Jury of Peers (6 page)

Chapter Eight

Inchoate

Seth sat still.

              Emily lay there before him, pale and unconscious.  Someone had combed out her long hair and then braided it so that it ran down her side.  The hiss of oxygen was a drone among the beeping equipment, all of which Seth avoided.  His eyes stayed focused on the backs of her lids.

             
Occasionally she appeared to be dreaming, her eyes rolling back and forth in that scary looking REM sort of way, and he knew how terrible it was to not be able to wake from the nightmare.  He wanted to shake her, to clutch her to him and tell her that it was alright, but he couldn’t… and it wasn’t.

             
Worst of all, she wasn’t lying on her side.  For the last month, the only way she could comfortably lie down was to pitch herself over on her elbow and tuck pillows everywhere to hold herself in position.  She didn’t complain, just gave him that look. 
I think you should have to do this part. 
He would have, and she knew it.  But now it didn’t matter.  The belly she’d slathered lotion on for the last months to avoid stretch marks was as flat as it had been at five months, even with the bandages and shunts and tubes.  Their babies were gone. 

             
He desperately wanted her to wake, and prayed that she’d sleep.  He just didn’t know how to tell her, how to watch the recognition set in, how to see her hurt any more than she already did.

             
He sat for thirteen hours.

             
“Hello Mr. Meek,” came a voice from the door.  He turned to find the doctor once again, tired Dr. Sam.  It was just past nine in the evening according to the clock.

             
He said nothing, but questions assaulted his mind.

             
“You’re welcome to stay.  We have a pullout right there,” she indicated the adjacent wall.  "And I can get some food for you.”

             
“I’m okay,” he said.

             
“You’re still a patient, I’ll get you some food sent up.”  She opened Emily’s chart. 

             
“How is she?” Seth finally asked.

“Lots of infection.  Bullet wounds are messy, this one was especially so.  She’s young, and really healthy.  Being in such good shape saved her, but it’s still plenty serious enough to keep her here.  Probably for a long while.”

              “Will she wake up?”

             
“Probably she’ll be in and out over the next couple of days. We want to keep the pain threshold low so she can concentrate on healing up.  But yeah, she’ll probably come around once in awhile.  That’s why I wanted you here.”

             
“Thanks,” Seth said.  He hadn’t let go of his wife's hand since he had arrived.  “Where’s her ring?”

“She was pretty swollen up when I first saw her, I’d bet that the EMT's had to cut it off on the way in.  We still have it somewhere for you I’m sure.”

              “Okay.”

             
“And listen, the news people came early this morning and started asking about you.  They can’t come up, and right now you can't go down to them, but I wanted you to know.”

             
“Thanks.  I’ll stay here,” he said without looking up.

             
“I thought you might.  Let me know if you need anything.”  She turned to leave.

             
“How long can a person live like this?” he said before she could leave.

             
“Sorry, what?”

             
“If they didn’t get to the hospital, with this kind of,” he gestured at her stomach, “this kind of wound.”

             
The doctor rolled her head on her shoulders and then straightened the thin necklace around her neck so that the clasp was in back.  “Days sometimes.  I was in Iraq in 1993.”  She came back into the room, tossed the chart down on the table, and leaned on the edge of a chair across from him.

             
“I worked on a man, about fifty.  An Iraqi.  He’d wandered up to within twenty or thirty meters of some outpost in a sandstorm.  They brought him into me after they realized that he had a big piece of metal sticking out of his stomach.  He’d been out there for three and a half days.  People are like eggs Seth.  Squeeze one way and you can’t break them no matter what you do, squeeze another way and everything breaks down.  It’s just how we are.”

             
She watched him, “Why?”

             
“Did he have food?  Water?”

             
“The Iraqi?”

             
“Yeah."

             
“I don’t know really.  He was dehydrated of course, but all of us were.  I think in a way, the storm might have saved him, strange as that seems.”  She leaned forward unto her elbows and closed her eyes.  “Kept the sun off him, let him wander into some Brits before he could get spooked and run off.”

             
“So a couple of days?  Three or four?”

             
“Maybe,” she said.  “I don’t understand.”

             
“Did he suffer?”

             
She hesitated.   “Yeah.  It had to hurt.  But he made it even without painkillers all of that time.  And your wife.…”  There was no way for her to see the depth of her misunderstanding.

             
“I know.”

             
The doctor leaned there for another couple of minutes until it began to feel like a nice place to nap.  Fatigue was part of the game, but keeping it at bay was the key.  It was obvious that Seth Meek had gone back into whatever awful thoughts were keeping his mind occupied anyway.  She stood and looked at him, wondering if the pain the Iraqi felt while lost in that storm was anything like what this slight young man was going through right now.  Probably, she decided.  But there were different kinds of pain.

