Jeffery Deaver - The Lesson of Her Death

"He's in a coma. He… Oh, Bill, he tried to kill himself. A fisherman found him but -"

"Oh, my Lord."

He remembered, and the thought was like a wallop in the stomach. "The wrestling match? I missed it."

She didn't speak for a moment. "Come home, Bill. I want you here."

"Is he going to be okay?"

"They don't know. He almost drowned. He hit his head when he went in. Come home now."

When they hung up Corde said, "Wynton, Jamie's hurt. I've got to go."

"Oh, no, Bill. Was it him?" He nodded toward the hotel.

"No. Something else. Pretty serious. I've got to go. You're in charge here."

Wynton Kresge had the love for seven children in his voice when he said, "I'll be thinking of you." Corde couldn't speak but just rested his hand on the deputy's huge back. In that brief gesture, Kresge felt a huge weight shift and remain on him even after Corde stepped out the door. Kresge said, "We'll get him, Bill. We'll get him."

"I did this one bad, didn't I?" Corde said.

They sat in the intensive care unit of Community Hospital in a small waiting room separated from their son by a thick blond wood door. The doctors were in with him now. Occasionally the large silver handle of a doorknob would flick and a nurse or doctor would exit silently. This was the purest of punishments.

They held hands but there was minimal returning pressure from Diane's. Corde figured he wasn't entitled to expect otherwise. Other than to tell him that Jamie was in critical condition and still unconscious, Diane hadn't said more than five words since he'd arrived after a perilous drive from Fitzberg through the vast Midwest night. This was her worst anger, a peaceful-eyed, camouflaged fury that seemed almost curiosity.

For the first time in his marriage Corde wondered if he'd lost his wife.

"The case ran off with me."

He was thinking mostly of the impact on Jamie but he remembered too that he'd turned down the job of sheriff because of Jennie Gebben's death. He supposed Diane also was thinking of this. "I wish you'd say something."

"Oh, Bill, how can you figure it all out? Here we spent all our time with Sarah. We just assumed Jamie didn't need us the way she did. And it turns out he was the one that did, and she's doing better without us."

"This was mostly me," Corde said. "I knew about the match. I was even looking forward to it. Then I heard about Gilchrist and I got like a dog, sniffing rabbit."

She stood up and walked down the hall to a pay phone. Whoever she was calling was not home. She grimaced, hung up, retrieved her coin and sat down in silence.

Their vigil continued. Corde took a quarter from his pocket and started rolling it over his fingers. The coin fell and rang as it spun to a stop. He picked it up and put it back into his pocket. Then the door opened and three doctors walked out. Both husband and wife locked onto their faces and began panning for clues but goddamn they were stone-eyed. One, the chief neurologist, sat in a chair beside Diane. He began to speak.

Corde heard the words. "Brainstem… Minimal… Serious concussion… No life support…" He talked for five minutes and told them all the things they could do for Jamie. They seemed to be good words or at least not bad words but when Corde said, "When will our boy wake up?" the doctor said, "I don't have an answer for you."

"But what do we do ?"

"Wait."

Corde nodded. Diane was crying. The doctor asked if they'd like sedatives. They answered, "No," simultaneously.

"It wouldn't hurt to get some sleep," the doctor answered. "I really don't think he'll take a turn for the worse."

Corde said, "Why don't you run home, honey, get some rest."

"I'm staying with my boy."

"I'm staying too."

When the doctor left she curled up in an orange fiberglass chair and it seemed that she was instantly asleep. Corde rose and walked into the room to sit beside his son.

"Okay, Deputy, home base is clear."

Wynton Kresge opened his eyes. Franklin Neale stood above him, shaking him awake.

"What time is it?"

"Six-thirty. In the AM. The hookers're gone and home base is clear."

"Beg pardon?" Kresge asked.

The magic thermos appeared again and coffee was poured. Kresge added three packets of sugar and sipped from the red plastic cup.

Neale said, "You want to go in after him now or wait till he comes out?"

Kresge was asking Bill Corde silent questions and not a one of them got answered. He looked at Neale, fresh as a recruit on parade. He was clean-shaved. "What do you think?"

Neale shrugged. "Well, tactically, it's your classic situation. If we go into his hidey-hole there's a better chance of return fire. If we get him on the street we could lose him or get some civvies casualtied in a firefight."

Hearing this, the military lingo, made Kresge feel better. He decided he wasn't so much out of his element after all. "I'd like to go in and get him."

"Fair enough, Deputy. We've got our SWAT team on standby. You want them to do it?"

Wynton Kresge said, "I'll go in. I want them as backup."

And the crew-cut rosy-skin detective was nodding, solemn and eye-righteous, one grunt to another. "That's the way I'd do it." Then he looked over Kresge's large frame and said, "Okay, let's suit you up in body armor. I think we've got something that might fit."

As he applied the Velcro straps to the Type II vest with the Supershok plate over the heart, Wynton Kresge thought suddenly of an aspect of being a policeman that he had never considered. If the point of being a cop was ultimately to save lives then the flip side was true also – he might have to take a life.

All the while sitting in his Auden U office chair, feeling the rub of the Taurus automatic pistol on his belt, he had never really considered using the gun. Oh, there'd been his theatrical little fantasies about winging terrorists. But now Kresge felt dread. Not at the real possibility that in five minutes he'd be dodging slugs but at the opposite – that he would have to send bullets hissing through the body of another man. The thought terrified him.

"… Deputy?"

Kresge realized the detective was speaking to him.

"Yes?"

Neale opened a diagram of the hotel. "Look here."

"Where'd you get that?"

"Our SWAT team has layouts of all the hotels in town. Bus and train stations and most of the office buildings too."

This seemed like a good idea. Maybe he'd suggest it to Corde.

"Okay, he's in here. Room 258. There's no connecting door. But there's this thing here. What is it?"

One of the other officers said, "They have a microwave and a little refrigerator there. Pipes. Stainless steel sink. It's probably enough to stop the hollowpoints but we can't use jacketed because of the street on the other side."

"Deputy?"

Kresge said, "I don't think we should give him any warning. No gas or grenades. Take the door down and move in fast before he has a chance to set up a fire zone." He'd seen this in a Mel Gibson movie. He added, "If that's in accordance with procedures?"

Neale said, "Sounds good to me, Deputy. Let's get -"

"Sergeant," the young patrolman at the radio console said, "he's rabbitting! Left the room and is moving toward Eastwood." He listened into his headset for a moment then announced to Neale and Kresge, "TacSurv advising SWAT. They're three blocks away. They'll proceed to deployment."

"Roger," the detective said. "Where's he headed?"

"Toward the river. On foot. Got his suitcase with him. He's moving fast."

Kresge said, "Where's that from here?"

"A block."

"Well, let's go get him."

Neale pulled on a blue cap that said POLICE on the crest.

"TacSurv says he's vanished. He turned before he got to the bridge – into those old warehouses down by the riverfront. He's gone north, they guess."