Pursuit (33 page)

Todd smiled at Julie's nonstop jabbering. He handed her a plastic slide card with “Marriott” across the front. “I got you a room while I was waiting. It's just down the street, walking distance. See you.”

“Thanks, Big Man. See you in a couple.”

The night sky held a vast accumulation of streaked clouds, their wispy tails drifting west, smudging the greyish-yellow panorama. Julie watched Todd jog toward the patrol car. She breathed deep, lung-filling breaths, feeling better than she had in weeks.

Julie smiled as she opened the door for a nurse who pushed a wheelchair for a man wearing a crushed hat and cradling a heavily bandaged left arm. She wished him good evening and good luck.

Julie went back and hung out in the expansive waiting room of the hospital along with other folks in varying degrees of concern. Julie read, walked, and read again.

She visited Cheryl twice, once during visiting hours, the next time under bombardment from various nurses, orderlies, and security. The local police provided their own watch, and Cheryl had been moved to a private room.

An elderly woman whom Julie had seen earlier speaking to one of the ER nurses approached her. “Hello, dear. Don't mean to be a pest, but I noticed you speaking to one of the police officers during the dinner hour and thought maybe you could help me.” She was squat, stuffed into old, baggy bib overalls.

Julie thought the elderly woman was sweet. “I'll do what I can. What is it?”

“I been here most of the day.” She plopped herself
down on a well-used sofa. “Except for the occasional stroll down the street to stuff my face with a Big Mac. Aren't they nasty?” she marveled. “To get to the point, I've inquired several times about the young heifer I brung here early this morning, and the cop on duty along the hallway there”—she pointed toward the ER hall—“won't tell me diddly.” She grinned.

Julie moved closer in her seat. “Let me see if I understand you—miss?” She tipped her head at the older woman.

“That would be Gran, or some call me Granny Gault; comes from a long line of Scottish men. Means a wild boar or such.”

“Miss Gault, you brought in your—what?” Julie smiled. “Daughter, friend, relative? Help me out here.”

“Are you a police person? You sound like it.”

“Yes I am, and you?” Julie liked this woman; she seemed forthright and honest.

The old woman chuckled, putting her finger to her lips as if to tell a secret. “I'm basically just an old fart. I keep chickens and tend a couple hogs, got fruit trees and a scrabble of vegetables sprouting up. Rely mostly on my pension and spend my hours thinking about my buddy of sixty-five years, Pud Gault. But to get to it, I brought in a kid hoofing it down this old country road.”

Julie took in her breath. “I was told a deputy sheriff brought in my daughter.”

“Lord A'mighty, you that child's ma?”

“Excuse me, please,” Julie answered, nodding, the tears starting. “Tell me what happened.”

“Was making my daily trip to Ed's Eats and Stuff.” She rubbed her temples and cracked her swollen knuckles. “Kind of a restaurant cafe, half-assed market.” She cleared
her throat. “I take a couple dozen fresh eggs to Ed every morning, about seven o'clock. I see this youngster traipsing along, and she looks flummoxed. I stop, she gets in, goes on about a dog and how her ma's gonna be pissed and something about a basement and Aunt Willy, and I'm thinking this kid is wet in the pants, and her blouse's damp, and she's going on and on like she just might be plain ill. I called Rawlins at the sheriff's, and he sirened us all the way into Jeff City to this get-sick place.”

“Can I tell you something, Miss Gault?”

“It's ‘Missus,' if you don't mind.”

“You are a treasure, and Cheryl, my daughter, will repeat this—thank you, thank you so very much. She is, by the way, going to be fine. She'll recover.”

The two of them talked for another half hour, the elderly woman promising to show Julie where she picked up Cheryl. They agreed to get together at ten o'clock the next morning at Ed's in Osage City.

Charles sat in his Nomad for nearly an hour, contemplating his next steps. What a shock when the nurse wheeled him out of the hospital and his new best friend held the door for him. How sweet, after enjoying two weeks of her daughter's company to be wished “good luck” by Mama Worth.

He watched the front entrance of the hospital until he saw the sergeant's telltale stride. She had a way of walking that would put most men to shame. He considered following but thought better of it when he saw her rest her hand on her hip. It wasn't a relaxed gesture but a comforting one that suggested an automatic pistol lived under her jacket and within easy reach.

Charles made his way back into the hospital at one
thirty in the morning. He wandered to the nurse's station, checking names on the patient board.

“Can I help you?” inquired an orderly.

“I'm looking for my cousin.” He flashed a winning grin. “She was in an accident.”

“Try the emergency area, buddy.” He did. Charles trailed through several rooms, eyeing lumps of humanity spread out on elevated iron beds. Oxygen hissed, and tubes and wires formed nests of get-well apparatus. He came upon one young thing who lay moaning, her face and arms battered, her hair twisted into a scrambled knot, the oxygen mask distorting her features.
It could be her
, he thought. He ran his hand along her battered arm.

