Stalking the Phoenix

by Karen Woods

  My face crumpled. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take, Phil. I just don’t know how much I can take. If Geoff is hurt or worse . . . God forbid. Oh, Phil . . .”

  “Hey, let’s not worry about something which we can’t do anything about. Don’t go borrowing trouble.”

  “Borrowing trouble? I don’t need to borrow any. I’ve already had a life time supply. Do you know why I picked Fieldsburg? It’s almost funny now. It was a quiet college and farming town. Being the county seat, there was enough of the urban conveniences resent that I didn’t quite feel out of place and there was enough of the rural mindset that I felt comfortably laid back.”

  The radio Phil had laid down on the hall table screeched just after he had finished boarding up the window.

  Phil picked up the radio and answered the call, “Mallory.”

  “We’ve located Mr. Samson. He’s in route to Community Hospital.”

  “What’s his condition?”

  “Unconscious.”

  “Dear God!” I prayed fervently.

  “I’m on my way,” Phil replied before signing off.

  “I’m coming with you!”

  “You ever ridden a motorcycle?”

  “Never. But, I’m not in any shape to drive. Look, Phil. Just take me to Geoff?” I demanded. “Please, Philip.”

  Phil nodded affirmatively. “Okay. Hang onto me. If I lean, lean with me, even if your first instinct tells you to do the opposite. Trust me.”

  I knew in that moment that I would trust him with my life. “Fine. Just get me to the hospital.”

  Geoff was in the emergency room at Fieldsburg Community

  Hospital when Phil and I arrived there. Sam Ulrich was there, having ridden in the ambulance with Geoff.

  “How bad is he, Sam?”

  “I’ve seen worse, Doc. But, he’s not going to be pretty for awhile,” the young officer said.

  I sighed impatiently. “‘Pretty’ is not important. How is he? How badly is he hurt, Sam?”

  “Well, Doc, I would surely hate to see the other guy. There was apparently quite a fight. ”

  I turned and walked over to the clerk. “Who is working on Geoff Samson?”

  “Doctor Roby was called. He’s with him, now. Would you like for me to ask him to talk with you when he’s done?”

  “Just tell me where they are.”

  “Examining room A.”

  “Thanks,” I replied as I turned to go from the waiting room into the treatment rooms.

  “But, Miss . . . Miss, you can’t go in there.”

  “Watch me.”

  The young clerk looked over at the officers as I went through the double doors that separated the waiting area from the treatment rooms. “She shouldn’t be back there,” I heard her say.

  Treatment room A was a small cubicle just inside the treatment area. The door was open.

  “Well, Ed?”

  Doctor Ed Roby was a dark haired, muscular, man of average height in his early forties. “He’s going to be fine, Alicia.”

  “Thank God.”

  “‘Licia?” Geoff’s voice asked.

  “I’m right here.” I walked into the room.

  Ed Roby had been blocking my view of Geoff. Now that I stood close by, I could see that Sam had been right. If Geoff had an eye that threatened to become a technicolor horror, I wondered what the other guy looked like.

  “How do you feel?” I asked.

  “Like hell,” Geoff said in a strained voice.

  “Don’t bother talking, just now, Geoff. You just lie still and let Ed work you over . . .”

  “Hey, I’ve been worked over enough for one night.”

  I laughed nervously, in relief. At least his sense of humor was still intact.

  “Are you keeping him overnight?”

  “That would be for the best, Alicia. I haven’t gotten him down to x-ray, yet. But, I would feel more comfortable, if we kept him for observation. He’s not going to be a happy camper for a few weeks. I would guess that he has a couple of cracked ribs, in addition to the shiner. I wouldn’t doubt that the cheekbone is cracked, at least. You will need to help him wrap those ribs every day.”

  “No problem. What about the eye? Any real damage to the eye or optic nerve?”

  “Doesn’t appear so.”

  “Orbital bone?”

  “Don’t know. We’ll get a x-ray to make sure. I think it’s broken, as well.”

  “But, there’s no damage to the optical nerve or to the eye?” I asked.

