I’d seen Cash’s bomb go off. Not mine.
I eased under the crime scene tape, awkward with the crutchesand the cast, almost losing my balance and falling on my ass, and sniffed.Kratz. Mucho Kratz. That nastyoff-key buzz seemed much stronger here, especially allowing for the greatertime since the explosion, the greater level of damage from the bomb and fires.He’d been here and he’d been mad. Icould taste the hatred.
None of it made sense. About the vision thing — I’d nevershown a trace of clairvoyance or precognition, wasn’t sure which would applybecause I hadn’t heard what time her bomb went off. Plenty of cases in thepast, Maggie or Sandy had found herself chin-deep in bad shit and I hadn’t hada clue until well afterward.
And I couldn’t figure out why Kratz would blow up her car.Killing her wouldn’t throw us off the track, wouldn’t destroy any evidence orprevent important testimony. It’d just make every cop in the country want apiece of his ass. And, the bottom line for the Al Kratz I remembered, he wouldn’tmake any money from it. This attack didn’t make sense. Which meant I must bemissing something.
I shook my head, staring around at the scorched asphalt andcatenaries of yellow tape rattling in the breeze, at the pockmarks in thebrickwork, at the broken windows now covered with plywood, at the litteredfragments of ex-cars still lying inside the tape because Mac and his crew had movedon to my parking lot while the trail remained fresh. No sense at all.
Dammit, he hadn’t hated methat much. I’d just been something in his way. Not even a person. I don’t thinkanyone else was a person to him. Theywere all just things. That’s part of the definition of a psychopath.
I shook my head again, worked my way past the tape again, andcrutched into Cash’s apartment building to get her stuff. She wanted hermakeup, she wanted fresh underwear and pajamas and a snuggly plush robe as ifshe expected to get out of her hospital bed in the morning. She wanted herspare S&W automatic but I wasn’t going to fetch that. She wanted a threadbare stuffed yellow cat missing one glasseye which she’d had just about since birth, a touch of silly sentiment that openeda window through her hardboiled veneer to a woman I never would have guessed tomeet.
Anyway, a long list of stuff with details on where to findthis and that and how to tell one bit of frippery from another, scary precisionwhen I remembered the level of various drugs in her bloodstream and the littleadded touch that she’d just escaped from that crater outside by the thicknessof one of those kinky corn-row hairs on her brown head. I collected things,omitting some besides that automatic that I knew would get me kicked out of thehospital and banned for life if I tried to smuggle them in, and didn’t snoopinto her privacy too much.
Not that she seemed to care. She’d sent me straight to herunderwear drawer, which contained assorted . . . toys . . .as well. I was learning things about Nef Cash I wasn’t sure I was ready tohandle.
Anyway, I loaded a carryon bag with her stuff, the bagoffering a shoulder strap that made the crutches possible, looked around, andsnagged a double shot of that Gentleman Jack before I left. Probably a badmove, alcohol mixing with the drug residue in my bloodstream, but I needed itright then.
Down and outside, the van waited with the taxi meter tickingtime as well as mileage. Full night had crept in while I was dithering around.And fog, making the smell of charred plastic and half-burned gasoline that muchheavier in the thick air. The driver circled around with random turns while Iwatched for any set of headlights that kept pace with us.
After maybe ten minutes of nothing noticeable, I told him tohead for St. Joseph’s. He dropped me off, saw the trouble I had jugglingcrutches with both Nef’s stuff and my own, and hauled one bag inside for me.Would have carried it upstairs to her room, if I’d known what room that was andhadn’t wanted to keep such little bits of info secured under my hat.
I gave the guy a good tip. He’d earned it.
I did not ask forNef Cash’s room number. Detective Sergeant Nefertiti Cash had been transferredto another hospital with a better burn unit. I asked for another name instead,a young woman who had remarkably similar X-rays and medical history and billinginformation for health insurance. Nef’s colonel had set up the whole dodgebefore he left, triggering procedures put in place years ago for the state andfederal witness protection program.
Anyway, the nice lady at the information desk needed to seemultiple pieces of photo ID before she’d tell me that room number. Very polite,but very firm, and I saw a uniformed cop hovering in shadow at the end of a “staffonly” corridor. After I’d proven that I was who I said I was and that I wasindeed on the very short short-list of people in the need to know, shescribbled number and directions on a notepad sheet and handed it to me.
And I needed those directions. The blasted hospital used threesets of room numbers, three named and interconnected buildings withmutually-exclusive access and elevators, and I’d lay good money that somepeople have gone in there and have never been seen again. I don’t know if theykept a Minotaur in the center, but they definitely had the labyrinth part downpat.
Which right then I thought was a great idea. I wanted Nef Cashto be hard to find. If not impossible.
Anyway, I found the right building and the right floor and theright wing. I checked in with the nurses’ station, once again offering photoID, and warned them that I was armed. That I was there specifically as a guardfor their patient. That I would be staying all night. The wing’s boss-lady, I’mnot sure of her bureaucratic title, wasn’t happy with any of that. I can’tblame her.
So I explained whyher patient needed