             
She left him holding his wife’s hand and he didn’t look up.

             
Two minutes later though, Seth rose and walked across the room.  He took the chart from where the doctor had accidentally left it and returned to his seat.  He looked at his wife, and then at the chart.  He opened it and began to read.

             
Signs of additional trauma at the point of entry suggest aggravated penetration….Semen found in the abdomen.

             
He read and reread it all.  And then again.  It coded to his memory.

He couldn’t muster any emotion.  Something else was replacing it all and he could feel it like a distant fire warming the palms of his hands… tingling, comforting.  Hate. 

*
              *              *

              “Seth?”

             
He tried to open his eyes, but found that even the good one was matted shut.  He wrenched it open with his fingers as he sat up from the chair.

“Seth?” she said again.

              He leaned over her, gripping her hand and trying to smile.  He felt the sutures in his lips pull, one popped.  “I’m here, I’m here baby,” he said.  A drop of his blood pattered down on her gown and he wiped it into an awful dark smudge.  “I’m here.”

             
Emily wheezed, then coughed.  She groaned in pain, and tried to hold her belly, only to find that her hands were restrained at her sides.  “Why….”

             
“You got hurt,” Seth said.  The words tumbled out.  Empty.

             
Her eyes welled up with tears as they darted over his swollen face.  She began to speak, drew in a sharp breath… and held it.  He saw the understanding dawn.  The memories.

             
“Jenny,” she lurched up, her body rigid all at once.  “
Baby
,” she shrieked.

             
There were no words, he just leaned in and held her as she screamed.  The nurses converged at once, and within sixty seconds the wailing subsided.  He cooed in her ear, telling her that it was all right and knowing that it was a singular lie.  His head pounded, aching to escape; a dizziness descended and he found himself sitting on the floor without warning.  He struggled back up. 

             
“No, please…please…” Emily breathed before her body relaxed and she passed back into unconsciousness.

*              *              *

              Emily’s parents arrived from the San Francisco just before two in the morning.  They sat in silence with their daughter and son–in–law for nearly an hour while Seth told them everything.  He left nothing out of the telling, hoping it would be some sort of catharsis.  He stammered on, unable to find any sort of resolution, and eventually they left him alone with his words.  Seth wanted them to stay but couldn’t bring himself to ask.  They had always been kind to him, welcomed him into their family and treated him as if he were their very own.  He wanted them to say that it was okay, that he’d been a victim and nothing more, but they didn’t.  His father–in–law shed quiet tears, stood, and left the room having never uttered a word.

             
Seth watched him go.

             
"He'll come around honey," Em's mother said in her soft way.  "He's not angry with you," she lied.  Even as tears rolled through the fine powder on her cheeks, she continued to placate as if it were her divine duty, "I don't know why things like this happen," she said, almost to herself now.  "But we all have to find a way to… have peace.  To have faith."

             
Seth watched the dark trails lengthen on her soft cheeks, finally dripping unto her blouse. "Don't you hate me?" he asked suddenly.

             
She hesitated.  "Honey, I don't hate you or anyone.  Not even the people who did this.  I hate that our babies are gone.  I hate that.  But it's not for you or I to judge, is it?  No.  No it isn't…." she said as she watched her hands, folded in her lap.  "It's not for us to… judge.  And we still have Emmy."  And with this, she too stood and left the room.

             
Seth's own mother was dead, having succumb to breast cancer before he married Em, and his father had left them long before that… so these two were really all he had left.  Still, he couldn’t blame them for having nothing to say.  The shame was his alone; he was to blame.  It was obvious and it was real.  It hung over them as they left.  They’d trusted him with their daughter and their grandchildren.  He’d hesitated when he should have acted.  He let them die.

             
Just as Seth closed his eyes, a gasp brought him up out of his sleep.

             
“It’s okay baby,” he said before he understood. “Emily, it’s alright I’m right here.”

             
But she wasn’t.

Chapter Nine

Idealistic

              Phones were always ringing in Finn’s flat – and always in the middle of the night.  He’d worked almost ten years to get some normal hours, but figured that all of the bad karma he’d built up during that time would dog him for the rest of his life.  Evidently in the form of fucking telephone calls.

             
“Yeah?”

             
“She died,” Tonic said.

             
“
Who
died?” Finn rubbed at his eyes with one hand.

             
“The chick from the house out in the Heights,” he said.  Tonic slept little, evidently because he was involved in some sort of tantric pretzel with his girlfriend when off the clock. 

             
“Well shit,” was all that came out.  Finn sat up in bed, knowing that he wouldn’t be getting back into the sheets any time soon.  “Alright.  Why'd you call?  Who called you?”

