Key Witness (52 page)

“I … uh … I don’t know exactly where that is.”

“Oh?” He looked puzzled.

“I’m in the process of redecorating,” she ad-libbed frantically. “My stuff’s all over the place.”

He nodded understandingly. “No big deal. As I said, we can’t take any action on an application for a month or so anyway. Whenever it’s convenient.”

She nodded.

“In the meantime, we’ll send you out an application. Do you want me to send it here … since you’re moving?”

She searched his face for any sign of skepticism. She didn’t find any.

“Yes. Send it here.” She had a month. By then the bar exam scores would surely have been published, and she could finesse her screwup.

Before leaving the jail Wyatt made one other unscheduled stop.

“Thanks for seeing me without an appointment,” he said, leaning across the desk and shaking Sheriff Lowenthal’s hand. “I know how busy you are.”

“You’re lucky you caught me,” the sheriff answered. “I’m on my way out of town, for a conference. This is not a social visit, I presume.”

Wyatt and Lowenthal were superficial friends, as Wyatt was with everyone in the local political/legal establishment, as he was (had been) with Alex Pagano. He got along fine with the sheriff, but they had never been in an adversarial situation before. As the county’s head cop Lowenthal was a main player in the prosecution and incarceration of criminals. He and Pagano were a smooth team. Wyatt Matthews was on the other side now, therefore an enemy. Nothing personal. When this was over, and Wyatt returned to the corporate world, they’d be superficial friends again.

“No,” Wyatt answered. “This isn’t a social visit.”

“I hope your client isn’t complaining about the way he’s being treated. We’re bending over backward to make him as comfortable as possible, under the circumstances.”

“No,” Wyatt said, “he’s not complaining about that. His beef is about being here at all. What I wanted to ask you is how is it that a key prosecution witness, a convicted felon, is working in your infirmary and has the run of the place?”

“Do you mean Dwayne Thompson?”

“Yes.”

Lowenthal shrugged. “He was qualified to work there and we needed the help. That’s not unusual. It sounds like you’re sore that he was in a position to hear your guy’s confession, not about whether his job is suitable or not.”

“That’s part of it, I admit that. But it still seems unusual to me.”

“It is what it is—was. We weren’t violating any regulations.” He checked his watch. “Listen, I’ve got to go. When this is over we’ll have lunch.”

Wyatt got up. “One other thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I can understand Thompson working in the infirmary. I don’t like the circumstances, but I see the rationale. But why was he sleeping there? What possible benefit could there be to your organization in that?”

Lowenthal shot him a look. “Who says he was sleeping there?”

“You didn’t know?”

“Where did you get this information?” the sheriff asked. He was clearly upset.

“It’s common knowledge.”

“Not to me.” He gave a snort of exasperation. “I’m always the last one to know about these things. Which doesn’t make me happy, I’ll admit that.” He escorted Wyatt to the door. “I’ll look into it when I get back from this conference. It’s not a big deal, Wyatt,” he added hastily, “don’t get thinking you’ve got something here, because you don’t. But I’ll see what’s going on and take the proper steps to remedy it.” The sheriff stood up. “I’ll get this straightened out.” He opened his office door. “Your client is guilty, Wyatt. We’re not going to screw this up on any technicality.”

W
YATT STOPPED AT THE
hotel to check in and drop off his gear, then drove over to the hospital. It was a few minutes before four. Dr. Levi was in Michaela’s room when he arrived, with a retinue of orthopedic-surgery residents, interns, and nurses.

“Ah, the paterfamilias is here,” Levi called out when Wyatt entered the crowded room. Moira was standing off to the side, observing everything with a worried eye. “We just finished explaining the schedule to your daughter, Wyatt.” He was holding Michaela’s hand. The doctors made room for Wyatt to slide by them so he could take her other hand. She squeezed it tightly.

“How are you doing, sweetheart?” he asked, his voice reassuring. He glanced over his shoulder at Moira. Her face was blank.

“Okay, Dad. I’m nervous, but not too much.”

“You’re going to come through like a champ,” Levi told her, his demeanor sunny and bright. “Everything looks good.”

Thank God for this man, Wyatt thought, looking at his daughter. Being with Moira all day couldn’t be good for Michaela’s spirits; her mother was walking around with a perpetual black cloud over her head. He needed to spend more time here.

