Nancy said, 'Listen to the man.'
'I didn't even take any stitches.'
Eisenberg came over, lifted my johnny coat. 'We let a gunshot heal from below. If we closed it over with sutures, an abscess might form.' He dropped my coat.
'So it's not that bad, right?'
'A bullet makes a dirty wound, Mr. Cuddy. The slug itself, fibers it introduces from your clothes.'
'But you washed all that out.'
'We used a saline solution to irrigate the area, yes.'
I said, 'If I run, what's the worst that can happen?'
Nancy said, 'John, you're a dunce.'
Eisenberg looked skeptical. 'The wound could weep through the dressing, perhaps even break open. You'd lose some blood and risk an infection.'
'So if I run and the worst happens, I won't die before I finish the race, right?'
'Right. But you could be very sick thereafter.'
'Which means I might be on antibiotics and maybe in bed for a while'?'
'Probably.'
'If the wound breaks open.'
'Yes, but you'll also be rather weak to start with.'
'Any weaker than if I'd had a bout of the flu?'
Eisenberg said, 'Honestly? Probably not as weak as the flu would make you.'
I looked at Nancy and shrugged. She crossed her arms and stalked out.
I was saying good-bye to Room 309 when I heard a knock. 'Come in.'
Ines Roja opened the door a little. 'You are all right?'
'Come on in, Ines.'
She closed it behind her. 'I wanted to thank you.'
'I'm the one who should thank you.'
When Roja looked puzzled, I described her hitting Manolo's arm and throwing off his aim.
A shake of the head. 'I do not remember doing that.'
'Things were happening pretty fast.'
'After I called you, I heard a noise downstairs. I searched for something, anything, as a weapon, but there was nothing I could see. Then Manolo was coming up the stairs with a rifle. I tried to talk to him, to sign to him, but he kept moving toward the professor's room, pushing me away. I didn't know what to do. I was shouting, but she wouldn't wake up. Then I heard you and… and the rest you saw.'
'Are you all right?'
'Yes.' Roja lowered her eyes. 'No. No, I am not. I cannot seem to do anything to please the professor.'
'She's probably upset too.'
'No, no. She was like this before… Manolo. From the time she came in the door from the plane. Nothing can please her, everything makes her angry. I think the reason Tuck left so soon for the tournament is because even he cannot stand to be around her.'
'She'll ride it out.'
Roja bit her lip. 'Today the professor said she would not need me for a while. That I could just as well leave.'
'What are you going to do?'
'I don't want her to be alone in that house, but that is what she wants.'
'Can't Hebert come home early from the tournament?'
'The professor says she does not want him either. I could use a vacation from all that has happened, but I want to tell you something first. So that you will still watch over her.'
'What is it?'
'I helped Manolo with his English since I worked for the professor. '
'Yes?'
Roja bit her lip again, facing the floor. 'I saw all the notes. I do not think Manolo could write… could compose them alone.' She looked up, tears brimming. 'I think someone else must have helped him, John.'
30
THE VIETNAMESE DOCTOR WHO DISCHARGED ME THURSDAY morning insisted that I ride a wheelchair and elevator to the public entrance. It was a blue-skied sixty degrees, and my body was balky from the hospital bed. I decided to walk off my stay before going to see Maisy Andrus.
Winding down Cambridge Street, I took Charles to the Public Garden, my side feeling a little tight but not hurting. In the garden, the curly-haired man who oversees the flower beds was directing a couple of helpers with wheelbarrows containing clumps of pansies and other more exotic bloomers. A big van with R. B. COOKE & SON, INC./PACKERS AND MOVERS was backed down to the Swan Pond. The workers were unloading detached shells of white swans. Already on the lawn were red and green benches. A couple of other guys were lashing green pontoons to the dock.
I sat for an hour or so, watching the flowers get planted so that people could see and smell them. Watching the swans and benches get hoisted over the pontoons so mothers and fathers could bring little kids for their first rides on them. Everybody getting ready for spring. There are worse ways to come back to life.
I got up and walked west on the Commonwealth boulevard. Dogs were leaping for Frisbees, and college kids were playing hacky-sack. A couple of yuppies in madras bermudas hosed the winter from their bay windows.
I reached Fairfield and went up to the condo. I tried Murphy, who wasn't in, then Neely, who was. I started to explain what Ines Roja had told me.
'Cuddy, Cuddy. Hold on a minute, okay?'
'Hold for what?'
'No, I mean just wait like, all right? Hear me out.'
'Go ahead.'
'Murphy calls me this morning, he's got the ballistics report already. The flattened slug from the mailbox is a match for the ones we dug out of the plaster from where Manolo tried to whack you.'
'So the slugs match.'
'So what does that tell you?'
'That the same rifle probably was used in both the sniping at us and the shooting at me.'
'Tells me more than that, pal. Tells me that Manolo was the shooter, both times.'
'Maybe he was. That – '
'We found a rag there, closet of his room at the manse. Oil on the rag's same as the oil on the rifle.'
'Neely, just because- – '
'What I'm saying here is, you got the right guy, okay?'
'Neely, what I'm saying is that there might be another guy involved. Somebody to help Manolo write the notes, maybe get him stirred up about the professor injecting her husband way back when. Get it?'
'That's the line you were pushing at the hospital. Just what do you got besides Manolo of the Morgue there?'
I repeated what Roja said about the notes and suggested police protection for Maisy Andrus.
'Cuddy, I got to tell you, I don't see it that way. We got a sniping, we got a match on the slugs, we got the gun, we got the dead guy with the gun. You got smoke and mirrors.'
'What will it take, Neely?'
'To put a uniform on her door?'
