Death by the Riverside (9 page)

“Barbara Selby,” I said. “I have to know how she is.”

Ranson told me that the last she had heard, which was several hours ago, was that Barbara was still in surgery.

“Go get some sleep, Micky. I’ll let you know as soon as anything happens,” she added.

“You had better. I have to know. Call me as soon as you find out,” I answered. Then Danny and I left.

Chapter 12

Danny had stopped and called Elly, so she was not surprised when we showed up. She had even made up the sleeper couch for me. It looked very inviting, but common courtesy compelled me to take a quick shower first. The bathroom in the police station had only gotten off the first layer. Besides, I was hoping that Ranson would call and tell me that Barbara was all right.

The quick shower was actually a quick bath, since my feet felt they had held up my weight enough for the last few days. Danny came in as I was drying myself off and handed me a bath robe. I realized I was embarrassed at her seeing me naked. That had never happened before. The embarrassment, not the nakedness. Maybe because I had finally realized how crappily I had been treating her. Maybe embarrassment is natural when you’re naked in front of an ex-lover with her current lover in the next room. I suspected it was a bit of both.

She looked me over, shaking her head the whole time. I was pretty thoroughly bruised up, all of them painful.

“Lucky for you, Elly is a nurse and she is waiting in the living room with our in-case-of-alligator-attack camping first aid kit.”

“I can’t wait,” I said. “Danny, uh, I…”

She waved me off and said, “Come on out, I want you to meet Elly.”

We left the bathroom for the living room. Elly was there, complete with a large, bright orange first aid kit.

Elly Harrison was not very tall, but she still looked willowy. If she wanted to, she could probably look fragile, but she didn’t now and I doubted I would ever see her that way. She had black, shoulder-length, wavy hair and penetrating hazel eyes.

She sat me down and started working on my cuts with the professional cheerfulness common to all good nurses. We talked while she worked, her side of the conversation being more intelligible than mine, since I did a fair amount of groaning and bitching. Elly didn’t work in a hospital, but was a visiting nurse. She traveled around to homebound patients, checking up on them and evaluating their conditions. She said that most of her patients were terminal, cancer and AIDS, but they didn’t need to be in the hospital. The more we talked, the more impressed I was with Elly. I couldn’t dismiss her even if I had wanted to.

“Come on, Danno, bedtime,” Elly said, catching sight of me starting to nod my head. I was tired, but I didn’t want to lie down yet.

“Yeah,” Danny agreed. “Get some sleep, Micky.”

I started to protest, but was interrupted by the phone. Danny picked it up, then handed it to me. It was Ranson.

“She got out of surgery about an hour ago. They were successful in removing the bullet, but she hasn’t regained consciousness yet,” Ranson paused, she sounded tired. “They don’t know if she will. The doctors are guarded about her chances of recovery. She’s listed as critical and is in ICU at Charity. But there is some good news,” Ranson continued. “We found the notebook you hid in the copy machine. It contains dates, routes, and meeting places for deliveries. This information is going to disrupt the drug trade for a while. We’re hoping for a few good busts before they figure out we know where they’re going to be.”

“Yeah, well, I’m glad that Barbara Selby’s life helped raise the price of cocaine in this part of the country,” I replied. I think Sergeant Ranson and I disagreed as to what was good. We’d given the drug boys a bruise in the bank account. That wasn’t worth Barbara in a coma that she might never come out of.

“Look, Micky, I know…” Ranson started.

“No, you don’t,” I countered. “You didn’t see her lying in that swamp. If I need professional sympathy, I’ll go find a whore.” I had been hoping, praying even, that Barbara would be all right. That whatever mistakes I had made, they hadn’t been permanent ones.

“Okay, Micky, get some sleep,” Ranson answered and she hung up. She had been holding her temper, but not by much. I caught Danny and Elly exchanging a look. Danny got out a bottle of brandy and poured three glasses. She handed the fullest one to me. I didn’t say anything, just started drinking it. She and Elly sipped theirs.

Good impression, Micky. You cursed out a highly decorated detective sergeant in front of an assistant D.A. and her lover, whom you just met this evening.

“Get some sleep, Mick,” Danny said. “You always get real grumpy when you’re tired.”

I finished my brandy. Danny gently pushed on my shoulder so that I lay down. Then she tucked me in and kissed me on the forehead. Elly bent over and did the same.

