David Rosenfelt - New Tricks

She doesn’t answer, just closes her eyes. I call the nurse over, and she takes Laurie’s hand and holds it, probably feeling her pulse. “She’s asleep,” the nurse says. “She needs to regain her strength.”

“Is Dr. Norville here?”

She nods. “He’s finishing up a procedure, and then he’ll be down.”

The “procedure” must require a lot of finishing, because it’s almost two hours before Dr. Norville comes down. He spends about ten minutes examining the sleeping Laurie, though she opens her eyes a few times during the process. She doesn’t say anything; just closes them again.

After he finishes, he looks at her chart for a few minutes, and makes some notations. I’m beyond anxious, and the process feels like it’s taking a week. If he doesn’t stop and tell me what the hell is going on, he’s going to wind up in a bed in the next room, with tubes stuck in his nose.

He finally puts the chart down and turns to me. “Making excellent progress,” he says.

“Any chance you could be more specific?”

He goes on to tell me that Laurie is recovering extraordinarily well, but is suffering the effects of lack of blood, and therefore lack of oxygen, to the brain. It is as if she suffered a minor stroke. Speech will be slightly difficult for a while, and she’ll have some loss of movement on her left side.

“But she’ll be okay?” I ask.

“With some therapy and hard work, she should return to normal, or near normal. If all goes well.”

“Where can that therapy take place? At home?”

He doesn’t see why not, though it will be expensive to bring in therapists, and insurance will not cover a good portion of it. That is not exactly a daunting problem for me, and he tells me that the hospital therapist will provide names. If Laurie continues her current progress, and if the proper arrangements are made, he expects she can go home within the week.

I can’t wait.

They tell me I have to leave the room so Laurie “can rest,” though I’m not quite sure why my being there prevents her from resting. We haven’t exactly been doing any dancing, or playing one-on-one basketball. When I resist, they bring over the head ICU nurse to enforce the ruling that I must depart.

The woman is intimidating and physically imposing to the point that she might be able to take Marcus two out of three in arm wrestling. Suffice it to say that I am out of there and in my own room in short order.

A sniffling Kevin is waiting for me when I get back, and he informs me that we have received notice from the court that Charles Robinson has filed suit regarding the custody of Waggy. He has taken an interesting approach: Rather than pursuing custody himself, he is seeking to replace me as custodian. It would have the same practical effect as his winning custody, but it might ultimately be more palatable to the court.

In the short term, though, this new development will likely be an annoyance and major time waster for Hachet-not to mention me-pissing him off at a time when I can’t afford to do that. He directed me to resolve the matter and contact Robinson, but I’ve been preoccupied with more important matters.

Robinson’s suit is not something I can afford to focus on, so instead Kevin and I talk about the strange e-mail from the lab director about Timmerman’s submitting his own DNA for testing. The lab director was puzzled by it, and Kevin and I both have reacted more strongly than that. Timmerman as a murder victim elevates the mystery of it, and requires us looking into it immediately.

Kevin, after hearing what Sam had to say, has once again been one step ahead of me and gone back to the office for the photos from the murder scene and autopsy report. Timmerman took a bullet in the forehead, but his face should have been recognizable to someone close to him.

I call Richard Wallace and ask him who identified Timmerman’s body, since it is not in the discovery materials. He puts me on hold for a few minutes to find out, and returns with the answer.

“The wife. Diana Timmerman,” he says.

“She was the only one?” I ask.

“As far as I can tell. There would have been no reason to question her identification, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

“Nope,” I say.

“You have reason to doubt her? His face was mostly intact.”

I don’t want to share with Richard the knowledge I have about the lab director’s e-mail. I don’t know if it helps our defense in any way, and if it does, I certainly wouldn’t want to tip our hand now. Now that I’m feeling better about Laurie’s prospects, I am able to focus more on the case, and feeling like I want to continue representing Steven.

I call Marcus in the hope of learning if he’s made any progress in finding the piece of garbage who shot Laurie. I do this with some reservation, since it will by definition require having a conversation with Marcus, a process that is always bewildering and frustrating.

He answers his cell phone on the first ring. “Yuh.”

“Marcus?”

“Yuh.”

“It’s Andy. Everything okay?”

He doesn’t answer, which doesn’t surprise me. Words are precious to Marcus, and he doesn’t want to waste a “yuh” on idle chitchat.

“Any luck on IDing the shooter?” I ask.

“Yuh.”

“Who is it?”

“Childs,” he says. Or maybe he says “Chiles,” or “Giles,” or any one of a thousand other names. Marcus on a cell phone is even worse than Marcus in person.

“Childs?” I ask. “Like children?”

“Yuh.”

“Do you know his first name?”

“Yuh.”

“What is it?”

“Jimmy.”

“Have you found him yet?”

“Unh.”

“Are you going to?”

“Yuh.”

Fascinating as the call is, I extricate myself from it and marvel for a few moments at the terror Marcus must have caused in the informant community to extract this information so quickly.

I then call Pete Stanton and ask him if the police have made any progress on identifying the shooter. Ordinarily he would give me a hard time before telling me anything, but he knows the depth of our shared desire to nail the bastard.

“Nothing yet, but we’ll get there,” he says.

“The name Jimmy Childs mean anything to you?” I ask.

Pete is silent for a few moments. “You get that from Marcus?”

“Let’s just say I got a tip through my crack investigating team.”

“Childs is bad news, Andy. He’s hired help and doesn’t come cheap. He’d get up from breakfast to slit your throat, without his coffee getting cold. Even Marcus might have his hands full.”

“Who does he usually work for?” I ask.

“Anybody with enough cash. But the last we had heard he was out of the country.”

“Out of the country where?” I ask.

“The Middle East was the rumor, but it wasn’t confirmed,” he says.

“A high-priced hit man comes six thousand miles to shoot Laurie?” It’s bewildering, frustrating, and very frightening.

“What the hell could that be about?” Pete wonders, out loud.

“Marcus will find out,” I say.

“Andy, listen to me on this. Tell Marcus to be very, very careful with this guy.”

“Maybe you’ll find him first. Don’t you police do stuff like that for a living?”

He thinks for a moment, weighing the possibilities. “My money’s on Marcus,” he says.

LAURIE IS NOT IN INTENSIVE CARE when I get there in the morning.

My first reaction is to panic, but then the nurse tells me that she was moved to a private room during the night. In fact, it’s the one next to mine, and I didn’t even know it.

I take the steps, three at a time, to her new room. When I enter she has her eyes wide open, and she gives me a half smile with the side of the face that she has full movement in.