The 5th Horseman

Chapter 40

THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON, Yuki was in her mother’s kitchen, standing over the sink. She stuffed a bite of toast into her mouth, hardly chewing. Everything about this still seemed so unreal.

She’d been up the whole night — phoning her mother’s friends, going through albums and scrapbooks, losing herself in memories. Now she wrenched herself back to the present, wondering when Claire would call and what Claire would say.

When the phone finally rang, Yuki lunged for it.

Claire asked, “How are you doing, honey?”

“I’m okay,” Yuki said, but that was a lie. She felt light-headed, her guts twisting as she waited for Claire to tell her about the end of her mother’s life. Finally, she couldn’t stand it another second.

“Did you find out anything?”

“I did, honey. For one thing, Garza was right when he told you that your mom had an embolism around her brain. What he didn’t tell you was it had to have been more than three hours before someone noticed that she was in trouble.

“The doctors should have given her an MRI to establish the size of the hematoma,” Claire continued. “But instead, they loaded her up with streptokinase, an anticoagulant.”

“He said something about an anticoagulant.”

“Uh-huh. Well, streptokinase isn’t the newest drug on the market, but it’s okay if used properly. Which it wasn’t.

“Your mom was already hemorrhaging. There was no place for all that blood to go, and that’s why she died, Yuki. I’m so, so sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

Yuki felt the news like a gut-punch.

My God, Keiko had been bleeding into her brain for hours — and no one even noticed?

What the hell was going on in that hospital?

Why had her mother had the stroke at all?

“Yuki? Yuki? Are you still there?”

“I’m okay. . . .”

Yuki finished up with Claire; then she dropped the phone into its cradle. She went into the bathroom and threw up in the toilet. She took off her clothes and got into her mother’s pink-and-green shower stall, stood for a long time sobbing, pressing her head against the wall as the hot water streamed down her body. She decided what she needed to do next.

A half hour later, wearing one of her mother’s outfits — black pants with a stretch waistband and a red velour top — Yuki drove to the 800 block of Bryant Street. She parked in front of a bail bondsman’s office across from the Hall of Justice.

Yuki entered the gray granite building, stopping at the security desk to give her name. She was on a mission now; she’d made up her mind; there was no turning back.

She took the elevator to the third floor and the Southern Division of the SFPD.

Lindsay was waiting when she got there. She put her arm around Yuki’s shoulders and walked her back to her small glass-enclosed office.

Yuki took the desk chair across from Lindsay. Her face felt stiff, and her throat was tight. Lindsay was peering at her with concern. What a good friend she was, Yuki thought. I shouldn’t do this to her. But I have to.

“I want to file charges against Municipal,” Yuki said. “Someone at that damn hospital murdered my mother.”