“All right.” Then I added, to everyone’s surprise including my own, “But I want Pegg to be the guard in there with her.”
“Me?” the pale young man said.
“Billy trusts him,” I explained. “I assume you do as well, Donato.”
He eyed his own man with open suspicion. “Of course I do.”
I was tempted to ask Aimee if her kids needed supervision, but they were clearly waiting with keen anticipation for Microsoft’s earnings report. While Pegg escorted her in to see Billy, Donato and I stepped into the corridor that separated the ER from the surgical care unit. The hospital had decorated the long hallway with black-and-white photographs of Maine’s maritime past: ships under sail, wharves all afire, sea captains laughing in the face of storms.
“Billy Cronk wanted to see me because he had concerns about Sergeant Richie’s safety.”
“That, I’m afraid, is a lie.”
“What reason do you have to say that?”
“I am under no obligation to share my reasons with you, Bowditch.”
We had arrived at a stalemate. Instead of returning his intense gaze, I stared at the center of his forehead, knowing it would make him uncomfortable. After nearly a minute of silence, he raised his fingers to caress his goatee again.
“Have it your way. I’m pulling Cronk’s wife out of there. She can see him again when our nurse practitioner says he’s ready to leave the infirmary. That might be a while.”
The desperation in this threat made me understand what was really eating at him. “You don’t trust Dawn Richie.”
“Excuse me?”
“You and I haven’t agreed on much, Angelo, but you’ve always struck me as a natural leader. And a good leader protects his people. Somehow, though, I’m not getting the vibe that you feel overly protective of Sergeant Richie.”
A janitor pushed a clattering cart past us. The distraction gave Donato the time to collect himself.
“You should write novels,” he said in the affectless tone which was his default.
“Maybe in my retirement.”
Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, a song began to play. I recognized the heavy-metal riff: “Enter Sandman” by Metallica. It had been a favorite of our mutual friend, the late Jimmy Gammon.
Donato produced a cell phone from his pocket. He cupped a hand to his free ear and began to turn away from me for privacy. “Yes, sir?”
But the person on the other end—and I was fairly certain I knew who it was—had news that shattered his composure.
“You’re fucking kidding.” He paused to absorb a reprimand from his superior. “I apologize, sir. That language was out of line. How long before he gets here?”
The answer was as unwelcome as the rest of the information he’d received.
“Yes, sir. I’ll do my best to stall. But you know how he hates waiting.”
Donato shoved the phone back into his jacket so hard it was a wonder he didn’t punch a hole in the lining. “The governor is coming.”
“Tough break.”
He seemed to withdraw into himself as he processed my remark. Donato was clearly having trouble sizing me up. He had a natural facility for placing people into categories, and it bothered him that I resisted his best efforts.
He signaled down the hall for Sergeant Hoyt.
In Donato’s haste to intercept the chief executive, he forgot about Pegg.
I wasn’t sure I should be happy about the news he’d received.
The Penguin was coming, and no one could predict the chaos he was about to cause.
9
I took a seat in the waiting room among the Cronklets. Aimee and Billy had four boys—Logan, Ethan, Aiden, and Brady—and one girl, Emma, who ran the entire house. Fortunately for me, the kids remained fully under the spell of the television. One of the few things in life that chilled me to the marrow was having to make small talk with children.
Reporters kept trying to argue their way past the local cop the hospital had called in as backup to their security.
The journalists would get their pictures soon enough, the minute the governor arrived. The Penguin both hated the media and yet loved nothing better than having a television camera focused on his face and a microphone pointed at his mouth. He would be sure to drag a whole cavalcade of reporters in with him to record his expression of sympathy to Dawn Richie.
Why else would he be coming to the hospital if not to be photographed with the courageous CO who had survived a brutal attack by two convicts?
Billy Cronk, I suspected, would conveniently be omitted from the narrative. His role in the fracas was too complicated for propagandists, who painted only in primary colors.
For my part, I was chafing to escape the germy confines of the hospital. Dani had said she was headed to the Midcoast. I kept glancing up every time someone entered the room, hoping it was my girlfriend.
Instead, it was Aimee who saved me. She looked relaxed, even a little flushed and rumpled, as if an act had transpired between husband and wife that couldn’t have been possible under such tight supervision.
“Billy wants to see you.”
“How did you arrange that?”
“I told the guard it was part of the agreement with Donato to let you visit. He’s a good kid but not the sharpest crayon under the bed.”
I stopped in the doorway when I saw Aimee kneel beside her little girl. “Aren’t you coming?” I asked.
“I thought you understood. Billy wants to see you in private.”
For a man who had come within millimeters of being disemboweled and had just awoken from anesthesia, Billy Cronk looked damned amazing. He was pale from blood loss, but his pupils were tightly focused. Both wrists remained chained to the bed—the guards having learned their lesson with Chapman.
“Are you sure this was all approved?” Pegg asked as he let me inside.
“Cross my heart.”
“You ain’t gonna uncuff him or nothing?”
I sat down beside the bed. “I swear I won’t let him loose.”
“Because I need this job, you know.”
“If you could give us
