Chapter 7

Saturday, June 6, 1987-Early Afternoon

Sitting cross-legged on a picnic blanket at Venice beach, Maggie slathered a handful of sun block onto CJ's arms. He struggled against her.

A shadow enveloped Maggie and CJ. She shielded her green eyes from the sunlight, looking up to see her fiancé, Chris Faber. Standing next to him was his long-time acquaintance, the stocky and balding, Ham Tyler.

"Ain't no sign of her yet," Chris said.

"This is ridiculous!" Maggie stood taking CJ with her. "You tried calling her at home?"

"And at Gooder's." Ham used his pet name for Donovan. "No answer."

"I say if she's with Donovan, no telling what they might be up to," Chris said.

"What does that mean?" Maggie asked.

"They ain't seen one another for a long time," he explained. "She ain't with nobody. Neither is he, if you catch my drift." He wiggled his eyebrows.

"Better not let her hear you say that." She remembered Julie's negative response to a similar accusation last night. "I think we should go home and wait for her to call in case something happened." She brushed the sand from CJ's chubby legs, asking, "Ready to go bye bye, Buddy?"

"B...b…," CJ opened and closed his tiny hand several times.

"Yeah, bye bye."

Chris picked an open bag of potato chips up from the blanket and rolled it shut. "You're going to feel foolish if we leave, and she shows up. She said something about inviting Donovan. Maybe he had to run home and change into his swim shorts."

"Which would explain why there was no answer at his place either," Maggie reminded.

#

Seated in a stuffy interrogation room not much bigger than a prison cell, Donovan felt its beige walls closing in on him. He'd been here for more than two hours undergoing interrogation by Sergeant Romano and his superior Lieutenant Brad McIntire who'd fought with the Resistance during the first war.

"Start with you chasing Pico up the stairs." Romano stared at the notebook that lay before him.

"I chased him into the parking lot."

"No! No! No!" The table shook as Romano banged his fist into it with the annunciation of each word. "What happened before you went up the stairs?"

"I chased him down the hallway?" Donovan tried to guess what the police officer wanted to hear, but didn't change his story knowing any slight deviation from the previous version would arouse their suspicion all the more.

"And what happened before you chased him out into the hall?"

"I was going to check on Julie. I called for her." He felt the pain that came with the uncertainty of not knowing whether she'd survived. His voice broke as he said, "…And Pico fired again. I tried to protect her."

He glanced at Brad. C'mon man. Help me out here…

Brad didn't respond.

"Look, I've told you guys everything I know," Donovan added.

"How can you be sure?" Romano asked. "Why were you carrying a gun? Were you expecting trouble with Pico, or Julie?"

"With her?" Donovan asked. "Why would I have a problem with her?"

"When did you and her breakup?" Brad asked.

"Now why the hell would you ask that?"

"Answer the question!" His cheeks reddening with anger, Romano shot to his feet.

Donovan kept an eye on the Lieutenant's clenched fist. "I'm not the guy who hurt her!"

Glancing at the notebook, Brad said, "In your initial statement you said you hadn't seen her for two years."

"Yeah."

"So that means the last time you and she dated was over two years ago."

"Correct."

"So you had a lot of hard feelings towards her after the breakup?" Romano assumed. "Which is why you avoided her for two years."

"No, that isn't why-"

"Did she dump you?" Brad asked.

Donovan gave him a scorching look. "Isn't that a bit personal?"

"Not if you want to save yourself."

"Yes, she ended it." He remembered how fed up she'd been with his false accusations of her screwing around with Nathan Bates, and barely having the alone time they'd needed to preserve their deteriorating relationship.

"So you expect me to believe that after she dumped you, you weren't the slightest bit upset? Not at all?" asked Romano.

"Did I say that?" Donovan snapped. "Look, whatever our differences were, I'd never hurt her."

"Why did she end it?" Romano asked. "Did she cheat on you?"

"No."

"Did you cheat on her?"

He thought about his ex-wife Margie's sudden reappearance into his life during the summer of 1984, and the strain it caused between him and Julie.

"That's a simple yes or no question," Brad reminded.

"No. I did not cheat on her."

There was a knock at the door.

As Brad stepped out into the hallway, Donovan caught a glimpse of the female officers who'd attended to Julie in the basement room. The door closed.

#

Holding the phone receiver to his ear tightly with one hand and a wine glass in the other, Steve paced his living room floor.

"Yes Mother, I'm fully aware of Aunt Sally's asthma problem. Julie and I are doing our best to develop the antidote."

"How much longer, Steven?"

"I wish we knew." He thought of his and Julie's young patients in Seattle suffering from chronic respiratory illness due to Red Dust exposure. They hadn't the chance to fully live out their lives, and were in more fragile condition than his sixty-year-old aunt.

He considered the way to improve his Aunt Sally's health was to move her to California, which might bring his mother along too.

"She can move here, Mom."

"She'll never do it. Your Uncle is buried here. She won't leave him."

He gulped the Sangria down. "The man's dead, for Pete's sake. You can persuade her it would be better here!"

"I've already tried."

"At least spend the holidays with me," he said. He couldn't stand the thought of spending Christmas alone.

His mother paused then said, "I'll think about it… Oh dear. Look at the time. I'm due to see your aunt soon."

She always found an excuse to get off the phone whenever he brought up the subject of her coming for a visit.

"Give Aunt Sally a kiss for me," he said.

"I will, baby. Talk to you soon."

After Steve hung up the phone, it rang.

He picked it up and said, "Hello?"

"Is this Dr. Steve Maitland?" asked the soft-voiced woman on the other end.

He tried to place her voice. Maybe she's phoning on behalf of Metzgar with the latest test results from Seattle.

"Yes," he said.

"Dr. Maitland, I am Nurse Karnes from the Los Angeles Medical Center. I'm calling in regard to your friend, Julie Parrish."

"Is she all right?" Julie's congenital heart condition came to mind.

"Dr. Maitland, if you'll come to the ICU, Dr. Akers will explain her condition."

"The ICU?"

How critical is she? He wondered, staring at Connie's number scrawled across the front of the yellow pages.

"You can't tell me anything now?" he asked the nurse.

"It'd be better if you'd just come right away."

"I'm on my way."