Andrew Gross - Eyes Wide Open

Zorn. There couldn’t be any doubt. He was the cop who’d been looking for Evan.

And now he was dead.

He had been stabbed in his home during the night. In Santa Maria, fifteen miles down the coast. A neighbor had called the cops after hearing a scuffle. There were no immediate suspects. He hadn’t seen the perpetrator.

Something truly horrifying took shape in my mind:

Zorn had just been murdered, and Evan had died suspiciously the week before. They’d been in contact with each other.

Could their deaths be connected?

Then, my whole body crashing to a stop: What if my nephew didn’t kill himself after all?

I dressed, finished packing in a daze, my hands and chest tingling with something I couldn’t figure out.

I had a plane to catch.

I zipped my bag and headed for the door. Suddenly I heard the lead-in for a different story:

“Could a tragic local suicide possibly have been prevented? News Eight’s Rosalyn Rodriguez reports on this disturbing case when we come back in a minute.”

Evan’s.

The report came on and it was mostly fair, bouncing back and forth between Evan’s psychological issues and the suggestion that the hospital might have wrongly sped him through the system. They showed Gabby, a mother’s heartbreak etched in her face, and then flashed to me: “ The police seemed to have just washed their hands of it…”

I didn’t remember even saying that, but there I was…

They also managed to get a statement from a Dr. Vargas, the medical center’s chief of staff, who supposedly had been away.

But there he was. “We delivered a full report of Evan’s stay in the hospital to the family today. There are guidelines for privacy and disclosure we have to abide by, and despite this tragic ending, we feel the state-sponsored home he was assigned to, as well as his treatment here, met all established benchmarks of professionalism and care. The hearts of everyone here go out to the family.”

Established benchmarks of professionalism and care, my ass!

I hurried downstairs and threw my bags in my car. I paid the bill, said good-bye to the Cliffside Suites, and headed up to the freeway.

I had five hours to my flight. I should be at LAX in three, with time to spare. I pulled onto the freeway south, my gut still throbbing with something I couldn’t put aside.

Evan. Zorn.

I told myself I had to put it behind me now. What could I do? What did Charlie even want me to do? Evan had climbed up there in the dark. He had gone off his meds. Anything could have happened. A couple of days before, he’d been in a raging, almost homicidal state. He tried to buy a gun.

What the hell else for?

This retired detective, whoever he was, he was a completely different person. Who happened to intersect with Evan. His death probably had nothing to do with him.

Maybe I’ll become a cop. They want me to take the test…

C’mon, Jay. I focused back on the road. He was talking to the fucking furnace when he said that!

I thought of what was on my plate back home. What I had committed to in the morning. Stacey.

Here, there was only grief. And questions that would never have answers. That no one wanted answers to.

The kid was dead, Sherwood said. Next time he would have taken his parents with him. What did it even matter?

It damn well did matter.

Zorn and Evan. Something connected them. And I was the only one who saw it.

I brought to mind Evan’s face at the mortuary. Gabby’s tears. Then Charlie-the day his son was born. Promise me, Jay, that whatever happens, you’ll be there for him. Promise me, you’ll take care of him, Jay.

Promise me.

You have my word, Charlie.

I felt this sense building inside me that I was about to do something completely crazy.

I made it as far as the next exit and turned the car around.

Two minutes later I was back at the exit where I’d just gotten on and wound down the hill to Charlie’s apartment. I left the car under the carport and ran across the courtyard. It was barely seven thirty A.M. They normally didn’t get out of bed until around eleven. I banged on the front door.

“Charlie! Gabby, let me in!”

“All right, all right…” I finally heard my brother’s voice. “Who’s there?”

He opened the door, standing in a T-shirt and boxers, his hair loose and wild. He looked at me, befuddled. “Thought you were heading home, Jay.”

“Do you know the name Walter Zorn?” I asked him.

He shook his head, scratching at his beard. “Should I? No.”

“He was a retired detective. From down in Santa Barbara. He was killed last night. Here.”

He blinked back at me. “What does he have to do with us?”

I thought I saw something in his eyes. Maybe there was something in my question, some new conviction jolting him out of his ruined life, the ever-present grief he hid in.

But I just looked back at him, like a man who had finally accepted his vow. “Something just changed.”

M y first call was to my office.

To Lev Avital, one of the other surgeons in the practice, who’d been part of our group for the past eight years. I caught him at his desk during a consult. “Jay, what’s up? How is it out there?”

“Avi, I need a huge favor,” I said. “Can you handle an iliac stent for me in the morning tomorrow? The patient’s the daughter of a friend of mine from our club. I’d planned to be back, but I really need another day or two out here. I promise, it’s a layup, Avi.”

“Let me check.” He took a look through his schedule and came back to say he was free. He only had a couple of consults to juggle around. “You know we were all so sad to hear about your nephew, Jay.”

“Thanks. I owe you big-time, guy,” I said in relief. “I hope to be back next week.”

“I’ll remind you about this at Thanksgiving. I’m on call this year.”

I gave him some background on the case and how it was all pretty much totally routine. Just inserting a stent through the femoral artery and bypassing the aneurysm. Avi was an ex-Israeli tank commander. He’d seen action in Lebanon. He’d studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and at Harvard, and could probably do an iliac bypass in his sleep. Probably even better than I could.

“You’ll be out by lunch,” I promised. I said I’d have my secretary e-mail over the MRIs with Stacey’s file. “Call me if you need to discuss. And, Avi…”

“Don’t even mention it,” he said. “I’m hoping things go well for you and your family out there.”

“No-I meant, call me as soon as you’re done and let me know how it went,” I said. “But thanks. Thanks a bunch.”

I told him I’d alert the family to the change.

My next call was to Kathy.

My stomach clenched a bit at the thought of having to explain this to her. It was eight fifteen in California. Eleven fifteen back home. I dialed her on her cell and she picked up, from one of the examining rooms.

“Hey,” she answered brightly, “I’m in with a very unhappy Lab named Sadie who’s got a big blister on her paw. I got your message last night. You at the airport yet?”

“Don’t be mad,” I said, sucking in a breath. “I can’t make it back today.”

“You can’t…? ” Her voice sank with disappointment. Maybe an edge of exasperation too.

“Look, I know what you’re thinking, but something’s come up. I just need another day or two, that’s all, to see something through. You trust me, don’t you?”

“See something through? I thought you had a procedure Friday, Jay. On Marv and Susie Gold’s daughter.”

“I just got Avi to cover it.”

“Avi? And we had the Hochmans coming tomorrow night. All right