The Drake is only a few blocks from Northwestern Hospital, where Catherine Bayard had been sent. I walked south to the hospital along the lakeshore, the wind tearing at the paper around the flowers. Whitecaps danced up to the breakwater like daredevils, advancing, retreating. Fists of clouds tumbled across the horizon. The air was sharp. I was happy to be alive and walking.
At the hospital, I found that the Bayard family was guarding Catherine’s privacy; the clerk at the information desk wouldn’t give out her room number. I didn’t argue, just nodded and handed over the flowers. The clerk put them on a shelf with a bunch of other offerings.
I retreated to a curtained alcove by the front entrance until a volunteer came by to load flowers onto a cart. After that, it was simply a matter of following the flop-eared dog up elevators and down corridors as the volunteer made deliveries. Catherine’s room turned out to be the last one on the route, at the end of a long hall of private rooms. Most of those we passed had their doors firmly closed, but I could see into some, where the chintz curtains and couches made the rooms look more like the high-end hotel I’d just left, not a hospital.
The room I entered was charming, with armchairs upholstered in the same gold-flowered brocade as the curtains. Visitors could eat or read at the polished side table. The girl in the hospital bed, her shoulder swathed in bandages, her arm attached to an IV, struck a discordant note. So did the man shouting at her; in this setting, one expected visitors to behave with decorum.
“That Arab boy worked at your school. Don’t expect me to believe it’s a coincidence that he was hiding out in-” He broke off midsentence, as Catherine, who had looked dopily toward the opening door, recognized me and gave an involuntary gasp.
The shouter also turned to look. He was a lean, tanned man about my age, in a crewneck sweater and jeans, with a shock of thick dark hair. He ordered me to put the flowers down and leave, but I stood rooted to the floor, water slopping over the flop-eared dog onto my hand.
“Just who are you?” I demanded.
“Who am IF’ he yelled. “Who the hell are you, barging in here?”
He strode over to me, grabbing my arm in an effort to propel me out. I leaned against him, a dead weight that made him stagger.
“We met in Olin Taverner’s apartment Thursday night,” I said. “Now, tell me who you are, and why you’re in this hospital room.”
He let go of me so fast that the rest of the water sloshed out of the vase. “I wasn’t-who are-” he stammered.
“You may not have seen my face, but I saw yours,” I said, my voice a nasty whisper. “My next call is to the cops. Your prints must be all over that desk drawer you jimmied. What was in it?”
“Father,” Catherine Bayard said from the bed in the thread of a voice. “It’s my father.”
We both turned toward her, guilty that we’d forgotten her lying there. I should have realized he was Catherine’s father from the snatch of diatribe I’d overheard, but I’d been too amazed at seeing Thursday’s head-butter to think clearly.
I went over to her side. “How are you feeling?” “Shitty. Like I fell off my horse and he danced on me.”
I smiled. “That’s a rich girl’s image-when I’m injured, I feel like I’ve been hit by a dump truck. I’m sorry you got caught in the fire from those souped-up cowboys Friday night. I was in Larchmont Hall when they shot you.”
Behind the morphine, her eyes flickered from me to her father. I smiled reassuringly. “The deputies were pretty pumped; I thought they’d been shooting at a raccoon or deer and when they went out to look, I hightailed it back to Chicago. I hope you weren’t lying out in the grass too long before they got you to an ambulance.”
Her father burst out, “You were in Larchmont? With that Arab terrorist? Are you responsible for-“
“No, Mr. Bayard, I’m not responsible for your daughter being shot, and I didn’t see any terrorists Friday night. I was in New Solway on Friday for the same reason I was there on Thursday.”
“And that was?”
“Investigating a homicide.” I let the words die away.
“Homicide?” Edwards Bayard looked at me uncertainly. “Are you with the police?”
“I’m a detective. You may not have heard about the death of a journalist on the Larchmont grounds last week.”
