Kindness Goes Unpunished

4

“This is a really bad idea.”

I looked around at the thousands of Philadelphia Phillies fans walking along Pattison Avenue toward Citizens Bank Park. “Seventy degrees and sunny. It’s a beautiful day for a ball game.”

“And a lousy one for aggravated assault.” He looked at me and shook his head. “Where do you want to hide the body?”

“I just want to talk to him.”

The Bear pursed his lips. “How about behind third; the Phillies have not shown any signs of life there in years.”

I bought some upper-tier tickets from a guy standing behind an abandoned magazine stand on the corner of 11th and Pattison. I handed Henry a ticket and stuffed the rest of my money back in my wallet.

We were undercover. The Cheyenne Nation was resplendent in jeans, his weathered chambray shirt, and a pair of running shoes. He had bought a Phillies hat as we’d gotten off the subway at Broad and had tucked his substantial ponytail over the adjustable strap in the back. He could have been from Philadelphia; he could have been a very large Indian from Philadelphia, but he could have been from Philadelphia. I was blending in even better. I had left my hat at the hospital on Lena Moretti’s head, had purchased a natty fitted cap and a vast red-satin jacket from the Broad Street vendor, and now approached the major league ballpark looking like a British phone booth.

“What if he is not here?”

“Then we watch a ball game.” The tiny terror was creeping in on me again, even though we had checked with Lena no more than ten minutes earlier. She said that eleven lawyers from Cady’s firm had stopped in, that even David Calder-the Calder of Schomberg, Calder, Dallin, and Rhind-had been to visit. Lena said she had recognized him from Philadelphia Inquirer society page photographs, that he was ancient but that he liked my cowboy hat. She also said that Cady was resting comfortably but had shown no signs of change.

We gave our tickets to the lady at the turnstile and walked into the broad interior thoroughfare of the ballpark. Under different circumstances, I might have enjoyed the environs, with the Kentucky bluegrass below-street-level playing field, giant scoreboard, and a capacity approximately one-tenth that of Wyoming’s entire population, but I had other things on my mind.

I bought a scorecard and a stubby pencil from a vendor and stepped onto the metal treads of the escalator for the ride up. Henry lingered behind me. “Do we know which luxury suite?”

I shrugged. “How many can there be?”

There were seventy-three, to be exact. This we discovered from a kindly octogenarian in a red straw hat and vest. The Bear also asked what we should do if we were invited to stop by one of the luxury boxes but had no tickets? He said we should call our friends and have them meet us at the back of the secured area at the rear of that level.

We went up. Henry paused at a railing and looked across center field toward the skyline of the city. “Do all the larger law firms have sky boxes?”

“I’m not sure. Why?”

“Do Schomberg, Calder, Dallin, and Rhind have a box?”

It’s thinking like this that kicked Custer’s ass.

I held out my hand for his cell phone, a device at which I had become a past master. I only slightly felt the twinge at seeing CADY/WORK just before I pushed the button. “Schomberg, Calder, Dallin, and Rhind, Cady Longmire’s office, can I help you?”

“Patti, it’s Walt.”

There was no pause, and her voice lowered. “The police were here, asking questions.”

“Was the name Moretti?”

“No, a detective by the name of Katz. He left his card.”

“Patti…?”

“There was a black guy with him. He didn’t leave a card, but I think he was a detective, too.”

“Patti?”

“They asked a lot of questions about her and Devon…”

I let her wind down. “Patti, I need some help.”

It was quiet. “What do you need?”

I explained that we were on a little investigative junket of our own and was wondering if the firm had a luxury suite at the ballpark. She assured me that they did and, after a brief consultation, reported that it was being used by a couple of city council people today but that there were seats still available. I asked her how we could get in, and she said to check the Phillies community relations office in five minutes.

The older lady at the double glass doors smiled as she tore our tickets and handed us the stubs. “Enjoy the game.”

The gallery that provided entrance to the luxury suites was a carpeted hallway that arched around the balcony from foul pole to foul pole. We were in suite 38, and as luck would have none of it, we were right there. When I glanced into the box, I could see two brassy-looking older women drinking beer out of plastic cups that would have looked more at home strapped to a horse’s nose.

