Sleep of the Innocent

by Medora Sale

  He swung around in a U-turn and headed furiously back to the motel. He had also forgotten to leave the room key. He patted his pocket to check that it was there and touched a plastic vial, just where he had put it. “I have them,” he said, “in my pocket.” His exploring fingers hit the room key in the same pocket. They were almost back at the motel. Might as well leave the key where someone could find it.

  He slowed down and put on his turn indicator. As his hands began to swing the steering wheel toward the parking lot, he saw the crowd: two cruisers with flashing red lights and two unmarked cars, obviously containing more law, all converging on the space in front of their old room. He flicked off the indicator, put his foot back on the accelerator, and drove quietly past the scene at something very close to the speed limit.

  “Where are we going?” asked Annie. Her voice slurred drunkenly.

  He pulled over to the shoulder and turned to look carefully at her. “How do you feel?” he asked. “And for chrissake, don’t tell me fine—you look like hell.”

  “Worse,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, but . . .” Her voice drifted off.

  He started the car again. “Let’s go,” he said to himself.

  “Where?”

  “To visit an old friend of mine who ought to be able to help you,” said Lucas with an assurance he certainly didn’t feel. “Get some sleep. It’s a fair distance from here.”

  “Oh,” she said, and sank back into her half-conscious feverish haze.

  The fastest way to Mike Chalmers’s house would be to go down to the expressway, drive east forty or fifty miles and head back north again, but Lucas was reluctant to take such a well-traveled road. He braked, turned left, and headed north. If he remembered this neck of the woods accurately, there was a lousy little secondary road that would take him there more or less directly, passing through thirty miles of dreary scrub forest and rock on its way. At least along there—in the isolated silence of early spring—if some other vehicle tried to hang on to his tail, he’d notice. He pushed the car five cautious miles into the darkness without meeting anything but one startled deer who hustled out of his way. Just beyond the deer crossing a small road snaked off to the right into nowhere. It had no name, no number, no road signs along it at all. The only indication that it might go somewhere of any significance lay in the indisputable fact that at least once in its long life it had been paved. With a silent prayer, he swung onto it, picking up speed, screeching and bouncing around the unbanked curves and over the steep hills, muttering apologies to Annie every time the car gave a sickening lurch sideways. He was beginning to feel doubts about his fantastic brain wave. He wasn’t at all sure—now that he had had time to think about it—that Mike would or could help him, but the alternative wasn’t good. In fact, there wasn’t an alternative. He reckoned that any hospital that looked at her would insist on keeping her at least overnight for observation. And by that time, judging by the speed with which things had been happening, half the world would know where she was.

  He crested a slight rise in the absolute darkness and down in front of him a pool of light signaled that he had finally reached a town. He slowed down for the intersection where this little road angled in to meet the main street, searching for a road sign that would announce where he was. There wasn’t one. He had arrived here—wherever they were—by the unmarked back door. He stopped and looked carefully around him. The shabby gas station and slick grocery store that faced each other at the corner looked vaguely familiar. He cruised slowly down the street; it was garishly lit and empty. Here and there a cardboard coffee cup or a brightly colored paper bag from the local takeaway blew in front of him in the cold wind. Drugstores, hamburger joints, paint stores. It could be any town in North America north of Florida and south of the Bering Strait. Until at last his eye picked it out. A faded sign on the aged hardware store boasted the name of the town—Cedar Hill. He passed the commercial block and started searching for street signs.

  He turned the corner down the peaceful little road where Mike Chalmers had his veterinary hospital, eased gently up the street, and pulled into the driveway with a surge of relief. Warm light glowed through the curtains in the Chalmerses’ living room. They were home and still up. He jumped out of the car and in seconds was pounding on the front door.

  A shadow passed .across the milky glass panel, an outside light flipped on, and Mike Chalmers’s stocky frame filled the doorway. He peered into the darkness and then stepped back, startled. “Rob? Well I’ll be damned. It’s—”

  Lucas cut short the traditional noises of surprise. “Look, Mike—sorry to barge in like this, but I brought you an emergency. I need your help.” He gestured in the direction of the car. “She’s in there.”

