The Debt Collector (5 page)

She had always loathed doctors, hospitals, and their implements of destruction and resurrection. But in Gillane's gloved fingers, white, wormlike, strong, in the focus drawn by the line of his jaw and the squint of his eyes, in the way he applied himself to a task he had done many times and knew very well, he had all the assurance of routine and none of the boredom. He was there, mind clicking, powerful intellect focused, with an odd but constant air of being on the verge of discovery.

For just one second Sonora felt something like jealousy for the woman on the pallet. So vulnerable, so out of the loop, surrendered to the care and focus of a doctor so talented that he was like a painter, confronted with a canvas on which some heinous event had drawn a picture of death, armed with sterile instruments like brushes he would use to change those lines of death to life, resurrection, and his best attempt at wholeness.

Sonora wondered if she had done right to lie to this woman, to give her an easy way out. Would she still be alive if she'd had children to avenge? Would anger and pain have kept her going long enough for Gillane to work his emergency-room magic?

She watched him, tall and fit, saw his catlike eyes in profile, the well-shaved cheek, a handsome man. The frantic movements slowed, plowing on relentlessly, but she saw the subtle heaviness that seemed to infect his neck, shoulders, and jaw, and she knew that he had come to the same conclusion.

“Let her go,” he said.

9

Sonora stood with her back to the cold tile wall, arms folded, one foot propped behind her. She checked her watch, wondering how long it would be before Sam arrived to pick her up on his way back to the bullpen.

An intern held Joy Stinnet's baby high in the air, under the eye of two nurses and one respiratory technician. One of the nurses fluttered her hands, as if she were on the verge of snatching the baby away.

He brought the little girl close and tucked a kiss into the folds of her neck. She had been bathed and snugged into a pink cotton nightie that was so long her tiny feet were a memory. The sleeves had been carefully folded back over the round pink balls of baby hands. She gave him a wide-mouthed grin, drool lapping over the rosy gums.

Sonora remembered how it had been, holding Tim and Heather up like that when they were babies, skin soft and new, growing their first serious head of hair, eyes wide. Holding them high and smiling at them, watching them extend their legs and smile wide gummy babies smiles. They had been so cuddly, snapped into little terry-cloth suits.

Baby smiles and soft promise. No doubt Joy and Carl Stinnet had done the same with their three children, everyday ordinary parenting, everyday ordinary family. Dad coming home from work, teenage daughter in the kitchen getting a snack for the two-year-old, while Mom did laundry in the bedroom and watched over the baby. It happened every day, everywhere. It was the arrogance of murder that stunned Sonora, the older she got.

Plastic curtains billowed sideways from the cubicle, and Gillane was the first of a handful of medics, spilling out like ants from an anthill. A woman in pink headed in. Cleanup time, toe tags and the morgue.

Not the hospital morgue. Sonora would have to make arrangements. Medical Examiner and four autopsies.

Gillane was looking around. Looking for her? He did an abrupt change of direction when he saw her, and their eyes met. He was heading her way.

It was a thing sometimes between a man and a woman. Unspoken and understood, like the silent
p
in pneumonia. Sonora used to think that one party or the other had to actually say something, to sort of make it official, or the attraction could just all be in her mind.

She knew now to trust her instincts. When it was there, it was there. It didn't even mean you had to do anything about it. Better not to, sometimes.

“That crap all over your hands, is it hers? Not yours?” He was herding her, not waiting for an answer, moving her toward his private room, where he could hang out or see patients, do paperwork or play the harmonica. The room, she knew from past experience, would hold a guitar, a laptop computer, a Hohner harmonica, and most likely a box of Twinkies.

“I'm mango crazy right now,” he said. “Want some fruit?”

“What, when I've got you?”

The smile flickered.

“I'm waiting for Sam,” Sonora said, but somehow she was walking beside him down that green tile corridor.

“I ain't exactly on break.” He punched the code in on his door, opened it, flicked a look at her over his shoulder. “Your shirt's ruined.”

“Tell me something I don't know.”

