by Meg Cabot
“And I’m two blocks closer to St. Vincent’s than anyone else at Fischer Hall right now,” I finish for him. It’s all becoming clear now.
“Something like that,” Tom says. “So. Will you do it? Swing over there before coming here? You can take a cab there and back—if you can find one—and Dr. Jessup says he’ll reimburse you if you bring back the receipt….”
“You know I’m happy to do it,” I say. Anytime I get to spend money and charge it to the department is a happy day for me. “How are you doing, though?” I ask, trying to sound nonchalant, even though the answer is vitally important to my future happiness. There’s no telling what kind of heinous boss I might get assigned if Tom left. Possibly someone like Dr. Kilgore…. “Are you still thinking…I mean, the other day you mentioned wanting to go back to Texas—”
“I’m just trying to take this one day at a time, Heather,” Tom says, with a sigh. “Murder and assault were never covered in any of my student personnel classes, you know.”
“Right,” I say. “But, you know, in Texas they don’t have fun blizzards. At least, not very often.”
“That’s true,” he says. Still, Tom doesn’t sound convinced of New York’s superiority over Texas. “Anyway, I’ll see you in a bit. Stay warm.”
“Thanks,” I say. And I hang up……to find Cooper looking at me strangely over his coffee.
“Going to St. Vincent’s to visit Manuel?” he asks lightly. Too lightly.
“Yes,” I say, averting my gaze. I know what he’s thinking. And nothing could be further from the truth. Well, maybe not nothing…. “I doubt I’ll find a cab, so I better go bundle up—”
“You’re just going to give Manuel get-well wishes,” Cooper says, “and then head back to work, right? You wouldn’t, say, hang around and try to question him about who attacked him last night and why, would you?”
I laugh heartily at that. “Cooper!” I cry. “God, you’re so funny! Of course I wouldn’t do that. I mean, the poor guy was brutally stabbed. He was in surgery all night. He probably won’t even be awake. I’ll just sneak in, leave the flowers—and balloons—and go.”
“Right,” Cooper says. “Because Detective Canavan told you to stay out of the investigation into Lindsay’s murder.”
“Totally,” I say.
Dad, who has been watching our exchange with the same kind of intensity he watched the basketball game the night before, looks confused. “Why would Heather interfere with the investigation into that poor girl’s death?”
“Oh,” Cooper says, “let’s just say that your daughter has a tendency to get a little overinvolved in the lives of her residents. And their deaths.”
Dad looks at me gravely. “Now, honey,” he says, “you really ought to leave that sort of thing to the police. You don’t want to be getting hurt, now, do you?”
I look from Dad to Cooper and then back again. Suddenly it hits me: I’m outnumbered. There’s two of them now, and only one of me.
I let out a frustrated scream and stomp out of the room.
17
This town ain’t just steel and concrete
This town ain’t just millions of stories
Teeth knocked out, but I’m still smiling
A street-smart fighter sayin’,
“Come on and try me.”
“Street Fighter”
Written by Heather Wells
The gift shop is open, thank God. The flowers aren’t exactly very fresh-looking, though—no delivery that morning, on account of the road conditions, which are so bad I not only couldn’t get a cab, but had to walk in pretty much the center of the street in order to avoid drifts up to my knees.
Still, they have balloons of every size and description, and the helium tank is working, so I have fun making an enormous balloon bouquet. Then I have them throw in a GET WELL SOON bear for good measure, after first making sure the GET WELL SOON banner comes off, so Manuel can regift the bear to a girlfriend or niece. You have to think about these things when you’re giving stuffed toys to a man.
I make my way up to ICU, which is where Manuel is being held, to find him awake, but groggy, with a lot of tubes coming in and out of him. There are a lot of people in his room, including a woman who appears to be his mother, who is slumped exhaustedly in a chair near Julio, who is also dozing. While I see two cops—one posted at either entrance to the intensive care unit—I don’t see Detective Canavan anywhere. He either hasn’t made it into the city yet, or was already here and left.
