participation or cooperation, she may not be able to comply. As I say, it’s probably only temporary, but at the moment it’s absolute. I can give you a letter if you need it.”
“If you don’t mind,” says Harry, “that would be helpful.”
The doctor makes a note on his clipboard. “Right now she’s not communicating with anyone. We haven’t been able to get a word out of her. The officers who brought her in said they were unable to communicate with her as well.”
“Can we see her?” I ask.
“Does she have any family in the area?”
“No,” says Harry. “We’re it. Her nearest family is in Costa Rica. They don’t have U.S. visas or the financial ability to travel up here.”
“That’s too bad. Sometimes family helps in a situation like this, reaching the patient, I mean. She is sedated, just mildly at the moment. We’re going to be moving her upstairs shortly. If you want to see her, you’ll have to keep it very quiet and brief. Try to stay fairly still, avoid a lot of movement. Two minutes, that’s all. And keep in mind that she’s not going to be able to hear you. She may recognize you.
“If you’ll come this way.” He leads us out of the room, down the hall past a number of curtained-off cubicles with hospital beds, some of them empty, others with patients.
There are three uniformed deputies milling around keeping an eye on the women in blue jail jumpsuits until they can get them upstairs into the jail ward.
“How many of the injured from the bus were delivered here?” says Harry.
“Eight.”
“How many did they route to other hospitals?” I ask.
“None. There were only eight survivors, seventeen dead, not counting the driver, the guard, or the gunmen. Absolute insanity,” says the doctor.
“Yes, it is,” I say.
A few feet farther on he puts his hand out like a traffic cop. “If you’ll wait here just a moment.” He steps away to confer with a man wearing gray slacks, a dress shirt and tie, and a worn blue blazer with wrinkle marks where it covers the padded holster on his belt.
The man is positioned outside one of the cubicles with the curtains drawn. As the doctor is talking to him, he looks our way and checks us out. He looks like he’s crowding fifty, a crew cut with a little moonshine on top, some middle-aged heft around the middle but with shoulders broad enough that you wouldn’t want to wrestle him. He is slowly chewing gum as he looks at us.
“Now who do you suppose he is?” says Harry. “Black Rockports resoled with inch-thick rubber soles and Cat’s Paw heels. And I thought they stopped making the Cat’s Paws years ago.”
“No, they just sold the company to the U.S. Marshals Service,” I tell him.
“You think he’s trying to go undercover?” says Harry.
“No, I’m thinking Rhytag may have already done that number.”
“Hmm?” says Harry.
“See if we can get a list of the names of the seventeen inmates killed on the bus, check it against courthouse records, criminal cases pending, or county sentences handed down. My guess is we’re either going to find one name from the bus that doesn’t have a matching courthouse file, or the coroner is suddenly going to come up one cadaver short in the head count.”
“Katia’s friend from the bus,” says Harry.
“Uh-huh.”
The doctor wiggles his finger and motions us to join him. He goes through the opening in the curtain, followed closely by Harry and then me. The marshal comes in behind us.
Harry starts to turn, about to get in his face to assert lawyer-client, but I tap him down low with my hand on his wrist and stop him. “Nothing confidential is happening here today,” I whisper as I nod toward the bed.
Katia is flat on her back. The cover sheet is drawn up to her chest. Her eyes are half open, with a glazed look, a combination of shock and the sedative. Her face is as white as the sheet. It’s clear that she will remember none of this in the days that follow.
I move slowly toward the bed and look down at her. She has not even the slightest resemblance to the vivacious, carefree woman I met that morning over the bin of bananas in Del Mar. In just under three months, the state has sucked the life out of her and left this shell in her place.
I touch her hand as it rests on top of the sheet. It is cold as ice. I pick it up and hold it between my hands, trying to warm it.
For an instant her eyelids flicker and her head rolls slightly this way as she struggles to look at me. But the drawn and lifeless expression on her face doesn’t change.
“I’m going to have to ask that you not do that,” says the marshal.
“Excuse me?” I look at him.
“Nobody but the doctors and hospital staff are allowed to touch her.”
“Says who?” says Harry.
“Says me.”
“We were told she was under sheriff’s custody,” I say.
“She is,” says the marshal.
“So where are you hiding your sheriff’s badge these days?” says Harry.
“We’re just helping out,” he says.
“If I might ask, on what legal authority? Where is the federal process?” I say. “The documentation for your presence here-”
“Gentlemen, I don’t want any arguments in here,” the doctor starts to cut me off.
“Doc, I apologize. You’re right. And I don’t want the marshal to misunderstand. I do not resent his presence. The problem is that neither my partner nor I understand what’s happening here, the reason for the federal presence.”
“Just doing my job,” says the marshal.
“I know. But if there’s a reason to believe that our client continues to be in danger, we would like to be informed as to what that danger is. Then by all means we want you here.”
“What we don’t want is to have you questioning or communicating with her unless one of us is present.” Harry glances at the marshal.
“I do my job. Right now that means watching her,” he says.
“That’s good. That’s fine,” says Harry. “As long as it doesn’t include pumping her full of scopolamine and listening to her dreams, we shouldn’t have any problems.”
“Harry, please,” I tell him.
“Sorry, nothing personal,” says Harry.
“It seems the presence of law enforcement makes you foam at the mouth,” says the marshal. “I understand. I have the same problem with lawyers.”
“Now that that’s settled,” I say, “Doctor, can I ask you a question?”
“Certainly.”
“Would you have any objection if we retain a separate physician, someone to serve as her personal doctor to confer with the staff here at the hospital and keep us apprised of her condition?”
“No. I’d have to check with the sheriff’s department. They have custody, but I can’t imagine there would be any problem.”
“Good. In that case we’ll retain a personal physician first thing tomorrow.”
“But I think we need to leave for now and let her rest,” says the doctor.
“Sure.” I slip Katia’s cold hand under the sheet. As I release it, her eyelids flicker once more as she looks at me. I take the other hand and place it under the sheet. I touch her forehead with my fingertips and lean down into her ear as I whisper, “Katia, we’ll be back. I promise you.”
“She can’t hear you,” said the doctor.
“I know.