Gillane took her elbow and shoulder and pushed her to the sink, started the water running. He squirted pink spearmint-smelling soap from a wall dispenser into his palms and lathered her up.

“I've never understood why a woman in your profession always wears white.”

“I look cute in white.”

“You're the only cute homicide cop I know. Well. There was this one down in Houston. But he was short.” Gillane looked up at her. “I
am
kidding.” He took folded paper towels and patted her hands dry. She stood still for it; she did not quite know why. She needed to go. Get to work. A million things to do.

“What are you holding in your hand, Sonora?” He peeled a long gold strand from her palm, rinsed it off, held it up. A small golden cross dangled from a gold chain no thicker than a fine strand of wire.

“It belonged to her. Joy Stinnet.”

Gillane nudged her toward the slender bunk. “Sit down, sweetie.”

It was a tiny room, smelling strongly of microwave popcorn and old coffee, spare and functional with a bunk, a desk, a sink. A shelf with a microwave oven parked next to a Gibson acoustic guitar. Absolutely nothing on the walls except a calendar from 1997. A horse calendar. Arabians.

“I've got to get out of here.”

“One cup of coffee, you owe me that. I want to know details.”

He pushed, she sat, still not sure why she wasn't up and on her way. Sam would be looking for her. Still, a girl had the right to get the blood washed off her hands, put on a new coat of lipstick.

“What are you looking for?” His back was to her; he was pouring coffee into a gray mug that said
Kentucky State Police
, filling it with cream and some kind of powdered chocolate.

“My lipstick.”

“Hang on, I'll get you mine.”

She never was quite sure when he was teasing.

He handed her the coffee, picked up a white thermal blanket that was folded neatly at the foot of the bed, and tucked it around her shoulders. She realized that he was treating her for shock.

She wasn't sure she minded. The blanket was very soft, the coffee warm in her hands. She took a sip. Not too sweet and definitely chocolatey. “God, this is so good.”

“If I had a dollar for every time a woman told me that.”

“Gillane?”

He sat beside her. Began rubbing her shoulders. Tiny firm motions with strong fingers. He was a tall man, long-legged, and up this close she could smell some kind of soap or aftershave, spicy and slightly sweet.

“She didn't have a chance in hell, did she?”

“You think I could have saved her and didn't bother?” It was a measure of his confidence that he did not seem offended.

“No. But we didn't find her for a while. She was under that bed, scared and whispering, and we were all over the place.”

“Drink your coffee. No, sweetie, she had an eight-centimeter gash in her liver, and even if I'd had her in here the second after she got that gut wound, those small liver lacerations are hard to contain, you can't stop the bleeding. It wasn't a nice death, but if she hadn't gone then, she'd be hanging on for another twenty-four hours, going slowly from peritonitis, and that's nobody's idea of fun. Survive that, and she'd have worn her colon in a bag on her hip.”

“I see.”

“They used to tell us in medical school—and you never really know if they make this stuff up, do you? But supposedly. In medieval times. They get a victim with a wound like this, they feed him onion soup.”

“Onion soup?”

“Then you sniff the wound. If you can smell the onion, you know your patient's a goner.”

Sonora remembered the leak of IV fluid from the wound.

“What happened out there?” Gillane asked.

Sonora took a breath, knew she was starting up the rumor mill. “It was some kind of home invasion. Two men and an angel broke a pane in the kitchen window, surprised the teenage daughter and toddler in the kitchen. She—the mom—was in a back bedroom, doing laundry and watching the baby.”

“I saw the baby.”

“She's okay. Everybody else, dead. Nobody went nice. Slit the daughter's throat. The little boy—God, Gillane, a two-year-old, maybe three. We found him in the living room with his neck broken. Quick though. Sometime in the middle of all this the father came home. They took a chair out of the kitchen and tied him up with the drapery cords. Looks like he witnessed a lot of it, his wrists were torn to shreds. And they had a dog. They killed him too.”

“Did you say an angel?”

Sonora shrugged. Took another sip of coffee.

“Are you still seeing that Jerk?”

“What?”

