Diane Davidson - Sticks & Scones

I used the waiting-room desk phone to call Marla again. My watch said half past nine. While I was waiting to be switched to my friend’s voice mail, I ate one of the two emergency chocolate truffles I keep in my purse, then tore into a cellophane-wrapped package of crackers left for waiting-room families. Feeling slightly better, I told Marla’s messaging that Tom was now in with a vascular surgeon.

“Please call the hospital’s main number and see if they’ll page me,” I added. “I’m still hoping you can bring

Arch to the hospital so we can decide what to do. I’ll be spending the night hero. Oh, and I’m desperate for some clean clothes, if you can scrounge anything up. Thanks, friend.”

Captain Lambert trundled back into the waiting room. “Okay,” he began without preamble, “our guys on the hill just called in a preliminary report. What they think are the shooter’s footprints start by a picnic table in Cottonwood Park, then go down to a spot across from the creek, then back up to the table. At the point across the creek, a tech found a spent shell. There are some tire tracks by the picnic table. So someone was watching from above, then came back down to do the shooting, then went back up to his vehicle. Was the person waiting for Tom? Was the shooter waiting for the person who found Balachek’s body? But that was you, right? Would the perp have waited all day to shoot at a cop? We can’t tell yet.”

Waiting for Tom? Waiting for any cop? My thoughts whirled. If you’d murdered Andy Balachek, why not just leave? Why stay?

The captain continued, “The investigative team has begun detection around the body. Rigor’s already set in, so he’d been dead for a while. Which makes even less sense. How long had the perp been waiting up in the pines? Hours? Oh, and by the way, all this is for your ears only, Goldy,” he warned.

“Yeah,” I said. “Okay.” As if I was going to ask some stranger how to make sense out of all this.

“Okay, regarding your house,” the captain said, switching back to his reassuring tone. “Since your security system’s down from the shooting, your neighbor Trudy volunteered to watch your house. Another thing you should be aware of: I’ve assigned two of Tom’s men to investigate this case. Officers Boyd and Armstrong. Boyd will be lead investigator.”

I felt relief. The captain also had a long message from Marla, who had called the sheriffs department. She’d pulled Arch from school, Lambert reported. She and Arch were going to Boulder to find someone named Julian. Then the three of them were coming here to the hospital. Lambert talked on about how the policemen’s wives had wanted to organize meals to be sent to the castle, where he assumed Arch and I would want to stay, but they weren’t sure if I’d want them, with me being a caterer and all. I smiled involuntarily at the image of historic-food buff Eliot Hyde peering into a tuna noodle casserole. I thanked the captain and assured him meals would not be necessary.

While Lambert sat patiently, I paced for another hour. Finally a young, grim-faced doctor in surgical clothes came into the room. “Mrs. Schulz?” He nodded at Lambert. A pins-and-needles anxiety swept over me.

Dr. Dan Spier, vascular surgeon, was concise. His small fingers indicated on his own chest the bullet’s point of entry. It had indeed gone through soft tissue only. He talked about the surgery his team had undertaken, and told me that Tom’s shoulder would have to be immobilized for about a month, although he could start moving around as soon as he felt up to it. Tom was lucky, Spier continued dryly, that no bone had been hit, lucky that the weapon had not been an automatic, lucky that there had been only one bullet. And he was particularly lucky, Spier added with a pinched smile, that I’d had the presence of mind to compress the wound.

Lucky. I turned the word over in my mind.

Spier concluded by saying I would receive discharge instructions on changing the bandage and on bringing Tom back in to be examined. As long as all went well during a night in ICU, Tom could go home in the morning.

“That seems early,” I protested. How could we go home, until the cops had a better sense of who the shooter was? And if we didn’t go home, how would the Hydes take to having a wounded cop recuperating at their place?

Spier shook his head. “It’s not really early. All you have to do is keep an eye on the wound and get the patient to rest.” I thanked Spier. He nodded impassively and left.

Finally, finally, I was allowed to see Tom. His skin was yellow. With an IV in his arm and oxygen tubes up his nose, he appeared utterly helpless. The bedsheet rose and fell as he slept. I closed his hand in mine. His eyelids flickered but did not open. I love you, I told him silently. I love you now and forever and ever: No matter what.

A Furman County deputy was stationed outside the ICU. An older nurse with a flat midwestern accent told me I could see Tom ten minutes each hour, the usual drill. I should not try to wake him.

“It’s going to be a rough twenty-four hours for you, Mrs. Schulz,” she warned, her voice laced with sympathy.

“You might want to get some family here with you. Get yourself something to eat.”

“Rough,” I repeated numbly.

But we’re lucky, oh so lucky. Tom is alive.

I told the nurse I would be back in an hour. When she turned to talk to a family whose daughter had just come out of surgery, I walked unsteadily to the ICU waiting room.

-9-

Tom opened his eyes once, on my second visit to the ICU. When he turned his head a fraction, I jumped to his side and carefully took the hand not connected to an IV I asked him how he felt. He groaned but said nothing before the medicated fog reclaimed him. With grim determination, I continued my hourly visits through the afternoon.

At six o’clock, Marla burst into the ICU waiting room with Arch and Julian Teller in tow. To their worried barrage of questions about Tom’s condition, I replied that he’d had surgery and was on the mend. Arch, fighting back tears, gave me a brief squeeze before withdrawing behind Julian and Marla. Julian stepped forward and hugged me hard. His handsome face now boasted a college-grown mustache and goatee. Not tall, he possessed a lean, muscular, swimmer’s body, barely visible as he shoved his hands into pockets of a khaki outfit that resembled an oversize uniform of the French Foreign Legion. When he pulled away, he ran his hand through his tobacco-brown hair, now a mown thatch, and mumbled that he felt terrible, that he couldn’t believe someone had shot at us, that he wished he could have been at the hospital earlier.

“Julian.” I pulled him in for another embrace. For almost three years, Julian Teller had been a much-loved member of our extended family. Not only was he dedicated to becoming a vegetarian chef, he was a great kid to boot. So I wasn’t going to listen to him apologize about anything. “You say you’re sorry again, we’ll have Steak Tartare for breakfast.”

Julian’s mouth twisted into a shy smile. “I left messages for my professors.” His body tensed with energy as he tried to make his shrug appear offl1and. “Told them I was taking a few days off for a family emergency. I mean, I was already set to help you with that banquet Friday night. I can stay a few weeks if you need it. And if the people at the castle wouldn’t mind having me,” he added, his eyes pleading. I started to say that he need not leave school indefinitely, but stopped when I glimpsed Arch’s worried face. It would be good for him to have Julian around for a while. Julian was an excellent student and would manage. Whether the Hydes would welcome yet another live-in guest was another matter.

“Let me check with the castle owners,” I murmured. Marla, her face set in forced jollity, bustled forward in one of her “February is for Valentine’s Day” outfits: a long-sleeved scarlet knit dress patterned with white hearts the size of fried eggs. Her voice was matter-of-fact. “We’re all taking a few days or weeks off or whatever Tom needs. Who do these criminals think they are, anyway?” The dish-size hearts trembled as Marla handed me a shopping bag and leaned forward for her hug. “Sweat suit from the Brown Palace Gift Shop. I’m so sorry this is happening,” she whispered in my ear. “If I had a husband I loved the way you love Tom, I’d be hysterical. You don’t think El Jerko did this, do you?”