Innocence

by David Hosp

  “How badly?” Kozlowski asked.

  “Hmm?” Dr. Cregany had been distracted by another patient’s chart.

  “How badly was she beaten?” Kozlowski’s voice was louder now.

  The doctor put the chart down on the counter. He shrugged. “We’ve called in a plastic surgeon. She’ll be fine. Law student, she said, right? So she’ll be making her living with her brains, not her looks, anyway.”

  Something in Kozlowski snapped, and he grabbed the doctor, slamming him up against a wall. Cregany tried to squirm away, but Kozlowski held firm to the lapels of the doctor’s coat.

  “Hey!” Cregany whimpered. “Let go of me!”

  Kozlowski held a fist to the doctor’s face, then drew it back, cocking his arm.

  “Let go of him, Koz,” Finn said in an even tone. “It’s not worth it.”

  Kozlowski let his arm relax but brought his hand around, pointing a finger in the doctor’s face. “I ever hear you talk about one of your patients that way again,” he said, “and I’ll make sure you’re sharing a bed in the emergency room with them. And if I even suspect that Lissa Krantz isn’t getting the finest medical care this hospital—and you in particular—can provide, I’ll kill you. That’s a promise.”

  Finn put a hand on Kozlowski’s shoulder. “Easy, Koz.”

  Kozlowski let go of the doctor, who slid down the wall to the side. “I’m calling the cops,” he said. Kozlowski just stared at him, and it was enough to drive any hint of a threat from the doctor. He stood up and slunk away.

  “He’s an arrogant asshole,” said a woman’s voice from behind them. Kozlowski turned around and looked down at one of the smallest people he’d ever seen. She couldn’t have been over four and a half feet tall. She looked to be in her late forties, with short gray hair and a rough, practical manner that nonetheless seemed to make room for compassion. “He won’t do anything,” she said reassuringly. “It would involve admitting that someone actually pushed him around. I’m Maggie.” She extended her hand, and the two men shook it in turn; her grip was startlingly strong for a woman her size. “I was Lissa’s intake nurse. I’ve been with her for the last hour or so. She’s had a rough go, but the doctor was essentially right: She will be okay.”

  “What happened?” Finn asked.

  “Not entirely clear,” Nurse Maggie said. “She hasn’t told us very much. She was beaten pretty badly, that much is clear. She’s got a couple of cracked ribs, a broken arm, a broken nose, lots of cuts and con-tusions—mainly on her face. It looks like whoever did this broke into her apartment. Could have been a burglary gone wrong, I suppose, but the police say nothing was taken. We’re guessing more likely she knows who the guy was—maybe an ex-boyfriend or a stalker. Otherwise, she’d be telling us more than she is. Until she does decide to talk, I suspect it’ll remain a mystery to us.”

  “Can we see her?” Kozlowski tried to keep his voice from breaking. He had no idea whether he was successful.

  She looked at him. “You’re Tom,” she said.

  Kozlowski could feel Finn looking at him, and he avoided eye contact. “Yes.”

  Maggie nodded. “She told me a little about you.” Then she looked at Finn. “And you’re her boss? The lawyer?”

  “I am.”

  “She’s been asking for both of you. That’s about the only talking she’s done. Said she wouldn’t speak to anyone but you two.” She looked them over with an evaluating gaze, as though trying to judge whether her patient’s trust in them was justified. “You can go in and see her,” she said at last. “She’s in the last room on the right.”

  Kozlowski and Finn started heading down the hallway. “Hey!” Maggie called after them.

  They stopped, and she walked toward them, looking around. “There’s something you should probably know,” she said in a confidential tone. She looked them both in the eyes to make sure they were paying attention. “We think she was raped.”

  Kozlowski felt a pain like a flaming dagger through his chest. He thought he might collapse.

  “What do you mean, ‘we think’? What does that mean?” Finn asked.

  “We can’t be entirely sure. We ran a rape kit, and we didn’t come up with any semen or fluids, but he could have used a condom. And there are other indications.”

  “Like?” Finn asked.

