Marcia Muller - Locked In

The older man sighed. “You’re right, of course. We’ll give her the weekend to take it in, then allow the first visitors on Monday.”

“I’d rather they start coming right away.”

“The diagnosis is going to be a shock.”

“She’s aware it’s bad. All that time when she could hear and no one knew it. Besides, with Sharon, even knowing the worst is better than uncertainty.”

Ralph Saxnay said, “Well, you can attest to that better than I.” He got up from the desk and led Hy toward McCone’s room. “You go in first.”

It was an attractive room-he hadn’t paid attention to that before-with pale blue walls and matching blue upholstery on the visitors’ armchair near the high hospital bed. None of this backache-making plastic hospital-room stuff that he could swear was designed to drive family and friends away. Today the room was fragrant, filled with the flowers and plants from well-wishers that had arrived steadily since word got out that she’d been admitted here. The blinds were raised, giving a view of the silver-leafed eucalyptus grove, and the nursing staff had apparently completed their morning routine.

Shar was awake, propped against the pillows. He went to her, kissed lips that were moist with Chap Stick. Looked into her eyes.

She was blinking frantically.

Yeah, she knows something’s wrong. And she wants me to tell her what.

Saxnay had come up behind him. He seemed to intuit what was going on.

“I’ve come to talk with you about your CT scan results,” he began, moving to where Sharon could see him.

McCone blinked once.

“Frankly, they are not as good as we’d hoped. Now that we know you’re conscious and aware, we can put a name to your condition: locked-in syndrome.”

The doctor proceeded to explain: the same litany of symptoms and causes Hy had been given: awareness, ability to reason, to feel emotion and touch. Saxnay didn’t downplay the seriousness of the prognosis, and throughout his speech, McCone’s gaze remained fixed and unblinking on the doctor’s.

“I don’t mean to say your condition is hopeless,” Saxnay concluded. “Patients have made partial recoveries. Much depends on you-your spirit, your determination. And, of course, you have friends and family to rally round you. That means a lot.” He paused. “Have I explained clearly enough for now?”

McCone blinked once.

“Then I’ll leave you two alone.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Hy said, and pulled the upholstered chair close to the bed.

A single tear slipped down his wife’s right cheek. Gently he wiped it away, then did the same with one that appeared on her left cheek. He touched her arm, wished he could take her hand, but it was under the covers, stuck with an IV.

“This isn’t as bad as he made it sound,” he said.

No blink or eye movement.

“We’ll get through it.”

No response.

“Doctors don’t know everything.”

Eye movement-questioning the statement, he thought.

“Would you like me to go? Be alone for a while?”

Two blinks.

“Then I’ll stay and tell you what the folks at the agency are doing to ID whoever did this to you.”

A vegetable. A fucking vegetable.

I remember when I was younger, laughing at people with disabilities, the horrible words we used: feeb, spaz, veg.

Well, join the club. For the rest of your life, somebody somewhere’ll be laughing at you.

Tears slipped down my cheeks again. God, I hadn’t cried this much in my life!

Actually, what I felt like when the doctor was talking to me was a lab rat in a cage. Saxnay seemed like a good surgeon, but in my case he didn’t have much to work with and he knew it.

A lab rat. No, that wasn’t right. Lab rats could move, make sounds, eat on their own. I was more like a mummy. I liked that term better than the veg word.

The effort the agency people were putting into my case touched me, though. At least I was a cherished mummy. Hy said they’d be coming by and starting to report to me tomorrow; relatives would arrive, too.

Ma… At first I’d thought, Jesus Christ, not Ma on the first day! But Hy had said he’d arrange for the RI jet to pick her up in San Diego tomorrow afternoon; he’d take her to dinner and put her up at an expensive boutique hotel downtown that she liked. The former Katie McCone had become used to her creature comforts since she’d remarried and become Kay Hunt, but she still had a good heart and I loved her. It was just the drama I couldn’t take.

Rae and Ricky, John, Charlene and Vic. Mick, Ted, Julia, Craig, Adah. And everybody else. God I missed them!

I’m starting to look forward to something…

This case. That was what I was particularly looking forward to. Hearing the details of how they’d go about finding the bastard who’d altered my life-maybe irrevocably.

But could they do it without me? I thought about that for a while. Something light rose in my chest, like a shiny bubble, and I would have smiled if that had been possible.

You’ve heard of an armchair detective, folks? How about a locked-in investigator?

She took the exit from the Bay Bridge and drove toward the pier, fussing over whether she’d done the right thing to leave the money in the Peepleses’ safe and agree not to report it to the authorities. Wished she could ask Shar about it. Of course Shar-who claimed to be a by-the-book investigator-probably would’ve said it was wrong. But then Shar’s own actions didn’t always follow what the book said.

She’d left the vineyard early, leaving a thank-you note and creeping out into the predawn light before the Peepleses stirred. She didn’t want to explain her injury or tell them that someone-maybe their missing son-had been sneaking around the stables, probably trying to retrieve the cash; the news would only increase their anguish, and Julia doubted the person would return.

Her nose hurt and she had a bloody scab, partially concealed by makeup. She wouldn’t be surprised if her eyes were blackened within a few hours. She’d taken punches to the nose before, and that was the inevitable result.

Julia parked in her slot on the pier’s floor and hurried up the stairs to the catwalk. Half an hour late for the staff meeting, and she felt like shit. She rushed into the conference room. Stopped. Where was everybody?

Back down the catwalk to Ted’s office. He and Patrick Neilan were there, Ted sitting in his chair, Patrick perched on a corner of the desk. Ted’s bright red Western-style shirt-the latest of his ever-changing fashion statements-contrasted sharply with Patrick’s goth black.

“Is the meeting over?” she asked.

“Never got started,” Patrick said. “Adah and Derek and Thelia showed, but none of the folks who are actively working the case. Hy-who requested the meeting-was on time, but left when we realized it wasn’t going to happen.”

“Craig wasn’t home when Adah got there last night,” Ted added, “and there’s been no word from him. Mick’s cellular is out of service range. Ricky said Rae went out in a hurry around ten. What the hell happened to you?”

“Hostile encounter with a grape stake.” She explained about her visit to the Peepleses. “Did I do right, leaving the money there?”

Patrick shrugged, running a hand through his spiky red hair.

Ted said, “It’s what Shar would’ve done.”

“So what do we do now?” she asked.

“Other than you icing your face? I’ll keep calling around,” Ted told her. “Maybe I can gather the troops this afternoon. In the meantime, Shar’s entertaining visitors.”