There are two law enforcementy-looking guys leaning against the wall by the door to Manuel’s room, both in suits that are damp up to the knees from their walks through the snowdrifts outside. They’re holding Styrofoam cups of coffee. One is saying, as I approach, “Canavan get anything out of ’im?”
“Nothing he could make any sense of.” The younger man is wearing a tie in a festive tropical print. “Asked him if he knew why he’d been stabbed. All he did was groan.”
“Canavan ask him about the key?”
“Yep. Got about the same response. Nothing.”
“What about the girl?”
“Nothing.”
“Maybe we should get the kid’s uncle to ask him,” the older one says, nodding at a dozing Julio. “Might be he’ll respond better to a face he recognizes.”
“The kid’s completely out of it,” his colleague says with a shrug. “We’re not getting shit out of him.”
Both men notice me at the same time. I’m kind of hard to miss, with my enormous balloon bouquet. Also, I’m clearly eavesdropping.
“Can we help you, miss?” the younger one asks, sounding bored.
“Oh, hi,” I say. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I’m here to see Manuel Juarez? I’m from the Housing Department, over at New York College, where Manuel works. They sent me to see how he’s doing.”
“You got ID?” the older detective, or whatever he is, asks, in as bored a voice as his colleague has used.
I fumble for my staff ID. I have to have the younger one hold the balloons while I do so.
“Nice bear,” he comments dryly.
“Thanks,” I say. “I thought so.”
They check the ID. Then the older one hands it back and says, “Knock yourself out,” while nodding toward Manuel’s room.
I take back my balloons and, with some difficulty, maneuver them through the door, then quietly approach Manuel’s side. He watches me the whole time, without making a sound. The only noise I can hear, as a matter of fact, is the steady breathing of his uncle and a woman I assume is his mother. And the clicking of all the machines next to his bed, doing whatever they’re doing to him.
“Well, hey, there, Manuel,” I say with a smile, showing him the balloons. “These are for you, from all of us over at Fischer Hall. We hope you feel better soon. Sorry about the bear, I know it’s a bit, you know. But they were out of flowers.”
Manuel manages a slight smile. Encouraged, I go on, “You aren’t feeling so hot, are you? I’m so sorry those guys did this to you, Manuel. It really stinks.”
Manuel opens his mouth to say something, but the only thing that comes out is a grunting noise. I see his gaze go to the brown pitcher on the table by his bed. There are some paper cups next to it.
“You want some water?” I ask. “Did anybody tell you that you weren’t supposed to have any? Because sometimes they don’t want you to drink, if you’re going to have more surgery or something.”
Manuel shakes his head. So, after letting the balloons drift to the ceiling so I don’t have to hang on to them anymore, I pour some of the water into a paper cup.
“Here you go,” I say, and hold the cup out to him.
He’s too weak to lift his hands, though—they’re weighted down by all the tubes going into them anyway—so I put the cup to his lips. He drinks thirstily.
When he finishes the first cup, he looks pointedly at the pitcher, so, figuring he wants a refill, I pour him another one. He drinks that one, too, only slower. W
hen he’s done with that one, I ask if he wants more. Manuel shakes his head, and is finally able to speak.
“I was so thirsty,” Manuel said. “I tried to tell those guys—” He nods at the two detectives in the hallway. “But they didn’t understand me. I couldn’t talk, my throat was so dry. Thank you.”
“Oh,” I say. “No problem.”
“And thank you for what you did last night,” Manuel says. He can’t seem to speak very loudly—though Manuel, even in the peak of health, was never a loud talker—so it’s hard to hear what he’s saying. But I lean forward and am able to catch most of it. “Uncle Julio says you saved my life.”
I shake my head. “Oh, no,” I say. “Really, that was the paramedics. I was just in the right place at the right time, is all.”
“Well,” Manuel says, managing a smile, “lucky for me, then. But no one will tell me…did we win?”
“The basketball game?” I can’t help laughing. “No. We got creamed in the second half.”
