New River Blues (7 page)

She looked at her watch. Almost eight. If Roger Henderson went to work early, maybe Ruth, the wonder secretary, did too.

Before the first ring ended, a professionally cordial voice said, ‘Hen-Trax.'

‘I'm hoping you're Ruth,' Sarah said.

‘I am indeed,' the voice said, warming up still more. ‘What can I do for you?'

Sarah identified herself and then, picking her words carefully, told Ruth there was a problem at the Henderson house. ‘I can't share any details until I've spoken to Mr Henderson, of course. Do you know where I might find him?'

Deeply curious at once but flawlessly polite, Ruth said her boss had been at a meeting in Phoenix all weekend, but ‘I really expected him back by now. I'm waiting to hear from him.' She probed all around the problem. Was there something she could help with? What message did Sarah want to leave for Mr Henderson?

Sarah left her cell number, already rehearsing what she would say when he called.

The second time Roger regained consciousness, he was on a gurney being wheeled down a hall. There were people around him, busy but calm, all talking to each other but not about him. The young man in blue scrubs who was pushing the gurney had been to a baseball game recently and was sharing his enthusiasm about a Diamondbacks pitcher. ‘That Brandon Webb, I tell you,' he said, ‘he's just a throwing animal.'

Roger tried to sit up but his arms seemed to be fastened to the narrow cot. There was a needle in his left arm, too, he noticed now, and a tube running up to a nearly full bag that hung from a shiny stand like a coat rack. Another young man beside him was pushing the rack, keeping pace with the gurney so the IV stayed in Roger's arm.

He had not been in a hospital as a patient since he sprained an ankle in high school, and his first thought was that he didn't want to be in this one now. But most of his waking hours were spent thinking about how systems worked, and in spite of himself his attention was caught by the clever coupling that fastened the IV tube to the needle in his arm. He admired it for a few seconds, thinking,
Wouldn't I like to hire the guy who thought of that.
Then the here and now he had been hurrying toward came back into his mind, and he said, ‘Where am I?'

The young man pushing the rack told him he was in Chandler Medical, and congratulated him for having his accident so near a big emergency medical center. ‘I mean, if you gotta mess up you did it just right,' he said. ‘We zipped you over here in nothing flat, the triage doc's already seen you and you're on your way to a scan. You're doing great, buddy. Just relax.'

The world was suddenly full of young men who thought he would like to be their buddy.
Fat chance of that.
He opened his mouth to ask what time it was, but the lights blurred and he lost focus for a few seconds. Or hours? He wasn't sure.

He came fully awake again in a curtained space surrounded by a different set of people, older and quieter, all watching him.

‘What's going on?' he asked them. He expected to sound the way he usually did, like somebody to be reckoned with, but his voice wasn't working right. The plaintive whisper that came out of him wouldn't get respect from a child.
Damn.
He shook his head in disgust. That was a mistake too. The world rocked alarmingly, and for a minute he thought he was going to be sick.

He held his breath, got his equilibrium back and bootstrapped mentally back up toward his usual self, a person with a lot on his mind.
Got to get off this bed.

The people around him had other ideas. They wanted him to raise his arms, for some reason, and then to smile. Smile? His arms both worked all right, why wouldn't they? He smiled reluctantly, feeling silly, at a fat nurse who seemed satisfied, though she didn't smile back.

A gray-haired physician in a white coat pressed a stethoscope to Roger's chest, asking, ‘What's your name?'

‘Roger Henderson. My wallet's in my clothes, didn't you find that?' The doctor didn't answer. He wanted Roger to tell him how many fingers he was holding up. Why were they playing children's games? Now he wanted Roger to say his mother's maiden name. For a minute he couldn't remember it.

‘Why . . . same as her married name. Antrim,' Roger said. ‘I guess she was one of the early feminists.' He went on, at the doctor's request but with mounting annoyance, to counting backward from twenty. Finally the doctor muttered something to his two serious aides, who scurried away to do his bidding while the doctor sat down on a little stool by Roger's narrow bed.