  “Accident? Badly hurt?” He nodded. “A car?”

  “No,” he said. “Shot and—”

  “Jesus,” he said in disgust. “Bastards. How big is she?”

  Lucas blinked in surprise. “Not that big. Maybe a hundred and ten pounds—I don’t know exactly.”

  “That’s big enough,” he said, raising one golden eyebrow. “Okay, carry her in by the door on the other side of the garage—I’ll open it. I think we’d better take her straight into the operating room. No point in moving her back and forth, not a dog that size. I’ll meet you there.”

  Before he could correct Chalmers’s misapprehension, his friend had disappeared. He shrugged and went back to get Annie out of the backseat.

  She was lying on her side with her knees tucked up in the cramped space. He opened the door on the driver’s side. The pillow he had jammed in the corner for her fell half out, and her head turned with a slight spasmodic jerk. He reached in, got his arm under her torso and pulled her gently out. She stirred and muttered as he lifted her up. “Where are we?” she asked.

  “Getting you some help,” he said. I hope, he added silently.

  Not even draped with a blanket that covered her completely did Annie look like a large dog, he decided. But what the hell. It was too late now. He carried her in the open door to the hospital, turning her carefully to avoid hitting her feet on the frame and heading down the short corridor between the waiting room and the hospital. Two dogs barked sleepily in another room, a swinging door opened, and Mike Chalmers was standing there, drying his hands on a piece of paper towel. He stared at the bundle in Lucas’s arms. Lucas went past him through the swinging doors and laid her down on a steel table in the middle of the room. She moaned slightly, and he uncovered her head.

  “Jesus Christ, Rob,” said Chalmers in a despairing voice. “What in hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Mike, wait. Before you say anything, let me explain. Please.” He grabbed him urgently by the arm. “Come out here.”

  “For chrissake, Rob, use your head. You can’t leave her alone on that table in the state she’s in!” he snapped. “Keep a hand on her.” He took a step nearer. “Okay, now what is this?”

  Lucas glanced uneasily down at her. Her condition had worsened considerably in the past hour or two. He had no idea whether she was conscious enough to hear or to understand what she heard; but he hated talking about her as if she were a piece of soft sculpture someone had tossed on the table. Most of what he had to say—the death of Jennifer Wilson, the way every move he made, every piece of information he collected, seemed to be known to the people who were pursuing her—would terrify her. But Mike was giving him no choice, and he whispered the whole tale into his ear.

  “Couldn’t you do something to help her? She lost blood from a wound in her leg. And maybe it’s infected. She seems to be a lot worse now than she was yesterday. And I’ve already carted her forty miles cross-country to get to you.”

  “Jesus,” said Chalmers, and ran his hand over his short red hair in perplexity. “This is one hell of a mess. You do realize what’ll happen to me if I get caught, don’t you? I mean, that will be the end. The authorities take th
is sort of thing very seriously.” As he was speaking, he walked over to the table, pulled the blanket down to her waist, and looked at her. He reached up and turned on the powerful overhead light. “Let’s get this goddamn chunk of filthy wool off her—didn’t anyone ever tell you about septic wounds?—so I can see what we’re up against,” he said. “I’ll raise her up and you get rid of it.” Lucas carried the blankets over to the corner, caught Chalmers’s eye, and took them out to the corridor before dropping them on the floor. “Now, what’s wrong, as far as you know?”

  “She was shot in the leg and burned her foot—it looks godawful, let me tell you. I almost puked when I saw it. And maybe she sprained her wrist.”

  Chalmers walked over to the sink at the wall and began to wash his hands again. “You realize that she’s probably already picked up God knows what in the way of infections—not counting on what she’ll get from us.” He lifted her right arm and explored it with gentle fingers, ending up feeling for a pulse and checking it. Then he picked up the swollen arm and felt down to the wrist. “This has to be X-rayed,” he said, almost to himself, “but it can wait until later. Which foot?” Lucas pointed silently. Chalmers picked it up and looked at the stained bandage.