“It was my fault,” Manuel says, looking pained.
“It wasn’t your fault.” I’m still laughing. “The Pansies suck, is all.”
“My fault,” Manuel says again. His voice cracks.
That’s when I stop laughing. Because I realize he’s crying. Fat tears are beading up under his eyelids, threatening to come spilling out any minute. He seems to want to lift his hands up to wipe them away, but he can’t.
“It’s not your fault, Manuel,” I say. “How can you even think such a thing? The guys on the team didn’t even know what happened to you until later. Coach Andrews didn’t tell them—”
“No,” Manuel says. The tears are sliding out from beneath his eyelids and streaming down his face. “I meant it’s my fault about Lindsay. My fault that she died.”
Whoa. “Manuel,” I say. “It isn’t your fault that someone killed Lindsay. It isn’t your fault at all.”
“I gave her the key,” Manuel insists. And he does manage to move one of his hands then. He curls his fingers into a fist and thumps the mattress, pathetically softly.
“That doesn’t mean you killed her,” I assure him.
“She wouldn’t be dead if I hadn’t given it to her. I should have said no when she asked. I should have said no. Only…she was crying.”
“Right,” I say. I glance at the two detectives outside the room. They’ve disappeared. Where did they go? I want to run out after them, tell them to get in here…but I don’t want Manuel to stop talking. “You said that last night. When did she come to you crying, Manuel? When did she ask you for the key?”
“It was right before I went home,” he says. “Monday night. After the cafeteria was closed at seven. I was pulling a double, because Fernando had to go to his grandmother’s birthday party. The holiday. You know. And she came up to me, as I was putting on my coat to go home, and said she needed to borrow the key to the cafeteria, because she’d left something in there.”
“Did she say what?” I ask, glancing at the door. Where were those guys? “What it was she left, I mean?”
Manuel shakes his head. He’s still crying.
“I should have gone with her. I should have gone and opened the door for her and waited until she got whatever it was. But I was supposed to meet someone”—from the way he says the word someone, it’s clear he means a girlfriend—“and I was running late, and she’s…well, she was Lindsay.”
“Right,” I say encouragingly. “We all knew Lindsay. We all trusted her.” Though I’m starting to think maybe we shouldn’t have.
“Yeah. I know I shouldn’t have given it to her,” Manuel goes on. “But she was so pretty and nice. Everybody liked her. I couldn’t imagine she wanted the key for anything bad. She said it was really important—something she had to give back to…the people she borrowed it from. Or they’d be angry, she said.”
My blood has run cold. That’s the only way I can think of to explain why I suddenly feel so chilly. “She didn’t say who they were?”
Manuel shakes his head.
“And she definitely said they, plural, like it was more than one person?”
He nods.
Well, that was weird. Unless Lindsay had said they instead of him or her to hide the sex of whoever it was she was talking about.
“So you gave her the key,” I say.
He nods miserably. “She told me she’d give it back. She said she’d meet me by the front desk the next morning at ten o’clock and give the key back. And I waited. I was out there waiting when the police came in. Nobody told me what was going on. They just walked right past me. I was waiting for her, and the whole time, she was inside, dead!”
Manuel breaks off. He’s choking a little, he’s crying so hard. One of the machines that’s hooked up to him by a tube starts beeping. The woman I assume is his mother stirs sleepily.
“If…” Manuel says. “If—”
“Manuel, don’t talk,” I say. To the woman who has just woken up, I say, “Get a nurse.” Her eyes widen, and she runs from the room.
“If…” Manuel keeps saying.
“Manuel, don’t talk,” I say. By now Julio is up, as well, murmuring something in Spanish to his nephew.
But Manuel won’t calm down.
“If it wasn’t my fault,” he finally manages to get out, “then why did they try to kill me?”
“Because they think you know who they are,” I say. “The people who killed Lindsay think you can identify them. Which means Lindsay must have said something to you to make them think that. Did she, Manuel? Try to remember.”