“Oh, that. When I heard about it, of course I was worried about whether it was safe for my daughter to be out in New Solway, but Rick Salvi says they think this Arab kid did it. The Arab can’t have gone far, unless the gal who was in the house when they surrounded it-that was you, wasn’t it? Did you help him escape?”
Catherine’s eyes grew larger in her white face; I took her uninjured hand in a light clasp. “The sheriff and the Feds and even the Chicago police figure they can wrap Marcus Whitby’s death up in a nice tidy package with Benjamin Sadawi’s name on the gift card. But they’re overlooking a lot of evidence in that convenient wrap-up, evidence that makes it clear that Sadawi had nothing to do with Whitby’s death.”
“Evidence? What kind of evidence?”
I let go of Catherine’s hand to stand next to Edwards Bayard. I spoke to him in my prison yard undervoice so Catherine couldn’t hear. “The law is starting to think Taverner was killed-instead of the popular theory that he died in his sleep. You showing up in his apartment like that, breaking in through the patio, skulking behind the curtains, well, it makes me wonder where you were last Monday night. And last Sunday night, when Marcus Whitby died, for that matter.”
“Why, you-how dare you?” His eyes blazed with fury, but he also kept his voice low, glancing at his daughter to see how much of our talk she was following.
“What do you mean, how dare I? You knocked me down in your haste to flee the dead man’s home. And your rightwing think tank is a major
beneficiary of Taverner’s estate. Give me one reason why I shouldn’t hand you-not to the old family friend, Rick Salvi-but to the Chicago cops, who aren’t going to be nearly so impressed with you.”
“Get out of here right now,” Bayard roared. “I will not have you slandering me in front of my daughter!”
“Daddy, please,” Catherine cried from her bed. “Don’t shout, I can’t stand it. And let me talk to her, I want to talk to her.”
“Not without me present, you don’t. Don’t you understand, Trina, you are in a lot of trouble right now?”
“Trina’s in a lot of pain, and Sheriff Salvi is in a lot of trouble. Don’t get hysterical, Eds.” Renee Bayard swept into the room.
She moved me away from Catherine with an imperious glance and felt her granddaughter’s pulse. Although Renee was dressed casually, in corduroy trousers and a sweater, she still wore her mahjongg tile bracelet, which clacked as she felt Catherine’s wrist. I couldn’t help wondering how long she’d lingered outside the door, waiting for the perfect line for a dramatic entrance.
“It’s not hysterical to be concerned when your daughter lets herself be sucked into involvement with a runaway terrorist-especially when you’re twelve hundred miles away. What the hell were you doing, letting her roam about Larchmont like that in the middle of the night? I agreed to let her stay with you when I took the position in D.C., but if this is what’s going to happen, then as soon as she’s fit to travel she’s moving out there where she can be properly supervised.”
“Won’t go.” Catherine tried to speak with her usual fire, but her words came out slowly. “Stay with Grample and Granny. Won’t listen to rightwing bullshit night after-“
“You see?” Edwards Bayard said to his mother. “She lives with you and she loses all respect for my work.”
“Eds, she’s terribly weak, she can’t think straight right now. Let’s let her rest and sort this out when she’s stronger. And you,” she turned to me. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, but it’s time you left.”
“Want her to stay,” Catherine whispered. “Talk alone. Please, Granny.” Tears trickled down the sides of Catherine’s pale face.
Renee gave me a look that seemed to question what her granddaughter
saw in me, but she moved with her usual decision. “You can have ten minutes. Eds, you and I will get a cup of coffee. And find out why the guard let this woman into the room.”
When the two had left, I made sure the door was shut all the way, then pulled a chair up next to Catherine’s head, leaning close to her so I could speak softly and keep any eavesdroppers from making out my words. “Ben jamin is safe, but I’m not going to tell you where he is. You’ve been gallant and heroic, standing up for him, but the police will be coming through here in waves. You’re Calvin and Renee Bayard’s granddaughter-the cops won’t abuse you-but they are going to question you. A lot. The less you know, the better for both you and Benjamin.”
