Practice to Deceive (19 page)

She smiled and held up three fingers.

“But who would have motive to kill us both?” I asked. “Who is your primary suspect?”

“Who is always our primary suspect?”

“The spouse. Amanda Field.”

Anne grinned. “We always kill the ones we love.”

“She had motive to kill Levering. He was cheating on her. But why hire someone to kill me? What did I do?”

“Gee, Taylor, I don’t know. Think maybe you might have done something to piss her off?”

I closed my eyes, rubbed my face, refused to answer.

“‘O what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!’”

I tried to ignore the remark and changed the subject. “When he killed Field, Zilar picked up two hundred and eighty-seven thousand untraceable dollars. You have that kind of money, would you hang around for a couple of days to shoot someone else for ten thousand more?”

“No,” Anne admitted.

“He did.”

“Yikes.”

“Don’t you just hate conscientious hitmen?”

T
OMMY
S
ANDS, NO
relation to the singer, was tall. He had to lower his head when he walked into my hospital room to avoid bumping the top of the doorframe. And he was wide. You could play handball against him. Yet he had the softest hands I’ve ever felt. He wrapped one around each ankle, pulling my legs gently apart and pushing them in again.

The way Tommy explained it, the bullet caused only minor damage to my quadricep muscles, the muscles that lift the leg. Most of the damage was done to my adductors, the muscles that bring the legs together—but not so much that reconstruction was necessary. After scar tissue formed on the muscle where the bullet went through, it should heal up and be as good as new. But it was going to take a while.

“The body heals in its own time, and if the mind wants to argue, it’ll act like a pissed off auto mechanic,” Tommy said. “The body will find a few extra problems. Understand? It’ll take every day of six weeks. If you push it, it’ll take longer.”

I didn’t want to hear that, but I took his word for it.

We started with range-of-motion exercises. First Tommy put me in the correct anatomical position—flat on my back, arms straight out, palms up; legs straight, toes pointed—just the way da Vinci drew it. Then he slipped a folded towel under my knee and told me to bring the knee gently to my chest.

“Not all the way,” he cautioned. “We’ll start with about seventy-five degrees. If it’s too painful, stop.”

Next, he helped me bring my leg out to the side, about twenty degrees. He slipped a bread board underneath it to lessen resistance, but he claimed a large garbage bag would do as well. I winced at the movement.

“Where does it hurt?” he asked.

“Where I was shot, where do you think?” I answered.

We worked like that for an hour.

The next day, too.

I wondered when he thought I would be ready for outpatient therapy.

“Funny you should ask,” he said, taking a typed sheet from his clipboard. “I’ve prepared a schedule—the exercises you should do, when you should do them.”

I read the list carefully. It began with straight leg raises and terminal knee extensions the first week, then graduated to adductor exercises against resistance in weeks two and three.

“You should be walking without crutches by week four,” Tommy told me. “Maybe sooner.”

“A
M
I
RESPONSIBLE
for this?” my father asked me.

“What do you want me to tell you, Dad?” I replied.

“Tell me the truth.”

“Yeah, you’re responsible. Indirectly, anyway. But no more so than any client who’s ever put me in harm’s way. I take the money, I take the risks. I’m not bitter if that’s what you’re asking.”

“But I’m not paying you,” he reminded me.

“Let me rephrase what I said about being bitter.”

“I still feel responsible,” Dad confessed. “Your mom sure as hell blames me for getting her little boy shot.”

“As well she should,” I said and smiled. It was nice of him to take the trouble to fly up and visit me. My brother and sister-in-law had neglected to make an appearance, and they lived only across town.

“Well, at least it’s over.”

“Not exactly,” I told him, then explained about Michael Zilar and the fact that he was probably still out there. And then there was whoever had hired ol’ Mike in the first place. You couldn’t let people get away with such things, I told him. It was bad for business.

“What have I started?” Dad asked, sorrow in his voice. I admit I liked seeing him that way. For too long I’ve thought of him standing on a pedestal, carved from marble.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“At least come home with me.”

“I am home.”

“I mean to Florida, to Fort Myers.”

“No, this is my ground. I’ll have a better chance here. I won’t see him coming in Florida.”

“You think he’d follow you to Florida?”

“I know nothing about the man except that he likes to finish what he starts.”

Dad began to pace, his hands clasped behind his back, his head down.

“Besides,” I told him as he walked back and forth at the foot of my bed, “I haven’t gotten Mrs. Gustafson’s money back yet.”

Dad stopped at the window and looked through the blinds. “I haven’t told her about any of this,” he said.

“No reason why you should.”

He was silent for a few moments, then told me, “Your brother said he was sorry he couldn’t come. He was busy.”

“Screw him,” I announced. He didn’t visit the last time I was in the hospital, either.

Dad continued to stare out the window. After a few moments he said softly, “My sons, so different,” like he was speaking to himself. “Your brother was the best student, the best athlete—never in trouble. But he was always so needy. Always needed help and advice, always needed someone to tell him what to do. I worried about him all the time.

“You, on the other hand, you were always in trouble for one prank or another, like putting the assistant principal’s Volkswagen on the school roof; I still don’t know how you managed that. And your grades—A’s if you cared, C’s if you didn’t, and mostly you didn’t. But you never asked for help. Not even for a ride to hockey practice or to your job at the car wash. You always took care of yourself. And that’s why I never worried about you. That’s why I never had long talks with you like I did with your brother. Why I didn’t say anything when you quit college to become a cop and your mom went bananas. I figured you would be all right.