One turned and looked at me, nudging her friend with the frizzy orange hair. “Franny, look, boys!”

I stood with my head in the doorway, not sure of what to say, finally settling on a western favorite: “Howdy.” In retrospect, it probably sounded a little odd coming from someone who looked like the assistant carbohydrate coach of the Phils.

I left Henry to entertain as I excused myself to get something to drink. Bernice said that they had waitresses, but I told her I didn’t want to wait that long.

There were small nameplates beside the doors of each suite, so it was just a question of finding the right firm. I was relying on a distant phone conversation I had had with Cady months earlier when she mentioned where Devon was employed. I remembered it was Somebody and Somebody, as opposed to the Somebody, Somebody, Somebody, and Somebody of Cady’s firm. I remembered that they were not particularly memorable names and, about a third of the way around, I read “HUNT AND DRISCOLL.”

I slipped my scorecard from my back pocket and pulled the pencil from behind my ear when I heard the announcer roar through the starting lineups. I was, after all, undercover. I leaned against the far railing, which gave me a decent view of suite 51. A few people passed by, but I feigned concentration and raised my head only after they had all passed.

I could make out the backs of three young men sitting on the arm rails of their luxury box chairs. They were talking, but I couldn’t hear the conversation clearly. Having never met Devon was putting me at a disadvantage, but fortune took a hand in the form of a young woman in short pants and an abbreviated, torso-baring Phillies T-shirt. “Miss?”

She was another south Philly gem, with mall-chick hair, blue eye shadow, and rounded vowels. “Yeah?”

“Could I get you to do me a favor?”

“Prolly.”

I took this for probably, tucked the scorecard under my arm along with the pencil, and pulled a crisp twenty from my wallet by way of the Durant State Bank ATM. “Could I get you to take the largest beer you’ve got in to a young man in that suite by the name of Devon Conliffe?” She took the twenty, which was a lot even by ballpark standards. “It’s important that he not know who it’s from.”

“Wa’s goin’ on?”

I duly translated and responded. “It’s a surprise.”

She looked at me for a moment more and then looked at the twenty in her hand. “Awright.”

“When you get done, I’ll be over there, and there’s another twenty in it if you tell me his response.” She practically left skid marks.

Henry met me in the stairwell. “I am not going back in there.”

“Okay.”

He looked around, and I noticed that his eyes were dark searchlights scanning the distance and calculating all the odds. “Is he here?”

“I’m about to find out.” We waited as the young woman entered the suite; there was a loud cry of drunken insouciance, and she rapidly reappeared without the beer. I pulled another twenty and handed it to her as she tucked her serving tray under her arm. “Success?”

“Friends a youse?”

“Not exactly.”

She glanced at Henry and then glanced again; I was used to it. “I did like you said an’ tole him it was a secret admirer.”

“Tall kid, brown hair?”

She looked at me. “More blond.”

“Right.” I nodded my head. “Wearing the blue shirt?”

She continued to look at me. “White.”

I nodded some more. “And the red tie?” It was a chance, but he seemed like the red-tie type.

“Yeah.”

I handed her another twenty. “Wait about ten minutes and give him another one, okay?”

She shrugged and was off. I watched Henry watch the hot pants. “Restroom?”

I took a deep breath. “Looks like the best shot we have at getting him alone.”

“Before or after?”

I stared at the doorway to suite 51. “Before. Nobody’s tough when they have to pee.”

The Phils blew a double play at first, allowing the Small Red Machine two runs, and it was a brand new ball game. Personally, I was beginning to think that Devon Conliffe had a bladder like a sea lion’s. I had paid sixty dollars for the three most expensive beers in Philly and, so far, nada.

Henry had walked to the area that overlooked an atrium to the concourse below. He was watching the game or appeared to be watching the game. He looked back at me, and I shrugged. I was about to order the two of us a couple of beers when Devon came out of the suite. He was pretty easy to spot; it was the smirk. Tall and thin, white dress shirt and a patterned red tie. He had blondish hair parted at the side, classic Waspish good looks, and all I could think of was the phone call I had listened to very early that morning. I said “yo,” and he actually nodded to me as he passed.

