7 - Rogue: Ike Schwartz Mystery 7 (3 page)

Chapter Four

Ike’s father, the legendary Virginia politician, packed an almanac of useful advice tucked away in the recesses of his aging, but still alert brain. Were you in the process of selecting a barber, buying a house, choosing a wife? Abe had an aphorism for every occasion. “You can tell a good doc,” he’d said years earlier on the occasion of Ike’s departure for Harvard, “because he will always look tired.” Dr. Barry Kravitz would have qualified as a good doctor by Abe Schwartz’s standard. He did, indeed, appear to be very tired.

Ike introduced Eden to Doctor Kravitz. He shook her hand and then led them both to a break room and placed Styrofoam cups of truly wretched coffee before them. His, he drank. Ike and Eden thanked him and pushed their cups aside. He seemed not to notice.

“Okay,” he said, and rubbed his eyes. “I filled Mr. Schwartz in on the early estimates last night. Or was that this morning?” He powered up an electronic device he held in his hand, tapped it several time with a black stylus and nodded. “Last night, nine thirty p.m., there it is.”

“Excuse me,” Eden’s eyes were locked on the little handheld device. “Are all of my daughter’s records in that little thing?”

“Yes Ma’am, they are.”

“What happens if you lose it, or it is stolen, or stops working?”

“No problem, the information is password protected and encrypted. It automatically links to a mainframe server dedicated to our medical records and is stored there as quickly as it is entered here. The data can be retrieved and downloaded onto another compatible device at any time, provided you have access to it. So, no worries.”

“I want one of those things.”

“Yes? Well as I was saying, I have a better picture now. Your daughter, Mrs. Saint Clare, came here to our ER in pretty bad shape. Her system had completely shut down and we were not sure we would be able to save her.”

“Oh, no. But you did.”

Ike shifted in his chair. Even though he had not tasted it, the aroma of burnt coffee permeated the close, little room. “Doc, could you begin at the beginning, to remind me and, also, to fill in Mrs. Saint Clare on the details?”

Ike’s head seemed as if it might explode. He needed to hear what Kravitz had to say, but wished it all to go away, wished he could wake up at the A-frame in the mountains in time to cook Ruth breakfast, to push some buttons.

“Yes, of course. As I have it—” he waved the stylus around like a conductor holding a miniature baton and tapped his electronic chart again, “—your fiancée had an automobile accident. She apparently hit something—”

“A metal utility pole.”

“Really? Well. She must have hit it pretty hard because her system went into shock. You were very lucky that didn’t happen instantaneously. She took a lick on her head, probably against the door post, and concussed badly. People have died almost instantly from lesser trauma. She’s very lucky.”

“From where she is at the moment, she might debate that.”

“No doubt she would. Okay, the car apparently didn’t have side air bags. Too bad. Before the brain swelling resulting from the impact to her head completely shut down her system, the EMTs arrived. They saw she’d stopped breathing and bagged her.”

“Did what to her? Bagged—like a body bag?” Eden had a vision of all the television cops she’d ever seen over the years zipping up black plastic bags over cold, grey faces. In her mind the face now belonged to her daughter.

“Oh no, sorry, I mean they fitted her with a manual ventilator. It has a bag on it that the technician compresses, which allows him to breathe for her.”

“Him.”

“Or her, yes.”

“Sorry, you meant the person from the ambulance did the bagging.”

“Yes. So then she was admitted to the ER and we discovered her to be unresponsive, BP dropping, thready pulse—”

“Thready what? Speak to me in mother-understandable language please, Doctor.”

“Right. It’s been a long night. Simple? She was slipping away. We put her on a ventilator so she could breathe, started an IV to raise her blood pressure, but then quickly realized she was bleeding internally and needed surgery. All we can do for the swelling in her cranium is give her an anti-inflammatory, blood thinners, keep her hydrated and quiet, and wait. If there is no reduction we’ll tap some of the fluid out, but, like I said I’d rather wait. Well, long story short, she had a ruptured spleen, which we removed, a broken leg, which the orthopedist set, a small cranial fracture, a compression fracture at C4, three broken ribs, and bruising of most of her internal organs.”

