He shook his head. 'Today turned me around, man. You did.' Sirens sounded in the distance. 'Damn. Gotta get ready for the next wave.'
I nodded as he shook my hand and rushed away.
'Dr. Stone?'
I turned toward a deep, resonant voice and found myself facing a lean muscular man of medium height with cafe-au-lait skin and a tightly trimmed mustache. His uniform identified him as a deputy with the Leflore County Sheriff's Department, the three stripes on his sleeve indicated he was a sergeant, and his nameplate said he was John Myers. I feared LAPD had finally caught up with me.
Jasmine moved close.
'Sergeant,' I said, extending my hand.
'Call me John,' he said, accepting the handshake.
'John.'
The deputy looked me over for a moment, sizing me up as cops did.
'How's the boy doing?' He nodded to the emergency room doors.
'The suspect?'
Myers shook his head. 'Uh-uh. Tyrone. What do you think about him? You know with your reputation and all? Has he got it?'
'Clearly.'
Myers smiled broadly.
'John mentored Tyrone,' Jasmine said. 'Took him under his wing after all the trouble.'
'Just tried to help the boy develop his God-given talent.'
'John also arrested Darryl Talmadge,' Jasmine said, 'He thinks today is related.'
'Don't forget that Lashonna wore clothes almost identical to yours? And her role on the Talmadge case?'
They nodded.
'Of course, Greenwood PD doesn't want any of that,' John said.
'You got the shooter, right?' I asked. 'The guy cuffed to the gurney?' 'One of ‘em. But he ain't talking 'cause he's dead.'
'Oh, boy.'
'Uh-huh. Why don't you get some sleep and let's us all talk about Talmadge tomorrow.'
'Thanks again, JM,' Jasmine said.
''S my job.' He turned and headed toward his squad car.
My stomach loosed a kettledrum roll.
'We need to get you something to eat. There's a Sonic not too far away.'
I'd been there, over on a busy commercial strip across the Yazoo, right after Mama's funeral. Sonic was a 1950s-theme drive-in with awnings and carhops to deliver your burgers.
'And we need to get you in some clothes that won't have the carhops dialing 911 when they see you.'
She glanced down at the blood on her blouse as if she were seeing it for the first time.
'Good point.'
We thought about that as shadows crept up the street from the superstructure of the old cottonseed-oil mill to the west. Beyond it, thunderheads tacked across the setting sun.
'Got it!' I said. 'Follow me.' I made my way to the emergency room doors, pushed one open for Jasmine, then followed her inside.
Ten minutes later, we reemerged in fresh, clean green scrubs. Jasmine carried her blood-soaked clothing in one of the ER's plastic personal-effects bags. I carried my shirt and slacks hung on a hanger along with a plastic bag containing my wallet, phone, and the rest of the contents of my pockets.
'Now all you have to do is avoid requests for medical advice,' I told her.
She gave me an easy laugh and a gentle touch on my shoulder. For as long as her fingers lingered against me, I forgot how tired and how old I felt.
CHAPTER 42
Wasps the color of burnished cherrywood loitered among the Sonic's covered stalls. I pulled the pickup into the only empty space and let the engine idle in park while the wasps danced in quickening breezes that foretold evening thunder and rain. 'Wicked little creatures,' Jasmine said.
I recalled the pain again as a squadron traversed the narrow space between my closed window and the ordering speaker.
We scanned the menu beyond the speaker, listening to the air-conditioning whirr.
'Number two, Diet Coke,' Jasmine said.
I waited for the wasps to clear but as soon as I rolled the window down, they seemed to gather. I swatted at them, hastily ordered two number twos with diet Cokes, then rolled the window up. A wasp darted for the last bit of opening. The glass crushed it into the window channel, leaving the long, dangling legs to spasm outside.
'They don't give up, do they?' Jasmine said.
'Evolutionary fitness.'
'Word.' She paused. 'You acquitted yourself well back there.' She nodded vaguely in the direction of the hospital.
I shrugged. 'Just trying to help.'
'No. Not just that.' She chewed on a corner of her lower lip and gazed past me in thought. 'You were so calm; you had a presence in the middle of the chaos, like you've done this before.' When she looked at me, her eyes made me believe they saw into my heart, and I knew I would not, could not, lie to her.
'That's what I did before I became a neurosurgeon.'
She looked expectantly at me.
Another time?' I asked. 'It's a long story. I'd rather not talk about it right now.'
'Sure.'
Disappointment shadowed her voice and raised a guilty burn in my chest. I badly wanted to make her feel good.
'I'm tired,' I tried to explain, but my words fell lamely even on my ears. 'The whole story takes energy, and I'd like to spend what I have left to figure out what's happening to you.'
'Us.'
Us created a personal proximity filling me with a boiling emotional gumbo of guilt, fear, fatigue, and frustration.
'Uhm… so do you really think I was the real target today instead of Lashonna?'
'It has a certain amount of logic,' I said slowly 'But please realize she's a logical target because of the work she's doing for you.'
Without preamble, Jasmine burst into tears and covered her face with her hands. 'I killed her,' she sobbed. 'I should have done everything by myself like Mom.'
'She could make it.'
'Could, could… if it weren't for me- damn!'
Her tears felt so out of character for the rock-solid, nerves-of-steel woman I had seen to this point. Jasmine wedged herself into a knot, back against the door. I wanted to reach over and comfort her, but sat helplessly in my seat instead.
I tried to give her some privacy by pointedly looking out my side window, but I could not look away for long. I watched her so closely I could almost see her picking up the scattered bricks of her shattered composure and fixing them solidly back into place. In the compressed space of those few moments, she recomposed herself, wiping finally at her eyes with the floppy sleeve of the surgical scrubs. I looked quickly away before she caught me.
Then, from behind us, gangsta rap lyrics spilled out of a mid-1970s Chevy Monte Carlo loud enough to vibrate the pickup's seats and force the lyrics on us whether we wanted them or not. I just wanna fuck bad bitches…