             
“Hop wants us to come in, like now.  People are gonna wake up to this in a couple of hours.  It’s already getting lots of press.  He wants one of your spiffy plan things.”

             
“Why me?”

             
“Cause you’re the smart one?  I dunno man, but I’ll bring those cherry donuts you like.”

             
“Don’t.”

*              *              *

              Forty minutes later, Finn was faced with a single brown paper bag.  “I’m not sure why you think I’d want a donut for breakfast.”

             
“’Cause you’re a cop?” Tonic said.

             
“So are you dip shit, and you’re eating what… what is that?”

             
Tonic lifted the cup, "Egg yolks.”

             
“You’re kidding.”

             
“I wanna be Rocky when I grow up,” he smiled.

             
“Shut up, what is it?” Finn peered over the lip of the cup.

             
“It’s hot water drained through some kind of smashed bean.  Goes with donuts,” he hefted the bag.

             
“Alright, gimme.”

             
They sat across from one another at a desk where literally thousands of donuts had met their ultimate demise at the hands of sleepy cops.  They culled through a stack of documents with sticky fingers in yet another time–honored tradition.

             
“This doesn’t look any better in the daylight.”  Finn tossed a report on the top of the heap.

             
“Joy cometh in the morning?”

             
“Not for our boy down in Georgetown, I bet,” Finn said.  He twisted around and pulled another stack of papers off of his desk.  “I’m going to assume he made it through the night without shanking himself on the coat hook.”  He flipped through the top ten pages, licked his fingers, and then continued on into the stack to find the lab report.

"The 911 tape is all loaded upon your computer," Tonic ventured.

Finn glanced at him, dubious.  "Listen to it yet?"

"No way, not before noon man.  It's gonna suck."

              Finn donned his headphones and closed his eyes, whether bracing himself or in concentration Tonic couldn't tell.  James Finny sat in unbroken, unmoving silence for just under ten minutes before unceremoniously tossing the headphones back into the drawer.  They'd left angry red marks on his temples. “Don’t ever buy these cherry ones again.  Never,"

             
“Hokay, never,” Tonic took another cherry one. 

             
"You're right, it sucked.  Gimme a bit to think it over.”  He went back to his stack. “The lab guys say our boy didn’t fire a shot,” Finn flipped the page.  “No big surprise there.  Someone lit a fire for Mr. Seth Meek though, eh?  That's some fast lab work."

“Hey Finny,” Tonic said, leaning back in his chair.  “This guy’s name seems familiar?  Meek I mean?”

              “I suppose.  Not really.”

             
“There’s a Wall Street guy, used to work for the government.  I was talking to my girlfriend about it last night,” Tonic began.

             
“You gonna marry her?”

             
“
Darcy?
”

             
“Yeah, that one.”

             
“Nah man, she isn’t the marrying type.”

             
“You mean you aren’t.”

             
“Whatever.  Anyway, she said that there’s a guy named Meek that’s pretty big in the Wall Street scene, stocks and all that.”

             
“So?” Finn finished off his coffee and stood to get some more.

             
“So, our guy up in Georgetown is his kid.”

             
“No shit?  How’d your girl know all that?” Finn forgot the coffee and sat on the edge of the desk.

             
“She saw it on CNN last night,” Tonic rubbed his eyes and then gestured to Finn.  “Boss guy’s coming over.  Act smart.”

             
Finn shuffled through the papers that had been neatly stacked for him in the middle of his desk.  “I don’t think this needs a plan, Hop.  It needs an eraser.”

             
The boss man’s name was Burt Hopkins.  “If only,” he said.  He liberated a donut for himself, divided it in half, and then proceeded to eat the whole thing as they read through new material.

             
“It’s quarter of six,” he sucked the goo from his fingertips.  “Somewheres around seven thirty I’m gonna make a statement to the effect that we’re working hard on this and that we’re confident about our leads.”

             
Both cops looked up.

             
“So let’s see some of that detective shit,” Hop said and walked off to the head.

             
Finn dropped the papers in a heap.  “Christ, okay.  We’ve got some lab stuff back here.  Lots of confused prints, but nothing that doesn't belong yet.  Witnesses are nice, but don’t count, right?  Ditto for anything else even marginally helpful.  You check on the home computers?”

             
“Yep.  Nothin’ yet.  Techie guy says he’s still working it over.  It's got some kinda security on it I guess.”

             
“What’s his name, the tech?”

             
“Him,” Tonic pointed to the far corner of the room by the water cooler.  “Hamish or something.”

             
“What’s he, thirteen?”  Finn peered over into the far corner through two glass dividers.  The kid was tapping away at his laptop, plugged into his little earbuds, and evidently happy as a clam. 

