Chapter 14
Saturday, November 1, 1997 – Los Angeles, Cedars-Sinai
Slowly, Enos became aware that he should be aware. He fluttered his eyes open and looked around. The surroundings, through a wet, mucousy fog, took on the characteristics of a hospital room. There wasn't enough light for him to be sure. His arms and legs felt heavy. When he was able to lift his arm a little, he found a tube coming out of it, leading to a bag of liquid hanging from an IV pole.
His mouth felt dry and sticky. He moved his tongue in and out with a smacking sound to wipe off the stickiness. "Can I have some water?" he asked, to no one in particular.
Thompson put down the phone receiver beside the bed, poured water into a peach-colored plastic cup, and held the straw to Enos's mouth. He took a few sips to swallow the goo sticking to his tongue and inside his cheeks, then sucked thirstily on the straw for more.
"Easy, Strate. The nurse said sips, not gulps. De Pina will have me for lunch if you collapse or pass out from drinking too fast."
"Who stuck me like a hog at a Sunday roast?" he asked, as he held out the arm with the IV needle inserted, twisting it back and forth as if it wasn't his.
"Don't look at me. It's just fluids. Nurse'll be here in a sec. You want to complain to somebody, complain to her. By the way…that must have been some dream you were having. I've seen you with some sappy grins on your face, but that was the sappiest."
Enos's vision was more in focus now, at least in the eye he could fully open. He wondered why he couldn't open the other eye. His face felt weird, and his nose hurt. He made a move to touch it until Thompson caught his arm.
"Wait until the nurse gets here." Thompson hoped it would be soon.
Enos looked around the room again and then back at Thompson and took in the cast on his arm. "Why're we in a hospital? Were we in an accident?"
"Yep. Three days ago." Thompson saw the confusion on his face. The doctor said the concussion might cause some disorientation. "Maybe you should wait for the nurse before we get into why you're here."
A few seconds later, as if on cue, the nurse came into the room, followed immediately by Inez and Doctor Reubens.
While the nurse checked the machine monitoring his vitals, Inez stood beside the bed. "You had us worried," she said.
"Didn't mean to. Thompson said we were in an accident."
Thompson looked at Inez and shook his head.
"E," Inez asked before Doctor Reubens could object, "What is the last thing you remember?"
Saturday, November 1, 1997 – Hazzard
The weather outside was airish, and Jesse Duke was tidying up in the kitchen. The lunch plate only had crumbs leftover from the cornbread he'd made, and the bowl of soup beans was empty. He'd only eaten a few bites of each. The rest of it went into a dinged-up aluminum pot for Sarah Bunch's dog that'd lately been in the habit of comin' round of an afternoon to get the leavins off Jesse's plate. The flop-eared hound was the beneficiary of nearly the whole of his lunch today, mainly 'cause of Daisy's phone call.
He'd been wonderin' how long it'd take her to git it into her head to go to Los Angeles. She'd been workin' up to it the past few months, ever since she started wearin' Enos's ring around her neck. She'd sounded weary worn on the phone. He didn't know what she'd hoped for when she got on that plane, but he had the sinkin' feelin' things might not be goin' the way she'd visioned.
"I don't know how long I'll be here, Uncle Jesse," she'd said, and that was pretty much the limit of the conversation.
Daisy had been a grown woman for a spell. The time had passed for him to be givin' her advice she hadn't asked for. And she hadn't asked. He knew in his heart Enos would never hurt her if he could help it. Jesse had done a lotta' livin' and understood, no matter how old you git, matters of the heart don't get no easier.
Saturday, November 1, 1997 – Los Angeles, Cedars-Sinai
Soonie had loaned her phone to Daisy to make the call to Uncle Jesse. Returning it, Daisy asked, "Do you work with Enos?"
It was an odd question that wrinkled Soonie's forehead.
"I mean, are you working on a case together?"
'An odder question,' Soonie thought. Before she had time to think any more about it, the waiting room became populated when Inez entered with Mrs. Huang.
Inez asked Soonie and Daisy to sit, settling Mrs. Huang in the chair between them, then planted herself in a chair opposite all three. Leaning in toward them, her elbows resting on her knees, she explained the results of the MRI and that Enos's memory of the last seventy-two hours was fragmented.
Daisy asked, "What does that mean, exactly?"
"Even mild concussions often have residual effects: headache, cognitive issues, sensitivity to noise or light. Doctor Reubens says every patient is different. In E's case, he already received a jolt to his brain Wednesday morning. This second incident has probably been exacerbated by the first, especially happening within three days of each other."
Before Daisy could say anything, Soonie asked, "Is he in pain?"
"Some. They can't give him anything but Tylenol right now because it could increase the risk of bleeding."
"When can I see him?" Daisy asked.
Inez took a breath and let it out slowly. "When he's had a chance to fully regain his grasp on the situation, and we have been able to ask him some questions."
Soonie, again pondering Daisy's strange question, asked, "When do you think that will be?"