  “Doesn’t appear so,” the doctor said.

  “Thank God it wasn’t worse,” I said.

  Phil walked up behind me. “Come on, Al. Let the doctor work.”

  Geoff said, “Let her stay. I need to know that she is all right.”

  “How you doing, buddy?”

  “Been better, Phil. Been better.”

  “What happened?”

  “He got away from me.”

  Phil looked over at Ed Roby. “Could I have a few minutes alone with Geoff and Al?”

  Ed smiled. “I’d hate to be charged with obstructing justice,” the doctor responded with a smile. “Just don’t over-tire him. You’ve got until they come up for him from x-ray. Maybe five minutes.”

  “Now, tell me something that I didn’t know,” Phil said after the doctor had closed the door on the way out of the room. “Did you get a good look at him?”

  “Yeah. Short. Dark hair, dark eyes. About, I don’t know, five-two, five-three, 140 pounds. Fairly recent ragged scar on the left side of his face from his cheekbone to his chin.”

  “A 140 pound shrimp did this to you?” Phil asked in disbelief.

  “That shrimp was a lot stronger than he looked. Stronger and faster. I finally caught up with him in the alley behind the lumberyard. He took a couple of swings at me with a 2 by 10. Then he started working on me with his fists. I got in a few good, solid, hits. He has to be hurting. And that was the last thing that I remembered until I woke up in the ambulance,” Geoff said.

  “You got a good look at him?” Phil demanded. “You could identify him if you saw him, again.”

  “I’d know him anywhere. I recognized him, immediately. It was Hernandez.”

  I lost all color in my face. I reached out to Phil as I felt my knees begin to buckle out from under me.

  Phil looked at me carefully as he steadied me. “Steady, Al.”

  “I’m fine, Philip,” I said in as strong of a voice as I could muster.

  Phil nodded tightly in acknowledgment.

  “You are sure that it was Hernandez?” Phil asked.

  “Absolutely. No doubt in my mind,” Geoff said, still not looking at the pair of us. “It was Hernandez.”

  “Well, I don’t suppose that it would be the first time that someone had faked his own death in a foreign country,” Phil replied. He looked at Geoff. “Was Hernandez cut when he broke out the window?”

  “No. I don’t think so. At least, I didn’t see him bleeding.”

  “There was quite a bit of blood around the broken glass at your house,” Phil stated.

  “When I came around the corner of the porch, he had broken out the window. His arm was inside the house. I don’t think that he was hurt. In fact, I know that he wasn’t moving like a man with a cut. When he saw me, he took off like the proverbial bat. As he ran off, he shoved something that looked like a small glass jar into his pocket.”

  “When is this nightmare going to end?” I demanded. But everyone, including myself recognized that as a rhetorical question.

  Geoff opened his one good eye. He looked over at us. “Phil, please take ‘Licia home with you tonight. Let her sleep in Jan’s old room. At least, that way, I’ll know that she is safe. I don’t want either of us back at my house, until I’ve improved the security.”

  Phil nodded. “I was going to suggest something along those lines, myself.”

  “Look, guys, I’ll just sleep at the lab.”

  “Not likely. T
he last thing that you should be is alone, ‘Licia,” Geoff said. “Alone and asleep, you would be more vulnerable than I want to think about. Please. Just go home with Phil. For tonight, I need to know that you are absolutely safe.”

  “You don’t worry about anything, Geoff. You just rest. I’ll take care of Al,” Phil said. “Nothing is going to happen to her while she is in my care.”

  “Fine, but tomorrow, we hire bodyguards and dogs,” I suggested.

  Geoff closed his good eye and sighed. “That might be for the best, at least for the short run.”

  “I hate this,” I said. “I can’t tell you how much I hate this.”

  “I know. I know,” Geoff said . “But, honey, we are in a state of siege with this man. We’d be foolish, if we didn’t take all the precautions that we could take. We have quite a lot on the line at the moment.”

  I sighed. “I know. We can start with precautions of someone sitting up with you all night. Hernandez has a known history of attacking people in a hospital setting. I want to stay with you, Geoff.”