  “Bruising,” she said. “In the vaginal area. And when her neighbor found her, she was naked, curled up in a ball.”

  “What does Lissa say?” This time it was Kozlowski who asked the question.

  “Like I said, she’s not talking. The bruising could have come from consensual sex, but she would have had to be very sexually active in the very recent past.”

  Kozlowski could feel himself turn crimson as he listened to the efficient, effective, plainspoken nurse describe Lissa’s anatomy. He felt numb. He had no idea how to react.

  “I just thought you should know,” Nurse Maggie said. “She’s going to need a lot of support, any way you look at it. She’ll get through it—she’s strong, that’s easy to see—but she’s still gonna need help. You need to know that.”

  Kozlowski looked at her, desperate for any additional advice she might have. She just shook her head slightly. He took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. “Thanks, Maggie,” he said. Then he and Finn turned and walked down the hallway toward the room where Lissa was.

  z

  When they walked into her room, she was lying on her back, her face turned toward the door, her eyes closed. Finn barely recognized her. Her bottom lip had been split down the center and was held together loosely by thick, ugly temporary stitches. Her nose was bent to one side at an awkward angle, and the rest of her face was battered and swollen. Sticking out from under her hospital gown were heavy bandages on her arms, mottled with crimson. He could hardly believe that this was the same woman who had walked into his office every morning for the past eight months.

  Then she opened her eyes and returned. The eyes seldom lie, and though hers showed fatigue and fear, there were sparks of anger and defiance as well, fierce and unrelenting. Finn knew those eyes were still hers.

  She saw the two men and turned her head away, staring at the ceiling. “Quite a sight, huh?” she said. A tear ran down her cheek.

  “I’ve seen worse,” Finn lied. Kozlowski was by the side of the bed, and Finn went to stand next to him.

  “Yeah,” she said. “In the fucking morgue.”

  “Nah,” Finn reassured her. “They’ll have you fixed up in time to go dancing on New Year’s Eve.” He looked down at the side of the bed and noticed that Kozlowski was holding her hand. He still hadn’t said anything.

  “The nose doesn’t matter much. It wasn’t mine to begin with, you know?”

  Finn shook his head. “I didn’t.”

  “It was a birthday present when I was seventeen. I never liked my real nose. I had great lips, though.” She winced in pain as she spoke.

  “What happened?” Finn asked.

  She swallowed hard twice. “He said he wanted me to give you a message. He said that Salazar stays in jail. Otherwise he’ll come back.”

  Finn didn’t think at all about it. “Done. I’m off the case.” Then he turned and paced away from the bed, letting the decision sink in. “Shit, I didn’t want to take the case in the first place.” He tried to shoot his voice through with conviction, but even he didn’t believe it.

  “If you’re off the case,” Lissa said, “then you’d better start looking for a new associate.”

  He turned and looked back at her. “You sure? These people aren’t fucking around.”

  She looked hard at him, and he could see that the anger and defiance had grown. The fear seemed gone. “Neither are we, right? Not anymore.”

  “Right,” he agreed.

  “Good,” she said. “’Cause I’m not gonna waste my fucking time working for some goddamned pussy who lets himself get bullied.”

  “Okay.” Finn leaned against the wall, taking in the sce
ne in front of him: Lissa, lying in her bed, broken but not beaten; Kozlowski, standing over her, silent and brooding, holding her hand.

  “Finn?” Lissa said.

  “Yeah?”

  “I need a minute with Koz, okay?”

  For a moment Finn was confused. “Sure,” he said. Then, as he opened the door, an absurd thought crossed his mind, one that had tickled him before and been dismissed. He looked back at them and saw them as they truly were, for the first time—both of them searching for the same thing, now more than ever. “I’ll be outside,” he said.

  As he walked out, he knew they hadn’t heard him.

  z

  “Are you okay?” Lissa asked Kozlowski.

  He wasn’t, and the fact that she was asking him the question—and not the other way around—only drove his shame and guilt deeper. His jaw clenched hard.

