Chapter Thirty Two:

Saturday, November 1, 1997 – Los Angeles, CA – Cedars-Sinai

Inez watched over E as he lay on the emergency room gurney, waiting for imaging to collect him for a CAT scan. The doctor suspected he might have fracture damage to the right maxilla along with a broken right lateral nasal cartilage and possible damage to the lateral ethmoid bone. The CAT would do little to confirm if he had a concussion. That would require an MRI.

"One thing at a time," Inez thought, "One thing at a time."

She had questioned the use of sedatives when there was clear evidence he had a concussion, but the attending physician had assured her that it was safe and would make him more comfortable during the diagnostics.

"It is a myth that concussed patients should not sleep," Doctor Reubens had said. "From my initial examination, the EMT report, and everything you told me of his responses before you called 9-1-1, he was both wakeful and aware, therefore clinically conscious, before we administered the sedative. That does not mean that he was able to respond alertly to every stimuli. Although he may fit the criteria of clinical consciousness, if he has a concussion he'll still be disoriented and may experience some amnesia, especially of the incident that caused it. The extent will depend on the severity of the TBI. I'm sorry I can't tell you more, Detective."

Doctor Reubens had also told her that whatever happened to him must have occurred within two hours before he showed up at her door.

So, E was asleep when imaging came to take him to the eighth floor. He looked peaceful. Too peaceful.

Saturday, November 1, 1997 – Los Angeles, CA - LAX

Daisy, already in a heightened state of agitation and exhaustion, was presently fit to be tied. How much was one person supposed to sit still for anyway? Standing in front of the gate desk to where she had been paged, she stared down the airport cop who was blocking her way onto the jet bridge. The people boarding the plane were trying, for the most part unsuccessfully, not to stare. Why wouldn't they stare? She felt like the criminal they probably thought she was.

"Why are you keeping me here? I'm supposed to be on that plane," Daisy said as she pointed to the Gate 62 boarding sign for Flight 3254 to Atlanta. Daisy had no compunction about challenging legal authority. She'd had a lifetime of practice.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Duke, but I have to detain you until Detective Thompson arrives."

"Who is Detective Thompson and why do you have to detain me?" As much as she tried to stay calm, the slow boil in her tone was apparent.

"I understand your frustration, Ms. Duke, but I don't know any more than you at this point. I was asked to hold you until the detective arrives."

Exasperated, she intended to ramp up her protest by invoking Enos's name when a tall, thirtyish man in a very well-tailored suit approached and showed his badge to the uniformed officer who had stationed himself a few yards away. "Presumably," she thought, "to catch me if I make a run for it?"

"Ms. Duke," Thomson said, "I'm Detective Thompson. I work with Detective Strate. I'm going to need you to come with me."

"Where? Why?"

"Because Detective Strate is in the emergency room at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and you are the last person that we know of to have seen or been with him before he was injured." Even though Thompson had mellowed slightly over the past few months, little progress had been made on his empathy skills.

He had knocked the stuffing right out of her and she almost dropped her bag on the floor. "Injured? How? I just saw him a few hours ago."

"When exactly was that, Ms. Duke? And please try to be precise."

"Not until you tell me what's goin' on. Did he have an accident? Is he okay? Why can't he tell you himself?" The last thought told her that if this detective was grilling her about when she last saw Enos, then he wasn't able to tell them himself, which could only mean that he wasn't conscious…or worse. That's when she started to get really scared.

"I don't know his condition yet. Only that he had some blunt force trauma. The detective who went to the hospital with him had to turn her phone off in the trauma unit."

The words 'trauma unit' made her shudder and the color drained out of her face.

"Still waiting to hear from her," he continued. "She told me to call Ms. Mun first, and that's when I learned about you. I'll drive you to Cedars. Try to think of when you last saw Detective Strate on the way."

Still swimming in a sea of information overload, Daisy sat in the back seat of Detective Thompson's car while he talked to dispatch on the radio.

"I think it was," she suddenly inserted over the chatter of codes she didn't understand, "I think around midnight, maybe a little after…Wait, my ticket may have…" She started to reach into her bag and remembered that Enos had insisted on paying for the first class, non-stop ticket to Atlanta, so she wouldn't have the receipt. "I bought a magazine at a kiosk after he left. It was the only one open."

She dug around in her bag and pulled out a crumpled register receipt with a date stamp of 12:48 a.m. and handed it over the back seat for Detective Thompson to take.

Then, in a more focused moment, she said, "Did you check his wallet? He put the ticket receipt in his wallet."

"According to Detective De Pina, he had his badge and ID but no wallet."

"Robbery?"

"I doubt it," Thompson said.

Inwardly, he thought how absurd it would be for someone to try and rob Strate. He would either mop the street with them or sweet talk them into cuffing themselves. 'No,' he thought, 'has to be something else.' Whatever it was, whoever it was, they took him by surprise then ran like hell, leaving his badge, ID and ankle gun. That much De Pina had been able to tell him before they made her turn off her phone. What happened to the wallet was anyone's guess at this point.

"Any idea where he was going after he took you to the airport?"

He looked into the rear view mirror and saw a pained expression on her face. Her voice was subdued and hesitant when she answered.

"He was going to San Francisco."

Inez had said, "What I could get out of him was garbled but I think he was trying to say he needed to find Soonie." Thompson had the feeling there was a lot more to what happened in the last fifteen hours than what, in his mind, was shaping up to be an attack on a police officer.

When they arrived at the Emergency Department entrance, a helicopter was landing on the roof helipad. Daisy, already scared out of her wits, forced herself to stay calm when they passed elevators clearly marked Trauma/Service Elevators Only.

Hospitals, especially just before daylight, are like mausoleums; unnaturally quiet and all too still. Sitting alone in the disquieting silence was not Inez' strong suit. She had just turned her mobile phone back on to contact Thompson regarding the whereabouts of Kay Mun when she caught a glimpse of Thompson in the corridor outside the windowed waiting room. Then, she saw who was with him. Inez had only seen photos but it was definitely her; the woman who, if she'd had her in her sights six months ago…

Of all the people Inez had expected to see tonight, Daisy Duke was last on the list.

Soonie arrived a few minutes later in the company of Dylan Greer.