‘OK,' the doctor said, ‘you remember being in a car accident?'

‘It wasn't my fault. I tried to get out of the way but—'

‘Yes. Well, you were very lucky. You've got a broken nose and some bruises on your chest. We taped that up a little and set your nose, but you're going to have some beautiful shiners, probably. What's really got us concerned is that your blood pressure was critically high when you were brought in. We've brought it down about a hundred points since you've been here, we're giving you –' he said something Roger didn't understand – ‘but you were way up in stroke territory there for a while. Are you on medication for high blood pressure, Roger?'

‘Oh . . . I got some pills a while back. I guess I left them at home.'
I forget them half
the time anyway.
‘I've been at a meeting in Phoenix and I didn't think—' He watched the doctor's mournful little headshake. ‘Wrong, huh?'

‘They aren't doing you much good in the closet, are they? Skipping your blood-pressure meds is a very bad idea, Roger. Also . . . you're a big guy, but even so, you're carrying a few extra pounds.'

‘Been too busy to get much exercise.'

‘Uh-huh. Have you been under a lot of stress lately?'

‘Some. I'm a builder.' He had learned not to say ‘developer.' Suspicion of large-scale builders, always simmering on a back burner somewhere, was approaching full boil. The damn developers had built too many houses, people were saying. Oughta shoot the whole bunch of crooks, and their bankers too while we're at it.

‘I'm going to be a lot more stressed if I don't check in with my office pretty soon,' Roger said, ‘I think I've missed a couple of meetings already. Is there a phone I can use?'

‘In a minute. Is your office in Phoenix?'

‘Tucson. Why?'

‘You shouldn't drive yet. Well, but you don't have a car anyway, do you?' The doctor smiled cheerfully as if that was a good thing. ‘Tell you what, we did a CT scan and an ultrasound, the results should be ready by now. You just rest a few minutes while I look at those, and I'll be back.'

He was gone before Roger could ask again for a phone. Every time a uniformed person came within hailing distance Roger asked for his clothes. He had remembered his cell phone was in his jacket. If he could get his hands on his phone he could start making calls, find out where his car was, put the spurs to his staff and fix whatever he'd missed . . . What in hell was wrong with these people? Nobody seemed to be paying any attention to him.

Part of his mind had begun to compose a story about the mounting frustration of this hospital experience, something he could tell his secretary to keep her from enquiring too closely into his whereabouts during the twenty-four hours before his accident. She was a plump divorcée named Ruth, very smart and serious, but she liked to be jollied along a little, it helped her put up with being worked like a donkey.

So there I was begging for my pants . . . beginning to think about tearing up a sheet and making a rope to jump out a window . . .
She would laugh with her hand over her mouth, saying ‘Oh, isn't that just priceless?' Then the builder in him noticed that the double-glazed windows in his room would never open to let anyone jump out, and he was thinking about fire and scrutinizing the sprinkler system when finally the doctor came back.

‘Well, you don't show any sign of having had a stroke. So . . . you were lucky twice this morning, Roger. But if I were you I wouldn't count on being lucky with blood pressure that high again. They don't call it the silent killer for nothing. Take your meds regularly and talk to your doctor about making some changes in your lifestyle, hmm? The hellish aspect of strokes these days is that we usually keep people alive after they have them so they can spend years in rehab, learning to walk and talk again.' He looked at Roger sternly over his glasses and said, ‘Trust me, you'd hate it.' He jumped up off his little stool and said, ‘There now, I've delivered my jeremiad about following doctor's orders, now you can have your clothes.'

The cell phone was right where it belonged, in his jacket. He could not get his Monday morning back, but he could get his foremen on the phone and check on the jobs. First, though, he called a limousine service to take him to his Tucson office. The cell showed one missed call from a number he didn't recognize, that could wait. He knew he should call home next – a man who'd been in an accident would normally do that. But he didn't know what kind of a mood his wife might be in by now and he didn't feel up to dealing with her if she were angry. He stared out at the unloading zone where the limo would come, collected his thoughts for a minute, and dialed his secretary.