  “It’s bad,” said Lucas. “Really nasty. She walked on it after it was burned.”

  “Ran, actually,” a hoarse voice croaked faintly.

  “Good heavens,” said Chalmers. “I’m not used to comments from the patients. How did you burn it?”

  “With a hot poker,” she said, and fell silent.

  Chalmers raised an eyebrow at his friend, who nodded. “That will need to be cleaned up some,” he said. “And now for the gunshot wound. Which is where?” he asked.

  Lucas pointed at her left thigh.

  “How badly is she hurt?” asked Lucas, when the leg was exposed.

  “Just a minute,” grunted Chalmers, working swiftly and systematically to ease off the bandage and swab away the accumulated dried blood and dirt on her leg.

  “This is probably the least of her worries, I would say,” he replied at last, as he finished cleaning up the edges of the wound. “It’s shallow, and it looks clean. It’ll probably leave a messy scar, but there’s not much I can do about that now. It looks as if the bullet just tore the skin and did relatively superficial damage to the muscle tissue. That foot and the wrist are more worrisome, I think. And her general condition. When did this all happen?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Lucas. “What’s today—Friday? Wednesday. In the afternoon. It was after seven when I started searching for her.”

  “It was between four and five,” said the small voice again.

  “It doesn’t matter. Are you allergic to anything?” he asked. “Novocaine, stuff like that? Penicillin or penicillin—related drugs?” She shook her head. “Good. You know, Rob, I might just get hooked on having patients who can answer questions. It’s very handy.” He turned to a shelf of vials on the wall and looked them over, selected one, opened a drawer and took out a neatly packaged hypodermic needle.

  “How do you know how much to give her?” asked Lucas nervously.

  “Well, she looks to be somewhere in between a German shepherd and a Saint Bernard, wouldn’t you say?” asked Chalmers with a wink.

  An hour and a half later Lucas carried Annie into the waiting room and put her carefully down on the couch. Her thigh and foot were neatly bandaged, and her arm was in plaster from just below the elbow to the hand, leaving only her fingers exposed. Chalmers had banished him from the operating area some time before, and had been working quietly away in there on his own. Lucas pulled up a chair and sat down looking at her with worry carved across his face. She looked cold. He got up again and spread his coat over her bare legs. She made an attempt to open her eyes, failed, and lapsed into sleep.

  Chalmers appeared a few minutes later and beckoned him over to the chairs on the other side of the room. “Sorry to throw you out, old man, but I didn’t want you distracting me by passing out,” he whispered. “Or breathing into her open wounds. The conditions in there weren’t exactly ideal.” He frowned. “She’s in fair shape, I would say. The wrist is broken. A classic Colles’ fracture—the radius and the ulna.” He pointed to the bones on his own wrist as he talked. “Comes from falling forward onto it with great force. It’ll take several weeks for it to heal, and, Rob, she should have it looked at again by a competent orthopedic man. I only know about this kind of fracture because Christy did the same thing skating. I cleaned up that hole in her leg—it should be okay. Just keep an eye on it.”

  “How do I keep an eye on it?” he asked, panic-stricken.

  “I’ll tell you in a minute. The worst injury is that foot. It’s a nasty second-degree burn, badly blistered; not too extensive in area, but she did a hell of a lot of damage to it running around on it afterward.” He shook his head. “With some luck and care, the body will be able to deal with it. But it’s infected. I’ll give you a pile of fresh dressings—look after it, eh? And if it doesn’t start healing, you’re going to have to take her to a hospital, no matter what the situation is.” He lowered his voice even more. “There’s no point in trying to save her life one way by letting her die in misery from septic wounds.”

  “Is that likely?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve given her a healthy dose of penicillin. I’ll give you some more for her to take for the next ten days. Otherwise, just make her stay off it until it’s clearly healing—and I mean that absolutely. That foot is not to touch the floor. And pray, that’s all.”

