Scavengers

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“Are you all right?” Debbie Peterson had watched Estelle’s tussle with the door, and as it opened, had heard the undersheriff talking to herself. Estelle, in midgrimace as she massaged the bruised thumb, looked heavenward when she saw the ER nurse. Debbie’s long, angular face softened in sympathy. “I hate that door,” she added.

“Early morning clumsies,” Estelle said. The nurse was balancing an impressive array of medical supplies on a clipboard, in the middle of something that didn’t need an interruption. “I’m fine,” Estelle added. “It’s been quite a night.”

“I’ll say.” Debbie’s gaze inventoried Estelle from head to toe. She saw the grime of the fire scene embedded in the undersheriff’s clothes, and could smell the acrid bouquet. But there were no projecting bones or blood…just the pale complexion of fatigue that the undersheriff’s flawless olive skin couldn’t hide. The nurse nodded down the hallway that skirted the two small emergency rooms and the radiology lab. “Your husband was here just a few minutes ago treating the officer. I think when he finished he planned to go back to the ICU.”

Estelle’s face went blank. “The officer? One of the firemen was hurt?”

“Collins, I think his name is. The one who ran the nail into his hand.”

“Ouch. No, I didn’t know about that. He’s all right?”

“Sure. In fact, he headed back out to the fire.” Debbie adjusted the placement of two of the small bottles on the clipboard.

“And Eleanor Pope-I understand that she was brought in earlier. Can you point me in the direction of her room?” Estelle asked.

“She’s the one who’s in ICU right now,” Debbie said. “You might want to check at the nurse’s station to be sure, but that’s where they planned to take her.” She smiled warmly as Estelle nodded her thanks and started down the hall.

Despite the ruckus at the opposite end of town, Posadas General Hospital was locked in the deep quiet of the predawn hours. The intensive care unit dominated the end of a long hallway out of the heaviest central traffic flow, the double glass doors opening to the ICU nurses’ station.

Dr. Francis Guzman leaned both elbows on the polished wood of the counter with his face cradled by both hands. He appeared to either be asleep or reading the chart that lay on the counter in front of him. A gray-haired nurse whom Estelle didn’t recognize stood behind the counter frowning at the floor, telephone receiver tight against her ear. The nurse saw Estelle hesitate at the door, and beckoned. Francis glanced up as the door glided open.

“Ah, good,” he said. Estelle breathed in the aromas of him as he caught her up in a bear hug. Her aromas were a different matter. “You smell as if you’ve been inside somebody’s chimney,” he said. She managed to free her right hand enough to reach up and move the ballpoint pen in his pocket so that it didn’t threaten her eye as he crushed her against him.

“You’re going to need a fresh set of scrubs,” she said.

“I got lots of those.” He held her at arm’s length and she grinned as he gave her his best critical physician’s scrutiny. “How you holding up, cariña?”

“I’m okay. Is Eleanor still here?”

“No, no,” Francis said quickly. “You’re supposed to say, ‘Can we go home now?’ ” He gave her another squeeze and then relaxed his hold. Estelle stood with eyes closed, using her husband as a leaning post. She thumped her head against his chest a couple of times and then looked up at him. “And yes, she’s still here,” Francis said. “And you’re a smelly mess.”

“I know, but I need to see her.”

Francis nodded in resignation. “I don’t think that’s going to do any good, querida.” He turned, one hand still on her shoulder. “We’re trying to keep her as quiet as we can.” Estelle started to move off toward the nearest sliding curtain that provided a modicum of privacy for the patient behind it, but stopped when she felt the trace of restraint from her husband’s hand. She realized that the nurse was watching as well.

“What?”

“I brought Mamá in with me, Estelle.”

Estelle’s first reflex was to look across the hall toward the small ICU waiting room with its three vinyl-covered chairs and single sofa, but just as quickly she realized what Francis had meant.

“She’s here? What happened?”

Francis rested a hand on his chest, fingers splayed like a spider’s legs. “She was having a little trouble breathing. I wanted to be able to keep an eye on her.”

“She’s sleeping peacefully now,” the nurse said. The woman rounded the end of the counter and held out a hand toward Estelle. A small spray of delicate paper flowers obscured a portion of the staff name tag, but Estelle could read Sadie McC and then RN. As if her soles had been welded to the floor tiles, Estelle stood motionless. Francis saw the darkness gathering on her face and sighed.

“Querida, I wanted her here so I could keep an eye on her. That’s all. With both of us out on call, I didn’t want to put Irma in that position. Your mother was having a little respiratory discomfort, and I had to be here. You were out at the fire, and I just thought it would be easier. It’s as simple as that.”