“Not my word. Sam's. He ratted you out. I heard you were pretty hot and heavy.”

“Nope, that one's history.”

“Good. I'll call you.”

“I'm not going to have one second to spare for you or anybody else, and by the way, your timing is absolutely crappy.” She put the coffee cup down on his desk, balled up the blanket.

“May I offer you a Twinkie before you go?”

It gave her pause. The Jerk would never have offered her a Twinkie. He seemed to derive his greatest pleasure from doing without. Food eaten cheaply, no frills, simple nutrients, gave him more happiness than a really good meal. He would have made an excellent religious fanatic, a fabulous monk. In the boyfriend category, of course, that sort of thing didn't rate.

“Actually, yes, I would like a Twinkie.”

Gillane bent down and pulled an open box from under the bed. Tossed her a cellophane wrapper that had two Twinkies, nestled side by side. “I'll call you.”

“I won't be home.” She opened the door to the hallway.

“Sonora?”

“What now?”

“You said she was under the bed whispering? What was she whispering?”

“Hail Mary, full of grace.”

“Ah. Her catechism.”

“Yes. Her catechism.”

10

When Sonora walked out of the automatic doors of the ER she saw Sam heading in the other way, Taurus parked at an angle by the curb.

“How is she?” Sam asked.

“In a far, far better place than you and me.”

“You and I. We got Joy Stinnet's next of kin, local anyway. A great-uncle—lives out in Indian Hill. Next-door neighbor says they're pretty close. Crick wants us out there tonight.”

Sonora nodded. Scooted past Sam and slid behind the wheel of the Taurus.

“What?” Sam said. “I always drive.”

Sonora adjusted the seat all the way up. Raised it so she could see over the wheel. She glanced at herself in the rearview mirror, thinking that she looked very steady.

Sam slid into the seat beside her. “You keep fiddling with that, I'll never get it back where I want it. By the way, change lanes, you're headed for the wrong exit.” His radio crackled. He still didn't have his seat belt on. “Delarosa … yes, sir.”

Sonora could hear the voice on the other end, wrapping information around static.

“Sonora?” Sam said. “You get anything out of Joy Stinnet?”

“Never regained consciousness.”

Sam muttered into the radio, looked up. “Where the hell are you going?”

“What did Crick say?”

“They're looking for the Jeep, they have an APB out. White Grand Cherokee, Marine Corps sticker on the back window.”

“Guy was an ex-marine?”

“Maybe he just thought the sticker looked pretty. Are you—What the hell? You're heading home?”

“You want me to go notify next of kin with the woman's blood all over my damn shirt?” It was a good excuse, for something she'd thought up on the spur of the moment. She had to check the kids, see them in person, make sure they were both okay.

“I told Crick we were on the way.”

“We are.”

“Why don't you just button your jacket over the blood?”

“Number one, it'll ruin my blazer, and number two, there's too much blood to be covered up anyway.”

Sam folded his arms. Stared out the window. Still no seat belt.

She felt weird turning down her street. Everything familiar, but different. She pulled into the driveway, put the car in park, left the engine running.

“Stay put, I won't be just a minute.”

“That's what worries me.”

“What?”

“Never mind, just go.” He got out of the Taurus, headed for the driver's seat. “It'll take me that long to get the seat back.”

“
I don't give a shit.
”

Sam looked startled. Sonora felt the same way. She shrugged, shook her head, and ran for the garage, feeling for the opener in her purse, catching the button with her thumb. Saw, too late, the next-door neighbors sitting on the front porch, their faces hard to make out in the dark, though she could tell that their heads were angled her way.

“Good evening, how are you?” Her voice was polite, friendly. She did not wait for a response but wound through the garage, past two bags of garbage, an ancient green tent that started life as navy blue, a box of precious family pictures that should have been moved inside a year ago, a red canoe, sideways, under a white metal bunk bed, and a bag of old maternity clothes she was terrified to throw away.

Something rustled on the left.

Clampett met her in the kitchen, tail wagging, happy to see her. Mothers and dogs. Unconditional love.