When Frank reached Janowitz, Charlie Whitmire was already there, kneeling in a pool of blood, tightening Murph’s leash around what was left of Janowitz’s right arm.
The ER doors crashed open as Jose pushed through.
“Frank! You okay?”
Frank sat with his legs dangling off a gurney, head tilted back. Sheresa Arrowsmith, examining flashlight in hand, peered into his eyes.
“Okay, Hoser,” Frank whispered.
“He’s had a concussion, multiple contusions of the chest, and enough stitches to make a quilt,” Arrowsmith said, still checking out Frank’s eyes.
“Leon?” Jose asked.
Charlie struggling with the blood-slicked leash. “He’s bleeding,” Charlie was saying. “He’s bleeding,” Charlie kept saying, over and over, and Frank knew what he was saying but he couldn’t hear the words.
“Bad. Real bad.”
Irritably, Arrowsmith lowered the flashlight and turned to Jose. “Mr. Janowitz is in surgery. I’m with a patient, and you’re in the way,” she said abruptly. “Go wait outside, Jose.”
Behind her, Frank eased himself off the gurney, rocking slightly.
Arrowsmith whirled, and put a restraining hand on his shoulder. “We’re admitting you, big boy.”
Frank got his feet under him and gently pried her hand loose. “Not today, Sheresa. Just get me something for this goddamn headache.”
Arrowsmith jammed the flashlight in her jacket pocket. “If there’s anything worse than treating cops, it’s treating men cops. You’re too old to think you’re bulletproof, Frank.”
“I want to see Leon when he gets out of surgery.”
Arrowsmith gave a surrendering shrug, and in a nearby cabinet found a small pill bottle and put it in Frank’s hand. “They’ll be bringing him into ICU.” She waved the back of her hand at Frank and Jose as though shooing away two troublesome little boys. “Go on, get out of my ER.”
Frank began feeling better in the corridor as they made their way toward the ICU.
“Who’s handling the scene?”
“Hawkins has the place nailed down,” Jose answered, and before Frank could ask, added, “and R.C.’s there too.”
“Leon’s wife?”
“I called her.”
“And…?”
“She’s on her way over. Didn’t waste any words. Just ‘Thank you’ and hung up.”
“Emerson?”
“Typical… First thing, he wanted a press release.”
The ICU waiting room, small, windowless, and wall-scarred, had been a storeroom before the growing ICU business necessitated a place for relatives, friends, and police. Frank and Jose took two of the four hard plastic chairs, across from a battered rack filled with medical journals, pharmaceutical sales literature, and a handful of dog-eared travel magazines. To their right, the nurses’ station was visible through a glass door.
Jose watched as Frank dropped deeper into a brooding silence. He let him go until it got too much for him. “You want some coffee? A Coke?” he asked.
It took Frank a second or two to register. “What?”
“Coffee? Coke?”
Frank shook his head.
“You need one of those pills Sheresa gave you?”
“Pill?”
“Headache?” Jose prompted.
“Oh,” Frank said it slowly, as though he had to take inventory. “Yeah. I still have it.”
Jose got up, stepped into the hall, and returned with a paper cup. Frank was back to wherever he’d been.
“Water,” Jose said louder than he had to, and thrust the cup at Frank.
Frank took it and looked at Jose.
“I did it, you know.”
Jose regarded him gravely. “You did… what?”
“I set it off. They must have had it rigged to the door lock. It was supposed to get me when I turned the key. I set it off when I did the remote.”
Jose pulled his chair around to face Frank and sat so his knees almost touched Frank’s.
“Yeah,” he said carefully, “that’s what they did. They must have wired it to the lock.”
“And I pressed the remote when Leon was walking by, and I set it off.”
Jose brought his face close to Frank’s so their eyes were inches apart. He reached out and clamped one of Frank’s knees in his hand.
“Frank,” he said, leaning forward and biting off each word, “you listen to me. They put the bomb there… They rigged it to the lock… They did whatever happened.”
“But Hoser, I-”
“Bullshit, Frank!” Jose rapped out. “No goddamn way you gonna put this on yourself! Pushin’ a goddamn remote button on your car didn’t do that to Leon. Bastards did who put the bomb there.”
Frank looked into Jose’s eyes for a long time, searching, then pulled back. As he reached into his pocket for the pills, his hand paused. Perplexed, he drew out a small manila envelope. It took him a second to remember Janowitz sitting at the breakfast room table, handing the envelope over.
Riggs Bank… court order.
He put the envelope away and fished out the container. He twisted the top off and shook out two white pills, then downed them with the cup of water. He crumpled the cup, sat back in his chair, and rested his head against the wall.
“Hoser, I feel like shit.”
Jose squeezed his partner’s shoulder. “You got a right, buddy.”
“You oughta get over to the scene.”
“Yeah.” Jose hesitated, giving Frank a close once-over. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I’ll live.”
After Jose left, Frank shut his eyes and waited for Arrowsmith’s pills to kick in. He dozed off, his hand opened, and the crumpled paper cup fell to the floor. At the same time, machine-gun fire cut through his mental fog. He bolted upright in his chair, eyes open, and the machine-gun fire morphed into the insistent chirping of his cell phone.
He got the phone to his ear.
“Frank? What the hell?” Tom Kearney’s concern came in at high volume.
“Dad…”
“Radio’s talking about a bomb in Georgetown. Then Judith called me. Said your street was blocked off. Neighbors said you were hurt…”
“I’m okay, Dad.”
“Where the hell are you?”
“Hospital Center.”
That reignited Tom Kearney’s alarm. “I thought you weren’t hurt!” he shouted.
“One of our guys is, Dad,” Frank said patiently. “I’m waiting for him to come out of surgery.”
“Any idea who did it?”
“Not yet, Dad. Not yet.”
Frank was putting away his phone when Sheresa Arrowsmith entered, her arm around a woman. Petite, in her late twenties, early thirties, black hair cut short and shaped around her face. She wore jeans, a paint-daubed Ohio State sweatshirt, and Nike running shoes.
“Detective Kearney,” Arrowsmith said softly to the woman. To Frank she said, “This’s Esther Janowitz.”
He’s been in there nine hours,” Esther Janowitz whispered to the clock on the ICU waiting room wall.