  “It’s my fault,” he said. “I should have known you were in danger. I should have seen this coming. I should have stayed with you.”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  He said nothing, and the two of them sat in silence for a little while. He couldn’t bring himself to look her in the eyes, and his rage continued to grow.

  “Koz?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Nothing.”

  He wanted to talk to her. Really talk to her. He wanted to hold her, but for some reason he wasn’t sure how to anymore; not in this kind of situation. He wished to God he were better at this. He wished it were easier for him to reach out. Suddenly, the stoicism that had been his

  shield throughout his life seemed pathetic. “What is it?” he asked.

  “I want you to do something for me.”

  “Anything.”

  She pushed her head back into the pillow and closed her eyes. “I want you to get this guy. I want you to get the people he works for.” She opened her eyes and looked at him. “Do you understand?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I understand.”

  “The police won’t give a shit, even if they catch him. Even if they make him talk. I won’t be safe unless they’re all gone.”

  “Yeah,” he said. He realized for the first time that he was holding her hand. He couldn’t remember when that had happened. Had he grabbed her hand the moment he’d walked into the room, or more recently? Whenever, he’d done it without thought and without fear. He gave it a gentle squeeze, and he could feel her grip tighten in his, as though she were holding on for dear life. Then she pulled it away.

  “Go,” she said. “You have shit you need to get done.”

  He looked down at his empty hand. He’d been alone his entire life, but he’d never felt lonely. Not really. Not until now. “Yeah,” he said. He tried to force a smile and failed. “I’ll come by later?”

  “I’m not going anywhere. I think I’d like that.”

  He searched desperately for something to say, something useful or comforting, but it was hopeless. He walked to the door. As he put his hand on the doorknob, she said, “Koz?”

  He looked back at her. “Yeah?”

  “You didn’t ask me.”

  “What?”

  “What happened. You didn’t ask me what happened to me. You didn’t ask me whether he . . .” Her words faded off. “It seemed like that was all the doctors cared about. Did he or didn’t he. I could even see the question in Finn’s eyes. But not yours. You didn’t ask. You weren’t even curious. Why not?”

  He thought about it. Then he walked back to the side of her bed and sat on the side of the mattress. “I’m not good at this,” he said. “I never had any practice. If you ever want to tell me anything—if you ever want to talk about anything—I’ll always listen. I may not have any answers for you, and I may not be able to fix everything, but I can listen. I’m never going to ask you any questions about it because I don’t care. I don’t care because nothing that happened to you—nothing that could happen to you—could ever change the way I feel about you. Do you understand?” Her eyes had watered over, and she wiped them with the back of her hand. He had to get out of the room or he was going to lose it.

  “I think so,” she said. She took his hand and brought it to her chest. “Thank you.”

  He nodded.

  “Now, you go out and get this fucker, okay?”

  z

  Finn waited outside the room for Kozlowski. When he came out, he was moving with purpose. He blew right by Finn without pausing.

  “Koz! Hold on!” Finn shouted, breaking into a jog to keep up. Kozlowski kept moving and said nothing. “Koz! Wait!” Finn caught him from behind and put a hand on his shoulder to slow his pace. Kozlowski spun around on him, the violence bubbling visibly to the surface. “Shit, just wait a second, okay?” Finn moved back out of Kozlowski’s reach.

  “What?” Kozlowski demanded. His face was twisted with rage.

  Finn looked back toward Lissa’s room, then met Kozlowski’s eyes. “How long?” he asked.

  The question took Kozlowski by surprise, and Finn could see that he’d guessed right. After a moment’s internal struggle, Kozlowski relented. “A week. A little less, maybe.”

  Finn blew out a long breath, considering the implications. “That’s good,” he said at last. “It’s good for both of you.”

  “Yeah.” Kozlowski was looking through him. “Just fucking great.”

  “I’m guessing this isn’t sitting very well with you right now.”

  “Good fucking guess, Carnac.”

  Finn scratched his head. “So? What are you thinking of doing about it?”