"Hopefully later this afternoon. Maybe longer. And just a warning, his face is swollen, especially on the right side. There is a lot of bruising. Both his cheeks are red and purple under his eyes from the broken blood vessels, and they can't splint his nose until the swelling goes down."
Inez let them all process the information before continuing.
"Meanwhile," she said, "we've finished processing your car and contents, so Kay, your travel case will be brought up shortly. And Ms. Duke," she indicated the rolling suitcase against the wall, "since your bag is here–"
"You make it sound like we can't leave," Daisy said, remembering the airport. "I mean, I'm not leaving until I know Enos is okay, but it sounds like we're being detained."
"You're not being detained. At least not in the way you think. The guard outside is for our peace of mind. Detective Thompson is with Detective Strate now, and when there is not one of us with him, he will have a uniform outside his door as well." Inez took another deep breath. "Feel free to go anywhere in this section of the hospital. But it's not a good idea to venture out in public right now. Until we know a little more, we don't want this getting blown out of proportion or put either of you at risk. Or at the mercy of a ravenous media. And it may be tomorrow before E's ready to," she hesitated, "deal with anything other than processing what put him in the hospital."
Again, she let the information sink in.
"There's a bathroom with a shower across the corridor, and family services will be by later to provide you with information you need about meals and that sort of thing. If you need anything from home," she said to Soonie, "Let the FS rep know, and we'll try to get it for you. Ms. Duke, if you need anything you didn't bring with you, Family Services can provide it."
"I can't think of anything," Daisy said, thinking suddenly that Inez, though her tone of voice had not been harsh, didn't seem quite like Enos had described her in his letters. He had described Inez as a kind, caring woman. This Detective De Pina was standoffish and, although she had easily referred to Kay by her first name, seemed to be going out of her way to avoid using hers.
Mrs. Huang had remained attentive but silent throughout the conversation.
"Mrs. Huang, do you need anything?" Inez asked.
"No. Thank you. I will be fine for a while."
Inez turned at the sound of soft tapping on the waiting room door and found Angela Kim motioning for her to come into the corridor. Less than a minute later, Inez asked Kay to join her, after which the two of them disappeared into a room labeled 'Family Meeting Room.'
Soonie watched as Inez, her hands still gloved, walked out of the tiny room with evidence bags containing her violin and her pearl necklace. She was grateful 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."
"Yes. The pearls 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 re-strung for me."
Both women were sending silent signals that only other women can understand. Enos had arrived at work on Thursday morning in the same clothes he'd 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 cataloged along with everything else found in his truck. 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."
"This 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 stepmother'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 impossible, to ask her father.' He had not returned any of her calls.
Inez had said before that Enos's 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 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 on Saturday, and Daisy had been in the same clothes since she had boarded the plane at Raleigh-Durham on Friday morning. The situation into which she had walked headlong struck her once again as she looked around at the bathroom's clinical design. 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 from the truck to Ruby Baker, Inez went to Enos's room to collect Thompson and found Enos had fallen back to sleep. Doctor Reubens told them he needed rest to heal. She hoped it 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?"
"It was 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 Strate 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. They're 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 the main route, they'll start filling in the gaps of side streets, alleyways, warehouses, doghouses, henhouses, outhouses…"17
"I get the picture. Been saving that one for a while, have you?"
"Yep. Anyway, public relations is handling whatever is out there regarding media attention. Burroughs says it's pretty light so far. Hopefully, it will be a heavy news day, and we'll get lost in the fray."
"You know, Thompson, I'd have bet against it, but you might make a halfway decent detective after all," she said, and again, gave him no option for a comeback. Not that he had one.
Saturday, November 1, 1997 – Los Angeles – 5:28 pm
A few window panes allowed only a small stream of light to squeeze through and onto the warehouse's first floor. The second floor was lined with cubicles occasionally lit here and there with tiny lamplight. The makeshift boudoirs' activity was something for which the participants paid by the hour and would not want to be advertised. Incense burned to mask the smell of sweat, stale water, and damp lumber.
Outside the closed doors of what had once been an office, the screams of a man begging for his life went unheard at the other end of the abandoned building.
Large noisy fans took care of that.
"I told you to finish that hick bastard!" said a male voice with a high-pitched tone and spit spewing out with each 's' before another smack silenced the screams.
The fans returned to performing their primary function.
References:
(17) From the movie, The Fugitive (1993): Deputy US Marshal Samuel Gerard: "Listen up, ladies and gentlemen! Our fugitive has been on the run for 90 minutes. Average foot speed over uneven ground, barring injury, is 4 miles an hour which gives us a radius of 6 miles! What I want out of each and every one of you is a hard-target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse, and doghouse in that area. Checkpoints go up at 15 miles! Our fugitive's name is Dr. Richard Kimble. Go get him." (Rotten Tomatoes)
Of course, no one but my sons ever remembers it in the correct order – so I had Thompson adapt it to his needs as well.