  Geoff looked at me. “No. You won’t. You will go with Phil. You will get some rest, if I have to talk Ed into giving you some samples of sedatives. This man wants you rattled. Don’t give him the satisfaction, ‘Licia.”

  “No sedatives,” I answered. “Not now.”

  Geoff smiled. “Okay, baby. No sedatives,” he said. “You’re right.”

  I looked at Phil. “Geoff is the only person who can place Hernandez in the area. Can you swing police protection for him tonight?”

  Phil’s jaw tightened. “That can be arranged quite easily. At least, for one night. Especially given the man’s known MO.”

  I yawned.

  “You and Phil go back to his place. Get some sleep, ‘Licia,” Geoff ordered. “You need to get all the rest that you can.”

  “After the police guard is here and you are settled into a room. I won’t leave you even one second before.”

  “Stubborn woman,” Geoff said with tenderness in his voice.

  “Were I not stubborn, you would roll right over me,” I replied quietly, just before the knock came at the door.

  Ed Roby put his head inside the room. “X-ray gurney is here. Your time is up.”

  If barbershops were where old magazines went to die, then radiology departments were where they were mummified, I thought as I looked through a two-year old copy of Gourmet magazine.

  Tenseness surrounded Phil. Although he stood perfectly still, looking out of the window onto the dimly lit parking lot, the tenseness was undeniably there.

  I stood and went over to stand beside him. “What are you thinking?” I asked quietly.

  “I don’t like this. Why is Hernandez doing this?”

  “I had a psychology professor who had worked in a mental hospital for twenty years. I will never forget that he said that while the criminally insane have reasons for their actions, reasons which make perfect sense to them, that those reasons don’t usually make sense to anyone but them,” I replied.

  Phil looked at me. “One of these days, you are going to have to tell me how you went from being a social working nun to being a computer scientist. The two seem so diametrically opposed to one another.”

  I nodded. “Someday, perhaps,” I allowed. “But, my past is very difficult for me to discuss.”

  Phil nodded. He looked at his watch. “Geoff will have one man on him at all times while he is here.”

  “I appreciate that, Phil.”

  “I’ll take you back to Geoff’s so that you can pack an overnight bag.”

  “My overnight case was lost by the airline on the way to Chicago.”

  Phil smiled at me and shook his head as he heard the gurney being pushed out into the hall. “Then just do the best that you can.”

  I sighed.

  We saw Geoff safely installed in room 234. The police guard was just outside the room. Mabel Norman, a middle-aged woman whom I knew from our joint involvement with the women’s crisis center, was the charge nurse on the four p.m. to four a.m. shift. Mabel had a reputation, I had learned, as a dour woman with almost never anything good to say to anyone. But, I had learned by watching the woman that under Mabel’s tough exterior lurked a tender soul.

  In many ways, I was afraid that I would turn out like Mabel—seemingly rigid, cold, and inflexible—so accustomed to living inside the defensive walls that I had built that I would find it uncomfortable to be outside of their protective, and imprisoning, circle. That was one of my greatest fears. And it was one of the reasons that I was so anxious to marry.

  I walked out of the hospital with Phil on my heels.

  “Slow down will you?” he demanded.

  “Sorry. I hate hospitals. With a passion.”

  Phil nodded. “I suppose that I can understand that.”

  “Can you?” I asked. “I wonder.”

  “Look, Al, just take it easy. We are going back to Geoff’s then you will pack a bedroll. Jeans and a shirt for tomorrow. I know that you prefer to present a more professional appearance. But, appearances have to take a back seat just now. Clean underclothes. And something to sleep in tonight. A hairbrush. Toothbrush. Whatever cosmetics you absolutely need. Don’t pack too much. The only storage I have is under the seat. And you don’t want to be riding through the streets carrying a suitcase.”

  “I know how to pack lightly, Phil. It’s a skill I acquired a long time ago, believe me.”

  Phil heard the utter weariness in my voice. “When we get back to my place, you are to have a long hot bath, a stiff drink, and go to bed.”

