Throughout the whole session, the Wrightsville officer had remained silent. Now he told Edwards that it looked to him as if the hit and run was related to the murder, so Wilmington could have it. “Just keeps us informed, okay?”
When he was gone, Edwards looked around the cafeteria. “You know, the food’s not half bad here. I think I might as well grab a bite to eat while I have a chance. What about y’all?”
Chelsea Ann looked torn and I realized that his ‘y’all’ was only for politeness. Even though there was a hollow space in my stomach, I stood up and told her to stay. “I won’t leave without you.”
“You sure? ’Cause I can wait.”
It only took one more “I’m sure” from me to convince her it was okay to do what she wanted, which was stay there and get to know Detective Edwards on a nonprofessional basis.
Nothing had changed in the ICU waiting room except that a dispirited lethargy seemed to have settled over those who remained. I picked the pepperoni off of a slice of cold pizza and ate part of it.
Martha’s son arrived just before nine. A few minutes later, a surgeon came to the waiting room in bloodstained scrubs and asked to speak to them privately.
“Whatever you have to say can be said before my friends,” Martha told him. She held herself erect as if braced for the worst. “Don’t sugarcoat it, Doctor. Is he going to be all right? Yes or no?”
“We don’t know. There was internal bleeding. A rib punctured his right lung and his hip was fractured. We had to remove his spleen. He took a serious blow to the head but luckily there doesn’t seem to be much swelling of his brain. We’ll monitor for blood clots, of course. He’ll probably be in and out of consciousness for the next couple of days. After that?” The surgeon shook his head. “We just don’t know. His age is against him, but if he makes it through the next few days, then his chances improve.”
She took it like the stoic she is. “Can we see him now?”
“It’ll take them another fifteen or twenty minutes to get him hooked up to the monitors, and we’ve put him on a ventilator to help with his breathing,” the surgeon said. “I’ll tell the nurses to call you when they’ve finished.”
Martha reached out and touched his arm. “We’ve been married forty-two years, Doctor. Thank you for giving him back to me.”
He started to say not to thank him yet, but Martha’s eyes held his in such fierce determination that he squeezed her hand. “I hope I have, ma’am. I hope I have.”
CHAPTER
17
Even though Fitz could not respond, once Martha had seen him and touched him, she let their son Chad persuade her to return to the hotel for the night. She planned to transfer to a hotel nearer the hospital the next day.
As we waited with her at the entrance for Chad to bring the car around, I said, “You have my number, so call if there’s anything at all that we can do.”
Martha’s not normally a physically demonstrative person, but I got a warm hug and a “Thanks, sugar” before her son whisked her away.
Chelsea Ann was silent on our drive through Wilmington’s dark tree-lined streets. Away from the center of town, all was quiet until after we crossed the causeway that led over to the beach where vacationers were hanging out at the main intersection, spilling out into the street from the clubs.
“So what’s the verdict?” I asked her as we maneuvered around the cars full of vacationing teenagers that were cruising back and forth.
She didn’t pretend not to understand. “I don’t know, Deborah. Another lawman?”
Her ex-husband was an ATF agent.
“I’ve been down that road before. Gary Edwards seems like a real sweetie. Cute, smart. But I’m in Raleigh and he’s down here. When would we really get to know each other?”
“It’s only a ninety-minute drive,” I reminded her.
“And we both know that a lawman’s life is not his own. Look how often Dwight has to bail on you and he’s right there in Dobbs.”
“Sam’s erratic schedule wasn’t why y’all split up,” I said.
“No, but it certainly didn’t help that he never seemed to be around when I wanted him,” she argued. “Oh, well, why am I even talking like this? It’s not as if Gary’s even asked me out yet.”
“And if he does?”
She grinned. “Oh, what the heck? I’ll probably go. Why not? How I Spent My Summer Vacation. Better a summer fling with him than with a married judge, right?”
Which led us back to earlier speculations about a pair of fifty-something colleagues. He is from the mountains, she’s from the Triangle. Both married, yet they never bring their spouses to the conferences. They discovered each other three years ago when they sat together during the sessions and talked animatedly during the breaks. At every conference since, they sit on opposite sides of the room, they don’t speak during the morning breaks, and they don’t go out to lunch together; but it’s been noticed that they don’t stay at the conference hotels and that one car pulls into the parking lot within minutes of the other. They both plead poverty and kids in college as a reason to book somewhere cheaper, yet somehow it’s never at the motel where all the other budget-minded judges stay.
