Chapter Thirty Seven:

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

Soonie watched Inez, her hands still gloved, walk out of the tiny room with evidence bags containing her violin and her pearl necklace. She had been grateful that Inez had asked about them privately and not in front of Daisy or Mrs. Huang.

"I assume the violin was in the truck because you used it to play at the Halloween Ball last night," Inez had said.

Soonie nodded.

"And I think this," she held out the baggie of pearls, "is, or was, the necklace you were wearing when Captain Mallory and I walked in on you and E in the ER Wednesday morning."

"They are mine."

"Can you tell me when they were broken?"

"Thursday morning."

"And why did E have them in the glove compartment of his truck?"

"He wanted to have them restrung for me."

Inez was sending silent, knowing signals that only other women can understand. Enos had gone to work on Thursday morning in the same clothes he had been wearing when he left the office on Wednesday night. Inez had not asked any more questions about the pearls. She had only said, "They have to be processed and catalogued along with everything else found in his truck, but once we confirm they have no relevance to why he was attacked, you'll be able to get them back. Same goes for the violin. I do, however, need to know the value of both items."

"That instrument," Soonie pointed to the bag with the violin, "between $8,000 and $10,000 - US currency. I did not take my concert instrument Friday night. The pearls were my mother's and probably have more sentimental than monetary value. I do not know if they were ever appraised."

'At the moment,' she thought, 'it would be difficult, perhaps even impossible, to ask her father.' He had not returned any of her calls since Wednesday. That, as much as her concern for her brother, had fueled her tears.

'Inez had said before, that Enos' memory of the last seventy two hours was fractured. How much of Thursday morning did he remember? Did he remember it at all?'

When Soonie returned to the waiting room, Daisy was rolling her bag into the bathroom across the hall. When she sat down next to Mrs. Huang, the color drained from her cheeks. Instinctively, the petite feather of a woman put her warm hand on Soonie's and held it there without saying a word.

It was already mid-afternoon and Daisy had been in the same clothes since Friday morning when she had boarded the plane at Raleigh-Durham. The surreal situation, into which she had walked headlong, struck her once again as she looked around at the clinical design of the bathroom. It was cold, both literally and figuratively. The red emergency pull-cord next to the toilet screamed hospital. If she didn't need a hot shower so badly…

After relinquishing custody of the evidence bags to Ruby Baker, Inez went to Enos' room to collect Thompson and found that Enos had fallen back to sleep. Doctor Reubens told them that he needed rest to heal. She hoped that included healing his memory as well.

"Did he say anything else before he dropped off?" she asked.

"Not much," Thompson replied. "He started humming again."

"Humming?"

"He was humming something I couldn't make out when he first woke up and then again before he went back to sleep. Sounded like…Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." He shook his head. If he lived to be a hundred, he'd never understand what made the man tick.

"Angie's going to be here in case he wakes up and can give us something to go on," Inez said. "We need to get to the office and see where we are on this."

"Team's all in and ready to brief," he said, walking out of the room next to her. "Captain Mallory's on his way in from San Diego and I asked Greer and Torres to come in as well. The team's mapped a grid for all the logical routes Strate might have taken and is about a third of the way through the broad search, working their way from the airport to your house. If we don't come up with anything on those, they'll start filling in the gaps of side streets, alleyways, warehouses, doghouses, hen houses, outhouses…"

"I get the picture. Been saving that one up for a while?" Inez looked at him as if he had suddenly grown a third arm.

"Yep. Anyway, public relations is handling whatever is out there regarding media attention. Burroughs says it's pretty light so far. And...I put in orders for deep background checks on both Ms. Mun and Ms. Duke."

"You know, Thompson, I'd have bet against it, but you might just make a halfway decent detective after all," she said, and again, gave him no option for comeback. Not that he had one.