  “Thanks, Mike,” he said and stood up. “God, what a feeble thing to say, but I mean it. She really is in danger—I meant that, too. And whoever is after her—”

  “Doesn’t she know who it is?”

  Lucas shook his head. “This guy who was killed may have had mob connections. That means she’s probably never seen the person sent out to get rid of her. Anyway, someone connected with it has a direct line into our communications. So don’t mention that we were here, eh? Even if the local cops turn up to ask nice innocent-sounding questions.”

  “That’s the least of your worries, old pal.” He ran his fingers through his hair again. “If this gets out, I’ll be charged with practicing medicine without a license. Believe me, Rob, you’re just an old school friend. I haven’t laid eyes on you for three years—not since we bumped into each other at the horse show. Before that I hadn’t seen you since we worked together at the track. In fact, I was wondering what you were up to these days. Okay?” He got wearily to his feet. “Stay with her. I’ll be right back.”

  Chalmers appeared in a few minutes carrying two pill containers. “Hi,” he said to Annie, who was opening her eyes again. “How do you feel?”

  “Not bad,” she said, forming the words with difficulty. “Thirsty.”

  “Good girl. You need to drink lots. Get her some water, you idiot,” he said to Lucas, nodding in the direction of the water cooler in the corner. As he talked, he opened up the vials and removed the paper labels that were curled up inside them. “There,” he said. “The capsules are antibiotics—three a day, every eight hours without fail. The white pills are painkillers, one every four hours if necessary. Do you think you can remember that?” He handed the two containers to Lucas, who was crumpling up the tiny paper cup that Chalmers supplied with his cooler. “I don’t like to send you out with pill containers with my name and handwriting all over them—but I’ll give you some plain labels to write the instructions on if you like.”

  “Don’t worry. Capsules three a day, pills every four hours for pain. What kind of animal were these for?” he asked suspiciously.

  Chalmers laughed. “Some quack prescribed the capsules for Christy when she had the flu, just in case she had strep throat. She didn’t, and so she didn’t take them. She doesn’t like pills. And the painkillers were mine—I got kicked by a horse. Jesus, did that hurt. I took o
ne and found out I couldn’t stay awake, so I stuffed them in the medicine cabinet. They’re safe enough, just a bit strong.”

  “Okay, young lady,” he said, walking over to her and picking up her good hand. “You have to take good care of yourself, do you understand?”

  “You don’t have to call her young lady, you know,” said Lucas, irritated at his patronizing tone. “She has a name.”

  Chalmers held up his hand. “I don’t want to know it,” he said. “It’s better for both of us if I don’t. You’re down on my records as Tara’s Bridget of DerrynaFlan—a nice big Irish wolfhound—and that’ll account for the supplies I used. We’ll leave it at that. Anyway, don’t touch that foot to the floor until it heals, drink lots of liquids no matter how you feel, get lots of rest. Take those painkillers so you can sleep—and be a good girl, Bridget. Most of all, don’t chew that cast off, even if it gets itchy.” He got a very small and remote smile from her at last.

  “You think she’ll be okay?” asked Lucas as they walked away from her again. “And no bullshit.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. He sounded tired and discouraged. “Maybe. I hope so. In the short run, she’s made it so far, in spite of shock and all that. She seems to be sturdy. She yours?” he added casually.

  “God, no,” said Lucas, startled. “She was private property of the murder victim, as far as I can tell—bought and paid for. My interest in her is purely professional. She’s a witness.”

  Chalmers looked thoughtfully over at her, stretched out asleep on the fake leather of his waiting room couch and then at his watch. “You two better get out of here and find a place to spend the night. I’d ask you to stay, but—”

  “Not a chance,” said Lucas. “Someone might happen to remember that you’re a friend of mine.”

  Chalmers nodded. “Just a minute. She should be okay on her own for now. Come here with me.”

  Lucas followed him through to the house. “Where’s Christy?”