Remote Control

by Stephen White

Scott attempted to make an optimistic face. He opened his eyes as wide as he could, but he ended up looking like a drunk trying to appear sober.

  Lucy continued, “Emma Spire.”

  Scott groaned.

  Sam asked, “Anyone know where the hell she is?”

  “Not me. Give me that phone, will you, Sam?” Scott Malloy punched in the number of the hospital and was connected to the nursing station closest to Lauren’s room. He identified himself and asked for Casey Sparrow.

  “She’s asleep.”

  “Wake her.”

  “She’s in the patient’s room. I don’t want to disturb my patient.”

  “Wake her.”

  Two minutes later, Casey Sparrow snapped, “This better be good.”

  “This is Detective Malloy. Please get yourself and your client presentable. We’ll see you in ten minutes. There have been some developments.”

  “What developments? She’s sleeping.”

  “Wake her. Ten minutes.” He hung up and turned to Sam with a half-smile. “None of this has been on my terms all night. The damn woman’s under arrest and still she’s been running this like it’s a film she’s directing. If it kills me, at least I’m going to release her on my own terms.”

  “Which damn woman you talking about, Scott?”

  Cozier Maitlin was sitting at the kitchen counter trying to make sense of Alan’s story about shooting Kevin Quirk.

  Across the room, Alan dipped bread into batter for French toast. Butter was beginning to foam on the griddle.

  “How many do you want, Cozy?”

  “At least three pieces. No, make that four; I’m starving. That’s how it ends? After the gun went off, you just left the park and got in your car and came back here?”

  “Yes. That’s how I thought it ended. I was waiting for Lauren to come home so she could give me some advice about what to do. I didn’t know if I had broken any laws in the park. I mean, it wasn’t my gun and I certainly didn’t intend to fire it. I certainly didn’t think anyone had been hurt. But instead of coming home, she called me from the police department. And now I find out it was Quirk that was shot.”

  “Do you piece it together any differently?”

  Alan dropped a slice of saturated bread onto the griddle. “I’m wondering if the shot must have hit Kevin Quirk. After he yelled at me to run, he somehow managed to get to his car and drive to Emma’s house. To warn her. To help her. To blackmail her. I don’t know what he was planning. When Lauren saw him, she was scared, fired a warning shot. He collapsed in the street. When the cops found him bleeding to death, everyone figured she shot him.”

  “Who ran him over?”

  “I don’t know. Someone who followed him to Emma’s house from the park?”

  “Who was in the park with you besides Quirk? Who was he scuffling with?”

  “Whoever it was who stole the disc. And—I’m guessing here—Ethan Han. I think Ethan was the one warning Kevin about the trap.”

  Steam rose as Alan slid the last piece of dripping bread onto the griddle.

  “This will be enough to get Lauren released, right?”

  Cozy sipped coffee. “Perhaps.”

  “Why only ‘perhaps’?”

  “Who’s going to corroborate your version? I can imagine that when they hear you tell it, it will sound to the police like a valiant husband pleading, ‘please, take me, not her.’”

  “Kevin will corroborate it.”

  “If he lives. And if his involvement in this wasn’t criminal in the first place. Otherwise, he’d incriminate himself. He doesn’t sound like the type.”

  Alan sighed, checked to see if any of the French toast was ready to be flipped. He said, “Ethan Han, then.”

  “Maybe, if Han was actually there. And if he’s willing to admit it to the police.”

  “Can’t I prove I fired the gun? Isn’t there some test or something they can do to show I fired a gun?”

  “You said you showered when you got home?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then it’s too late to test for residue or trace metals. Sorry.”

  “You don’t even think I can get myself arrested? Damn it. I think I’m the guy who shot Kevin Quirk.”

  “It’s very possible no one will believe you. You’ve seen for yourself what this amount of snow does to evidence.”

  “Then the gun will have to convince them. They can match it, can’t they?”

  “If they had the bullet. But they don’t. The round that hit Kevin Quirk went clean through him. If your version is correct, it’s someplace in the park, or in the creek. Or in a squirrel. Needle in a haystack.” Cozy eyed his breakfast with longing. He thought it was browning up nicely.