“Yo.”

It was the same voice as the one on the cell phone, and I signaled the Bear and disappeared into the restroom.

I had cased the place; there was one row of sinks and mirrors along one side and urinals and toilet stalls along the other. He was just getting ready to unzip his pants and get down to business when I came around the corner. “Devon Conliffe?”

He turned and looked at me, the smirk still firmly in place. “Yeah?” He said it like I should know. “Do I know you?” I kept coming toward him. He was looking a little closer now, but it was only when he saw the cowboy boots that he started to turn. I caught him with a hand to the closest shoulder, which propelled him to the far wall. “What the fuck! Who the hell are you?”

I kept coming, and he tried to go to the right, so I caught him and pushed him back into the corner against the toilet-stall partition and the tiled wall. “My name is Walter Longmire.” He didn’t move, but his eyes flicked around the contained space. I stopped about two feet away. “You know who I am.”

Maybe he was buying time, but I was fresh out. His face stiffened, and he tried to look around me again, thinking that somebody should be coming to his rescue by now, but I knew that when the Cheyenne Nation shut a door, it stayed shut.

I inclined my head a little, wanting to see him up close; I saw the muscles tense in his upper body. I supposed he thought I was going to hit him, but I was wrong; he rabbit-punched a quick jab and popped my nose.

I’m sure I looked surprised. I’ve been punched in the face numerous times, sometimes on purpose and sometimes not. Henry had had the best shot when he popped me one in grade school but, other than that, a blow to my face has never been anything more than an irritation and a nuisance. Whatever it was that he had been expecting, it wasn’t me leaning in closer and whispering. “You do that again, and I’m going to pinch your head off.”

Physical force having failed, he went back to negotiation. “Your daughter’s crazy.”

“Bad conversation.” I could feel wetness on my face, and I guessed my nose was bleeding. “I haven’t really touched you, yet. You and I are going to have a chat, and we’re going to keep it civil so I won’t have to. Clear?”

Some of the smirk came back. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” I took a breath to clear the urge to grab him by the throat. “Tell me about last night.”

“I don’t have to…” He was probably used to having his way, of simply changing his tone to obtain the upper hand, but he was in a different league now. He lurched from the wall in an attempt to get clear. I stuck my left arm out to stop him and watched his left retract for another shot at my face. I grabbed his wrist with my right and brought my left up and around his throat, effectively blocking his right arm against the wall with my side. He was almost as tall as me, but the extra seventy pounds I had on him flattened him against the tile. He tried to kick me, but I had prepared for that by turning my body a little away.

“Don’t move.” He struggled some more and started to yell, but I closed my grip on his windpipe and the only thing that came out was a wheezy yelp. His eyes bulged, and I thought about how the thumb fits so well over the larynx, and with one good squeeze…I could feel the nausea in the back of my throat, rising up to tell me that what I was doing was wrong. I stood there swallowing the bile that kept reminding me who I was and of what I could forgive myself. It took a few seconds, but I lessened my grip and allowed him a little more air. His eyes stayed wide, but they didn’t bug quite as much as before. “Tell me about last night.”

“Look, I didn’t do anything!”

“Anything like what?”

I let him swallow. “Anything to her.”

“I don’t believe you.” He looked around wildly, thinking there must be some way out. “Tell me the truth.”

His eyes began to well. “Look…”

“The truth.”

The first tears fell down his well-structured face, and I was feeling worse and worse. “It was an accident…We had a fight.”

“Tell me about it.”

He looked directly at me, and in some frantic, twisted way, I think he believed what he said next. “I love her.”

“You have a funny way of showing it.”

He started to move his arm, probably to wipe away the tears, but I wouldn’t let him move. “She fell! We were having an argument, and I tried to grab her arm…” I watched him as he took a breath. “She yanked her arm away…And then she fell.” I tried to concentrate on what he was saying. “I haven’t even been home! I’ve been wearing the same clothes for two days now.”

My head was starting to hurt. “Why didn’t you stay with her.”

