Chapter Sixty-five
Darkness…more darkness…hands lifting him up…flashing lights…people scurrying about everywhere…then he opened his eyes to see Chuck Morton's face looking down at him. They were in the back of an ambulance. Lee was lying in a stretcher, his friend crouched over him.
'Kathy-' he began, but Chuck cut him off.
'She's going to be fine.'
'Where is-?'
'She's already on her way to the hospital.'
A paramedic fiddled with an IV bag next to him. The ambulance was sitting behind the church, its doors still open. The paramedic didn't look unduly alarmed, so Lee figured he'd be okay.
'What about Nelson? Is he…?'
Chuck shook his head. 'Pronounced dead at the scene. You're lucky he broke your fall. You landed right on top of him. Broke his neck.'
Instead of relief, Lee felt a deep sadness. That was no way for a life to end, not even such a twisted one.
'How did you know where to find me?'
'I just went where I figured you would go.'
Behind Chuck, Lee heard a familiar voice speaking. 'We headed for Dr. Azarian's house first.'
'Is that…Diesel?' Lee said, and tried to raise his head up to look.
Diesel's enormous head appeared over him. His metal earring caught the light and reflected silver in the artificial light.
Lee stared at him. 'What are you doing here?'
'I volunteered to help. Rhino came too, but there wasn't room for us both in the ambulance. He's over there helping the officers keep people away.'
Lee looked across the street to the cadre of police lining the sidewalk and saw Rhino's powerful, compact form among them.
He looked up at Chuck. 'How did-?'
'They said they knew you-that they were helping you on the case. At that point, I don't have to tell you, we were pretty desperate.'
'Anyway,' Diesel continued, 'there was this old lady in the street.'
'Blue hair and eye shadow to match?' Lee said.
'Yeah, right. We asked if she'd seen anyone matching your description, and she told us to go to St. Mary's.'
'Sort of like an oracle,' Lee said.
'Yes,' said Diesel. 'Instead of the Oracle of Delphi, she was the Oracle of Philly.'
'Oh, something else I have to tell you,' Chuck said. 'You're off the case.'
Lee looked up at his friend, who was smiling. 'I don't get it.'
'Internal Affairs requested that I take you off the case.'
'Really? When?'
'Oh, about three days ago.'
'What? Why didn't you say anything?'
Chuck shrugged. 'Guess I forgot. I'm telling you now.'
Lee laughed, and felt a stab of fire shoot through his ribs. He remembered the wound Nelson had slashed into his side.
'So-he's really dead?' he asked.
'Yeah,' Chuck said, without looking at him.
'Dead at the scene, you said?'
'Pretty much, yeah.'
Lee peered at him. 'What do you mean, 'pretty much?''
Chuck cleared his throat. 'He was still alive when we arrived.'
Lee looked back at Diesel, aware that they were both avoiding eye contact with him.
'Is there something you're not telling me?'
Chuck's jaw was clenched, and Lee could hear his teeth grinding. Diesel was looking down at his shoes.
'What? What is it?'
'I think you should get some rest,' Chuck said, getting up and putting a hand on Lee's shoulder.
'For God's sake, what is it?'
'Look, we don't believe him,' Chuck said. 'We think he was lying.'
'Lying about what?'
There was a pause, and Lee could hear the sound of car doors opening and closing. Scenes like this always drew far more patrol cars than necessary.
Chuck took a deep breath. 'He claimed to know who killed your sister.'
'We think he said it just to upset you,' Diesel added quickly.
Lee's stomach took a quick dip, like a car lurching down a hilly road. 'But if he was lying, why would he tell you?'
Chuck looked him straight in the eye. 'Because he knew that sooner or later you'd find out what he said.'
'Did he even know I was alive?'
'My guess is that he gambled on it. You were already being loaded onto a stretcher when he said it.'
'And what did he have to lose, in any case?' added Diesel. 'He probably knew he was dying.'
'But people who are dying don't usually lie,' Lee protested. 'What if he was telling the truth?'
'Then he's taken the truth to his grave,' Diesel replied.
'Come on, Lee, think about it!' Chuck said. 'What does your experience and training tell you? What are the chances he'd know who-'
'You're right,' Lee agreed, but a tiny doubt had lodged itself in his mind and was sprouting, a dark seedling stretching its roots downward, taking hold of his imagination.
'We called your mother and told her you were okay.' Chuck rubbed his palms together, a gesture he made when he was uncomfortable or embarrassed. His nails were pink and manicured. Lee imagined Susan sending Chuck to a manicurist, when he would rather be playing golf or doing yard work. Susan liked everything just so-ironed shirts, starched collars, perfectly organized closets, manicured nails. He imagined Chuck submitting meekly to her prodding.
Thinking of Susan made him think of Kathy, and that made his stomach go hollow inside. He sank back into the stretcher and watched the rotating lights of the ambulance spin around and around, cutting through the darkness like a red blade.
Chapter Sixty-six
Two weeks later, Lee Campbell stood in his apartment looking out the window at the first buds of spring struggling to open in the March frost. The sidewalks were damp from a recent rain, and the late-afternoon sun bounced off the wet pavement, turning the concrete into a mirror, reflecting the street scene on East Seventh Street. The return of the sun had finally lost its terror for him, and he felt the swelling of the earth in his own breast, a gradual awakening as the warmer weather opened the pores of the maple trees, the sap flowing freely again. All the earth's transitions struck him as blessed. All four seasons had their unique charms, and they were all irreplaceable. Like people. No one would ever take his sister's place. He knew that, but now he felt closer to