Levi led his entourage out. Father, mother, and daughter were left alone with each other.

“Anything I need to know?” he asked. He felt awkward; he knew Moira did, also.

“We saw the psychologist,” Moira said.

“How did it go?” he asked guardedly.

“Okay. I mean … Rome wasn’t built in a day. She wants to meet you. You should be participating, at least some of the time.”

“I know. I’ll try.” He hadn’t thought about the need to see a therapist.

“My adviser came by earlier,” Michaela volunteered, feeling the tension and changing the subject to deflect it. “She brought me some books and a schedule. They’re going to send a tutor to the house when I get home, so I can keep up. And Ramona came by, too.” Ramona was Michaela’s dance instructor. Michaela had been six, not even in first grade, when she had started ballet lessons. That seemed like another lifetime ago.

Michaela looked over at her mother, who was staring out the window. “She brought me that, from all the girls.” She pointed to a table by the bathroom door. A huge teddy bear sat on the table. The bear was dressed in a pink tutu and toe shoes.

He smiled. “Very cute.”

The afternoon slid by slowly. All three of them were in a torpor, awaiting tomorrow’s unknown. No one said much; Michaela was tired, while Wyatt and Moira were locked in their own thoughts. Wyatt had instructed Josephine not to put any calls through. Nothing couldn’t wait until midday tomorrow, after the operation.

Michaela was served dinner shortly after five. She picked at her food; she had no appetite. None of them did. A couple hours later the nurses began prepping Michaela for the operation. They added a tranquilizer to the painkiller dripping into her vein through the IV and in minutes she was asleep.

Wyatt and Moira stood outside Michaela’s darkened room. The corridor was quiet; patients were sleeping. Visitors, except those, like Moira, who were spending the night, had gone home. Moira sagged against the dusty-peach walls that had been painted with an eye to cheeriness, although now the place felt sterile, like an exhibit under glass of preserved life, not life itself.

She needs you, he thought. And you should need her, too.

He didn’t feel need, so he manufactured it. He pulled her to him and held her in a hug, feeling her weight sag against him. It felt like dead weight. “She’s going to be all right,” he whispered through her hair.

Moira was crying, sobbing soundlessly. He held her tighter, not saying anything, letting her cry. He held her after she finished crying, waiting for her breathing to come back to a semblance of normality.

“I’m going to go now,” he said. “I’ll be back by six tomorrow morning.”

She nodded. They walked back to Michaela’s room, his arm around her shoulder. “Take care,” he said.

She stared at him. “Don’t leave,” she asked.

“There isn’t room for both of us here. I’ll spend the night with her if you want to go home and take a break from this.”

She shook her head. “I didn’t mean that.”

He looked at her.

“Don’t leave me.”

He pulled her close again. Her heart was fluttering under her skin like a hummingbird’s. “I’m your husband, Moira. I’m not leaving you.” He held her for a minute, rubbing her back. “I’ll be here first thing in the morning.”

He kissed her again. She went into their daughter’s room, which was dark except for a low-wattage night-light near the floor. It reminded him of Michaela’s bedroom, when she was small and slept with a Mickey Mouse night-light.

The night-light was burning, so she should feel safe. Or at least have the illusion.

S
HERIFF LOWENTHAL CALLED DORIS
Blake into his office. “Close the door.”

She shut it and stood in front of his desk, trembling like a leaf.

“Why did you authorize the prisoner Dwayne Thompson to have the run of our infirmary?” he asked. Lowenthal was a decent guy and liberal by law-enforcement standards, but he could be brutally tough.

“I didn’t do that,” she stammered. “The assignment officer did. When Thompson was transferred to our facility from Durban.”

“That was a
work
assignment. Not sleeping there overnight, with no supervision. I’ve been informed you made that transfer.”

She squared her shoulders. “Yes sir. I did do that.”

“On whose authority, may I ask?”

Go for it. It’s your only chance to escape this alive.
“I thought yours, Sheriff.”

He was on his feet like she’d lit a fire under his ass. “What gave you that notion, Lieutenant?”