“Even now,” he added, “your brother is safe in his big, beautiful house, with a nice job and a thick bank account and a caring wife while you’re in a hospital with a bullet hole in your leg, telling me that a paid assassin is hunting you. Yet I’m more worried about him than I am for you. Why is that?”

“I don’t know,” I told him, without adding that I’d always been jealous of the attention he showered on my brother.

He didn’t say anything for a while, just continued to stare out my window. Finally he said, “I don’t think I ever told you how much I love you.”

“Sure you have,” I said, although if pressed for times and dates I doubt I could supply them.

“I do, you know,” he added, still looking out the window, a catch in his voice.

“Let it go, Dad,” I said, interrupting him. I decided I liked him up on that pedestal after all.

He took a deep breath and moved away from the window. “I met your girl,” he said. “Spent time with her in the cafeteria while you were getting your therapy.”

“Cynthia? What do you think.”

“Beautiful.”

“She is that.”

“Smart, tough. Very confident.”

“That, too.”

“She’s the kind of woman I would have been involved with—except they didn’t make them like that when I was young. At least not many.”

“Do me a favor. Tell Mom that.”

He looked shocked. “Are you crazy?” he asked.

L
OOKING AT
F
REDDIE
’
S
large, bulky winter coat I observed that it must be pretty cold outside.

“Nah,” he said. “It’s more like lukewarm.”

Then he handed me a Summit Pale Ale, easily hidden in the right pocket of the coat. He took another from the left pocket.

“This is strictly forbidden,” I reminded him, twisting the top off the bottle.

“Yeah, I know,” Freddie said. “The nurses find out, they might throw me out of here—and you know how much I like visiting folks in hospitals.”

Actually, I didn’t know. The only conversation of any length we ever had took place the day before he saved my life. “Considerate of you to come,” I said.

“I was in the neighborhood,” he told me, taking a swig of the golden liquid.

“Damn considerate, anyway,” I said, and he shrugged.

I was amazed to see him, couldn’t figure why he was there until he announced, “I hear the cops are lookin’ for a guy named Zilar, Michael Zilar.”

“I hope they’re looking for him,” I agreed.

“I hear he’s some kinda buddy of this Storey guy I popped in Rice Park.”

“You have good sources,” I told him.

“So, you think he’ll come after me next, lookin’ for payback?”

I was disappointed that Freddie had only come to the hospital seeking information, that he was only looking out for himself. Although I couldn’t tell you why. All things considered, his behavior seemed entirely reasonable.

“I honest-to-God don’t know, Freddie,” I answered him. “All I know is, the bullet that clipped me came from the same gun that killed Levering Field.”

“Yeah, that’s what I heard, too” he said and drained his ale. “Sounds like a real mystery,” he added, setting the bottle on the table next to my bed. “Let me know how it turns out.”

He then pulled a third bottle of Summit from his pocket, handed it to me, and left the room without a backward glance.

“I
WANT OUT
.”

“What’s the matter?” Stephanie Sampsell asked. “Don’t you like the beer we serve here?”

“I want out,” I repeated, not even pretending that I hadn’t violated hospital regulations.

“I want you to stay another day.”

“I want to thank you for your kindness and concern.”

She sighed and started scribbling on my chart. “Taylor, you’re an arrogant sonuvabitch, and I hope not to see you again.”

“Is that what you’re writing?”

“Take this to the nursing station, and they’ll complete your discharge.”

I took the paper from her hand. She moved toward the door.

“Hey,” I said, swinging my legs over the side of the bed, rising to the occasion. She turned back, and I offered my hand.

“Thank you, Doctor,” I said.

“Do you realize that this is the first time you’ve called me ‘doctor’?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

She smiled, took my hand. “Take care of yourself, cowboy.”

“You too … Sam.”

She was chuckling when she left the room.

I
TOOK A
good look at the wound while the nurse changed the bandage for the last time. Then I looked away.

“Not too bad,” she said.

“No, not bad at all,” I agreed, still looking away.

Cynthia and Anne watched the process with intense curiosity. When the nurse left, Anne gave me a sheaf of papers. “Sign these,” she said.

“What am I signing?” I asked as I wrote my name on the forms.

“A confession.”

“I didn’t think I’d get away with the Lindbergh thing forever.” I handed her the papers. Anne dug into the huge bag she called a purse and withdrew my Beretta 9mm parabellum, the official sidearm of the United States armed forces and law enforcement agencies throughout the country. She handed it to me.

“Careful, it’s loaded,” she warned me.

I choked a round into the chamber. Cynthia withdrew to the window and looked out.

“The assistant county attorney still wants to speak with you,” Anne told me. “He’s subpoenaed your bank records, phone records.…”

“He tried for a search warrant for both your office and home,” Cynthia added. “Judge turned him down. The ACA couldn’t adequately explain what he was looking for, and the judge wouldn’t approve a fishing expedition. But he’ll probably try again.”

“Why?”

“He still considers you a suspect,” Anne said.

“For shooting myself?”

“Stranger things have happened.”

“I know, but still …”

“He ordered me not to cooperate with you in any way,” Anne said. “He told me that considering our past relationship, it would be a felicitous if I withdrew from the investigation and let McGaney and Casper work it.”

“‘Felicitous’?” Cynthia asked from the window. A moment later she was writing down the word on the back of an envelope.

“He ordered you?” I asked, not believing it.

“Let’s just say he strongly suggested it,” Anne said. “And he was right to do so.”

“So what are you telling me?”

“Good luck,” Anne said.

TWELVE