“Oh my God…What’s a C4?”

“Sorry. It’s one of the vertebrae in your neck.”

“She has a broken neck?”

“Yes, but not serious. She’ll need to wear a neck brace for a while until it heals.”

Eden paled. Ike leaned forward to change the subject. “How long will she be unconscious, Doctor Kravitz?”

“I can’t say for sure. In cases of brain insult…sorry, head trauma, we have no easy predictors. Much as I’d rather not, I have to tell you, worst case, she will continue downhill into a vegetative state. Best case, she’ll pull out of her coma in a few days or a week or two.”

“That’s a pretty wide spread. What do you think?”

“Don’t hold me to it, will you? I’d rather not ask you to fill out one of the hospital’s waiver forms the Legal Department insists on.” Kravitz paused, mopped his forehead with a tissue and sipped his coffee. “I’m guessing here, emphasis on guessing, that she’ll come around in a week or ten days, maybe a little longer, say three weeks. There are no accurate predictors in cases like this. Some patients pop out in a few hours, some are down for months, even years. It all seems to depend on some sort of physiological clock we do not understand. If we did, we’d work with it. At any rate you should be aware that there are two main differences between a coma and a vegetative state. Vegetative patients will continue to go through their sleep–wake cycles. Those in comas don’t. Also, a coma is always temporary, which means that if a patient never awakens, he or she will inevitably regress to a vegetative state and…death, but patients like your daughter do not stay comatose forever. All of which may cause other difficulties for you in a day or two.”

“Difficulties? What sort of difficulties?”

Kravitz shook his head, his expression like a basset hound. “Bed allocation. Priorities and policies relevant to long-term care. We can talk about that later. At any rate, it could be months or years before she will remember what happened last night. Maybe never.”

Ike’s face clouded over. “You anticipated my next question, Doc.”

“Most people consider post-traumatic amnesia a blessing.”

“If it were just an accident, I would agree. But since I don’t think that’s what happened, I would want it not to be so.”

The doctor and Eden started. “You think it wasn’t an accident?”

“Sorry, Eden, no I don’t. Since she took the job with the Department of Education, she has amassed a file as thick as a phonebook filled with e-mails, phone messages, and letters from people whose views of her and her work range from simply angry to overtly homicidal. I read some of the e-mails and threats—not nice. She dismissed them, but it would only take one nut with a private agenda to do something idiotic. I don’t want to, but I believe one of them did.”

“Oh, Ike, you can’t be serious.”

“Serious as a heart attack. Sorry, Doc, bad simile.”

“Why did you ever let her take this job in Washington?”

“Let? Eden, you know as well as I do that Ruth asks permission of no one. We talked about it. It was an offer, as they say, she couldn’t refuse.”

“But she had a college to run, and you were supposed to get married and…”

Supposed to get married. Yes. Well, what were the chances now? Can’t go through this again. Yes you can. God help me.

“I said we talked. We agreed with reluctance. Since the present administration leaves office in two years, it wouldn’t be permanent. She saw it as an opportunity to become involved in things she cared about, and Picketsville isn’t that far away. We commuted, as you know.”

“Excuse me,” Doctor Kravitz interrupted, “but you did say the Department of Education?”

“Yes. She was recruited by the secretary as an assistant secretary. Her job was to review the progress of Title Nine programs. I guess they hadn’t had a thorough review in a while. After she arrived, she also assumed the chair of a committee set up to study school textbook standards.”

“How is that connected to Title Nine?”

“It isn’t. She took it because no one else would. She is that way. As you probably know, many state school boards have their own textbook screening committees and they, in turn, have notions about what constitutes correct and acceptable history and science. The concern the secretary had, and by indirection the president, centered on how new textbooks would mesh with the recently enacted National Curriculum Standards. Her committee was charged to look at that and perhaps recommend legislation to bring them into sync with the curriculum. That’s when her Enemies List got started.”