  “You have another problem with the weapon that I don’t think you’ve considered. You don’t know who it belongs to. Someone finds out you have it, they might say that you stole it and used it to assault Quirk. Intentionally, not accidentally.”

  Alan hadn’t considered that angle. “If I’m not careful, this situation could blow up in my face?”

  “Yes, easily.” Cozy reached across the counter, grabbed the coffee pot, and refilled his mug. He glanced at his watch. “Do you get the Daily Camera? I want to see if the press has picked up on any of this.”

  Alan told Cozy where to find the box for the local paper. He pulled on his coat and boots and headed outside to the lane.

  As Cozy walked back in with the Daily Camera still wrapped, Alan slid the entire first batch of French toast onto a plate. Cozy drowned the bread in syrup and began eating.

  “You’re my lawyer, what do you recommend I do?”

  “Open a restaurant. These are delicious.”

  The phone rang.

  “Alan? This is Casey. Something’s up. Malloy just called. He’s coming down here, to the hospital. I think you and Cozy should be here, too.”

  Alan looked at his watch as though he needed a reminder of what time it was. “What does Scott want?”

  Cozy stopped chewing and listened to Alan’s half of the conversation.

  “He wouldn’t say. My fear is that it’s not good. He just said he’d be here pronto.”

  Alan felt the burden of his secret, the knowledge about what had happened the night before in Eben Fine Park.

  “How’s Lauren?”

  “Same, I think, still sleeping. I haven’t woken her yet. Want to know what I need from you? I need Emma. Tell me you found her. I’d really like to have that card in my hand when Scott gets here.”

  “We found her once, Casey, but we lost her again.”

  “Well, I’d love a few minutes with her, if you guys can pull that off, it will greatly increase my leverage with the cops.”

  Cozy could barely contain the thrust of his adrenaline. He inhaled the remainder of his breakfast while Alan called Diane Estevez and asked her to cover his practice for the day. Diane, of course, had a million questions. Alan provided a capsule version of what had happened overnight and said he’d fill her in on the details later.

  The big Toyota was in four-wheel drive all the way downtown. Cozy whistled some old Springsteen as he unwrapped the newspaper.

  Alan glanced over, read the bold type, and felt great relief that his wife’s name wasn’t in the headlines.

  “Anything there?”

  “There’s a small piece about a shooting overnight near Chautauqua. But mostly the front page is all about the snowstorm.”

  “Is Lauren’s name mentioned in the article on the shooting?”

  “Don’t see it. No.”

  “So far, so good then,” Alan said, as he pulled to a stop on Fifteenth Street, at the east end of the Mall.

  Cozy asked, “Why are we stopping here?”

  “Casey is adamant about talking with Emma. Ethan’s place is on our way. I thought I’d see if she’s there.”

  “I’ll wait here. I want to try to reach Casey again, see if she’s heard anything new.”

  The combination of megadose steroids and slee
ping medication left Lauren feeling like a drunk who had sucked down a half-dozen lattes. She absorbed the sounds of Casey trying to rouse her, the words registering with the dull impact of a head hitting a goosedown pillow.

  “What…Casey…who’s coming?…what do they want?”

  “Try and wake up, babe. I don’t know what’s up. All Scott Malloy said was that they would be here to see us in a few minutes. They must’ve found something. Some evidence, a witness. I don’t know.”

  Lauren tried to think it through. “What time is it? Is it morning?”

  “Almost six.”

  “It can’t be good news, then. Scott wouldn’t hurry over for that. Not at this hour. I bet he died. Kevin Quirk. They’re coming to tell me it’s a homicide now.”

  Casey didn’t want to get into a pessimism contest with her client at five-thirty in the morning. “You want to freshen up?”

  Lauren moved her eyes and thought the pain had diminished overnight. She still couldn’t see well, only dark and light, some vague shapes in her periphery. Another of the myriad side effects from the steroids had kicked in—her mouth tasted as though she had been sucking on pennies. “We need to tell Alan.”

  “I already did. He and Cozy are on their way.”

  “Thanks. I think I just want to wash my face and brush my teeth. I don’t trust myself walking. Will you bring me some water and a basin? Am I decent?” She picked at the armhole of her backless gown.

