by Frank Zafiro
The elevator doors slid open. I walked in a measured gait to room 370. The door was half open, but I knocked anyway. There was no answer.
She must have been sleeping.
I decided to sit and wait until she woke up. I needed answers from her.
I pushed the door open a little farther and walked in.
The room was empty.
12
Monique was gone.
I walked out of the room and found the nurse’s station. “The woman in 370,” I asked, “where’d she go?”
The nurse eyed me carefully. “And who are you?”
I ignored her question. “Was she released?”
She couldn’t have recovered that quickly, could she?
“Sir, there are laws regarding medical information. I can’t just tell you things about patients. It doesn’t work that way.”
“You can’t tell me if she was released or not? Or moved to another room?”
“I can’t even confirm if she was a patient here,” the nurse said. “The laws are very strict.”
“I visited her in room 370 last night,” I said. “Her name is Monique Perrin. I just want to know where she is now.”
“And I can’t tell you. I don’t even know who you are.”
“I’m her brother,” I said, the lie slipping out easily.
The nurse raised a doubtful eyebrow at me. I realized a moment later why.
“Oh, Christ,” I said, showing some frustration that wasn’t all contrived. “Everywhere we go, it’s the same bullshit.”
“Sir, I don’t—”
“She’s my step-sister, all right? And yeah, my dad’s white and her mom’s black and what’s the big deal?”
The nurse blushed slightly. “I, ah…”
“You assumed,” I snapped at her, warming to the role. “But I’m sure you’re not racist.”
Her face reddened some more, but a scowl also appeared there. I worried that maybe I’d overplayed my hand.
“I am most certainly not a racist,” she said, biting off each word. “I am, however, complying with medical privacy laws, which are very strict in this state, Mr…?”
I saw no point in lying. “Kopriva.” I glanced down at her nametag. “And you’re Roberts. So now we know each other, and you know I’m related to Monique, so please tell me where she is now.”
She hesitated.
I forged ahead, changing tactics. “Ms. Roberts, I’m sorry I was rude. I’m just worried about my sister, all right? She’s a long way from home, and she’s hurt. I saw her yesterday, then I come up here and she’s gone. You can understand why that’d freak me out, right?”
She nodded slowly. “I suppose.”
“I’m her brother,” I repeated. “I was here last night.”
“I didn’t work last night.”
“She’s from Laval,” I said. “It’s in Quebec. In Canada? And her favorite ice cream is Tin Roof Sundae. Now how do I know all of these things about her and what room she was in last night if I’m not her brother?”
She hesitated again, but I could see that she’d made up her mind, so I didn’t push any farther. “She was moved.”
“Where.”
“To ICU.”
A coldness raked up my back. “ICU?” I repeated. “Why?”
“She’s slipped into a coma,” Nurse Roberts said.
“Jesus,” I whispered, and sank into a chair.
My reaction must have been the final hurdle to convincing her that I was Monique’s brother. She came around from behind the desk to check on me.
“Do you need some water?”
I said I was okay and asked directions to ICU.
She pointed to the elevator. “Sixth floor. Nurse’s station is right off the elevators.”
“Thank you,” I said, and left.
“I want to see her,” I said.
The nurse at ICU made Nurse Roberts seem tame in comparison.
“Sir, I respect that you’re her brother,” a steel-haired nurse told me in firm tones, “but she is listed as critical and is being closely monitored. As a matter of policy, we do not allow visitors in these circumstances.”
“I want to see her,” I repeated.
“I understand,” she said. “But you can’t.”
“At least tell me what is happening,” I said. Then I added, “I have to call her mother.”
The nurse frowned, then consulted her computer. After a few key taps and some searching, she turned her gaze back to me. “She has a subdural hematoma. It may require operation.”
“I’m not exactly sure what that means.”
“There is bleeding in her brain, sir,” she explained. “It creates pressure.”
“Could she…?”
“We’ll do everything we can for your sister, sir.”
I swallowed, then asked, “Can I leave you my phone number? For when her condition changes. Or if she needs something.”
The nurse tapped a few more keys. “I already have her sister listed here. Rhonda?”
Of course.
I sighed. “We…well, we don’t talk these days. Let me give you my number, too.”
“Your name?”
“Stef.”
I gave her my phone number to go with it, thanked her, and left.
13
Now what?
I couldn’t run down any of Monique’s clients without her first translating the code. And I couldn’t even know if she was playing me without talking to her.
And now she was in a coma.
What if she died?
The thought made my gut wrench. That told me something. I learned a long time ago to follow my instincts. They were usually right. Whether it was dumb luck or something the subconscious did to figure things out faster than the conscious mind was capable or requiring less concrete proof, instinct usually proved out.
I sat in my car in the hospital parking garage, my stomach uneasy. I recognized the feeling, though I hadn’t felt it for anyone in a while. Worry. I was worried about Monique. I cared about her. I believed her. And because of that, I was going to help her.