“Wow. Do you think she’s still in danger? Do I need to contact Security?” The doctor seemed worried.

“I doubt it. If I’m right, that is, if the wreck was in fact related to the job, then I think they will feel that they have sent their message. If and when she does go back to work, and that is not likely to be anytime soon, and if they need to, they will remind her of what happened. But I would guess her days as a federal bureaucrat are pretty much over. Meanwhile, the rest of her committee has been warned and, I assume, suitably intimidated.”

“This is madness.”

“No, this is the USA in the first decades of the twenty-first century.”

The doctor shook his head. “Meshuggeneh.” He left the room.

“What did he say?”

“It’s Yiddish for craziness. He’s got it right. We have come to a pass in this country where we will either find a way to settle our differences amicably, or I will need to hire many more deputies, assuming I still have that responsibility in a month. At any rate, to be open and objective, I haven’t ruled out random stupidity, mistaken identity, or a psychopath on the loose.”

“Take me home,” Eden said, “wherever that is today. I need a drink and a think. Oh Lord, what are we going to do, Ike?”

“You’ll be fine. It’ll be okay.” Eden nodded but her eyes remained clouded with doubt. He didn’t blame her. He had reasons to doubt as well. He understood more “doctor talk” than she and remembered what Kravitz had left out of his summary just now.

When they reached the parking lot, Ike gave her Ruth’s apartment key and directions how to find it. She drove off. Ike called Charlie.

Chapter Five

Charlie pushed his way into a coffee shop in Fairfax where he’d earlier agreed to meet Ike. He had a manila folder under one arm and his raincoat draped over the other. His expression indicated something had him spooked. Charlie did not spook easily.

“Where’ve you been? I left you a note to call me when you woke up. Holy cow, Ike, all hell is breaking loose.”

“Excuse me? Hell for whom? I’m not aware anyone of my acquaintance, except Ruth, is in any way, shape, or form, close to being in the sort of jeopardy you suggest, and Hell isn’t an option for her, thank you.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to…you’re right. By hellish, I refer to the preliminary results of your forensics request. I thought you’d want them right away and then you didn’t call. Then the Director—”

“Okay, as far as wanting the results? I did. I do. I just didn’t imagine you’d have them so soon. Then, I had to meet Ruth’s mother at the hospital, get her settled afterward, and talk to the doctor. Then…never mind. So, tell me.”

“How is the beautiful Mrs. Eden Saint Clare?”

“As always. With the wind at her back and in the right light, a knockout. The results please, Charlie. To answer the question you are hesitant to put to me no, Mrs. Saint Clare didn’t ask about you.”

“I wasn’t going to ask that. Why would I?”

Ike shrugged.

“Okay, I have the data, but first, I have to tell you about the Director. He heard about Ruth’s accident somehow.”

“Somehow?”

“Hey, he’s a spy, for crying out loud, he heard. Anyway, he cornered me when I arrived at the office and said, and here I quote the Great Man as nearly and as accurately as I can, ‘After the business with the terrorists on the Chesapeake Bay last year, we owe him big time, so tell Schwartz we’re sorry for his troubles and that the resources of the CIA are at his disposal, night or day.’ Impressed?”

“Oh, I am. What does he want?”

“Tut, you have a suspicious mind, Ike, always have. He is only interested in your welfare. And, as I said, he hasn’t forgotten the Yom Kippur caper, you could say.”

“And, as the Metro cop said last night, ‘yeah and I’m…’ who did he say he was?”

“Matthew McConaughey. Who is a movie star or something. Unlike you and your obsession with them, actors and movies aren’t my thing.”

“I only like the dead ones.”

“I don’t think I’ll dissect that statement just now. So, moving on from the Director’s highly appreciated and extremely generous offer, the guys in the lab removed your tracking device and mapped everything that happened to your car in the previous twenty-four hours. They report your car received not one but two major impacts last night. The first, they believe was delivered at the rear end of the car,” Charlie glanced at the folder’s contents, “passenger side, and the second one, moments later when it broadsided the utility pole. Ruth was rear-ended. That’s what caused the smash-up.”

