“The sheriff doesn’t want him talking to anyone until we get a statement from him.”
“Has he been charged with anything?”
“No.”
“Then you can’t stop her from visiting his bedside.”
“Look, man, I’m just following orders.”
“Is he even conscious yet?” I asked.
“Every once and a while, he starts yammering, but then he passes out again.”
“I need to see him,” Jamie said. “Please.”
“What is it with this guy?” he said. “How many times do I have to tell people he can’t be disturbed?”
The deputy’s nameplate said DUNBAR.
“Jamie, can you just wait outside for a second?” I said.
She removed her ski jacket and folded it over her arm. Dunbar watched her hips jiggle as she paced across the room, past the nurse’s desk at the center, hugging herself tightly.
“Why don’t you let her look in on her brother for a few minutes?” I said to Dunbar. “If the guy’s asleep, there’s no harm in her holding his hand.”
He gnawed on the edge of his mustache. “Is she your girlfriend or something?”
“I just gave her a ride to the hospital.”
His eyes followed her ass closely. “She’s the one banging Randall Cates?”
In the interest of helping Jamie see her brother, I resisted the urge to smack him across the chops. “Not anymore.”
He rolled the magazine into a tight tube and thwacked it like a nightstick against his open palm a few times. “I need to be in the room.”
I motioned to Jamie.
Prester Sewall lay prone on the wheeled bed. Some time over the past hours, the doctor had wrapped white bandages around his face, so that only his closed eyes showed now. He looked small with the sheet pulled up to his narrow chest and his skinny arms extended at his sides. We could hear his labored breathing through the strips of gauze.
“Prester?” Jamie whispered, taking his hand.
His eyes snapped open, bloodred and filled with terror. “Jamie?”
“Oh shit, he’s awake,” said Dunbar.
“I’m so happy to see you,” she said, but her voice cracked.
“What have they done to me, Jamie?”
His sister started to sob and shudder. Reflexively I set my hand on her shoulder.
“You’re OK,” she said. “Prester, you’re OK.”
“I’m not OK! They’re going to cut off my fingers!”
“Prester…” Her folded coat slid off her arm onto the floor.
“They’re going to cut off my nose!”
“Prester…”
He tried to sit up but didn’t have the strength and dropped his head against the pillow. “They won’t show me my face. I keep asking for a mirror, but they won’t bring me one.” He waved his bandaged arms. “What do I look like, Jamie? I look like a freak, don’t I?”
She put a hand to her mouth to hide her sobs. “Maybe they can do plastic surgery. Doctors in France gave a woman a new face.”
“I don’t want a new face! I want my normal face. I’m never going to have sex again in my life!”
“The doctors can repair your face.” She looked at me with pleading eyes. “Can’t they, Mike?”
“Doctors can do some amazing things,” I replied, fully aware of the lameness of this as a response.
“Who’s he? What’s he doing here?” His crimson gaze turned on the deputy standing behind me. “Why are the cops here, Jamie?”
“This is my friend Mike. He’s the warden who found you. He said you and Randall got lost in the snow.”
Again the injured man tried sitting up, and again he flopped back against the pillow as if attached to it by a string. “Where’s Randall? Is he here in the hospital? Is his chest OK?”
“We’d better cut this off,” the deputy whispered in my ear.
Jamie dropped down to one knee and clutched at her brother’s freckled arm. “Randall’s dead, Prester.”
“Jamie,” I cautioned.
“He’s dead?”
“The cops won’t tell me what happened,” she said.
“OK, that’s enough.” Dunbar tapped his rolled magazine against his open hand. The gesture was meant to be intimidating but came across as comic-as if he was really going to club anyone into submission with an old issue of American Snowmobiler.
Prester’s voice rose to the level of a wail. “Randall’s dead?”
If Sewall really did kill his friend, I thought, he’s a terrific actor.
“Give me a fucking break,” Dunbar muttered.
Prester was breathing heavily through his bandages. His bloody eyes were locked on mine. “What happened to him? Did he freeze to death?”
The deputy had forgotten his own orders to prevent the injured man from having any conversations. “You know exactly what happened.”
“Leave him alone,” said Jamie. “My brother’s an injured person.”
“Your brother’s a murder suspect.”
“Dunbar,” I said, my voice heavy with warning.
Prester Sewall had begun to flail his arms and kick his legs. “The cops think I killed Randall?”
“Hey! Hey!” a woman said, stepping into the fray. She wore an unbuttoned sweater over surgical scrubs. She was as lean as a marathon runner and had short sandy hair and a voice like an army bugle. “What’s going on here?”
“I’m sorry, Doctor,” I said.
“I’m not a doctor. I’m the charge nurse.”
“This is Mr. Sewall’s sister,” I explained.
“I don’t care who she is. This man is in serious condition. He’s recovering from hypothermia, and he’s detoxing off alcohol and opiates. Are you officers trying to give him a heart attack?”
“Everything is under control,” Dunbar said.
“The hell it is.” She thrust her finger in the direction of the nearest door. “I want you out of here right now.”
Prester seemed to be hyperventilating. “The cops think I killed Randall, Jamie.”
“No, they don’t,” she said. “It’s got to be some kind of mistake. Isn’t it, Mike?”
My silence must not have reassured her because a look came into her widening eyes, as if she’d just guessed the answer to a riddle.
“You all need to leave this instant,” said the nurse.
“You heard the nurse,” said Dunbar in his “Move along” voice.
“Including you, Deputy,” said the nurse.
“I want to wake up now,” Prester sobbed. “I’m having a nightmare!”
Jamie grabbed her coat from the floor and said, “I’ll be back tomorrow. I’ll bring Tammi and Lucas.”
“I want to wake up,” wailed the injured man.
“If you don’t all leave this instant, I’m calling the sheriff,” said the nurse.
“We’re leaving,” I said.
The nurse yanked the drapes shut across the glass windows; it was like a curtain closing at the end of a play.
“You need to calm down, Mr. Sewall,” I heard her say. “Take deep breaths.”
Jamie stormed down the hall to the admittance desk as if she’d forgotten I was in her company.
I glared one last time at Deputy Dunbar, who looked like a kid who’d just broken a window with a baseball,