“She said…she said something about someone named—”
“Doug?” I cry. “Did she say something about someone named Doug? Or maybe Mark?”
But the beeping is getting louder, and now a doctor and two nurses come rushing in, followed by Manuel’s mother…and the two detectives.
“No,” Manuel says. His voice is getting fainter. “I think it was…Steve. She said Steve was going to be so mad….”
Steve? Who’s Steve?
Manuel’s eyelids drift closed. The doctor barks, “Get out of the way,” and I jump aside, while she messes around with Manuel’s tubes. The beeping, mercifully, goes back to its normal, much quieter rate. The doctor looks relieved. Manuel, it’s clear, has drifted off to sleep.
“Everyone out,” says one of the nurses, waving us toward the door. “He needs to rest now.”
“But I’m his mother,” the older woman insists.
“You can stay,” the nurse relents. “The rest of you, out.”
I feel horrible. I shuffle out, along with the two detectives, while Julio and Mrs. Juarez stay with Manuel.
“What happened to him?” the younger detective asks me, when we hit the hallway.
And so I tell him. I tell him everything Manuel said. Especially the part about Steve.
They look bored.
“We knew all that,” the older one says—sort of accusingly, like I’d been wasting their time on purpose.
“No, you didn’t,” I say, shocked.
“Yeah, we did,” the younger one agrees with his partner. “It was all in the report. He said all that stuff last night, about the key.”
“Not the stuff about Steve,” I say.
“I’m pretty sure there was a Steve in the report,” the older detective says.
“Steve,” the younger one says. “Or a John, maybe.”
“There’s no John,” I say. “Only a Doug. Or maybe a Mark. Mark was the dead girl’s boyfriend. Well, except she was seeing a guy named Doug on the side. And now there’s Steve. Only there’s no Steve that I know of—”
“We already got all that,” the younger detective says again, looking annoyed.
I glare at them. “Where’s Detective Canavan?”
“He couldn’t get into the city this morning,” the older one says. “On account of the road conditions where he lives.”
“Well,” I say, “are you going to call him and tell him about this Steve gu
y? Or do I have to do it?”
The younger detective says, “We already told you, miss. We know about—”
“Sure, we’ll call him,” the older one interrupts.
The younger one looks startled. “But Marty—”
“We’ll call him,” the older one says again, with a wink at the younger one. The younger one goes, “Oh, yeah. Yeah. We’ll call him.”
I just stand there and stare at them. It’s clear Detective Canavan already told them about me. It’s also clear he didn’t say anything good.
“You know,” I say truculently, “I have his cell number. I could just call him myself.”
“Why don’t you do that?” Marty, the older detective says. “I’m sure he’d love to hear from you.”
The younger one cracks up.
I feel myself blush. Am I really that big a pain in Detective Canavan’s ass? I mean, I know I am. But I never thought he went around complaining about me to the rest of the detectives. Am I the joke of the Sixth Precinct?
Probably.
“Fine,” I say. “I’ll just be going now.” And I turn to leave.
“Wait. Ms. Wells?”
I turn back to face them. The younger detective is holding out a pen and a notepad.
“Sorry, Ms. Wells, I almost forgot.” He looks totally serious. “Can I have your autograph?”
I narrow my eyes at him. What kind of joke is this?
“Seriously,” he says. “I told my kid sister you hang around the station a lot, and she asked me to get your autograph for her, if I could.”
He looks sincere. I take the pen and notepad, feeling a rush of embarrassment for having been so huffy to him.
“Sure,” I say. “What’s your sister’s name?”
“Oh, she just wants your signature,” the detective says. “She says autographs don’t sell as well on eBay when they’re personalized.”
I glare at him. “She wants my autograph just so she can sell it?”
“Well, yeah,” the detective says, looking as if he can’t believe I’d think anything else. “What else is she going to do with all those old CDs of yours? She says she has a better chance of selling hers if she can throw in an autograph. She says it’ll make her stand out from all the millions of other people selling their Heather Wells collection.”