“I guessed that. How far back did you say they checked?”

“Just last night, twenty-four hours give or take. I thought that’s all you’d want. Oh, wait. You want to confirm that the car wasn’t hit before yesterday as well.”

“Yes. I’ll need more. Nothing about the paint yet?”

“They tried. Remember, we don’t do much in the auto accident line over at the Company. If we need a sophisticated analysis, we outsource it. Anyway, they couldn’t match the paint to any known vehicle manufacturer. Whoever or whatever hit her must have had a respray at some time. There is a complicated chromatographic analysis of the paint, however. If you can find another program to identify it, you might get lucky and locate the places it might have been done.”

“That’s the plan. Thank you and thank the techs for the quick turnaround.”

“You’re welcome. No thanks to the Director?”

“You are joking, right?”

“Yes and no. If he wanted to, he could have put the kibosh on the lab work, you know, but he didn’t. Give him a bit of credit, Ike, he may be otherwise motivated, but in his avuncular way he does still care about you.”

“Noted.”

“It would appear you are looking at a hit and run, Ike. You do realize how difficult they are to track down unless there were witnesses? There are garages and body shops all over this city that will gladly make any damage on a vehicle go away unreported for an appropriate amount of cash.”

“I know that, Charlie. I am counting on the fact that this rear-end was not just an accident caused by a stranger who panicked and ran. I’m betting whoever did this had a plan all along. I just need to connect the dots to unravel it.”

“This connect-the-dots puzzle looks more like pointillism than a picture of a bunny and none of the dots are numbered. Where do you start, Ike? Who would do this?”

“Someone trying to send a message to Ruth and/or her committee to back off is my thought.”

“Committee? Which?”

“The textbook review committee, the one that will have people riled up all over the country but especially in the extremely red states.”

“Oh. You do really think…?”

“There were threats before. It would only take one crazy jingo to carry them out so, yes, I do.”

“What’s the likelihood, really?”

“I don’t know, Charlie, but it’s all I have.”

“Ike, I know this has hit you hard, but take a minute and think it through. How does a group of people primarily composed of little old ladies with blue hair and old guys wearing Uncle Sam hats and sporting beer bellies over white suede belts translate into an attempted homicide?”

“You are right, it has hit me very hard, but you are wrong in assuming that I am reaching or overreacting. I am not interested in the people the media loves to depict as typical attendees at those State’s Right’s, we’re angry, screw the government rallies. I am concerned with the fringe elements they don’t show or even investigate. I’m thinking of the young men and, I suppose, women, who teeter on the brink of sanity and who listen to the hate mongers and radical broadcasters from the far right and left. Add to that the latest incubator of disaster.”

“Our what?”

“Look, we have been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan for how long?”

“Since nine-eleven. Too long.”

“Exactly, and in doing so, and certainly without intending to, we have created a whole generation of professional killers. Young men and women who have had to watch as civilians were gunned down for no other reason than they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They have seen their friends and their buddies blown up by suicide bombers or roadside explosive devices, and other IEDs. They have been asked to kick down doors and lob hand grenades into houses without ever knowing if they were filled with terrorists or innocent women and children.”

“I understand the problems created by Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, believe me. The number of suicides, divorces, cases of homelessness associated with it is scary, but what is your point?”

“My point? Imagine, then, one damaged young man sent home, perhaps multiply concussed, suffering from PTSD and hurting both physically and mentally. Then throw him into this hyperpolarized political system that political talking heads have created in the past several decades and what are the chances?”

“Okay, I see.”

“Do you really?” Ike’s eyes flashed. He banged the chair arm. “One side screams death to the imagined threats to our democracy, the other yaps we should quit, withdraw, and apologize. He comes home into this—”

“Or she.”

“Or she, especially she. You’re right. We have generations of data on how war affects men, but women in combat is a new phenomenon for us. Are women emotionally different enough that their reaction would also be different, or would they be the same as for men? We don’t know that either.”

