The Walt Longmire Mystery Series Boxed Set Volumes 1-4 (89 page)

She turned and looked at the water. “No, the Terror’s the only one who has tried it. Vic Jr.’s got a hairdresser he knocked up, so I figure it’s only a question of time. Al’s been dating the same girl for four years but refuses to buy the cow, Tony’s a ladies man, and Michael…” She continued to look at the water with her lips compressed.

“Michael…?”

She didn’t move. “No one’s good enough.”

* * *

It was getting late and I wanted to be there when Cady got home, so we started back from the marine center, where we had been watching the boats gently rock in the current of the big river.

“So, what else have you got planned?”

I tucked my hands into the front pockets of my jeans and listened as my boots made more noise than her shoes on the sidewalk. “I don’t know if Vic’s told you about Henry’s photography exhibit?”

“The Native American photographs?”

“Yep.” I nodded at the political correctness. “The reception is Friday, but that’s about it as far as formalities.” We walked along in silence. “I think I was looking for an excuse to come here, and I think Henry was, too.”

“It’s good to keep tabs.” Her turn to nod. “I don’t worry about Victoria out there. I know it’s foolish, but I figure the odds are better.”

“They are.” I slowed down a little, deciding it was time to comfort my undersheriff’s mother. “There are inherent risks with the job, but county-wise we have one of the lowest crime rates in a state with one of the lowest crime rates in the country.”

I was blowing sunshine her way, but she didn’t seem to mind. “I hear you’re going to retire soon?”

Kyle Straub’s signs had made an impression all the way to Philadelphia. “It’s a strong possibility.”

“What then?”

I thought about it. “Maybe I’ll be your daughter’s deputy.”

* * *

It was amazing to me how many people were still on the streets. There were couples walking arm in arm, people in suits swinging briefcases in a desperate pursuit of momentum, and a homeless guy who put the touch on me at Race and 2nd. He was an older gentleman and rocked gently on dirty tennis shoes with a sign teetering in his right hand that read
VETERAN, HOMELESS, PLEASE HELP
.

Lena watched as I pulled a five from my front pocket and palmed it into the palsied hand. “Thank you, sir.”

His voice was remarkably cultured, and I looked at him for a second more—at the surprising blue of his eyes—and then continued on with Lena.

“You keep that up, and you won’t have any money by the time you get out of here.”

I nodded.

“He’ll just use it to get something to drink.”

“I would.”

She shook her head and smiled at me some more. “You were in the military?”

I raised a weak fist. “Remember the
Maine
.”

“You don’t want to talk about it?”

I smiled at her. “I’ll make you a deal; I don’t have to talk about Vietnam, and you don’t have to sing.”

“Deal.”

We crossed at Paddy O’Neil’s Tavern and looked down Bread, where there was a Philadelphia City Police cruiser idling with its parking lights on. I couldn’t be sure, but it looked as if it sat at Cady’s front door. I glanced at Lena, but she was frowning at the car. “Anybody looking for you?”

“Always.”

We walked down the narrow street; she was hurrying and was just a little ahead of me. By the time I got to the driver’s side of the unit, I could see that the young man behind the wheel looked remarkably like Lena and could only surmise that he was a Moretti. She was the first to speak. “What are you doing here, Tony?”

The patrolman looked up at her, but he didn’t smile. “Hey, Ma.” He looked past her to me and at my hat. “Are you Walter Longmire?”

Whatever smile I had drained away. “Yes.”

“There’s been an accident.”

3

The Trauma Center at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania was on the other side of town and the Schuylkill River, but it took Officer Anthony Moretti only twelve minutes to get there. It took me half that to get to the Surgical ICU on the fifth floor, and numerous lifetimes to think about the nature of trauma and how it takes more lives than cancer and heart disease combined. He wouldn’t give me details, only that my daughter had been involved in some sort of accident, that she was being treated at HUP, and that, as a professional courtesy, he would drive me there.

Lena Moretti had accompanied us, stating flatly that she could just as easily get a cab from Penn as from Bread Street. She had stayed with Tony while I found myself looking into the very tired eyes of a trauma physician who explained that Cady had sustained a depressed skull fracture and that she was currently unresponsive. A CAT scan had confirmed the damage, and there was a neurosurgeon battling a subdural hematoma.

