The Baby Blue Rip-Off

7

No great excitement had been stirred at the hospital by Brennan’s call that I was coming. A nurse glanced at me, saw that my head and limbs were still connected to my body, and said, “Have a seat.” I had one. I had one for about half an hour before the doctor came around.

The pin on his white tunic said “Jameson.” Jameson was sandy-haired, around thirty, and of medium height. He had brown-rimmed glasses over eyes that never looked at you, even when they did. He seemed bored.

“How are we feeling?” he said.

“So-so.”

“What have we had happen?”

“We were kicked in the nuts, and just about everywhere else.”

So he took us into an examining room, and we took off our pants. We coughed to the left and to the right while cold fingers poked. Then we sat on a cold steel table and were probed some more, all over. Occasionally we said ouch.

After a while the probing stopped. “We’d better have some X-rays taken.”

“Okay.”

“Can we have them taken tomorrow morning at nine? The X-ray technician will be on duty then.”

“What’s the problem anyway?”

More probing. “Some broken ribs, perhaps.”

“How many?”

“We won’t know for sure until we’ve had an X-ray. Awfully sensitive on the right side, and some ribs could well be broken. Or maybe just cracked.”

“I see.”

“You can pay at the desk.”

He was gone.

I knew there’d be a catch. We got examined, but I paid.

Which I did, at the desk, after getting back into my pants. As I was putting my lightened billfold back in my hip pocket, Lou Brown walked into the lobby. The deputy was as pale as ever and looked vaguely upset.

“Buy you some coffee, Mallory?”

I said okay and followed him into the hospital coffee shop. It was about 8:55 and they closed at nine, so we got dirty looks from the waitress to go with the coffee. I ordered a sandwich, too, and got a look so dirty I almost lost my appetite.

But the coffee was hot and good, and it came right away. Lou sipped his and said, “How you feeling, Mallory?”

“I’ve had better nights.”

“Me too. This is the first murder I ever worked.”

So that was why he seemed upset.

I said, “How long you been a deputy, Lou?”

“About eight months.”

There generally aren’t more than one or two murders a year in a small town like Port City, and when there is one, it’s the city police who handle it. This particular murder fell in the sheriff’s domain because it had occurred outside the city limits and was therefore county business.

“Well, Lou, in your job, you got to expect to come onto a crime of violence now and then.”

“Oh, it’s not that. I seen blood before. We’ve had plenty of accidents to cover, and hell, I was an MP in the service-saw some rough goddamn things. But never this. Never an old woman beat up and killed.”

“Is it pretty definite she was beaten?”

“I don’t know. Too early for any official word. But it looked that way to me.”

I nodded. “That was my impression, too. She wasn’t bloody or bruised, but her hair and clothes were all mussed up, and I just had the feeling she’d been slapped around before she died.”

“Heart attack, probably. You know, Mal, when I was taking those pictures of her, I kind of studied her, tied there in the chair, and I could almost see what happened to her. Guys asking her where she kept some damn thing and slapping her to make her tell, and her heart just gives way. Crazy thing is, these goddamn guys probably never intended killing her, just meant to tie her up and sack the place. Damn.”

“Damn,” I agreed. “What’s up, Lou? Why aren’t you still with Brennan?”

“Through for the night. Heading home. Brennan just said to stop here on my way and see how you were.”

“I’m touched at his concern.”

Brown grinned. “Yeah, what’s the deal? Do you two hate each other, or what?”

“We’re not sure ourselves.”

“The way you were yelling at each other back at that house, I’d think you hated each other’s guts. Then after a while there, you were talking real civil.”

“Well, I got a certain amount of respect for Brennan. Within his limitations, he’s a good sheriff. Except when he’s looking out for the interests of his political buddies and various other string-pullers around town.”

“I kind of gathered there was some friction between you two because of his son John. I remember how thick you guys were back in high school.”

“John and me went back even before that, to junior high. Even then I was always smart-mouthing Brennan, and Brennan never did like that. Not that I blame him.”

“You and John went in the army together, didn’t you?”

“That’s right. The Buddy Plan, or whatever the hell it was called. And John died, and I lived, and Brennan’s resented me ever since.”

“That simple, huh.”

“Well, not really. After I got out, I was one of the Vietnam vets against the war. Pretty active. Brennan got wind of that, and I’ve been a traitor ever since. He thinks this is still the sixties and I’m a hippie who thinks cops are ‘pigs’ or something. It’s sad, really.”

“Weren’t you a cop yourself at one time?”

“Yeah, a very short time,” I said, and told him how I’d been on the force for around six months in a small California town a few years ago. And that I’d worked for Per Mar, a security outfit in the nearby Quad Cities, for a while. Then we got sidetracked, with me mentioning how for the better part of five years I’d been outside Port City, doing this and that, finally coming back to roost and taking a shot at writing; and Lou mentioned he’d been gone for several years, too, working in a factory in Ohio. Anyway, we got sidetracked, and it was along about this time that the waitress told us to leave because it was fifteen minutes past the coffee shop’s closing and she had a right to go home like anybody else.

Out in the hospital lobby, Lou said, “You thinking about playing cop, Mal?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re involved, aren’t you?”

“Don’t say that.”

“Well, you are. Involved in a murder. You were beaten up, and besides, you were a friend of the old lady’s, weren’t you?”

“Tell me the truth, Lou. Did Brennan put you up to this? To find out my attitude?”

“No. I’m just curious.”

I shrugged again. “I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do. If you and Brennan can take care of this, fine. But I admit I’m pretty pissed off about the whole thing, and wouldn’t mind getting my hands on the SOBs responsible.”

Lou just nodded.

“See you, Lou. Come over to my place sometime. I’ll see if I can’t find a beer for you.”

“I’d like that. I could use a place to get away to.”

“Love to have you. Is there a problem?”

“Well, I’m living with my folks, and it’s driving me crazy. I’m trying to find an apartment, but till I do, I’m stuck with the folks, and I love ’em, but they drive me goddamn crazy. A twenty-nine-year-old man does not belong in his parents’ home.”

“I agree. Only on holidays.”

“And Christmas is a long ways off.”

We chatted for a few minutes more, and just as we were starting to part company, Lou said, “Almost forgot the reason I came looking for you. Was supposed to find out how you were, to tell Brennan. What’s your condition, anyway?”

“Got my ribs messed up a little. Maybe cracked, maybe broken.”

“Damn. Does it hurt?”

“Only when I breathe.”

Lou went off to call Brennan, and I headed out to the parking lot and got in my van.

For a moment I thought about what Lou had said, about my “being involved.”

No way. Let Lou and Brennan handle it. Like Brennan said, in the morning I’ll be over it.

I started up the engine, turned my head, and glanced out the rear van window to back out of the parking space. My eye caught something on the floor. Something white.

A Styrofoam plate.

Mrs. Jonsen’s supper.