“Good night,” she said. They turned out the lights and went into their room. I heard the low murmur of their voices, then the light under the doorway flicked off.

I lay very still, feeling the ache in my bones and the warmth from the brandy ebbing in separate currents through my body. I didn’t know I was crying until I felt the wetness on my cheeks. I hoped Danny and Elly were asleep; I didn’t want them to know I was crying.

I wasn’t even sure why, for a lot of reasons, probably. Some basically self-centered, like I hurt and the last few days had been hard. Because I should have saved Barbara Selby and I didn’t. Because Danny and Elly were together on the other side of the bedroom door and I was in the living room by myself. Because somewhere I had made the choice to be by myself in the living room and I couldn’t make that choice go away now, no matter how much I wanted to. Because what happened wasn’t Ranson’s fault, but I had taken it out on her. Because…the list seemed to go on and on.

I woke to the stiffest muscles I’ve ever had. Danny and Elly were in the kitchen. I could hear their lowered voices.

“Good morning,” Danny said, as she looked out the kitchen door and found I had my eyes open. “Why don’t you stay in bed?” she said as I gingerly swung my legs out of bed.

“Places to go, people to see,” I said, shaking myself awake.

“It would be a good idea for you to take it easy,” Elly chimed in from the kitchen door.

“Just where are you jaunting off to so early in the day?” Danny asked in her best D.A. voice.

“The police station and the hospital, ma’am. Nothing sinister, I assure you.”

“All right, but promise me, no white-knighting after the bad guys,” Danny said.

“Promise.” At least for today, I added to myself.

“In that case, you can help yourself to my closet. There’s a pair of black pants that I haven’t hemmed yet that should fit you.”

“Coffee’s already made and waiting if you want some, if not I’ll turn it off,” Elly said. “We’re on our way out the door.”

She handed me a set of spare keys and told me to let myself out whenever I wanted to and repeated the suggestion that I take it easy. Then Danny and Elly were gone. I poured myself a large cup of coffee in hopes of getting my body jump-started. Then I rummaged in the closet until I found the pants Danny had mentioned and an oversized gray cotton sweater to go with them. That way I would only have to borrow underwear and not a bra, too. I found a pair of panties that I knew to be old (I had given them to Danny) and put them on. After I finished dressing, I ate an apple, so when Danny asked, as I knew she would, I could tell her I had eaten breakfast. Then I took three dollars out of her change pile for bus fare. I left a note to that effect.

Visiting hours wouldn’t start for a while, so my first destination was Sergeant Ranson’s office to see if she had arrested Milo and cohorts yet.

The bus ride to the police station was amazingly short. No waiting, no traffic tie-ups. I even thought I might beat Ranson there, as she had obviously worked very late last night. But she was at her desk, on the phone and doing paperwork at the same time. She motioned me in and to a chair while she finished her conversation. She looked tired and there was a half-empty Styrofoam cup of coffee on her desk and two in her trash. I decided to put on my good girl shoes. She finished her phone call.

“I’m sorry I called you a whore last night,” I apologized.

“Damn, Micky, I didn’t know they hit you that hard. That blow to the jaw must have really done some damage for you to be apologizing,” was Ranson’s gracious reply.

Well, no one could say I didn’t try.

“I didn’t mean to call you a whore, I meant to call you an incompetent asshole, but I was too tired to use that many syllables.”

“That’s better,” she said, unfazed, then paused. “I’m afraid I’ve got some news that you’re not going to like.”

“Barbara?” I said, not wanting to hear.

“No, no change there. It’s about Milo. A priest, a state senator, and an assortment of other powerful men say he was eating breakfast with them at the time the murder took place.”

“But that’s not true,” I interrupted. Ranson shrugged.

“Supposedly, Milo flew a group of business men in his private plane to One Hundred Oaks Plantation the night before. Some fraternal group. And he never left the grounds until one o’clock when he drove to the city with Father Francis X. Bromen.” She saw the look on my face and continued, “Personally, I believe you, Mick, but these are awfully hard alibis to break.”

“Shit,” was all I could think of to say.

“No murder weapon has been found. The only thing that ties Milo and his friends to what they did is your word.”

“And Barbara Selby in the hospital.”

