Vail looked through the window of the ICU. Yancey lay perfectly still with tubes and IV bottles attached to arms and legs, his face covered with an oxygen mask, machines beeping behind his bed. He was as still as a rock and his skin was the colour of oatmeal.
A few moments later the lift doors opened and Beryl Yancey and her 30-year-old daughter, Joanna, accompanied by a uniformed policeman, stepped out. They looked dazed and confused and stood at the door, their hands interlocked, looking fearfully up and down the hallway. When Beryl saw Vail, she rushed to him, clutching him desperately, and chattering almost incoherently. He put his arms around her and Joanna. Beryl Yancey knew there were frequent skirmishes between her husband and Vail, but she and Jack Yancey both liked the tough prosecutor and were well aware that his stunning record had helped keep Yancey the district attorney for the past ten years.
'I was at the beauty parlour,' Beryl babbled. 'Can you imagine, the beauty parlour? Is he alive, Martin? Oh, God, don't tell me if he's gone. I can't imagine. I won't - '
'He's hanging on, Beryl.'
'Oh, thank God, thank you, Marty…'
'I didn't - '
'Is he awake? Can we see him? Oh, my God, my hair must be a mess. I was right in the middle of…' The sentence died in her mouth as she primped her incomplete hairdo.
'Gary Ziegler's just inside the emergency room. He'll be right out. He can give you all the details.'
'They came and got me in a police car. The whole beauty parlour got hysterical when that nice man… Who was that man, Martin?'
'His name's Harvey. Harvey St Claire.'
'He said he would wait for you in the car.'
'Fine.'
'You're not going to leave us, are you? Nobody would say anything, you know. Mr St Claire wouldn't tell me anything! I thought… Oh, God, I thought everything.'
'He doesn't know anything, Beryl. Harvey doesn't know any more than you do.'
'How bad does my hair look?'
'Your hair looks fine, Mom,' her daughter said, patting her on the arm.
'You know if you need anything, anything at all, just call me. At the office, at home…'
'I know that, Martin. But Jack's going to be all right. I know he'll be all right. He never gets sick. Do you know, he never even gets the flu?'
A minute or two later Ziegler came out wearing a fresh gown and the two Yancey women fled immediately to him. Vail took the lift to the first floor, but as he stepped out he saw a half-dozen reporters and a television crew clustered around the front door. He jumped back inside the lift and rode it to the basement. He took out his portable phone and punched out the car's number. It rang once and St Claire answered. 'Where are you?' he asked.
'The basement. There's press all around the front door.'
'I know. I'm looking at them as we speak.'
'I'm not ready to talk to the press.'
'Follow the arrows to the loading dock on the back side. I'll pick you up there.'
'Right,' Vail answered, following an arrow down a long, dreary tunnel. Empty dollies with bloody sheets wadded up on them lined the walls. Several of the overhead lights were burned out. The narrow, depressing shaft smelled of alcohol and dried blood. He reached the service entrance and bolted through it, raced to the loading platform, and jumped to the ground as St Claire pulled up beside him. He got in the car and St Claire pulled out into the hospital driveway, then sped off towards the courthouse.
'What was it, heart attack?' St Claire asked.
'Stroke. He can't walk, he can't talk, he's living on canned air, his brain has been deprived of oxygen and blood, and he's unconscious. When I suggested he might end up a mashed potato, Ziegler got edgy.'
'Wasn't a very professional diagnosis,' St Claire said. He spat our of the window.
'I'm not a doctor.'
'No.' St Claire chuckled. 'You're the new DA.'
'I don't have time to be DA,' Vail answered sharply. 'This is going to sound weird, but ever since this happened I keep thinking about the day Kennedy was killed,
