor wiggles his finger and motions us to join him. He goes through the opening in the curtain, followed closely by Harry and then me. The marshal comes in behind us.

Harry starts to turn, about to get in his face to assert lawyer-client, but I tap him down low with my hand on his wrist and stop him. “Nothing confidential is happening here today,” I whisper as I nod toward the bed.

Katia is flat on her back. The cover sheet is drawn up to her chest. Her eyes are half open, with a glazed look, a combination of shock and the sedative. Her face is as white as the sheet. It’s clear that she will remember none of this in the days that follow.

I move slowly toward the bed and look down at her. She has not even the slightest resemblance to the vivacious, carefree woman I met that morning over the bin of bananas in Del Mar. In just under three months, the state has sucked the life out of her and left this shell in her place.

I touch her hand as it rests on top of the sheet. It is cold as ice. I pick it up and hold it between my hands, trying to warm it.

For an instant her eyelids flicker and her head rolls slightly this way as she struggles to look at me. But the drawn and lifeless expression on her face doesn’t change.

“I’m going to have to ask that you not do that,” says the marshal.

“Excuse me?” I look at him.

“Nobody but the doctors and hospital staff are allowed to touch her.”

“Says who?” says Harry.

“Says me.”

“We were told she was under sheriff’s custody,” I say.

“She is,” says the marshal.

“So where are you hiding your sheriff’s badge these days?” says Harry.

“We’re just helping out,” he says.

“If I might ask, on what legal authority? Where is the federal process?” I say. “The documentation for your presence here-”

“Gentlemen, I don’t want any arguments in here,” the doctor starts to cut me off.

“Doc, I apologize. You’re right. And I don’t want the marshal to misunderstand. I do not resent his presence. The problem is that neither my partner nor I understand what’s happening here, the reason for the federal presence.”

“Just doing my job,” says the marshal.

“I know. But if there’s a reason to believe that our client continues to be in danger, we would like to be informed as to what that danger is. Then by all means we want you here.”

“What we don’t want is to have you questioning or communicating with her unless one of us is present.” Harry glances at the marshal.

“I do my job. Right now that means watching her,” he says.

“That’s good. That’s fine,” says Harry. “As long as it doesn’t include pumping her full of scopolamine and listening to her dreams, we shouldn’t have any problems.”

“Harry, please,” I tell him.

“Sorry, nothing personal,” says Harry.

“It seems the presence of law enforcement makes you foam at the mouth,” says the marshal. “I understand. I have the same problem with lawyers.”

“Now that that’s settled,” I say, “Doctor, can I ask you a question?”

“Certainly.”

“Would you have any objection if we retain a separate physician, someone to serve as her personal doctor to confer with the staff here at the hospital and keep us apprised of her condition?”

“No. I’d have to check with the sheriff’s department. They have custody, but I can’t imagine there would be any problem.”

“Good. In that case we’ll retain a personal physician first thing tomorrow.”

“But I think we need to leave for now and let her rest,” says the doctor.

“Sure.” I slip Katia’s cold hand under the sheet. As I release it, her eyelids flicker once more as she looks at me. I take the other hand and place it under the sheet. I touch her forehead with my fingertips and lean down into her ear as I whisper, “Katia, we’ll be back. I promise you.”

“She can’t hear you,” said the doctor.

“I know. Hasta luego, Katia.”