High Country Nocturne (David Mapstone Mystery 8)

My wife was on her back, a ventilator tube in her mouth, three IV lines attached to her arms and one running inside her gown, and no pillow under her head. The pillows were supporting her arms and legs. Gauze pads were taped over her eyes.

Heart and respiratory monitors were attached and beeped softly. A blood-pressure cuff was around her right arm and periodically it automatically inflated and deflated. A second nurse came in to check the plastic IV bags hanging on stainless steel rods above her bed.

I talked to her, certain she could hear me, told her I loved her, but they didn’t want me to get too close. Her hand was cold. It didn’t return my grip.

The room held no hospital smell. No smell at all. That was good, right?

When I saw the dried blood in her hair, I became “agitated,” as the nurse put it. Could they wash her hair? No. At least they could use a wet cloth to wipe away the blood. Lindsey was the opposite of vain in almost every way, but she was proud of her hair.

After ten minutes, another medico with a cart came in and I was guided back out. The nurse gave me Lindsey’s wedding rings, the simple narrow platinum band and the engagement ring with a princess-cut diamond. “A timeless modern style,” Lindsey called it.

When I stepped out of the ICU, Sharon was waiting with her daughters, two beautiful, high-functioning Latina lawyers from the Bay Area. Melton and his crew wouldn’t dare ask them for their papers. The anti-immigrant sentiment was as much about class as anything else.

They all hugged me and for a few seconds I thought I would shatter and cry in their arms. But it didn’t come. My emotions pinballed inside. Outside, I felt numb, underwater…

Still, I let them tell me everything would be all right. Mike had been shot and put into a coma, remember? And all turned out well. I was vulnerable to comforting lies at that moment. I welcomed them.

After awhile, Sharon and I took the elevator to the first floor and walked through the corridors of the older part of the hospital. I used my left hand to hold a cold pack to my battered face, kept my right hand free. Historical photos were displayed on the walls. The hallways were wide, dimly lit, and deserted. It made me focus, check sightlines and sounds, feel the companionship of the .38 inside my waistband.

And suddenly, I was facing a wall, touching it lightly, feeling the texture, lost in losing Lindsey. Fortunately, the fugue didn’t last.

But Sharon began sobbing. I took her in my arms.

“I’m so sorry, David…So sorry…”

I whispered, “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

It felt good to comfort someone else, to be outside myself if even for a few minutes. Still, I was back to hyper-awareness, too, a good thing.

I expected her to talk about the uncertainty of Lindsey’s recovery, say how I didn’t have to think about getting through the next two weeks or the next day, but only the moment I was in right then…that sort of thing. I expected her to say shrink things.

Instead, she couldn’t form a word. I took her hand and we walked.

We were past the closed cafeteria before she spoke.

She asked what I was thinking.

“That Lindsey is dying. That it’s my fault.”

“How can you blame yourself?”

So I told her. It took awhile. I could hear noises coming from the kitchen, preparing breakfast for hundreds of patients.

She sighed and shook her head in a narrow, slow axis. Her large Mexican Madonna eyes working not to judge me.

“You did the best you could with the information you had. I wish you hadn’t let that rat bastard Melton box you in a corner.”

“I know.”

“Maybe it’s for the best, give you a distraction during the wait for Lindsey. And she is not dying, David.”

She squeezed my hand.

“I remember when you left Phoenix to become a professor,” she said. “We were all young then. You would visit us at Thanksgiving and Mike would always try to convince you to come back to the Sheriff’s Office. And he finally got you and everything seemed right.”

“I failed in academia and my first marriage. He took pity on me.”

“You didn’t fail,” she said. “You put your skills to their best use. You solved the first case, where the woman got off the train and disappeared?”