He half howled. “I was scared!”

I felt tired all over, and I released my grip, but he started to slide down the wall. He was openly weeping. I was too weak to hold him up, so I allowed him to slide to the floor where I joined him and sat down, my hands dropping to my lap. We sat there looking at each other.

“Didn’t you care what happened to her?”

He could hardly speak, he was crying so hard. “I was scared. I didn’t know what to do…I mean, she was just lying there.”

“Did you even check to see if she was alive?”

He wiped his face with a sleeve and stared at the floor. “I heard somebody coming, another guy, so I just ran.” He looked back up at me, and I wasn’t so sure I believed him. “I’ve never done anything like that before. I was scared.”

I nodded and took a deep breath. My head hurt, and I was tired of talking, especially of talking to Devon Conliffe. I rolled to my side and stood up slowly; my left leg was still worrying me from a gunshot wound that I had gotten over four months earlier. I put my hand out and against the toilet partition, steadied myself, and took another breath. “Tell the police.”

It took a second for him to respond. “What?”

I looked at him. “Tell the police.” I watched him, not so sure he would, especially once he was out of the restroom. “You call the police and you tell them everything you told me. Understand?” He looked back at the floor, and I waited for a response. “Did you hear me?”

He inhaled. “Yes.” He glanced up at me again, and there was a strange look to his face. “That’s it?”

I nodded. “That’s it.”

I pushed off the partition and stood there. “You call the police and you tell them everything that was said between us.” I started to walk out but paused for a moment. “You tell them…Or you’ll see me again. You’ll see me again just out of the corner of your eye, and I will be the last thing you ever see.”

The Bear appropriated a bar towel from the waitress as she passed. She stopped and peered at my face. “He didn’ like the beer?”

I shrugged as I wiped my nose. “Some guys just can’t hold their liquor.”

As Henry and I walked toward the escalators, he put a hand out and pulled the towel away. He tilted my head back and looked up my nostrils. “So, what does the other guy look like?”

“I punched him in the fist with my nose, but I think he’ll live.” I pinched the towel over my nose and leaned against the escalator’s moving rubber railing, glad that something else was providing the locomotion. I looked back up at Henry. “I didn’t kill him.”

The wide face nodded, inscrutable to the end. “Good.”

As we were riding down, two men were riding up. The one in the front was silver-haired and was sharply dressed in a charcoal suit with a maroon tie and a black trench coat; behind him was a man with a tightly cropped haircut and a suit, tie, and overcoat all the same shade of dark tan. It was difficult to see where the clothes began and the man stopped. They stared at us as we rode closer; by the time we passed each other, I could see that the first man’s designer glasses had small, red dots on the frames that emphasized his large brown eyes. The second man smiled a very becoming smile, and I noticed the bulge of a shoulder holster at his left armpit. “Foul ball?”

I rolled my eyes and nodded.

We quickly made our way from the ballpark and walked toward Broad and the subway. Henry didn’t say anything, which gave me plenty of time to think, mostly about whether I believed Devon Conliffe.

At some level, just about everybody lies to you when you’re a cop, whether they have a reason to or not-some little portion of the truth that they feel would be best omitted in their dealings with you. The only good thing about it is that you start being able to tell when people are doing it, and I was sure that Devon was. The kid obviously had a lot of emotional and mental issues to deal with, but I was having a hard time working up any empathy.

I watched Henry pull out his cell phone before we got to the subway entrance and call Lena Moretti. I looked south at the big highway overpass that with a few right turns would take me back to Wyoming. I wondered when that would be, if ever. When I looked back, he was closing the phone. “No change.”

I nodded, and we continued down the stairwell toward the thundering clatter of the Broad Street SEPTA line. We chose an almost empty car and sat across from each other on the orange fiberglass seats at the end. I finished with the bar towel and carefully folded it on my knee. My head was still pounding, and it was good to sit down.

“Lena says she can stay as long as you would like and, if she has to leave, Michael can take over.” I didn’t respond. “She sounds very nice.”

“Yep.”

He watched me. “Are you okay?”