  “Aye, mon capitaine,” I said. “Without the stiff drink.”

  “No arguments?”

  “I’m too tired to argue with you.”

  “That’s got to be a first.”

  “Am I really that horrible to get along with?”

  Phil nodded negatively. “No, you aren’t horrible at all.”

  I told myself that I had to be imagining the way that he made horrible sound endearing. “That’s something, at least.”

  “I never asked you,” I said as we reached his bike. “Why do you always carry a second helmet?”

  “So I can take beautiful women for rides,” Phil replied with both a broad smile and a wicked mock leer. “Why else?”

  “Of course, I don’t know why I doubted it.”

  Chapter 23

  PHIL

  Having her in my house was uncomfortable. Yet, this was better than dispatching a couple of officers to keep her company at a local hotel.

  “Thanks, Philip,” she told me.

  I didn’t at all like the pallor she was showing. She looked as though she were about ready to fall apart. I couldn’t say that I blamed her. But, it was worrisome.

  “The upstairs bathroom is at the end of the hall. There is an array of bath salts in the linen closet on the second shelf.”

  “Bath salts?”

  “A lady friend’s idea of a suitable birthday gift. Said that I was entirely too tense. A handful of any of them in a tub of hot bath water will help you relax. ”

  “Oh! Do they really work?”

  “I don’t know. I prefer showers.”

  She chuckled. “Poor lady friend. A gift which is never used.”

  “She and I went our separate ways shortly after that. I began to wonder what sort of woman would think that I was the bubble bath type.”

  She smiled broadly. “You are making this up, just to make me laugh.”

  “Would I do that?” I asked.

  “Only if you thought that there was a snowball’s chance of getting by with it. What would you have done if I had wanted the bath salts?”

  “Look in the linen closet. There are really some there. Still in the sealed packages. Everything was true except why the lady and I parted company.”

  She looked at me curiously. “Why? Forget it, I have no right to ask. Forgive me.”

  “No problem. She threw me over for another man.”

  �
��She must have been blind, deaf, and stupid. I can’t imagine any woman stupid enough to let you get away from her,” Al replied. “You are well rid of her. You deserve a woman who can appreciate all of your fine qualities.”

  If she had known how much her words had meant to me. But, she didn’t have a clue. “Alicia, you are good for my ego.”

  “As though your ego needed helping. You have to be one of the most self-assured men whom I have ever met.”

  “The feeling is quite mutual, woman.”

  “I don’t feel very self-assured, lately,” Al replied, looking away from me. “In fact, I feel about as far in the opposite direction as possible. I’m so scared most of the time that I can hardly think straight. I don’t liked feeling this way.”

  “But, you carry on, anyway. That’s courage.”

  “I’ve never been one to sit around and feel sorry for myself.” She made a disgusted sound from the back of her throat. “However, I am seriously considering changing that.”

  I laughed at the dryness of her words. “Never. Never.”

  “Probably not.”

  “Back to the matter of your bath. There should be plenty of clean towels and such. The timer for the whirlpool jets is on the north wall. Don’t give yourself anything less than ten minutes. You need it. But, don’t stay in any longer than fifteen, or you won’t be able to crawl out of the water.”

  “Thank you, Phil.”

  “I’ll leave a large brandy on your night stand. Drink it, then go to sleep. I’ll wake you at seven. Now, go on.”

  She smiled at me. “Somehow, I never imagined you playing mother hen.”

  “I almost hate to ask how you had imagined me.”

  “Good. I’d hate to have to tell you.”

  “That bad, eh?”

  “Let’s just say that it wasn’t as the bubble bath type.”

  “And you aren’t going to elaborate further?”

  Alicia shrugged. “I can’t think of any reason that I should.” Then she added suddenly, “Why are you opening your house to me, Phil?”

  “Geoff is my best friend. You are his woman. He asked for this favor. Why are you here?”

  “Because I’m scared, Phil. I’m so scared. I hate feeling this way. I just hate it.”

  “I can understand that.”