T. Parker: Red Light

Blood loss considerable, transfusions continuing, platelet and white cell levels below normal but rising.

Patient condition: fair.

Elapsed hospital time: four days and counting.

Afternoon, Christmas Day.

“O’Brien’s dead,” said Zamorra. His dark face wavered in and out of focus at the end of a cave. “You hit him three times — one in the an two in the chest.”

“Wasted one,” she heard herself croak. Her throat burned and no amount of water seemed to bring any moisture to it. “Janine?”

“Let’s talk about that later.”

“The porch bulb and the fixture from Whittaker’s are in my trunk.”

“I’ll get them.”

“The suicide note. Get a copy from San Bernardino sheriffs, and get it back to me. Soon.”

“Done. Merry Christmas.”

“I’m sleepy.”

“Rest.”

“Get Brenkus.”

That night came Clayton Brenkus, white-haired and stately. He sat. He questioned. His pen rolled across the paper in short bursts.

“He confessed?”

“Whittaker. The phone recorder. Planting evidence. His father killed Patti Bailey for his alleged friends. They betrayed him with it. Evan wanted restitution.”

A long silence, a burst of pen on paper. “Last words are evidentiary and admissible.”

“Get Mike out, now!”

“For starters, yes. An appropriate Christmas present. Imagine the lawsuit we’ll be up against.”

“Imagine.”

Pen on paper. Walls melting. Darkness filling in.

“I’m sleepy.”

“Get some rest.”

Morning.

“... misses you all the time. So he lurches around your room trying to figure out where you are and I keep telling him but you know how that goes. He’s eating tons, though, and sleeping a lot, so he’s fine. When you get home we’re going to spoil the heck out of you, we’ll be your patient recovery team. Now look, try some more of these eggs. You’ve got to get your strength back or they’ll never let you out of this place. You are needed at home, young lady. That’s a direct order from Tim.”

Clark leaning forward with a pile of yellow goop on a spoon, a pitying smile on his face.

“Kiss him for me.”

“I have been. Gary Brice from the Journal has left twelve messages. I’ve talked to him three times. He said he’s ready to collect payment for not running the articles on you and Mike. He said you’d know what he’s talking about.”

“I’m sleepy.”

“Rest, honey.”

Evening.

Brighton, tall and ancient, stood in the doorway with a bouquet.

“We’re springing Mike soon.”

“Um-hm.”

“Gilliam and his people are going over everything O’Brien did the last week. All the evidence he handled, lost, tampered with, planted. Everything.”

“Lots.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I’m sleepy.”

“Get some rest.”

He turned and walked away, then came back in, still holding the flowers. He set them on the floor because the little nightstand was already full of them.

Late night. Out the window she could see car lights creeping up and down Interstate 5, the gay domes of a theater complex in the distance. Rain rolled down the glass and smeared it all.

Merci walked around the floor, still tethered to the drip trolley, her right leg aching, her rib aching, her butt burning where the grafts had been taken. A nurse walked along beside her, talking about her children.

Gary Brice was waiting outside her room when she returned. “Merci,” he said. “You look great for six days in two hospitals.”

“I can’t talk now, Gary.”

“I know. I just want you to know that when you’re ready, I am. You promised me the truth.”

“You’ll get it.”

“O’Brien framed Mike, didn’t he?”

“It’s a long story. Later.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Exclusive?”

“All the way.”

Zamorra came very late, shut the door and sat down by the window. In the harsh hospital light his eyes looked black and his skin looked gray. He was dressed in a dark suit as always, his white shirt collar pressed and his tie neatly knotted. The only thing his neatness did was reveal the exhaustion in his face.

“Janine,” said Merci.

Zamorra nodded. “Let’s just sit here a minute.”

The minute seemed like an hour. It might have been. Merci opened her eyes, felt her head lagging to the side. The rain came down hard outside the window but she couldn’t hear it over the hum of the heater, the muffled buzz of the hospital around her.

“What happened, Paul?”

“She went into a grand mal seizure Friday morning around eight. Not long after you told me you were going out to Jim O’Brien’s house with Evan. She died at nine forty-three.”

Zamorra turned his eyes from her and looked out the window, brow furrowed and his breath caught in his throat.

“That’s why I... couldn’t make it. I called the San Bernardino sheriffs with the address, told them there might be a deputy in trouble. Later, I realized that O’Brien might have given you the wrong address. So I got personnel here to dig out Jim O’Brien’s address, called it in. By then, well, you were down and bleeding half to death. And your partner was just one building from where he is now.”

“Paul.”

His profile was clear against the black window but he still didn’t look at her.

A nurse came in, checked the IV drip and the monitor, asked Merci if she wanted a pain med. Merci said no. The idea hit her that Zamorra needed it more than she did, but what drug on earth could repair a broken heart?

They sat for a while in the hourless time of the hospital.

“She had a nice voice,” he said finally. “She sang to me sometimes. Broadway stuff, with lots of dramatics. Funny.”

“What are you going to do, Paul?”

“The San Diego guys want me down there. Get a place with a little acreage, maybe.”

“I mean now. Tonight.”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

“Promise me.”

He turned her way. “If I was going to do that, I wouldn’t be here right now. I’d crawl away and do it, like an old cat.”

“Remember about the broken places healing up stronger than before.”

“I know.”

“You’re young. Everything’s going to change. Then change again.”

Merci listened to the voices in the hall, the drone of the heater.

“I let you down, and I’m sorry,” he said.

“I’ll tell you something, Paul. I let my partner down once. It got him killed. There’s nothing in the world that feels worse. I know that. You wish you could trade places, but you can’t. And you won’t forgive yourself for a long time. But you have to. We have to. It’s the only way to keep going.”

He looked at her. “You haven’t? Yet?”

“I play it over all the time. This way and that. Try to change what I did, what I thought, what I believed. It can’t be done. But look at me. I’m here. I made it. I’m alive. You don’t have my life on your hands. So grieve for Janine. Grieve for yourself. But not for me. For whatever it’s worth, Paul, I forgive you. Get over it. Go on.”

And with those words she felt something break inside her, peel away and sink out of sight. Black water closed over it then a halo of ripple wobbled outward. She knew that Hess would have said the same to her. He would have forgiven her. He would have told her that the first person to forgive is not your enemy but yourself, that only the fool extends his suffering.

In that moment she loved Hess again, and she loved Paul Zamorra and she loved Mike McNally and she even loved herself. For the first time in many months she believed she would be all right.

In the eye of her mind the last black ripple was gone now and something that could have been moonlight shone on the water.