             
“Somethin’ like that.  He's been on the roster for ‘bout a month as an intern for the computer geeks.  Wants to be Bill Gates when he grows up.”

             
“Not Rocky?”

             
“There’s only one Italian Stallion, man,” Tonic said.  "I've got an eye on him, he could be the guy."  The detectives watched the kid for a few moments, keeping their thoughts to themselves… for now.  They'd find out soon enough if he was the leak; it was one of the benefits of being called
detective
.  It was, by nature, hard to turn off the instincts they'd worked so long to foster and the result was that everything around them was subject to their own personal investigations.

 
              “Yeah, well…" Finn brought finally broke away, "I think this kid needs a turban and a snake.”

             
Hop came out of the toilet wiping his hands with a paper towel, “I’ll shove that snake up your ass if you make any cracks about him working at Seven Eleven or shit like that.  Be nice.”

             
Finn laughed and Hop tossed the wad of paper at him.  He stopped and leaned closer.  “He seems like a good kid.  Works all kinds of crazy hours for close to nothin’.  Burned out at some private law firm and came here so he could change the world.  Kinda like you two without the donuts.”

             
“How come the intern’s working on our stuff?” Tonic asked.  It was their pastime, busting Hops’s balls.  He was a good boss because he gave it right back.

             
“They give him everything.  One, he’s the intern.  Two, he’s smart.  He really knows his shit.  Three, he comes in early unlike you fuckers,” Hop walked off.  With another donut.

             
“Well then I suppose we oughta be friendly since we’ve got a whole lotta nothin’ here," Finn rose up off of the desk.

             
Tonic was still watching Hop, "Since when is 5:15
not
early?"

             
"Evidently since our interns got outsourced.  He's still on Calcutta time.  Come on."  Finn speared the last donut with his finger.  “The graffiti we’ll work today…. I’ve got the quasi–current gang–sign–o’rama book around here somewhere but you know it’s a dead end.  Whoever made the hit left a hot trail to nowhere, to lead us the wrong way, settle a score, whatever.  And the 911 tape is just tape, no pictures, just a bunch of god–awful screaming punctuated by god–awful screaming.  It just gives us a time frame, which we had anyhow.”

             
Tonic groaned as he got to his feet and stretched.

             
“What are you all gimpy for?  Girl keep you up?”

             
He suppressed a smile, “Could be.”

             
“
I’m
the smart one, I oughta be getting all of the tail.”

             
“It’s not easy being me,” Tonic said and the two trekked over to the corner.  “You’re Mr. Bad Cop,” he said as they approached.

             
“It’s in my nature.”

             
“Yeah, well, let’s get him on our side before you piss him off, eh?”

             
Finn suppressed a belch with his fist.  “He’s a pup, let’s just try not to make him wet himself.”

             
The kid looked up as soon as he realized that they were there for him and not the water cooler, all but tearing the headphones out of his ears.  He tried to stand and got tangled in his desk.

             
“Sorry,” he said after he managed to disengage himself.  “Nobody comes over. When they do they’re usually pissed.”  He eyed them both.  “You guys pissed?”

             
Finn lifted the skewered donut.  “Gold, frankincense, and cherry somethin’.”

             
The kid stood there, his clip–on tie clasped crookedly to his open collar, a tiny little rock band blaring around his neck.  “Oh,” he said, and slid the donut off of Finn’s finger.  “Thanks.”  He searched for a place to put it in on the desk.  There was room for his computer and his ass–it was an old school desk, complete with ink filled etchings about Van Halen circa 1984.  In the end he decided to just eat the thing, as rapidly as possible.

             
“You’re Ramish?  That right?”

             
Mouth full of donut, he nodded.  “Close,” he said a moment later.  “Call me Ray?”

             
Tonic asked, “That your real name?”

             
“For here it is,” he said.  Ray swallowed.  “My parents are from New Delhi.”  As if that explained it all.

             
“Well I’m Finn, this is Spencer Tonic.”  They all shook.

             
“Finn and Tonic.…” Ray began with a smile and then stopped.  He took a big bite of cherry filling, and then another when he realized that they’d heard it all before.             

             
For the first time, Finn noticed that the kid was wearing a division name tag.  He squinted––it seemed like he had to squint at everything no matter what the distance anymore.  “Ravish Ramadeep?”

             
“Ray,” he managed between swallows.  “Easier on my social life.”

             
Tonic snorted.  “You can’t have much of a social life if you’re getting in before five fuckin a.m.”  He pulled up a chair, turned it backwards, and sat. 

             
“Yeah, well seems like the calls went out early.  Besides, I’m just part time.  X number of hours and I’m free.  I like to start early so I can get home and be with my kids.”

             
“You got kids?  Jesus, how old are you Ram–Damish?” Finn asked as he too pulled up a chair.