The Cat, the Lady and the Liar

“She wouldn’t be angry,” I said. “I’ll bet she’s in there right now telling them they need to make sure you’re all right.”

“I saw her in the emergency room,” Belinda said softly. “She was so still, and her beautiful hair was all matted with blood, and they said they’d have to shave some of it away to stitch up the gash, and—”

“Shh.” I squeezed her cold hand tighter. “Everything will—”

A balding man came out through the ICU doors and said, “Mrs. Carson?”

Belinda stood. “That’s me. How is my girl? Will she be all right?”

The man walked over and introduced himself as Dr. Patrick, a neurologist. He then said, “Your daughter woke up about five minutes ago. She is hungry and thirsty and quite irritable.” He smiled. “Those are all good signs.”

Belinda’s knees buckled, and it was a good thing Kara and I were on either side to catch her or the ICU might have had another patient.

“Can we see her?” Belinda said.

“Sure.” He looked at Kara and then at me. “But are these ladies relatives?”

“As good as family. Why do you ask?”

“I want her visitors limited to family, but if she has these two sisters, well, I see no problem.” Dr. Patrick winked. “Do you mind if we discuss your daughter’s condition with them present?”

“I do not mind in the least. They might have to explain everything to me later, the state I’m in.” Belinda smiled for the first time. Candace’s smile. It tugged at my heart.

Dr. Patrick said, “Before you visit her—and family can come in one at a time on the half hour—we’re going to give Candace a mild sedative. She’s being quite, um . . . animated right now, but since she has a grade-three concussion, she needs rest. Encourage her to stay calm. We’ll be observing her for any signs of bleeding in the brain for the next twenty-four hours. I have to say, you daughter has one hard head. No fractured skull. She does have twenty-three stitches, though.”

“Twenty-three? Oh my word,” Belinda said.

“But you’re saying she’ll be okay? With this grade-three concussion? What does that mean, anyway?” I said.

Dr. Patrick looked at me. “Sorry. We do have to code injuries. Grade three simply means someone has lost consciousness for longer than, say, thirty minutes and thus the concussion is more severe. That doesn’t mean she won’t have a full recovery. But I also expect her to have mild neurological symptoms for the next few weeks. Short- term memory loss, the irritability we’re already seeing, headaches, trouble finding the right word for something. All of these symptoms should clear up with time.”

Belinda said, “You sound like a very competent doctor, so don’t take this the wrong way, but the ICU seems so . . . intimidating. Can I just take her home and—”

“Absolutely not,” Dr. Patrick said. “As I said, we’ll be taking more pictures of her brain to make sure there’s no slow bleeding in there. This is the safest place for her right now. We treat our peace officers with the special care they deserve.”

“Don’t forget she was attacked, Belinda,” Kara said. “As far as I know, they haven’t caught who did this. She needs to be here.”

“I know you’re right. It’s just that—” Belinda’s tears started again, and I put my arm around her shoulders.

“I will see you in the morning for an update, Mrs. Carson. Right now, I have to inform all the others waiting to hear about her condition,” the doctor said. I had the feeling that tears and this man did not mix, because he hurried off down the hall like a cat with its tail on fire.

While I waited with Belinda, who was told by the woman at the desk that it would be about thirty minutes before she could see Candace, Kara went back to where all the others were waiting. She might hear or learn something that she could add to the article I was sure would appear in tomorrow’s paper. The next half hour passed much more quickly thanks to the good news we’d heard. Belinda was soon her old chatty self and said that she told Candace not to give up her vacation because of a murder—that she wouldn’t have been in that parking lot if she’d listened. At last she was ushered into the ICU while I waited for her.

Belinda’s time with her daughter must have been great, because she wore a broad smile when she came back out through the double doors. “Candace is awake and cranky. That’s my girl,” she said.

“Does she remember what happened?” I asked.

“I didn’t ask. I’ll leave that to you. Right now, I need a Coca-Cola. Do you want one?” When I refused, she started off down the hall.

Meanwhile, Kara and Tom came by. Tom took a spot beside me, and Kara said she had to get her story to the paper as quickly as possible. She headed for the elevators after telling me to get word to Candace that she was glad she was awake and talking and probably giving the nurses hell.

I whispered to Tom how I was now officially Candace’s sister—and that meant I could I visit her. Belinda returned with her Coke, and the three of us waited together.

When I was allowed in for my five-minute visit with Candace, I signed a visitor sheet and went inside the ICU accompanied by the woman who sat at the desk. She pointed out Candace’s curtained-off area in the circular room.

I went to her bedside. Her eyes were closed, an IV dripped into a vein, and she had a blood pressure cuff around her upper arm. The machinery behind her bed beeped and displayed numbers and graphs. They made me so nervous; I tried to ignore them. How could patients rest with all this going on? But they were being well cared for, and that was all that mattered.

I sat and took a deep breath, exhaling quietly so as not to wake Candace up. I was content to sit by her side and watch her breathe. But her eyes fluttered open and widened when she saw me.

In a thick voice she said, “I thought you were Mom again and I had to pretend to be too drugged up to talk. Poor thing needs to chill. I’m fine as can be.”

“You got a new hairdo, I see.” I smiled and rested a hand over hers. It was so darn cold in here, and her fingers felt like ice.

“What did they do to my hair?” She started to lift her hand, but I stopped her.

“Check the mirror tomorrow and have a gasp. For now, you need to stay still if you want to get out of here.” I squeezed her frosty fingers.

“Listen, Jillian. I couldn’t ask my mother this because she’d give the guy in that next bed another heart attack by freaking out, but what the hell happened to me?”

I smiled. “Someone bonked you on the head. Good thing you have concerned neighbors. One of them found you and called 911.”

“They catch the jerk?” Her eyes closed, and she almost seemed to be nodding off.

I now understood about the five-minute visiting regulation.

“Not yet. But we will.” To myself, I added, If it’s the last thing any of us do.

Candace laughed the sarcastic laugh I was familiar with. “ ‘Officer down. Officer down.’ I can hear those words spewing out on radios all over the place. What they should have been saying is ‘Idiot officer let someone get the jump on her.’ ”

“Hey, don’t get worked up over something you can do nothing about. You need to chill more than your mom right now. Can I do anything for you before my time is up? You want some of these yummy ice chips I see?”

“I asked for a steak, but that’s all they brought me. But there is something. My notes about the Longworths are in my RAV4—I think. Did I even get out of my car?”

“You must have, because they found you in the parking lot,” I said.

“Anyway, find the notes. Get my keys from the uniform they took off me. Mom says she has it in a bag from the emergency room.”

“You sure you don’t want Mike to take care of this?” I asked.

“No. You get them.” She grinned. “I went to that big old house and talked to the crazy family, but the details are fuzzy.”

“You remember where you were earlier in the day,” I said. “That’s a good sign.”

“I remember ole Chief Mike Baca making a fool of himself over Justine Longworth. She’s gotta be a whole lot older than him. Why does he always pick the wrong woman?”

“Candace, your notebook contains police business. I shouldn’t—”