I looked at the floor. “My daughter is in a coma, I think my nose is broken, and I’m about to have every policeman in Philadelphia after me. How could it be any better?”

The train stopped at the next station, and a few more people drifted on and sat down. He looked at me but didn’t say anything until a few stops later. There were a lot of other people on the car now, and his voice was low. “I need to go to the museum and help with the installation this evening.”

“I understand.”

He waited a moment. “I can cancel the whole thing.”

“No.” I smiled, but there was no joy in it. “One of us should be doing something constructive, don’t you think?”

He smiled back, but at least his had some warmth.

I abandoned him at City Hall and took a regional rail line over to University City and the hospital. It was getting late in the afternoon, and all I could think about were the hours that had been ticking by with no improvement, lowering our odds with every passing minute.

It was clouding up to the west, and it looked like there might be a few showers in the evening. There was another street person at Convention Avenue, and I gave him the jacket. There were a few blood spots on it and it fit like a blanket, but he seemed happy. I thought about giving him the hat, but it was growing on me.

When I got to the fifth floor, Lena and Dr. Rissman were waiting for me in Cady’s room; Lena was the first to speak. “She moved.”

I couldn’t trust my ears. “What?”

“She moved her leg.”

Rissman was next. “She reacts to environmental stimuli. There’s still no eye response, but this is very, very good.”

All the heat came back to my face, making my nose throb even more, and I looked around for a place to sit. I collapsed on the nearest chair and looked at Cady. Lena was crying by the bed and trailed a hand down to my daughter’s foot. Her leg moved, and the sounds erupted from my throat. “When?”

Rissman was kneeling by my chair, and he looked at the wall and the floor before again finally settling on my left shoulder. “About five minutes ago. What happened to your nose?”

I leaned back. “I get nosebleeds.” I looked at Cady. “She’s going to make it.”

“Let’s not get too carried away; she’s moving, and that gives us a lot better odds than before…”

I looked at him, at the silver bristles of his hair, even if he wouldn’t look at me. “Hell, yes.”

He nodded. “I just don’t want you to jump to any conclusions; this is a long road, and at any given time it could just stop.”

I took a deep breath. “I like the odds better now.”

He patted my shoulder as he stood. “Well, they are certainly better than before.” He smiled a shy smile at Lena’s shoulder. “I’m going to run another series of tests in about an hour, which means the two of you will be looking at an empty bed for the majority of the evening.” He glanced back to me, making eye contact for only a second. “I think you should go home and get some rest.”

We shared a taxi to Old City, where she dropped me off at Cady’s place. I tried to give her some money, but she wouldn’t take it. She handed me my hat, and I popped it on over the Phillies cap. I’m sure I was a pretty sight. Before the cab pulled away, I remembered to ask. “Did you call Henry?”

“I left a message.”

“Thank you.”

“Speaking of messages, you’ve got a lot of them on her answering machine. I hope you don’t mind that I listened to them, but I thought it would help if I copied them all down for you on a note pad. It’s by the phone.”

“I guess I need to call Wyoming.”

I stood on the Bread Street cobblestones where we had taken our walk. It seemed like decades ago. Night and the city-I found myself wanting to ask her in but realized that the poor woman had a life of her own. “Thank you again.”

She leaned forward, looking up through the half-light of the cab. “It wasn’t anything.” She ran her fingers through her hair, and I was still amazed at the bluish gloss.

“Yes, it was. I don’t know if I could’ve gotten through last night without your help, let alone today.” I could see her eyes half closed in pleasure, like a cat being stroked. The smile was there, a soft and easy smile. I didn’t want her to leave without some arrangement to meet again. “How about lunch tomorrow?”

“Deal. I’ll meet you at the hospital?”

I nodded and closed the door. The driver was doing some of his paperwork, so we waited for a moment on either side of the window, and I had a strange twinge of something as she looked at me again. I extended my hand; she sat there watching me as the taxi started off down Bread, took a left on Quarry, and disappeared.

The skies were looking more threatening, and I wasn’t sure if it was thunder I was hearing in the distance or the train on the bridge. I turned and walked to Cady’s door, reached above the junction box, and pulled down a note with the key. Lena had filed it so that it would now operate smoothly in the lock. I opened the door and was immediately mauled by Dog.

