Practice to Deceive (17 page)

I
WAS TWO
days in the Ramsey County Adult Detention Center. It was crowded. The joint, located on a white sandstone bluff overlooking the Mississippi River in downtown St. Paul, was originally built to house one hundred thirty-four prisoners. There were two hundred fifty-three the weekend I was there.

They put me in a triangular cell featuring an aluminum toilet, aluminum wash basin, mirror, and two bunks attached to the wall. I had the top bunk, my cellmate the lower. I was allowed to wear my own clothes while he was dressed in jail green and slippers—a trustee doing time for kiting checks.

“What are you in for?” he asked first thing.

“Suspicion of murder,” I told him.

He avoided me after that, which took a hell of an effort considering the size of the cell.

The cell was just one of ten that opened up into a common area where meals were served, where the population could get together and debate the pros and cons of the judicial system, where they could make calls from the telephones anchored to the wall, use exercise equipment, and watch TV. There were dozens of such areas in the center, each with fewer prisoners than your average elementary school classroom.

From ten
P.M.
until five
A.M.
I was locked in my cell. The rest of the time I watched cable—mostly CNN; channel selection was controlled by the deputies. I admit to being nervous; jail would frighten anyone. But if you really want scary, try watching CNN World News for forty-eight hours straight. It’ll curl your hair.

I
T WAS LATE
Monday afternoon before they took me back to the Ramsey County Annex on the third floor of the St. Paul Police Department building. I did not complain about the delay. I didn’t complain about anything.

The assistant Ramsey County attorney was pouring coffee when I arrived, led through the door by county deputies. He nodded, and one of my escorts unlocked the cuffs that pinned my hands behind my back.

“Have a seat,” the ACA said. “Coffee?”

“Sure,” I replied, sitting in a metal chair at the end of a long table. At the other end was a video camera pointed directly at me.

The ACA poured six ounces of coffee into a paper cup and set it in front of me. “Everything OK in jail? No problems?”

“It was very quiet,” I lied. “Very relaxing.”

He moved to the other end of the table, near the camera, and paged through a file folder.

“Is that camera on?” I asked.

“No,” he said, then looked at me hopefully. “You want to make a statement?”

“I already made a statement,” I answered.

“So I read,” he replied, going back to the folder. “Even though you haven’t been charged yet, a public defender has been assigned to your case until you can secure counsel of your own.”

“I don’t need a lawyer,” I announced as the door to the interrogation room swung open.

“Yes, you do,” Cynthia Grey said, following Anne Scalasi into the room.

“What are you doing here?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Cynthia told me, jabbing her finger in my face. “Not one goddamn word.” I was shocked. Cynthia’s elocution instructor had strictly forbidden the use of obscenities.

Anne rounded the table and handed the ACA the file she was carrying. Her hand and wrist were wrapped in an ace bandage.

The ACA read the file carefully, looked me in the eye, then read it again. “Your movements between ten-forty-five and eleven-forty-five Saturday morning are well documented,” he said.

“How ’bout Levering Field’s movements?” I asked. Cynthia dug her long fingernails into my hand, making me yelp.

It didn’t appear as if the ACA was going to answer, so Anne did.

“He was seen entering his home by a neighbor at approximately ten-fifty; they waved at each other.”

“And?” I asked, moving my hand away from Cynthia’s fingernails.

This time the ACA answered. “The ME estimates that the victim was killed about two hours before he examined the body—rigor had developed in the small muscles, but nowhere else.”

“When did the ME examine the body?” I asked.

“One hour after you called 911,” the ACA admitted.

It didn’t take a genius to figure it out. I called around noon, which means Levering was killed sometime after eleven. Between eleven and noon I was enjoying my well-documented adventures in motoring.

Cynthia was on her feet. “Are you prepared to charge my client?”

The ACA shook his head.

“Then I’m taking my client home,” she announced.

“We have a great many questions for your client,” the ACA countered.

“Not today,” said Cynthia. “My client will be available to answer all your questions at a later date. But he has just spent two days in jail for a crime he did not commit. He’s going home to eat, to sleep, to take a shower …”

“Not necessarily in that order, I hope,” Anne said.

Cynthia ignored her and said to the ACA, “Contact my office, and we will arrange a mutually convenient time to meet.”

The ACA said, “Soon.”

Cynthia nodded and turned to the door. I followed. Stopped. Turned back.

“What happened to the money?” I asked Anne.

“What money?”

ELEVEN

“W
HAT ARE YOU
doing here?” I again asked Cynthia when we were outside, walking along Cedar Street toward the World Trade Center.

“Anne called me,” she answered, then repeated herself more loudly. “Anne called me. You didn’t. Why didn’t you call me?”

“I figured you knew where I was; there were reporters all over the place.”

“Sure, that’s what I do. If I want to know where the man I love is, I watch the evening news, read the newspapers to see if he’s been arrested.”

“Man you love?”

“Goddamn you, Taylor! You should have called,” Cynthia insisted.

“Next time I will,” I promised.

“Next time? You intend to make a habit out of this?”

“‘Man I love.’ You said ‘the man I love.’”

“Don’t change the subject!”

We were at the corner of Cedar and Seventh, in the shadow of the Minnesota Public Radio building. I took Cynthia’s arm and turned her toward me.

“Am I the man you love?” I asked.

