Temporary Sanity (22 page)

There are a dozen empty chairs in this antiseptic square, but Harry drops into the one next to Geraldine’s and leans toward her over their shared armrest. “Is he awake?”

Harry’s been doing this to Geraldine-invading her personal space whenever possible-for the past month. He’s aspiring to greatness, he tells her, emulating her hand-selected protégé, Stanley.

Geraldine doesn’t think it’s funny. She growls at him like an annoyed German shepherd, then gets to her feet. “No, he’s not awake. But he was a couple of hours ago-for a few minutes.”

“Did he say anything?” Harry pats Geraldine’s vacant chair, inviting her to reclaim it.

She scowls at the invitation, directs her answer to me. “No, not a word. But he tried. He couldn’t get anything out. His throat is bad.”

Geraldine takes a pack of cigarettes from her jacket pocket and taps one out. I’m relieved, to say the least, when she doesn’t light it.

She twirls it around in her fingers instead. “His throat is sore from the tubes-or whatever the hell they put down there-during surgery. The poor guy’s dying of thirst. He kept reaching toward the water pitcher, but the nurse”-she points her unlit cigarette at us for emphasis-“and
she’s
a story for another day-anyway, she’d only give him ice chips.”

Geraldine waits for a reaction but neither of us has one.
“Ice chips,”
she repeats, as if we must not have heard.

Still, Harry and I are silent.

Geraldine shrugs, gives up on us. She puts the unlit cigarette between her lips, turns away, and starts pacing. “So he went back to sleep.”

At the wall she pivots to face us, cigarette in hand again. “I’d go to sleep, too,” she says, “if all the world could offer me was ice chips.” She points her cigarette at me, her expression suggesting she’s shifting gears. “The lab work,” she says. “It’s back.”

Harry straightens in his chair. I take a few steps toward Geraldine. “The blood?”

“All Sonia Baker’s,” she says.

Harry arches his eyebrows at me. This is good news.

I turn my attention back to Geraldine. “And the prints?”

She smiles. “All Sonia Baker’s.”

This news is not so good.

A sheet of white fills the small entry to the waiting area, and Geraldine lights up like a hundred-watt bulb. “Ah, Nurse Wilkes,” she says. “May I call you Annie?”

The large woman in white folds her arms beneath her substantial bosom and frowns. She’s apparently not a Stephen King fan. She points to her name tag: Alice Barrymore, RN.

“The judge is awake again,” she says in a full baritone. “But I’m not taking a crowd in there.”

Geraldine stares up at her newfound friend, who has a good six inches on her. “Crowd? What crowd?”

Nurse Wilkes keeps her eyes fixed on Geraldine but tips her gray bouffant toward Harry and me. Her undersized nurse’s cap doesn’t budge.

Geraldine looks over her shoulder at us as if she hadn’t realized we were in the room. “Oh, them.” She flicks one hand at the giant nurse, directing her out of the doorway. “They won’t say a word. They promise.”

For reasons I’ve never been able to articulate, people obey Geraldine. Annie Wilkes is no exception. She steps aside, then follows as Geraldine leads the way down the brightly lit corridor. Harry and I bring up the rear.

Annie takes charge again, though, when we reach the doorless entry to Judge Long’s cubicle. “Hold on now. Stop right there.” She issues her command to Geraldine’s back. And, surprisingly enough, Geraldine complies.

The nurse steps in front of her and blocks the entry to the cubicle. “Put it away,” she says.

“Put what away?” Geraldine looks around the corridor as if the nurse might be speaking to someone else. Her scowl says she already took one order; surely she can’t be expected to take another.

“That.” Nurse Wilkes points at the unlit cigarette.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Geraldine taps the butt into its pack and drops the pack in her pocket, shaking her head.

Annie Wilkes turns her back, then, her authority reestablished, and leads all three of us into Judge Long’s small compartment.

It’s high noon in here. Fluorescent tubes beam down from above, exaggerating the glow of silver equipment and white linens. Machines hiss and beep from every direction. A brightly lit monitor displays four lines of constantly changing graphics. And it must be eighty degrees. It’s hard to imagine anyone-even a postsurgical patient-sleeping here.

