Mystery

Sarah reached for Tom’s hand, and held it tightly. “Does this have anything to do with that letter? Because Tom told me—”

He pressed her hand, and she fell silent.

Nancy turned around, angrier than Tom had ever seen her.

“Why were you suspended?” Tom asked.

“I wasn’t going to let him die alone. He needed someone to talk to. You remember how I used to come in and spend time with you?”

“They ordered you to stay away from him?”

“Mike Mendenhall was getting weaker and weaker—in a coma most of the time—I wasn’t going to let him be all alone those times when he was awake. And it wasn’t an order—nobody ordered us to stay out of that room. After the first time Boney learned I was giving time to him, he reminded me that he asked the nursing staff to do no more than change his linens and attend to strictly medical functions. And I said, if that’s an order, I’d like to see it posted on the board, and he said he was sure I understood that he could not do that.”

“Did Mendenhall talk to you, when he was conscious?”

“Of course he talked to me.”

“Would you tell me what he said?”

Nancy looked troubled and shook her head. Tom turned to Hattie. “Two kinds of law, two kinds of medicine. Isn’t that what you said at your house, Hattie?”

“You know I did,” Hattie said. She had her hawk look again. “I didn’t say, quote me, though.”

Tom said, “I’ll tell you why I’m asking about this.” And he told her about his realization that Hasselgard had killed his sister, about his letter to the police captain, and everything that followed. Nancy Vetiver leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and listened. “That letter is the real reason you’re here instead of your apartment.”

“I said you must of done something, and I guess you did,” Hattie said. “Tell him, Nancy. You can’t get him in any deeper than he already got himself.”

“Are you sure you want to hear this, Sarah?” Nancy asked.

“I’m leaving the island in two days, anyway.”

“Well, after everything Tom said, maybe it’s not such a big deal, after all.” She took a deep swallow of her beer. “Mike Mendenhall was a bitter man. He went to Weasel Hollow to arrest a man named Edwardes for murder, and he knew it was dangerous—a lot of things had been going on at Armory Place that upset him.”

“What kind of things?” Tom asked.

“He said there was this one honest detective, Natchez, David Natchez, who had the backing of all the honest officers, and the rest of them would do anything they were told. Before they learned he was honest, some of the older cops used to say anything in front of him, you know, they’d brag about Mill Walk always being the same. As long as they arrested ordinary criminals and kept down street crime, they could do anything they liked, because they were protected. Honestly, Tom, this is terrible, but it’s hardly news to people from Maxwell’s Heaven and the old slave quarter. We know what they are.”

“Why don’t we, then?” Tom asked.

“Everything looks just dandy from Eastern Shore Road. When people over there get too near something that sounds too rough for them, they turn their heads away. It’s too scary, and they wait for it to go away. From where they sit, everything works.”

Tom remembered Dennis Handley, and knew she was telling him the truth.

“It’s always been that way,” Nancy said. “If somebody gets caught, they make a big public fuss about it, and then everybody’s reassured. Everything’s hunky-dory all over again, and it’s business as usual.”

“But Hasselgard was bigger trouble than they were used to,” Tom said. “They had to do something drastic, and do it fast. Did Mendenhall talk about what happened on the day he got shot?”

“A little,” Nancy said. “He didn’t even know who Edwardes was supposed to have murdered. He knew he would be safe, because his partner would be with him. Roman Klink had been on the force for fifteen years. I got the feeling he thought Klink was too lazy to be really crooked, and too much one of the guys to be absolutely straight.”

“How did they know where Edwardes was?”

“They had an address. Mike went up to the door first. He yelled ‘Police!’ and then pushed in the door. He didn’t think anybody was there—he thought Edwardes had probably taken the boat to Antigua. I guess he went in—”

“Alone?” Tom asked.

“Ahead of Klink, anyhow. He didn’t see anybody in the living room, so he went toward the kitchen. Edwardes jumped out of the kitchen and shot him in the stomach, and he went down. Klink came in shooting. Mike saw Klink dodging toward the bedroom, and that’s when all hell broke loose. The whole police force came screaming up to the house. Captain Bishop started shouting through a bullhorn. Someone in the house fired a shot, and then the police shot hell out of the house. Mike was hit four more times. He was so angry—he knew they wanted to kill him. They wanted to kill all three of them. Klink was expendable too.”

Nancy looked down at her lap. She drank more beer, but Tom didn’t think she tasted it.

“He managed to tell you a lot,” he said.

She looked up without changing position in any way, and seemed as forlorn as one of her small patients. “I’m smoothing it all out a lot. He wasn’t talking to me, half the time. Sometimes he thought I was Roman Klink. Twice he thought I was Captain Bishop. He was out a lot of the time, and he had two long operations. Captain Bishop went into his room once, but he was in a coma most of that day.”

“What about Klink?”

“Basically, all we had to do was take out a bullet and sew him up. Last week, Bill saw him tending bar at Mulroney’s. Said he was talking like a hero. The man who got Marita Hasselgard’s killer. He was drinking a lot, Bill said.”

“Said a lot, for Bill,” Hattie put in.

“Took him most of the night to get that much out. My brother doesn’t talk much,” Nancy said to Tom, smiling at him. “He has a good heart, Bill. He lets me see the kids here in the afternoons, even though it must turn his whole life upside down.”

“On the balcony, Bill and I saw Captain Bishop walking through the court,” Tom said. Hattie and Nancy glanced at each other. “If it weren’t for Bill, I think Bishop would have seen me—he motioned me back from the railing.”

“Are you sure he didn’t see you?”

“I don’t think so,” Tom said. “I didn’t recognize him at first, because he wasn’t wearing his uniform.”

Hattie snorted, and Nancy still looked uneasy. “Well, he just slides through. He might as well be invisible.” She laughed, but not happily. “You look at him, your eye just slips off his face. He’s not a person you want to have anything to do with.”

“He might have been visiting,” Hattie said.

“Visiting?” Tom asked.

“That devil was born in the Third Court,” Hattie said.

“His sister Carmen lives back in there,” Nancy said, as if she were talking about a deep jungle. “On Eastern Shore Road—the Third Court. Peers through her curtains, day in and day out.”

“Looks so meek and mild until you look at her eyes—”

“And then you see she’d be happy to slit a child’s throat for the sake of the pennies out of its pockets.”

Nancy stretched her arms sideways and yawned with her whole face, somehow managing not to look ugly as she did so. Then she put her hands at the base of her spine, and arched her back. She looked like a cat, with her small supple body and short shaggy hair. Tom realized that he had been looking at her face nearly the whole time they had been in her room—he had not even noticed what she was wearing. Now he noticed: a lightweight white turtleneck and tight wheat-colored jeans and white tennis shoes like Sarah’s, but scuffed and dirty.

“We should let Bill back into his room,” she said. “It’s been so good to see you again, Tom. And you too, Sarah. I shouldn’t have let you get me talking, though.”

She stood up and ruffled her hands through her hair.