  “Barely. Let me go find you a robe.”

  Alan yanked open the lobby door of the Citizens Bank Building at the same instant that a cop was descending the stairs from Ethan’s laboratory to see what all the shouting was about down below. The officer had been wrapping up the details of the investigation into the middle-of-the-night make-my-day shooting.

  Alan froze a step inside the main doors. At the rear of the lobby J. P. Morgan was holding a gun, gesturing wildly with it, using it more like a pointer than a weapon. His gaze was focused on Emma.

  “Ethan has it, Emma!” he screamed. “He has the disc. I don’t.”

  Five feet from Morgan, Ethan was breathing deeply through his mouth, slowly opening and closing his fists, staring coldly at J.P. His voice rigid with rage, Ethan said, “J.P. has the disc, Emma. He’s been covering his tracks since he took it. Put that damn gun down, J.P. Jesus, somebody is going to get hurt.”

  Emma sat on the floor across the room, leaning against a wall. She looked at one of them, then the other, her face an emotionless mask. To Alan, she didn’t seem to be connecting with either of them.

  She raised her head at the sound of feet on the stairs. Her eyes widened as she recognized that the approaching stranger was a cop.

  He was young and confident and Boulder-naive and didn’t consider for a second that he was walking into a room full of people with guns. Although he could hear a man loudly asserting, “Bullshit! Bullshit! I don’t have it, he does,” the cop was halfway down the stairs before he could see the tall man at the rear of the lobby gesticulating with a revolver in his hand.

  The cop tried to yell, “Police! Drop your weapon!” while he fumbled to draw his automatic from his holster. His panicked words caught in his throat and lacked authority.

  J.P. was distracted by the commotion on the stairs and, as he turned to figure out what was going on, momentarily leveled his revolver at Ethan. J.P.’s aim quickly followed his gaze up the stairs toward the cop, who was just managing to free his weapon and release the safety.

  Alan opened his mouth to scream a warning to the cop about J.P.’s gun when he saw that Emma, too, had a pistol in her hand. What the hell was she up to? Would she use that thing? On whom, herself?

  No time to think, the memory of his cowardice in the park the night before fresh in his mind, Alan sprinted across the lobby toward Emma.

  He thought of Lauren.

  The cop fired his weapon first.

  The shot winged J.P. and ricocheted off the stone, its crisp bark drowning out his scream of, “Drop it, damnit! Police!”

  The officer hadn’t yet seen Emma’s weapon.

  Alan was almost at her side when her gun went off. His hand was close enough to the barrel for the tissue on his palm to be seared by the gases and hot powder. His momentum carried him through Emma’s raised arm and her weapon came loose, skittering across the hard floor toward the foot of the stairs.

  J.P. squealed, “Oh God, I’m hit! I’m hit! Don’t shoot me. Don’t shoot me. Don’t shoot, please, please, please.” He dropped his gun.

  The cop stood still on the stairs, breathing deeply, his face mottled red and white like the flesh of a cut strawberry. “Get down! Get down! Hands on your heads. Everybody. Down, goddamn it! Now!”

  Gun at arm’s length, he scanned the room to check for danger, noted Ethan Han’s moans and sickening gurgle, flicked on his microphone, told dispatch there had been a shooting and that he needed backup and at least a couple of ambulances.

  Casey was brushing out Lauren’s hair when a crisp knock echoed in her hospital room. Before Casey had a chance to say, “Come in,” Scott Malloy pushed through the door and said, “Morning, Lauren, Ms. Sparrow. Sorry to have to wake you.”

  Casey dropped the hairbrush onto Lauren’s bed and stood tall next to her client.

  Sam Purdy followed Scott into the hospital room.

  “Hi, Lauren, it’s Sam,” he said. “I’m here with Scott.”

  A tiny smile crept onto Lauren’s face at the sound of the friendly greeting. She said, “Sam, hi. It’s good to…hear your voice.”

  Lauren’s heart was pounding in her chest. Something terrible was about to happen.

  God, she had shot him. In her mind she saw the light, the hooded monster, felt the jolt, smelled the burnt powder. She had pulled the trigger out of fear, and she had shot Kevin Quirk. And now he’s dead.