Judge Long lies perfectly still on his hospital bed, his head and shoulders somewhat elevated, a thin white blanket pulled up to his chest. Two IV bags drip from a pole at his bedside. One delivers blood to his left arm, the other a clear solution to his right. He turns his face toward us as we approach, his eyes open and pleading. He lifts his left hand just an inch, toward the opposite side of his bed, toward the water pitcher.

Nurse Wilkes stations herself between the bed and the bedside tray, blocking Judge Long’s view of the pitcher. “No water,” she says. “Not yet.” She takes a small paper cup from the tray and scoops a plastic spoonful of ice chips between her patient’s parched lips.

“The guy just wants a sip,” Geraldine argues. “He’s not asking for a goddamned martini.”

The nurse shakes her head.

“You’re an angel of mercy,” Geraldine tells her.

Annie Wilkes glares.

Geraldine turns her attention to the judge, all business. “Try,” she says. “Try to tell us what you know.”

Judge Long makes a guttural sound. It sounds like “Ndt.”

It’s Geraldine’s turn to shake her head. The nurse delivers more ice. And the judge tries again. This time it sounds like “Hndt.”

Harry moves to the head of the bed and squats, so his face is level with Judge Long’s, and the judge gives it another shot. It sounds no different to me, but it’s clear at once that Harry gets it. He nods at the judge, then turns toward Geraldine and me.

“Hand,” he says. “He saw a hand.”

Judge Long nods, then lifts his head an inch from the pillow. “Mnz.”

“A man’s hand,” Harry translates.

The judge nods again.

“White.”

We all got that.

With considerable effort, the judge raises one arm and presses his hand against his shoulder, forcing his upper body further down on the pillow. His assailant must have braced him from behind with one hand, stabbed with the other.

“Anything else?” Geraldine has her notebook open, pen poised, but so far there’s not much to write.

We all stare at Judge Long. “Tis,” he says.

“I always thought you were Irish,” Harry says. “Now I know for sure.”

A smile spreads across Judge Long’s lips. It’s faint, but it’s there. He points to the bottom of his bed, wiggles his foot.

“Shoes?” Harry asks. “You saw his shoes?”

The judge nods.

Geraldine clicks the pen, tucks it in her pocket, and rolls her green eyes to the ceiling. “So we’re looking for a white guy with shoes.”

“That narrows it down.” Harry grins at her. “And I’m glad to hear you’re looking.”

Geraldine smirks at him as if he’s an annoying child, but she knows he caught her. She slipped. She’s still holding Nicky Patterson in custody, but she doesn’t think he did it. And she just admitted as much to the firm representing him. A rare mistake on her part.

Harry’s beaming now. He turns back toward Judge Long, leans on the bed’s guardrail. “Attorney Schilling has Nicky Patterson in custody.”

The judge’s eyebrows arch.

“The deadbeat dad,” Harry tells him. “The guy who ordered the special at Zeke’s.”

Judge Long closes his eyes and frowns. He remembers.

“Attorney Schilling thinks he’s the perp,” Harry says.

The judge squints at Geraldine, shakes his head.

“At least that’s what she tells us,” Harry adds.

“Nicky Patterson was there,” Geraldine answers. “He’s a white male. And I’m pretty sure he was wearing shoes. I haven’t heard anything here tonight that rules him out.”

The judge shakes his head again, but I’m the only one who notices. Geraldine and Harry are facing off.

“Come on,” Harry says, “you don’t have anything to rule him in. And you know it.”

“Keep your voices down.” Annie Wilkes sets her paper cup of ice chips back on the tray and hurries around the bed. She intends to usher us out.

“Everything rules him in.” Geraldine hisses.

“Shut up. All of you.” The three of them turn my way.

Harry and Geraldine are surprised. Nurse Wilkes looks stunned. I don’t imagine she’s told to shut up very often.

Their eyes follow my index finger to Judge Long. He’s silent, but his eyes aren’t. He shakes his head at Geraldine, mouths “No.”

“Never argue with opposing counsel,” I tell Harry, “if the judge will do it for you.”