“I knew he had been assigned to work in the infirmary, and I also knew he was to be … protected. Because of his importance to the district attorney’s office.” She was thinking on her feet amazingly well, which was unusual for her. “There had been some unpleasantness on his tier. Someone had found out he was a stool pigeon, and his life was threatened. I thought you had requested he be moved to a location where he would be safe. Since he was already working in the infirmary I thought that would be a safe place. I did make that decision, sir, but I thought it was following your and the district attorney’s guidelines, if not explicit orders.”

He stared at her. She stood stock-still in front of him. Sweat was pouring from every orifice.

“You were wrong,” he said finally. “I never gave any such orders, direct or implied.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I apologize.”

He calmed down some. “All right. It was an honest mistake—I hope. That you knew this man at Durban doesn’t help you, Blake.”

“I only knew him as a guard knows a prisoner, sir.”

He looked at her but didn’t say anything. “I’m going to let you off with a reprimand,” he said. “This time. But if you have any more contact with this prisoner—any—you will be suspended, and you may be fired. Your conduct is certainly cause for either of those actions. Am I clear?”

“Yes sir.”

T
HE SUN HAD COME
up early and clean, breaking through the morning clouds. Wyatt watched it enter the horizon line as he drove from his house to the hospital. It was going to be a beautiful day. Hopefully, an optimistic day.

He and Moira sat in the operating section visitors’ lounge. Wyatt tried to go over some notes but he was too antsy, so he worked on the daily crossword puzzle. Moira had
The Recognitions
with her and was slowly reading, from time to time looking at the clock on the wall, then at her watch, as if by doing that the time would pass faster.

Levi’s prognosis had been three hours. At nine Wyatt went down to the cafeteria and brought back two cappuccinos and croissants—neither’d had breakfast; they had stuck like glue to this room, to be as close to Michaela as possible.

At a quarter to ten Moira got up and started pacing. To the elevators, to the nurses’ station, down the length of the hallway and back. She tried to sit, but she couldn’t. He watched her, and felt his own anxiety rising.

The clock struck ten. Their eyes swung to the double doors that led to the operating area. Willing Levi to come out, with a smile on his face.

Ten-ten. Ten-twenty. The doors remained closed, no one entering or exiting.

“Something’s wrong,” Moira fretted. Her voice was on the verge of breaking.

“Nothing’s wrong,” he said, almost furiously, trying to be reassuring, to her and to himself as well. “If there was something wrong, they’d tell us about it.”

“If there was something wrong they’d all be working as hard as they could to make it right,” she countered. “They wouldn’t have time to come out here and schmooze with us.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” he said again. He spoke to her back; she was up and pacing again. He walked over to the nurses’ station. The nurse, a middle-aged Jamaican who had an air of authority about her, looked up at him. “Everything is fine,” she reassured him in a lilting voice before he could ask the question. “We’ve been monitoring the situation. There’s no cause for concern.”

“Okay,” he said. “Thanks.”

Moira saw him talking to the nurse and hurried over. “It’s under control,” he told her. “They’re monitoring the situation.”

Moira turned to the nurse. “What does that mean?” she asked. “Why are you monitoring the situation?”

“Because you might be worried, and I want to be able to tell you not to,” the nurse answered her.

“Whether I should be or not?”

“We wouldn’t tell you she was all right if she wasn’t,” the nurse answered calmly. She was used to families being on edge; soothing them was the most important part of her job.

They sat down again. Wyatt didn’t want to look at the clock, but he couldn’t help himself. He watched the second hand sweep across the face, number by number. Five seconds, ten, twenty, thirty, another minute gone. Five seconds again, ten, thirty.

Moira was slumped over in her chair. “I don’t like this,” she muttered to herself. “I don’t like this.”

She got up and paced again, marching like a soldier. Wyatt tilted his chair back until he hit the wall behind him. He closed his eyes and started deep-breathing.

Wham! The double doors burst open. Wyatt jumped out of his chair. Levi came striding through.

Wyatt looked up at the clock. It was 11:15 in the morning. The operation had gone on almost fifty percent longer than had been anticipated.

Levi looked at them. Then he smiled. “That one was a bitch,” Levi admitted. “But she’s going to be fine,” he added, reading the concern and fear on their faces. “She is a strong, strong trooper. You two should be proud of her.”