“Yeah, but she’s not saying much right at the moment. Until she comes out of the coma…” Ranson left “if she comes out of the coma” unspoken. “And to add shit to shit,” Ranson continued, “Milo and a few others claim that you and Elmo Turner were romantically involved and that the two of you left Jambalaya together on Monday evening.”

“What? You know damn well I’m as queer as a three dollar Confederate bill.”

“I know. And I’m sure we could prove it in court, but being queer in this state isn’t going to do much for your credibility as a witness. Also we only found the one notebook you hid, nothing else. They claim you planted it. Disgruntled employee type revenge.”

“This is fucked. You can’t just let these guys go.”

“Look, I’ve got more than one person calling for you to be arrested before sundown.”

“Great.”

“But I think I can get you off on ballistics. Unless it was your gun that put a hole in Elmo Turner’s chest or Barbara Selby’s head,” she finished, a policeman to the end.

“No, it wasn’t,” I replied. Elly was right. It was a great day to have stayed in bed.

“Do me a favor. Look over some mug shots and see if you can identify any of the other men that were there.”

I agreed and Ranson sat me down in front of a pile of mug shots. A wonderful way to spend the morning, looking at candid pictures of the scum of the earth.

After two hours of serious staring, I found a picture of one of the men who had been there. It was Turner, and he was far beyond the long arm of the law. I gave up and went to tell Ranson how useful my morning had been. I couldn’t find her and decided to head up to Charity Hospital and find out how Barbara was. I left a note for Ranson, telling her that’s where I’d be if she needed to arrest me.

I spent another sixty cents of Danny’s hard-earned money on the bus to Charity. I wasn’t looking forward to this. I’ve never much liked hospitals. Probably because my Aunt Greta didn’t feel her life was complete unless she had someone to visit in the hospital. The sicker the better. Charity was her favorite. It was as close as she ever came to charity. I hoped I didn’t run into her there.

It took me a while to locate Barbara. I found where she was less by the directions I was given than by the sight of two somber-faced children in the lounge area attended by an older woman with familiar brown eyes. But I had never seen Barbara’s eyes clouded with pain the way this woman’s were.

The nurse on duty told me that no visitors were allowed, except for immediate family. I wasn’t surprised. I knew that, but had come here to find out for myself how Barbara was, just on the nagging hope that Ranson had gotten it wrong or that Barbara had come out of the coma and Ranson didn’t know yet. But no, no miracles here. Barbara was still in a coma and they didn’t know if she would ever come out of it or what condition she would be in when she did.

“Hello, I’m a friend of Barbara’s from work. I was the woman with her,” I introduced myself as I sat on the couch next to Barbara’s mother.

“How do you do? I’m Amelia Kelly,” answered her mother, the politeness drilled into every Southern woman taking hold over the pain and fear she had to be feeling.

“And you’re Patrick and you’re Cissy,” I said to the two children. Mrs. Kelly was too tired to have to make introductions. “I’m Michele Knight.”

“Oh, yes, Barbara mentioned you,” Mrs. Kelly said.

“I have a lot of respect for Barbara,” I said, not sure that I should ask in what context Barbara had mentioned me.

“Thank you. Would you mind if I impose on you for a few minutes?” she asked.

“No, not at all.”

“I’ve got to make a few phone calls and I hate to leave the kids.”

“No problem. Take your time. Get some coffee if you want.” Give me some outlet for my guilt.

She got up and headed for wherever the phones were. Patrick and Cissy stared at me, another strange adult in days now filled with strange adults. There was an awkward silence, at least on my part; I doubted that they cared. If I were a kid, how would I want an adult to treat me in a situation like this? What I had hated most, when my father died, were the lies and evasions, the “protection of the child.” I realized the best thing I could do was tell Patrick and Cissy the truth. It was their mother lying on that hospital bed.

“I’m a private detective,” I started out. “And I was working for the police doing an investigation of Jambalaya.”

“Why?” Patrick wanted to know.

“They’re smuggling drugs.” Their expressions didn’t change. At this point, they were probably too numb for anything. “Your mom helped me get some information for the police. But we got caught.”

“And they shot her,” Patrick said. Kids don’t bother with polite evasions. “And beat you up.”

“Yeah,” I said, fingering my bruised jaw.

“How come they didn’t shoot you, too?” Cissy asked.

“I got away,” I said and told them about my adventures in the coal chute.