Suddenly I felt a sharp pain down low. It made me gasp. My first thought was that Cynthia had kneed me in the groin. “I don’t believe it,” I said aloud, the pain shooting up from my groin into my voice. I doubled over, covered my groin with my hands. They came away bloody. Cynthia was calling my name, hands on my shoulders, helping to lower me to the ground. It wasn’t hard. I was folding like an accordion. I stared at the blood on my hands. How unusual. I looked for the source. There was a hole in my thigh, about five inches down from my groin. Whew, that’s a relief. I was smiling. Cynthia’s face hovered over me. She lifted my head and slid her purse underneath. She was talking. I didn’t hear what she said; she was too far away. But her voice was calm and warm. I said something to her. Damn if I can remember what.…

R
EMEMBER THE
TV show
Emergency
, where all the paramedics talked like Jack Webb? Well, they do, you know. Just like him. In clipped, short sentences.

There were four of them. One was applying pressure to my wound, wrapping it with sterile gauze. Another was calling out vital signs: “Systolic one-twenty, weak and thready.” A third was setting up an IV, shoving a needle into my right arm. “Ringers lactate.” Something like that. The fourth was talking on a telephone, talking to his girlfriend, telling her something about a superficial femoral artery. Probably a new-wave rock band I don’t know. I couldn’t see their faces, they were miles away on all sides of me, except for the one sliding the needle into my arm. He was far away, too, but right above me.

“Do you know who you are?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“What’s your name? Do you know who you are?”

“I am Ra, the sun god, supreme deity of ancient worlds. So watch it.”

I laughed. See, I hadn’t known I was Ra. Up until that moment, I thought I was someone else. I closed my eyes and drifted off, confident that tomorrow morning I would rise in the east and live forever.

T
HERE WERE VOICES
all around me talking at once, maybe a thousand voices.

“How many units has he taken?”

“This is his third.”

“BP is ninety.”

“I have no pedal pulse.”

“What’s his blood pressure?”

“Ninety.”

“Weak popliteal.”

“What do you think?”

“We have to reestablish circulation.”

“Angiogram?”

“No, we’ll go right ahead and operate.”

“Where am I?”

“You’re in the emergency room at St. Paul Ramsey Medical Center.”

“Why don’t we just send him to room ten and let them evaluate up there?”

“He’s awake.”

“Might be best.”

“Do you know who you are?”

“Can you move your feet?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Move your leg for me.”

“Leg?”

“Are you allergic to penicillin?”

“Who should we notify?”

“Mom? Dad?”

“Let’s get him out of here.”

T
HEY WERE WAITING
for me in room ten, the emergency operating room located on the third floor of St. Paul Ramsey Medical Center—three surgery residents, a scrub nurse, circulating nurse, anesthesiologist, anesthetist nurse. The one in charge—a woman—said, “Put him on the table.” And they did. She said she wanted a chest X-ray and pictures of my leg, and they started arranging that. Then she said she wanted a second IV, and they put a needle into my other arm.

A resident started asking me the same questions as the guys in the ER. I wasn’t as lightheaded; whatever they were pumping into me was doing the trick, and I understood the questions and answered them as accurately as possible. I told him the lights were too bright, they hurt my eyes, but nobody did anything about them.

Someone was rattling off my vitals again; someone else was playing with my feet. “Wiggle your toes,” he said, and I did, but I couldn’t feel them. “Can you feel this?” he asked and poked my foot. I did, but it was like being stabbed with a Q-tip. He stood there, a needle in his hand, and told the boss, “No pedal pulse, the artery is blown.”

“No kidding, Dick Tracy,” said the woman as she examined my wound.

“Hey, that’s funny,” I said.

She ignored me.

“We’re going to have to repair the vessel,” she announced then told a nurse, “Tell the lab to draw blood for CBC, lytes, and type, and cross for four units of packed cells.” The nurse repeated the order just like she knew what the doctor was talking about.

“Hey? Hey Dick? Dick Tracy?”

The doctor bent over me, put a soft hand on my forehead, brushing the hair out of my eyes.

“Am I in trouble?”

She smiled. “Not anymore,” she said.

The anesthesiologist moved past her to the second IV, shot a syringe full of something into it. A few seconds later I was out.

I
OPENED MY
eyes. The room was dark. People were lying on beds on both sides of me. A steady
peep, peep, peep
echoed in my ears. A nurse was hovering close by, reading white numbers off a black TV monitor. I closed my eyes.

I
COULD SEE
only gray sky through my window. I tried to raise myself up to get a better view, but a flock of flashing red lights beat me down. I closed my eyes, wincing at the assault. When I opened them again, the sky had turned blue. A deep breath brought me the unmistakable scent of lilac—lilac, like the bushes that surrounded my home. I turned and found Anne Scalasi sitting in a chair, watching me. She smiled.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” I answered. My voice sounded funny, like I hadn’t heard it before.

“I can only stay a little while,” she said.

I nodded.

“Did you see who shot you?”

I shook my head.

“Cynthia?” I asked.

“She’s OK, she’s fine. They wouldn’t let her in ICU because she’s not family. My badge bought me fifteen minutes.”

I nodded some more. So tired. I closed my eyes. Ahh, yes. Lilac …

I
WAS IN
a room, alone except for two nurses. I was the one in bed. I licked my lips and said something about being thirsty. One of the nurses wet my lips with a cloth.