I gave him the ham that had been left over from Lena’s picnic basket and figured I could always get a couple of hamburgers from Paddy O’Neil’s-me too, for that matter. There was a menu, which gave me the luxury of phoning in my order. I opened the fridge and there was a six-pack of Yuengling, so I popped a bottle out and drank it while I looked for the bathroom. I took a shower and got out some clean clothes from my duffle, which I’d left next to the sofa. There was a clock on the microwave that told me I still had three and a half hours before Cady would be back in the ICU, so I got the pad from beside the phone and read the numerous and assorted messages from practically everybody in the Cowboy State. Most of them were from Ruby and Vic, but there were also ones from the Ferg, Lucian, Sancho, Double Tough, Vern Selby, Dorothy, Lonnie Little Bird, Brandon White Buffalo, Dena Many Camps, Omar, Isaac Bloomfield, and Lana Baroja.

There were no messages from Devon Conliffe.

I shuttled the dark thoughts toward the back of my mind and placed the notebook on the glass coffee table. I had been here two days and hadn’t called anybody. I wasn’t sure if word had gotten back to Absaroka County through the Moretti network, the University of Pennsylvania Hospital, or the Philadelphia Police Department, but I had a lot of explaining to do. I suppose I had been waiting till I could give some sort of hopeful prognosis and, now that Cady had given even an involuntary response, I should call.

I looked at the phone but just didn’t have the energy. I took a deep breath, lay back against the pillows on the sofa, and placed my cowboy hat over my eyes. Dog jumped on the couch uninvited and, after what seemed like a long time, we were both asleep.

I’d been dreaming a lot lately, and there were always Indians in my dreams, so it wasn’t surprising when I could see them from the corners of my eyes. I could feel the wind, the kind we get on the high plains that’s only a notch or two below hurricane force. I was leaning into the gale at the edge of some bluffs near Cat Creek. It was hard to focus; my eyes were thin slits with tears streaming from the sides. I turned my head a little and could see a Cheyenne brave who instructed me to lift my arms by raising his own. He wore a fringed and beaded war shirt with the bands of blue and white seed beads running up the arms, and I could make out a parfleche medicine bag painted red and black with the geometric wind symbol.

The old Indian half smiled, brushing an arm toward my face and forcing me to concentrate on what was in front of me. I glanced at the horizon as the lightning flashed like the seizures in Cady’s brain and swept across the sky in a silent electrical storm. I looked down into the canyon, and a chill shot from my spine like a fuse; there was nothing below us for at least three hundred feet.

The phone rang, and I lifted my hat to look at the greenish numbers on the microwave that told me that I’d been asleep for about an hour. A pang hit me as I listened to Cady’s recorded voice on the answering machine and heard the beep. “Walt, it’s Ruby. I hope you’re getting these messages…Vic said she got a phone call from her mother saying that there had been an improvement in Cady’s condition. I just wanted to check in and see if there’s anything any of us can do here. We’ve been trying to call Henry, but he doesn’t answer his phone either.” There was silence on the line as I sat there with my guilt and listened. “Vic is threatening to fly back there, so you better call us.” Another pause, and I would almost swear she knew I was listening. “Please call us. We’re worried about Cady, and we’re worried about you.” I was about to reach for the phone when the line went dead.

I sighed. If Cady’s situation stayed the same, there would be no going back; it was as simple as that.

I looked at Dog, and he looked back at me. “You want a hamburger?” He wagged, and I took it for a yes. I ordered us up four cheeseburgers to go from the leprechaun at the end of the block.

I went to the terrace doors and listened to the sporadic drops hit the leaves of the crab apple tree. It was a gentle rainfall that unfocused the hard edges of the city night, making all the surfaces glisten. It was only about fifty yards to the side entrance of Paddy O’Neil’s, so I figured I could get there and back without getting soaked. I watched the drops fall slowly past the yellow of the streetlights and into the widening pools on the cobblestone street. I looked up at the span of the bridge arching into Old City and listened to the steady thrum of the traffic.