“No telling. I would guess the same and I’m not just being politically correct—certainly similar. Perhaps more…I don’t know…domestic.”

“I’ll leave it at similar. I don’t understand domestic. Anyway, he returns and feels used, even betrayed. He meets one of those professional purveyors of truth and freedom, buys into his cant, and believes he can help by taking action, by employing the skills with which his country has gifted him. God help us. What is the future going to look like in another ten years?”

Some adjacent customers seemed alarmed at this last outburst. “Ike, I get it, but surely it’s not simply a matter of PTSD sufferers on the loose.”

“Of course it isn’t. What I’m saying is that there were too many politically motivated nutcases loose in society already and we are not only not doing enough to reduce their number but, in fact, adding to them.”

“You think this scenario is possible?”

“Possible? Charlie, I don’t have a clue what went through Timothy McVeigh’s addled brain when he concluded blowing the front off the Murrah Federal Building and thereby killing women, children, and low-level bureaucrats constituted an act of patriotism. Or what muddled thinking makes someone shoot a congressperson and a half-dozen bystanders. But compared to that, running a car off the road is pretty small potatoes. So yes, in the absence of a better explanation, I think it’s possible.”

Ike slumped back in his chair. “Is all the accident data in this folder?”

“Yes, and here’s your tracking gizmo.” Charlie dragged the box from his pocket. Someone had thoughtfully put it in a plastic antistatic bag.

“I need a laptop.”

“There’s a computer café down the street, but can’t this wait until you get back to the house?”

Ike thought a second and agreed. He could try to send all this to Frank, but downloading the tracking device’s data could be tricky and if he did it incorrectly, he might lose it. And he needed a copier that could send the documents to his PC and then be attached to an e-mail.

“Okay, tonight.” He looked at his watch. “It’s almost five. How about an early dinner somewhere and then I’ll try to get this stuff to Frank Sutherlin?”

“Frank? Your deputy Frank?”

“He used to be with the highway patrol. They do vehicular accidents by the thousands. They can sort through this faster and better than anybody. I will need some help to send the data on the tracking device, I think. You have a copier that loads to your computer, don’t you?”

“I do, but have no idea how it works. Don’t look at me for any help in that department. I have trouble setting my alarm clock.”

“I know that is not true, but if you insist on dissembling about your lack of technological skills in order to be excused from onerous tasks while on the job, it’s okay by me. Just know that I know you lie.”

“You are a hard man, Ike. Let’s blow this place and find a decent dinner. We could do Italian. I’m up for starch, tomato sauce, and meatballs that aren’t Swedish. I know a place.”

“You always know a place.”

***

When Ike returned to the hospital, nothing had changed from the previous night. The monitor still beeped, the drip still clacked, and the ventilator continued to gurgle. He took Ruth’s hand and began to tell her about his day.

“Everyone is worried about you, but I told them you’d be fine. You just needed to take a time-out. Pretty radical way to go about it, but they know you and weren’t surprised that you chose to check into the hospital for the rest cure. As for me, I’m not used to the silence yet, but I admit it is a change. Charlie is in a swivet because the Director of the CIA called him out. He claims the Great Man says he’ll do anything for us. I guess that means he has something really bad in mind for me. I have five calls from Abe I have left unreturned. He’s worried I will screw up the election and end up unemployed. I can think of a worse state of affairs. You offered me a job on the faculty at a dollar a year last summer, so I figure I have options.”

He cleared his throat, afraid to say more; afraid if he did, she’d hear the fear in his voice. Eden glanced up and began to talk to Ruth. Ike only heard a few words, scattered memories of growing up, happier days, a childhood…something about finding her tattered copy of
Uncle Wiggly’s Story Book
that Eden had found in the attic before she left to join Ruth in Virginia.

“You remember me reading it? I think it was your grandmother’s originally. Funny stories. Do you remember…”

His thoughts drifted to Sunday evening, the setting sun silhouetting Ruth in the window of the condo before he left; before she answered the phone that called her away; before…

Who’d called her, and why?