Besides, the only lead I had now was Tate. He’s the only one client of hers that I knew about. So following up on that was the only thing I could really do for Rolo’s job right now, too. The paths had converged.
Tate’s home address might be public information, but I needed more than that. I needed some details about the case.
I called Adam. He answered on the second ring. I told him what I wanted to know.
“I don’t know if all the reports have been filed yet,” he said, his voice a little thin.
“Whatever you’ve got.”
“You know, they can track who accesses these reports.”
“So? You can’t be curious?”
“No,” Adam said. “Not anymore. Privacy laws are getting strict.”
I heard the echoes of Nurse Roberts in his voice.
“You can’t think of a reason you might need to access the case file?”
Adam sighed, and I knew he could. “Yeah, I suppose. But I can’t print anything. That gets flagged to the Records Manager, and he’s worse than the IRS about this stuff.”
“So take good notes,” I said, and told him again what I wanted to know. “I’ll meet you at the Rocket in an hour.”
“Make it two,” he said. “And be prepared to buy me lunch.”
I thought about teasing him that this phone line was probably a recorded line and that he’d just committed a felony by accepting payment for providing confidential information to a civilian. Then I realized that all of that was probably true and kept my mouth shut.
“Stef?”
“Lunch it is,” I said, and hung up.
It was almost three hours later when Adam showed up with a small folder under his arm. He sat down and slid it across to me wordlessly. He raised his hand to Ani, ordered a large coffee and a sandwich and waited while I thumbed through his meager notes.
Tate’s address was
in there, along with his wife’s name, Paula. Detective Browning had the case, and there were two things I remember about Ray Browning. The man was a damn good detective and he kept his paperwork current. Right now, I was pretty happy about both traits, but especially the second one.
I read through Adam’s scratchy handwritten notes, some of which seemed mundane and unimportant and most of which I already knew from the newspaper account. Then I stumbled on something interesting and grunted.
“Wha?” Adam asked me around a mouthful of his sandwich.
I tapped the paper with my finger. “The Herald didn’t say anything about this.”
Adam swallowed. “What?” he repeated.
“The autopsy. If I can read your chicken scratch right, it says that Tate died of carbon monoxide poisoning. He suffocated, basically. But it also says that he had an extraordinarily high amount of lorazepam in his system.”
“So?”
“Lorazepam is an anxiety drug,” I told him. “And it helps you sleep.”
“So?” Adam repeated, tearing into his sandwich again.
“So, a lot of lorazepam helps you sleep a lot. As in, too much to wake up while you’re sitting in the car with the engine running.”
“Sho he didnth cheekn owt?” Adam asked me.
I stared down at the paper, my mind whirring. “Huh?”
Adam swallowed and washed it down with some coffee. “I said, maybe he took the drugs so he didn’t chicken out.”
“Maybe,” I said. I thought about Monique, and how certain she’d been that this was a murder. “It still seems odd to me,” I said, “that he’d kill himself for no reason.”
“Oh, he had a reason,” Adam said. “I just didn’t write it in there.”
“Say again?”
“I said, he had a reason,” Adam said. “Browning’s too professional to put something in a police report that the newspaper can eventually get a copy of through public disclosure. At least not until he’s sure it’s relevant.”
“Sure what’s relevant?”
“That Tate was gay.”
“Tate was what?”
“Gay,” Adam repeated. “You know? As in homosexual?”
“I know what it means,” I said, a little sharply. I looked around sheepishly. A couple of patrons looked at Adam and I quizzically. I lowered my voice, and leaned forward. “I’m just surprised.”
Adam shrugged. “Who knows anymore, right? It’s not such a big deal.” But he looked at me while he took another bite of his sandwich, and we both knew that was bullshit. Here in River City, in the conservative bastion of Eastern Washington, it was a big deal. Especially if you were holding public office. This wasn’t Seattle.
If Tate was gay, what was he doing with Monique?
“How do you know this?” I asked.
“Everyone knows, at least around the department.”
“For how long?”
“Just since he died. Turns out Glen Bates caught him at the porno theater about two years ago while he was doing a walk through. He was with another guy.”
I thought of the two block strip out on East Sprague that was home to the raunchiest of dirty book stores and the one small pornography theater in town. The poor cops assigned to that district had to do occasional walkthroughs of those establishments to keep things as clean as possible. Otherwise, history has shown that they devolve into prostitution and drug pits instead of where lonely or hard up guys go to get off.
Some cops didn’t mind the duty so much, but for most it was just another dirty job that had to be done. And along with that job, you inevitably stumbled across people engaged in sexual acts that you really didn’t want to see.
“Two years ago?” I asked. “Bates caught him with another man, having sex?”
Adam nodded. “Yep.”
“And he never told anyone. For two years?” I found it hard to believe. My own experiences with Bates, both on the job and after, had never been that good. I figured him for something of a prick, truth be told.
