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.“Folks, could you excuse me for just another minute?”I went into the workroom and closed the connecting door behind me.“Eddie, if you love me, go out and talk to the Buckmeisters.”“Oh, no,” he said, his feet planted on his desk and an unlit cigar clamped in his teeth.No smoking in the workroom, by order of the proprietor.“Ohhh, no, not the Killer B’s.If you’re too shook up to work, then get rid of ’em and take the day off.”“I’m not shaken up; I’m going to Harborview”“What the hell for?”“Tommy Barry’s had a drunk-driving accident, I want to try and see him.Please, Eddie, just take some notes and don’t promise them anything for sure until I check it out.”He grumbled, but he did it, and within minutes I was fleeing through the downpour to climb into Vanna.As I drove, Tommy’s voice sounded in my head: “You’re killing her!” But who? Who had he seen with Mercedes, and did that person know they’d been seen? Was there someone out there hoping that Tommy never woke up? Or planning to make sure that he didn’t? The police should be guarding him.The morning news had only hinted at foul play and said nothing of witnesses, but if the killer knew about Tommy, he could easily track him down.I maneuvered into a tight spot behind a pillar in the hospital’s underground garage, and fumbled in my purse to be sure I had Graham’s card handy.I could call him from the lobby after I’d seen Tommy.A grandmotherly volunteer told me what floor Mr.Barry was on, then began to say something about restricted visiting.I didn’t stay to listen.Hospitals try so hard to be efficient and cheery, like office buildings crossed with day-care centers.Soothing water-colors, potted plants, even espresso carts, for revving up the staff and calming down the visitors.But every time I enter one of those double-wide, slow-moving elevators with their indefinable hospital smell, I can taste Styrofoam and the thin, bitter vending-machine coffee that Mom and I drank by the quart at St.Luke’s, in Boise, as my father failed to recover from his third heart surgery.Dad gave me my red hair and also my name.He had educated himself in the public libraries endowed by Andrew Carnegie, and conveniently overlooked the fact that old Andy was a robber baron.But Dad gave me so much more, and I still missed him.Mom and I practically lived at the hospital, that last time.She knew all the nurses’ names, and I knew every waiting-room watercolor by heart.Dad was buried in the veterans’ cemetery there in Boise.Mom went to see him every Sunday.The elevator began to fill, and I squeezed back in the corner and tried hard to think of something else.You couldn’t get more “else” than the Buckmeisters, so I thought about them, and the Great Christmas Cake Conundrum.The dinner menu was shaping up fine; Joe Solveto was planning on roasted halibut with a macadamia crust and mango chutney, and he was fine-tuning a vegetarian entrée as well.But the Killer B’s wanted the cake to be a special event in itself, some kind of colossal Christmas concoction that they couldn’t quite describe, but they’d know it when they saw it.Buck, Betty, and Bonnie had done tasting after tasting— these folks just loved to eat cake—but none of my usual bakeries had really wowed them.So far, they’d rejected a traditional tiered cake with holly trim, a forty-pound brandied fruitcake, and a fantasy forest of fir-tree-shaped croques en bouche in a blizzard of spun sugar.Time was getting short.I had one more baker, deep in my Rolodex, who might just do the trick….The doors swooshed open on the intensive care unit.Surprise, surprise: the police knew their job better than I did.At the end of the corridor I could see a brawny officer planted on a folding chair beside a door.Tommy’s room.I made a beeline for it, past a waiting area full of family members with strained expressions, despondently doing jigsaw puzzles or rereading magazines.I tried not to see them, not to imagine who or what they were waiting for.A tiny, sharp-nosed black supervisor with bloodshot eyes intercepted me, demanding my full name and relationship to the patient.“You’re not Mr.Barry’s daughter, then,” she said.It sounded like an accusation.“Immediate family only at this time.”“Tommy has a daughter? Can I get her phone number? I’d like to help.”“We can’t release that information.”“Can you at least tell me how he’s doing? Or could I talk to his doctor?”“The doctor would tell you that Mr.Barry’s condition is critical,” she said, glaring up at me, “and there are no visitors allowed except immediate family.”In another minute she’d call the cop over to evict me; he was already watching us suspiciously.Well, at least I knew Tommy was safe.I stopped in the hospital gift shop on my way out and tried to order a bouquet for his room, but they told me flowers weren’t allowed in the ICU.As I bypassed the elevator and clattered down the fire stairs to the van, I vowed to myself that I’d bring an armful of blossoms when Tommy woke up.Surely he’d wake up soon.At the moment, I didn’t even care if he could identify the murderer.I just wanted Tommy Barry back in the land of the living.Preoccupied as I was, I must have pulled out of my parking space too fast.A bang like a gunshot coincided with a shock that flung me forward against my shoulder belt.I sat still for a moment, unsure at first of what had happened.Then I realized and groaned aloud, not in pain but in sorrow.If my insurance goes up I’m screwed.I scrambled out.My fender was a mess, but the occupants of the other car, a Catholic priest and a drab young woman, seemed to be intact.“I’m so sorry,” I babbled as they climbed out of the shiny blue sedan.The priest, a burly man in his sixties, had been driving.“Honest, I thought I looked, but the pillar was blocking me [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]