  Lauren’s nurse pushed into the room and broke the tension. “Is one of you gentlemen Detective Malloy?”

  Scott Malloy said, “Yes.”

  “I have a call for you from somebody who’s not happy you’re ignoring your pager. You want me to transfer it in here?” The nurse spoke in a bored voice. It was almost shift change and she didn’t feel like running errands.

  “No, I’ll come out there.” He turned to Casey and Lauren and said, “Don’t go anywhere.”

  Sam Purdy walked to the side of Lauren’s bed opposite Casey and said, “How are you, Lauren?”

  Lauren shook her head, shrugged her shoulders, blinked away some tears. Finally, she said, “Being sick is bad enough, Sam. Being under arrest is worse. I’ve had better nights, believe me.”

  Purdy couldn’t see the benefit of leaving Lauren in this painful limbo any longer. The suspense that Scott’s retreat was causing wasn’t helping anyone.

  He said, “Listen. Scott should be the one to tell you this, not me. But the legal part of this nightmare will be over soon. We’re here to cut you loose.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. You just need to worry about your health. About getting better.”

  She started to cry.

  Casey embraced her, wiped away the tears, and picked up the phone to call Alan and Cozy. There was no answer.

  After picking up his phone call at the nurses station Malloy returned to Lauren’s hospital room. Casey thought he looked preoccupied and wrote it off to fatigue.

  Scott eyed Lauren, then Sam. “You told her?”

  Sam said, “Just that we were releasing her. Nothing else. That’s yours.”

  The sharp cut of approaching sirens filled the room. Malloy gazed out the solitary window. He made a decision.

  “Would you please help your client into the wheelchair, Ms. Sparrow? The phone call I just received? There’s someone downstairs who I think would very much like to speak with her.”

  Lauren cried, “Oh, God. Alan? Is Alan all right?”

  “Your husband is fine,” Scott said. “I saw him, not too long ago, at your house.”

  Lauren cove
red her mouth with her hand. Silently, horrified, she said, “Emma.” She wanted to ask, “Is Emma Spire hurt? Did Emma try to kill herself?” But she couldn’t ask. She still didn’t know what it was safe to reveal about Emma’s involvement.

  Casey guided Lauren’s wheelchair out the door. The elevator ride seemed to last an hour. When they arrived on the first floor, the peal of the approaching sirens was piercing. As the group neared the main desk of the emergency department, the sirens faded off in reluctant whoops, one by one.

  Lauren was grateful for the weight of Sam Purdy’s hand on her shoulder.

  Scott counted the arriving vehicles as the sirens died.

  Three ambulances. One, two, three patrol cars.

  The ER staff had been alerted to the incoming trauma and were huddled by the automatic doors.

  Doctors and nurses surrounded the first gurney and rolled it into the nearest trauma room. An EMT called out the particulars. Muffled voices drifted back into the hall.

  Casey Sparrow asked, “Who was that? Did anybody see who that was?”

  Sam said, “No, I couldn’t tell.”

  Lauren said, “God, this is so frustrating. I can’t see anything. Would someone please tell me what’s going on.”

  Scott Malloy said nothing.

  The patient from the second ambulance walked into the emergency room surrounded by four uniformed Boulder cops, two in front, two in the rear.

  Sam Purdy looked at Scott Malloy, saw the sanguine expression on his face, and said, “Oh God.”

  Casey Sparrow leaned close to Lauren’s ear and said, “Emma Spire just walked into the emergency room. Her arm looks like it’s been injured.”

  Lauren tilted her head every way she could, desperately trying to see something, anything. “Emma?” she called. Then to Casey, Lauren said, “But it’s just her arm? The rest of her is…she’s—”

  “She’s surrounded by cops, Lauren. But she’s walking under her own power.”

  They’re protecting her, thought Lauren. Thank God. Alan must have put her on a seventy-two-hour mental health hold-and-treat. Thank God she’s okay.

  Emma heard Lauren’s call and spotted the threesome standing down the hall just beyond the nurses station. In front of them she saw Lauren sitting in the wheelchair.