Craig Johnson - Kindness Goes Unpunished

“All right…”

“She has probably heard enough cop voices in her life.”

He flexed his neck and moved to the chair Lena had just vacated. I offered him the coffee, and he took a sip. He handed it back to me and noticed my new bandage. “You are hurt again?”

“Yep.”

He picked up the paper that Lena had left on the floor. “Would you like to tell me or should I just read about it in the newspaper?”

“Osgood’s dead, along with Shankar DuVall.” I raised my hands in innocence. “I didn’t kill either one of them.”

“That is good.”

I smiled with him and passed the coffee again. “I got another note…”

“I heard. What is your new theory?”

“I think the notes concern themselves with Indian statuary.” I pulled one of the books from my backpack and opened it to the photo of the Plains medicine man.

He took the book and cradled it in his hands, and somehow it became more important. His fingers traced down the page. “You think that the preoccupation of William White Eyes with all things Native extends to the art world?”

“Yep.”

He took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “I am relinquished of my duties at the Academy and can now assist you full time.”

I felt guilty about not having kept him company. “How was the reception? It seemed like a success.”

He continued to study the book. “It was.”

“How was your speech?”

“Brilliant.”

I took another sip of the communal coffee. “You’re sounding pedantic.”

He nodded and handed the book back to me. “I am now in cop mode.”

“You know…” He watched me as I watched Cady. “You may be going back to Wyoming alone.” He continued studying me as I slipped the book back in the pack.

“That is what you want?”

I shifted in the chair. “I just can’t keep you here while I wait for…” I could feel the heat rising in my face, so I took a few moments to swallow and let the warmth dissipate. “I don’t know when I’m going to be able to go home.”

He straightened in his own chair. “Maybe the wait will be shorter than you think.” He brought his large hands up and clapped the leather palms together like the report of a rifle with a voice that thundered from the high plains. “Cady!”

I spilled the coffee. The head nurse was standing, but she remained behind the desk; she was probably afraid that the Indian was on the warpath. I turned back toward him with my face set, but when my eyes rested on Cady, hers were open, and they were not staring at the ceiling but at us.

I felt myself rising from my chair and walking toward the bed, and her eyes followed me. I couldn’t breathe, and my vision was clouding with the pent emotion of what seemed like a lifetime. I had never seen eyes as beautiful as the ones I was looking into now.

I reached out and took her hand with my battered, finger-guarded paw. “How long have you known?”

He smiled and shook his head at my ignorance. “Just now.”

I was standing there looking at him when I thought I felt a mild pressure in my hand that a man without hope would have perceived as a reflex action. I turned and looked at Cady, and her eyes stayed steady with mine. I gently squeezed her hand in return and, once again, ever so gently, she squeezed back. I kneeled down by the bed, the tears stinging. “I see you. I see you, and I felt that just now…” I stayed with those eyes, staying with them just as sure as I held onto her hand. “Don’t you go away. Don’t you ever go away again.”

She didn’t nod or even move, but I knew she could hear me and understand. I squeezed her hand again, but she didn’t squeeze back this time, and that was okay. She was probably tired, and we had a long way to go.

It was Dr. Rissman’s day off. Another surgeon from the floor below said that it was a cognitive effect that denoted a reactive concept but not necessarily one of perceptivity. He started to give me the reactivity/perceptivity routine, but I refused delivery and told him “The Greatest Legal Mind of Our Time” was on its way back, so get ready.

The narrow rays of hope I’d been nurturing cracked across the ICU like the sound of Henry’s hands, and I sat at the side of Cady’s bed for the next hour and forty-three minutes until her eyes closed again.

They wanted to run more tests, and I was the thing that was holding them up. I didn’t want to let go and wanted to be there when her eyes opened again, but one of Henry’s thunderclap hands rested on my shoulder, and I felt the tug of home from two mountain ranges away.

I brushed the sleeve of my shirt across my face, smearing the residue of sentiment and careful to avoid the parts that were freshly stitched. I laughed.

“What is it?”

I tried stretching my shoulders without pulling at my beat-up, Raggedy Andy head. “I was just thinking that if my face was the first thing I saw when I came to, I might go back to sleep myself.”

I looked to see if she would respond when he dragged my hand away, but she didn’t. Like Sleeping Beauty, she was enchanted again, and all I could do was wait.

It was a beautiful day, and the warmth of the sun felt good on my back. Henry had picked the Vietnamese stir-fry place near the university for an early lunch, and the food was actually pretty good. The guy had almost dropped his spatula when the Indian ordered in Vietnamese. Since it was a Saturday and the students were otherwise engaged, we occupied one of the picnic tables; my two regular pigeons hopped over and stood beside my boots. I motioned with my plastic spork. “Mutt, Jeff, meet Henry Standing Bear.”

Henry nodded at the two freeloaders. “Ha-ho, Mutt and Jeff.” Mutt cocked his head at the baritone Cheyenne, but Jeff kept his beady eyes on my fried rice.

I looked toward the facade of Franklin Field and thought about what had happened today. I thought about the chain of violence and death that had been at least momentarily reversed. I thought about acts of kindness and acts of risk that were due a reward.

Henry ate his shrimp with rice and looked at me but didn’t say anything. He took a sip of his green tea and studied me with the steady, dark eyes. “What do you think they will find at the medicine man statue?”

I took a deep breath, and it seemed like my ribs didn’t hurt as badly. “Now that I’ve had time to think about it, nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“I think William White Eyes was going to be there.” I put my paper plate on the ground so that Mutt and Jeff could get a shot at some rice. “He’s not going to show for Philadelphia’s finest, but he will for us.”

He sat the cup down. “This is not over then, is it?”

“He saved Cady.” He didn’t reply. “You and I both know that if she hadn’t gotten medical attention as quickly as she did, she’d be dead.” It felt good having some idea of what I was going to do. “He exposed himself, not once, but a bunch of times to make sure that we were okay.” I used the finger guard to scratch at the stitches at my jaw. “That’s just not something I can walk away from.”

“Toy Diaz?”

“Has to be. The way I see it, Devon Conliffe tried to put pressure on Cady about the laundering scheme, but when she didn’t bite, he was going to turn state’s evidence on Osgood. Either Osgood or Diaz got antsy and decided to have Shankar DuVall toss Devon off the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, but then Billy Carlisle became a loose cannon, and everybody decided they couldn’t trust anybody.”

“You do not think that Shankar DuVall was there at the Academy to kill you?”

“No. It might have been what Diaz told Osgood, or what Osgood planned with him, but I think Diaz had decided that Assistant DA Vince ‘Oz’ Osgood was not the type to go down with the ship. Besides, DuVall told me himself that he hadn’t planned to kill me.” I sipped my iced tea. “Now, the only one left with any of the answers is Billy Carlisle, aka William White Eyes.”