He hardly recognized Ruth's familiar voice. ‘Oh, Mr Henderson,' she said, and he realized she was crying. ‘I am so very sorry. What can I do to help?'

FOUR

O
llie Greenaway walked out of the Ortmans' front door as Sarah approached it.

‘Oh, good, you finished my interview,' she said. ‘How'd it go?' A twenty-year man who'd seen everything twice without ever finding his hard side, Ollie had a reputation for getting good interviews. His sunny nature put people at ease.

‘More of the same. Gunshots, barking dogs,' Ollie said. ‘Golf, a lot about golf. Ortman shoots in the mid-eighties and favors a center shaft putter. His is a Nike.'

‘Good to know. Where you headed now?'

‘People named Worthington live in that split-level at the end of the block. According to the Ortmans they see a lot of the Hendersons.'

‘OK. You hear I'm the case officer now?'

‘What, Cifuentes never made it? I thought I saw his car.'

‘He was here. He admitted to knowing the female victim.'

‘So?'

‘Knowing in the biblical sense.'

‘Oh?' He perked up, pleased. ‘I'll be damned. Cifuentes? I thought he was all flash and no fire. Shows you what I know about sexy, huh? Well, c'mon, dish!'

‘Didn't get any details. He was gone before I could blink. Delaney canned him off the case. We're not supposed to talk to him about it ever.'

‘Oh, yeah, that'll work.'

‘Be careful when you do. Delaney's got his bloomers in a twist about this case.'

‘I suppose. This one's gonna get some ink, huh? High-toned lady gets offed while she's getting it on? Delaney won't let that one get out of his meat-hooks if he can help it.' Content with his own station in life, Greenaway enjoyed watching people sweat the promotion ladder. He gave her a sneaky sideways grin. ‘So, you grabbed the case away from the hot new boy, huh? Way to go, kid!'

‘Delaney called me over. I didn't do any grabbing.'

‘Sure.' He nudged her elbow. ‘Listen, I'm all for gender equality. Ask my wife, I'll let her haul out the garbage any time.' Thoughtfully checking house numbers, he asked her, ‘So . . . you're saying if I do talk to Cifuentes about his roll in the hay with the victim, you don't want to hear a word about it, huh?'

‘You kidding? Bring me every juicy morsel as fast as you get it.'

Greenaway cackled happily and said, ‘OK, then!' Tucking his notebook into the back of his pants, letting his pale eyes wander over the well-tended yards around him, he mused, ‘Jeez, you know, Sarah, if you were inclined towards rebellion this neighborhood could almost make you tip over a bus, couldn't it? I mean, look at that Porsche.' Sleek and glowing as a crown jewel, it was backing out of a three-car garage thickly hung with high-end sports equipment.

‘Mmm. I can't decide if I want the car or the garage.'

‘Go for both, why not? Envy's only a venial sin. Few Hail Marys, couple Our Fathers, and you're good to go again.'

‘Ah, it's so handy to have an altar boy along when you're working the tempting parts of town. Listen, Ollie, you OK to go on with these interviews by yourself? I need to get back in there and ride herd on the physical evidence.'

‘Sure, don't worry about me. I'm getting my jollies out here, talking to rich people in their jammies.'

She hustled back into the house, where Peete, gloved and silent, was still poking through closets, making careful notes in some personal code that helped him keep track of where he'd been. Way to go, she thought, watching him – this house, with whole walls of built-ins, almost guaranteed confusion. But Peete had it organized.

Upstairs, Gloria was still dusting doors on the wall of closets. When Sarah paused by her side she straightened, rubbed her back, and said, ‘Now what do
you
want?'

‘I was just going to ask how it was going. You did the front door first, I hope. Didn't you?'

‘Front, back, side. You bet. Still got all them surfaces in the kitchen and prep room, though.'

‘OK. Where's Delaney?'

‘Gone downtown. And Roy went out to meet Jenny Skidmore. She's bringing in the lasers.' Sarah heard them huffing up the stairway, carrying boxes that they stacked in a corner by the dressing-room door and began to unpack.