Even over the blare of the Celtic band and the raucous crowd, the brogue wasn’t a generation removed. Black Irish; a handsome kid about Cady’s age with a wayward eye that kept tracking left. “Yore Cady’s fatha’, the sheriff?”

I looked up at the brim of my cowboy hat. “Yep.” He was like one of those bundles of baling wire that I had seen in Vietnam, the ones that went into the Vietcong tunnels with. 45s and the balls of a cat burglar. “You O’Neil?”

He smiled a grin. “Hisself. Took the place over from me Uncle Paddy, the original O’Neil.” He handed me the bag full of cheeseburgers, and I noticed the tattoos up and down his arms. I paid him, with a little extra for his trouble. “Where’s ya daughter?”

I waited a moment, the hubbub of the bar swirling around me. “She’s not feeling well.” I leaned in and cleared my throat. “O’Neil, can I ask you a question?”

He wiped his hands on a dishtowel. “Ya?”

“You ever met her boyfriend, Devon Conliffe?”

His hands stopped working the towel. “Ya, I met ’im a couple’a times.”

I nodded, my face only a foot from his. “Nice guy?”

He worked his jaw for only a second. “Ya.”

“O’Neil?” He leaned in a little closer with the question. “You’re a liar.” He watched me for a second, then laughed and walked down to the other end of the bar to help the overworked waitresses. He glanced back at me only when I left.

Dog ate his cheeseburgers faster than I ate mine, so I gave him the last bite of my second one and tried to fade into another nap, but I suppose I was worried that I might oversleep and, as a result, didn’t sleep at all.

I finally gave up after an hour and called a cab. I looked at Dog from the door; he was watching me with his big, brown eyes. “They don’t allow dogs in the ICU.” He continued to look at me, and I was sure he understood every word. “There’s nothing I can do.” He sat. “I’ll take you for a long walk tomorrow.” He lay down, still watching me. “Honest.”

It was raining a little harder when I stepped out and, just before jumping into the taxi, I noticed the throb of blue tracer emergency lights that seemed to spring from the support cables of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge; in the darkness, it looked like the body of the bridge was hanging in the saturated air. There must have been a wreck. I stood there for a second more, then decided it was somebody else’s problem and climbed in the cab.

There wasn’t that much traffic this late at night, so we made good time, and twelve minutes later I was sitting at Cady’s bedside. She had just been brought back from testing, and the nurse at the desk said that there wasn’t any substantial change but that the stimulus response was a very positive sign.

The gentle spring showers had gradually given way to sheets of rain splattering against the windows like waves in some fifth-floor tide. I sat there for a couple of hours before falling asleep to the sound, my chin resting on my chest.

When I woke up it was still raining, but there was someone else in the room. I blinked and looked at the man standing on the other side of Cady’s bed. His black trench coat and umbrella were still dripping, so he couldn’t have been there long and, when I glanced back at the doorway, I saw wet tracks leading to where he now stood. On the other side of the glass partition, the black man with the close-cropped haircut was talking to the nurse who had assured me earlier.

When I looked back to the man beside the bed, he was watching me with the brown eyes through the designer frames with the little red dots. “Hello.”

“Hello.”

He looked back at Cady. “You have a beautiful daughter.”

“Thank you.”

His eyes stayed on her. “I don’t suppose you remember…”

“Yes, I do.”

He nodded and turned to look at me. “Good. You know why I’m here?”

“I’d imagine it has something to do with Devon Conliffe?”

He came around to the foot of the bed. “You’d be right.” The detective pursed his lips and stuffed a hand in his pocket, the umbrella’s handle still over his wrist. “What can you tell me?”

I thought about it and about what Devon had probably told them. “I was a little angry…” I yawned, covering my face with my hand. “So I went down to the baseball game and tried to get the truth out of him.”

“And?”

“I’m not so sure there’s any truth in him.” I reached up and rubbed my nose. “I think he roughed me up more than I did him.”

He nodded. “That the last time you saw him?”

“Yep. Why?”

“Because…” He studied me closely. “About three hours ago, somebody threw him off the Benjamin Franklin Bridge.”