me and my nurse.
But I suddenly became aware of a small crowd of doctors and nurses gathering, stunned, wide-eyed, on the periphery of the scene of our two-woman struggle.
I glanced up at my little audience of medicos and my eyebrows climbed. “911, anybody?...
In just over an hour, back in my blue trenchcoat now, I was standing outside Roger’s room, keeping a brand-new uniformed officer company; he was a black kid, barely twenty-one, who was seated where the late Officer Clemens had formerly been. We chatted a little and I learned he was an Iraq vet, and he seemed on top of things; I felt Roger was in good hands.
Before long Lt. Valer came down the corridor and faced me, his expression pleasant, even pleased.
“How’s the arm?” he asked.
I touched the spot. “Tad sore,” I admitted. “But I’m not complaining—I’ll bet that hypo, if it took the plunge? Would serve up a real killer cocktail.”
“Lab’ll have that soon enough,” he said with a crisp nod. “And you’ll be glad to know we’ve already identified that ‘nurse’ of yours and Roger’s.”
“Let me guess. Her real name isn’t Garcia.”
“Francesca Marquez. Out of town player. M-13 farm team out La La way.”
That got my attention. “Salvadoran?”
Another nod. “El bingo.”
I leaned in, held his eyes with mine. “Rafe, I’m telling you, the Muertas are still pulling the strings—and they’ve got the other, new O.C. factions out on the front line, taking the hits.”
“And delivering them,” he said. He thumbed toward the closed hospital room door. “How’s Roge?”
“Still sawing logs. You’d think the commotion would’ve—”
I was interrupted by Dan, coming out of Roger’s room with a big grin going. “He’s awake!”
Rafe said, “Hot damn.”
Dan turned to me and half-smiled. “He’s asking for
“No kidding?”
“No kidding.”
Soon I was standing near Roger’s bedside smiling down at him as he smiled weakly up at me.
“So,” he said, voice weak but gruff, “you saved my ass?”
“Once or twice.”
“My lap...my....”
I touched his shoulder. “Slow down. Take it easy. All the time in the world.”
He nodded. Managed, “My laptop, Ms. Tree. At my office. Get—”
Dan, right behind me, chimed in: “Don’t worry, buddy! We got it.”
Rafe, back there next to Dan, said, “You do?”
I glanced back and saw Dan realizing what he’d just said, as he turned to the Homicide captain with a caught-with-his-pants-down expression. “Yeah, uh... Ms. Tree kinda liberated it. Stuck it in her car, before you guys got to Roger’s office.”
Rafe said to me, “What the hell for?”
“I have my reasons,” I said.
But Roger was saying, “Good! Good....Rafe....”
Rafe stepped up to the bedside next to me. “What do you want, you old hardass?”
Roger’s hand came up and grabbed onto Rafe’s sleeve; it was an effort, but he did it.
“You I trust,” he said. “All of you. But keep what Mike and I found out...keep that to...to yourselves....Don’t go public till...”
Roger was getting a little too worked up.
“Easy, Roge,” I said, patting his arm. “We’re on top of it. I promise. Get some rest.”
Roger, breathing hard, weaker than hell, some-how found the strength to nod, several times. “Yeah... good....Listen...”
I leaned close, as Rafe resumed his position behind me, next to Dan.
“Yeah?” I said.
“Kinda like to...kinda like my quarter back.”
Behind me, Rafe whispered to Dan, “What’s he talkin’ about?
I glanced back and caught Dan shaking his head. “No,” he told Rafe. “Something else.”
Roger said, “I...I want to buy back in. I want... wanna come home.”
The regret in his face seemed to pain him worse than anything an assassin could dish out. He’d gone undercover for a whole year, alienating people he valued, like Dan and Rafe and, yes, me.
I told him, “We’re gonna rewrite the Tree Agency partnership, soon as you get out of here—33% Dan Green, 33% Roger Freemont.”
Roger managed a little snort of a laugh. “Just like a woman.”
I frowned. “What is?”
“Keeping that extra percent for yourself....”
Once again Bernie Levine and I were seated in the Cook County Jail visitor’s area, in our little booth across the Plexiglas from Marcy Addwatter in her orange jumpsuit. This was a specially arranged evening meeting, no other prisoners and guests present.
And this Marcy Addwatter, while physically the same (if better groomed, with a tamed-down hairdo), seemed a different woman—alert, intelligent. Not at all dazed or halting in her speech.
An upbeat, animated Levine, on the phone with his client, was saying, “Michael and her partners, Dan Green and Roger Freemont, have gathered all the evidence of extenuating circumstances we could ever have hoped for.”
While I couldn’t hear Marcy, the words her lips formed were easy enough to read: “I’m very grateful.”
“There’s no question your medication was tampered with, exchanged for drugs that would aggravate and, frankly, take advantage of your condition. And, yes, definitely, the voices you heard were piped into your bedroom, whenever your husband was away.”
Marcy frowned and this time her response was such that I could not lip-read her.
Levine covered the mouthpiece and turned to me. “She wants to know...
I gestured for the phone and Levine handed it over.
I said, “Marcy, we’ve just started the ‘why’ phase of this investigation. But I can tell you where it seems to be heading.”
“Please.”
“We’re convinced your husband was planning to expose certain illegal practices by an Addwatter client with ties to organized crime.”
She frowned. “Then it had...had nothing to do with us? As a couple? As man and wife?”
I shook my head. “No. Nothing. You weren’t one of the intended victims here, any more than that woman in the motel room was. Your husband was the target, and you were just part of a scenario someone put in motion.”
