I got to the point where I could feel a cast from mid-thighdown to my instep, feel warmth from the setting fiberglass. Nothing elsebroken. No concussion. No puncture wounds. Guess those shields had done theirjob, no matter how much they’d taken out of me. The fever cooled back tolivable.
My leg was waking up to a dull throb and a crawling sensationlike ants tromping up and down inside the cast. The latest set of green scrubshelped me to a wheelchair, right leg up and out in front of me, and rolled meinto what looked like a staff lounge, out of traffic and out of the public. Nomedical angels hovering. Puzzled me, as much me as was present at the moment.
Guess they figured they could count on my heart to supply enoughblood to my brain. Not that my brain was good for much. I never should havepoked at that car in the first place. Dumb. But maybe better than letting thebomb squad take the blast from close in. I’m sure Kratz had set physical aswell as magical triggers. His booby trap had trapped a booby.
I sat there reviewing all the things I’d done wrong. I’d liketo blame them on the hangover, both physical and mental, from my fight withSandy and the alcoholic aftermath. Objective fact, though, I’d gotten soft inthe years since I left the force. Still paranoid, but not paranoid enough. Not effective paranoia.
No excuse for it. If nothing else, the propane truck shouldhave reset my brain.
That was my state of mind when the cop came in, same cop thatI’d seen back at the parking lot. Must have been why the staff shoved me off ina quiet corner, place for cop-talk without disturbing the other patients. Thatbothered me. He shouldn’t have been doing the follow-up. Should have been Macor Pendleton or Cash, someone assigned to magical crimes. Not a patrol cop offthe street.
I told him what I knew, told him how it tied in with the othercases. Other cases except Reverend Fred, of course, the cop wasn’t on the “needto know” list for that one. Told him to get a wizard on the scene. Repeatingmyself. Didn’t ask why he washandling the case, that wouldn’t have been polite.
A couple more uniforms walked through the door, starchedstate-cop blue with shiny stuff on the collars, lieutenant and colonel. The colonel, Nye, Cash’s boss. I’d onlymet him a couple of times over the years, couldn’t read his face like I couldpeople I knew well, but he looked grim. They both looked grim. First thought,they didn’t like my messing up their cruiser. Couldn’t dock my pay, though. Ididn’t draw a check from the state.
The colonel looked me over and shook his head. Looked evengrimmer. “Can you talk?”
The local cop studied him, me, the lieutenant, and packed uphis clipboard and left. Maybe someone had told him that parts of this case weren’tgood things to know. Not healthy,career-wise.
“Yeah, I can talk. Sorry about the car. I got careless.”
“Car? Screw the car. We’ve got dozens of ’em. I don’t have dozens of good officers.Brief me. Report said you thought it was Kratz again?”
Good officers? Maybe he really did want to give me thosecaptain’s bars. Anyway, I gave him the same spiel I’d just run through with thebeat cop, getting in some rehearsal time. A bit more practice and I could takeit on the stage.
Then, “You need to get Mac and Cash over there before the cityhauls those wrecks away. Check for signatures, check for any trail. Warn SandyCormier, too, she worked Kratz with me years ago. If he’s getting this nasty,she’s in danger. Cash knows where to find her.”
Colonel looked at the lieutenant. Lieutenant looked at thecolonel. Okay, so I was losing it. I toldyou that. Should have just given them Sandy’s telephone number, apartmentnumber, damn well I knew them. Somehow couldn’t drag them out of memory withall the mental noise bouncing around in there.
The colonel shook his head. “Nobody told you. Sergeant Cash’scar blew up this morning, same MO, she walked up to it and the bomb went off.Couple of people dead — killed a woman in the car next to it, killed her child.Mac’s over there with a whole squad, sifting the wreck before it even cools,picking bits out of the trees. Nobody hits my cops and gets away.”
Now he looked like a Marine DI, hard and mean, even had theSmokey Bear hat to go with it. I ran his words back again, trying to hear them.Cash. God in heaven. The world went black for a moment. I couldn’t breathe.
Noises. Voices. “. . . sir, he trained her for a couple ofyears before she joined our unit. You probably never heard. They were close.The way she talked, he was practically her father.”
Father? Not hardly.
Cash.
I managed to make my tongue work. “Dead?”
My eyes focused and managed to make an image against the blackand silver of the room. A nurse had joined the crew, the lieutenant must havecalled her in from the hall. I wondered how much time I’d lost in the fuzz. Shecounted my pulse and flashed light into my eyes again, then backed off. I foundthe colonel in that mess and tried to read his face.
“Dead?”
He blinked. “She’s in surgery, doctors won’t tell me much.Medical privacy laws. As if those apply to a criminal investigation . . .”
The lieutenant stepped in. “Sir, remember. We need to get himupstairs.” Then he turned to me. “Sergeant Cash filed a medical directive withus, standard policy on the force. Named you as the person designated to makedecisions, get medical reports. If she got hurt, couldn’t talk, whatever. Did not name a backup, not a good move.Doctors need to talk to you. We had a call out, then found out you were in theER yourself. Lost a couple of hours there.”
Doctors needed to talk to me. That sounded bad. Like,life-support