There really wasn’t anything I could do but sit there with a Styrofoam cup of coffee and wait. There wasn’t a lot of room in the ICU, so I dragged one of the gray upholstered chairs into the hallway, where I had a clear view of the red doors of the emergency elevator. I watched it the next ten minutes. It was creeping up on midnight and, with the lights on all the time and the sounds of the machines, it was like a casino—only the stakes were higher.

Nobody speaks to you in these situations—it’s like you’re a pitcher throwing a no-hitter—they don’t look at you, and you don’t want them to. I thought about all the people I should call, but it was only Henry who could do anything. I pulled out my wallet; the business card from Fred Ray’s Durant Sinclair Service had Henry’s cell phone number scrawled across the back. I didn’t call him on his mobile very often and could never remember the number. I went to the nurse’s desk and asked if I could use the phone. I dialed and watched the elevator as the phone rang and a prissy little voice informed me that the person I was attempting to call was unavailable but that I could leave a message after the tone, which I did.

“Henry, it’s Walt. Cady’s been hurt, and I’m in the ICU at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.” I gave him the number of the phone I was speaking into, along with the extension. As I hung up, Lena Moretti and another young police officer who was carrying a plastic basket and Cady’s briefcase turned the corner at the end of the hall. I stood there and waited for them; they stopped a full step away, like you would approach a large wounded animal.

Lena’s hand trailed out to me; she was the brave one. “How is she?”

I took two fingers of the hand and looked at the eyes that were so much like Vic’s. I felt my knees buckle a little. The next thing I knew, the cup of coffee from my other hand was on the polished surface of the speckled tile floor, and I was sitting in my chair trying to catch my breath. Lena and the young man kneeled beside me; he had placed the basket beside my chair, and I saw a small purse, a holstered electronic device I didn’t recognize, a cell phone, a wristwatch, and her grandmother’s engagement ring.

“Take it easy there, big fella.” He had one hand on my shoulder and the other at my back and was holding me there.

I took a deep breath. Lena’s hands were cool on my face. “Walter?”

I continued to breathe and leaned back in the chair. “I’m okay.”

She looked at me, not sure. “Do you want me to get a doctor?” She glanced around for comic effect. “I mean, there seem to be plenty around.”

I tried to laugh, but I think all I accomplished was a funny face. “I’m okay, really.” I thought I was but, when I looked at the young officer to thank him, he looked like Lena, too; everybody had started looking alike. I dipped my head back down and blinked to clear my vision; I looked back up at the guy, but he still looked like Lena, although not exactly like Tony. I felt slightly better when I glanced at his name tag. “Michael Moretti?”

He smiled. “How ya doin’?”

Michael was a handsome kid; somehow the features I had grown used to on females worked on him as well. The eyes were a true dark brown, and his chin was a little stronger, with a cleft that neither Lena nor Vic had. He was a little shorter than six feet, but his shoulders and arms were very large. I nodded to him. “I’m okay.”

He continued to smile. “Yeah, that’s what you keep sayin’.”

I looked at Lena, at the parchment lines at her eyes. “You called in the cavalry?”

She nodded. “It’s in his district, the Wild West. Tony’s the sixth.”

Lena got some paper towels from the nurse’s station and cleaned up the coffee as I signed the personal property list. Michael had heard through unofficial channels that Cady was stabilized and would be moved from surgery to the ICU soon. I looked at the favored son and listened as his almost new gun belt creaked in the silence of the hallway. “Mr. Longmire, do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“Walt, just call me Walt.”

“You sure you’re up to this?”

“Yep.”

He nodded. “Your daughter is an associate at Schomberg, Calder, Dallin, and Rhind?”

“Yep, she was working late.”

He wrote on his notepad and looked back at me. “Working late?”

“Yep. I spoke with her earlier, and she was supposed to have dinner with your mother and me, but she had some work to do.”

His lip stiffened, just a little. “The firm is located on the 1500 block of Market?”

“Yes.” I waited.

“Then do you have any idea why she would have been assaulted at the Franklin Institute?”

“Assaulted?”

