Murder One

38

IT WAS LATE, WELL past visiting hours at St. John’s, but Ben still wanted to stop by the hospital before he went home. It had been an exhausting day at trial, and tomorrow would be no better—but this was something he had to do. He owed it to Jones—and to Paula.

After sweet-talking his way past the admissions desk, he quietly pushed open the door to room 522 and tiptoed inside.

Jones was sitting at the side of the bed, his head resting against the iron railing. His eyes were closed, but Ben knew he was not asleep.

“How goes it?” Ben asked quietly.

Jones did not look up. “No change.”

Ben stepped carefully around the end of the bed, glancing at the chart as he passed. “Christina told me the doctors say she’s stable.”

“Sort of,” Jones mumbled. “Stable, but critical. They’ve got her blood level normal again. They’ve patched up the wound. They’re feeding her intravenously. But she won’t wake up.”

Ben glanced at Paula’s recumbent form, lying atop the bed like Sleeping Beauty, alive but deep in slumber. She looked as if she had been that way forever. The rubber bag attached to her respirator slowly filled and emptied, but there was no other sign of life. “Is she in a coma?”

Jones shrugged. “They don’t know what it is exactly. They say she should come around. But she doesn’t. She may have gone too close to the edge. She was very low on blood before they got her to the hospital. It may have been too—”

“Don’t talk that way,” Ben said, cutting him off. “Don’t even think it. She just needs time, that’s all. She suffered a grievous injury and she needs time to recover. Build her strength. I was in a coma once, and I know—”

“Ben, stop.” Slowly, Jones’s head rose from the railing. His eyes were red and lined and tired. A pink smudge showed where the iron bar had imprinted upon his cheek. “You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know. That I haven’t already thought about. Constantly.” He stood up, but his legs seemed wobbly and insubstantial. “How goes the trial?”

Ben shrugged. The trial was a matter of life and death to Keri, but at the moment, in this room, it seemed almost trivial. “Not well. But it always looks dark when the prosecution is putting on their case.”

“I heard you put some major dents in LaBelle’s witnesses on cross-ex.”

Evidently Christina, the eternal optimist, had preceded him. “I think I established that some members of the police department were willing to do anything to put Keri Dalcanton behind bars. And that helps. And Christina did a great job with the coroner. But did either of us prove Keri didn’t commit the murder? No.”

“It’s early days yet.”

“Yeah.” That was what defense attorneys always said. It’ll get better, once we’re putting on our case. Ben just hoped it was true. “Seen Matthews around?”

“Some. Not much.”

Ben swore under his breath. “I filed a formal protest, asking that Paula’s case be reassigned, but it doesn’t seem to have done much good. I don’t have much pull with Tulsa P.D. these days. I wish to God Mike were around. But he isn’t, and no one’s telling where he is.”

Jones’s jaw tightened. “They’re never going to find out who did this to Paula, are they?”

He couldn’t lie. “I don’t know. But I won’t let them give up without trying. And I’ve got Loving looking into it, too.”

That seemed to cheer Jones, at least a little. “That’s good. Loving will make a serious effort. He—” His voice choked. “He liked Paula, too.”

“Don’t talk about her in the past tense, Jones.”

“I didn’t mean to. I just—I—” His voice dwindled away to nothing.

Ben walked to the door. He had felt it was important to stop in, but he had no sense that his presence was a comfort to Jones—almost the opposite, in fact. He wondered if his being here reminded Jones of how this tragedy came about—and whose fault it was.

“Is there anything I can do?” Ben asked.

Jones’s eyes turned toward the still figure on the hospital bed. “Got a miracle in your pocket?”

“ ’Fraid not.” He shoved his hands deep inside his coat. “I do have some leftover cheese puffs, though.”

Jones almost smiled. “Then I guess that’ll have to do.”