“What are you doing in here?” A nurse stood in the curtained entry.

“Oh, hi, I'm looking for my cousin. We were in an accident.” He made a shrugging gesture with his left arm.

“Well, you can't be in here.” She held the plastic curtain wide for his exit.

“Could you tell me the person's name in there?”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

She took his good arm and marched him toward the hospital exit. “I saw you here earlier; you had your arm stitched. A fall, wasn't it? And now you're here feeling up some kid.”

“I'm injured, bitch.” He tried to pull away. “What are you doing?”

She didn't answer but continued to guide him down the hall. At the wide double doors, she gave him a slight push. “If I see you back here, I'll call security. Nighty-night.”

Charles thought he'd pay that particular woman a visit sometime later; get to know her a little better.

It was after one in the morning when Julie made her way to the Marriott. On her hotel room dresser, her go bag and a “Yea for our side” note from Todd. She fell exhausted on the bed, clothes and all. In the morning, she took a quick shower and returned back to the hospital. They transferred Cheryl to the third floor where Julie acquainted herself with the day-shift nurses. She approached Cheryl's room with care, knowing that her girl wouldn't be in shape for too much excitement. She neared the bed and noticed the oxygen mask removed. Julie looked down at her daughter's swollen face. She reached for her hand, and when she touched her, Cheryl's darkened eyes popped open.

“Cheryl, it's Mom.”

The girl's eyes searched the room, stopping on her mother. “Hi, Ma.” Her speech, slurred and soft. “Where you been?”

Julie leaned over and put her arms around her girl, feeling her daughter's strong heartbeat. Cheryl's eyelids fluttered and closed, a smile crept onto her dry lips. Behind Julie, footsteps.

“Sergeant? Dr. Ryan would like to see you.” The woman in white led Julie back down the hallway to the nurse's station.

“Hope you don't mind, Sergeant. I was told you were here and wanted a word with you.” The doctor gestured for Julie to follow him. They sat in a waiting room off the hall. “I would like to propose a plan that might help in your daughter's recovery.” He glanced down at his chart.
“Cheryl has been through some sort of traumatic experience. Our impulse as parents is to cover our baby with love and questions and more love, etcetera. I would like to suggest a cooling-off period—no pun intended, of course.” His face didn't change; he simply moved on. “Many times in these situations, the patient is inundated with questions about events that transpired, and in their attempt to be helpful, they have what might be termed a relapse. Might I institute the following?”

“Yes, of course, continue.”

“An easy, nonquestioning recovery in the neighborhood of several days. Mom and Dad's gentle comfort without any ‘Let's try and do better next time, sweetheart' accusations or ‘Listen to your parents.' None of that kind of thing, okay?”

Julie started her trusty ten count, knowing she'd never get further than five. “Dr. Ryan, thank you for the advice. I'll take it into consideration—all except, of course, there isn't any daddy in Cheryl's life. And as far as ‘accusations,' what did you have in mind?”

“Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot the story about the—abduction, was it?”

“Yes, there was an abduction.” Julie wondered where this was going. “I believe I mentioned that last night.”

“Well, all right then, Officer. Sometimes these tales are what keep us together as families, aren't they? We allow our loved ones their peccadilloes to cement and create a cohesiveness that in the end is a compromise but one that is harmless and maybe helps to end an abusive relationship.”

Julie hadn't a clue what this jackass doctor was talking about. “I'll take your advice about going slowly; seems reasonable. But, and this is just between you and me—”

“Of course, always.”

“Do not—I repeat, do not—spread any of your misguided bullshit to my daughter. Clear?”

“Your manner is—”

“Possibly you didn't bother to check with the policeman on duty outside my daughter's room, sir. If you had, you would have been told there is a mad motherfucker out there who kept my kid captive for two weeks, and as yet we don't know what was done to her. She is not a victim of an abusive relationship, nor does she even have a boyfriend. This fucking clown murdered my best friend during the abduction of my daughter. Your advice on relationships would be pertinent only if the diagnosis fit her circumstances. Asshole.” Julie stomped out of the waiting room, not wanting to be late for her ten o'clock meeting with Granny Gault.

Todd deposited himself in the lobby of the hospital. “Morning. How's our favorite teenager this fine day?”

Julie pulled herself together after her tête-a-tête with righteous Ryan the great philosopher. “Hello Todd-O, Cheryl's fine. Spoke a couple barely audible words to me.” Julie tried to relive the moment. “Asked me where
I'd
been. Jesus, can you imagine?”

“That's funny, but she's okay for now?”

Julie caught herself drifting off, her mind back on a certain surgeon whom she thought should heal himself. “Yeah. Can we get out of here for a while? I've got an appointment in twenty minutes, do you mind?”

Julie cranked up the car's GPS and instructed Todd on the twelve miles to Osage City. They made their way through the outskirts of Jefferson and Hickory Hill.