“Look, I could tell you that it was an innocent accident…” He paused and then inclined his head a little. “But the attending officer said he spoke with the security guard, and he said there was an altercation between the young lady and another individual: male, Caucasian, approximately mid-thirties.”

“Where?”

“Franklin Institute, across from Logan Circle, near the art museum.” He continued to look at me. “The security guard said he heard voices, and then the next thing he knows the guy is beating on the door and asking for help. By the time he got the door unlocked and got out there, your daughter was lying on the steps and the man was gone. When you spoke with her, did she say anything about another engagement this evening?”

“No, she just said she’d be late.”

“Does the description of the individual sound familiar?”

“Well…she’s dating a young man.”

“And that man’s name?”

I paused a second before I said it. “Devon Conliffe.”

He wrote it down. “Do you have an address?”

“No, but he’s another lawyer…I’m sure Cady has it.”

He looked at the basket. “Would you mind if I looked at her PDA?”

I’m sure he was aware I was staring at him. “If I knew what it was, probably not.”

He reached down and plucked the unknown device from the basket and pulled it from the leather holster. “Is he an attorney with the same firm?”

“No, a different one, but I don’t know the name.”

It looked like a calculator, but evidently it had other abilities. He scribbled Devon Conliffe’s address and phone number on his note pad, put the device back, stood, and looked down at me. “Look, it’s probably nothing, but I’m gonna follow up on this and, if there’s anything, I’ll let you know.” There was an easy quality that overrode how brand-new his uniform looked; I was betting he had been in for less than a year.

He kissed his mother and turned to summon the elevator, but the door was opening, and an entourage of attendants, nurses, and physicians wheeled out machinery and a gurney on which Cady lay. I stood, and we all moved against the wall to allow them to pass. It was good that I had the wall to stand against, because I was feeling a little shaky again. They had shaved the side of her head, where there was a U-shaped incision, and a breathing tube ran into her throat. Her eyes were closed, and she didn’t move. I trailed along behind the group and watched as they installed her in the corner room; the ironic sadness of that was not lost on me.

They parked her carefully like you would a new and expensive car. I watched as the electrocardiogram was attached to the wall monitor, and it began the familiar line and spike.

The same physician who had spoken to me before separated himself and came to the doorway. His ID said Rissman. He looked at the floor, looked at the wall, and finally settled on my left shoulder as a focus. He talked about seizures sweeping across Cady’s brain like electrical storms, flashing from the horizon and disappearing. He explained that Cady’s Glasgow coma score was a seven and that she was only responding to painful stimuli in an involuntary manner. I guess I understood the rest, but the word that hung in my head was coma. How she responded within the next twenty-four hours would determine whether she would join the 53 percent that die or remain in a vegetative state, or the 34 percent that will have a moderate disability and/or good recovery. I wasn’t sure about the other 13 percent, but I knew about head trauma, and I knew about coma; what I didn’t know about was the next twenty-four hours.

He said that she was in excellent physical health otherwise and that youth was on her side, that she had had normal pupil reflex upon arrival, and that the entire team was hopeful. I had heard this speech before, because I had made it; I knew what it was worth.

Dr. Rissman said he would be back in an hour to check on things and then introduced me to the primary nurse, a solid woman in her forties; she said nothing but squeezed my hand before moving away. I sat in the chair beside the bed, and Lena Moretti was the only one left in the doorway of the glass-partitioned area. She came to the bedside and stood beside me, placing a hand on my shoulder and, thankfully, offering no advice. She stood like that long enough for me to start feeling guilty. “You should go home.”

Her voice was very quiet. “You’re sure?” I didn’t say anything; evidently that was okay, because she patted my shoulder and assured me that she’d be back in the morning with breakfast. And she was gone.

I listened as the machines breathed for my daughter, monitored her heart, and fed her intravenously, but I kept looking at the incision where they had removed a portion of the skull to allow her swollen brain enough room to survive. A small piece of Cady was now in a freezer on the fourth floor and, when I thought about it, the weakness threatened to overwhelm me again; so I looked at her face. It was lovely, and every time I looked at it, I had a hard time convincing myself that I had had any hand in it. I always loved the finished quality of her features; she was like her mother in that respect. Mine were more blocked, as if nature had started with a pretty good idea but had gotten bored with the effort. Cady was different. She was beautiful.