  “I’m going to bring these fuckers down. Every last one of them. You got a problem with that?”

  Finn considered the question. “No,” he said. “Not really. You got a plan?”

  Kozlowski shook his head.

  “Good. Plans are overrated, anyway.”

  Kozlowski continued to stare at him.

  “Fine,” Finn said. “I’m in.”

  Kozlowski nodded, then started moving toward the hospital exit, more slowly this time.

  “I guess all those bright lines of yours are pretty much out the window, huh?” Finn asked.

  “My lines are still bright,” Kozlowski said. “These people just stepped over them.”

  z

  It was ten o’clock before Jimmy made it back to East Boston. He’d walked the entire way, too nervous to take a cab or a bus in his condition. The bleeding from his shoulder had slowed to an intermittent ooze, but he had lost a significant amount of blood. He needed medical attention, and he wouldn’t get it without Carlos’s help.

  He walked around to the back of the rectory and slipped into the basement through the open door next to the garage. Raul, one of Carlos’s confidants, was there, waiting for him. “We saw you coming up the street. I hope no one else did,” Raul said. “You should be far more careful, particularly this close to a delivery.” Something about the man’s posture put Jimmy on edge, but he assumed it was just his exhaustion feeding his natural paranoia.

  “I need a doctor,” Jimmy said. He nodded toward his shoulder and realized with concern that he could no longer move his arm. “I got shot.”

  “Carlos is upstairs in his church.” Raul turned and headed up the stairs. “You coming?”

  “I need a doctor,” Jimmy repeated. Something inside told him to run, but he was so tired, and he didn’t know where else to go.

  “Carlos is upstairs,” Raul repeated. He never broke stride, and after a moment Jimmy followed him up.

  The church was connected to the rectory by a short covered walkway, and the two of them slipped across quietly, careful to remain out of sight from any passersby. Carlos was in the church, kneeling in front of the altar—nothing more than a raised dais since the archdiocese had stripped it of anything of value. Raul motioned for Jimmy to sit in the front pew, then walked back out the door, headed toward the rectory. Jimmy sat for several minutes. He thought he might pass out, and he even considered interrupting Carlos’s meditations, but he understood what a rema
rkably bad idea that would be. At last Carlos lifted his head, made the sign of the cross, and stood.

  He turned and looked at Jimmy. There was no question that he had been aware of Jimmy’s presence. “You have returned,” he said.

  “I got shot. I need a doctor,” Jimmy said.

  “You may need more than that,” Carlos said icily. “I understand that the lawyer is still alive.”

  Panic ripped through Jimmy’s chest, and in his weakened condition, the flood of adrenaline made him shake violently. “He is,” Jimmy said. “He got away, but he’s no longer a problem.”

  “No longer a problem? He is still alive, but he is no longer a problem? That is impressive. Most impressive. Particularly since I made clear to you that the lawyer would remain a problem as long as he was still alive. Are you telling me that I was wrong?”

  Jimmy knew that he had to pick his way very carefully through the minefield of Carlos’s questioning. If Jimmy said Carlos had been wrong, it would constitute a direct challenge. If he said Carlos had been right, it would constitute an admission that he had failed. Like everything with the Padre, this was a test, and no matter how tired he was, Jimmy had to stay sharp in order to pass. “I found another way,” he said.

  “Another way?” Carlos considered this. “How creative of you. What was this ‘other way’?”

  “I sent him a message. Using one of his employees—a woman.”

  “You sent him a message?”

  “A very clear message. We won’t have any more problems with the lawyer.”

  “You know this? You know exactly how the lawyer will react to this message?”

  “I think so, yes.” Jimmy wanted to rest. His head throbbed, and his arm was completely numb.

  “You think?”

  “I know.”

  “Which is it?”

  Jimmy said nothing.

  “In business, as in war, there is nothing more dangerous than uncertainty. You were sent to resolve this situation once and for all.”

  “I believe I did.” Jimmy knew the conversation was getting away from him. He was failing. It occurred to him again to run, but he knew it was useless. He no longer had the strength.