“One thing about Bates,” Adam said. “He doesn’t gossip. He never said anything about your little dust up at the hockey game a couple of years ago, even after the whole Kris Sinderling thing came out.”
“Really?”
Adam shook his head. “Not a word. I only know about it because you told me.”
I thought about that for a second. “A fight is one thing, but this is something else. This is a public figure. I can’t believe he sat on it.”
“Well, he did. I guess he figured it was nobody’s business. He said he only brought it up because he thought it might explain why the guy killed himself.”
“But Browning didn’t put it in his report.”
“Not yet.”
“So how does everyone know about it?”
Adam frowned. “Jack Stone was on call with Browning when the call came out. He’s support on the case.”
I understood. “And Bates told Stone instead of telling Browning.”
“Exactly.”
It all played out in my head. Stone was a world class son of a bitch who I figured took great pleasure in the misery of others. He hated me, and at this point in my life, the feeling was entirely mutual. I could see him taking a perverse joy in whispering something slanderous to the right people around the department for salacious news like this to spread like the plague.
“If the whole department knows, the Herald will soon,” I said. “Unless someone has plugged up the leaks down there.”
“I think they’re a little tighter these days,” Adam said. “The paper has been kicking the hell out of us for a few years now. Most of the guys don’t subscribe or even read it online. Anyone floating tips their direction now has to pretty much hate the department or something about it more than he hates the paper.”
“Or she,” I said.
Adam shrugged. “Or they, I suppose. But the point is that the newspaper doesn’t know about this yet.”
I considered the scenario. “So the guy can’t live a double life anymore and he kills himself?”
“Or maybe someone was getting ready to out him,” Adam said. “Or he was getting blackmailed over it. Who knows? But one thing’s for sure. If it did come out, his political career here in RC would be done.”
I’d like to have believed Adam was wrong about that, but wanting to believe something doesn’t make it so. But who knows?
“Why not leave a note?” I asked.
“Most don’t.”
“No, I know that. But if this was a suicide, it was more of a statement suicide, don’t you think?”
“If?” Adam said. “How do you get to ‘if’?”
I shrugged. “I’m just looking at all possibilities here. Don’t you think that if a guy killed himself over something like this, he’d leave a note of some kind. To explain. Or apologize. Or deny. Something.”
“Denying would be pretty stupid,” Adam said. “I mean, if it wasn’t true, why kill yourself?”
“Okay,” I conceded. “Maybe. But that doesn’t answer my question.”
“Maybe there isn’t an answer,” Adam told me. “Maybe it just is exactly what it looks like.”
“Could be,” I said, but saying that didn’t make me necessarily believe it.
“Are you going to be okay on this one?” Adam asked me.
“Huh?”
“You.” He pointed. “Are you going to be okay?”
“What are you talking about –”
“Please,” he said quietly, but with an intense tone. “Don’t bullshit me, Stef. Obviously you’re working for someone again. And that’s fine. It’s good for you to do something, and if you ask me, being a cop was your first best calling. So that’s cool.”
“Then what?”
“Then just be careful, I guess. The way I see it, you did two jobs for your friend Matt and both of them ended up shitty. You’re not going for the hat trick, are you?”
I shook my head. “I’m not working for Matt this time.”
/> “Good. So just be careful. That’s all I’m saying. You’re poking around things that could get touchy. Or dangerous.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What else do you know, Adam?”
“Nothing,” he said. “But this much I do know. Tate is – was a politician and that alone makes whatever you’re doing dangerous. So be careful.”
“I will.”
“And tread lightly.”
14
When he walked among us, Councilman Lawrence Tate lived in a nice house in an even nicer neighborhood. I found his place on the short South Hill, not far from the Manito Park duck pond where I’d parked last night. The house was one of the older ones in the neighborhood but meticulously maintained. Everything about it said organized neatness. I wondered how much of the work he did himself and how much he hired out.
Then I remembered what his pay was as a councilman and I wondered how he afforded this house.
I took another look at it as I strolled up the long walkway. It was an old house for this city, probably built in the 1920s. Maybe he inherited it outright or bought it from a family member on a low mortgage rate.
Or maybe he got rich off the stock market. Hell, there was a lot I didn’t know about Lawrence Tate.
I knocked on the oversized, solid front door and waited. I half expected a servant to open the door and to bid me wait for the mistress of the house. I was slightly surprised when a woman in her fifties opened the door and stared out at me.
“Reporter?” she barked.
I shook my head.
She stared at me another moment. Her eyes were bleary and slightly unfocused. Her head bobbed languidly as she studied me. The once neat French twist had sprung a leak and a huge lock of hair fluttered around on her left side of her head.
“Cop, den,” she decided, and opened the door wider. “Come on in.”
I wondered if the ‘den’ was an accent or if she was just that drunk. I glanced at the grandfather clock in the entryway as I walked into the house. It was three o’clock in the afternoon. That made it after five on the east coast, if she cared about cocktail hour at this point.