“There’s nothing simple about ending up in ICU,” Estelle snapped, and instantly regretted the outburst. She closed her eyes and shook her head in apology, leaning her weight against him as she felt Francis’ arm.

“Come on,” he said gently.

Even though she knew it would not be so, Estelle had recoiled from the vision of Teresa Reyes lying helpless-intubated, IVed, and sedated, completely at the mercy of this sterile place despite the woman’s wishes to the contrary. Francis pushed the privacy curtain to one side, and she saw her mother sleeping like a child, tiny and curled on her side. The clear plastic oxygen tube curled from her nose up around her ears, lost in the halo of wiry gray hair.

The analytical side of Estelle’s brain understood perfectly well that, at age eighty-two with a failing heart, congested lungs, and the soaring blood pressure of brittle arteries, Teresa Reyes’ hold on life was precarious at best. Still, that portion of Estelle’s brain that entertained dreams of Pancho Villa’s tree and the recollection of her mother’s voice on the peaceful Mexican air of her childhood refused to accept the inevitable.

“Hay una gran distancia la que va de ayer a hoy,” she whispered, and then found herself wishing that she could remember the exact circumstances when her mother had said that to her for the first time. A great distance between yesterday and today. The analytical clock said that great distance happened in an infinitely small time, the click between midnight and a heartbeat afterward. What did the clock know?

“She accepted medication?” Estelle asked.

“After I explained exactly what I was giving her and why. If we can relieve her lungs a little, she’ll be more comfortable.” Estelle lowered the security railing on the side of the bed and sat on the edge, acutely aware of how perfectly white the linens were in contrast to her smudged clothing. Her left hand rested lightly on her mother’s hip. “She’s not interested in anything else,” Francis added.

Estelle nodded. After a long moment, she said, “That’s why she’s been talking about Mexico lately.”

“Sin duda.”

With her right hand, she squeezed her husband’s feeling his warm, comfortable grip. “Can she go home?”

“Sure. When either you or I are there. Otherwise, we’re going to have to find a nurse to be with her. We can’t ask Irma…”

“No,” Estelle agreed quickly. “That would be unfair.”

“She’ll probably sleep through morning. Until then, we’ve got the extra bed space here, and we might as well take advantage of some of the strings that I can pull. And by morning, maybe the world will calm down a bit.”

“Unlikely,” Estelle said.

“It’s that bad?”

“Probably worse, oso,” she said with a sigh, and stood up, careful not to jostle the bed. She bent over until her lips were brushing Teresa Reyes’ ear. “Mañana, Mamá. Vamos a ir a casa.” She straightened and touched a finger to her mother’s cheek, then turned to Francis. “I need to see Eleanor Pope.”

“I don’t think she’s going to tell you much,” Francis said. He led Estelle deeper into the sanctum of the ICU to where the monitors kept track of Eleanor Pope’s sagging functions. A great mound of a woman, Mrs. Pope lay wired and tubed, her round face slack-jawed, her ragged breath whistling in and out without the interference of her dentures.

“Ay,” Estelle sighed.

“We were able to stabilize her a little,” Francis said. “But we’re at the hoping for a miracle stage now.”

“She hasn’t been the recipient of too many of those.”

“Mrs. Guzman?”

Estelle turned at the sound of her name. Nurse Sadie McC leaned past the curtain, one hand raised as if asking permission to speak.

“We’re done here,” Estelle said.

“No, I don’t mean to interrupt,” Sadie said. “There’s a woman waiting for you out in the hall. She wanted to make sure that you knew she was here.”

“I’ll be just a minute,” Estelle said, and the nurse nodded and left. “There’s a chance Mrs. Pope might be able to talk to us later in the morning?”

Francis held up both hands in a shrug. “We just don’t know.” He pulled the curtain closed. “When she was brought in, she was no longer lucid. Right now, her circulation system has basically collapsed. Her kidney function is nil. Things don’t look good.”

“I’m not sure what she could tell us even if she were alert,” Estelle said. She ran both hands through her hair in frustration. “All we know is that it appears that her son was monkeying with the propane furnace when it exploded. We’d like to know why.”

“Because it didn’t work properly?”

She shot Francis a withering glance. “You’re hired, oso,” she said. They reached the nurse’s station, and through the glass partitions that formed the ICU, Estelle could see the waiting room across the hall. Pauline Saenz sat on one end of the short sofa, an unlit cigarette in hand. She saw Estelle and jammed the cigarette back into her purse, then stood up and walked into the hall to meet her.