Late as it is when I get back to the cottage, I am unable to resist the allure of Mr. Justice Paxson. Once more, I center his words under my desk lamp, the only light on in the house. I flip ahead in the opinion, past the remaining evaluation of expert witnesses, and turn to his discussion of the defendant.

And in the near-darkness of my bedroom, I realize that this is precisely my concern. One truth about Buck Hammond is beyond debate. His misfortune is real, and if it carry him to commit a criminal act, this act is perfectly well motivated.

It’s not a dream, not a nightmare. I bolt upright, my heart racing. My adrenaline pump switches on, an instant cold sweat seeping from every pore in my body. I will my breath silent, my eyes open.

The darkness is complete but for the glowing red numbers of the alarm clock. It’s two A.M. And the noise-the one I thought I imagined in my sleep-it’s real.

Scratching. Something-or someone-is scratching, digging maybe. But not outside; it’s not a fox or a coyote. The sound is here. In this room.

I decide against the light, swing my legs out of bed, and grab the telephone from the nightstand. The scratching stops, though, abruptly, and I freeze. A split second later, something lands on my feet and I jump up. My heartbeat halts. The phone falls to the floor.

My attacker whimpers. It’s Charles. I forgot about him. He lifts a pudgy front paw and runs it down the shins of my red flannel pajamas until I pick him up. He licks my chin as I flip on the lamp. Dog breath.

It was after midnight by the time I got home. Luke had left the outside floodlight on for me, illuminating the back stairs and deck. And the aroma in the driveway told me the woodstove was still burning. Otherwise, though, the cottage was dark. Luke and Maggie were asleep. Half an hour later, I was too. Charles never crossed my mind.

I put the phone back in its spot on the nightstand and examine the leg of my headboard. Sure enough, little dog scratches at the base.

Charles’s tail wags against the inside of my arm when I scoop him up. He looks up at me hopefully, mouth open, long tongue hanging over one side again. He really does have dog breath. And he’s hungry.

Danny Boy snores in his bed, oblivious to his adopted son’s needs. Every mother hen deserves a helper, I believe, so Charles and I head for the kitchen. It’s been a long time since I’ve done a two A.M. feeding, but I remember the drill. Feed him till you’re wide awake, then he’ll fall sound asleep.

One heaping bowl of puppy chow later, Charles is tucked back in with Danny Boy and the cottage is quiet. I’m not, though. I’m on edge.

I stoke up the woodstove, then head upstairs to check on Luke. This is not something I normally do in the middle of the night. But tonight doesn’t feel normal. I crack open Luke’s bedroom door without making a sound and listen. He’s deep in the abyss of teenage slumber.

I head back down to the first floor, where Maggie’s steady breathing from the sofa bed tells me she’s out cold. I wish I were too. But I’m on edge, and the knot in my stomach is growing. It’s not every day that one happens upon a judge in his own chambers with a knife in his back. It’s the memory of finding Judge Leon Long that has me rattled, I tell myself as I climb back into bed. After all, it hasn’t even been twenty-four hours.

But that’s not it. I’m up again in an instant, circling my bedroom on cold feet. We’re missing something-all of us. That suspicion grows steadily into a near-certainty as I pace. It nags at me as I force myself to sit, to use my brain instead of my stomach. My brain is cluttered, though. Minutes pass while I struggle to sort out my thoughts. If I’m right-if we are missing something-I can’t name it.

And then I can.

My cold sweat begins again as I reach for the phone. Geraldine’s number is unlisted, but I’ve called her a thousand times in the past decade; I know it by heart. I punch it in and listen to the rings. She’ll be furious with me for waking her-and I’ll never hear the end of it-if she’s all right.

But I’m afraid she might not be.

The surgeon told Geraldine that Judge Long’s attacker was interrupted, prevented from finishing the job. If he’s right, then the assailant would have stabbed the judge again if he could have. Maybe again after that. Maybe eleven agains.

A parole officer and a judge in the same week. Both on their jobs about two decades. Coincidence perhaps. But if not, then revenge is at work here. And the prosecutor is almost certainly on the short list.